Our journey of consciousness entails moving from ignorance to being consumed by the rat race, and if we’re lucky, experiencing awakening.
When we first came into this world, we had a sense of wholeness, wonder, and innocence. Then as we grew up, we were exposed to culture, society, and conditioning, which taught us the “rules” of how to live. Without even realizing it, we started associating our self-worth with conforming to these rules and conditions. Consequently, our self-esteem began to shrink, and we felt “not good enough” whenever we deviated from what was expected of us.
Feeling “I’m not enough” is incredibly uncomfortable, so we began to dissociate as a way to protect ourselves from that pain. We adopted coping mechanisms, such as suppressing our feelings, keeping busy to constantly prove ourselves, pretending not to care, or turning to addictions. In doing so, we became disconnected from our true selves, and we got so caught up in our various coping mechanisms that we started believing that’s who we really were.
Coping mechanisms do shield us from discomfort by providing distractions, but they don’t make that discomfort disappear. The behaviors we adopted to cope actually took us further away from expressing our true selves, and we ended up creating an inauthentic identity without even realizing it. We could be the “successful one” always striving to prove ourselves, or the “quiet one” holding back.
Those who are more aware soon realize that these personas didn’t bring inner peace. Others may have been awakened by physical or mental breakdowns. When we awaken, we come to realize that the only way to move forward is to confront the pain we’ve been avoiding! We’ve been avoiding feeling unloved and inadequate because we believed it to be true. When we face this part of ourselves we have a choice; we can spiral into it, judge it as wrong, or awaken it to the ACTUAL truth that we have always been good enough! In our sessions and workshops, we intend to bring people closer and closer to this actual truth.
If this resonates with you, I would love to hear from you. Let me know your thoughts.
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