Publishing House

We are, we are, just thrilled to accompany you here and on all your other life adventures. When we say we are just thrilled we mean the ‘just’ in the sense of very, and we also mean the just in the sense of only. In other words there is no other experience of being with you than the thrill of it, the delight of it, the excitement of it. We do not experience exasperation, or impatience, or disappointment, or inadequacy, or sympathy in being your partners. And yet many times we see that you presume or half-expect that we do. And so we begin here by saying to you that the only experience we have as your partners is that of thrill or excitement or joy.

The first aspect of this that is important for you is around your deeply-held stories of what it is like to be with you. And the second important aspect of this opening sentence is around adventure, thrill and excitement. We will come back to that one later.

Celebrating where your inner work has taken you

The first aspect that we are raising is in direct response to why you are here – both major reasons. It isn’t completely new or surprising to you, but today we can lay it down for you very clearly and very starkly. And before we do that please step back with us for a minute so that you can celebrate the fact that you are here.

There are so many people who will never give the kind of permissions in this life that will get them to the place of recognizing and collapsing a core story. It’s a day of jubilation when you have opened and opened, and healed and healed, and learned and learned, and been willing and been willing, enough to get to the point where one of your foundational beliefs can come into focus. It doesn’t happen to many folk. Not because they are unlucky, but because what it takes to unearth and bring into the light a core or foundational story is immense – immense.

The amount of permission required to get here can be thought of as equivalent as the amount of permission required to master a musical instrument, or achieve success in a sport, or gain a difficult degree. Inner work doesn’t have all that many measurements, points of evaluation. There are no ceremonies where you get honoured, called out of the hall, and presented with an award for excellent work in self recognition and healing. There are no degrees for this. In fact, for most of you not a single other soul will know the extent to which you have given permission to open and let go.

And so, often, because this work has no external reward system, you often undervalue it in comparison with things that other people have been investing in. What’s more, not only do you undervalue it relative to other achievements, you also question whether it’s even been done at all. We understand this.

But today we need to step back with you a little and affirm for you that every ounce of investment you have made in your own self-awareness and healing and joy has been registered, has been felt, has moved not only your existence, but existence as a whole to a tiny degree different than it would have been otherwise. We invite you to really hear us on this. We cannot force that of course, but we are stressing very strongly today that the way you are thinking about your personal work, the way you are talking about it, the degree to which you own it and see its value, will determine what its value will be.

And so we are offering to you today an understanding that in the same ways that people invest for years and years and years in a savings account or in a child or in a project, and the growth, though steady and incremental is sometimes, in fact always, not as fast as you would like, there is a tipping point time. There is a tipping point in every single endeavour, irrespective of what it may be, into which regular human permission has been invested. There is no exception to this.

And so we are encouraging you to remember, and more highly respect, all the investment that you have put into your own freedom and your own joy. We understand that some of the books and the teachers often unwittingly suggest that in this journey A will cause B and it will go quickly. But it’s not so. It’s not so in any journey, and certainly not an interior one. You cannot insist upon a particular result after reading a certain book or engaging in a particular process, and by a certain time. This is not so much about what you do, but about the permission you demonstrate as you do it, over and over and over again. And you have shown remarkable persistence, commitment and interest.

You have not stopped engaging with yourself because after one year of it you did not see the exact results, tangibly, that you wanted. No. And many people do do that. You have not started to judge or totally dismissed all the teachers and tools and techniques that assist in bottoming you out into joy. And you could have. You are underestimating and undervaluing, the permissions that you have given in direct choice of personal freedom and joy. And we must today remind you of this, reframe it for you, so that you may begin to own and be far more respectful of the journey you have walked, the investment that you have made, and the permissions you have displayed.

Seeing a core story

Core stories, the kind that frame much of a persona for much of a life, don’t just come running to the surface and present themselves the first time you look. No. Your heart needs to be sure over and over and over again that you really mean it when you say that you want to know who you are. And your heart needs to be sure over and over and over again that you will be compassionate when you do see it.