For the Best of Refractive, turn the dial back to February 2020 for an all-time favorite episode- powerful, raw, uplifting. Enjoy “Surrender to Greatness.”
Magnificence is our birthright. The illusion of struggle, expectations, status, and what’s “fair” causes us to actually fight against our own greatness as we desperately seek to control our existence. We can begin to see life as a series of threats and hardships. The truth is: something IS hurting us, and it’s US. The self is the only opponent powerful enough to drag us down. And when we put down the weapon and realize that we were fighting shadows, our true power begins to manifest and doors swing open.
In this episode of Refractive Johnny G looks into the saga of our battles through examples of interpersonal relationships, the epidemic of shame, and growth lessons from the allegory of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace. Are you ready to surrender? Because despite our best efforts, while we can temporarily blind ourselves to it, our magnificence will win in the end.
For coaching services or speaking engagements, contact host Johnny Guidry at refractivepodcast@gmail.com
For similarly themed content, try these other episodes: You Already Know, You Already Are and Making Peace with Our Dark Side
More information on living your most authentic life is found at RefractiveCoaching.com and RefractivePodcast.com
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Ever since you can remember you felt something in your chest telling you to move, to love, to speak, to try. Day after day you pretend you don’t hear calling. Maybe you dismiss it as silliness or worse, but it’s there ready for you, and it will wait for you as long as you need. My name is Johnny G and I invite you to join me on a journey of awakening as we dare to embrace our light. This is refractive.
Good afternoon everybody. This is Johnny G and welcome to Refractive. I’m sitting here next to a scented candle that I really love in my favorite sweatshirt on a comfortable chair and I just don’t know if life gets better than this. There’s so much joy in these little moments that surround me and I can’t speak for other people, I certainly hope that there are other people who feel the way I do, but you know, I’m sitting here and I just can’t believe that this is what qualifies as a great life for me. If you would’ve asked me, I mean not even a long time ago, just a year ago, I had a very different answer for what I think I would have wanted. But the ability to sit here on a weekday afternoon, not have to step into a job that I don’t want to do, in comfortable clothes with candles and a nice beverage anda beautiful place to sit. You know, this is, I don’t know, maybe people have known about this for a long time, but this is groundbreaking to me and I am just so grateful. I am grateful that this is where I’ve ended up. Anyway, that is definitely not the topic of today’s episode. We are looking at the concept of surrendering to your greatness.
This was a topic that I dealt into in some detail recently at a workshop that I did and I thought it would really be a prime for this podcast, so I hope you enjoy it. I got a lot of good feedback. I still have some people who were in the workshop who are in contact with me arranging follow ups. So I think it was effective and impactful. And so I’m delighted to share it with you here on the Refractive podcast. In the recovery community where I have roots, as well as in other spiritual aspects, there is a seeming paradox that in order to find power you must stop fighting. In the 12 steps we call it surrendering your will. But the idea is that the fighting is what we’ve done our whole life. We’ve tried to fix things, we’ve tried to manage the circumstances around us and we’ve only ended up deeper in misery and conflict and frustration.
So there is another way of looking at the tough stuff in life. And by just surrendering, stepping into flow, you are able to tap into power that’s not available to you when you are in the grips of a fight. So I took this from a slightly different angle because in my beliefs, I believe that I was created, my soul, my spirit was created by source. It is the same material as source. When I say source, that’s my word for God, higher power, Supreme being, Supreme intelligence, however you like to call it. I believe that I am like a cup full of the ocean. That is my definition of God. And that while I as a small portion of the overall Source energy, I do not equal Source. I am not God, but I am made of the exact same matter as God. And my substance is the same as God. So the same way that a cup of water out of the ocean is not the ocean yet it is exactly the ocean at the same time. That’s how I view my relationship from my soul. In my very being is all the glory and power and mystery and loveliness and light and love of God, that is what I believe I am made of. That is what I see as my birthright. So if my birthright is all of the magnificence of the glory of the universe, then the need to fight to have a barely acceptable quality of life is illusion. That is at its core at odds with my belief that I am of the same stuff as the Supreme being, and so when I want to put my life on the right track to have a successful career, two, contribute to society, to express love and receive love, to achieve whatever definitions of success I hope for in my life. There is this fallacy that I have to fight and scrounge and struggle in order to be great. In reality, I am greatness itself, you our greatness itself, that is the state of entry into this life experience that we have. It’s not something we earn through good deeds. It’s not something we earn through piety. We are simply greatness. We are magnificence itself. We are the personification of magnificence, so how can it be that we have to fight just to be mediocre? That is the point that I closely examined in saying, I’m going to flip the script on this. I’m going to say that the fighting I’m doing is not to be great–the fighting I’m doing is to stay out of my greatness. And as I looked more closely into this concept, this really carried a lot of weight for me. And it seemed to make sense.
