As I look around at the state of the planet and the lives of
individuals—my life-coaching clients’, my friends’, those of people in the
news, and my own—it is clear to me that most of the ills the flesh is heir to
derive from one single source: We have forgotten that we’re magnificent.

 This dearth of self-worth, self-esteem, and self-love
affects everything we do, infects our relationships, and effectively keeps our
dreams at bay. Even people who appear to be egocentric and have a vaulted
opinion of themselves are usually using this display of bravado to hide the
fact that they feel undeserving of the air they breathe and the space they
take.

 Some of this lack of self-regard is hereditary, encoded in
our DNA. I had a remarkable 

spiritual experience once at the Shealy Institute
for Comprehensive Health Care, then located in Sprngfield, Missouri. I’d
written an article about the place that got them so much business, Dr. C. Norman Shealy (pictured here) invited me there for a free week of holistic treatments, education, and
amazement. The most amazing was a session with a hypnotherapist who regressed
me back to my birth, but—astounding to both of us—I skipped past birth and
went to pre-birth, into the same tunnel people talk about when they report
near-death experiences.

 I was speeding through the tunnel at the speed of, I don’t
know, light? All I can say is that it was very, very fast, and coming toward me
at equal speed was the Light, this incredible Love as determined to get to me
as I was to get to it. When we “collided”—that’s the best term I know of to
describe it—a tremendous weight was lifted. In the Light I was light.
Unburdened. Free.

 It was such a relief that I started to cry. I knew in that
moment that what was taken away was the load of low self-esteem, guilt, and
shame I took on from my parents (and possibly generations of ancestors—I
wasn’t thinking back that far). It was interesting to me how clearly that
weight was stamped “inherited.” Of course I have my own karma, but the
heaviness I took on with my first breath seemed to be borrowed. Where it
came from and how many tons of it were “mine” and how many were “theirs” is of
little consequence: the point it, I showed up here and took on a load the likes
of which I’d never have expected. We all did. It’s no wonder newborn babies
cry.

I lived in the sunlight of that experience for several
weeks. Even now, more than fifteen years

later, I have only to recall it to get
internally reordered, to see this life right, as what Joel Goldsmith so aptly labeled a “parenthesis in eternity.” And yet remembering the freedom I felt in those
moments also reminds of the weight I still carry. It’s lighter than it used to
be. I know of three ways to chip away at it. Because I’ve written so much already
and I’m told that blogs are supposed to be short, I’ll follow up with those three insights tomorrow. Have a beautiful evening. Remember your magnificence every chance you
get.