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One of my favorite Eddie Murphy films is ‘Coming to America.’ While Murphy displayed an uncanny ability to pull off a cacophony of various characters throughout the film, it is his iconic portrayal of a poor man's lounge singer in Randy Watson that still causes me to have fits of combustable laughter just thinking of his filmed antics. His frustrated cover performance of Whitney Houston's ‘The Greatest Love of All’ with his band 'Sexual Chocolate' to a completely uninterested crowd remains the highlight of the film for me. Admittedly, the satirical subtext within that scene has become more profound within my spiritual sensibilities as I have grown older and wiser since the film's initial 1987 release. Like most comedians of a GENIUS level, their art is infused with deeper meaning, and self realized constructs than mere laughs and iconic characterizations.
In the film, Murphy plays a fictional Prince of unimaginable wealth, who seeks to find true love for WHO HE IS INSIDE; not because of his stature and position in life. And it is the Randy Watson debacle that is just one scene that underlines the theme of the film; that being one of SELF LOVE and self acceptance. The understanding that our entire worth is encapsulated by the simple fact we are all unique, gorgeous, brilliant emanations of Spirit. There is not one thing we have to do to prove that fact, other than simply being ourselves. And then share our own distinct form of the genius within (and is our constant co-pilot) with the world. Always and in ALWAYS!
And yet, as simple as all this sounds, most of us have turned against ourselves and become a world of destructive SELF TOUGH LOVE as well as our own worst enemy. How is it that we have become so damn hard on ourselves? Although we were born into a realm of unimaginable creative abundance, opportunity, and unlimited possibility, most of us live our lives as though we are part of "The Hunger Games." Our emotional moments are filled with thoughts of guilt, shame, regret, lack, cracked confidence and fear. We spend much more time in self judgement that self progression. Left unchecked, this form of energy can eventually lead to depression, anxiety, and isolation of every sort. And the cumulative effect of such thinking is causing us to play much smaller than we were ever meant to. It's causing us to neglect our individual Superhero's Journey to cling to some illusionary form of stability, rather than exploding into the iconoclastic luminaries we came here to BE!
There are many reasons for this paradigm shift in our sense of the SELF we choose to be rather than the SELF we truly are at our core. Influences from friends, family, the media, and social constructs that are now built around constant competition amongst ourselves. That's why a portion of The New Age Nerd's manifesto states we........
“commit daily to become ‘The Greatest Version of The Grandest Vision’ ever held of ourselves. In this way, we worry not about being better than others, but rather BEING better than we used to be.”
Like many writers, coaches, healers, and performers, I'm often susceptible to this epidemic of 'BEING TOO HARD ON MYSELF.' Most of us on this list are incredible sensitive and compassionate. We feel deeply and passionately for others and often find it quite challenging in discriminating and compartmentalizing between others pain and our own. Our greatest strengths can also become our greatest weaknesses.
So if you find that you could use some tweaking toward a greater sense of ‘The Greatest Love of All’, here are some tips to guide your way back to being at peace and a deep knowingness of WHO YOU REALLY ARE.
1. Look at everything in your life as a BLESSON.
Karen Salmansohn coined this phrase that I think is absolutely brilliant. In her words a BLESSON is “when you are able to view painful lessons as blessings. In other words, a BLESSON is what happens when you see the BLESSING in the painful LESSON that your challenge taught you.”
2. Remember Your Superhero's Journey.
Rather than espousing something new here, I thought I would use a portion from a past post that I believe perfectly encapsulates how the Hero's Journey can be one of the most powerful ways to channel our pain, challenges, and suffering into an incredible productive manner.
“But what absolutely struck at the core of my utter BEING was his explanation of what he has termed ‘The Hero's Journey’. And how everything that life brings us is no thing short of EXACTLY what we need in order to fulfill our purpose here on Earth. Of course I had heard of the Hero's Journey during my previous travels. But this time, I REALLY HEARD IT. Truly understood its meaning with a ferocity of acceptance and purposeful enlightenment. I wasn't a failure. In fact, ‘just the opposite’, I thought. If I had gone through THIS much suffering and pain so far in my life, then my Hero's Journey must be pretty big. I had always believed I was here to be a guide to assist others on their warriors path, but now, I KNEW IT. Big difference!
3. Remember Failure is an Illusion.
Did you know that it took Thomas Edison over 2,000 times to try and get the electric lightbulb to glow. Imagine how emotionally gut wrenching it must have been for him to invite his group of fellow inventors in to a room time and time again, only to ‘flip’ the switch that should have illuminated the bulb before them, only to experience.... NOTHING! NADA!
However, Edison had an incredible sense of his own connection to SOURCE. He famously told people that he NEVER actually failed at being unable to manipulate electricity. Instead, he reframed it by stating that every single time he flipped the switch and no light appeared, he actually succeeded at proving yet another way that electricity would not work. Has a light gone off in your noggin about how you can reframe any of your perceived present or future failures?!
4. Learn the difference between Being a Genius and HAVING A GENIUS.
This comes from a TED talk given by famous ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ author Elizabeth Gilbert. And it has radically changed my handling of creative self judgement in a BIG WAY. After Gilbert received a ginormous amount of acclaim and attention (Hello Oprah!) after the debut of her first book, she became fraught with paralyzing fear. She has stated, “the result of which means that everywhere I go now people treat me like I'm doomed... They come up to me now all worried and they say “aren't you afraid you are never going to be able to top that? I'm sure afraid you're going to keep writing for your whole life and you're never going to again be able to create a book for anybody in the world to care about at all, ever again?”.
She found solace from the world of Greek Myth, and the original meaning of GENIUS. Back in that timeframe, people did NOT believe that creativity came from human beings. People believed creativity was this DIVINE attendant Spirit that came to human beings from some distant and unknown SOURCE. The Romans were the first to label this type of spiritual muse from the ether a GENIUS. They live in and around us, and like a modern day UBER, available 24-7 to assist us in our creative intentions.
I call this Infinite Intelligence. Or SOURCE energy. Spirit. The I AM. As Gilbert now understands, the knowingness that she is simply the vessel through which Spirit chooses to speak takes off a lot of the pressure. Everything is a co-creation, and the way to ensure that you receive the assistance from the Infinite Intelligence that is accessible to us all is to have humility. And the belief that YOU ARE WORTHY to be used as a divine vessel for your own magical muse to work through!
Something I have to constantly remind myself is that life does not happen TO you. But rather
FOR you and through you. Everything is a blessing. It is so important to be at peace with what is. And to remember that you are a BLESSED and DIVINE creation.
There has never been anyone like you, and there NEVER will be again. We matter. We are all here for a purpose and being too hard on ourselves will only greatly reduce your ability and the time you have to share your LIGHT with the world!
Jeffrey Louis Martinez
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