“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life, that no person can sincerely try to help another without helping him or herself.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Have you noticed how all the great wisdom teachings are paradoxical? Across the board of sage teachings, we find that what we seek is found in a reversal of the question. As the opening quote reaffirms, the value we are seeking for ourselves comes when we flip the receiving/giving dynamic.
If we really want to know ourselves as “valuable”, one of the easiest approaches is to first see it in another. Value given is value received. Your own value is uncovered and realized by the worth you perceive in another. In our Q Process practice, we all uncovered qualities we admired in another to discover that these same qualities were, indeed, our very own.
Most of us have had the experience of this paradox. Maybe we forced ourselves to be generous to another, and then discovered, we got beyond our own feeling of lack from our willingness to give. A Course in Miracles says the only thing lacking in any given situation is what you are not giving.
Whatever you want to receive, give it.
To know our own value is not simply a matter of healthy self-esteem but arises from the deep truth that each of us is a unique expression of The One Presence, the offspring of the Divine.
In reality, the one who thinks she/he is NOT valuable is one with a mistaken sense of identity—seeing from a false sense of self. The Shadow self. Becoming aware of this identity is an integral part of our spiritual awakening and a vital part of doing The Q Process.
The great sages have all echoed this paradoxical strategy. Most memorably St. Francis of Assisi who memorialized this great wisdom in his renowned prayer, here in part:
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
What greater compensation could there be in a life, than to heighten our own value in the act of bestowing value upon others.
When we realize that we recognize our self as valuable, then we are expressing as our most noble self (our Quantum Powerful Self, the Q qualities on our card) and, hence, the only time we are “not valuable” is when we have identified as the Shadow self. For many of us, it is the one who believes she/he is inadequate, alone, flawed. Ask yourself, who is the one that believes she/he is not enough?
I have simply forgotten who I am and why I am here on this planet. I am here to be valuable. Stay in the practice. See you along the path.
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