Image: Gary Rosenberg
Will the Real Self Please Stand Up?!
by
Sarah Varcas
This alliance between Pluto and the Sun, coupled with a current square between Mars and Chiron, leaves few places to hide from how we’re feeling right now, which is fine if we’re feeling great but less so if we’re feeling thoroughly wretched! Of course there are many staging-posts between the two but wherever we find ourselves on the emotional continuum we need to accept and live it right now; embody it, not avoid or sidestep it, spacing out in whatever way works for us. This is a time of truth, of living who we are, not who we think we should be; a time of acceptance, patience and compassion for all the twists and turns of our emotional and spiritual lives.
It is hard not to judge our progress in life. We’re encouraged to do so virtually from day one, with targets for talking, walking, toileting, learning, thinking and on and on…there’s barely a moment in life that we’re not, in some way or other, being graded on our performance, by ourselves or other people. We compare ourselves to others, to our former self or even to an imaginary self we think we should be! Living under the microscope of constant evaluation can take its toll on our self esteem and gravely skew our self-view and that of the world around us. But more importantly than all that, it gives us false information which we take to be real and thereby diverts our attention from what really matters to what simply doesn’t matter at all, in any respect!
So what is this false information? It can be summed up in a single word: ‘should’. It is the notion that we should meet certain criteria to be worthy or acceptable, including the idea that if we’re on a spiritual path it will show itself in this way or that – we’ll begin to resemble a teacher we admire or a certain type of person because that’s what ‘being spiritual’ looks like. These are all assumptions which insidiously set down roots in our mind and then begin running the show. We start to compare ourselves to other people and perhaps feel inadequate in our practice or somehow flawed for still being human! If we’re not manifesting miracles every day, walking around in a bubble of light and enshrouded in deep peace 24/7 we may begin to wonder what went wrong because, after all, isn’t that how ‘spiritual’ people should be?! As this month begins the heavens are very clear with us on this: No! That’s not how spiritual people SHOULD be. It may be how some people are, but that’s their business not ours! The spiritual path is not about being someone else it’s about unbecoming who we thought we were to discover what lies beneath, in our spiritually naked self.
Each of us has our own path to walk and we simply cannot make any meaningful comparison between ours and another’s. It would be like comparing shoe size and deciding one size is more worthy than another! It makes no sense. We are who we are, feeling the way we feel, doing what we do and being who we are. That is the path. There is nothing else to do or be but that, fully and without guile. The rest of it is purely smoke and mirrors. So whatever we’re feeling now, as this new month gets into its stride, it is simply who we are and not to be judged according to how we think we should be feeling. If the bottom’s fallen out of our life but somehow we’re still smiling that’s fine. If everything’s coming up roses but we couldn’t crack a smile for a million pounds that’s fine too. Whether we’re at the end of our tether, somewhere at its middle or broken free from it completely, it’s all simply how it is. Our challenge is to add nothing else to it. To simply be that person who feels this way at this time and see what that’s like.
As this month progresses we may well discover traps we previously laid in the form of where we think we should be right now. We may find we are nowhere near the destination we had planned, not even close! But staying present to the truth of who we actually are and not the mental hype, will help us to be clear, stay strong and decide to step around rather than fall into them! This month we are invited to meet our real selves not the false variety. It may just be the best invitation we have ever received!
Sarah Varcas
