“How we treat each other is entirely up to us.” President Obama
“How you treat yourself is entirely up to you.” Wendy Reese
When you know your Divinity, your greatness and grace, your highest potential and yet you continue to create and play in the illusion of all the challenging, painful experiences, is it any wonder depression appears? Loving yourself is deceptively simple. It sounds so easy and yet, when fully gripping onto every single thing that has separated you from your essence, it feels as uncomfortable as wearing way too tight pants.
I can tell you where I started.
Step 1: I looked at the people who had stood by my side for years and could look me in the eyes and tell me they love me and my heard felt that truth. Even when they had seen the best and worst in me, they loved me. What did they know that I didn’t? As I started to see myself through their eyes (and hearts), I looked for ways to grow the best in me. The simple awareness allowed me to self-correct when I was straying back into playing in my illusion. It wasn’t (and isn’t) always easy, but it becomes more quick to recognize and shift when needed.
Step 2: Figure out what I believed in and why. Without knowing those, how do you know what you truly stand for? Maslow identifies some basic needs we all seek and I think that is where we begin to explore- what do you need to feel safe and secure, healthy, accepted, loved? You truly have the freedom to define all of this for yourself, but for most people, they take on the beliefs of parents, schools, religion, and society without ever exploring if it is true or not.
How does one release the rhetoric of fear and scarcity that has so irresponsibly been spoon fed to the masses? For me, and fortunately many around me, that comes from a commitment of love. I’m not talking about the emotion of love, but the energy of love. It is a space that, regardless of how different we are, I can still recognize a person as a fellow human being who experiences all the same emotions, challenges, and successes we all do in life. We are one. When one hurts, we all hurt. That is where we begin.
We are all being called into an awakening right now. It’s beautiful and somewhat painful to witness. Some people are so afraid of letting go that they’re sinking deeper into the shadows, often masked as depression. While others are throwing open their hearts and arms to step fully into their being, facing the fears head on, examining and redefining their life for themselves.
Daily I dance on the border between shadows and light. I’ve embraced that totality within. I won’t lie, though, there are many layers of the illusions I have created in order to play in these badlands and sometimes it is easy to get lost there, feel isolated and scared as hell. The thing is, I know what I know and in the split second of remembering, I choose to reconnect and return back to the dance. And there I play, hand extended, waiting for the next person ready to dance to join me.
The secret is that while you feel like when you make the choice to wake up, change, live intentional, be your most infinite Self, you’ll lose everything, that’s simply not true. Will you lose the illusions? At least the part you’re presently playing in, but you’ll gain far, far, far more. That knowing is within you if you listen. The question is will you trust it? Shall we dance?