You may or may not agree with this primary point that I’m making, and that’s okay because I believe that even if you see this from a different angle, maybe you don’t believe were made from the same stuff as God. Maybe you don’t believe you are a cup full of the ocean, you might see this differently. That’s okay. My point is that we are struggling to be what we simply are, and that when we stop directing our energy to the struggle, we are free to flourish. This applies to all aspects of our life.
I want to start this by, I’m going to my absolute favorite quote in the Bible. Now, I told you in last episode that I am not a Christian and that is the truth. But I do think that there are stories and allegories that have some deep spiritual wisdom. So I just say that because there are many people in my life who become suspicious when they hear someone talk about the Bible: that they’re trying to be roped in and converted. And I want to promise you that that is not my goal. I want to use a particular story in the Bible for the spiritual message that is contained in its allegory. So that really is my goal. So back to my point was this amazing quote. It’s my favorite quote in the entire Bible, and it is Genesis 3:11 when God is talking to Adam and Eve and he says, “Who told you that you were naked?”
I love this, this passage because there’s so much richness to this experience that’s being explained. So, for those of you who may not be as well versed in the Genesis story, the serpent had convinced Eve that she should go against God’s instructions and eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She then went to Adam and told Adam that the serpent had given her information that God had not been fully truthful and that it was okay to eat of this fruit and that it would have a positive impact. And as they ate from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they began to see the world differently. And one of the ways that this immediately manifested was they felt ashamed for being naked. So according to this story, at one point in time, Adam and Eve were blissfully ignorant of their nakedness, just like any animal in nature. They felt no shame, no awareness. The idea of nakedness wasn’t even a concept. So it certainly wasn’t a concern or a worry. However, the minute that they put their will ahead of the plans that they’re creator had laid out for them, the concept of shame manifested in this idea of being embarrassed of my nakedness. So let’s think about this in modern terms. Maybe you’ve seen this show Naked and Afraid. It’s a reality show where people are dropped in harsh wilderness and they’re naked and they have no resources and there are cameras that film them as they survive. Okay. In this reality show, as in the garden of Eden, there is no way to manufacture clothing. You have leaves and twigs and bark and that’s about it. So the next step for Adam and Eve as they feel this shame is they decide to take leaves and make clothing out of it. So one second, there’s no awareness of being naked. It’s not a concern. It is not troublesome at all. The next second where no problem once existed, there’s shame felt by Adam and Eve was so severe that they are now desperately trying to manufacture coverings out of leaves. How dramatic must this shame be and how unnecessary was this shame? Because one second before there was no concern, then there was a mind-created concern that literally didn’t exist before, that was now all consuming. So as they hear God approaching, Genesis says they hide and God says, where are you? And Adam and Eve say, well, we heard you coming and we were naked and we didn’t want you to see us like that. So we hid. And this is where God says, who told you that you are naked? Because this was a concept that was not even in existence before this. So there are a few lessons to learn here. Number one, we truly do create our own reality. When we believe something is important, it becomes important. We have this manifest story, power to create scenarios. It is a beautiful, amazing part of the human existence. We get to choose what matters. And there is literally no other authority that gets to fight with us. We choose what is important and we make it so they decided the need for clothes was essential. And it was. So number two, this was the first instance of shame in human creation according to the Bible. So, this launch of the concept of shame means that the lesson for Adam and Eve was that when you step out of the grand design, the glory and the magnificence of the birthright that you were given, when you reject it and step away from that, here comes shame, hurt, pain, suffering. These are the lessons that I take from this, uh, from this writing and I apply it to my current day because I can absolutely give you examples where I decided to become an architect for circumstances and situations that were around me. And as I did that, I created pain, suffering, shame, embarrassment, frustration, anger, conflict. In fact, again, I can’t speak for other people. I have perceptions that I hold on to, what I see other people go through, but I’ll just speak for myself. It’s almost always painful when I try, when I have an agenda, it’s almost always painful when I choose how something needs to be. And I pull a Jean-Luc Picard and make it so. I don’t know if you feel that way, but my plans, my architected desires, when they are not aligned with the flow of the universe, they hurt. And there are whole aspects of my life that are dotted with pain along the way because I had to have X, Y, Z. I needed this career. I needed this neighborhood. I needed this person in my life. I needed to look and feel this way. I needed to be respected in this way. That’s a really valuable lesson for me, that I pull from that writing. So let’s tie this back to what we’re talking about, surrendering to our greatness. That’s after all the main concept of today’s episode in order to surrender to the greatness. That means that we are fighting against the greatness. And I’d love to ask you, uh, please feel free to email
Me at johnny@refractivecoaching.com. Feel free to send me an email. I’d love to hear how you fight against your own greatness. Or maybe you don’t have an example at the moment, but stop. Press pause on this podcast and think about where have you fought against your greatness? Where have you decided to fight to stay out of the magnificence that you were born to enjoy? I think of situations my friends have told me about how they no longer felt that the relationship they were in was nourishing and satisfying. But the idea of starting over or being alone was painful or the idea of “wasting” all the time and effort they put into this relationship made walking away an unacceptable choice. And so instead of the life of magnificence that is the birthright, there is fear that I’m going to waste my effort. I’m going to look like a fool.
I’m going to feel alone. I’m never going to be loved again. I’m not enough in society if I don’t have a partner who’s gonna wipe my behind when I’m 90 years old and am incapable of self care. These fearful ideas cause us to fight every signal that’s inside of us to walk away lovingly from the situation XYZ. Just walk away lovingly. Follow your heart, follow your guidance. I’m telling you to walk away. I’m telling you to love yourself enough to say no and walk away. But we fight. Oh, I must be wrong. No, that can’t be right. That can’t be the correct guidance I have. That can’t be true. That doesn’t make any sense. We love each other. He loves me. I love her. It can’t be right to walk away. Okay. Well the good news is we each get to choose what’s “right.” There’s no one to enforce that. It’s part of the human experience. We decide what matters and um, no one’s gonna. No one’s going to force you. So if that is what your insides tell you is best for you, then you should do it.
I have a similar situation. When we hang out. It just doesn’t feel good any more. And I don’t understand why- I don’t. I’ve really tried to understand what, what is it that’s changed with my relationship with this person? Why doesn’t it feel good to spend time together? And, I don’t know if the other person is aware or not. Maybe for them, nothing has changed. But for me, I know that after spending time together, I feel uneasy. I feel uncomfortable. And so this is another example. The love that is my birthright is saying, stop. This doesn’t feel good. Okay, talk about it. Bring it up, discuss but don’t maintain the current path. The current path is no longer appropriate. If it was appropriate, it wouldn’t feel wrong. It wouldn’t be so painful.
To date, I haven’t necessarily listened to the greatness that’s within me that saying, love yourself enough to take care of your needs and listen to your guidance and it hurts. I got to tell you, it hurts because now I pretend, which is a lie, right? Pretending is a lie. I pretend that I’m just as happy to hang out as I’ve always been because I didn’t want to hurt this person’s feelings. This person has been so good to me. I don’t want to disrespect this person. What if I’m wrong? What if I’m crazy? What if this is just a phase? What if I’m just going through something for a moment? You know, and those, that’s what’s kept me in this painful pattern when in reality, if I just got quiet and listened for the guidance that has already been given to me, I would know how to avoid that pain.
And that is what I’m talking about when I say I have not yet surrendered to the greatness that has been guaranteed to me by my birth right. Instead, I choose to fight the situation and force my will like Adam and Eve in this example, force their will. And when I force my will over what feels appropriate, it hurts. And when it hurts, I am not standing in the magnificence that I have a right to stand in.
