“But loving-kindness—Maitri—toward ourselves doesn’t mean getting rid of anything. Maitri means that we can still be crazy after all these years. We can still be angry after all these years. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. The point is not to try to change ourselves. Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s the ground, that’s what we study, that’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.” ~ Pema Chödrön

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I have a pile of personal development books in my home library.

They’re all amazing!

There’s only been a handful that I really thought were stretching to make a point, and those aren’t on my shelf any longer.

I’ve read enough to surely have found the one thing which will help me create a life of joy, abundance, and peace.

The alchemist in all of us is a seeker of the Holy Grail. We can’t help it. We are curious by nature, explorers of mystery. It is instinct to deconstruct systems that were built for us by generations past and to create our own truths and realities. We build community and society through conversation and deep thought.

However, our mind and ego conspire on one constant question—what do “they” know that I don’t? It is a quest for survival, as far as those two are concerned.

The truth is, personal development or self-help is hugely popular because of one reason only: we don’t trust our inner guidance and look outward for nuggets of wisdom.

Now, you may feel that I am being a little cheeky saying this as an intuitive mentor. Don’t I coach others on their journey? Absolutely! And I’ve just admitted to seeking that outside wisdom. I am human after all, and I say that not to be Captain Obvious, but because it is important for us to value our humanity, our sacred physical incarnation.

I just shared that one piece of self-help or advice you’ll ever need. I bet it slipped by unnoticed because we’re always looking for something profound.

But it’s really quite simple: it’s okay to be 100 percent human, to value your physical beingness as is.

When I’m 100 percent human, I accept chaos as normal and even helpful. My perceived shortcomings and faults are simply part of my whole, beautiful self, along with my perceived triumphs and assets. Or what I consider to be assets. Maybe I’ve got it all turned around? It’s another thing I can explore.

When I’m 100 percent human I don’t have to shove aside those parts of myself which society says are unwelcome, I can see my evolution as perfectly timed and beautifully perfect. There is a tenderness we can extend to ourselves when we know that we are not “wrong” in our skin. There is nothing to seek but the joy of being oneself.

When I’m 100 percent human, I practice Maitri, loving-kindness toward myself. When we try to escape being human, we begin to judge our own existence.

“You are the Universe, expressing yourself as human for a little while.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

When I’m 100 percent human, I value my intuition above the opinions of others. We may search, read, discover, learn, have conversation, distill, and in the end, we come back home to our own knowing.

But what if I don’t know? What if I can’t trust myself for the final answer?

Great questions…ask, why not? Who told you that you couldn’t? What situation taught you to dismiss that still voice? When did you silence your inner guide to stay safe or be good?

If you dig deep enough, you may remember that you came with a navigation system that could be trusted, that you knew things internally, that sometimes you overrode that system and tested out something that perhaps hurt later, or got you in trouble of some sort. All part of learning who you are, what you want, or don’t want.

It doesn’t mean that you can’t be trusted to make the right choices, it means you were so very much a physical incarnation of a spiritual being and wanted to experience every level of life in the third dimension—where life can be chaos or peace, pain or joy, laughter or tears—it’s okay for it to be all those things.

We chase the calm and want someone to tell us how to achieve that without the chaos. There is no book or guru self-help ideology that can give us that. In this duality based, Third Dimensional existence, we must find peace within the things we cannot understand.

Be human. All of being human. This is what you came to do. Embrace it. Taste all of life. Give it meaning by living heart first.

Everything I’ve said here should be dismantled and reconstructed by your intuition. Is any of this true? For you? For the wise being you inherently are? This being human, does it really matter?

We’ve built a whole industry on our lack of trust in Self.

You can trust yourself. I witness you in this. Be your own damn guru.

“At times you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” ~ Alan Alda

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