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Self-actualization is the process of becoming all you can become.
Who is to argue that ultimately that is what we all need. Innately!
There are two non-physical needs, according to Margoczi in the Feelings book.
- The need to fulfill others’ expectations of us, and
- the need to fulfill our own expectations of ourselves. Ultimately, optimally, what we can do… the realistic expectations.
According to my observations, most of us confuse the two, collapse the two. And by confusing the two, we get trapped into some standards, some ideals, that are delusional, that are not accomplishable by who we are, even who we can become. They are way way too high… or different.
Innately, naturally we do not have any expectations of ourselves to become a millionaire, a billionaire, a president, or even pretty, or have six-pack abs. Our expectations of ourselves is to evolve ourselves to the level we can with what we have going for us.
The self that wants to fulfill our own expectation of ourselves is our real self.
The other self, the precious I self is the self that wants to fulfill others’ expectations of us. Societal norms, cultural norms, cultural hype. The shoulds. The have-tos. The need-tos. The wanting-tos… The not self.
The not-self. The not-self that is always frustrated, angry, disappointed in us. This not-self that is greedy, chasing mirages. The not-self that is always afraid. The not-self that is never happy longer than a fleeting moment.
That need to self-actualization is our soul’s desire… while our ego wants to own, to have and to control others through the not-self.
So the soul wants you to be happy, fulfilled, vibrant… and the ego suggests that the path to happiness etc. leads through possession, aka control.
For now, I’ll leave that second way alone… There is nothing there I can help with. Unless you lower your expectations, you cannot be happy.
The nature of reality is that everything comes from a root cause… and that is your beingness….
In this article I want to talk about the methodology, the process of self-realization…
in Kabbalah, an ancient body of knowledge, this process is called soul-correction.
A few months ago I wrote an article ‘No amount of paint will paint ugly beautiful’
I talk about visually ugly in that article. But the same principles apply to your inner ugly… and apply thus to your vibration, and your chances for becoming happy, healthy, wise, and fulfilled.
How? Why?
There are two ways to approach the idea of becoming beautiful, inside and outside.
One way, the popular way, the way everyone teaches is additive. This tells you to keep your eyes on the ideal, and start applying it on yourself. Fake it till you make it. Clothing, posture, makeup. maybe even plastic surgery. going to church, charity, good Samaritan acts. and for a few minutes here and there you’ll manage to look, to appear pretty. but for the most part nothing will change… You won’t change, and life won’t change.
This is what the collectors of memes on Pinterest or Facebook do… They read something pretty, or profound, or glorious and inspiring, and try to apply it onto themselves. On the top of the ugly, much like makeup on skin troubles.
They are disappointed with the results. Life doesn’t seem to cooperate in this scheme.
For example, People who wait for inspiration, who act only on inspiration, are increasing their inauthenticity every step of the way.
Inauthenticity is the distance, the gap, between your two selves.
We all have two selves, the public self and the private self.
The bigger the gap between the two selves the less chance we have for happiness, because happiness comes from self-love. Not narcissistic love, real love, acceptance of the two selves of each other. And who could love their ugly self, when the difference is almost unbridgeable…
Arthur Miller – Take One’s Life in One’s Arms
I think it’s a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one’s self.
One day the house smells of fresh bread, the next of smoke and blood.
One day you faint because the gardener cuts his finger off, within a week you’re climbing over corpses of children bombed in a subway.
What hope can there be if that is so?
I tried to die near the end of the war. The same dream returned each night until I dared not to go to sleep and grew quite ill.
I dreamed I had a child, and even in the dream I saw it was my life, and it was an idiot, and I ran away. But it always crept onto my lap again, clutched at my clothes.
Until I thought, if I could kiss it, whatever in it was my own, perhaps I could sleep. And I bent to its broken face, and it was horrible… but I kissed it.
I think one must finally take one’s life in one’s arms.
Arthur Miller
from the play After the Fall
Your one self knows the other self, sees it in action, and hates it.
So what can you do? I am talking to YOU… because chances are, this is where you are at.
Why am I so sure? Because every single human on this planet is inauthentic, because every single human has conflicting inclinations, and needs, and wants, and most of them are not pretty.
And every single human tries to hide the ugly, and show the beautiful face for public consumption.
I call that self the precious I… and it is a painted face… a mask, a façade.
If you are lucky, you have people in your life who love you in spite of your ugly self… and from time to time talk to you about it.
Lucky, in this case, means: it is brought out to the open and you have a chance to make some corrections. Soul correction.
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
If you are not lucky, and you don’t have anyone in your life who loves you enough to talk to you about your ugliness, then you are on your own…
…and instinctually you will keep on increasing the distance between the two selves, and hate yourself and hate your life.
The best TV show to illustrate this, to show the ugly face covered up, to make inauthenticity obvious, is The Closer (TV Series 2005–2012). This show, for someone who is curious about the human condition, is a real goldmine.
It is rare to see a show where the actor has higher vibration than the character, and plays it brilliantly. Kyra Sedgwick’s vibration is 190, while Brenda’s, the character’s is 100.
Another ‘strong female lead’ show I like is Madame Secretary where the character’s vibration is 200, while the actor’s is (Tea Leoni) 100.
It’s also interesting to note, that the male significant other in The Closer is played by an actor with 100 vibration: perfect match to Brenda’s character’s, while in Madame Secretary, the husband’s vibration is 200… and the actor’s vibration is also 200.
Rare are TV characters with high vibration…
…by the way. because a high vibration person is less prone to drama. and those no-drama characters are less attractive to the low vibration audience. The low vibration audience is attracted to characters of their own vibrational level.
