I listened to this interview with Eva zu Beck where she mentions finding herself.
FINDING ONESELF
What does it mean to find oneself?
I imagine it can mean a few different things.
It can mean finding a relationship, friends, place, work, and so on that feels like a good fit and home.
It can mean finding and engaging in something deeply meaningful to oneself. (Victor Frankl.)
It can mean doing what makes us come alive. (Howard Thurman.) (This can be slightly different from finding meaning.)
It can mean finding some degree of authenticity in life. (Existentialism, humanistic psychology, etc.)
It can mean learning to meet oneself and one’s experiences with kindness and love. This feels like coming home. (Buddhism, Pema Chödrön, Kristin Neff, etc.)
It can mean finding wholeness as a human being – healing, embracing shadows, and using the world as a mirror. (CG Jung, shadow work, parts work.)
It can mean finding oneself as part of the larger whole. This can be the larger social whole and community, the larger ecological whole, and the larger whole of this universe and existence. (Deep Ecology, Epic of Evolution, Universe Story, Practices to Reconnect.)
It can mean to find ourselves as participants in the evolution of this living system we call Earth and the seamless whole of the universe and existence. We are, by definition, at the leading edge of this evolution and consciously participating in this can be profoundly meaningful, exciting, and humbling. (Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, Teilhard de Chardin, Sri Aurobindo, etc.)
It can mean to notice our nature, keep noticing through situations and states, explore how to live from this, and inviting our human self to reorganize within this noticing. (Spiritual traditions, Big Mind process, Headless Way.)
Each of these are an ongoing process without any finishing line. Life is always changing. There is always more to clarify, discover, and deepen into.
HAVE I FOUND MYSELF?
Have I found myself?
As usual, the answer may be yes, no, and it depends.
I find myself…
When I meet my experience with kindness.
When I notice and follow my inner guidance and knowing.
When my nature notices itself.
When I use the world as a mirror, and especially when I find in myself what bugs me in someone else.
When I viscerally feel myself as part of the larger whole, this seamless unfolding living planet, and this seamless existence.
When I am consciously part of the evolution of this universe and consciously participate in a certain direction of this evolution. For instance, through the Long Journey Home project and our regeneration project in the Andes.
Through Finca Milagros and the regeneration and food forest project there, which feels deeply meaningful to me.
In some ways, it happens through life circumstances. And mainly, it happens here and now and is an ongoing exploration and process.