"You're a piece of sh!t that deserves to suffer."
I have always had big dreams for my life. When I'm not crippled by self-doubt I know that my dreams have always been a life map. When I am crippled by self-doubt, I see them as the grandiose dreams of an abundant ego.
This characterizes my life; flip-flopping between belief and doubt about... everything. I understand now that it has been about my ego - but not in the way that I thought.
Ego is a tricky trickster.
During a call with Paul, we were into the weeds of it and I asked, "Am I allowed to have these huge dreams for my life? Am I allowed to do all this?"
"I don't know, are you?" he asked.
As I sat with the question there was a growing emotional response that I was afraid to articulate. I started to cry and resisted, resisted, resisted and then it popped out. Am I allowed to live my dreams?
"No. You're a piece of sh!t that deserves to suffer."
Harsh.
My dad - sometime in the late 50’s I think. Lol. He looks like a missionary.
The second it was out, I knew what it was and where it came from and that it was never fucking true.
It's a throw-away comment from my dad that I have often overheard whenever he was feeling darkly sarcastic and self-deprecating. I'm pretty sure that he believed it about himself too… but I don't want it.
No thanks.
It's not true, it's not real and it's been squatting in my mind in the dark since I was a child - distorting my belief about myself and my life and how Creation will treat me.
The most twisted part of this is, that attached to it, is the idea that this belief will keep me humble, and humility will keep me safe.
Our egos are always trying to keep us safe - but ego doesn’t understand us, or itself, or the truth of the world, so we get really messed up solutions to the problem of safety.
The ego doesn't understand humility - not true humility. The ego tries to insert itself into the primary spot and claim it knows us better than our Creator.
The belief that I'm a piece of sh!t is my ego's attempt to be greater than Creator and determine for itself my value and my worth.
Agnes and Alex Davidson. Looking like a barrel of laughs. Geezus.
Beloved Presence has that locked up already.
Creator determines our worth and we are as we were Created by the Source and nothing we can do or say or think can change our fundamental value and worth. We are descendants of Creator and we are One with Creator and that will never change.
In my family we struggle with self-worth (maybe everyone struggles with self-worth... it seems like it's a pretty common problem), and there has been a history of handing down self-worth destroying abuse under the guise of "wisdom".
The soul-crushing, dream-killing adages seem to come from love and a desire to keep us "safe". (Also with a big helping of controlling our behaviour and making us more compliant.)
"Don't dream too big or try too hard or think of yourself as competent and worthy and valuable and talented - because you'll find out the truth that you're just a piece of shit and you'll be disappointed and humiliated and all your dreams will crumble into dust."
"Don't actually reach for your dreams or try too hard or you'll find out that you're not actually talented or capable and no one cares or thinks you're any good at anything and you'll just be humiliated in public and then everyone will see what a pathetic piece of shit you are."
No one actually says this out loud, no. What we get are little verbal lashings like,
“That’s pie in the sky.”
”Not everyone gets to live out their dreams.”
We should all be so lucky.”
”The higher you climb, the heavier you fall.”
”Be happy with having a job that can pay the bills.”
”You’re too big for your britches.”
”Pride goeth before a fall.”
”Once you’re at the top, the only way is down.”
Get in touch with your own wisdom.
Get a free taste of The Holy Sh!t Handbook - a Guided Journal Experience with Beloved Presence.
1973 and the shag hair to prove it. Grampa retires from farming.
I have heard some variation of this kind of "wisdom" for my whole life. My parents are part of the Silent Generation - born into World War II right after a Depression and they learned early not to expect or ask for too much.
You're lucky for what you got because a lot of people got a lot less.
I understand the life events that contribute to this mindset - but it feels twisted. It comes from fear and scarcity and trying to avoid losing what you've got because if you do, there isn't anymore where that came from. It's not gratitude for receiving or gratitude for sharing. It's critical and judgmental and small-minded.
It's not wisdom. It's fear.
It’s not gratitude, it’s grabbing the least you can hold onto because of the fear that there will be nothing else.
This is an important topic for anyone who has an entrepreneurial inclination, or is someone who holds vision of a life in the creative arts.
Search your ground for seeds of distorted wisdom. Anywhere where we feel cringe or discomfort at being a success in our field - that's false wisdom. Anywhere we feel discomfort at being seen or applauded for our arts - that's false wisdom. Anywhere we feel resistance to getting paid for our arts or we are uncomfortable sharing our gifts - there is some false wisdom at play around worth and value, abundance and fear.
Dig into that and feel the fear &/or sadness at the root of the resistance to abundance and success. Your visions of living a life where you are sustained by sharing your creative gifts isn’t a joke or an unattainable dream - our job is to clear the way for it to come into this world. We help to do that by digging up false ideas around humility.
It's connected to the misunderstanding of meekness. We put on painfully crippling coats of humility that speak more to our ego's desire to determine our worth versus what Creator knows of our truth. Meekness is not smallness and hiding our light and prostrating ourselves in the mud and the filth.
Meekness is exercising power without harshness. Being meek is being willing to be taught when we get it wrong.
Meekness is exercising power without harshness
When we feel worthless we waffle between arrogance and believing we're better than others and despair that we are pieces of shit that deserve to suffer.
Neither is true.
The truth rests in the middle, where we are the omnipotent infinite power and love of Creator, and so is everyone and everything else.
The visions for my life have never been about the greatness of me. They're about sharing the magnificence and love and beauty that I experience alive on the earth right now.
The Holy Sh!t Handbook is here.
Get your free taste of the Guided Journal Experience with Beloved Presence.
Every encounter is a divine encounter. No exceptions.
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Be gentle with yourself because no one teaches us how to live this way. No one teaches us how to use all our Presence and Being to find our Selves in the world and the Work that we will do.
No one teaches us how to rely as equally on empathic intuition and body sensation as we do logical rationality. No one teaches us how to make sense of these intense desires to share deep truths that we only partially understand. Be gentle with yourself.