Week #21 – Worthy?

(This actually was going to be a share in the Alliances, but it turned out a bit loooooooong to put in there!)

Been thinking a lot about unworthiness this week.  See, I have an easy life these days.  I don’t have a regular job and yet I don’t have to worry anymore about having enough income to pay bills and keep a little for unexpected expenses.  Wasn’t always this way – I remember skipping meals when I couldn’t buy groceries because every cent I had needed to go to the rent or gas for the car; a roof and getting to and from work trumped eating.  So I’m intensely grateful for what I do have now thanks to some shrewd decisions on the parts of Jerry’s Dad and his family.  But it leaves me with nagging feelings that I don’t deserve what I have.  Now, that drives me to do something to make myself worthy, which looks correct on the surface of things, but…

Because the real problem is definitions.  Feelings of unworthiness keep us from doing things that might lead to liberty, growth, autonomy, legacy, and so on – deep down, we don’t believe that we deserve good things, so we in essence sabotage ourselves so we don’t ever get any.  But who decides what constitutes ‘worthy?’  What standards are you following if you are ‘being worthy’ of the life you desire, with all the symbols that go with you living your bliss?

For most folks, worthiness is something imposed from the outside, usually by the herd.  As adolescents, our worthiness, our value, is determined by our popularity with our peer group; if you aren’t popular, you’re second-class or lower.  As adults, our value is determined by our coworkers, our bosses, our spouses, our in-laws, our friends, generally based on what they think we can do for them.

But letting an outside source determine our worth is an untrue measure.  If all true power comes from within, as Haanel says, then all true value must also come from within.  What do you believe you are worth?

But thinking that way, we run afoul of the question, what do I need to do in order to be worthy in my own eyes?

In other words, if I do a, b, and c, then I become worthy of x, y, and z.  And seriously, in the light of what we’ve been learning the last twenty-odd weeks, what kind of sense does that make?  Because as soon as we start to think that way, we fall right into living life backwards and constantly-moving goalposts.

So how to answer the question?  If others can’t truly define my value, and I can’t either, then what determines worth, and what measure can be used?

Well…

Haanel says very clearly that we carry within us a piece of Universal Mind/Divinity/God/Source, which at its heart is indivisible.  If we are in the Divine and the Divine is in us, how can any of us, even those who don’t understand the world within, be ‘unworthy’ of receiving the abundance of the Universe?  That would be Universal Mind saying, “You are a lesser part of me,” to bits of itself, bits that are the “same in kind and quality as the whole, the only difference being one of degree!”

Which then therefore means that the whole idea of worthy/unworthy is just as much of an illusion as fear.

We are pieces of the Universe made manifest.  By definition, we cannot be unworthy of receiving the gifts ready and waiting for us to claim them – though if we won’t have them if we are not in harmony with universal law.

Works for me.  How about you?