WHO AM I?
yesterday, i had some beautiful conversations
with people whose connection opened the door for me
to see more clearly the space that i am being asked to enter.
it is such a beautiful space and i left those conversations
humbled and in awe
and happy to feel such a beautiful resonance
with the space where i am headed.
but as sister gyanamata,
one of yogananda’s foremost disciples used to say
and i paraphrase her words here,
our spirituality is not measured
in the glorious experiences we have,
nor in the angels we talk to
or the miracles we see
but rather in how we act in the cold hard light of day.
that cold hard light of day moment came to me last night
in the form of an email from someone
telling me that i was using a situation
to make myself appear better in the eyes of others;
and it mentioned also there was no truth to the reality that i experienced
and i should never do it again.
what i saw in that cold hard light of day moment
was who i am.
i have a thing with integrity
it is one of my core values.
and when someone questions my integrity,
it hurts me.
probably, because i have had lapses of integrity in the past
and so i have vowed as i move forward to live my life with as much integrity as i can
and i believe i do a pretty good job living this way.
(but for those of you who have read my book, THE MOSAIC
you will remember the story of The Gardener)
and here is what i know,
if someone says something about me
that i don’t believe about myself,
it rolls right off my back leaving no imprint.
but,
if what they say is something i am trying to hide
something i myself believe in the hidden parts of my being,
then i try to rationalise it or defend myself.
i sat with the email i received
i meditated on the response i wanted to write
and i wrote a kind but slightly defensive email in response
and so when i sat with the feeling i had
i realised i felt hurt.
let me say right here and now,
if i have ever done anything
to make myself appear to be more than i am to you
i apologise from the deepest places in my heart.
for my belief about who i am is as far away from that
as anything i can possible conceive .
i try to live my life as who i am
because i understand,
trying to be who i think you want me to be is a complete waste of time.
i can never be that.
and yet, as i sat to meditate this morning
i still felt the need to explain, rationalise and prove wrong.
these are all symptoms of silo thinking,
meaning i felt hurt
(i was hiding something as The Gardener story shows)
put up my walls,
and went into defence mode.
defending my silo from attack.
this did not feel like who i am . . .
so i sat and stopped my mind from talking
and listened.
at first, it was not easy to quiet my mental chatter
with my walls up, my rationalizations echoed from wall to wall,
they don’t know me,
they don’t understand who i am,
here they go again blah, blah, blah
and then it happened,
my voice stopped and i heard my voice begin
love them,
the only answer is to love them more.
and then the voice told me
i have created a space for you
to pour all of your pain, and all of your anger into it
let it all out,
i am here to receive all of it
empty yourself of everything that hurts you
pour more and more of your pain into it
until you can walk free with no pain inside you.
and know that whenever you feel pain,
you can come to this space
and empty yourself into it.
it will free you.
in doing this, a block was removed
and i feel lighter.