Intro: We will, of course, blame the parents.
Your parents screwed up.
OK, softer landing.
Your parents could have done a better job.
Every parent in the history of life on this planet could have done a better job.
One of the major consequences of your parents falling short in the parenting department is that you’re having a lot of trouble believing in yourself.
If I had a fiver for everyone who used the term Imposter Syndrome I'd be writing this from my yacht in the Aegean.
I keep wondering .... where is the love?
Where is the self love? The belief in self?
Not ego. No no no. There’s plenty of that around. That’s a different critter.
What I’m talking about is a belief in self that is firmly grounded in an understanding that my life is meaningful and worthy and I am supposed to be here doing what I’m doing right now.
I’m not really sure how people would describe this idea of feeling like an imposter, but there must be, I’m guessing there’s a sense that … I don’t belong here in this life that I’m living.
I have spent a fair amount of time wondering how it is that so many of you ended up feeling like you’re not entitled to be ... you?
Part One: Out with the old.
It took me a while, but I think I get it. It has to do with grounding forces. It has to do with Love, capital L.
I totally understand everyone's reluctance to trust in a God idea. It is 100% true that churches have ruined this for us sixty-six ways to Sunday.
Let that part go. Understand that I am NOT talking here about religion or a guy wearing a white robe and throwing lightning bolts across your path. Or rules or dogma or pews or any of that.
I’m not a fan of that confusing and often punitive and hypocritical silliness.
Call it Love instead. Take a deep breath, exhale and just call it love. This thing that cares about you.
Part Two: It’s real.
There is something big. Really big and beautiful. It held you when you came here. It has powered your life, in spite of your unbelief.
Every person who has ever had a near-death experience describes this energy we return to when we die in with similar language: warmth, gentleness, peace. It is never harsh, never scary and the people who describe these experiences never want to turn away from this Love and come back here.
Lots of musical artists have written and sung about it:
Think about it, there must be a higher love
Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above
Without it, life is wasted time
Look inside your heart, and I'll look inside mine. (Whitney Houston, Steve Winwood)
Sometimes it seems that the going is just too rough
And things go wrong no matter what I do
Now and then it seems that life is just too much
But you've got the love I need to see me through. (Florence and the Machine)
Painters have painted it, poets have tried to put words to it, the Love. It’s worth contemplating, wrestling with.
I don’t know what it is or where it came from or why it cares about me and you, but I have lived through so many mystical experiences now, read so many accounts, watched so many people move through the process of death, connected with so many people who have died that I understand I would be a fool not to trust in this thing. I know that if I didn’t maintain a sense of curiosity about this Love my life would be a hollow shell, a story that went from bad thing to bad thing and back around again to bad thing.
Part Three: You are amazing!
No one else, ever in the history of life, has had the same combination of genetic and environmental expression as you. You're not only a miracle, you're one of a kind.
A one of a kind miracle.
This thing, this life force, loving energy that wants you to have fun and do cool things and enjoy your life, it’s inside you.
I know there were no classes in this along the way and your parents may have glazed over this chapter, but there are some fundamental truths about life: you belong. You are worthy. You are enough. You are held and loved by a source of energy that powers life and desperately wants you to stop worrying and stop telling yourself stories that aren’t true and stop focusing on what might happen in the future and use that formidable mind of yours to create a good life.
I don’t know what else I can do to convince you of how much you matter, that simply being alive means you’re not an imposter, unless you’re an alien walking around disguised as a human, in which case you are, in fact, an imposter and please go back to your own planet, we have enough problems of our own.
Finale: In with the new.
I want you to visualize something.
Create in your mind the visual of loving, bright, warm energy. A glob or a blob of light, whatever works for you. It’s inviting, soft and kind and it’s right over there. It is waiting for you to let your shoulders drop. Exhale and walk over to this warm light and let it hold you. Just be with it. Let it hold you up. Let it seep into your body. Let it penetrate your heart. Just be held by this light, this force. Rest in it.
It feels good, doesn’t it? Do this before you fall asleep or when you wake up. Keep going to the light. Name your light something nice.
If you do this often enough what you will find is that it becomes part of you. You will eventually become one with the Light and you will carry it with you everywhere you go. And the gap between the truth that you are worthy and beloved and your feeling that you are an imposter will grow smaller and smaller as you allow the Love to become part of you.
And you can finally, for once and for all, lay down that heavy, heavy burden of unbelief in yourself.
And you can finally, fully do what you came here to do, which is to enjoy your life, explore this amazing world and grow in love.
Dear Melissa, I lost my precious husband Benno on 9/6 and really needed to read this today, thank you.
✨💖✨