Your Path to the Peak of Greatness goes through the Valley of Smallness

You’re alive on this planet, at this time, to discover what lives at the depths of your being, and then serving the world with your gifts.

That’s not just some high-flying woo woo. I believe that with all of my being and am ready to make a fierce stand for it in the world.

And when I recently attended the International Circling festival in Holland, I found a clarity about the journey towards our life purpose that I want to share with you.

If you don’t like fires under your ass, however, this won’t be a good read for you. Just sayin’ :)

Magician Initiations to start the Journey

I appear to be in the middle of a Magician initiation. And if you have been in one of these yourself, you know they are not to be trifled with.

What appears to be an autoimmune disease (probably chronic lyme) is ravaging my body, and I questioned if I would have the vitality to get myself there, much less deliver my workshop.

And as per usual when I feel terrible ahead of it, the Reclaim your Inner Throne workshop turned out fantastic. They always do when I feel too small to deliver them.

This reflects a very profound teaching that Magician initiations offer: In the midst of our breakdown, the light of the world starts pouring through the cracks of our crumbling ego. And in the middle of what seems to us like the Big Stink, the world loves us more.

In this way, following the breadcrumb trail of our perceived smallness while being constantly reflected by the world inevitably leads to our true abode, our house of belonging.

It seems to be a universal principle that true breakdown heralds true greatness.

The Path to Greatness

So it would appear that we don’t get to experience true greatness until we’ve become really intimate with our smallness. And as per usual, when insights deepen, I was taken to school to learn the lesson, feeling the truth of this viscerally at one key point at the festival.

I had sought support in a friend’s lap, and as I laid there, I started shaking and spasming. The truth is I was feeling disappointed by the group dynamic. I saw a group of people wasting time. Staying small. And I was feeling so much potential greatness!

That room was full of badass visionaries and I didn’t see any evidence of it.

After having felt my own poor health and smallness in the face of that to its exhaustion, I had no choice but to stand up in the middle of the group and give voice to that, lest I be torn apart inside.

What came was, in summary: “This is not enough. We’re more than this. The world needs us to be more than this. I want every single one of us to go out into the world and impact 100.000 people with our Great Work”.

When I saw the incredible response my challenge garnered, I was yet again reminded that when I show up raw with my embodied truth, Life responds with open arms.

Today I welcome you, with open arms of my own, into that circle of visionaries. I’m looking at you now, telling you to impact 100.000 people with your Great Work. In this lifetime. Because if you are like every person I’ve ever met, you will hurt if you don’t.

I imagine that deep down, in this very moment, you know what you’re capable of. And you living a life which falls short of that is you living a lie.

The Life you are creating

You know more is possible in your life.

I imagine you have moments of sensing it powerfully. Abstract thoughts and feelings may float through you as you toss and turn in bed, telling you in ways you cannot yet grasp that you’re meant to live a bigger life.

And however much you toss and turn in your life, that feeling just isn’t going away, is it?

If you are like many of us, it’s hard for you to feel this. So hard that you’ve likely learned to numb the feeling by chasing “a thousand pleasant things”.

Addictions.

Deep down, you may even question whether Life is on your side. Maybe you question, as I have done, if the Universe is in some way fundamentally flawed or broken. Could it be that I am the recipient of some sort of unique and cruel sentence of pain?

In my experience, we humans produce so much nonsense in our interior worlds in our efforts to run away from the reality of our greatness.

But our Soul is persistent, and it doesn’t let us off the hook. It seems prepared to summon challenging life conditions until we wake up and receive the teaching. I sometimes think my health problems is exactly that: A gift from my Soul to summon my greatness. (it seems to be working)

And it seems clear that as long as we don’t wake up and accept the teaching, our life experience remains the perfect answer to the prayer of smallness we have committed to.

Impacting the World with your Great Work

As far as I know – and I’m reiterating now – there is only one way for us to get to our true greatness: Feeling the pain of being small all the way to its core.

I don’t think any person of true greatness has ever lived who has not arrived there by way of feeling their vulnerability and smallness.

And I believe that if you don’t currently believe that you can impact 100.000 people with your deepest gifts, it’s because you’re numb. It’s because you’re not willing to feel the truth of your Life. It’s because doing so will reveal hidden treasure that will destroy the person you think you are.

I trust Marianne Williamson when she says:

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

But seriously, choosing the much-used path of denial and ignorance is not really a choice for you anymore, is it?

So wake up now. Wake up now and find those 100.000 people who await your gifts.

Or maybe 100.000 is too small for you? Maybe you’re more of a 10-million kind of guy? ;)

Whatever the case, it’s time for you to do what it takes.

Humanity needs you

I want you to believe whatever thoughts and feelings of greatness you have inside.

Yes, they may be infantile, arising from a desire to be special. But if you put yourself out there, and you make sure you have conscious community around you, any arrogance and shit that’s there will be burned away by Life in due time, and you’ll be left with a power that is pure.

Some people seem more focused on expressing with perfect purity than on showing up in the world. I don’t agree with that approach.

I ask you not to fear your arrogance. You being in conversation with reality is far more important than you expressing yourself completely free of ego.

Poet David Whyte puts beautiful words to this.

In order to have a sense of spaciousness and ease, you have to have a part that’s willing to hazard and risk itself in the world; that has to, in a sense, cultivate a kind of arrogance; the arrogance of belonging. The arrogance that you have something to say. The arrogance of Being.

And you don’t worry about the egotistical parts of that arrogance as long as that arrogance is put in conversation with something other than yourself. And the conversation will take care of the arrogance.

So don’t let your imperfection stop you. Wake up. Show your true colors. Feel your smallness to its core, dare to be great, and find those 100.000 people that wait for your gifts.

The truth is, we all need you to.

And if you need support with that admittedly long and challenging journey, share in the comments below (your dreams, your desire, your challenges) and consider joining the next round of Reclaim your Inner Throne, starting October 19 (which is a 3-month condensed experience of everything I just shared with you).

Book a conversation about Reclaim your Inner Throne (men only)