You don’t have to do this you know – honestly you don’t. You can just keep on going the way of the world, being spoon fed your feelings and your philosophy through the constant drip of mindless media, recycled dogma and the occasional flash of inspiration that’s quickly smothered by the endless opinions of others. It’s the easiest way to waste your years.
And it leads to a life that never feels like your own.
But be warned, starting out on the journey of your own work is never easy. Chances are you considered beginning on this road because the life you were living just wasn’t getting it done for you. You probably had feelings of loneliness; not for the people around you, but for the company of yourself in a way that you could live with.
The moment you realize that your problems are within and not without, you have a choice to make.
But let me step back for a moment, and make sure we’re talking about the same thing. A dear friend recently shared with me that she had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned doing the work, and she’s at the point where she could really benefit from this in her own life.
I think it’s kind of a sad reflection on the culture we live in that this isn’t something we learn in our youngest years.
If I were to put it in a nutshell it goes something like this… ‘The Work’ is a process of turning your attention away from the things of the world, and going inward so that you can discover the truth of who you really are, and then living it.
Wow – that might win the greatest oversimplification in the history of mankind award.
Because let’s not have any illusions. This is the hardest thing you’ll ever do, and it can seriously change your life. There are times on my journey where I’ve had to swallow some pretty hard truths, and let go of a lot of things I was holding onto for the sake of my ego, not for my truth. It can change relationships, and change how people relate to you.
In case that all sounds horrible, which it can be, let me also tell you the upsides, because they are there and they are wonderful. Probably my favorite outcome is actually beginning to like myself. Over the last almost 5 years of writing this (which has been a huge part of my own journey) I have come to understand myself at a level that I never thought was possible.
In doing so, I've been able to forgive myself for many of the things that I have done. None of these have been heinous, rather the way that I have affected myself and my family for playing small, not using my voice, and for allowing other people to walk over me when I should have stood up for myself.
Once you know why you do things, you can start to deprogram the things about yourself that you don’t like.
But you’ll also start to become your own hero. When I see how far I have come from where I started, both emotionally and geographically, I can see the courage it took to make some of the choices that I did, and I derive a sense of safety from understanding that I do have a strength inside of me. Knowing that I can survive the struggles necessary to change my life helps me to face change with peace and calmness.
But by far the greatest outcome is knowing yourself at a level that allows you to live authentically.
That’s a term that gets thrown around a lot, so let me define it from my point of view. To live authentically means that you live true to your deepest feelings, regardless of your fears and your insecurities. It means working through the beliefs that hold you back, and discovering who you really are along the way.
There is an incredible strength in being honestly and truly yourself.
And the funniest thing is, you often come to find out that who you really are is not who you thought you were at all. Once you break through and let go all the nonsense in your head, you can truly start listening to your heart, and finding your way to your own sense of purpose and happiness. Because living someone else’s idea of what your life should be is never going to make you happy.
But like I wrote in my last post, growing can also be scary, but it’s only by doing the different things, the things that scare us, that we grow into the people who make us happy.
So I’m going to do something scary, and you might get to be a part of it. I’m putting together a 6-7 week workshop based around finding yourself, using a lot of the things I've discussed over the past 5 years in this work. I’m looking for a few people who might be interested in being a part of that. There won’t be any cost, other than putting up with whatever craziness flows out of me, but I’m hoping that it will be something of value to you.
If that sounds like something you might like to be a part of, then feel free to comment below and let me know.
It will be a small group to start, and I’m still working out how it will actually work, but if that sounds like fun, then maybe we can get to be a part of each other’s journeys.
Because the journey of growing into yourself really is worth it.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings