Nurturing Greatness

Just imagine how the world would be if we all were alive in our own greatness. Working on purpose, living in love and goodness, waking in the morning refreshed, joyful, eager to start our day full of health and happiness. Imagine spending your time doing things you love to do, with people you love to be around; learning, teaching, creating, enjoying.

And did you notice I said “greatness”? Not pretty-good-ness, or okay-ness, but greatness.

It’s one of the scariest things, the contemplation of our own potential greatness. Isn’t that strange? You’d think that we’d be champing at the bit to get there, but here we are instead, struggling to push the envelope of our okay-ness, or not-too-sucky-ness.

How do I know I am good enough? What makes me shine? How could I be great?

It’s so scary, we often can’t even imagine what it might look like. It’s so scary, we can barely figure out what we like, what we want.  Linus, in the Peanuts cartoon by Charles Schultz put it nicely, “There is no heavier burden than a great potential.”

Well, we have Creative Questions. That makes a huge difference. We can start by asking “Why am I good enough?” and then we can ask “How am I amazing? What makes me live on purpose?” And then we can ask, “How could I be great? Why would I be great? What makes me so great?”

How do you feel, asking those questions? Excited? Neutral? Bad?

When we remember that our emotions are our GPS pointing us to our path, we know what our Questions will be. If I feel neutral or even bad when I ponder my greatness, I may want to start asking some good Questions, reprogramming my unconscious mind with supportive, empowering questions.

I may want to ask Questions like, “How do I feel when I am great? What makes me great? How do I know what I want?”

Oh, yeah. How do I know what I want?  That is a question we start out asking. As infants, we know what we want, we just can’t articulate it very well. For many of us, as we get older, we learn to ignore what we want beyond material stuff. We may be told we are ridiculous for wanting that, or that we would only fail at it. Some of us decide we will show them, some of us give up, some of us decide to clean that stuff up, and just get on with growing up.

Sometimes, when we ask Questions like these, we find big resistance. We may get mad, or frustrated, and act that out by being dramatic. We may get depressed, and shut down, taking it out on ourselves. Sometimes we feel stuck or helpless, and that directs us to our power questions, Why am I strong? Why am I competent? What makes me capable?

I had the experience when I was young of being punished for being successful, so that’s one I have to be aware of. It’s much less strong now, and I like to think about it disappearing altogether. We often have stuff like that, hidden back in our youth. Resolving it will make stuff so much easier.

How have I changed from fearing my potential to nurturing my greatness?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 03292014

What did you like in today's contemplation? The idea of letting your greatness grow? Yeah, I like that, too. Would you be so kind as to + or share this? Thanks. Why are you amazing?