Who are you trying to prove yourself to?

HOW IT REALLY IS

Where you are is already perfect.

Nobody has to change because they aren’t good enough but because they want to grow.

It’s natural.

Resisting growth is asking for trouble.

You already are good enough, you are perfect where you are, you don’t have to change to become a better person. You already are that person.

Do you know what this means? Read the words again and feel that in your body. Doesn’t that feel like a huge relief?

You don’t have to prove anything to anybody

Imagine if all children believe and know that they are already perfect, and what lies in front of them are endless opportunities to learn and grow. Not because they need to become better, but because they are destined to be great and fulfill their dreams.

Imagine what would happen if we all believed that.

The competition would end. The self doubt and fears would dissipate. Only the desire for growth and expansion would remain, without any expectations or pressure.

Without the need to prove anything, because we all already know we are worthy, we would dare to believe in our dreams again and our minds would expand naturally and exponentially.

We are designed to change and grow, it is natural.

Everything in nature changes and grows. A seed grows into a tree or a flower.

Everything alive has unique capacities. A rose has the capacity to grow into a beautiful colourful flower with a sweet, full fragrance. Its talent is radiant colours and mesmerizing aromas.

It is effortless. Plants and animals just are who they are. Growth just unfolds without any pressure to want a certain outcome within a certain time limit.

Human being’s natural talent lies in the capacity to expand its powerful mind and heart, the capacity to create and love.

When we get out of our own way, this becomes effortless too.

By accepting that we are already perfect, we can work on letting go of what we are not.

We become the sculptor of our perfect self, the chisel is in our own hands.

This analogy became so clear to me when I stumbled upon a beautiful sculptress, named Audrey, and her magical sculptures.

I was camping for a few days and exploring the area, and here was this hidden art gallery in a small community; it seemed to appear out of nowhere.

The artist was telling the story of how she started sculpting. She was holding a stone in her hand, and seeing a bear in it. She saw what was not part of the bear in the stone and started chiselling away the stone until all that was left was a beautiful bear.

When Audrey found a beautiful peace of jade she saw its essence, a magnificent horse. She worked on the horse for months and months. It was as if the stone parted easily when she applied her chisel in the right places, as if the horse was all too ready to come alive.

When she was doubting herself, the carving became an effort. So she would stop and clear away any negative thoughts about herself and her work. Once she returned to a state of flow, the carving was no longer a struggle but it flowed with ease, and she could hardly stop working on the horse.

She created Midnight Warrior, a miraculous looking sculpture of a horse.

Audrey Nanimahoo, audreynanimahoo.com

We are all like these beautiful stone sculptures, waiting for the chisel to chip away the stone only to reveal our true essence.

You have the chisel in your hand and the ability to create the most beautiful you.

THE DECEPTION

We start off with the premise that we are not OK.

Who we are is never good enough. We want change because where we are is not where we want to be, and we desperately want and need approval and praise from the outside world.

We learn to hide the parts of ourselves we are ashamed of. We even forget about those parts of ourselves, lose important parts of ourselves.

We learn that life is about trying to be better than others, competition creates our drive to be better, to be first.

We measure our being good enough by comparing ourselves with others. And if we can’t measure up, we feel like a failure and give up.

Read my previous blog post: 'What's eating away at my confidence?'

We learn to appreciate ourselves through the eyes of others. We try to meet the expectations of parents, peers, teachers, lovers, friends, and society.

We create our own avatar, our image. A facade projected to the world around us.

We create our own identity, an artificial personality, and we continue to let the world around us shape and motivate us into who we think we need to be in order to survive and fit in, reacting to our buttons being pushed over and over.

We learn that when we work hard, and fit the perfect picture, we are entitled to our rewards. Yet we rarely feel fulfilled or rewarded enough.

Maybe we don’t feel happy in our relationship, our job, our home, or with the government. We always look to the outside world for the reason of our discontentment or unhappiness

We live a life of blame and shame.

THE CHAOS

When the world around us becomes threatening, we feel fear and we feel powerless.

We fight back, we judge, we make ourselves into the collective victim of some power greater than us.

If we cannot be the winner, we must make the other wrong, the bad guy, we are the innocent victim and we must do something, speak louder, fight harder, convince as many as possible that we are right and they are wrong.

Every time we express hate, anger or harsh judgements, not only are we contributing to creating more separation, judgment and hate, we are also giving our power away.

We contribute to competition instead of cooperation, separation instead of openness.

We prefer uniformity and conformity over diversity and uniqueness in fear of being judged and cast out.

What we see in the world today is nothing but a reflection of what goes on in our own personal mind.

We protect what we are ashamed of, we hide and protect our true, vulnerable self, we continue to prove to the world that we are good enough, we need to be right, we need to be certain, we judge that which is other than our normal, we disapprove of people that are different than us, we fear the new and unfamiliar and we run from it, resist it or fight it.

We are collectively responsible for creating the current chaos and fear.

We cannot continue to identify the problem as something outside ourselves.

The reason there is no peace in sight and nothing has changed in the world is because we keep blaming the outside world and we think the solution is to change the outside world.

