Refuse An Un-Examined Life

Let us examine ourselves and our lives. In-depth. Up-close. Let us fling open wide a window… to the terrain that lies within us. Let us create a genuine intimacy with the self.

Let us cultivate that genuine, meaningful intimacy with the self that we are so craving, every one of us. For it’s true that, even while having no idea of it, we are craving “in-to-me-see.”

We are dying to be seen in to… above all by our very own selves.

We are dying to be known. To be born witness to. To be held space for. To be acknowledged. To be reckoned with.

We are—every one of us—dying to be honored. And aching to be loved. By our very own self, above all.

We are dying to be seen in to… and to be seen through.

We are dying to be seen, period. To be seen in our one-of-a-kind truth, in our unique magic, and in the sparkling, crystalline clarity of who we truly are.

We are dying to be caught in the act… of our shenanigans and our lurking shadows. We are dying to be revealed, in our shadiness and shiftiness... These qualities so thoroughly denied and disavowed by us. And yet looming there loudly, for anyone to behold.

We are dying to be exposed… in our shortcomings and our $hittyness. We are dying for unbridled, unfiltered truth, as ever we can get it. Even if the truth hurts… in its laser-precise process of setting us free.

We are dying to be caught red-handed… and set straight. We are aching to be set a-right by the bright light of truth.

And that process of being seen… begins by letting ourselves be seen by our very own selves. To let ourselves truly open our eyes wide… and SEE what’s there to be seen.

And to let ourselves be vulnerable enough, humble enough, and strong enough to withstand the piercing, boundary-blasting intrusion of a clear-eyed gaze.

Having never experienced truly SEEING ourselves before… combined with never having BEEN SEEN before, period, we realize that we don’t even have the eyes to see.

And if we don’t have the eyes to see ourselves, we sure as hell aren’t going to be able to see others. We see the world and its inhabitants through a fog… through a haze… and through a veil… which we mistake for clear-seeing.

Having never experienced seeing before… and having never experienced being seen before… we realize—startled—that we were not, after all, seeing ourselves. Not in our glory… And not in our areas of needed growth.

We realize, jarred, that we weren’t truly seeing ourselves accurately. We weren’t seeing ourselves in action. We weren’t seeing ourselves in the bright light of truth. We weren’t seeing ourselves for who we are.

We thereby sure as heck weren’t living as who we really are. We clearly—despite not even realizing it—weren’t living the credo: “KNOW THYSELF.”

And that credo is everything. Foundational. Key.

When we truly see ourselves, we realize, with a shock, just how much we had bought into what we were handed, as regards the answer to the all-powerful question, “WHO AM I?” We took a tiny fraction of the answer to that question to be the whole answer.

We realize, with our mouth agape, that an utterly unquestioned version of ourselves is driving the ship that is our lives. An unexamined version of ourselves is steering the ship that is our lives… and doing so according to the coordinates of the  expected path… following the True North of the well-worn trail, the trail more traveled.

Without having ever noticed it… not even thinking to question it… there we were on the path of convention and of social expectation. There we were with an utter lack of self-creation and a complete forgoing of imagination running the show that is our lives. Without vision the people perish. And were certainly not applying any “vision” to the vision of our lives. And then we wonder why we’re low-energy, melancholic, anxious, and utterly unfulfilled.

Socrates had it right all those centuries ago in insisting that the unexamined life is not worth living. So let us examine our lives.

The unexamined SELF is not worth being. So let’s examine ourselves.

Love + Oneness,

Naomi