The Power of Knowing Your True Self

The Union Path Podcast

The Power of Knowing Your True Self
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The path to knowing ourselves, to really knowing ourselves, knowing who and what we really are, knowing what we're really made of, where we really came from, where we really want to go, why we're here, what we're here to do, what full, true, honest self-expression really looks like, it can be a multi-layered process.

It can take a long time to really untangle. Can take a lot of effort to really explore, to really know. But for many of us, for most of us, perhaps all of us, this is our path. At a fundamental level, this is what we're here to do. Because if we all have a purpose, we all have a reason for being. We all have things that ostensibly we are here to get.

Then really the only way to do it in any reliable way is to actually know what this is. First, we can find ourselves doing it on accident. We can find times in our life where we're really aligned. We're really thriving. We're really growing into more full, more powerful, more true versions of our. But the root of any long-term sustainable progress has to lie knowing.

To put it simply, in order to get to any particular destination, we have to know where we're trying to go. And of course, that knowing is often revealed along the way. So many times we set out to get one place, but find ourselves instead, arriving in another. When we get to that place where we really belong, we get to that place where we're really meant to be,at some point in that journey, it becomes clear. At some point in that journey, even if we have a hunch, we have an idea, we're following some clues at some point, that knowing locks in, that knowing becomes real. But it's on these journeys that we often really find the answers to these questions. Really start to get to the bottom of who and what we really are, what we really want, and then can juxtapose that with the person we've been being, the decisions we've been making, the course of action we've been choosing.

Then ask ourselves, is there a fit here? Does this feel right? Does this actually make sense for. And oftentimes this clarity, this gift of knowing can be born out of frustration, can be born out of disappointment, can be born out of struggle and strife and pain. We can find this clarity, a gift left in the wreckage of some circumstances of our life.

We can find that once the smoke clears, once we can really survey the damage. What's really been left behind is something more fundamental, something more real, that oftentimes what fails us is only the surface layer is only the superficial and our walking existence. This often ends up being the physical reality we find ourselves.

In this wreckage, in this damage, or even in this frustration or stagnation, even in conflict. Even in in discomfort, we can find there's something else underneath this, some knowing that's waiting for us to discover that the next piece we've been looking for had to be uncovered. There's some sort of a clearing process that we had to have some expectations, some achievements, some progress seemingly swept away so that we can see something a little more real, a little more true lying underneath.

But this isn't easy process. This can be a very grueling process. This task, this job of self-awareness, of self-knowing oftentimes isn't for the faint of heart. It isn't easy. It isn't simple. Often till the end, it isn't obvious. But when that knowing clicks in, when we really lock in to a sense of knowing about ourselves.

We do find our path does get easier. Oftentimes, it's the confusion and the conflict that makes our path difficult. It's not so much what we're doing or even how we're doing it, it's the felt response that we experience along the way. It's these feelings that. Get conjured through our interactions, through our experiences that really color what something is to us.

It's going to be a really difficult lesson to learn and then integrate that. The specifics of what we do, the specifics of even what happens to us might not matter as much as we think they do. Because we've all experienced it, right? That we can do the exact same thing, but if we do it in a different way, we do it with a different perspective, we do it in different surroundings,experience can be totally different. We can be working in some job that really isn't fulfilling, really is very frustrating. We can switch jobs, do something basically the same of what we're doing before because the environment has changed or because our reasons for doing it have changed. Our feelings about what we're doing, what we're feeding into, what we're growing, what we're creating have changed.

The experience can be totally different. When work is involved, I think we've all experienced the idea that it's not so much what we're doing, it ends up being much more whom are we doing it with? Whom are we doing it for? What are we really a part of? What are we really creating? What does it really feel like in our logical, rational planning minds, in our linear ways of thinking about our life, can really present some unique challenges.

Think of the way we talk to kids, especially when it comes to something like career. We seem to spend a lot of time instructing them and guiding them and picking the right job title or picking the right company or product or service. We don't really ever talk about what they're actually doing.

We don't really talk about is there a sense of meaning? Is there a sense of congruence? A fit of oneness with what they're choosing? And this gets really complicated because I think it's impossible to do this on a large scale. It's impossible to even do this on a medium scale. You can't really give any particular group of people a formula, have them all follow it and achieve the same sorts of ends.

We see this all the time. We see this all the time with groups that run through the same sorts of programming, through the same sorts of curriculum, through the same sorts of organizational structures, the same sorts of preparation, and yet can create wildly different results. It's so easy to think about people only in terms of groups when the job we're tasked with is oversight and management of a group.

It can feel way too complicated to have to think about every member of a group as an individual, if that's what they are. We can only think of groups in terms of averages, in aggregates, but in doing so, we lose a level of accuracy. We lose a level of acuity because individuals get diluted, get merged, get some together into a whole.

