by Tara Joyce | Feb 16, 2016 | Personal Branding, Self/Business Growth
Have you noticed — when you are living for the moment — you’re not attached to some fixed idea of who you are? In those moments of presence, you are you — you are nobody. There is no attachment to any idea of who you are.
In those moments, you experience ultimate freedom.
Our ego holds a powerful hold over us — and it causes us a lot of trouble. Situated in our lower mind, our ego is the part of our mental construct that needs for us to be a fixed thing, and one which is desirable and knowledgeable. Whereas our higher mind understands the freedom of being nobody, of needing no sense of fixed self. It knows the value of letting go of the desire to be desirable, and it accepts that our ignorance is our path to freedom.
Despite what our ego tells us, what we need is to be open and learn. What we do not need is to give into our desire to be seen as special. Only when we’re not attached to who we are, can we allow ourselves to be — and be seen.
photo credit: Chris Brown
by Tara Joyce | Apr 23, 2015 | Cultural Creativity
Perhaps you’ve had an experience similar to mine. I grew up believing I could DO anything. I was nurtured by the concept that everything I desired could be mine, if only I was willing to work for it.
What I did not understand, amid my action full of DOing, was this was not the whole story. Sure, I could try and do everything, and I might even impress myself in doing so, but without the other piece of the puzzle, this doing of mine lacked a real purpose.
I had learned to be full of self-esteem but I lacked self-love. I knew I could DO, but I couldn’t see nor appreciate the BEing behind it. I was the product of a cultural environment that emphasizes what you DO (the external) more than who you ARE (the internal).
We’ve been taught to believe that through DOing we are entitled to everything we desire. And while this sounds good and is partially true, it is an unbalanced approach that prevents us from recognizing that our value is far greater than the esteem-based DOing we’ve limited our self with, and tangled our self in. Without including the value of our BEing, we are leaving our self starving to receive recognition from others, for inside we haven’t learned about the true value we posses.
Without knowing the value of our BEing, we can’t help but be caught up in the esteem-based DOing — a DOing done not because we need to, but because we think we should. We can’t see another way to have the life we desire. And so we strive for outside power (beauty, money, status) more and more in an attempt to fulfill the thing we need more of. Love.
We wouldn’t need so much esteem if we had more love. Care, compassion, respect, value. We need them as much as we need beauty, money and status. One does not need to be pursued at the expense of the other. Through loving our self, we can create the esteem we desire.
photo credit: Caleb George