In the workshop that I mentioned earlier, I had a participant of the workshop hold up a plate of butter and I asked her, I gave her a lighter and I said, okay, you’ve seen melted butter before. I’d like you to melt this butter. And during the workshop just keep it in a liquid state. And maybe about five or 10 minutes into the workshop she quit. It was not easy to melt the butter. And I had hoped that maybe there might a few other creative efforts in carrying out the assignment. But at the end of the day, she said, no it’s not worth my effort to do this because it doesn’t work. I either don’t have the tools or I don’t have the circumstances to do what you’re asking me to do and it’s a waste of my time so I’m not going to do it. And the point of this exercise was that the natural state of butter at room temperature is a solid. And we, with technology and tools and resources and willpower can take that butter and make it a liquid, but the liquid is not the nature of that butter at this temperature. So as this lady tried to keep the butter melted, the butter fought her nonstop, and as we debrief the exercise, my point was that you are capable to assert your will! You can melt that butter and you can continue to apply heat and you can keep that butter in a liquid form for as long as you’ve got the energy, but you’re gonna get tired at some point. You have to go to the bathroom, you have to go to sleep. At some point you have to stop, but guess what? The butter will never stop because you cannot fight a natural state. It’s like holding up a book out in front of you with straight arms. The book isn’t heavy and you can hold it out there, but eventually you’re going to fail at trying to maintain your arm straight out. It doesn’t matter how strong you are because gravity will never, never, never stop fighting you, so you can try. But what we learned from that butter example, what we can learn from trying to hold a book straight out ahead of us for you know, for a long period of time, what we learn is that this is a painful, permanent, impossible battle. Let me say that again: this is a painful, permanent, impossible battle with only an imaginary payoff trying to fight the natural state of what is- it’s a painful battle with an imaginary pay off. At the end of the day, the only substance strong enough to cut a diamond is a diamond and the only substance strong enough to hurt me is me. And so I have to be a willing participant and this fight against my nature, no one else walking on this earth has the true power to hurt me. No one can keep me out of my greatness. My magnificence is a part of my inner structure and so the only person who is strong enough to dim my light, the only person who is strong enough to hurt me is me. And so if I don’t want to have my light dimmed, if I don’t want to have a painful, stressful life, there’s only one person with the power to stop fighting and that’s me.
That is the lesson that they walk away with from this workshop – because the opponent is only ever me. It can only be me. There is no other opponent. You know, I referenced recovery and the recovery community a lot because it’s such an, a formative part of my story, but the reason I do is that the whole point of the 12 steps is to create a spiritual awakening that changes who we are as a person. So as I talk about as I offer this podcast that is about personal growth. And as I reference my own experience, it’s really hard to isolate that out of my recovery experiences as well. That said, there is a book, uh, that’s a part of the recovery literature called 12 steps and 12 traditions. And on page 92 of that book, there’s a quote that says, “it is a spiritual Axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause there is something wrong with us. If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also.” This is such a powerful aspect of a spiritual awakening because the opponent is me. It’s like that horror movie “When a stranger calls”: the call is coming from inside the house! The person coming after you is you! The person holding you down is you! This is mindblowing. The person who’s trying to make you fail is you. So stop, stop, stand up. Acknowledge your magnificence, acknowledged the stuff you’re made of. Ask yourself, why am I doing this to myself? Where is the pain that’s confusing me right now? Where is the hurt or that disappointment that’s making me feel that I have to do this? And sit, watch it. Love it, love it. Send love to the pain and it will fade and you will heal and it will be one less illusory temptation for you to fight your own greatness. When we surrender, we restore sanity. When we stop fighting our greatness, we are greatness. I’m going to wrap up the episode today with a pretty famous quote. It comes from Marianne Williamson, um, who people have recently gotten to know because she was a political candidate for the presidency. But, um, before this, for decades, she has been on the forefront of spiritual thought, um, in this movement of awakening.
In one of her books she wrote the following: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous. Actually, who are you not to be? You’re a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us. It’s an everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Thank you Marianne, and thank you to all of you who have sat and listened today. I hope that some of the material we covered today resonated with you. At the end of the day, my goal is to be the best person that I can be by helping others do the same. My name is Johnny G. I’m here in Washington, D C, I work with people in person and remotely who are seeking to step into their own magnificence. It would be an honor to help you on your path. Please feel free to email me with any questions at refractivepodcast@gmail.com. Thank you so much, everyone. Have an amazing day and above all, don’t forget to aim your light.