İnsan evrimi boyunca bir yerlerde korkular, çoğumuzun (özellikle doğal çevre ile olan bağlantılarını kaybeden ve kalabalık, stresli yaşam koşullarında olanlar) varlığını daha küçük şekillerde algılamasına ve yaşamasına neden oldu. Güvende hissetmeye ihtiyacımız vardı. Ve bilinmez bizi korkutmuştu. Bu yüzden bilinmeyeni, anlamın ve sihrin büyük kısmını ortadan kaldıran, yönetilebilir parçalara ayırdık.
Hayatta kalma perspektifinden düşündüğünüz zaman çok anlaşılır bir durum bu: faniyiz, hayatlarımız nispeten kısa. Ve küçük, sınırlı hayatlarımızdan daha büyük bir şeyi tam anlamaya başladık derken ölüm geliyor. Yaşamımızı ve ölümümüzü rasyonelleştirmek için her türlü inancı (dinler, ideolojiler, efsaneler) üretiyoruz çünkü vücudumuz dağıldıktan ve gözlerimizdeki ışık söndükten sonra bir şeyin (cennet, cehennem, reenkarnasyon) ya da bir anlamın, devam edeceği konusunda kendimize güvence vermek istiyoruz.
Bizi öldürebilecek olan savaşların; kendimize karşı fakat sonrasında diğerlerine yöneltebileceğimiz şiddet ihtimalinin; belki de çocukluklarımızda ve kısa hayatlarımızda karşılaştığımız duygusal, fiziksel ve ruhsal şiddetin çocuklarımızda tekrarlanması ihtimalinin verdiği korkuyla daha küçük yaşamaya başlıyoruz.
Bu yüzden kendimizi güvende tutmak için ne yapmamız gerekiyorsa onu yapıyoruz: Çözüm dışarı çıkıp dünyayı keşfetmek istemiş, içimizdeki o cesur, gözüpek ve maceracı çocuktan ‘gizlenmek’ oluyor. Ve kimse bizi tehdit olarak görmesin ve bize zarar vermesin diye kendimizi çok küçük ve hatta görünmez hale getirmek çözüm oluyor. Kendimizi korumanın bir yolu olarak saklanıyoruz ve bunu yaparken, ihtişamımızı, bütünlüğümüzü, tam yaratıcılığımızı ve aynı zamanda bize kötü olarak öğretilen yönleri saklıyoruz. Bu parçalarımızı görünmez tutmaya çalışırken epey enerji harcıyoruz ve bazen işler öyle bir raddeye varıyor ki bazen bunların varlıklarını bile unutuyoruz.
Fakat ihtişam ve diğer daha az cazip nitelikler küçültülmek veya bölümlendirilmek istemiyor. Bunlar acı çekiyor, iltihaplanıyor ve kapsandıkları duvarlarda zayıf noktaları bulup güven verici olan küçük benliklerimizi dehşete düşürerek bazen küçük bazen de daha büyük şekilde diğerlerini irkilten, onlarda hoşnutsuzluk ya da hayrete sebep olan patlamalar şeklinde dışarı kaçıyorlar. Böylece içimizdeki tehlike çanları yüksek sesle çalıyor.
Tefekkür soruları: Muhteşemliğin küçültülmekten veya bölümlendirilmekten hoşlanmadığı fikri ile nasıl ilişki kuruyorsunuz? Muhteşemliğinizin etrafını çevreleyen duvarların ötesinde patladığı bir zamanın deneyimini paylaşabilir misiniz? Korkularınızı aşmanıza ve ihtişamınızın parlamasına izin vermenizde size neler yardımcı oluyor?
Peggy Dulany is a philanthropist and founder of Synergos. Excerpted from this article.
Seed Questions for Reflection
How do you relate to the notion that magnificence doesn't like to be shrunk or compartmentalized? Can you share an experience of a time your magnificence erupted beyond its walls of containment? What helps you transcend your fears and let your magnificence shine?
Yes, let's shine! After feeling our emotion (without thinking at the same time) we all can just choose for magnificence! It will be easier and easier. Isn't this wonderful. Of course, I do. I like to do it. It feels joyful.
I'm more comfortable thinking of my innate dignity and worth—I suppose you could call it magnificence‚ a miracle really—life is a miraculous gift, though I can get mired in fear and uncertainty and forget that. What helps me transcend my fears and let my humanity shine is knowing I am a child of God, made in God's image, worth as much as anyone else.
When I stepped out of my safe comfort zone and went to work overseas- different culture-language-New skills and expectations of who I am and what I could be capable of.
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Nancy May
Feb 20, 2022
I let my magnificence erupt wh I invited some women to my croning ceremony which I designed myself. I also let myself shine when I drummed and sang in women's gatherings
Another good rabbit hole to ho down. A ahhh moment for me was falling in love with my being at the age of 60. I was doing a creative exercise using head, heart â¤ï¸, hand, a reflective collage of my life. I liked where I had been, where I was and where I hoped to go.
