The Inward Journey And How I See Me

 

How do we see ourselves? Whose eyes are we looking through to define who we are? More than likely, we are looking through the perceptions we learned from others based upon what was considered important to that group of people. On today’s show, Rebecca Victor shares her inward journey that gives us another option for understanding and experiencing who we are – an option that is more affirming and positive. Getting to know ourselves and seeing our value for who we are is important, but the inward journey to getting to know yourself is often neglected. Join Rebecca as she shares how she learned the gift of the inward journey and the positive impact it had and continues to have in her life.

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The Inward Journey And How I See Me

I want to talk a bit about how different we look when we turn inward, versus when we turn outward and look at the outer world for the purpose of identifying who we are. I don’t know about you, but I grew up learning about myself according to what I was being told, and where I was at the time that I was being told information. It started very small. I was a little girl. At one point, I was the youngest in the family until two others came after me. I was a member of a family. I was young in that family. It was hard to keep up. When you’ve got 7, 10 to 12-year difference between siblings, it is hard when our family history and family lineage is a part of, “This is who I am.”

I live in a particular neighborhood and thus, I have the qualities that are inherent in people who live in this neighborhood. I am a girl. I am of a particular religious tradition. Who and what I am was tied in and associated with that particular tradition. I began to see and identify myself according to what I was taught about myself from the vantage point of all those different elements. It began to grow. I went to school. All of a sudden, there were additional components added. From what I was being told, I surmised that I was either successful or not successful. Everything from, I was too talkative to not connected enough. It depended upon who was looking at me and what place. My whole sense of who I was, was wrapped in conditions and situations in my life.

I learned well that based upon what was considered positive in my society. It determined whether or not I considered myself successful and positive. If I was good with money, if I had a job, “That was one of those sought-after jobs that brought you money. Too bad, you’re not one who got into one of these jobs. This is the kind of job that gets the money. I’m sorry, the other ones don’t, but you’re out of luck.” It was like, “Okay.” Depending upon the job I took, it determined whether or not I had the value to have money. What the shape of my body was, what the clothing was that I wore, how I chose to express myself, the home I lived in determine how I was perceived, and that’s how I perceived myself.

Even though there was something inside of me that was aware that I’m not quite all these things that I’m perceiving, but yet I don’t have a better explanation for who I am. I don’t have any way of going, “Who is Rebecca?” I looked at all the different things around me. I don’t know what you do, or if you do this. I can’t help but think that maybe I’m not alone in this process. I gained my sense of identity and awareness of myself based upon all these different elements. It wasn’t until I began to turn inward that I realized there was something more about me than all these things that I had come to associate myself with. That was a profound awareness.

Let go of the stuff that came before in order to fully engage in this idea that you had the power within yourself. Click To Tweet

Process of Personal Discovery

I had done journaling. In my tween years is when I started journaling. My journaling at that time was more about the pain I was feeling and I would write. That was what it was about. There wasn’t a sense of being more at that time, as much as how do I release the pain that I was feeling. I would often write and then end up, I would call it gone until I came back into the room wherever I was. I hadn’t gone to sleep, but I was not present. I was somewhere else. I can’t tell you where I was because I don’t know. When I came back and became aware of the room, and the implement in my hand, I was quieter, calmer, and had gained more peace.

I continued to journal. I attempted a little bit of meditation here and there, but that didn’t work for me. The only thing I knew about meditation is that you were supposed to sit still, cross-legged or in a lotus position for hours. I was like, “Good luck there,” because I moved and to sit still was not going to work. I decided that I wanted to know more about where I was in my spiritual practice or what I had grown up in. I found that I didn’t want to participate in anymore. There were things that my soul was longing and searching for that I was not able to find in what I had been taught and practiced. I knew I needed to give myself permission to search, explore, question, and trust that in the process of that question, the source of my life that I was taught about was there for me.

