Dear Santa, Please don't get me any gifts this year because I haven't been good enough.

My husband sometimes complains about the way I do things. --And in the heat of the moment, I can be so afraid of not being good enough that I am compelled to defend my position. I can be so desperate to convince him that there is a good and valid reason for my behavior that I will attempt to turn the whole thing around on him. I will list his "faults" and make sure he is clear that it's not ME who isn't good enough, it's him. But deep down I sense how far removed I am from the truth... and I begin to believe that the truth I am hiding from is my own "not good enough-ness". (I do know that's not a word!)  Eventually I feel guilty for my behavior and, as crazy as it sounds, sometimes this guilt starts the whole circle over again and before I know it I am listing his faults... again. Of course I don't always behave like this. --But still I'm sure you will agree, Santa, that I truly don't deserve any presents from you this year. I have so much more work to do. Hopefully this next year I can be a much better person. Thank you for your time.
The average <married woman>?

Hmmmm. The other day I sat with a group of students and asked them each to share something they were afraid of. Bravery conquered in that particular moment as, one after another, each confessed to things like: exposure, failure and not being good enough.  I have heard a quote before that if we all sat in a circle and confessed our deepest darkest secrets, we would laugh at the lack of originality. And I have personally witnessed proof of this in a group of 250 people once. In that case, person after person stood to share the thing they were most ashamed of about themselves- to all 249 others in the room. Each time the group facilitator would say to the rest of us, "Please raise your hand if you have had this thought before, or if you have said something or done something similar." Hands went up. Often, all hands went up. Over and over again I witnessed expressions of shame, guilt, and intense pain transform. First into shock and then into pure and indescribable relief. People looked younger, lighter, freer, in only a matter of seconds.

I propose (as many others have done before me) the possibility that there is "One mind". --That all thoughts are shared within this one mind between billions of bodies and recycled constantly. That our fears of failure, exposure and not being good enough come from states of insanity. That it is insanity to believing that we are, first, separate and then somehow different from everybody or anybody else.

With this understanding, I can relate to my husbands frustration because it is also mine. I can have compassion for the weakness, fear, anger, and selfishness I see in others because all of that is also mine. Perhaps this is the truth I sometimes sense I am missing in the midst of reacting to my husbands words:  No one can be "the one" who is not good enough, because when there is one mind there is no one separate to compare to. Well, it sure sounds better than a debate over who is and who is not this... or that.

Thank you, Jennifer BV, for The Gift. I sat in the silence of the yoga studio today and read to myself:

How do I listen to others? 

As if everyone were my Master

Speaking to me

His 

Cherished

Last

Words.

Peace to us all!
Namaste,
Cori