Accomplishment, Our own wisdom, Authenticity

Before I give you my every day examples, let me just say a word first about the overall idea of accomplishment so that I don’t give an erroneous impression. This belief is, simply put, that we’re already accomplished.

Not realizing this, and worrying over being accomplished is a problem for us. Early in A Course of Love (chapter 6) Jesus said that with peace, accomplishment is achieved in the only place where it makes any sense to desire it. With our accomplishment complete, we move on to the freedom and challenge of creation. I take this to mean that when we quit worrying or thinking about our accomplishment and feel it and believe it, we are free…and oh…then, what we can create! We’re not wasting our energy on something that’s a done deal.

Accomplishment is linked to peace. This course is about wholeheartedness: ending the divisions within ourselves, joining mind and heart “in wholeheartedness” and joining the human and divine so that we have one self. It all comes back to this. With wholeheartedness we can gain the peace that is inherent in our accomplished self.

But…we’re accomplished even when we’re about as far away from peace as we can be. That’s the paradox that we must embrace.

Now that I’ve given a bit of a broader perspective, here’s one of two ways I have seen Accomplishment at work in my life. This first one I’ll share today is about when it’s shown up in a way that I could easily see as a help. The second one, that I’ll share next, is about when it showed up in its opposite form, which I’ve seen as a hindrance.

Owning my own wisdom

Last year, when I was invited to give a talk, I was having a fine time preparing for it until I had a sudden realization. The realization was that I wasn’t owning my own wisdom.

I’d had an awareness of this for a while – probably for as long as I’ve been the receiver of this course. When I first ventured out into hosting a Course of Love group at a Unity church, the minister who inspired me to try was a woman who told me a story about owning her own wisdom. She’d felt the same way as me once upon a time – sort of tentative about it, and then she had a realization much like I’d had. After that, she practiced owning her own wisdom – or put another way, her accomplishment…by… well, practicing it in her ministry.

The realization that came to me last year was different than the earlier “awareness” that I wasn’t owning my wisdom. It was so clear that “it was time”. It was like a shift. As if I was suddenly a person who could no longer not do this – not be accomplished – or authentic.

The reason that I was no longer feeling at ease with preparing for my presentation after the realization was that I felt brand new, and too unfamiliar with my new self to be out and about trying to say anything coherent. The newness was total, as if a change had already occurred. It had happened. The realization seemed to come with a full blown agenda of its own. I couldn’t wait, couldn’t pass. It was time. I was ready and I couldn’t continue to ignore my readiness.

This is what I mean by the way things come to us in life. The talk was the call that told me I had something to say – not something derivative – but something that came of my experience, knowledge, heart, soul and that could be expressed as “my own” and in my own voice. And it coincided with the opportunity to practice it. I had to dig for my courage to do it. It wasn’t easy. But I did it. This was a life example. I accepted my accomplishment and put it into practice.

In A Return to Love, Marianne Williamson tells a story of asking a man to fill in for her when she was unable to make a presentation. He said, “I can’t give a speech as good as you.” She told him, “Of course you can’t. I have had a lot more practice at it than you.”

Our practice comes in many forms.

The call to our own wisdom, and being authentic are a couple of the ways I’ve seen this belief in accomplishment show up in my life.

Next: Disclaiming – my second example