There are many popular TV shows on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Shows that I am not attracted to. For example Breaking Bad… both the character and the actor has 100 vibration: nothing to learn from, 🙁
I often ask people what they watch, and decide if I want to associate with them by their answer.
I have recently watched the movie Lincoln with Daniel Day Lewis. Lincoln’s vibration is 300, while the actor’s only 200. And the movie got stuck on the 200 level: Daniel Day Lewis could not manage portraying the 300 vibration, so the character of Lincoln was stuck at 200. I was interesting to watch.
Now, how do you become a person who you can love?
Left to your own devices, you probably won’t.
Having a mentor, a coach, a spouse who lovingly helps you ‘prune‘ the bad stuff is the solution.
Most spouses will point out, in the heat of an arguments, what’s wrong with you… but the ‘lovingly’ is missing.
You behave like a spouse to yourself… you call yourself names, but the lovingly is not there! Lovingly, in this context would be ‘with compassion’…
And most spouses, point out what they hate in themselves… in you.
In general, you cannot see something you don’t recognize.
Recognize means: you have seen it before AND you have named it before.
Selfish, greedy, disrespectful, uncaring, not listening, lustful, addict… words like this…
And while you are like that yourself, you have little or no tolerance for the same in another.
Most everything I offer, the Starting Point Measurements, my coaching calls, whether they are a ‘What’s the truth about you‘ webinar, Playground, or a one-on-one call, are hard for anyone with a low TLB… They are not willing to look at their own shortcomings.
Sin
By the way, shortcoming is a great word, the closest to the Hebrew word from the Old Testament
The sense of the Hebrew word means: missing it. A coming up short. The word includes willful and accidental misses. When you willfully go against what you know is right. Or when you accidentally go against the divine order of things.
I am really bad at throwing anything… a ball, a Frisbee, anything. My throw muscles are weak… So if throwing a ball far enough to hit a tree were the proper and godly way to live, I would have a very low vibration.
But the word vibration refers to a spiritual/mental thing not physical, my vibration can be a high number.
In your human evolution journey, you’ll be asked to deal with your lowest vibration attitudes, your lowest vibration consciousness first.
For many, I learn, is entitlement and the resulting feelings of being slighted, resentment, fear, and playing weak to extort everything.
For me that was lying, gossiping, guilt and shame were the lowest. And just a hair higher were grief, blame, anger, and boastfulness.
In these lowest levels of consciousness Dr. David Hawkins ‘map of consciousness‘ is quite accurate…
But on the whole, David Hawkins’ map of consciousness has caused more inauthenticity and misery than most anything invented by a human, including the Bible.
The way to climb up the ladder of anything is to start where you are. In the case of consciousness, to conquer a shortcoming for its own sake. For the sake of overcoming. For the sake of removing a dot outside of the strait and narrow.
Adherents of Dr. David Hawkins look at a so-called high vibration consciousness, the word, and try to pretend to be that.
It’s a misery maker. Instant inauthenticity and self-hatred.
This exact same thing happens in every area of life. ‘They’ suggest that you create a goal, a vision, a mind-movie, a dream, a future you can covet.
The moment you do that your whole present become shameful, something to hide, something to cover up. Something wrong.
And covering up reality takes so much time and so much energy, that you cannot find any real energy to pursue anything worth pursuing…
It happens in smaller actions too, like reading… while you have a ‘vision’ or agenda for reading to get smarter, or to know more, you actually miss what you are reading… for ‘the idea of reading‘.
Sex for the idea of sex.
Fun for the idea of fun.
Enjoyment for the idea of enjoyment.
Anything you are not 100% present to, or present with is a SIN, a shortcoming, a missed opportunity, a ball falling short of its target.
So in the soul-correction model of self-realization, the ‘sin’ to correct is that you are looking at the goal instead of putting all power in all action. Meaning: being completely present to what you are doing.
Name calling is not necessary.
It is not bad, it is only ineffective.
The nature of reality is that when you put all effort into all action, you eventually hit your target.
Now, what about people who look at what to do with too narrow, too shallow cone of vision, and keep doing it, in spite of the activity not producing the hoped for results?
‘the worst thing in life is to get older and realize you got good at the wrong thing.’
Said in another way: being the kind of person who keeps on doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.
Never lifting their eyes from the ‘right thing’… that turns out the wrong thing, or just one thing.
The second worst thing in life is to get older and realize that you never got good at anything, except at avoiding making a choice.
The number of people who got caught in either of these ‘worst thing in life’ behaviors is 70% of humanity.
30% of humanity doesn’t engage in either… instead they are happy the way they are.
Which means: if you are striving to get better yourself, or get a better life for yourself, you are caught up in one of the ‘worst thing’ in life ways of doing life.
The coach’s job is to wake you up, and to help you to see your shortcoming… And help you correct it.
And if anyone tells you that it’s easy, or that it can be willed away, or removed by some energy practitioner, or any method, they are selling you snake oil: they want your money only, not what they claim they want for you.
So walk away.
And ultimately this is probably everyone, or nearly everyone: The pot calling the kettle black. Or the blind leading the blind.
How you do anything is how you do everything…
I coach mostly in groups in workshops. And I also offer a one-on-one solution in my Hero program.
You are only coachable if you are working on something, like a project. A project that has an end game, a specific measurable result.
Soul correction, or feeling better, or even increasing your integrity won’t qualify as a project: you actually need to work on something that you are building.
If you are not willing, then you can’t be coached.
If you have a project, preferably hard, then maybe the Hero program is for you.
Apply to the hero program
