The essence of you…
“In you, as in each human being, there is a dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought. It is the very essence of who you are. We may call it presence, awareness, the unconditional consciousness.” Eckhart Tolle
There is much talk these days about the importance of being authentic. But before you can live authentically you first need to know who you truly are.
Who do you think you are?
There was a time I would have answered this question with, I am a mother, wife, daughter, sister, etc. However, having spent many years growing my spiritual awareness, I realise these are roles I play in my life.
While doing my best in each of these roles is extremely important to me, I now see that at our essence we are infinite spiritual beings, embodied in human form.
I would describe my characteristics as kind, loving, loyal, understanding, forgiving, and emotionally intelligent. Alongside many more great attributes including modesty and a good sense of humour.
Being highly sensitive to the feelings and needs of others, I have a strong sense of our soul connection. I also have a strong sense of fairness, learning from a young age the importance of treating others how I wish to be treated.
What are your insecurities?
In the past, I have suffered from many insecurities, which I became very good at masking. I feared being judged and cared far too much about what others thought of me. I also believed a lot of the limiting stories I used to regularly tell myself.
While I have faced many challenges in my life, the most life-changing came after the sudden death of my brother. And while this has been one of the hardest times in my life, it also sparked one of my biggest growths.
Most importantly though, it helped me to uncover what was keeping me from the state of peace I had often experienced throughout my life but found impossible to maintain.
I had thought this beautiful feeling state was coming from things that were happening outside of me. This led to a lot of time spent trying to replicate those moments. I was unaware at that time that it was only ever my insecure thoughts that were obscuring my innate peace.
What is taking you away from a peaceful state?
Being the oldest of nine children I grew up with an undercurrent of worry and anxiety, feeling a natural responsibility for my younger siblings.
However, as I got older I subconsciously added my parents, husband, and children to my worrisome thinking. I often found myself living on a rollercoaster of emotions, which could be hard to deal with at times.
I habitually got caught up in troublesome thinking, visualising worst-case scenarios while catastrophising future outcomes for me and my loved ones.
We all have innate resilience!
I often worried about how I could protect my family from all the perceived bad in the world along with how I might cope if any of what I imagined were to happen.
Suddenly I found myself in the realisation that one of my worst fears had come to be. While the passing of my brother filled me with grief, sadness, and regret. I was also surprised to find an inner resilience in the midst of it all.
On reflection of this, I realised I had often suffered more in my thoughts of something awful happening, than in the reality of it.
My journey of discovery.
Finding myself with many questions around spirituality and what happens to us after death, I soon began my journey of discovery. Completing numerous spiritual and holistic courses, I also watched and listened to many inspirational speakers, and read many books from authors around the world.
While some of what I first learned helped me to deal with a lot of my fears and worries. Suggestions of controlling our negative thinking drained my energy.
The uncovering.
Without understanding how thought works, I often found myself back in a low state of mind. I would berate myself for not being more positive and grateful for all the good things in my life.
For a long time, I seemed to be going around in circles unable to maintain the peace of mind I somehow knew should be easier to attain. However, I soon came to realise I was trying to achieve the impossible.
This was because I did not understand the principles behind how we experience life. Thankfully I came to uncover these during a course I was doing with Transformational Coach and Author, Michael Neill.
Michael introduced me to the Three Principles, Universal Mind, Consciousness, and Thought, as first articulated by Sydney Banks.
He explained how Sydney had had a profound spiritual experience. Thus leading him to see that these principles were fundamental to how we experience life.
The sense of “knowing” what Sydney had come to see was true, resonated highly with me. I then had to find out all I could about him and his understanding of these principles.
What I came to see was I had no understanding of the nature of Thought.
On gaining some understanding, I felt an immediate sense of freedom and relief. I also realised I had been trying to achieve the impossible when trying to control my thoughts.
How do our thoughts work?
Thoughts are transient energy passing through our minds and we have thousands of them every day. Some are memory-based thoughts invoked by our senses, while others seem to pop into our minds out of nowhere.
It is only when we give attention to one of those thoughts, believing it to be true or a problem we need to solve, that we can get stuck in troublesome thinking around it for long periods of time.
Thus causing us to experience the emotions attached to our thinking, be that fear, anger, regret, guilt, shame, etc, each of which causes your body to have a physiological response.
For example, if your thinking is fearful, cortisol and adrenalin are released for the fight/flight response. This is needed when you are in real danger. However, our brain cannot tell the difference between a real or imagined threat.