Yet everyone's life experience is individual. There actually is no such thing as a group experience. All experience is individual. All experience is internal. And of course there can be shared experience. There can be a lot of commonality in the individual experiences that people have yet all experience is individual.

There's no such thing as group feeling. There's no such thing as group sensation. There's no such thing as a group sensory organ. Everything is experienced and that's interpreted in integrated individually. But when we're in the role of leading a group, when we're in charge of a group, that can seem like an overly daunting task to have to customize and individualize everything we do for every member of the group.

But that's not really our responsibility. That's not really our responsibility to make a group do any particular thing. I would say I believe that our main responsibility is to equip and enable individuals to make the best decisions for themselves. Give individuals the tools to know themselves. Give individuals the tools to see the world and see life for what it really is.

Be able to understand who and what they really are, what the world really is, and use their knowing, use their feeling, use their experience, use their own sensation. Use their own desire, use their own guidance to find their way. And I bring this up not as general criticism of our education system, not as a criticism of the way we bring up kids in our culture, I bring it up as adults we have the opportunity to look back at the ways that we were raised on the groups we were part of, on the ways we were managed and steered, and then decide for ourselves what actually makes sense for us. Decide for ourselves how we can thrive as an individual.

We can thrive as an individual by seizing our own freedom and also through finding our place in this grand collective of existence that we find ourselves in. But the only way we can do this is to really know ourselves. First, is break out of these ideas of group membership, of group identification, and look at ourselves individually. Because the only power we really have in our own lives is individual.

Yes, we can absolutely use our individual power to work with a group. There's nothing wrong or bad about groups. Groups are necessary often to get things done, especially in areas that serve other groups. But I think it's really important to remember, I think it's vital to remember ourselves, ourselves as an individual, holding that imbalance with whatever groups we participate.

And when it comes to something like work defining our place in the working world, these ideas can get highly nuanced, be a lot of layers to them. They can get pretty complicated because inherently any form of work is participation and contribution to a group, even if we work for ourselves. Anyone that purchases what we do, anyone that supports us is a member of a group.

That's one of the funny ironies though, that's one of the funny paradoxes in all of this is the better we know ourselves, the more we align with who and what we really are, the better that service, whatever group we serve gets. When we stop trying to be something we're not, our service becomes far more powerful, far more useful because it comes from a deeper place.

It integrates more parts of ourselves than usually just the parts of us trying to get something done, trying to achieve something, trying to make some sort of ends. There's nothing wrong with obligation to ends sometimes. That's where we find ourselves. If we need to make the rent payment, we need to make the rent payment.

There's no spiritual exclusion for the necessities and the responsibilities of our daily life. That's not what we're trying to do. We're not trying to replace our responsibilities and our duties. Their own spiritual awareness and our spiritual growth. We're trying to bring these things into union.

We're trying to utilize who and what we really are in service of what we need to do. We want to be able to bring our full selves into all of our duties and obligations. This is our life and we want to live it fully. We want to live it through the most full version of ourselves. We want to live it through the most true version of ourselves.

The most integrated, the most full parts of ourselves. This can be very difficult. This can be very difficult when our duties and obligations seem to fly in the face of our growing self-awareness, we can find ourselves in what feels like a very uncomfortable conflict where especially if we've been doing something for a long time, we've built up a momentum and a trajectory and a history,

of doing a certain thing and we've decided that certain thing doesn't actually serve us that much and we're not really sure that we're providing the best service to others either. We feel like we've perhaps squandered a bit our creative abilities because we're not going into it with our full selves. We're going into it trying to extract something and that's missing the opportunity to fully create.

This is really difficult. This is a hard path to walk because especially when it comes to ideas like work, if we want to find a new or a different job, well, everything we apply for will be predicated on a momentum and a history. If we're stuck in the conflict of wanting change, wanting to do something different, well, how do we do it?

How do we do something different when we don't have any momentum or any history to achieve it? More importantly, how do we do something different when we have a life to support? We have relationships, we have responsibilities. We have bills, we have a mortgage, we have rent, we have family. We have a car payment.

We have all the necessities of life of duty and an obligation that can feel intractable. And so this desire for change can feel like a bit of a quagmire. Like how do we, how do we do something different that doesn't really even seem possible? How do I shift my trajectory to something new when I feel I can't afford to start over?

And honesty, I can't even afford to take one step back. I don't feel like I can lose anything right now. This, how on earth can I actually change? How can I risk to do something different? These are all very good questions. This is all very real. This is all, these are all also very common feelings, very common circumstances.

It's very easy to walk a path of life in order to be able to achieve some specific ends in order to afford some sort of life that we've pictured for ourselves. And then when we do, when we find that that really isn't as sustaining as we thought it was, or things aren't exactly how we thought they would be to experience them, then what a way to do, how do we change from that?

