I awoke at 4 this morning. Wasn’t falling back to sleep so I got up and started working. Three hours later, I see how engrossed I’ve been!  I didn’t even realize so much time had passed.

Being engrossed in what I’m doing makes a difference.

I had dinner last night with my delightful and beautiful friend Kerry Parsons. As we chatted, Kerry asked me a question about when I am living from my authentic, or essential self, what is it that I do in the world? I create space for people to explore and uncover their own magnificence, I replied without hesitation.

I liked that answer. I liked that it felt so natural. And, I like the way it feels. What better thing is there for me to do in the world than to do that, I wondered? And I couldn’t think of a better response.

It’s an interesting question — What do you do in the world when you are living from your authentic or essential self. That place where you are filled with grace, ease and wonder. That place where you are aligned inside and out.  What do you do in the world?

Living the answer to that question is my life-long quest. To be ‘on purpose’, to be in my own magnificence means to awaken other’s belief in their own magnificence.

Several years ago, while teaching a course on self-esteem at the homeless shelter where I used to work, a man asked me, “How can I be a good man when all I see is what a bad person I’ve been?”

He was from the Sudan. Once a child soldier he had come to Canada for a better life and then found himself locked in the grips of homelessness, poverty, abuse. He was at the shelter to take a course that would provide him the tickets he needed to get a job on one of the oil rigs. And he didn’t like himself very much.

“Do you want to be that bad man or the good man who lives within your heart?” I asked.

“I want to be a good man,” he promptly replied. “But how can I forgive myself for the things I’ve done?”

“What’s in it for you not to forgive yourself?” I asked.

“I was a bad man,” he replied.

“What if I told you when I look at you I see a magnificent human being?”

He laughed and said, “I’d tell you that you need better glasses.”

I too laughed before replying. “My glasses are fine and regardless of what glasses I’m wearing, I see you as a magnificent human being. That’s my word — magnificent. You may have another. But I know that for me, I want us to connect through our magnificence, not our mediocrity.”

He nodded his head but his resistance was high.

I invited the class to close their eyes and imagine, just for a moment, that they were magnificent human beings. That they embodied the spirit and essence of magnificence. To sit up, breathe into, sink into, be, just for that moment in their imaginations, magnificent.

When he opened his eyes I asked him, ” Did you feel your magnificence.”

And he smiled a beautiful, radiant smile and said, “Yes.”

“Then it exists,” I told him. “Within you is the knowledge of what it means to feel and be your most magnificent self. Your job is to remember it and the best way to do that is to think about your magnificence and quit reminding yourself of your ‘badness’. To simply allow space for your magnificence to grow. It is within you. You lived it for that moment. Now, let those moments grow.”

It is within each of us. This place of magnificence, beauty, perfection, authenticity. Our essential nature. It is within each of us.

It’s just in the journey of life, we forget who we are born to be as we try to make sense of the world around us.

But it is always there. It cannot leave. It is our truth. It is us.

I thought about my response to Kerry last night and knew — that is what I want to do in the world. To always inspire people to recognize their magnificence and live it.

What about you?

What’s your true calling in the world?

How do you plan on making a difference, today, tomorrow, everyday? What gift are you willing to share with the world so everyone  can see your light shining. Are you willing to connect with everyone around you from your place of magnificence? Are you willing to let letting go of all that would hold you back from letting your true self be seen and known?

Try it… you might like it!  🙂

Namaste