—Carl Jung
One who conquers self,
conquers all. Many of us have spent a lifetime running from ourselves. We have used food to stuff down and avoid uncomfortable feelings and truths about ourselves. We humans have a shadow side consisting of things we’d rather not face about ourselves. These include repressed feelings, fears, shortcomings, addictions, etc.
For healing to begin, we must stop looking outside of ourselves to be
rescued or fixed and begin to take responsibility for our own process of growth. Many people practice spirituality lite; they use and want spirituality to make them feel better. Real transformation isn’t bliss. It takes courage to get down and dirty in the muck of our own darkness to find the real nuggets of gold. This means being willing to face ourselves with total honesty. It means owing up to all the ways we block our light and growth.
People are often loathe and afraid to admit to their own faults and weaknesses. They falsely think this will make them an inferior or a bad person. This is a lie. There are no perfect people and perfection is an unobtainable goal. We are all a mixed bag of strengths and weaknesses, light and dark. This is what it means to be human.
In fact, we
don’t have to fix anything. We aren’t broken or defective. The journey isn’t about becoming perfect; it’s about becoming fully human. We already have everything we need inside of us. All we need to do is uncover and remove the layers that are clouding our natural brilliance. As we surrender to the transformational process, our darker nature is transformed into light and we begin to have full access to our humanness. We become whole and that is the most any of us can ever hope
for.
As long as we’re alive, we will be works in progress - we and our lives will never be a finished product. When we can let go of our false aspirations and expectations of ourselves, we can relax into who we really are and learn to enjoy the journey one day at a time.
Today, I take an honest
inventory about the ways I hide my own light. I list my character defects, attitudes, fears, excuses, and other feelings and habits that are keeping me from being my true and best self.
I must get real and face the darkness in myself in order to bring myself into the lite.