It's really easy to talk about growth and change when there are no stakes, there's no risk. But oftentimes where the stakes are highest and the risk seems greatest, those could be the most important changes for us to make. Because after all, we wouldn't really perceive these risks, we wouldn't really feel this danger if the change wasn't important to us, wouldn't even really entertain those thoughts. We just reject them out of why would I change? Things are good and a thought would just floated away. But if instead we find ourself in a place where part of us really desires change, but our life doesn't really seem to offer access to that right now, that doesn't really seem possible, it may feel a little trapped, a little stuck by a current set of duty and obligations. Or what do we do, especially if we've been really goal focused. If we've defined a very clear path of clear vision for ourselves, and we've executed that with sticktuitiveness and resilience and pluck and determination, how do we bring that same sort of thinking?

It's making the change that we really want to change to the change that perhaps in some ways feels calling to us. Like this persistent urge, this persistent itch, this persistent discomfort, that we know needs to be reconciled. Well, a simple answer is, the unsatisfying answer is, well, it starts with us.

Everything starts with us. We are the headwaters of the stream of our lives. We are the initiators, we are the generators, and we can seize this power whenever we wish. But because this power is not material, this power is not circumstantial, it doesn't magically change material or circumstantial aspects of our life instantly. The material and the circumstantial is the accumulation of the life that we've lived thus far.

And when we find ourself with a particular set of material and circumstantial needs, these aren't things we can just flip a switch and automatically change. So this part of us that believes that our circumstances and material needs entrap us into a certain course of action, well, short term, that's often true.

It's one of the areas of spiritual awareness that can be kind of a bummer at first. Is this feels so powerful, this feels so life changing, but it can't do everything. It definitely can't do everything instantaneously. But that's not the point, that's looking through life through only a physical material circumstantial lens, when through our spiritual awareness, we know there's way more going on.

Again, it's way more about how our experience feels to us than our physical material, circumstantial reality. Our life ultimately, at the base level, is whatever it feels like to experience. Such a funny thing to stumble on, at the bottom of a lot of this awareness, a lot of this learning, a lot of this paying attention is, wait a minute, it's all just feelings, really? That's it? Yeah. Mostly.

We sit down and ask ourselves, why do we want anything? Ultimately, why do we do anything? I believe is to feel a certain way, that's it.

Now, obviously, that feeling has infinite layers of depth, has myriad possible ways that it can be experienced. It's as wide as we can imagine, it's as deep as we can imagine, but that's life. Life is feeling underneath all. And even for the most rational, logical thinking person in the world, what is all that, rationality and logic and thinking, creating? You get underneath all that thinking, all that logic, what's underneath all of it, it feels a certain way, doesn't it? Even for the most emotional, expressive, gregarious, melancholy person in the world, all those emotions, all that expression feels a certain way.

It's the feeling that we lock onto. Our strongest memories are the ones associated with the strongest feeling. Our greatest achievements are the achievements imbued with the strongest feeling. Our greatest wisdom, our greatest knowledge, our greatest knowing are the ones that possess the deepest, truest, most real feeling.

It's feeling underneath everything. Feeling is how we interpret energy, and energy is life. Life is growth and change, and growth and change is the expression of energy. And the more conscious of this we are, the more conscious of what our own energy is, what our own feeling is, the more depth and breadth we can bring to our own life. The more we realize that it isn't so much the circumstance or the physical situation itself, it's far more what does it feel like?

And when we get underneath, when we really learn this, when we can really feel this, we can really know this, then our life starts to change. Because we can use this feeling, it's the guidance we've been looking for. We can use our own desires, our own repulsions, our own joy, our own pain, our own delight, our own disappointment to inform what all this means, what all this is when we know ourselves is both thinking and feeling. Both personality and true essence. Both superficial and material as well as who we are deep at our core. On a fundamental level, we really get to know our whole selves, what we really are from top to bottom, inside and out. And these decisions may not get any easier, but they're definitely better informed.

There's definitely far less confusion. Things get a lot more simple. Doesn't mean there aren't risks, doesn't mean there aren't challenges. Doesn't mean there won't be more suffering in the future, but it does mean that things are a lot more clear. There's a calm in that there's a peace in that even if we don't love our choices, at least we're not confused.

At least we're not lost. We found our way home and we found our way home through the wholeness of ourselves. This is often a long process, can be a very long process, stretch into decades or more, but every step we take is. It isn't an all or nothing. We don't start to reap benefits and see change in our life when we've completed something.

