Could there be a magic word, a secret phrase, a tonal movement in a sequence of words that will bring about an awakening within you, a transformation between you and reality?
Ah…
What a question, what an idea, what an obsession to have.
It’s one that has driven me in peculiar ways and I imagine for you, there are things you say to yourself, ways you talk to yourself that in one sense or another, open a portal within, a door into a universe that is only for you and you alone.
A metaphor I use as a state of being is, ‘Questing The Unknown’. This is a metaphor for exploring all that is and all that with think we know about life, the unknown, which is each and every moment before us.
It can open you up to experiencing life in magnificent ways, in fact, it asks of you to go experience for yourself what your life is, who you are, how you work, which philosophies speak to you, what principles create, discover, and live through you.
It says to you, “You Know”.
It says knowing will always have to come through you, because that is the only place it can come from, because, “You do know”.
Could it be a portal or a path to freedom, knowing that deep down within, that you know.
It’s a creative act.
When I am working with clients in a coaching context, I will share with them many possible ways of looking, constructing, and experiencing life.
I want them to wobble free of their past just for a moment so to see things differently.
For example take the idea of the mirror, the metaphor, you are it.
You are a mirror and the world in many ways reflect back at you what you are reflecting into it, thus you are it.
It’s a an act of the imagination.
Here’s a thought experiment for you, what does life look like, how do you experience it differently, when you play with the idea that you are the mirror for others to see and experience themselves?
What happens when you ask yourself to open up to accepting and receiving your own wants and to do it in a way where you recognize, as the mirror, that the world outside of you actually wants to assist you in getting what you want?
Let’s take this a bit further shall we.
As the source of everything around you, after all, you are the mirror, and everything outside of you is a reflection of your being whomever and whatever you choose to be, what environment would you reflect back into the world so that the world would create an environment where your gifts, your genius, your wants, would best be expressed?
I will say it again, with slightly different language, if the world around you were to be a direct reflection of who you are being, who would you have to be so that the world around you supported you in expressing your creative potential?
This is a different way of seeing the world within you and without.
We are playing with the notion that you are the still point of all that is around you and within you. It’s a type of model of reality if you wish, sometimes referred to as a mental model, a way of seeing reality, either consciously or unconsciously.
It’s basically acknowledging a delusion about life, but then using that as a powerful step to create your world.
In fact you might want to take a look at this truth that I share with my clients and anyone else who is open to questioning and discovering life for themselves.
We are simultaneously playing a game, where we color reality with our beliefs, our emotions, our conceptions about all things; yet at the same time, for some, they transcend the conceptions and recognize that this is indeed, metaphorically, a game, and thus they are free to create the game they wish to play, and thus, the ruleset.
Imagine that!
You are phenomenally creative and exceptionally capable as you are right here right now, that you can literally create the game, add the obstacles and the challenges, and then play the game, you invented.
I want to implant an idea into your head, but don’t read this sentence, unless you are ready to open a portal in your being: **We are all living in the imagination. The question is, whose imagination are you living in. Yours or theirs? **
This is a question worthy of taking your time with.
All of what are speaking of here has the potential to transform your relationship with reality and with the creation of your life.
Imagine for a moment that we are all living by a set of beliefs, conceptions, and programmed identities, that is identities that have been molded over time, usually by circumstance, rarely by choice.
Now imagine that you and I are in conversation about you and your life, your feelings, your emotions, your desires, maybe your lack of clarity about what you truly want, maybe about what you believe you actually do want.
We are going to find ourselves in a bit of a tangle, aren’t we.
Because, how can we know what you actually want, how you actually want to experience life, if we aren’t in conversation beyond the identities and beliefs and constructs of who and what you think you are?
That often becomes a question that leads right into understanding the deeper truths about ourselves, and when lived and experienced it will free you, maybe not 100%, but you will know something has been transformed within you.
I don’t know how it works, but it does.
If you could eavesdrop on conversations I have with my clients, you would recognize that this is exactly where we go in every conversation, even if it isn’t explicit.
For example, when we begin our conversations I will often ask what my client wants to get out of the session, and what’s intriguing is that what they initially say reveals itself not to be the thing at all, which is why it’s so important in this work to hold space, to be willing to be silent, to let the client speak out what they must so they can get to what they actually want even if what they think they want initially, ends up being completely unrelated to where we go.
It’s in this way that we will often have to be lead to seeing things as they are so we can be free of the constraints that appear real, but actually aren’t.*
What this often looks like in coaching conversations, with clients who I have been working with is remembering that the challenge they are facing now, present time, was a challenge they wanted to take on.
That is, we are often consciously creating rewarding challenges and situations so that we can experience more of life itself, so that we can experience more of the joys and beauty that it has to offer us.
However, it’s easy to forget that. Which is why in the case of this client and all clients really, I will intentionally lead them to the knowing that they created this, they chose this, and then I will reflect back to them why they want what they want.
Humans, as much as we wish to believe it’s not so, need to re-oriented back toward their vision, over and over and over again.
I believe it’s one reason a lot of people don’t want coaching, because they know they are going to be held to account to themselves, and that can be frightening
Again, that need for knowing ourselves, for being willing to look right into our own reflection and acknowledge the truth, is a heroic play, and the choice to do something about it, can feel like embarking on a heroic journey.
It may be or it may not be, but the only way to know is to look and see for yourself.
Perhaps the world is a reflection of your own inner projections.
It may be, but there is one thing you will absolutely come to understand, whatever the world around you looks like, you aren’t a mirror reflection of it.
You are a mirror reflecting back into yourself, over and over again. And you will look outside of yourself to find evidence that the world reflecting within you aligns according to what you believe it to be.
Are my words true?
We are using language, words, phrases, internal sounds and conversations, to find freedom so you can live your life as “You Know” you want to.
You are questing the unknown.
Perhaps the next step in this exploration of knowing, is to understand, how you can create your wanting in a way that actually is beneficial for everyone else.
And thus your wanting is truly a win win for the world as much as it is for yourself.
I will leave it here for now, but there are a few questions I want to pull from the words above that you can explore and play with.
- What if I actually am mirroring back others?
- What if they are mirroring back me?
- How do I experience myself when I am free of manipulating others ideas and perceptions about me?
- What does it mean to create my life from a state of being?
- What identity am I believing to be true that isn’t serving me any more?
- What identity would I like to believe to be true?
- Am I building a self-image or deconstructing one?
- What does it mean to go questing the unknown?
- Finally, what do think I mean when I say, “You Know”.
To creation,
Emeric Damian
* If you enjoy these types of conversation and want more of it in your life, you can join my email list here. Please note, I write and share often and I will make offers to you because I want you to experience how beautiful life can be and I know that you have so much more to offer the world and more importantly to offer yourself that it would be a disservice to you and to myself to not do my best to pull the best out of you… *
p.p.s. Here’s where I am working from at this moment in time, a small fishing village called Ericeira. It’s surf reserve now, a surfer’s paradise, other than the freezing cold waters. For me, it’s a home for a time.