What I loved was in this process of personal discovery, I found that I needed to move into therapy. Not because of turning inward because I know I need to do therapy, but because the best I could do at a job was three years, and I’d be bored out of my gourd and have to find another one. It’d be like, “I’ve been there, done this, learned that, fascinating. Next.” I’d do the same, “Learn, get all involved, do great. Now, I’m in that stride. Next.” It was always, “What is this every three years about?” I didn’t have a positive association with this every three years where I needed to move to find something new and different. I judged it rather harshly based upon what I picked up from what I was taught. I don’t know about you, but when people are sending me information where I’m picking that up, I pick and choose what I will use and how I will use it sometimes unconsciously. In other times, it comes in and I understand it to whatever degree I understand it. It affects my life experience.

I struggled to a great deal of degree because I couldn’t find that job that I wanted to stay at forever. Of course, that came out of a time where you had people staying in jobs for their entire career, but little did I know that was shifting and changing to where less and less people work at one job their entire life. Many people move between jobs. I didn’t realize that at the time, but I kept thinking that there was something wrong with me. I ended up in therapy thinking, “I need to find out because I can’t live like this anymore.” That was probably one of the best and scariest things I did because I’m thinking, “When I go in, they’re going to tell me that I need to be put away for 30 days.” Little did I realize that there were some reasons as to why I was going through what I was going through. There was information that I needed to help me understand what I was doing and how I was engaging.

 

As I began to learn, I began to understand and see myself with much more compassion and others with greater compassion. I could make different choices that would serve me better, that would support my feeling successful and happy in the world, and being able to stand and own what it is that I believe regardless of whether somebody else believes it or not, but to stand in that authority for me and owning it for me. Part of that journey called me to move in and learn about this idea that our thoughts have power. Our thoughts are energy. Energy is a malleable component, and consciousness can change energy.

I love that. I thought that was great. Learning about it was wonderful, but learning about it in my head and being able to embody and live it has been a lengthy process. I had to be able to let go of the stuff that came before in order to allow me to fully engage in this idea that I had power by how I chose to think and feel about something to affect my life.

Inward Journey

I decided that I would move into and become a spiritual practitioner. That was someone who would meet with individuals through the power of prayer, working almost like a discernment process with someone, assisting in the process of seeing something different that I could learn more for myself, and also be of service by teaching or sharing that to others. That required that I do more meditation. I learned that there are all kinds of ways to meditate. It was great for me because there were movement meditations. I was like, “I found something I could do that connected for me, that would allow me to deepen my connection naturally, and in a way that felt good to me.”

When I turned inward in the meditative process, I began to be introduced within to new understandings of life and of myself. It wasn’t necessarily while I was in meditation that this would unfold. Often in my meditation, it’s just quiet. It would be after I would go about my day or days, and all of a sudden things would rise up. I knew it was relative to that meditation or to what it is that I was seeking when I went into meditation if I was seeking something. It was a wonderful gift to see that give and take. Not take, but putting out there that intention, and then receiving the results of the intention that I set forth in my meditative practice. Part of that was discovering me. Am I all these things that I’ve grown up believing about myself? Is there something more about me?

The inward journey gave me the opportunity to let go of all the ideas that there were about me that I accepted, whether I agreed or not, and let them go. Be present in a moment as if I’m sitting on the banks of a river, watching the water go by. Just being present. As I began to engage in that inward journey, creating that space within ourselves that’s not cluttered with thoughts that keep moving. We got lots of thoughts that move through our minds, but we get the opportunity to focus on the quiet. Not so much focus on trying to get the thoughts to quiet down, but focus on the quiet that was there. As the thoughts would come by, I’d see them and I’d focus on the quiet again.

