The Big Three

I saw a post that someone made on Facebook today asking “What are the 3 major challenges a woman faces to fulfill her dreams in life?” I couldn’t help but answer this question and I wanted to share an extended answer to it here on my blog. 

I know that there is a lot of focus in our culture on the role of gender and identity in our challenges, but the true answer to this question is the same no matter your gender, no matter your identity.

The human story is one of ubiquitous struggling and the problems with the way we relate to each other run deeper than any surface identifications we might take on. There may be some major challenges associated with one’s specific identity, but I don’t believe it will fall in the top three, unless it constitutes a self-limiting belief (see below). If we identify as human then I believe that our three greatest challenges will always be the following:

Photograph by Michael D Beckwit from Unsplash

#1. Confusion about the nature of self and relationship to others + the world

Each of us is a unique and perfect expression of the divine. In all of our flaws, all of our sloppy human errors and in each moment of fear, darkness, judgement, dramatic expressions, desperation, vulnerability, selfishness, attention seeking, pity seeking, victim role-playing, blaming, resenting and even raging out… we are perfect expressions of divinity who also have great potential for expansion and growth.

In every moment we have an opportunity to surrender to our truth and be present in the moment. When we do, we are awake to the wholeness of ourselves and our truth; when we don’t, we’re perfect expressions of reality none-the-less. 

Through relating to others we relate to ourselves. Every sour judgement we make is towards ourselves as much as others.

The more attached we feel to others being a certain way, the more charge we have around the fear of our own similar expressions. Relation to other IS relation to self and holding this awareness is a constant practice that we can only hope to improve and iterate upon.

Giving space to our own truth is the most important work we can do. If we do not have patience for ourselves, we can only become stuck. Being stuck can be a fantastic way to live your life and I encourage you to let go of judgement of this in yourself, if you can.

We are all stuck in moments and flowing in others. The path to liberation, however, requires us to flow when possible and remember the truths of reality.

I am my judgements, I am the meekest of humans, whatever that means to me. Only when I am willing to point my finger back at myself am I able to truly see myself. Whatever I think myself to be, I am much greater and possess much more of the whole. Each of us contains the whole and are incapable of containing anything less.

This is one of the basic truths of the universe. 

#2. Lack of unified will

Psychologists have been unpacking the understanding of our divided wills since Freud popularized that there are parts of ourselves which we do not have access to. This part of ourselves is known as the unconscious mind, or the shadow. If you’re unfamiliar with this terminology, it is simply the part of our mind that we’re not aware of. It is the nature of the human to have conflicting desires and therefore it can be challenging for us to untangle our lives in meaningful ways. How can we eliminate our debt when a huge part of us is deeply attached to having that debt? 

As I eluded to in # 1, it’s easy to get attached to the belief that we wholey understand ourselves… we are ourselves, aren’t we?

Yet, we are in some ways the least aware of ourselves. We cannot perceive ourselves, we are often entirely unaware of how we’re behaving in a given moment. Have you ever caught yourself using a tone you had no idea you were using? Have you ever been told you’re like another person you spend a lot of time around but very surprised to hear that? We emulate those around us without realizing it because we are entirely unaware of the conditioning that our subconscious minds are adhering to… in fact, most of our childhood consists of picking things up from the people around us.

From an evolutionary perspective, this is, of course, entirely understandable and adaptive. Emulate those around you, this is how we survive! This is also how social and cultural norms become unconscious and how much of human interaction and behavior is shaped. However, when we come into adulthood, we have little self awareness AND we’ve often unconsciously learned to be comforted by truly destructive ways of being.

Our unconscious comes to desire situations which frequently don’t serve us and acts out behaviors which create those situations… entirely without our awareness! These situations and behaviors are often not alined with our conscious desires, thus our wills have become disunited.

The work of unifying our will is the single most effective path to achieving the outcomes we seek in life and there are a multitude of disciplines and practices that can help us pursue it. 

#3. Self-limiting beliefs 

This is sort of a continuation on the previous points, so it will warrant less explanation. The self-limiting beliefs come from the same programming we’ve received our whole lives and can be both unconscious and conscious.

The unconscious beliefs are more effective at holding us back because we’re unaware of them, but they can be easily discovered through simple self exploration (i.e. psychedelics). Self limiting beliefs will always prevent us from making desired changes and though I have to admit that it feels a bit cliché for me to be talking about them, there’s a reason why these are such a common talking point.

I know that for years I looked at the idea of self-limiting beliefs as boring and thought that it sounded too obvious to be worth my attention… and yet, as I conduct my own journey of self growth, I continuously rub up against the reality that my own self-imposed limitations are the single most effective way that I hold myself back.

And remember, only you can hold you back… any story that you have about anyone else holding you back is a story that you’re telling yourself to hold yourself back. It’s only you that can stop you. 

The truth of my life is that I spend the vast majority of my time working on these three things, anyone who does genuine 'self-work' is usually working on these things on some level, whether they realize it or not. It is only through moving closer and closer to a unified will and true understanding and expression of our selves that we can serve our highest purpose. 

🙏