DARIN E.SQUIRE :: If I’m Not Awful, Who Am I?

TIME TO LIFT AND SHIFT ::  Not the kind of lift and shift guys do with their junk, I’m talking about lifting your vibration and shifting your energy to a new level of awareness: holding on to and acting on the values, the principles and beliefs that form the true  you.  For some of us these are trapped deep down, covered in mold and barely noticeable, but they are there.  Religious folk call it our Soul, Higher Power, Source, Spirit, etc.  New Agers call it the Crystal Palace or the Mind’s Eye, to name just a couple of terms.

Whatever you call it, we all have  this “energy” within; that’s what I am referring to.  I call this energy my Higher Self when I’m having a good day (and when the day is crap I call it the Little F-er Inside Me as he pisses me of with his goodie two-shoe attitude).  Thankfully, good days outnumber the bad, and I am leaning more and more on my Higher Self to figure out how to live happily in this insane world of ours.  I really do want to lift my vibration (energy) to higher level and shift my awareness to the amazement of what life is.

We all have a deep knowing that there is more to life then what we see around us, and if we really do want to have a greater, more fulfilling life we need to acknowledge and implement the values that are a part of us.  I’m not talking about knowing right from wrong or true versus false, I’m talking about deep values that define The Real You.

For years (most of my life actually) I held the value that my life was worthless, and I lived in accordance to this.  I over ate and got fat, sleep with guys without evening knowing them as a person and I lived in squalor.  All of this was a physical manifestation of the inner values I held about myself.  Life was just giving me what I thought I was worth.

And I know I am not the only one.  We all hold onto an inner value we think is ours.  For those us with self-destructive tendencies and a crappy self worth, do you really think this is your true inner value?

My crappy self worth was the core of my crappy life, but I did not know this at the time, I just thought I was crap and my life was crap.  It was a nasty cycle that involved a lot of self destructive behavior.  I had always believed that I was worth nothing and I have lived my life accordingly.  Even after years of therapy, courses, seminars, books and so on, I still lived with this value.

About a month ago, sitting alone in my apartment, my Higher Self began trying to get my attention.  I had no idea at the time it was my Higher Self, I just thought it was an idea coming into my brain that just might help me get out of this funk.  I followed the thought to get out a small pad of paper, and then wrote out every negative thought I had about myself, one per paper.  I did not think about what I was doing or what I was writing, I just wrote what came to me.  “I am useless” “I will never amount to anything”, and on and on and on and on.

Then Higher Self told me to take those notes and put them on a board by my desk. For two days, I forced myself to repeatedly look at it and read every note over and over. It hurt.  A lot.  Then I realized it hurt because it was not my truth.  When I discovered that these values I held where not mine, I was neither elated or enlightened!  I was confused, scared and felt so alone.

If this was not me, then who was I?

After a few days of this oh-so-fun exercise, Higher Self told me to call Staples and ask them to order a customized ink stamp.  After I got the stamp, I set aside an afternoon and took down the notes, one by one. I read each aloud, sitting with the words – and then I stamped each one with my brand new ‘BULLSHIT’ stamp.

I put all the notes back up . Now I had a very different board of little yellow Post Its.

I left the board up for over 2 weeks, just breathing in all the BULLSHIT stamps.  Then I found a quote that touched my heart: “Out with the old, in with the truth”.  I moved some of the notes over and made way for a new story about where I was at, who I was.  Then I found another quote, and did the same thing.  Now I have board covered in simple truths. My truths. I still have my board up and when I think old thoughts, it really helps. By listening to my Higher Self I have found a deep healing that I never thought I would.  And I am discovering what my true values really are each day with the help of Higher Self.  For me, this is living a life in alignment.  It’s my lift and shift.

I am now ready to explore more ways to live a life in alignment and am open to wherever this takes me. My first stop was right here, with you. Because I want living in alignment to be more than a zippy new age concept, I am putting my raw unaltered journey in here, regularly on TheGayGuideNetwork.  I think it’s going to be a fun ride.

– Darin Squire is an independent writer, speaker, workshop leader, ice cream lover and super nice guy who fits in nowhere and is proud of it.

RELATED READING :: Shaun Proulx’s Power Thought affirmations here