"Warning: Objects in mirror may be larger/smaller/closer/farther away/than they appear."
All is not necessarily as it seems to be.
You might think you know yourself. But I suspect, that like most people, you've kept your true identity a secret, not only to the larger world around you, but especially to y-o-u.
In order to navigate in the world, we adapt who we are in order to fit in, get along, be liked, gain acceptance, and thus feel good about ourselves. But already, like the prodigal son, we've left "home" and begun our human journey to discover who was the one who did the leaving.
Who was the one who didn't trust in her innate goodness? Who was the one who didn't know he was worthy? Who was the one who deemed she was unlovable? Who was the one who didn't know he was already enough?
Prodigal sons and daughters are we. We spend a lifetime trying to find our way back home to the truth of who we are. Meanwhile, back "home", the truth awaits our return.
Sooner or later, life will expose us to ourselves and we'll come to know of what we're truly made. It's often when we're being tested, when our back is up against the wall, when life is pushing us in a direction we thought we didn't want to go, or laying at our doorstep news we didn't want to hear, that we find ourselves having to dig deeper than we ever thought we could and discover something within we didn't know we had.
It's not until you think you've run out of courage that you'll learn to transform the few remaining drops into a whole new fountain. It's not until you've been wrestled to the floor and flattened that you'll discover a deeper source of strength to get you back on your feet and going again.
How little we know about what lies within us in what, for lack of a better word, I'll call "the mystery". Those resources, buried deep within, await our discovery, but most likely, we'll only do the excavation in times that push us to the very edges of our capacity to handle what's been laid on our plates.
Our deepest wisdom is always with us, informing us throughout our lives, but doesn't tend to reveal itself to us directly until we're pressed up against the threshold where, in order to cross it and enter into new territory, we must shed what no longer serves and resurrect ourselves anew.
When these opportunities to dig deep and reveal ourselves to ourselves come along, the inherent tendency is to turn away and protect what we think is being threatened. These moments arrive, often wrapped in difficulties and great challenges that shake us to our core and seemingly dismantle our foundations. At times like these, every muscle is contracted, every cell tensed, every part of our DNA is fighting for what seems like our very survival.
How counter intuitive it feels to surrender into the moment rather than flee it. Human instinct seems to require that we flee. Yet, consider the possibility that surrender is the very element that is being called forth by such times as these.
We're not talking about the "wave the white flag", version of surrender. The surrender we're speaking of is not a passive state of "I give up", but rather it is a very active state of allowing what already is, to be exactly as it is, without adding any of our own resistance on top of it. This version of surrender requires our full awareness and our ability to be present in the moment and actively choose to be in acceptance of what is before us.
This state of surrender, the state of active acceptance, is a very high state of awareness. One could say it is in fact, an enlightened state. Only when we are not in resistance to the thing that's right before us, can we even begin see it for what it is. Only when we're not fleeing or judging or condemning the thing that's got our attention, can we access our "right minds" and attune ourselves to the deeper wisdom that's just waiting for this moment to be the perfect moment for its discovery.
Some would say it's "Pollyanna-ish" to insist "there is only good", that whatever things may appear to be, seen from a different perspective, all things conspire for our good. We can certainly find evidence on the material plane to justify the argument there is evil in the world and it is definitely not conspiring for our good. This would appear to be true, but all is not necessarily as it appears to be.
This belief in the existence of evil that is out to undo us is all the justification one needs to keep the armor on and the self-made barriers intact. But it is we who become imprisoned inside our armor and it is we who ultimately will seek to be liberated from it.
When we seek liberation, what we're truly seeking is to be liberated from the belief systems that keep our minds imprisoned in ways of seeing the world that perpetuate our own suffering. We seek to open the doors of the mind, and set ourselves free. We seek to allow ourselves to see beyond the cause and effect world of separation and enter into a harmonious state of aligning with what serves our highest good.
All human beings are called to seek their highest good. Not every human being hears the call and not every one who hears the call, answers it. Sometimes, in order to answer the call to your highest good, it will require you to look your fear in the face and discover the truth hidden inside it.
Sometimes, in order to answer the call to your highest good, you'll be asked to do again that thing you said you never wanted to do again and you'll do it this time with a different attitude and be transformed. You might be required to return to the scene of the crime and remove your head from the jaws of the lion where you left it when you ran off last time for lack of courage and in so doing, find your courage.
But always, you'll be called to your highest good, no matter what the objects in the mirror appear to be. Know that your highest good is using whatever it has to use to get your attention. It is beckoning you to come home.
How is life conspiring for your highest good? What are the challenges you face and what deeper wisdom in you is being revealed? Please share your experiences and comments in the space below or on my personal blog and website at Rx For The Soul.
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May you hear the call and answer. The journey, no matter how many turns in the road, always leads towards home.
Blessings on the path.