Once a friend of mine who I had joined in living so that she could find her own magnificence said to me: "I was always my best with you---I just couldn't hold onto being it." I look at that comment often when I feel like my magnificent has shrunk or fallen into a box and move back into it's light in Crystal's honor and my own.
My magnificence erupted when I volunteered to sing a short solo part in my chorus' concert and I "found" my voice, finally! These days, my fear is transcended whenever I tune into my guides and my truest self.
While I certainly appreciate Peggy Dulany'ssentiment to not be small, to lead large lives, I must say that the "Hero's Journey" (as conveyed by Joseph Campbell) is not mine. I prefer smallness and do not experience my life as shrunk or compartmentalized. My journey is with close members of my family and friend circle. I enjoy a consulting practice with a few dozen clients over two decades rather than thousands of clients. I take delight in the title of E. F. Schumacher'sSmall is Beautiful. Smiling on the cover is a photograph of Gandhiji surrounded by a bicycle, a butterfly, and a bulb. All small things that have their own magnificence.
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Surya
Nov 13, 2019
I could resonate with the point"(especially those who lost their link to the natural environment and came to live in crowded, stressful living conditions)" nature makes us feel confident and share with others making us feel one with whole, while crowded, stressfulliving conditions induce competition and shrinking from whole to self. Guess gaining knowledge of stressful conditions and handle situation in right way could lead to whole, unfortunatelywe find it difficult to handle condition with right approach because of the fear of being wrong or lack or knowledge, complications etc.
Very good article to reflect on. I feel each of our inner self is unique and how each of us perceive things could be different and could be seeing a different angle to the reality that others might be missing. So rather than containing and hiding our magnificence with the fear of being wrong, it is good to express ourselves with an anticipation that we could be wrong and willing to correct ourselves. With this approach, we can see the reality better, accept the reality better and our collective goal should be how can we make the reality better for ourselves as well as for everyone around us.
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
―Gospel of Thomas
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Ku Kahakalau
Nov 12, 2019
Just had an intense conversation with my daughter who is 26 about thinking too large, and visioning too big - which has always been my way of living. She warned me of failing and I almost listened to her. So this article came at the perfect time. Thanks.
Normal zones of life get punctured by outbursts of different emotions....unpredictable, intense and powerful....getting in touch with how, within me is literally an assembly line that sorts out emotions and puts away some of them in the warehouse, all the time.....
And then, once in a while, they erupt (or might)....This happens for me with anger...with magnificence it is still a more complex web of humility, my own smallness et el
I agree that magnificence (the real self of each of us) doesn't like to be shrunk or compartmentalized, which we do to a great extent in an effort to control, such as to try to control outcome or try to control how we and/or the other will feel. There have been many times I have allowed myself to express my magnificence and it or I has been well-received even when I expect disapproval. There have also been times that my magnificence has erupted beyond my walls of containment, such as when I erupted and rebelled against childhood beliefs, which resulted in some disapproval but overall the outcome has been positive, except on those occasions when my magnificence came out angrily, and then it was my anger rather than my magnificence that was the problem. What helps me transcend my fears is trusting me, trusting what I am seeing/perceiving/experiencing, and trusting that expressing me honestly and caringly is my responsibility and is good for me and others.
When we are not in the fight, flight or freeze survival zone, our mind and heart are open to see and experience amazing, vowing and magnificent presence of natural beauty and beauty of human mind and human heart. We are born with the sense of curiosity, wonderment, and magnificence. As we grow up, our natural tendency to relate and welcome the mysterious unknown gets shrunk and compartmentalized. Sadly our mind and heart shrink and become narrow by the fear of the unknown. The shine of magnificence gets obstructed by the clouds of fear.
My true self is not bound by attachment or aversion. It is vast and open. My ego self lives in a closed, fragmented and narrow world. Whenever I am in the being zone free from fear of losing my self, in the zone of unconditioned love and unconditional acceptance my magnificence eruptsbeyond its walls of containment.
I am grateful to my beloved lifepartner who provided an ambience of letting me to be me in my relationship with her. In this relationship... View full comment
When we are not in the fight, flight or freeze survival zone, our mind and heart are open to see and experience amazing, vowing and magnificent presence of natural beauty and beauty of human mind and human heart. We are born with the sense of curiosity, wonderment, and magnificence. As we grow up, our natural tendency to relate and welcome the mysterious unknown gets shrunk and compartmentalized. Sadly our mind and heart shrink and become narrow by the fear of the unknown. The shine of magnificence gets obstructed by the clouds of fear.
My true self is not bound by attachment or aversion. It is vast and open. My ego self lives in a closed, fragmented and narrow world. Whenever I am in the being zone free from fear of losing my self, in the zone of unconditioned love and unconditional acceptance my magnificence eruptsbeyond its walls of containment.
I am grateful to my beloved lifepartner who provided an ambience of letting me to be me in my relationship with her. In this relationship we become one. In such relationships there are no walls of fear, worry and other obstructions.
I become mindful of whatever arises in my mind that blocks the experience of wonderment. I accept it, investigate it and learn from it. Living in the world of fear, anger, hatred and cruelty gives me an opportunity to work on myself and help others to work on themselves.
