The most popular essay on my blog for several years has been the piece I wrote about the famous Rumi quote that says:
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
The things that hold us back — from love, from authenticity, from stepping into our purpose and power — are not the surface issues like strategy or tactics, but what lurks beneath the surface.
The inner demons. Shame. Blame. Guilt. Fear. Self-doubt. Perfectionism. Beliefs about who we are supposed to be. Truths we have learned but hesitate to acknowledge.
The willingness to go deep, to see what we’ve been unwilling to see, to find the barriers we build to our happiness, is an essential step. But what happens when we find these obstacles?
In that essay, I shared the “missing piece” to that quote, as I learned from meditation teacher Tara Brach.
… and embrace them.
The object is not to eradicate or destroy what’s there, but to accept it. To love it.
As a friend recently reminded me, the barriers we erect to love are part of the love itself.
Everything includes its opposite.
What lurks in the shadows may be the obstacle in the way of your liberation, but it’s also the path to your liberation.
It’s only by accepting what lies beneath the surface that we can move forward.
Acceptance doesn’t mean that we just give in to it. It means we acknowledge what’s there and move forward with it. We embrace it. We befriend it.
Nothing can stay suppressed forever. Truth always has a way of rising to the surface. We can get ahead of the game by diving deep and having the courage to open our eyes under water.
Seek out the shadows and let them guide you to your liberation.
Love it? Hate it? What do you think? Don't hold back...