All those benefits, all that change is metered in over time and that's why we pursue it. That's why it's worthwhile to start, because that also starts that change coming in. So if we find ourselves a bit trapped, a bit walled in by our current circumstance and our own physical material obligations and needs, then this is the perfect time to get underneath and use this awareness of feeling, use this awareness of how we've been making choices in relation to how they end up feeling.

We can use this to begin to resolve conflicts like have we been being a person that's not really us? Have we been doing things that aren't who we really are? Have we been striving after things. we don't feel like they've actually been for us? And with these awarenesses, how can we realign?

It may not mean we have to actually change anything about what we're doing. What we really need to change is the expression in the person we're being while we're doing it. It may mean we actually need to make some pretty radical changes. We've found ourselves doing something that we have really no interest or no business continuing to do at all. We can find our way out of that as well.

We're starting to get underneath and starting to look at how these things. What do we know about ourselves? If something is unclear and we need to look a little deeper, there's something else that we need to understand. But wherever we are, whatever step we're on, the next step will be illuminated through our own awareness.

We can find our way out by finding our way through, and we can find our way through by learning as much about ourselves, much about who we really are, what we really are as an individual, and then figure out what contribution to the collective feels like us. These feelings are inescapable, we're going to have them. And of course we can learn to suppress and repress them, but then that leads us astray further, that just cuts off one of our main guidance signals, which usually ends up with us being more confused or more lost. This confusion in the sense of being lost is an invitation to find our way back is an invitation to let this suppression and repression go, let ourselves flow and let our feelings.

If this has been pent up for a while, this could be pretty overwhelming at first, but it's there to help us. And if we find ourselves in the circumstance where there's no obvious change available, when it's not so much of being physically limited by something, but it's really more I don't know what to do, I don't know what to try, I don't know where to go. Well, that's a perfect time to work on unblocking some of that feeling. Let those feelings emerge and rise up. To answer your question, to clarify your path, to clarify your imagined future, to clarify your past, invite the feeling in, let it show you what it can.

Let it fill in the details of what it can. Find your way through your life by feeling your way through. Feeling as deeply as you can, getting underneath thinking and biases and beliefs, and just feel. You can run all that feeling through whatever filters you want, you can apply whatever beliefs and interpretation and a meaning you want.

We need to be able to feel it first. We need to allow it to rise up and run through you first. And when you find yourself stuck or frustrated or trapped, especially through the duties and obligations and responsibilities of modern daily life, it's these feelings that can illuminate the subtle changes necessary to realign, to learn how to be more of who you really are, and to spend less time being who you really aren't. On encouraging you to pursue the things you actually want to do, and let go of the fear of letting go of things, in all honesty, you really don't. Tune into these feelings and let them, let them guide you. And of course, you can still use all of your discernment, all of your thinking, all of your judgment, all of your beliefs to assist in this process. Like anything else, this isn't a one or the other, it's, it's both. But if you haven't already, try a bit to let your feelings lead. Give them a little bit of space. Allow them to show up for you. Allow them to inform you. Allow them to help you know who you really are, what you really want, and where your life really feels and needs to go. Then use all of the other powers at your disposal to attempt to walk that path, but doing so in alignment. Doing so with the same energy, the same spirit, the same feeling that you're guided to in the first place.

Walk through your life as a whole being, thinking and feeling, and see where that takes you. See where that gets you. Let this feeling allow you to spot previously unknown conflicts. Use this feeling to help you know where you're out of alignment, out of balance. Use this feeling to let you know any sort of untruth or deception in your life, whether you're being deceived, whether you're being the deceiver.

Use the feeling to know the truth, because your feelings are always telling you the truth. Getting this truth might require a fair amount of interpretation, especially if strong feelings come up. But that's the beauty of sitting with them, when you know you'll know. We don't have to just grasp on to the first idea that comes to mind.

We can sit with feelings, and wait for the knowing that is a match. We can wait to know until we do know. And when we go through life with more feeling, when we go through life knowing ourselves, as a living, breathing feeling person, then our path will emerge. Our path will emerge one step at a time. Our path will emerge through new visions of ourselves, new ideas for ourselves, new beliefs about ourselves.

We have to be willing to feel first. We have to be willing to trust our feelings first. And so whatever step we are in that process, that's where we are. However we feel out of alignment with ourselves, our next step is finding more alignment. And it all starts with knowing who and what we really are. It all starts with getting in touch with our entire selves.

And when we do, and we can really be honest about it, honest about what we really want, honest about what we really want to feel, what what we want our lives to be, on a sustainable, durable basis, then we can walk into our lives with that awareness. We can walk into our lives with that energy. If what we're seeking is wholeness, it's wholeness that we will find.

It may not come quickly, most definitely doesn't usually come easily, but that's our path. We live the life that's ours by knowing who and what we really are, by experiencing our life fully feelings and all, and making the best choices, the best steps that we can from that awareness.