“The Voice of Knowledge”

So it’s been forever since I’ve written anything. There’s times where I am SO inspired that I just can’t stop writing and I just write and write and write and could go on forever (like this sentence) and just get so excited and passionate about something. And then there’s other times, where I just go into this long (or short) writer’s block where even though lots of things inspire me and move me, I just can’t seem to get them out of feeling and into words to share with all of you reading this now. 

And that bothers me. But why? Why am I so hard on myself for no apparent reason? If I take a step back and look at the big picture, I’m on the right track. I’m a lot farther along than I was at this time last year, mentally and emotionally. Why can’t I focus on that? The positive? Don’t get me wrong, I literally attempt to drown myself in positivity daily whether it’s listening to a CD set from a millionaire or reading a self-development book or looking at a million dollar house or listening to Les Brown’s motivational videos or affirming positivity over my life and my families life.

And so one of these books that I’ve read before and recently picked up again by one of my favorite Author’s, Don Miguel Ruiz, called The Voice of Knowledge. Have you heard of it? Have you read anything from him? He’s amazing.

So something that stuck out to me this time majorly that I didn’t even remember reading from last time is an exemplary story speaking in first person from the time he (symbolically as humans) was born to the time of adulthood and how we come into this world so perfectly and harmoniously and how over time our minds and spirits become corrupted from outsiders. When we are babies, we are completely authentic. We are pure love because we don’t have any knowledge of anything besides instinct. As babies, we don’t know what we are and we really didn’t care. All we “felt” was love and connection to our caretakers.

One of his key points is that when we begin to understand language, we then begin to listen to people telling us what we are and we begin to see ourselves as such. We learn about ourselves by hearing the opinions of those around us. But you see, those people (adults) are storytellers. We create stories when we become mature enough to process “abstract concepts;” we begin to create these stories around the things we experience; for instance– right from wrong, good or bad, beautiful or ugly. We start to believe the things people say to us, based on their perceptions and their stories of us.

Then we get a little older, and he uses the example of when we go to school. Our teachers are an extension of our caretakers and they too, tell us what we are. But then… it begins… (even from our caretakers from very young ages)– they tell us the way we should be, a way that we are not. We agree with them because they are people we respect or look up to. And we begin to be inauthentic.

A parent or teacher may say to a child “You need to behave this way in order to be a good girl” and is interpreted to a child that if she does not act that way, then she is not a good child. So children begin to be what they are not in order to avoid the punishment and consequences OR to get the reward of acting a certain way.

He uses another example, “You have to work hard to become somebody,” a child will interpret that as in that moment, they are nobody.

Everything we begin to believe about ourselves, we are too slow, too fat, too this or too that, are ALL lies. And from each lie, another lie will be born and it’s a horrid domino effect. We believe these lies to be truth for ourselves from childhood to adulthood and until we become consciously aware that in essence, that judgement is NO more than a lie we decided somewhere along the way of growing up to believe.

Going into teenage years and adulthood, we no longer makes choices that are good for ourselves. No, it becomes more important to satisfy other people and their points of views.

“What I was told as a child is “Only God is perfect. All of God’s creation is perfect except humans.” At the same time, I was told that God put humans at the very top of creation. But how can humans be at the top of creation, when everything is perfect except humans? It didn’t make sense to me. After I grew up, I thought about the contradiction. This is not possible. If God is perfect, well, God is the one who creates everything. If I really believe in the perfection of God’s creation then I think that all of us are perfect or God is not perfect either.

 

I love and respect all of God’s creation.  How can I say, “God, you have created billions of people, and they are not perfect?” For me to say that I am not perfect or that you are not perfect is the greatest insult to God, from my point of view. If we don’t see the perfection, it’s because our attention is focused on the lie, on that image of perfection that we can never be. And how many of us give up trying to be the image of perfection, but in giving up we don’t go as warriors? We just accept that we are failures, that we will never make it, and we blame everything outside of us.” 

 

So how do we fix this? We choose our words VERY carefully. Your voice becomes your children’s inner critic and conscious. Choose positive, affirming words that lift them up and build them.

But first, it starts with US. Start declaring positive, affirming words to yourself! Don’t be so hard on yourself! You are just human! You were perfectly created by God and you are exactly where you are meant to be at this exact moment. You will grow and change and evolve and that’s all part of the beautiful perfect plan of your life. Our children can pickup intuitively how we view ourselves and how we view others and how we treat others and most importantly how we treat ourselves. 

I can be self-conscious over my body at times but when I look in the mirror when my daughter is present, you better believe I am loving myself and loving what God blessed me with. She will pick up on that. I don’t want her to be self-conscious like I was in high-school; I want her to look in the mirror at any given moment and LOVE herself; her legs and her feet and her knees and her hair and her eyes and her nose and her ears and everything else in between. Regardless of what the world may say or portray– she is perfect in God’s eyes and she was perfectly made. There were no mistakes in her creation, or ANYBODY’S creation at that. The only mistakes we believe about ourselves are lies we picked up along the way.

Let’s start changing those lies and bringing ourselves back to truth so that we may pass that on to our children.

I highly recommend reading “The Voice of Knowledge” by Don Miguel Ruiz. It will completely alter your perspectives in a more positive light.

Be blessed!

–Lindsey