Magnificent Is What We Are!

      I have spent a lot of years in what I call, "not enoughness".  Anyone who knew me in high school would probably describe me as someone with a lot of self confidence.  I was president of the drill team, in the senior class presidency, on the seminary council, in band, and in the accapella and swing choirs. But what they couldn't see is that I was involved in anything and everything because I thought the more I did the more important I was and that would make me a somebody, it would mean that I had worth and value. As I got married and became a wife and mother that feeling intensified. At one point in my life I taught aerobics five days a week, had a hair cutting and styling business out of my home, worked for a company that sold promotional products, a calling in my church, not to mention four busy children. I grew up in a  home that taught me that your worth was dependent on how much you did.  But hard as I tried I could never do enough or be good enough. I have spent many days in a deep dark hole, barely surviving. I have since learned and am still learning a lot about being healthy, mentally, physically, and spiritually.  I am grateful for this journey and it is my hope that I can inspire and assist others going through similar circumstances to realize their worth and value.

        I recently read a book by Anita Moorjani called Dying To Be Me that validates what I  have learned about love, that it is the essence of who we are and is the key to creating a very purposeful and fulfilling life.  The first commandment tells us that we must love the Lord they God with all thine heart, mind, and strength. The second is to love our neighbor as ourselves.  We were created with love, at a molecular level its what we are cells know and respond to. It is what a strong physical, mental, and spiritual foundation is built on. Unfortunately for many, including myself, being able to truly love myself and to see myself as God see's me has been a long journey. There is a saying that you can't give what you don't  have. If you don't have a healthy relationship with yourself, it is difficult to have healthy relationships with others, and especially with God. When you don't like who you are it is challenging to feel Gods love, because your mind says, "I'm not good enough how can anyone especially God love me."  If you don't love your self it is difficult to really love others. What we focus on gets magnified. When all I can focus on is my shortcomings and all the reasons I am not good enough it is easy to  get lost in the game of comparing. In this game someone is always better than you or less than you making it impossible to really love ourselves and others for who they really are. I have realized that judgement and comparing are the same and can not exist in the same space as love.  Mother Teresa said, "When you judge others you have no time to love them." 

     

    In her book Anita shares about her near death experience that she had when after a four year battle with cancer she finally let go and was dying.  Her organs were shutting down, she was in a coma,  and the doctors felt she would not make it through the night. She writes, " As I continued to plunge deeper into the other realm... I felt all my emotional attachments to my loved ones and my surroundings slowly fall away. What I can only describe as superb and glorious uncondiotional love surrounded me, wrapping me tight as I continued to let go. The term unconditional love really doesn't do justice to the feeling, as these words have been overused to the point of having lost their intensity." She goes on to say, " As I looked at the great tapestry that was the accumulation of my life up to that point, I was able to identify exactly what had brought me to where I was today.

    Just look at my life path! Why,  oh why, have I always been so harsh with myself? Why was I always beating myself up? Why was I always forsaking myself? Why did I never stand up for myself and show the world the beauty of my own soul? Why was I always suppressing my own intelligence and creativity to please others? I betrayed myself every time I said yes when I meant no! Why have I violated myself by always needing to seek approval from others just to be myself? Why haven't I followed my own beautiful heart and spoken my own truth?

   Why don't we realize this when we're in our physical bodies? How come I never knew that we're not supposed to be so tough on ourselves?

    I still felt myself completely enveloped in a sea of unconditional love and acceptance. I was able to look at myself with fresh eyes, and I saw that I was a beautiful being of the Universe. I understood that just the fact that I existed made me worthy of this tender regard rather than judgment. I didn't need to do anything specific; I deserved to be loved simply because I existed, nothing more and nothing less. ...... I just had to be myself, fearlessly! In that way, I'd be allowing myself to be an instrument of love..... One of the things I believe is that we already are what we spend our lives trying to attain, but we just don't realize it! We come into this life knowing our magnificence. I don't know why, but the world seems to erode it as we start to grow up."

     What I have finally come to know is that who I already am is o.k. in fact I am magnificent! You are too! It isn't something we have to become.  I was born a divine daughter of God with infinite worth and value.  I am learning or possibly remembering, that  my foundation, who I am, what I really know, is love. I was created in love by a loving Heavenly Father and was sent here to be that to everyone around me. Love isn't something I have to earn, it is the essence of my true self. I know that I am loved, NO MATTER WHAT, by my Heavenly Father and now because I KNOW that my kids and husband know that I love them, NO MATTER WHAT. Because I finally get it I am finally able to fully give it! I get to remind myself each day if I wake up feeling worried,  in fear of the future, or what others might think of me,  or if I have ill feelings toward someone else, that I need to shift out of my head (or my ego mind) to my heart, and connect to and live from spirit, or as Anita says in her book, "my infinite self".  I am finding that when I am living in that space then life is good and I am finding purpose, living with passion, and experiencing joy.  In that space it is easier to trust that even though everything in my life isn't how I would like it to be, it is perfectly teaching me and everyone around me the perfect lessons. That it will all workout in the end and is o.k. Its easier to trust my that my spirit is connected to God and has my answers. I am learning that when I serve and do daily tasks with love it makes even the menial tasks like cleaning the toilet more enjoyable. When I do something for my family or others because I love them then I am no longer doing it because I have to or it is expected of me. I find it isn't as draining because I am doing it because I want to because of the difference it will make in someone else's life as well as my own.   It is just plain easier to live each day, the good days as well as the ones that are hard.      

     YOU ARE MAGNIFICENT no matter what!  And if each and everyone of us will live our lives with love we will live, be, and grow magnificently!

If you would like to be made aware of future posts please put your e-mail in the box at the top left of this blog. Also please post your thoughts and comments on this article. I would love to hear from you!