“Let each morn be better than its eve and each morrow richer than its yesterday.”  Baha’u’llah

For many years I have been inspired by the above the quote because, in the simplest of terms, it explains the whole purpose of our life on the planet.    We are hard wired to go after positive change in our life.  It is inherent in our nature.

Much of the world culture is focused in the opposite way.   There is a great tendency to see the negative in each other and then try to shame a person out of their negative state.   It is exactly for this reason that more people do not get involved actively in a change process like seeing a counselor or taking interesting courses or going on retreats.  The change process, as Baha’u’llah describes above, is going from one positive state to another.   It is not an elimination process, but an adding on one.  Your inner being is always in a readiness state for more positive change.  It just wants more and more positive capacities and qualities.   It is thirsty, hungry all the time for change.   “That was great. What is next?”

In the world of shame nothing is ever supposed to go wrong.  People are not supposed to be afraid or nervous or jealous or hurt.   When bad things happen and people feel awful, it is shameful.  Then we all go away and hide or we lash out in anger.    If we were just able to let go of the shaming world for awhile and get into the world of positive change,  we would realize that fear and worry and hurt and other negative states are not things to be avoided.    They are just parts of the positive change process.

Today I might have a lot of patience or calm, and that is so great.  Tomorrow I am probably going to need something else like friendliness or intimacy.   My inner being loves the state of calm, but it is never going to be totally satisfied with that state alone.   It will want something more because tomorrow is supposed to be better than the night before.   What if I had a lot of calm and then I also had intimacy?  What if I had a lot of perseverance and then also be courageous and take risks?

In the shaming world when you have a lot of fear, it means that something is really wrong with you so that is when most people seek help.   They go for help to get rid of the bad feeling inside.   They don’t go for help to get to a more competent state.    The negative emotions like fear and grief are not shameful.  They are just part of the natural process of growth.    We all have them.   No one is free of them.   They are to be welcomed as friends rather than seen as the enemy and shameful.

In my inward world of shame I found out this morning from a dream that I believed that when I got fired from my job a few years ago  I felt like the person doing the firing was robbing me.   As I meditated and reflected on the issue I realized that, in my mind, I believed that because of the firing that I must be really like “crap”.    This put me in a really down state.   Then, after some more reflection,  I worked out that I was really the treasure, and that when the person fired me, he was robbed of the great things I was bringing to the organization.    In my state of shame I was crap, but in my higher state, I was a treasure.

Letting go of the belief of being crap for being fired allowed me to feel really up about how much treasure was inside of me.  As soon as started feeling up like I was the treasure, then I felt like interacting strongly with the outside world.    The shame keeps me feeling bad about myself, but letting go of the shame allows me to see my treasure.  The goal for myself today was not necessarily to eliminate the shame.   The goal was to get to the feeling like I am a treasure.    When I began the work, I didn’t know that the feeling like I am a treasure was what my higher self wanted to move to.   I only felt down for what had happened to me.   The treasure part was concealed, but I knew, based upon Baha’u’llah’s quote, that there was going to be some really positive energy that was going to want to come out.   My being didn’t want to eliminate shame, it wanted to get a new place.   That place for me was the belief about myself that I am a treasure wherever I go.

It makes a huge difference when you have faith that your being is trying to take you somewhere new and positive rather than just trying to eliminate something negative that you are feeling inside.    The negative only really goes when you get to the new positive state.   Now I can’t wait for what is waiting for me tomorrow.

In the next post I am going to write about how you know which capacity or quality you need to have in your life right now.    Stay tuned.