Living In Alignment With Your True Self

What is a True Self

I have been thinking about one’s true self lately. The contemplative teachers Richard Rohr and Joan Chittester have both devoted recent posts and meditations on this topic. Chittester has devoted the whole month of July to this topic in her Monastic Way ( https://joanchittister.org/content/newsletters/monastic-way/current-issue ) I recently wrote a post around Thich Nhat Hahn’s book “Peace with Every Step” ( https://www.patheos.com/blogs/loveopensdoors/2024/07/is-peace-achievable-in-todays-society/ ). Returning briefly back to this book, I want to reflect on Hahn’s thoughts regarding flower insight. On page 43 of his book, Hahn offers “That is the problem of life. If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything” (Hahn, 1991, pg. 43). Later in this section, he offers this poem (Hahn, 1991, pg 44):

Standing quietly by the fence,

You smile your wonderous smile.

I am speechless, and my senses are filled

By the sounds of your beautiful song,

Beginningless and endless.

I bow deeply to you.

In this post, I want to challenge the notion of original sin and focus on original goodness. In the poem above, we read “I bow deeply to you.” In Pali, the word is Namaste. The presence of the divine in me bows to the presence of the divine in you. Whether we are talking about one’s Buddha nature or one’s Christ nature, in all of us is the divine presence. God said it was good, it is good, and we all possess this goodness regardless of what our life, our religious orientation or own internal dialogue says. You are good, you are love and I bow in compassion to your beauty.

Here

Nostradamus aside, humans are horrible future predictors. Future predicting is a common thinking error that my clients engage in. The future is a mystery (there is a spiritual practice for that!).

The practice of contemplation places the practitioner in the now, the here. In philosophy, we will see an ongoing dialogue around being and becoming. In cultivating a healthy sense of self and understanding our true selves, cultivating a sense of being is the key practice here.

Contemplation “helps us access our True Self, the part of us that is always connected to God. Contemplation teaches us how to live in this open place where we watch reality come and go. We learn from it and let it change us (Rohr, 2016).

Being here now means showing up and sitting with ourselves. My clients hate this and will conduct all sorts of emotional and mental gymnastics to avoid this or even change the subject. Being here now with God requires us to place our vulnerabilities at God’s feet and let God love us the way God has loved us from the beginning. Here, God bows in compassion to us and declares our goodness back to us. For many, this is an extremely uncomfortable feeling, so much of our identity can be wrapped up in warped feelings of not being enough, not loved enough or alone. With God, you are always enough, you are never alone.

Becoming

Many of my clients come to me because at some point, they were told that they could not do something, and it stuck and manifested into a pathological problem presenting as anxiety and depression. I can relate. In the 80’s, they treated ADHD much differently than they do now. I was told in high school that I was not college material and that I should consider a trade job or the military. Being a Gen X’r, I thumbed my nose at this and did it my way. While I have not been completely successful, I am here now and continuing to grow.

Life happens with you or without you. John Lennon is often connected to the quote “Life is what happens to you when you are growing up.” One of questions I ask my clients often is, “so, what are going to do about it?” Connecting or reconnecting to your true self is a process of becoming.

A Spiritual Practice of You

As I was thinking about this post last week, I was thinking again how my clients often come to me depressed and anxious. Sometimes this anxiety stems from the awareness that they are good people, but internal messaging has kept them stuck believing false beliefs about themselves. Life then becomes a quest to close the circle from goodness to goodness. We begin our lives with awareness of our goodness, circumstances train this out of us and at the end, we ask the question and often struggle with the question, was it all worth it?

The focus on you is not selfish, it is a spiritual practice. We are all on a path of discovery. We are not done with this life until it is over. Every day is a new creation, 24 new opportunities.