Am I You?
Last week I had a client who had the same obsession with doing things the “right” or “best” way that I find in myself. Two days later, I had a client who not only had two of my personal physical challenges, but also was impacted in her family by the same physical challenge my sister had that affected my own family life growing up. Three issues in just one client!
What’s going on? Well, it’s a standing joke among healers that we often seem to get clients with our own issues. What thread in the tapestry of my life did they follow to find their way into my office? It’s so delicious to feel into that question. Truly, if I follow that thread backwards, I find myself falling into the Infinite.
What’s beautiful to notice is the deeper understanding I get of my own “stuff” when it’s decorating what appears to be someone else!
I use the word “decorating” advisedly. I remember the first time I saw it. I was sitting with a client who had a lot of drama happening around her issues at the time. Suddenly she appeared as a vision of loveliness, draped in jewels. The strands of jewels shining on and around her were literally made out of her favorite “stuff.” I saw how we build our identities with our “favorite” issues as the building blocks.
Do you think you don’t have “favorite” issues? That you don’t “love” the very issues your conscious mind insists you would like to be free of?
You can tell what (or whom) you really love by looking at what (or whom)
you spend time with.
What thoughts recur in your mind? The ones that recur are the ones you invite over for dinner. “Come, stay awhile. We’ll chat.”
This is not bad or wrong. It’s simply how humans are wired. It’s why it’s so freeing to be the Observer of your own self.
Yes, look…look how when I answer those fears or judgments in my mind, look how they always come back with another fear or judgment. And then I just have to answer that one too…
I remember when I first began to catch this in action. I would think, “I’ll just finish this train of thought and then I’ll have quiet mind.”
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!!!!!!!
You might say, “But I spend a lot of time at work and think about work, and about the office dysfunctions. I don’t love that. That has nothing to do with my identity.”
Let’s look a little closer. What’s your role at work? Perhaps you’re the competent one who holds it all together? Or maybe the scapegoat who gets blamed for problems? Does what you do at work make you feel good/bad/hopeless/valued/unappreciated, etc?
Whatever you answered, I bet it is a familiar feeling. That’s a good clue for fears or virtues that are woven into the fabric of your identity.
We don’t often stop and identify the building blocks of our identity, but that is a very helpful tool to free yourself. Those strands of glowing jewels are also chains that keep you down.
Who in the world am I?
“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
I invite you, right now, to make a list of the most common thoughts that run around in your head…or even the most common kinds of thoughts. Are they general anxiety? Are they judgments? Are they your “to do list?” Are they about your health? Worrying about your children/partner/mother/cat/boss?
Are they thoughts of gratitude? Are they about what you love…fiestas of flowers in your garden, how the air smells at the beach, how a baby exudes Divinity sleeping on your chest, how blessed your life is?
Again, this is not about good and bad. And this is way beyond the Law of Attraction. This is about the very composition of your life. There is no separation between you and your life, so you can’t really “attract” something to you, not really. Can you “attract” your little pinky toe? We think we have this body and it moves through an amorphous life, never knowing what comes next.
Our Life Grows From Within Us
But really, our life grows from within us. It is made out of what we are when we come in, and how we hold ourselves thereafter, meaning where those thoughts go, round and round, shaped not by the people and events in our life, but by how we react to them.
It’s much like how snails make their own shells. It oozes out of their skin and hardens. Then they wear it for the rest of their life, adding to it as they grow.
In the same way, our life is generated from within us; the raw material is in the form of thoughts and feelings, which make the thread that weaves that tapestry of our life.
OMG I love this stuff so much. I love seeing how it really is. I love sharing it with you.
Thank you for the gift that is you,
Cari
