I used to wake up with butterflies in my stomach and went to bed with migraines. I had these constantly, ever since I was a teenager. I was tired and had no energy.
More than anything, I took life and myself too seriously (a great sign of being asleep), and my drive and ambition were born out of insecurity. I was lost, and I didn’t even know it. I certainly had no clue who I was.
I thought I was my career. It was my identity…anything outside yourself is not yourselfYou may appear to be fine on the outside, and certain aspects of your life may be working, but you may feel–as I did–that you are empty inside; that there is no deep purpose or meaning to your life. Life is just not that exciting to you.
Maybe it is not something you give a great deal of thought to and just plod along as I did. In Ireland, where I was born and live, we love to “sweep things under the carpet” and avoid dealing with our emotions. In this culture, it was easy for me to believe that how I felt was normal.
I was lost until one day, just an ordinary day, something different happened. I remember that prior to this day, I’d said to myself, “Surely there must be more to life than this. This is hard work!”
Shortly after that, I was having a conversation with a friend who, it turned out, was about to become my spiritual teacher and guide. At that time I never even knew there was any such thing as a spiritual teacher.
That autumn evening in 2005, my friend and I were driving through Dublin, on our way to a leadership talk. It was an ordinary evening as I thought, but I had no idea how significant it was going to be. On the way there, we got into a conversation about life.
Seemingly out of nowhere, I asked her, “Who is God?” I remember her answer as clear as day. She said, “God is that tree we have just driven past. God is everywhere. God is you. God is me.”
That was the start of my awakening, of my remembering the truth about who I am and what life is about. You see we remember, this is what all of us know at the core of our being.
Excerpt from Who is God? You Are
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