Today’s complexity harbors the potential for unprecedented positive change. In many ways we can transform humanity so that it is ultimately more human.
One of these beautiful seeds of change is the global movement towards the energy of the heart. I have been observing this turn for a long time and in diverse people. These are exceptionally good news, even in its still potential form.
To begin with, I want to take you to Cairo, where just before the lockdown in March I was invited to a women’s economic congress and experienced my private taste of this growing shift towards a life with more heart.
I already shared, in a previous article, that there we experienced a paradigm shift. It was revealing: with each speaker, we celebrated not only their personal success but also the positive impact their project had on the community. The energy of the group was a powerful sum of individual purposes perfectly enshrined in a fabric of common good. Personal success naturally coexisted with collective success. One could not be without the other.
That energy that I experienced in Egypt is the same that now moves so many people who no longer want to live a life disconnected from the dreams of their soul. For decades, there have been obvious signs that a life like this hurts us too much – see the constant crises of personal and professional reinvention that we all witness. Many are saying enough is enough and are taking action on the matter.
At the congress I was a speaker in the session “Unlock your self-confidence and show yourself authentically.” I shared 3 learnings from my particular journey towards authenticity. With love and honesty, they are the ones that seemed adequate to me even knowing that each one has their own path. Here they are.
First: we are all born magnificent. I love this word, which I knew not long ago. As I said in the talk, ‘magnificent’ is a word that fills your mouth with good and powerful sensations. We are born magnificent, but at the stroke of life we forget that magnificence and we disconnect each day a little more from the authenticity of our hearts. In serious cases of “forgetting”, we even come to believe that there is something wrong with us: something in our body, or our insufficient intelligence, or our way of seeing the world…. I will not continue.
What I shared in the room is that no, there is nothing wrong with us. That we are born magnificent, that this resides within us and that we can go and retrieve it when the time is right. Recovering that magnificence is, in addition, a path that will undoubtedly also lead you to your authenticity, a path that begins when you dare to go in search of your true treasure. Guess where it is stored?
Second: your circumstances do not define who you are. So many of us have had rather painful lives that we may still be rebuilding little by little. I know first-hand that the temptations to put yourself in a victim mode are enormous as years and therapies go by. I know of the danger of getting caught up in the discourse of a difficult life and thus subscribing to the cynicism or bitterness of how long it has cost us to survive. That is why I also know how important it is to remember that circumstances are not the ones that define our essence.
I am not my thoughts; I am not my circumstances. Circumstances will make us stronger or weaker; they will make things difficult or easy for us; they will open our hearts or they will close them tight. But we are far beyond and far above our circumstances.
Let’s repeat it to ourselves each time we bite the dust of negativity. With compassionate spirit and courage, we can transcend the past and be reborn in the genuine joy of being alive. Wise people of all times already warn us: “where you put your attention, there goes the energy and that is what will grow.” Where do you want to put your energy?
Third: embarking on the path of the heart has no turning back. I constantly verify that, if someone starts his/her own hero’s journey, which is none other than the journey towards his/her own essence, it is difficult to stop. Certainly, you will drift off course, experience desperate stops, often suffer from “one step forward, two step back.” And the trip may even take a lifetime, because as a good friend always says, “we are not Buddha yet.” But in the adventure of knowing who I am and how I can live my life with meaning, one begins and does not know when it ends.
And isn’t it much better this way? Kaizen philosophy applied to continuous improvement of oneself. In addition, the path of the heart often becomes a path of healing, even for those with placid lives who will surely also have wounds to heal. If all goes well, if we can overcome fear and dragons, and find the treasure that is our own essence, the healing will have taken us from a place called Fear to a beautiful place called Love. Who among us would not want to embark on such a journey?
So here are my 3 learnings about showing yourself to the world with your own voice: remembering that we are born magnificent, that we are much more than what our circumstances describe and that we can confidently undertake our own hero’s journey.
Let me close: without a doubt, the mind is wonderful, but alone it will not be able to cope with the challenges of the complexity that surrounds us. We must regain the balance of forces. Therefore, so many people are transforming to embrace the energy of the heart as well.
With respect for all paths, and beyond the uncertainties of the current moment, we need as much happy people the better. People who are no longer afraid of being, living and showing themselves from their authenticity.
As Wayne Dyer said in the movie The Change, “don’t die with your music inside you.” This may be the moment that life gives us to begin to listen to that music with greater attention and dare to take a few first dance steps along its swing.