Heeding - PowerPoint Presentation

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Heeding the Call Home(31 slides)Creatively compiled by Michael Farnworth Ed DSlide2

“The call”…to reclaim the self:Sometime in your life you will receive a call to return home…This call to return may come in the quite desperation of your soul’s fight for unity. It may come as an invitation from another who is on the path of selfhood or it may have bubble up in your own heart as a result of living a life that you know has not been your own.Slide3

The Pilgrimage...The call to return is a spiritual pilgrimage- a transformative adventure to a sacred place with in your Self, an inner kingdom that we have forfeited and lost.The adventure will be fraught with danger, peril, darkness and fear.The adventure will be filled with light, joy, happiness, fulfillment and contentment.It will forever change you.Slide4

Joseph Campbell in his book the Power of Myth has written: “Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our existence. And where we had thought to be all alone, we will be with all the world.”Slide5

But some, understandably, do not want to make the trip...“Romance and work are great diversions to keep you from dealing with yourself.” CherSlide6

There may be some of us that don’t want to be bothered by an inner journey and that is fine.But those who know there is something more to life than the shallow role playing served up by the culture it can be a great metaphorical adventure that forever changes you.Slide7

The fruits of the journey…Wisdom.This sacred adventure and journey will call forth the honesty of your selfhood.It will reveal not only your gifts but your limitations.It will invite you to honor your nature and protect your uniqueness.And as May Sarton teaches us: The adventure of recovering the true self will take “time, many years and places.”Slide8

Marcel Proust has said something very interesting about this personal adventure/journey...“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”Slide9

In other words, this inner journey is hard work and will take many years of patient attention. This adventure is not cheap. It will require your best intentions. It will call upon your courage and bravery to engage the demons of your past.It will be a first rate adventure.Slide10

The act of unfaithfulness that is found in turning away form the journey of self is costly...To be unfaithful to your true and original Self is an act of spiritual and relational harm and destructiveness.It keeps others and Self at bay and at a distance. Who hasn’t felt estranged and isolated from both?The true self is the only essence Life can change. That is why hypocrisy is so harmful. It is not real.Slide11

Hypocrisy, role-playing, hiding, being untrue and unfaithful is the ultimate betrayal of living life. Life can do nothing with us because we refuse to honestly engage it. We hide in fear. We remain a shriveled up version of who we really are. We remain false, fraudulent and deceptive.We cannot trust our self and others take their cue from us. Life can only offer in return our own dishonesty.Slide12

I have often said that our dishonesty is the most dangerous thing about us.Our dishonesty of self is the only thing we can offer others or offer Life.Slide13

The sacred nature of the adventure...This sacred adventure of the self is not to be confused with the trendy slogan of “finding yourself”.This psychologically popular preoccupation is often trite, superficial and self serving.So this issue needs to be explored a little more.Slide14

What do you think this statement by Oscar Wilde means?“Only the shallow know themselves.”Slide15

I think it means that those who have objectified themselves as a project to be worked upon miss the profound depth of who they really are.They substitute an objectified role-play, a psychological, superficial version of their socially constructed self that is in need of constant and vigilant grooming- depending upon the situation at hand.They are cursed with the plague of self-consciousness. They can never rest.Slide16

The issue of self-consciousness… some ideas from Thomas Moore“Self-consciousness is a sign that we haven’t yet learned to live from the soul”.“Self-understanding is not as important as living from the soul”.“The project of being a self is the surest way never to feel like a person”.Slide17

The Self-Consciousness Paradox...Have you ever tried your hand at acting?Were you any good?Many of us amateur actors stink because of our self-consciousness!We cannot quite give up our awareness that what we are doing is contrived and unreal

and thus we are unbelievable.

Self consciousness equals poor acting.Slide18

I know my excursions into acting were a miserable and uncomfortable failure. I was the psychologist in Harvey for our community play mill many years ago. I could never get over the hurdle of being my own worst critic and reviewer. It was like I was hovering above myself the entire play and was unmerciful in my critique.Slide19

Maybe the same is true in Living life ...To be able to live your life and to be genuinely yourself is a wonderfully un-self-conscious act.But the same unconscious state cannot be found by those that are acting their life as a persona, a role, an image.

The curse of self-conscious plagues those of us who have been pushed off the path of selfhood.

We are constantly hovering above our self in social situations playing the critic and detractor.Slide20

Living your Life as a persona (role-play) ...Living life as a persona, in some ways you can be on automatic pilot.Energies that make you uncomfortable are simply ignored and shut

down.

Control and power over situations and others become paramount.

You care

very much about being right and never being wrong.

Life

can become somewhat

unauthentic and boring.Slide21

To break out...The first step in breaking out of the persona is to awaken to the dishonesty and fraud that may be in your life.This waking up- is the consciousness that helps to destroy the acting out of the persona.The awakening is a painful and often lonely. It can be a fear filled undertaking which confronts us with our personal demons.That is why many of us turn away from the journey. We just aren’t ready for the confrontation yet. Slide22

Beware of “finding one’s self in this culture”...As it is often a short psychological jaunt that, as often as not, results in reinforcing the current paradigm of reality in such a way as to make the person more sophisticated in their persona and more defended to actual change. Intellectualism is no substitute for the sacred adventure and journey of reclaiming the true self.Slide23

Some characteristics of living the life of the authentic self...The person is tuned into their energies and honor them at every turn.There responses are genuine but kind.Their self-consciousness is absent because they are not tuned in to managing the impressions given to others.They live life freely as the sacred gift that it is and have confidence before others and themselves.Slide24

Following your Bliss...Following your bliss is to follow your heart. It means being true to the nature and gifts of the self in such a way as to bring joy, happiness and bliss to your soul.It is the key to living a life of meaning and purpose. The life that is wanting to live in you needs to be honored! Your life. Your bliss. Your gifts.Slide25

Redemption of the self...The adventure of self requires a surrendering and a giving up of any preconceived and controlling agendas that you may have created for yourself.You must be willing to give up your contrived life and meekly submit to the pilgrimage of the soul.It may well be the most difficult thing you ever attempt.Slide26

“ish” revisitedIf being self-ish is reflective of this sacred pilgrimage to Life and the surrendering of false selves for our true ones then let us claim the label as being indicative of our having awakened to the value of living a life that is true.Being congruent is having the qualities, attributes and traits of a self grounded in living Life.Slide27

The Inner Life...The inner life becomes the eventual result of living the life that is wanting to live within you. Learning to honor and attending to it, is what your inner kingdom and sanctuary invites. Embracing yourself in compassion and love, even as a wounded soul, is at the core of your awakening.Slide28

The developmental issue:If we try to be ourselves without first surrendering to our own histories of what happened to us… then we will end up incongruent and dishonest people too often full of self-righteousness and vanity that we hope protects us from our real fears.The only self worth having is found in living a grounded Life and that self will claim nothing in relation to it’s self but the goodness of others. The ‘ish’ of this self is of sacred origins.Slide29

My personal opinion…Our culture may not want us to have a sense of self because if we did we would be differentiated, mature and independent. In a word, we would be adults and as adults we would not be children– which would cause all sorts of inconveniences for the cultural authorities.The culture has an investment to keep us as children.Slide30

The dilemma now facing us is one of readiness. Are we ready to take the next step and start reclaiming and owning our own unique qualities and histories that truly make us one in a million?To which that ish of self stands patiently waiting to be claimed and welcomed home.Slide31

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