It is now known that excessive cortisol over the long term can lead to illness.
Wake up to your troublesome thinking.
What I have now come to know is instead of controlling our thoughts and our negative thinking, we just need to wake up from them.
Seeing them for what they are, made-up thinking, shaped by our imagination into something that feels very real to us.
I now see that when it comes to solving problems, we are most often inclined to turn to our intellect. Using only the information we have already accumulated through our learning, life experiences, and the meaning we have made about all of that.
This can lead us into panic mode as we over-think the situation, and most likely leads to us becoming defensive or overwhelmed.
What is our default state of being?
Know that our default state of being is one of peace, with loving, light-hearted feelings. This state is the one we were born into before we developed our intellect, our experiences in life, our learning and belief systems.
Most importantly we can return to this state of being at any moment. Within this quieter space, there is room for reflective thinking and insight. It is from this space that we will find the answer to any question we have.
How do we return to our natural state of peace?
You can return to your natural state of peace with a simple P.A.U.S.E, this is your gateway into pure awareness.
Presence, taking a slow deep breath, become aware of your surroundings and to where your mind has brought you. Are you in the past, present, or future?
Allow your mind to quieten as the sensations in your body settle.
Untangle your attention from any worrisome thoughts or stories you are carrying.
Surrender into the stillness and silence that is always there, beneath our beliefs, ideas, and concepts.
Embrace all of who you are, your strengths, vulnerabilities, and past hurt, with love, understanding, and compassion.
When you remember our mind is a magical movie maker, the P.A.U.S.E allows you the space to zoom out and see the movie set!
The magnificence of you.
As you start to see the truth of the magnificence of who you are, you will see how your mind is a magical movie maker.
It works by taking what we “think” we know to be true about someone or the potential outcome of a situation, along with the unknown, and piecing them together with our imagination to shape them into a story we believe and feel is real.
By taking a PAUSE throughout your day, you can develop the skill to come back into the awareness of where your mind is taking you, thus allowing you to see through the made-up story you are creating.
You can also develop your ability to tap into your connection to Universal Intelligence. The same intelligence that sustains all life, spins planets and gives you access to infinite inspiration, creativity, resourcefulness, resilience, and innovation.
As your infinite potential unfolds, you will be guided through life if you allow it. You also get to experience things in life you could never have imagined.
The path to freedom.
One of the most freeing lessons I have learned throughout all of this is, as our thinking is unique, everyone’s perception of the world is different.
Therefore, I no longer get frustrated with people for not being able to see life the same way I do, in the knowledge we are all living in separate realities, each doing the best that we can in the thinking that we have.
I now feel compassion for those who have hurt me in the past, understanding now that only people who are hurting, hurt others.
This realisation has led to me being able to let go of the sense of responsibility I felt for others. I also understand how I can’t make others happy, yet another job I seemed to subconsciously acquire.
You too can overcome uncomfortable feelings.
Throughout all of this, I have had to overcome many uncomfortable feelings, especially ones of selfishness, as I stopped putting myself forward every time a loved one has a problem, and trying to come up with solutions for them.
Instead, I honour their journey in the knowledge they have the answers inside of them. I now realise the best I can do is model this understanding by living an authentic, peaceful, fulfilled life.
If others are curious about how I am doing this, I happily share with them what I have come to see, pointing them to their inner wisdom for solutions or to the answer to any questions they may have.
Knowing that at any moment they too can awaken to their true essence, and to the knowledge we are all one and are always connected to Source. With access to higher intelligence, infinite creativity, inspiration, innovation, plus so much more.
The growth in our challenges.
My growing awareness of all of this has helped me to uncover many other things about myself, such as the realization I had never permitted myself to make mistakes.
This was mostly due to growing up in a very strict environment (home, school, and church), causing me to be afraid of doing anything “wrong” as I knew there could be a harsh consequence.
Subconsciously I carried this into my adult life, reluctant to try things outside of my “comfort zone”. Also, I had previously not understood the importance of having and implementing healthy boundaries and the ability to say no.
But most importantly was the realisation I had been my own worst judge and critic.
I am now fully embracing expanded consciousness, self-love, and my infinite potential, all of which have brought newfound freedom to be who I was born to be, in the knowledge our true essence is always love.
If you would like to read more about finding freedom click here https://angelamcevitt.com/freedom/
Thanks for reading.
Angela
Namaste- I honour the place in you, in which the entire universe resides. I honour the place in you, of love, of light, of truth, and of peace. And when you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.