A Vicarious Way of Seeing Ourselves

PRATIMA SHARMA

When I look back to instances of life, the different stories we hold, my heart is just filled with so much empathy for the inner child in us, recalling moments, understanding patterns that completely shattered our perspective in how we view the world because we wouldn't believe in ourselves anymore.

In one of my sessions, I understood alignment so profoundly when the person next to me expressed how we lose faith in ourselves when people around us deliberately question the beliefs we hold and have no willingness to believe in us. I mean, isn't that true? How fragile we are and how we all yearn for warmth and love in life? And how natural it is for every human soul to long for a safe space.

When I look back to my own life, I remember how, at the point of me being emotionally vulnerable, I landed my trust in a person who ultimately drove me to the space of self-doubt when all my wounded stories were encouraged to be expressed at the table. On top of that, introducing the concept of "personal universal law" to cover the torn-down moral values, to push me away from all my roots of personal values just because I was sensitive to every little emotion that I encountered. I fell there into the loop. And how indecisive I had become because there was no way I would have faith in myself anymore because I was facing similar things repeatedly, so I started believing that, truly, the fault is in me. Sometimes, when we are already uncertain, another person's certainty can feel like truth. Their confidence becomes something we lean on because our own ground feels shaky.

But here again, our heart knows what is best for us, as every person has the capability to thrive if the right environment is provided, as per Carl Rogers. So it's very important to listen to that voice, even if it's hard to leave that space. I understand that things might hurt us, but it's not a good thing to shut down completely and start believing in whatever people say just because we are emotionally tired at that point.There is nothing wrong with asking someone we trust for another perspective. At times another person might help us see what we could not see on our own. But there is a difference between seeking perspective and surrendering our own judgment. And the truth is, we can listen to someone without handing them the authority to decide what we feel, believe or value.

A belief that emerged out of past experiences might be tough to hold, because we tend to protect ourselves from hurt, but flexibility is the only space that will actually allow us to test the environment and then decide what it is that we actually experience instead of just believing what others say. Also, trusting ourselves does not mean believing that we are always right. It can be trusting ourselves enough to question, observe, learn and even change our minds without feeling that we have betrayed ourselves.

This piece is a reminder to all my loving readers to take a pause and reflect on why they have stopped experimenting. Here's an example: one of the Heartfulness Preceptors gave me a week before, suppose, say, the flower in front of me is red. Instead of believing right away that it's red, we always have the choice to actually go near it and see if it's really red or pink. Maybe life is asking us to do the same. When someone tells us the flower is red, we don't always have to argue that it is pink. We can always move a little closer, and see what we actually experience.

Likewise, let's just test and experiment our own beliefs and find out the truth of what we align with. That way, we wouldn't have to abandon ourselves anymore. Let's be gentle and take care of our heart.