Physician Healer
Physician Healer
Issue 99: The Journey Inward: Navigating the Discovery of "Who Am I, Really?"
As always, I am so grateful for the new members of the Healing Physician Podcast, where each week, subscribers can download Meridian Meditation sessions that can help powerfully shift us to higher levels of awareness of our innate abundance in health, happiness and prosperity.
The Journey Inward: Navigating the Discovery of “Who Am I, Really?”
For some, this may seem like a no-brainer, maybe even a silly concept. If you had asked me this question years ago, I would’ve perhaps given you my name (although I had no part in choosing my name), told you what I did for a living, or maybe described my personality. This would seem like the normal answer to give — back then. But, as I continued to evolve, I realized that this question was never answered correctly or adequately, even until this day, I would continue to contemplate my identity.
Well, let me pose this same question to you.
“Who are you, really?”
How would you begin to answer that? Would you also start by giving me your name and your occupation, or where you live, or something about your family? Think about this for a few minutes.
I actually didn’t understand this question regarding my identity until somewhat recently. I am on a journey like many of us are. I believe that I do have a purpose in this earthly life and that the purpose finds me through my heart, through my passion. I believe that this purpose is intimately connected to being of service to others. There is no wrong or right answer to life. For me, life is an experience. It is an opportunity to learn and to grow from the lessons.
I believe that it is true that nothing is bad or good; things just are. These days I am somewhat better with surrendering to this concept now than before. With time, I developed increased awareness and as a result, more understanding. I am better now with treating every event in life as a lesson from which to learn and grow. It does not mean that I don’t react to external circumstances. I am guilty of getting caught up with what is happening outside of me, but I don’t beat myself up as it is part of my human experience. Instead, I have also come to understand that growth allows me to experience more of what Eckhart Tolle illustrates as states of being — peace, love and joy — which are already within us. We just have to permit that to flow through us.
You may have a different belief and that is ok.
Long ago, I realized that my simultaneous curiosity and perpetual dissatisfaction about this life led me to embark on a journey of personal development. I read about and attended live and on-line workshops on meditation, and the meaning of conscious awareness, which collectively taught me the importance of allowing everything to just flow. For me, increased awareness is linked to mental clarity of the present moment, a natural quietness that just occurs when we are ready and helps us feel our way around in our day-to-day life.
The perpetual dissatisfaction arose from being told one thing about this world by the adults who raised me and then my finding out that it really wasn’t that at all, which consequently generated conflict and confusion within me. The discomfort persuaded me to search for answers that sounded logical to me but aggressively dismissed by adult family members. When you know that something you heard just feels right only to be contradicted by someone you trust, you develop mental anguish and frustration. And, without a healthy outlet, the sense of helplessness can make you sad and depressed.
At this point, I recalled being given the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey) by an elderly friend when I was just in high school. It was given to me because my friend received it as a gift, and after reading the first few pages, he thought it was full of nonsense. I distinctly remembered that I found the book fascinating and I couldn’t put it down. However, once I finished it and excitedly began telling my parents all about it, sadly, they, too, told me that the content was nonsense. Today, of course, it has been hailed as a “must-read.”
Whenever I am asked how to go about the self-development journey, I can only share my story and encourage everyone to do only the things that resonate with them and to find their own way. We all have the answers within us. There is no right or wrong way ever. Life is one big experience filled with lessons that are neither bad nor good, and we have a finite amount of time to learn and grow.
The key to proper handling of the plethora of information out there designed to help us navigate our life journey is to incorporate what calls to your heart. Not everything is appropriate for everyone, hence our uniqueness. And, if you try to download every bit of information and act on it, you will soon discover that there is a tremendous amount of contradiction among the different new-age philosophies. Life then becomes one ginormous bag of frustration.
For example, many mentors encourage daily journaling and specify the type of content to include, while others maintain that this is too much “doing” and not enough “being.” Some instructors support passive meditation while others argue that the active version is the more effective method. Many authors have taught the power of using your imagination in visualization to move your desires into physical reality, while others disagree, saying that that is the way of egoic manipulation of materialism.
I have experienced and continue to experience various contradictions first-hand.
Meditate but don’t egoically meditate or meditate with expectation of goals.
If you don’t make goals with the expectation of getting them, they will be empty wishes and you will remain stagnant.
You shouldn’t have goals. Making goals are yesterday’s way of life, part of the lower 3rd density conscious awareness.
You can’t just meditate, live passively every day and things will just come to you. If you don’t take action, you’ll stay in the comfort zone and not grow.
Setting and accomplishing goals for the future represent too much “doing.” You must do more “being.”
