Resolve To Be Worthful To Yourself First

All my actions in my life were done to prove i was worthy to other people. Whether it was the penthouse, cars…all these other things; it was about impressing other people and not filling the emptiness i had within myself.

– James R. Doty

(The story of James R. Doty is on the Making Sense podcast of Sam Harris.)

Like him, you could have everything you said you wanted to fill your life materially and yet you feel empty and miserable and feel as if you have nothing. You feel trapped in the cage of serving your biggest critic — yourself. You may not even know that it’s what you are doing when you act in the world.

You may be facing one of life’s most transformational paradoxes.

But if you can find the courage to surrender, detach and let go of the most valuable thing that you have always clung to — to justify your identity(whatever that is for you)- you will find your freedom from your biggest critic.

James found his freedom from his critic that way. In his words,

Before i had everything but ultimately i had nothing.But when i gave everything away. I had everything. The monkey was not on my back anymore that used to say i was not good enough or was not smart enough . But the act of giving all my money away when i had no money..it released me and liberated me. And i was free. Now i could be me. Whatever that was. Without worrying about what other people thought about me. That was freedom from my self critical self.

– James R. Doty

If you can’t fill your emptiness within yourself first nothing you achieve will fill you. You will never be free. You can either keep feeding your biggest fear that holds you back or surrender and follow the path that reveals itself when you let go of that fear and fall.

Image by John Hain from Pixabay

For me, that has meant to let go of the need to have a safe and steady job with a fancy job title irrespective of how that job makes me feel about myself. I have chosen to let go of that need for the security of social status and approval. I have chosen to accept that my life will unfold on the unchartered road of freedom instead of the tarmac of self-justification.

“Real freedom is freedom from your self.” — Michael Singer.

It’s the hardest thing I have done in my life but it’s the bravest I feel having done it. But by giving up that need to show the critic’s mind that you were good enough or by proving to that voice inside that you did not care for that voice, you can be liberated from that obligation to justify your self-worth.

James started a second life after that transformation that has made him ascent high into the cloud of compassion and service and brought him in touch with amazing spiritual teachers. But I see him as another great spiritual soldier in the army of compassion that is slowly spreading the compassion revolution around the world.

Coda

I know that there are a lot of suffering minds in the world right now. I have been there. I am one of them. But I hope these words and the example of James serve as a reassuring pointer to the mental freedom that is open to all of us. We just have to consistently seek it and willing to unconditionally surrender for it.

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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