True colors

Resistance is born when we don’t allow ourselves to be our best selves. We all have an image in our hearts of what our best self is like, how he/she looks, feels, acts, what he/she does and has. This image feels natural and most of all very good. We feel good when we allow ourselves to be like that picture. However, while growing up, most of us were led to believe that this image was not complete or even true. We allowed our parents, teachers and peers to paint over this image what they thought to be true. And although they mostly meant well, they were not qualified. There is only one person in the whole world who knows who and what you are, and that’s you. You may not remember what your image looked like before everyone else started messing with it, but it’s still there, and intact. And better, you can restore it to its original glory.

You probably have heard stories of 17th century paintings that were being restored and re-emerged as new. These paintings were undone of the wear-and-tear of time, and sometimes of over-painting. Nowadays, with x-ray technology, we can even see entire paintings or parts of paintings that were concealed by over-painting, by either the painter himself, an apprentice of his, or an over-eager restorer. Our real job in this life is to be the restorer of our own self-image, to clarify who we really are. We have to find the parts of our image that are denser, where our light doesn’t pas through as easily, like an x-ray. The denser parts are those painted-over parts. We can feel them when we scan our inner-landscape. We sense resistance when we go over them. It’s the parts of our lives that feel off, where we don’t feel good about ourselves, where we feel we can’t meet expectations, where we feel like failures. It’s the things we really don’t want to do, but do anyway, because we think we should. Or the things we really want to do, but don’t, because we think we shouldn’t.The resistance we encounter is our wise self reminding us, this is not who you really are. Every time, we make a choice that is not consistent with our original self-image, our wise self will let us know. It will tell us there is a choice that better reflects our true selves.

Resistance only is a pointer, an indicator that this part of the image does not represent the real you. Interestingly enough, when we give ourselves permission to feel the resistance, we automatically see what is behind the over-painted parts. It may very well be that we have gotten so used to the way the image is now, that we feel resistance to our newly gained insight on what the original actually looks like. And that’s okay. Just knowing what is behind the unrightfully added paint, will take away some of that paint and will make our whole image clearer and brighter. With some of the resistance gone, we’ll feel better about ourselves, not just about the part we just discovered, but about the whole image we have of ourselves. And with time, we’ll get so used again to who we really are that we dare to remove those painted over parts and show our own bright colors, for all the world to see.