Stripped.
Have you ever considered who you would be if we took away all of your accomplishments, all of your possessions, all of the trinkets and things and gadgets and rings?
If you had no tangible way to measure your worth against that of another, would you then try to measure your virtues, your strengths or your talents. Suppose there was no way to attach any self worth to anything you have, or own, or have done or become.
How would you measure yourself then?
Imagine the confusion you would feel as the lifelong habits began to fall away. Would you feel anxious, uncertain and lost? Imagine how our world would change if in one shining moment, we lost our ability to judge our place in the herd, and instead had to value everyone as equal to ourselves.
After a period of adjustment, in which many tears would be shed, I think we would find a new reality that would shock us all with its majesty, its wonder and awe.
Imagine a world where we were all equal.
Not necessarily in our possessions, or our talents and skills. Not even in our character or our achievements. Simply equal in our value as a human being, without quantification or qualification.
A fully worthwhile member of our race, just by being one of us. Can you imagine how unique, and wonderful that would be?
And all we have to do to reach it is to see each of us as we really are.
I’ve been working on that over this past week, but primarily focused on myself. I am learning a new skill, one that is described as ‘detachment’. One of my newest mentors has written of the need to learn to let go of the need to attach our sense of worth to our accomplishments, with the understanding that once I can see the accomplishment for what it really could be, I will be able to progress through it without the fear of failing and the accompanying feelings of a loss of significance or value.
And I am finding this one incredibly difficult.
For so long, my sense of value has been attached to my abilities, my outcomes, my talents and my skills. To give those up as a ‘value judgment’ and instead allow myself to have value without the need to produce, or to excel, or to ‘be the best’ is proving to be much more difficult than I have ever considered. And I think I may have found out why.
Because underneath, I question that I have any value at all.
In seeking detachment, I find engagement. Not with the world, but with my own opinion of myself. Not the one that I know, but the one that I feel. In confronting my deepest opinions of myself, I am forced to examine my darkest beliefs, and face myself in the past, the present and in the future.
This is no easy thing to do, and I feel that I have struck out onto a new road on my journey. I am unaware of the direction, and I an uncertain of the outcome, but I feel the steps I am taking are in the right direction.
And I wonder. Who are you when you are stripped of everything? Would you like yourself then?
— Dr. Alan Barnes
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