The Journey Towards The True Self

Saturday 24th November 2012

Today I ask the question how can I learn to be uniquely myself, to be comfortable in my own skin?
To do this, it seems that I must let go of the need for approval, or of an obsession with winning and losing. I must let go of the need for success and the fear of failure, and indeed also the fear of criticism.  I take great comfort from the following words which I came across from two people I greatly admire.  The first is Fr. Peter McVerry, a Jesuit priest who has worked all his life in the service of the poor and homeless in Dublin and who says like Mother Teresa of Calcutta that he does not pray for success, but asks instead to be faithful ‘I do not ask for success, I ask to be faithful.  If I am faithful, I am already successful and I cannot fail.’

Scripture always talks in terms of being fruitful rather than successful.  Being fruitful to me sounds more beneficial to everyone.   The seeds we plant, become the food that feeds us, that sustain life. Success sounds like it has a degree of vanity and narrow self interest attached to it.  I think today’s obsession with success focuses more on externals rather than genuine interiorarity  which lead to the peace we are all ultimately seeking, that peace that passes all understanding.

I remember as a spirituality student coming across a paper that stated that   “The goal of all inner work is to facilitate the emergence of the true self.”

This paper listed the five different stages of this process as follows;

1. To Understand Myself
2. To Forgive Myself
3. To Accept Myself
4. To Be Myself
5. To Forget Myself

I think there is much truth in this.  How liberating it is to take the focus off ourselves, but in order to be able to effectively be of service to others, we must first take care of ourselves and come to a degree of self acceptance, but at that point, I think it is crucial for our well being to move the focus beyond just self.

I conclude today’s reflection with the following prayer by St. Ignatius of Loyola. Such a prayer might bring up strong reaction in today’s world, and in fact parts of it in myself, if I’m being truly honest, which I strive to be in my writing. I hear myself almost saying, ‘come on fight and not heed the wounds’? Is such a thing possible?  I might find myself saying ‘come on is it healthy to toil and not seek rest, and to labour and not seek reward?  I can almost hear some people saying, ‘come on Rachael, are you living in the real world’ and yet what I take from this prayer is that when you are indifferent to results you become in a sense free of anxiety and what might have started off as seeming like an impossibly lofty ideal, unattainable by ordinary mortals becomes the very vehicle by which we gain our own happiness and liberation from suffering.


Prayer for Generosity (St. Ignatius of Loyola)

Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labour and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.