How to know you already have it all – despite what society tells you

We all seem to be missing something.

Things don’t work out, we don’t get what we want, and we end up frustrated or in some kind of emotional pain. This pain seems to be confirming that we really don’t have what we’ve been looking for. Something is missing that we just can’t find.

That’s the conventional wisdom, and it goes like this:  Pain and frustration indicate things that are missing from our lives. And the prescribed cure is to go out and get those missing things in order to be complete. The pain of having little money means we must go out and get more money. The pain of being single means we must go and get a partner. The pain of being overweight means we must get thin.

And how are we doing with all of this?

Still not happy.

You are frustrated because of what you have – not because of what you lack

So I want to propose a different philosophy. And it goes like this: The things that frustrate us are evidence not of what is missing in our lives but of what we already have – simply unrecognised. Our frustration is not because we lack something but because we are not living what we already are.

For instance, take writer’s block. Is it really a block – writing inspiration you are lacking – or is it an indication of a fullness that is trying to get your attention and which you are not recognising? You might be writing a short story when what is really trying to get out is a novel. The block is you saying, “I can’t write this short story!”, when your inner mind is saying, “Yes, that’s because we want to give you a whole novel, but you are insisting on staying small!”

Or what about being frustrated over your finances? Maybe it’s not because you’re earning too little in your job and you have to get the boss to pay you more – it’s because your inner wealth consciousness is trying to get you to stop limiting your income to a safe, monthly paycheck and to go out and start your own business. It’s the wealthy you that is calling you to express more of the wealth that you already are.

But that would be risky! It’s far easier to stay where you are than to own up to the fact that something is calling you to a risky greatness. That “something” is who you are already, simply unrecognised.

Do you want to have a healthy, attractive figure? You don’t need to diet to get it – because “it” isn’t outside of you. It’s already within you as the person who makes healthy eating choices and who fills inner voids with love and acceptance, not with fries and soda. It’s the slim you that is calling you to lose weight, not the overweight you.

You already have it all

Your discomfort is your innate greatness calling you to something bigger, more expansive, more fulfilling.

Don’t listen to what the advertisers tell you – there’s nothing you can buy or get that will bring true happiness and fulfilment. It’s all within you already. All you have to do is surrendering to that knowing and allow it to show you what it wants.

The acorn does not need to know how to be an oak tree – it just surrenders to the “oakness” inside it. It’s splitting open is not a sign of its error but of its unfoldment into its next greatest expression.

So, knowing this, how do you feel about your frustrations now? What greatness already within you is trying to find a way to express itself?

Write it down.

Then act on it – not to get it, but to express it.

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