Write down what you want for your future. The human experience is about taking consistent daily action.
You should be more present and stop thinking about the future.
Thinking about money is a bad thing. Just do what you love and the money will come.
Even if you do what you love, the money won’t come unless you think happy thoughts about money and you are serving lots of people.
It is wrong to think about achieving and getting things.
As humans, we are supposed to crave further expression by getting things to make life more enjoyable.
We all have a purpose to serve others.
Purpose is overrated and we are not here to serve others.
Money is evil.
Only the love of money is evil. Money allows you to extend your help beyond what you can physically do alone, since you can’t be everywhere at the same time.
A good life is about being in the right place at the right time.
In order to be in the right place at the right time, you first have to be aware that you are in the right place at the right time.
If you want to change your life, change your self-image.
If you take actions to change your life, you’re not allowing yourself to be authentic.
You need to just sit and allow life to unfold naturally through you.
Direct your words and thoughts about your future goals and desired events as if you already have them and that they have arrived.
The future isn’t here yet and it never comes. By the time it comes, it is the present moment.
Visualization and imagination of all that you desire in life are key to manifestation as illustrated in the law of attraction.
Imagination is a kid’s game. You aren’t living in reality. You need to be realistic as adults.
I could go on and on.
I immersed myself in a personal growth journey so that I could have increased clarity moving through life. I wanted to know the reasons for my fears, frustrations, sadness, and so on. By understanding myself more, I felt that I would be better able to let peace, love and joy through and experience more of that day to day. But, I have found that more times than not, especially recently, that the self-improvement tools created confusion. Every instructor says something different about how you would look and act if you attained this or that level of conscious awareness.
So, I came to the conclusion that there really is no right or wrong way to live. Just live and enjoy the moments that life brings you. There will be things you will like and there will be things you won’t like. That’s just the way it is. You can embrace and accept this or not. Every step is part of the journey itself. If you feel like something today and not tomorrow, that is ok. If you feel like something this very minute and not 5 minutes from now, that is ok, too.
One of the best suggestions I have heard is to follow whatever resonates with you at that moment. Take what aligns with how you want to live and grow and discard what does not. And, although motivational self-help mentors may judge you that you are stagnant because you are not taking action steps to grow, or you are doing too much and not allowing life to unfold authentically, you don’t have to grow if you don’t want to, and you don’t have to just live life passively if you don’t want to. Life in the external will continue with or without you. You can choose to participate or not. From time to time, you may find yourself caught in some negative crossfire or swept up with all that is loving, peaceful, and zen. It doesn’t matter what other people are doing. They have their own lives to deal with. You just focus on you.
Perception is key. How you choose to perceive your world is your decision. If you choose to see the world around you as hostile, then it will be for you. If you choose to see beauty and kindness around you, then it will be for you.
There was a story that popped up on YouTube, I think it was in the audiobook titled “The Power of Thought” by Henry Thomas Hamblin. I can’t recall the details, but it goes something like this:
A visitor from another city asked the wiseman in the new town if the people were nicer than the ones where he came from. The wiseman asked him how the people were in the previous city. The visitor replied that the people were unfriendly, mean, and just horrible, to which the wiseman answered that then he will find that the people in this new town to be the same. When another visitor from a different city asked the same question of the wiseman but told the wiseman that the people in the previous town were kind, generous and helpful, the wiseman assured him that he would find the same in this new town.
What I decided to do recently was just listen more and talk less. I try to feel more. Whatever ideas and possible opportunities that were shared with me, I neither accepted nor rejected right away. I kept them in my head. When I asked for spiritual guidance, I spent more time listening. I did learn to sit in meditation without expectation, but I also learned to use visualization during meditation.
I made goals to set my GPS but released any obsession about them. I focused on enjoying the journey. I focused on learning. I began to go over every belief I held to be true and then asked myself why I believed. If I could not justify it with my own reason, I scratched off that belief.
I started doing more of the things that really called to my heart, things that felt right for me; but I also remembered that what resonated today may not do so tomorrow, and I was ok with that. And, I disregarded any outside opinions about my decisions. People are either going to support you or criticize you. However, they are also coming from their place of existence, their biases and prejudices shaped by their own paradigms placed there uninvited by their parents when they were kids. I recently heard one of my mentors quoted,
“Don’t pay attention to other people’s opinions. Other people’s opinions don’t pay your rent.”
When I don’t remember anything else, I just remember to follow my heart. If it feels right, no matter how illogical, I ask myself if this could be a possibility and then give it a go. Nothing is ever permanent. Everything is temporary. Everything.
