Musings - To Look Within

Three interviews in a row, and I had this buzz in my head. I was feeling the intensity of the experience, thoughts coming in from all directions, like a series of aha's.

An interview is defined as a one to one conversation, where questions are asked by one and answers given by the other. There is one definition by Bingham which I liked ‘conversation with a purpose'

And I asked myself, what was my purpose.

It seemed to have several components.......getting perspective, evoking thought, enabling deeper understanding, widening horizons, enhancing self awareness. And the realization that you cannot enter those deep spaces and come out untouched. It is invariably a mutually enriching experience.

Based on the few interviews,  ( and several counselling sessions), I sought to dig a little deeper and articulate what was surfacing through the experience. I share some of those thoughts:

• Societal conditioning creates so much rigidity around 'right and wrong' 'success and failure' 'good and bad', that by default 'there's strong tendency to run oneself down, to self critique....and self esteem pays the price'

• Our deepest thoughts and feelings are often kept hidden. We are concerned about not being understood, about being hurt, about rejection. We'd rather live behind walls and defenses, even or especially, with our closest family. In the process, we compromise authenticity and self acceptance.

• Popular opinion is that lives and opinions of celebrities and experts are worth knowing about, why would anyone care to know about me. So not true. Each has a story worth sharing. 

• Also, the human nature of negativity trumps positivity. We're good with looking at what we didn't do, what we could have done, what could have happened, what chances we missed.......and that list goes on.  They occupy so much emotional and memory space, that we don't seem to have recall of our own positives and achievements. Of our moments of resilience when we rose above those issues. Moments when we took risks. Time when we made decisions against the tide. Times we backed our friends. Times we stood by our family. Times we gave. The good times. 

If we don't give to ourselves, we can't give to others,  a follow through..... 'if we don't give ourselves credit, we can't give credit to others'. Maybe that's why there's so little compliments going around.

Net net a lot of us seem to be living in fairly superfluous spaces. Based off external expectations. Caught in the life of detail. In busyness. And there exists this gap between what I really am, and what I am expected to be.

Self awareness is key

Within each of us is this potential of abundance, of beauty, of peace, of joy. A sanctum sanctorium. If we can open those doors, we don't need temples. God is within us can literally come true.