Humanity seems to be
only species that never seems pleased with its own. People tend to spend majority of their life living up to an illusion that no one has ever been able to attain. It is illusion of perfection. The problem is, that is a course that is marked with failure and pain. Someone came up with concept that people should be wafting through fields picking lilies and singing songs of angels. If you stay on this course you will never measure up. You were not meant to. There are too many people walking around under condemnation by this illusion. They feel they have failed at game of life. It is not true. You have not failed. You cannot fail at something that is unattainable. Instead, you should be pleased that you got as far as you did. There are many that check out of this life because they refuse to fail at anything. Lets talk about how you can live authentically with life you have.
One, you must make decision to live in moment. We have too many who are living in past, with its mistakes, or in future, with its uncertainties. In order for you to be authentic, you are going to have to take proverbial bull by horn and live in here and now. We all know that we cannot change past, yet many of us have set up camp there in hopes that we can make sense of it. Then there is other group that is off to a time that hasn’t happened yet. Neither group is useful. Life is happening now.
So, how do you live now? Start by taking off mask. Admit that life hasn’t been what you expected and then forgive yourself and God. Yourself, for chasing an illusion, and God, for blaming Him when it didn’t happen as you expected.
Second, Be honest with yourself. Honesty is a lost commodity in era we live in. People love to lie. The only problem is that you take your lies internally and they judge you. You might say, “I don’t lie.” Let’s take a short quiz.
1. Do you make promises to yourself that you don’t keep? (I’m going on a diet.) 2. Do you make promises to others that you don’t keep? (I’ll be on time.) 3. Do you tell others what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear out of fear of repercussions? 4. If you asked your closest friend if you were an honest person how would they answer?
We lie without thinking about it because that is what we are conditioned to do. We soften them by calling them little white lies. A lie is a lie. Of course, there are other extremists who lack tact in their honesty. They try to belittle people. Both sides are not good. As you start living authentic you must make honesty your priority. Why? How can you be honest with someone else if you are not honest with yourself? Further, you project it onto other people. By projection, I mean that you put burden on another person to be what you cannot be. You will find fault with person who is just a mirror of yourself. Since you do not have compassion to love shadow of yourself, you will not have compassion on other person. Let me give you an example, I have a friend that is a procrastinator to a fault. It used to aggravate me until I saw I was same way. When I dealt with that aspect in myself her procrastination no longer bothered me.
Jung says, “Man turns a blind eye to shadow-side of human nature. Blindly he strives against salutary dogma of original sin, which is yet so prodigiously true. Yes, he even hesitates to admit conflict of which he is so painfully aware.”
Third, is what I call peel and reveal method. You have to go down into depth of your soul and find parts of you that you thought were not good enough to exist. This is intense, but only way I know of to let you know that world is waiting for person you were originally created to be. That person has something to offer humanity, not person that you pretend to be.
