When we know who we are, no one can tell us who we are.  At the end of the day self-awareness is the key to forward momentum.  It’s the key to shutting out the noise and committing to a goal.  It’s the key to discipline and choice and how we spend our energy.  It’s the key to our focus.  In ancient Greece Socrates told people to know thyself and it was inscribed on the Temple of Apollo in Delphi.  It wasn’t just a cute phrase, it was the answer.  Without distraction or others telling us who we are, we intuitively feel that person, we see that person, we are that person-we know who we are.  We spend too much time listening to others telling us who we are—it starts from childhood.  What they don’t tell us is that we have power over our lives.  They don’t tell us that we have the ability to be who we are and that is a gift.  They don’t tell us we don’t need permission or that we can sustain ourselves by being who we are.  They make us think we need approval but as soon as we work in the realm of seeking approval or validation outside of ourselves, we give up our power.  When we validate ourselves, the energy is limitless—when we rely on others, we are limited to what they give us.

Humans are energy vampires.  We like to be near what makes us feel good, we actively seek out comfort, and we actively seek out validation about what we are doing.  It makes us feel less alone, and even if it’s negative attention, the attention feels good for the moment.  The truth is we’ve mistaken what we actually need for what feels good in the moment.  It’s mistaking drinking soda as sustenance when we need water.  When we get our energy from outside of us, we are dehydrating our soul because we are feeding it sugar and syrup instead of nourishing it with what it needs.  We are also limiting the souls ability to find other sources of that energy—there’s more than one oasis on this journey.  See, there is no doubt we need energy, but what we forget is that we need the energy of source.  Once we are aligned with source, we see that we weren’t seeking attention, we were seeking connection (attention is another form of soda).  We weren’t seeking comfort, we were seeking safety.  We weren’t seeking others to validate us, we were trained to seek their approval.  And we weren’t seeking permission, we were seeking purpose (and ways to explore to find that purpose). 

We were seeking sustenance all along and we settle for empty calories. When we know who we are, we know what we need, and we know how to get it.  I’m not saying that we don’t occasionally get distracted—we are human after all.  I’m not saying that we don’t benefit from occasionally giving into that distraction—we all need entertainment at some point, the ability to release steam.  But when we find what nourishes us, it’s harder to stray from the path we know we are meant to follow.  The things we did as a substitute or as immediate gratification no longer feel good.  It feels better when we follow the things that will help us achieve our goal.  It feels better to serve our purpose than someone else’s.  When we know ourselves, when we live in our authenticity and find the flow of source, we show others how to do the same.  Knowing ourselves isn’t selfish—it’s a requirement for the betterment of society as a whole.  We become the light in the dark for someone and soon they do the same and so on and so on until we light up the way for a new paradigm.  So let’s do ourselves a favor and learn to get quiet, hear our intuition, connect with source, and follow our paths.  Face ourselves to hear the truth, and keep going until we believe what we hear.  The more we believe it, the more we can put it into action—and then we will SEE it.  That is the definition of believe it to see it.  Keep going.