These days, I am doing studies in the financial services industry, something that I have always believed that I would never find interesting as a student of science and healthcare, and of meditation and personal development. I discovered that success in both health and finances were due to our thoughts and mindset. The financial domain is also a field that my parents weren’t particularly fond of either; but interestingly enough, it was frequently the subject of their arguments.
I found that what I thought was my own identity and self-image were assigned to me by the adults around me long ago as a child. After some time had passed and I just released my resistance and simply surrendered to what was trying to flow through me, I became more excited about this new phase of my life, to have the opportunity to combine my previous knowledge and skillset with new education to be of more service to more people. As I sat in quiet reflection and memories brought me back to the start of this particular journey, I remembered that one of my friends posed a question to me when I initially cringed at the thought of studying financial investment strategies. He asked,
“Do you think that yoga, Reiki, or meditation instructors, artists or musicians, and health and wellness coaches do not need help appropriately managing and protecting their earnings for which they worked so hard? Do they not have loved ones that need to be financially protected in case they cannot work? Their levels of conscious awareness may have ascended but their physical existence as humans still requires that they conduct business intelligently, in an orderly fashion within established rules and guidelines.”
At the time, this was so in-my-face that I felt taken aback. I recalled suddenly feeling stressed. Confusion set in. I had grown up being told by my parents that money was the root of evil but that everyone sure needs and loves that root. I was told that money did not grow on trees, that it was hard to make and that everyone had to struggle to make ends meet. As I grew older, I developed a very negative opinion about money in general.
One evening, this podcast popped up and the interviewed guest remarked that money itself was not a bad thing; it just makes you more of what you already are. If you’re a good person, money would extend the good you were doing. However, if you’re a bad person, money would just make you terrible. He added that it was the love of money that was frowned upon but not the love of what money could do to help yourself and others. He explained that it was just an extension of who you are as you could not physically be everywhere. Money is simply another vehicle made of energy. He also said that we never really “own” any money, not even in our bank account. Money is just perpetually borrowed because it is taken away every day to pay for bills, groceries, and other living expenses.
Another interesting point this guest made was that people have been taught to believe that we make money with our 9 to 5 job. On the contrary, doing the 9 to 5 job should be something you enjoy, to satisfy your psyche, your emotional well-being. You make money by providing a necessary service to people. Your wealth is a reflection of the number of people you serve. He went on to say that this is not a man-made law. It is one of the universal laws of nature (Raymond Holliwell, Working with the Law) and like all of the other laws, it operates in a very orderly manner, whether or not you believe in the laws.
And then, there is personal growth expert on money, Ken Honda (Happy Money), who has written and spoken extensively on money being nothing more than energy. Much like health and happiness, and anything else in our life, our mindset full of thoughts determines whether we believe we are living in abundance or lack and limitation. When so many of us feel that we have to struggle with money flow, Honda explains that if we treat money like a good friend, it will come and visit more often; but if we see money as something bad, connected to debt or to our bills, then this friend avoids us. Everything in this universe is about energy and its vibrational frequency, and its connection with the Laws of Vibration and Attraction.
I have meditated daily now for many years and have been on a journey of surrendering to higher levels of conscious awareness and clarity, if you will. Curiously, my meditation and self-development path has guided me to a place from which initially it had steered me away, having labeled it egoic and 3rd density. Here’s the clincher. It just all feels right, at long last. Whatever this journey is calling for, it is out of my comfort zone and yet feels aligned.
All I know is that life just got a lot more interesting these days. I feel truly free for the first time in a long time. I am able to help others to come to terms with leveling up their health and wealth at the same time, as both are intimately connected with our thoughts. I have made a lot of really cool friends who are not arrogantly full of themselves, but are kind, generous, nonjudgmental, and spend their time helping others succeed. Oh, yeah, and they’re happy people and laugh a lot. Their energy is palpable. They believe that life is abundant and that there is more than enough for everyone and then some. There is no room for thoughts of scarcity and definitely no room for competition.
Can’t wait to see what else unfolds. Decide and act on the illogical. Sometimes it is the illogical that makes total sense. I am so looking forward to this ongoing journey. And, I’m definitely going to continue my meditating, journaling and gratituding. After all, these are the very things that brought me to where I am now.
So, who am I, really? I always am this moment who I won’t be the next. And, it’s all good. Spend some time in quiet space and reflect upon this question. See what unfolds for you. It’ll be worth it.
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Until next time, just flow with what comes into your life. Embrace the illogical and trust the universe to have your back. Sending you an abundance of much to be grateful for.
Much love and gratitude,
Dr. Celeste Amaya