The value of who and what you are is far greater than what you are often aware of. Click To Tweet

In that moment, there created an awareness or an opening in me that enabled me to become aware of something more about me. That was powerful. I began to become aware in my journey, being led and guided into reading materials or literature, or listening to an audio on tape, or going to a group and listening as they talked, and being introduced to ideas and thoughts. When I heard them, they felt like spot-on. They felt like, “I like this. This feels spot on.” They felt engaging. There was an anchored feeling in me that I knew, “This feels right for me right now.” It would have mattered. There would be times I’d go to meetings and there would be friends with me, or go to listen to music and there would be friends with me, where I would say, “This was great.” where they’d be like, so-so.

It wasn’t for me to convince them or them to convince me. I found something I liked and because of that, it was an opportunity for me to decide, do I want to explore this further, learn more about it, see what I like about it, enjoy it, and let my friends find the thing that’s most meaningful for them? As I began to do that in quiet meditation and journaling, where I would do contemplative reading, thoughts and ideas would arise. That would ask me to consider, and not even ask, but would cause me to consider that the value of who and what I am is far greater than what I was often aware of, that there was tremendous beauty about me, that there was magnificence.

I remember when I first heard that or got that sense, there was a part of me that was like, “That’s cool,” and then a part of me was like, “Holy mackerel, my magnificence.” It felt so bizarre because I’d never heard or thought of myself as being magnificent. I felt like that was a little overkill. I still liked it, and I thought, “I wonder how that statement can be.” I began to pay attention to how that made me feel and learned to pay attention to the things that when I heard them, it felt better to me to spend time with. Through this internal journey, it’s the opportunity that I’ve had to learn to allow myself to embrace, not even to learn to allow. That idea is like a double-step learned to allow. I allow myself to live from the idea of my own magnificence, to feel that, to appreciate the beauty of my own being, and be aware that even as I’m experiencing that for myself, I’m not taking that away from anybody else.

If I could see it in me, it exists in everybody. It’s not my job to see that in somebody for somebody else. It’s my job to recognize what I see, acknowledge it, and appreciate that beauty. I don’t have the ability to step in and infringe on somebody else’s right about trying to get them to see what they may not want to see. That’s the same way for me. At that time, there was a time I was ready to say, “I want to see more about Rebecca that feels good, acknowledging, that speaks to my beauty and magnificence.” Give myself permission to own that concept, to be what a wonderful friend and coach calls me, “Rebecca the great.” I can remember when I was given that moniker by her. It was with mixed feelings like, “Wait a minute, Rebecca the great. That’s a neat name.” To own that, wear that, put that on, and bring it to life, versus Rebecca the one who doesn’t clean her house enough up. Rebecca the one who could lose about 20 pounds, and it would be much better for her. Rebecca, the one who needs to make sure that there are no weeds in her yard.

 

What Rebecca do I want to play with? How do I want to see myself? The Rebecca that could have done this and this, and what have this and this, but instead chose her path. What Rebecca do I want to pay attention to? What Rebecca do I want to nourish and feed? Whose image? Moving internally inward has given me the opportunity to begin to own that I am Rebecca the great, that I am Rebecca the beautiful, that I am Rebecca the magnificent.

It’s not a comparative thing. It’s got nothing to do with anyone else. As a matter of fact, if I stood next to someone, they would be whoever they are, the Great, the Beautiful, the Magnificent, in their own right. Am I willing to own it for me? What’s been amazing is creating this business that I have, being this entrepreneur has demanded of me, in order for me to be authentic to who I am, and in this experience, to start to own the things that diminished it, and then to let those things go. I was trying to find ways that I could give to the world and be safe, ways that I could give the things that I want to give, and make it so I wouldn’t fear people going, “Have you listened to this girl? Good Lord,” or think that I was “weird” or whatever.

As I’m paying attention to this coming up, it’s that realization of, “Whose Rebecca do I want to be? Do I want to be the Rebecca of someone who doesn’t understand what or wouldn’t agree with it, and diminished who I am because of something else said by somebody that probably would have been said or may? Who cares? What Rebecca? Do I want to connect with that Rebecca that I know within and bring her to life?” Bring Rebecca the great to life, bring Rebecca the beautiful to life, bring Rebecca the magnificent to life. It’s real in me. I know her. I know them all, all those qualities. That’s been a gift of this idea of turning within, listening, and paying attention.

