Letting go of who we think we are

Posted on June 20, 2007
Filed Under Embrace Your Highest Path and Purpose, Spiritual Development |

One of my meditation teachers once said that we all build a little shrine to ourselves at which we worship. On that shrine, we place all the things we think we are. We may put on there that we are gifted, talented, a healer, a musician, a lawyer, a parent, a spouse. We may also put on there the things we don’t really want to change about ourselves, or are not willing to look at, or what we’ve been told about ourselves. We have trouble getting financially organized. Or we are chronically late to every social event. Or we are overweight, or not that smart, or funny-looking. It all goes on the shrine we build to ourselves. “This is who I am,” we say.

On our spiritual path, that shrine gets dismantled piece by piece. We build a shrine to the corporate CEO we thought we had within us. In actuality, there’s a writer that the Soul wants to express into this lifetime. I personally built an elaborate construction around being an opera singer that I worshipped at until the age of twenty-seven! (Today, this makes me giggle - what was I thinking?)
It takes courage to let go of who we think we are. But it is also a liberating process. If we can let go of the construct that we’ve created, our Soul has the freedom to express itself into this lifetime. We peel back the layers, until our true Self can shine through.

Our true Self, our Soul Self, has no need for a shrine. It is unafraid to examine itself, utterly convinced of its own perfection while striving for growth and evolution, without the two concepts being at odds with each other. We do not have to hold it up, admire it, and convince the world of its authenticity. When we embrace our true Self, we simply are.

What self-image, what piece of your shrine, can you let go of today?

Blessings,
Andrea