My first thought about this journey of the true self is that it is a lifelong awareness exercise to know yourself.
We all have a mind that sees events from our own perspective—a perspective that is defined by our programming. This programming comes from teachers, parents, extended family, siblings, television, friends, music, and the list can go on and on. This programming already starts in the womb. At about 22 weeks the ears start to develop, and babies can even be woken up from a loud noise in this comfy place. I actually have heard a story about a man who had difficulties with making money and who had done so much work around this topic. What was interesting to learn later on from some work was that, before he was born, he had heard his parents arguing and shouting about money. And while still being in the womb, he made the decision, “If money causes problems like that, then I don’t want it!” This was decided in the womb. You hear a lot of very interesting stories when you start diving deep into this work!
So we have all of our programming and all of our previous decisions we have made in our lives. And then we have stimuli coming at us through all of our six senses. It has been documented that we have about two million or more bits of stimuli coming at us every second, and we can take in only about 126 bits per second.
The best analogy I ever heard was from a class I took from Drs. Tad and Adriana James. They said to think of these bits of information as toothpicks. Someone will hand you 126 toothpicks every second. You are able to grab 126 toothpicks every second, right? Now imagine someone handing you two million toothpicks per second. A lot of them will fall around you to the Earth. So, out of those two million toothpicks or bits of information, which 126 do you grab?
You will grab what your mind is already programmed to; you will grab what is familiar. When you hear your sibling or parent tell a story about a past event, their story may be totally different from yours. Why? Because they chose a different set of 126 toothpicks or bits of information per second. People will download what is familiar to them—at least until they decide to change it.
This is one of the many reasons why I was captivated by this journey of my true self at a really young age.
I came to a point in one of my trainings when I really understood: it is my own responsibility to decide whether I change and grow or whether I stay where I am now. The pain would have been too great to stay the same. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was here on Earth to be more than what I knew at the time. My choices were either to keep the stories of the past or to create my own new stories. I could create my new stories only by gaining a more expanded perspective and by some rewiring of my mind with new programming. This was, for me, the true point of my journey to my true self. To know that the story I was playing over and over in my mind was my own illusion and my own perception of the events that had occurred in my life. To understand that the shame, guilt, and self-hatred I felt is self-inflicted pain. It is self-inflicted because I was the one who attached a certain meaning to events that happened in my life.
Here is an example of what I mean. Imagine a person who tells two people that they are stupid. Person one says, “No, that is ludicrous.” They have no attachment to the statement, have given it no meaning, and will never think about that person again. Person one feels no emotion of guilt or shame. It is let go of.
Person two says, “Yes, they are right. I don’t know why I am like this. I wish I wasn’t so stupid.” They have given the statement meaning and have attached emotions of guilt, shame, and self-hatred to themselves. In the mind of person two, the statement of that person about them being stupid is now being played over and over again for days, months, or even years—until person two makes a change. It may sound funny to person one who said, “No.” However, this type of thing happens all day every day with different statements or events to all kinds of people.
Ask yourself, “What meaning are you giving to certain things and what story keeps playing in your mind?” I will give you a hint: when your mind keeps playing the record over and over, then you have made an attachment.
There are so many detours,turns and successes on this journey. There are books and week-long seminars and all of these are only the tip of the iceberg. The work begins when you dive under the water. To understand all of this in one blog is not the goal.
The goal of this article is to bring awareness to others. To help them understand that consciousness is a journey to get to know and love yourself—and to know yourself is a great gift.
To truly love who you are, to know that each and every person is here for the same experience, and to know that we are all one. We are here, on Earth, to learn lessons and to be our best self—or even our higher self for those who have the courage. To be and to live authentically with a pure heart. And if this is not happening, it is only a lesson for you to learn about you.
My favourite three questions and the ones at the top of my life tool box are,
- “What meaning am I going to give this experience?”
- “What am I unconscious about right now with this experience?”
- “What is the learning and the gift of this experience?”
I want to point out that I am not saying that all situations are gifts in the moment. There is a time to process and say, “This sucks!” Then, after some time passes, go to the questions above. I am asking you to not take years, though, to get to these questions. There is a time to allow anger and sadness and to get the emotion out of the body and the field, but then there is a time to let it go and get to the learning.
This is a lifelong journey that has dips and valleys, and peaks and mountains. See them all as steps to becoming the best you that you can be in this lifetime. Know that all of the events you have experienced, happened to you so that you can be exactly who you are now. A simply splendiferous human being.
We are here to see with new eyes and to see ourselves and our people we connect with as souls of complete light and love. Remember the truth.