“It is only by the willingness to set aside who you thought you were and could be that you can truly discover who you are and can become.”
Key Points
- Be Willing to be Wrong
- Be Curious
- Think for Yourself
- Love Your SELF More Than Your Self
- The Durability of the Indestructible
All That You can’t leave behind….
All that you can’t leave behind—why it’s so hard to change and how you can finally break free
One of the most important truths of life we all come face to face with is that change is both essential and darn near impossible at times. Why is it so hard to shift our patterns, to finally break free of how we are being…even when we know it’s needed and our old habits are costing us? What if you could finally understand what is holding you back and cut the cords that seem to tie you to that pattern of being?
1. Losing everything….
Jesus taught that it was easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Setting aside the crowd dispersing nature of this statement, let’s discuss what this riddle actually means and how it can be the key to our freedom.
2. Being wrong….
Without an annihilate of ego/self we cannot enter into the “kingdom of heaven” or freedom or a new way of being. We have to stop defending our bad behavior, emotional immaturity, and lack of skill. We have to get good at taking responsibility rather then spreading blame. We have to be willing to unknown everything we feel is most certainly true and be open to the TRUTH.
3. Being curious…
Mark Twain “What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so”
Having decided we don’t have to defend our beliefs, we can now be curious about what might be a more accurate belief or skillful approach. Sometimes we foolishly attach beliefs to our identity and make any challenge to those beliefs a challenge to us on a core level. Without curiosity, there is no significant growth. If we are open to the unknown, we can discover important, yet once heretical truths like 1) the earth is round 2) leaches aren’t good for sick people and 3) all people deserve the same (high level) of respect and justice. Large groups of people have been wrong about crucial issues over and over in history. Right now there are beliefs people hold dearly as sacrosanct fact that will be pitied for their ignorance and small mindedness by those to come.
4. Thinking for yourself….
Are you willing to own your own opinion rather than be told what you should think? In every area? We all have areas we feel open minded in but others we rope off. The truth is not fragile. We don’t need to defend it. It has stood the test of time and can handle your tests. But superstition, group think, and lazy opinions are held dearly and fiercely protected. Are you willing to look like a fool to some in order to align with what you discover the Truth is? Do you value your self respect more than the fickle approval/rejection of strangers?
5. Loving your SELF more than yourself….
We can come to the point in our journey where we are no longer protecting ourselves by insisting we are right. We can hold our opinions more loosely and be open to new facts and points of view. The TRUTH is sturdy and can handle a legitimate “testing” but group-think becomes indignant and condescending if it is scrutinized. Our true Self has nothing to protect or defend. It is capable of being wrong and learning. Our ego self cannot be wrong because it feels inherently unlovable and therefore has to do an elaborate song and dance to distract or an aggressive counter attack to defend its antics.
Cultivating the Willingness to Dissolve
So, how can a camel fit through the eye of a needle? Only by dissolving and passing through as nothing to the other side. That’s the only way we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven or a deeply meaningful life here on earth for that matter! U2’s song, “Walk on” tells us that the “only thing that you can’t bring is —all that you can’t leave behind.” That lyric makes me laugh and cry at the same time! If we can’t leave it behind it is the clearest indication that it will not fit through the eye of the needle.
The Durability of the Indestructible
So, what comes out on the other side of the needle is…different. It is only by the willingness to set aside who you thought you were and could be that you can truly discover who you are and can become. The courage to let it all go and make the leap into nothingness is the only way to preserve ourselves. What a conundrum! It’s darn near impossible and that’s why so few people do it. It is the ultimate miracle….the multiplication of a substance through it’s surrender to the void. It’s how we are initiated into manhood and womanhood.
It is the biggest, scariest leap there is to take. It takes tremendous faith. Those who make a practice of coming up to this edge and then courageously dissolving, not knowing anything about what the other side looks like…not making or getting any guarantees….they are the ones who live glorious lives. I like to say that a good life consists of many deaths. We have to be willing to let go of all we have known ourselves to be, demanded of our lives, and expected to be true in the world if we are ever going to be free to see, live, and align with Truth. Honestly, it’s the only way to really live, everything else is just posturing and pretending.
We are all capable of so much more. Let’s step up to the challenge wherever it is showing up in our lives right now and go through the process of being able to loose it all so we can gain what is indestructible.
Love and Light,
Rachel