I’ve always felt precious. My mother called me her precious daughter until the day she died. My father treats me as if I am a precious gift. My grandparents beheld me with preciousness in their gaze. My aunt and uncle speak of their brief time with me as precious. And I have always felt life is precious. That my relationship with Steve is precious. That my children are precious gifts to me.
So how can preciousness and unworthiness live in one being? Because we live in a dualistic world. We are both self and other. We are both light and dark. We are both divine and human. We are in duality. In duality, we develop our sense of self, our egos. Our ego serves to differentiate us from others. Only when we drop the veil of ego can we be one with all that is. Yet being human, we need differentiation to appreciate connection.
My parents perceived my divine light. And I knew myself as precious until I developed my ego. Then under the veil of ego, I felt separation from all that is and began to feel unworthy. I could no longer perceive my own divine light.
While cleaning a stained-glass lamp, it came to me. The inner light was dull due to the dust of time. Yet polishing the outside of the glass did little to increase the brightness of the light. I had to polish the inside of the glass. Only then did the light shine with its true brilliance.
Same with us. We work so hard polishing our outer selves. Perfecting our appearances, our bodies, our faces, our clothes, the cars we drive, the houses we live in, the people we hang out with, the money in the bank, the roles we play…lots of time polishing our outsides… Never quite good enough always striving for more. Thinner, younger, prettier, stronger, richer, more successful.
Yet until we dive deep within to rediscover our preciousness do we spend time polishing our inner selves. Removing the dust accumulated over the years…the childhood traumas we reflexively relive, the generational thinking we carry as karmic imprints, the old paradigm beliefs we are afraid to give up…until we polish our inner selves does our divine light shine brightly enough for us to see it reflected in the world. In the faces of our family and friends, in our works, in our connection with the earth, in all of our lives.