What does it feel like to live an authentic life? I’m just learning, but I can tell you the more I move toward it the better my life feels, and the healthier I am in the world – with my family, my friends and the world at large. I can also tell you about what it looked like to live an inauthentic life. That’s what I’d been doing for most of my life, right up here into middle age.
My inauthentic life sure looked good from the outside. I had a comfortable childhood, went to college, got a great job and eventually a business of my own. I had a full social life, plenty of friends and fellas, travel and adventure. In my thirties I married and had two beautiful children.
There were many good times… but somehow at my center there was a hollowness I did not understand. That hollow center often left me either tired and depressed, or angry. Throughout the years I regularly reflected on my life and all its bounty, and couldn’t understand why I was not happier. My many and various attempts to find answers left me with plenty of tools, but no inner peace.
Then six years ago I spoke with Jennie and Spotted Eagle for the first time. I couldn’t imagine what they might have to teach me, by telephone no less. I expected some ‘airy-fairy’ gal, and what was this ‘spirit guide’ thing? What I got was Jennie, one of the most down-to earth people on the planet, and Spotted Eagle, chiming in when needed. I still don’t exactly ‘get’ what the deal with Spotted Eagle is. However, I believe I am a small part of something operating in the universe, greater than myself, and in my mind Spotted Eagle is my link to that.
Albert Einstein put it this way:
“A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.”
It seems that liberation from the self, perhaps counter-intuitively, requires a journey to our own authenticity, our true selves. The more authentically we live the more positive a force we can be in the world. Instead of fatigue, anger and depression there is vitality, joy and ease. How can that not be an improvement, for ourselves and for the world.
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The collective of authentic individuals are the answer to our systemic breakdowns. Thank you for bringing your part to the table.