To find yourself you must lose your words

…To find myself I have to lose my (what?) – my words? 

Yes, it’s true. To find and reconnect with your authentic self, all preconceived ideas (words) about who you are; all needs, expectations and identifications with who you want be, have to be suspended… held away long enough to breakthrough to the insight that expressed these longings.

Consider this for a moment: Your true self is not a person, a place out there… or a thing to go find. Your real self isn’t even any specific functioning form called “Your Name” at all.  (Stay with this short article and see what you can find in yourself and in the gaps between my words :)

We all seek the same things ultimately. In my lifework as a spiritual author and teacher, what people most often tell me they seek in life is something like this:

Unconditional love and self-acceptance; meaningful and connected relationships with spouse, family and friends; sense of purpose; deep inner peace; and a feeling of security.

These feelings and longings for a meaningful sense of connection, purpose, love and peace are right on. It is just that the paths we use to try and fulfill these impulses are all wrong.

Be heartened: These universal feelings of the heart and longings of the mind are actually the wake-up impulse of the soul, leading you and me to a true discovery of self, meaning, love, and connection (…if we but discover the perceptual breakthrough and unique language of soul)!

Here’s why I started this article with this phrase: “To find yourself you must lose your words”. 

Unconditional love, self-acceptance, meaningful connection with others, inner contentment, and a feeling of inner security can only be known when we give our self away.

You might be asking about now: “Why do I have to give my self  away in order to find myself? …and what does that mean anyway?

We must lose our self in order to know and express our authentic self because it is the struggling attachments to our self-identified needs (and the constructs these forever set up) that are the self-imprisoning culprits blocking us from the very qualities we long to know and experience in life. 

Ironic? Yes, very! Paradoxical? Absolutely! Weird crazy-talk?.... Keep with this a moment:

I know this last paragraph may sound like crazy new age mumbo jumbo to your mind. …It is frustratingly crazy-talk to the mind! The mind will never understand this realization I am pointing you toward. This is why people seeking and struggling won’t find what they seek! 

To understand and find what you seek, you must learn how to become the observer--witnessing of your life by moving your conscious awareness into a place of spontaneous relationship and presence with this very moment.

(Don’t even worry if your mind doesn’t get this or discounts and argues with it.  That’s the mind’s job. See that and at the same time, drop down and listen with (what I call) “soft ears” from a place where the heart simply yearns. This heart-space will bring your closer to the doorway of breakthrough.)

Losing yourself into the present moment of awareness in order to find yourself:

• When one knows how to engage in the present moment from a place of curious and engaging “eyes wide open” dialogue (or what I have come to coin the Soul Arts process of awakening), then the self-identifications (all our words about who we are, are not, can be, can’t be, should be, the troubles of our past, the issues of our present, and the fears of our future, etc)  are seen through for the self-imprisoning and life-limiting constructs they create!

• When one experiences how to be in a dynamic, creative and conscious relationship with each present moment, there is an automatic new seating of consciousness from the authenticity of Self as witness. This is an awareness realization that is over and above the ego understanding of self or static identifications of form (which have their good and right places in life – just not here, in matters of insight, breakthrough, and the conscious shift of awareness that sets us free).

• When, as the observer-Witness, one becomes aware and awake to what it truly means to be in real relationship with life, there is simply the direct experience and expression of True Self and Authentic Being.

• When one is in the present moment and seeing the mechanisms of the mind from a place that is engaging and dialoguing with the truth of the moment, he/she is directly experiencing a spiritual breakthrough which some will call awakening, enlightenment, illumination or being born anew.  

The really good news:  Love, acceptance, healthy relationships, inner peace, a sense of meaning: All these we can experience and know in our life but for one error of understanding and approach:

The one mistake we make in our seeking to find, know and live our authentic self, is this: we keep trying to find it, get it, control it, own and manage it …from the ego-identified mind. This can and will never happen (not in any real way)! It cannot and will not ever happen, because the mind is the wrong tool for making this inner shift of realization. True self is not a “thing” at all!

The “how to find myself” bottom-line? …If you really truly want to know and express loving compassion and passionate purpose in your life, fall (more) in love with the art of a curious engaging relationship with each moment, than you are in fear of  “getting it right; of solving it, of the illusion of security, of the fear of fear itself.

The mind can’t really get this next sentence either (other than from an intellectual understanding):

·         The only time & space in which you, I, or any one of us ever live, heal, love, serve, connect at all: is right here, in each right now.

·         The only moment you can ever experience, express, or know what your heart and soul is seeking, is right here in the given moment…

·         NOW is only ever where your authentic self will be experienced. (To really understand and know this, it has to be directly experienced here,  and not merely intellectually followed as a concept for some expected future time.)

So please if you seek to live authentically and to know peace, purpose and passion, let your life become a living meditation.

Experience your life as it is meant to be : as a movement of consciousness ever evolving and dancing with and through this Being you call “you”.

When this kind of fluid self-realization is consciously experienced and inwardly recognized (even just once) then the impulse of soul is awakened and that which you seek is already realized, here, now. 

Don’t believe it? Don’t think you “get it”?

…One closing prayer: If you really seek inner truth and not just a quick-fix band-aid strategy of the mind, promising that which it cannot ever deliver, then I invite you to get curious and to engage with me in the magnificent genius and  art of soul!  Come step through the doorway of your soul’s longing and fall into the love affair with life that awaits…