Do any of these sound familiar?
I’d like to have better relationships.
I’d like to get more from my job.
I’d like to stop eating candy.
I’d like to feel confident.
I’d like to heal my body.
Self improvement has become a modern day path for our life purpose.The bug sets in early.
We live in a culture that reinforces the idea that problems need to be fixed before we can be happy, healthy, wealthy and successful.
The business of changing and fixing ourselves is a rampant preoccupation fueled by a growing pandora’s box of treatments, techniques and tools.
There’s something amiss though. Have you noticed that in spite of thousands of self improvement techniques suffering, heart ache and discontent persists.
And have you also noticed that when you change the diet, join the gym, take a class on dating or erase old beliefs getting what you want is not a guarantee.
Worse still, rather than drop trying to self improve there’s a tendency to think you must have more of a problem than you thought so must try harder.
Wrong!
Trying harder invariably ends up even further down the path of disappointment.
So here’s the question:
What if the pursuit to better yourself takes you in the opposite direction of what you want? What if what you want is freely available by not trying or change yourself?
How?
It’s simple. So simple in fact that when I stumbled across this understanding I wasn’t convinced it was the real deal and kept seeking practices and tools to better my life.
Drum roll.
Here’s the so-simple-it’s-easy-to-dismiss-remedy for painful, disheartening efforts to make yourself a better person.
Contemplate this: Our true self, Consciousness or God-stuff-ness; is perfect, whole and complete.
Who we really are needs no fixing, tweaking, healing or improving.
Our true self is, and always is, happy, content, fulfilled, at peace, bubbling with healing and creative potential.
As we wake up to our true self we begin to recognize the not thin enough, smart enough, kind enough, happy enough, healthy enough thoughts for what they are; a stream of fake news.
We begin to see that the person we’re trying not to be is made up. That self, sometimes called the conditioned self or ego, is an identity based on a cocktail of ever changing cultural expectations, dreams, hype and misunderstanding.
And in the moment of seeing thought for what it is – as a flimsy as a stream of tissue blowing in the wind, we pivot.
We turn inward to the space and place inside that exists before thought. To what is constant and permanent; Consciousness. The ground of our being.
This is when everything changes.
Our perception of who are and how life looks becomes infused with Love.
From here life plays out differently.
- What looked like a problem stops looking like a problem so we drop trying to fix it.
- What looked like a problem still looks a problem but we have clarity and insights about the steps to take.
- What looked like a problem resolves easily. Our behavior changes effortlessly without trying or even thinking about it.
- What looked like a problem resolves all by itself (this outcome especially seems miraculous).
And there’s one more life changing difference.
- What looked like a problem still looks like a problem but no longer bothers us. And even if it makes sense to seek to resolve it, and even when the outcome does not deliver what we want, still we’re not disturbed or upset.
The difference making the difference is resting as Consciousness.
Consciousness doesn’t doesn’t judge you, your status, how you look, act, leapfrog or shimmy
Consciousness IS the source of happiness, peace, joy, contentment, clarity, compassion, harmony, Love.
The thought that you should change holds no sway when we understand who we really are.
This leaves us free to dive into the play of life. To engage in relationships, careers, worldly pursuits, healing journeys. All the time knowing that the creative, generative potential of our true nature is at our back. And no matter how things turn out our happiness, health, wealth and success is secure.
Because who we really are knows that happiness, healing, health, wealth and success has nothing to do with the way our life looks or unfolds on the outside and everything to do with being ourSelf. Our true self.
So before reaching for the next best self improvement remedy ask yourself “Who wants to change for the better?” Does this one really exist, or is s/he a made up idealized image?
This simple contemplation opens the door for your dazzling, star studded True Self to step into the limelight.
