Part 2: Would you like you if you met you?

A lot of you responded to this question from my last newsletter, and I found some of your answers remarkable. One person, who is 84 years old, said she finally reached the place in life where she realized that most of the things about herself she did not like were temporary. Another person said she would not like herself because she slept with one eye open! Now that is a bit of a metaphysical canyon between these two answers.

For those who said they would like themselves they mentioned their sense of humor, or the fact they had a particular talent, or because they just saw themselves as nice. There was another small group of people who said they never even considered this question and had no idea.

I appreciate all of your responses as they have influenced the questions I am asking in this second part of the newsletter. I have come to realize how answering this question really is about drilling through to the connection our physical, emotional and mental bodies have with our higher self. I believe that the clearer that channel or bridge between our mortal and immortal selves, the more likely we are to not just like, but to love our whole self.

I think the 84 year old woman was hinting at something profound when she said she did not like the 'temporary things' about herself. I think she understood these things to be fleeting and it was a waste of her time to be consumed with them, yet, as many of us do, we are too frequently magnetized to them.

This is interesting since everything about our humaness is temporal. Yet many of us give it so much of our time and attention and at what price? Getting caught up in the things of the external world, homes, cars, status, beauty, money, power, judgments, gossip, etc., doesn't do much for our relationship to our higher, immortal self! Something significant for each of us to think about and decide if that's what we really want!

Hopefully the following questions can provide each of us a view of how attached or detached to the different aspects of ourselves we are. Remember, "if you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything!" (Thich Nhat Hanh)

1. What do you like best about yourself? Is it fleeting, changing phenomenon or enduring?

2. What do you like least about yourself? Is it fleeting, changing phenomenon or enduring?

3. The things you like or don't like do they dwell in your physical, emotional or mental bodies which are mortal; or in your soul realm which is immortal?

4. How do the answers to the above three questions enhance or interfere with your connection to your higher self?

If you choose to meditate quietly on these four questions, please do so as an observer and not a judge. From the observer place, you just might find the things we spend much of our day liking or not liking about ourselves, are just fleeting obstacles from our physical, emotional and mental realms that keep us from the clarity of knowing and loving what our soul so purely offers us. Just a thought ... but, a mighty big one!

With Gratitude,

Elaine