{An interview with Godfrey Devereux and other heart-musings.}
Living authentically
What if everything you seek, has already found you?
What if everything you wished to become, you already are? And what if you woke up and you weren’t held back by anything, anymore?
What if all you ever needed to do was to be you? That’s it. Just be you, even when your standing in ‘the shit’ and it’s up to your knees.
[Check out Being Your Authentic Self]
Just be you. Just. Be. You.
A long time ago our true identities were stolen by heartbreak. Then beaten up by anger, strangled by insecurity and hardened with jealousy. All of it was coated in a thick fantasy world that kept us from feeling.
The ‘simulation,’ he calls it.
A long time ago we used to wait for life to happen. We’d wait to be seen, asked, chosen.. to say yes. If the scale didn’t say the ‘right’ number, we’d wait. If we couldn’t find the ‘right’ pair of jeans, we’d wait. If we weren’t going to be the one making all the ‘right’ decisions, we’d wait.
We have resisted the counsel of our hearts because a long time ago when our hearts broke, we opted out of feeling and took an uncomfortable seat in life’s waiting room.
“If you’re only okay in certain circumstances, you’re already fucked.” — Godfrey Devereux
Imagine all the ways you hide who you are — all the masks, all the voices and all the script. Think of how you restrain your ability to feel by telling yourself it’s only okay to be (a pre-defined) ‘okay’ within controlled limits, when X, Y or Z happens.
Now imagine and think about how every breath you take is absolutely precious.
1. What effect does self-deception have on our soulful duty?
Godfrey: We use self-deception, and always unconsciously, for two main purposes. The first has deep evolutionary roots: to appear to be in conformity with the individual or group with whom we are relating. The habit of doing this then becomes applied to ourselves, and we unconsciously use self-deception to sustain a false image of ourselves for ourselves: not least that we are not fulfilling our life’s soul purpose.
When we understand the nature of action as conditioned necessity within which every action and event plays its necessary part within all that is actually happening, then we understand that it is not actually possible to stray from our path or purpose.
All of us always do exactly what we are needed by the totality to do. The only possibility we have for relating more effectively to our ‘soulful duty’, ‘life purpose’ or ‘dharma’ is to engage fully with whatever we do in the certain knowledge that we always fulfill the purpose we are born for, no matter what confusion or difficulties we may experience in doing so.
[Check out 4 tips for finding your flow!]
2. How does trying to become better impose or hinder the revealing of our purpose?
Godfrey: Trying to become better does not obscure your purpose, and when it is happening is actually a necessary expression of that purpose.
However when we truly understand wholeness we see clearly that whatever we have to do we actually do, and that whatever we actually do we have to do, then we no longer feel any need to improve ourselves. However we may well still spend time and effort developing any of our particular skills. This will not arise from lack of self esteem, but from enthusiasm for the unfolding of life.
3. How can I create from the center of my heart and offer something authentic to the world?
Godfrey: The key to authenticity is our willingness to feel. For our presence, behaviour and creativity to be authentic we have to know who, what and where we are. We have to know what we are feeling. We cannot believe everything our mind suggests.
We must challenge our habits, impulses, assumptions and ideas as often and deeply as possible. The best way to do this is to become intimate with the feeling quality within any idea, thought, image or vision.
4. How is sensitivity related to our ability to be creative?
Godfrey: The more sensitive we are the more we feel. The more we have felt, and the more deeply, the more we have through which to express our inspirations, visions and dreams. Becoming more sensitive does not require an increase in our capacity to feel, only in our willingness to feel.
Many people are afraid to become more sensitive as they suspect, and they are right, that they will feel things they do not want to and that they will not like. Yet that willingness to suffer is the single quality that most distinguishes a great artist from the rest of us. The more deeply you feel the more clearly you can see relationships, connections, interconnections: the more you can see what to others remains unseen.
5. How can I give birth to the truthful but unrevealed parts of me?
Godfrey: We can invite exposure of the unrevealed only by feeling deeply into our own presence. This must happen without agenda or intention, but simply out of irresistible interest.
Written by Tanya Lee Markul
Bonus:
Listen to this episode of Good Vibrations with Kristin on being your authentic self….
Listen to more awesome green and healthy living podcasts on GDGDRadio.com (or get the GDGD Radio app)! It’s free radio!
Asst. Ed. Green Diva Grace / Image via ShutterStock
[dynamic-sidebar id=’Custom Widget 2′]
