You Are Not Special Part 2

So it appears from the response to my last blog, You Are Not Special, that further elaboration is necessary...or desired by my readers.

You folks are really upset about not being special...and therein lies the problem :(

The minute we want to be mom’s favorite, the very best tattoo artist, the number one girlfriend or boyfriend in your beloved’s life, the one to give the smartest responses in class, or your family to choose your apple pie over your cousins...you have the “specialness" disease. All of those desires come from lack and insecurity. They come from feelings of not enough-ness.

You have this idea that once someone dubbs you their favorite, like Queen Elizabeth knighting Elton John, you will instantly have some kind of value, or your stock will go up, or all of a sudden you will feel important or ok.  You will finally be able to breathe air on this great planet because some outside source has deemed you worthy above all the others. Now you are on your pillar; your made-up podium the ‘winner’ rises to—you have arrived...if only for a moment.

Then you go to your next moment, you just won the body-building competition.  You go home to show your sweetheart your trophy and you discover that in your absence, she has found another that is now more special to her than you once were. You are instantly deflated and knocked square off your glorious pedestal.

Can you see where I’m going with this peeps?  This longing that makes you crazy, this desire to be better than the rest, the need to have someone out there say, “YOU are the best...YOU are my favorite; my special one.” This is where all your anxiety comes from, this is where you feel insecurity and fear.  This is where you are deathly afraid of loss. Why? Because you may find out that you just aren’t enough, that you and/or your skills just don’t measure up.  It may turn out that you are not cute enough, smart enough, skinny enough or rich enough to get the girl, win the prize or the election.

This “specialness” disease is extremely insidious. 

LET IT GO!!!  YOU ARE ENOUGH!!  Wether you are deemed the best in your field of study, come in 4th in the beauty pageant, lose the guy of your dreams to someone else,  or make a crappy meal.  You are enough, just the way you are. You are like the rest of us humans...we win some we lose some.  We are not special.

When we are caught in the disease of “specialness, competition reigns.  We do whatever we can to be better than everybody else.  Judgement creeps in to stay.  Things like this can be heard running through your brain and coming across your lips: “What is she doing with him/her? I am better looking, right?” “Why does mom give him so much attention, doesn’t she know he smokes pot all day with his friends?!  She didn’t even notice my straight A’s!” “Can you believe they made HER relief society president?” “Can you believe they gave Joe the promotion? I would have done a much better job.”

Now what are the emotions of this “specialness” disease?  The abject need to be special creates jealousy, insecurity, fear, not enough-ness, shame, judgement, rejection, anxiety, heartache, failure, low self-esteem, pride, worthlessness, anger, bitterness, discouragement, sadness, despair, worry—should I go on??

When you are no longer striving to be special and you are able to allow your self to just settle into Being, when you can be ok with exactly how your life is in this very moment, when you can love yourself today with or without the positions, possessions or relationships, then will you have peace.

 In I Corinthians 12-21 it says, 'For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body... Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot were to say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear were to say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body.If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you. I'm not one to use Bible quotes very often, but this just seems to illustrate the point so well.  It appears God is saying that we all have specialties, but that none (of us) is any more special than another.  In other words, we are not special—at least when it comes to comparisons.

If you dig a little deeper, you will see that we are all divine extensions of the universal energy field with different view points.  Individual waves of the same ocean, all just grains of sand on a beach, stars in the night sky—we are the SAME.  We are ONE.  No one is greater, no one is less than.  With that recognition and acknowledgment, come the beautiful gifts of love, peace, co-operation, collaboration, acceptance of others, kindness, compassion, beauty, togetherness, unity consciousness and universal oneness.

There is an ancient vedic phrase that says, “I am that, you are that and all this is that.”   Tat Tvam Asi  is a Sanskrit Sutra that illustrates the above phrase.  It means, I see the other in myself and myself in others. When you comprehend that all you see is a reflection of yourself, you may just lose that ‘specialness’ disease and trade it in for a universal coat of oneness. 

You Are Not Special

You are not Special.

Most of us have this disease we'll call 'specialness'.  We all want to be special...we want to be the favorite child or grandchild. We want to be the best friend, the favorite girlfriend or boyfriend, the head of the class, the president of the group, the one people like the most.

All my life I tried to prove my specialness to a mother who clearly didn't want me...no amount of student body president, cheerleading captain, Miss Maine or anorexia was going to make it so...and that’s just the short list. 

Trust me, I know this disease well.

This desire to be special, to stand out from the crowd, often comes from our beliefs that we are not enough, that we may be inadequate or lacking in some way. So we attempt to remedy the situation with heroic acts, selflessness, service, having a fancy house, expensive car, great body, special partner, etc

But the truth of the matter is—We are not our possessions, positions or relationships...we are not even our bodies, thoughts or doing-ness. 

We are just us... Plain Jane and simple.

We are not special.  Strip it all away and we are the same...we shall all leave this place the same, just as we came into it. 

 And truly, that is a beautiful place to be. In that sameness we are able to feel the truth of Onenes.  In our sameness, we are always enough.  In our sameness there is no judgement. In our sameness only love and acceptance exist. In our sameness, we are not alone—we are one. 

In your specialness you will never be enough.  In your specialness you will fear someone taking your place and being more special than you. In your specialness you can be an elitist snob.  In your specialness you are better than everybody else.  In your specialness nobody can relate. In your specialness you are alone.  

It turns out that ‘special’ is a very lonely place. It's as if we are in a sea of isolated, tall pillars- one person atop of each pillar. This place is devoid of connection. You can't reach out to touch someone because you are so high up and far away from the next pillar. The person on the next pillar is too caught up in his own specialness to see the other people on the pillars near by...and even if he could see, he may be threatened that your pillar is a tad higher than his.

And don’t forget, the people below.  They are the ones who really know they could never be special, so they gather round the pillars of their favorite ‘special one’ to admire and worship...and you special ones are too high up to reach down. Once again, creating a lack of connection. Can you see how ugly it can be to be ‘special’

I’m not saying to stop shining your magnificent Light. I’m saying don’t worry about how anyone else perceives you. I’m saying be your brightest Self just for you, because that’s who you are...not because you are trying to impress.  Attempting to be something you are not, always comes from fear and insecurity.  Just be you. Like Buddha said, ‘Be a light unto yourself.’ When you are in that space, feeling lit from within, being inspired by the truth of you, loving who you are...that is special.

From that ‘special’ space, you will begin connecting effortlessly with others who are in that ‘same’ space. 

For me, I’d like to trade in ‘special’ for simply being present.  When I am present, everyone in my space feels special.