Our Deepest Fear

There’s a wonderful poem written by Marianne Williamson. I believe she was a minister. She had a community in Detroit. She’s very well-known as a go-to person with regard to A Course in Miracles. She also took an opportunity and gave herself permission to step forward for being a Democratic candidate for the 2020 election. Some of you may know her from that. She wrote this poem, and it was called Our Deepest Fear. It says, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. For it is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.”

We cannot help another by stooping and moving backward in our understanding and growth just to make them feel better. Click To Tweet

I remember when I first read that, I was like, “Why would I ever be afraid of my magnificence? Why would I ever be afraid of being powerful beyond measure? Why would I ever be afraid of my own light, the light that rests?” I couldn’t fathom it. It was that question, “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?” It was like, “Is there a difference?” There was a time that in my mind, there was no difference. There is now but there wasn’t. That was the same with what I’m feeling here. It was like, “Who would be afraid of all these things, being powerful, having light, and all that?” I realized in the course of my journey, especially as a business owner, what it means for me at this time and it’s this.

In order to step forward to create that which I have come to create, that which I am passionate about living, I have to be willing to let go of the littleness that I’ve grown accustomed to, the littleness that I have been told that was mine over the course of my life, the littleness that I agreed to that many still agree to. To agree to it means that you belong. If I agree that I’m this, then I could participate in this group. To begin to stand out and own my own light, that light of life is mine – that’s me to celebrate that beauty, magnificence, and greatness. That takes me out of being among the group to standing out. That can be scary.

Standing out, there can be that sense of, “I’m an easy target.” I thought, “No. That could be it, but not really.” A lot of it was more about owning within myself and not having to look to another to validate what it is that I’m choosing to claim for me. I’m choosing to claim the beauty that is my birthright. I know what I come from. I know what I am part of. I know what is a part of every aspect of me, and it is something. For a lack of a better word, the thing I can call it is love. It is beautiful, creative, joyful, compassionate, and curious. It is all kinds of wonderful things that I get to own.

I’m grateful that during this journey of turning inward, this is what’s helping me do that one step at a time, one experience at a time, not all at once. If I were to sit down and try to eat an entire banquet table full of food, I might’ve enjoyed the first three bites, and then that would be it. I would not have the opportunity to embrace and relish the taste of the awareness of what it is to be loved to such a degree. The first thing that happens is an onrush of tears because it is so incredibly beautiful. Smile, laugh, to be, and then take from that point to live in the world, owning our power, light, magnificence, beauty, and greatness. Now, that’s something.

Seeing from the perspective of delight and wonder, instead of from feeling victimized. There’s a big difference. What I love and what I’m so grateful for is that no matter what degree I was feeling victimized within my own mind, there was always a step-by-step movement toward the better, toward that which felt better if I dared to follow it. The inward journey is what has given me this. It has given me the opportunity to share this with you. Believe me, sharing love and feeling about a lot of stuff, it is what it is. I’m evolving, growing, and liking it. I like what I get to be able to bring. Knowing that if 1 or 2 words touches any one person in a way that enables them to have faith in what they believe, who they are, what they are, and they know it and own it, that feels good.

Remember, if you’re interested in playing, and you don’t have to, we are all meant to shine, all of us. We can play in this world in wondrous ways. If we are daring and wanting so much to shine so bright, and to feel the joy and beauty of that, that it is truly okay to feel that way even though another is feeling insecure. We cannot help another by stooping and moving backward in our understanding and growth in order to make them feel better. What we can do is shine the lights that we are. When we see another struggling, know for them that they will find their way in a way that’s most appropriate for them. If there is something for us to do, that it will come forth easily and effortlessly. We will know. Thank you so much for taking some time to read about the idea of who are we, and what thoughts are we living from. Have a great day. With you I celebrate your life.