You need to trust who you are.

Ten years ago I went through a family systems therapy intensive. It was eight days long and a lot happened, but here's what I remember most: I blew my own mind. My mind was blown—by me. I experienced my own beauty in a completely detached, objective way and it was awesome. There was no denying it and no getting all puffed up about it. It was a simple experience of the truth.  

Conditions were such that the past and future where nowhere to be found and I was fully awake in the now. The result was the blazing, white-hot beauty we all have, but which seldom shows fully on the surface. The experience carried with it complete certainty that this was the most basic me—the fearless me, the incredibly happy me that results from just being me. 

I've never felt it quite so fully since, but that's okay, because I know it's there and the experience can't be taken away. I have seen the me that lives in the now—not in the future or the past. I don't see it as often as I'd like to because I spend too much time in those other places. 

The struggle of the day to day is far more important than the big deals of life. In the big deals, we mobilize, activate, and use our inner resources. But in the day to day, shadows creep in slowly and dim our view gradually. Stress, fear, insecurity, mindlessness, or just plain laziness—these things grow unnoticed until we're lost in the surface static, disconnected from ourselves in the now. I have wandered in that static for long stretches, but I've also seen the gold beneath the tarnish. 

We all want to be awesome. We worship the awesomeness in others, too often at the expense of our own. Well, you can't change the fact that you are awesome any more than you can change the color of your eyes. But you might not have access to it. Maybe you've never felt it. You can tell yourself "I'm awesome," but you might not really believe it. Maybe the thing that keeps you from habitually exhibiting your awesomeness is the fact that you don't really believe it's there. Do you? Answer honestly. Nobody has to hear it but you. If you pretend to believe in your own awesomeness when you really don't, you're lost. But if you can admit to not believing in it, you can turn things around. 

To fully penetrate the now there must be no residue of the past or future on your thinking—whether a specific memory or an attitude that influences your behavior. Each moment must be given the chance to shine, to be perfect and fully new. You need to constantly relax in this way, without expectations or demands, without fear or fantasy. Even if you have waited long for something and grow weary of the waiting, fear and desire must not be allowed to tarnish the pristine quality of this next emerging moment. When you can achieve that, whether through therapy or meditation or just by accident, you allow your own awesomeness to emerge.

You need to trust who you are. You need to trust your inclinations and talents—even the way you look has something to do with your particular brand of awesomeness. Nobody can be you better than you can, and the world needs you as you, or you would not be here.

Ever forward.

 

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