Our biggest hurdle in facing ourselves is our fear that it will make us feel awful about ourselves. We spend our lives using all kinds of methods to run from ourselves because we’re sure that facing the truth of everything we’ve done and has been done to us – and what those things must mean about who we are – will crush us with the badness of it. Once we remember and embrace who we are, that shifts and broadens our perspective. Our eyes are opened to the fact that we have nothing to fear about anything, including our past. If we face our fear of connecting to ourselves, we learn the very truth that reveals EVERY fear we have is of something that doesn’t genuinely exist.
The times we lose our way and cause or suffer harm from decisions we regret weren’t a mistake. They’re just educational trips and that’s okay. Getting lost is important because finding the way back teaches us more about who we are and gives us more clarity and wisdom than anything else we do. We are everything we need to be; we just don’t see it because living a human life creates so much muck that disguises our true nature from ourselves.
The muck that’s generated by choices we regret gets in the way of seeing the beautiful perfection of our souls. It’s also a natural byproduct of living in this world. The creation of the muck is what we’re supposed to do – it’s the whole reason we came to this place where our true nature is so difficult to remember and muck is so easily created. The muck is not mistakes or failures, and it’s not part of us; who we are is underneath, and the more work it takes to get to that truth, the stronger our souls become. If you’ve created a pile of muck in your life, then congratulations! You’re doing human life correctly.
If your pile is especially massive, that’s like being the kid in high school who took all the AP classes and went to the most vigorous university to earn an advanced degree in a field for which most people don’t even understand the name. If our past feels like a painful burden for us, then that actually indicates that our soul is advanced enough to have volunteered for this challenging life. Those of us with the ugliest pasts have taken on the most impressive projects. Instead of ignoring and running away from our muck pile because we fear what it says about us, we can choose to recognize that it actually represents our souls’ immense potential and capabilities, that our soul is far more powerful than we’ve known. We’ve got a soul that signed up for one of the toughest classes. That’s a source of inspiration and validation for us. If we can just trust that our soul knew what it was doing when it signed up for this life and let go of the countless methods we use to run from what we fear, then we can choose to clean up the muck instead and receive the infinite resources that are waiting to support that endeavor.
That first bit is the hardest part because it’s the one step that requires faith. I have learned from personal experience that what we imagine it will be like is far worse than the reality of it. What we imagine as giving in to the suffering that is held within our past is actually the beginning of a process that gives us true freedom from suffering rather than just the illusion of freedom we find in the distractions we frantically chase or the justifications we concoct. As soon as we make that choice and turn toward the muck that’s hiding our true nature, we will find so much support surrounding us. Whatever terms a person uses for the unseen side of life, the universe, and everything – even if they have no words or concepts for it – it will be felt on a profound level never before experienced. It’s already there, waiting for us to exercise our free will to decide we want it.
Our ego uses justifications to try to escape our mistakes, but that’s not effective because deep down, we know the truth. That’s why we end up running from ourselves: the idea of dealing with all that “truth” we’re imagining is terrifying and overwhelming. The fallacy is to think the stuff we don’t want to deal with is the WHOLE truth; it’s not. It’s not even an important part. When we’re running from the mistakes of our past, we think that we’re running from our darkness and misery, but we’re actually running from our light and joy. The only way out of the darkness is through. The only way to put it behind us is to overcome it; otherwise, it just keeps chasing us while we try to outrun it, exhausted and holding on to this false idea that it was ever part of who we are. When it feels like life is aligned against us, it’s only because the universe is conspiring to wall off our options so that the path to happiness becomes increasingly obvious: face what we fear.
When we face who we fear we are, we discover the truth of who we are, which is the only path to true joy. As we clear the muck, we’ll uncover more and more of the brilliant light that’s already there, just waiting to be revealed. Fear will be replaced by the love that we all hold as our true nature, and that’s when we’ll understand that the muck is exactly what has allowed us to now shine more brightly than ever before. The muck was part of the plan all along. The point of its existence was to provide the means for the very process that will make our soul so much stronger than it would be if we never came to this place that casts every person in the role of muck-maker.
As we grow beyond our past, we can embrace gratitude for all we’ve learned and let go of the judgments inflicted by our and others’ egos for having had a past to overcome. Carrying 50 lb while running up and down the bleachers will make you far stronger than 20 lb will. We know to be proud of that extra 30 lb of weight and appreciate how much stronger it made us, and the same logic applies to our soul’s willingness to commit to a life that offered more opportunities for muck-clearing than most.
Once we remember who we are and our soul is shining for all to see, then the stuff that was necessary to strengthen our light will no longer be a reason to feel bad about ourselves. In the effulgence of our true self, the guilt and shame that once seemed so permanent and inescapable will burn to ash and drift away, meaningless and forgotten. We will know our worth and that simply being is enough, and our lives will no longer be about proving or earning.
That’s when the most unexpected part happens: when we are in alignment with our true nature and higher self and embrace a life of simply being, we will accomplish far more than we ever did as struggling humans. The key to happiness is not for us to change ourselves. The key is for us to BE ourselves. That is when we can finally live fearlessly and free.
The process is challenging, especially at first. Other people who are still living from a place of fear are likely to react with hostility and try to hold us down in their comfort zone. We may lose or not receive things we thought we wanted, which requires more faith to believe that even this is a sign of how much we are being supported and protected because anything that falls away will be replaced by something far better. Trust becomes easier as new people enter our lives who see our soul instead of the muck, who love and support the real us instead of offering superficial gestures in exchange for our being what they want. If we surrender to the process and handle challenges by asking for what we need instead of giving up, what we need will come. Thus the process becomes self-sustaining and we discover we have more strength and courage than we ever believed could be possible.
Seeing our true nature allows us to finally and truly forgive ourselves. We can’t know the right path for us without trying many different paths. Since living consciously negates fear, the ways in which we cause pain for others are not the result of deliberate intentions to cause pain. When we did, it’s only because we were trying to figure out how to feel better and find happiness and were confused about how to do that. Guilt and shame just keep the snowball of regrets going.
The more we connect to our inner/higher selves and remember who we are, the less fear we have for connecting with ourselves and the easier it becomes. We become progressively able to hear and trust our inner voice, express it authentically to others, and find our path to genuine happiness.
Why hold it against ourselves or others that we hadn’t yet attained the knowledge we came here to gain? It’s like wishing we could go back and take a class now that we already know what we’re going to learn from it. We have to have the experience without the knowledge in order to gain the knowledge. That we once lacked the knowledge is not cause for guilt or shame. That others lack the knowledge is not a cause for bitterness or resentment. We’re all in this together and we’re all taking on the challenge of awakening in a place that is specifically designed to thwart it. The one thing we can do to most effectively right our past wrongs is to choose to reconnect with our inner/higher self because that’s the shared goal, and every individual who makes that choice becomes another beacon of light helping others to find their way.
Remembering who we are is to recognize that being human is a temporary condition rather than our identity. We are all connected and on the same team. We all signed up for the conditions here and the engendered consequences because we all have the same goal. Our soul is working in collaboration with the soul of everyone who has hurt us and everyone whom we have hurt, and we’re all playing roles in an elaborate play we designed together to accomplish our common goal. Why should that be a source of guilt, shame, bitterness, or resentment? We’re all subjecting ourselves to this because it’s ultimately beneficial. Each of us decided on specific lessons we wanted to learn and designed in advance a life of experiences that would give us the opportunity to grow in the ways we wanted. The people in our lives are the souls who accepted our requests to help in creating those experiences. Once we view our life through that lens, the only onus that remains is the commitment our souls made to one another to use the experiences to better ourselves.
Pursuing that one goal is all it takes to right any and all of our wrongs. If there are people who try to hold the past over our heads and convince us that we can’t make it right or be redeemed, that’s their own thing to deal with. There’s no reason for us to accept a dynamic built on something we know isn’t true. It’s up to us to fill our lives with people who see our soul and treat us that way, so that we can continue developing spiritually rather than sinking to a level others try to pull us down toward, even people we love. Just remember that the best thing you can do for someone you love who isn’t ready to break free is to live as an example of that freedom, to give them that light to follow if they choose. If they aren’t ready, that’s ok, too. It’s about their path, not about who you are or your value – which is part of the truth you remember now!
Perhaps you’re reading this and thinking, “but I’ve tried so many times and so many ways to become a better and/or healthier person. I’ve given up on self-improvement techniques and plans and therapies.” Reconnection with our own inner light and higher self needs to be the first step for any approach to work. That’s why our efforts at self-improvement so often get derailed, despite our best intentions and efforts; any supposed solution that is external to us is missing the crucial first step. Without that, there’s no foundation. The vast majority of us have only had the models we’ve been taught to work with and we’ve done the best we could with what we knew. Reconnection with our inner/higher self allows us to rise above what we were taught, if we choose, because it gives us the dependable foundation we’ve always been seeking and frees us to genuinely live without fear.