New laws, stricter rules, more financial support, less support, a different political leader, raise the interest rates, lower them, kill the terrorists, ban the guns, take more pills, increase the tax, change the curriculum, bigger classes, smaller classes, bigger hospitals, more research, the list goes on and on.

And all that because we started off early in life believing that we are not good enough, unworthy, and we need to prove to the world that we are. And if we can’t prove it, then we point our finger to the world in blame, or hide in shame.

THE NEED FOR CONTROL

From fear and feeling powerless comes the need to control. Whatever goes wrong in life must be the fault of someone or something. Every time we complain, we express our need for control, which is really fear of feeling powerless. We all do it.

We get angry when things are out of control and blame the authorities, the government, or groups of people with a different view, opinion, or religion.

We start fights and wars to control those that disagree. We become self-righteous, use violent ways of communicating, and defend ourselves aggressively.

We can’t control the beliefs, values and behaviours of others. We can’t control the climate and mother nature, we can’t control the economy or politicians.

We want to control the wrong things for the wrong reasons, and fail to control the only thing we do have control over:

Our own SELF.

 Read my previous blog post: 'The power of owning your power'

THE ONLY TRUTH THAT MATTERS

The truth can’t hurt more than the lie we keep telling ourselves.

We cannot continue to look for the solution outside ourselves. The problem and the solution are to be found within ourselves.

We need to change. Change our identity, our artificially created personality. We need to remember who we are, drop the facade, break down our walls of protection.

What if we all remember that we are already enough, and that we are here to grow to explore and experience. To expand our capacity to give and receive love, to expand our powerful mind, to create the new and unimaginable?

We are meant to change, continuously. To resist change is the beginning of the end.

Who doesn’t want to feel alive and vibrant, happy and free, joyful and loving?

Who doesn’t want to have an amazing relationship, fun friendships, a fulfilling career, vibrant health, financial abundance and freedom?

Stop blaming, stop arguing for your limitations, stop feeling victimized.

You can start having a more fulfilling life right now.

You can live up to your full capacity and be an uplifter, an inspiration to the people surrounding you.

Imagine what would happen if every single human being would remember that the bottom line, universal truth is that we all want the same thing: Love, Joy, Freedom.

Where we are is already OK. Embrace the diversity and each others uniqueness. When we all do this, there will be peace immediately.

There is no them and us, only WE.

Give yourself permission to be who you are, so that you can grow into your full potential. A limitless being feeling fully alive.

Choose to change and become the person that can make what you wish to see a reality.

CHOOSE TO BE THE CHANGE NOW

When we become the sculptor of our self, with the chisel in our own hand, we become the creator of our life. The sculpting of our self is always perfect but never done.

You are probably wondering how you can achieve this.

1. By ASKING yourself the right questions.

• Who am I? What is the perceptual lens through which I see myself, my relationship to my own body and other people, the world around me, my relationship to the past and the future, my relationship to the universe, to God?
• What is it I want? Don’t I want peace? To create a loving world, a human kind that is kind, compassionate, healthy, prosperous, cooperative?
• Who is it I need to become to make that happen?
• How is it I need to engage and interact with others to make that happen?
• What would it take for me to feel complete with what I have done with my life?
• What is true for me, not what I hear from others? Where do my answers come from? Are they conditioned ideas, beliefs or concepts from what I hear from other people (family, neighbours, friends), from school textbooks, from religious institutions, from spiritual traditions?

2. By STATING: "I AM READY!!!"

Your power lies in the present, right HERE and right NOW! Never look back, all the power is here and now.

3. FOCUS

All you can do in each moment is to be focused now on who you really are, allowing your true self to emerge, and aligning your actions with your true self. Have the integrity to generate inspired action, and from inspired action comes harmony.

4. Make a CHOICE

Live life with intention, not by accident.

You are here to experience joy, satisfaction, and freedom.
You have the freedom to choose.

You can choose stagnation, resignation, and living a small, captive life, or you can choose to always reach for your full potential, expansion, and growth.

You can choose to reach for more joy, more health, more happiness, more prosperity, and more love.

5. Live from your POWER

Your personal power comes from aligning who you are on the outside with who you are on the inside, by exposing your behaviours and habits that hide your true self. Change your identity and become your true powerful self.

When you empower yourself you influence the circumstances in your life and you are no longer simply a victim of a world you have no control over.

When you live from your power, you will start experiencing sustained growth and expansion. Which means: more joy, more health, more love, better relationships and more fulfillment.

6. RE-FRAME all conflicts you encounter

At the root of all human conflict is our fundamental misunderstanding of who we are. The belief that we are isolated beings is an illusion.

We are not unconnected from the rest of the universe.

Conflict arises when we hold on to the view that there is a disconnect between us and the other, and we view the 'outside' world with hostility. This has also led to the misuse of technology and our abuse of the natural world.

What you see is a reflection of how you see yourself. When you start seeing yourself as the true, wonderful, loving being you really are, you will start seeing that reflected around you and you'll embrace diversity without judgement.

 7. LASTLY

Never forget that you are not what you have been told and you are more than you have ever imagined. This applies to ALL beings. All YOU have to do is work on yourself, never mind what others are doing or saying. Stop taking anything personally. Know, without any doubt, that you are always already enough, and ready to become MORE.

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