The Inner You

“Suc­cess­ful peo­ple make money. It’s not that peo­ple who make money become suc­cess­ful, but that suc­cess­ful peo­ple attract money. They bring suc­cess to what they do.“
–Dr. Wayne Dyer

Let’s take a look at the inner self and the outer self respec­tively. First, what is your inner self? As you can deduce up to now, your inner self is your spir­i­tual nature. It is the Higher Con­scious­ness within from which your exter­nal real­ity springs. Some peo­ple call it soul, spirit, God, the Infi­nite Intel­li­gence, the Life­force, the Holy Spirit, the Christ within, the Bud­dha within, etc.

It doesn’t mat­ter what you call it. Your inner self is name­less, form­less, lim­it­less, and mea­sure­less. It is that part of you that is infi­nite. I am by no means attempt­ing to pros­e­ly­tize for any par­tic­u­lar reli­gious point of view. While peo­ple may call it dif­fer­ent names, it is and has always remained beyond description.

So, for the sake of sim­plic­ity, I refer in this book to this inner dimen­sion as your upper­most “val­ues,” those small voices within you that guide you and guard you on your jour­ney called life.

Your outer self, though, may be any goal you achieve, sit­u­a­tion you expe­ri­ence, or activ­ity you engage your­self in. It’s what goes on out­side of you. It’s what you can per­ceive through your five senses. And con­trary to the inner self, it is that which can be mea­sured, that which has form, and that which has bound­aries for it is con­strained by the lim­its of space and time.

How­ever, the way you feel, think, act, and expe­ri­ence your life, even the way you relate with other peo­ple, are but reflec­tions of the inner you. Ulti­mately, your outer self is a mir­ror. It is the expres­sion of your inner­most val­ues. While your outer self is a reflec­tion of your con­science, your con­scious­ness is the abil­ity you have to act in accor­dance with instead of in oppo­si­tion to your conscience.

Your con­scious­ness, there­fore, is the wis­dom you have of the high­est that’s within. You are con­scious when you are con­gru­ent with your inner self.

What do I mean by being con­gru­ent? Quite sim­ply, when you’re bal­anced or when you act in accor­dance with that still small voice within, you cre­ate this true suc­cess to which I am refer­ring. When the inner and outer selves are con­nected or in align­ment with each other, then the qual­ity of that con­nec­tion is what makes a per­son truly successful.

While the inner and outer selves are inde­pen­dent, they are also inter­de­pen­dent. That inter­con­nec­tion gives you the abil­ity to real­ize hap­pi­ness and suc­cess right now, right where you are, in the present moment. Essen­tially, you are truly hap­pier and more suc­cess­ful to the degree to which your con­nec­tion is har­mo­nious or of a higher quality.

Ulti­mately, you are truly suc­cess­ful when you fol­low your pri­or­i­ties (your pri­or­i­tized set of per­sonal val­ues) and not your goals. If you feel that you are not suc­cess­ful, you’re sim­ply not mak­ing the con­nec­tion. Period.

Let’s say you used to ride a bike when you were young. You bal­anced your­self on that bike and prob­a­bly never fell, except as you were in the process of learn­ing to ride it. And let’s say you didn’t ride a bike for sev­eral years. If you picked up a bike today, you will stay in bal­ance no mat­ter what. That bal­ance or your abil­ity to ride that bike is rooted in your consciousness.

How­ever, let’s say you didn’t ride a bike for sev­eral decades. You get on your bike and fall. But after the first few tries, you regain bal­ance and ride your bike again. Now, when you were out of bal­ance, is it because you were unable to ride the bike? No. You were sim­ply and tem­porar­ily uncon­scious of that which you already know. You were just not mak­ing the connection.

Hap­pi­ness is the same thing. If you’re not happy now and you are seek­ing it out­side of you, it’s because you are not fol­low­ing your con­science; you’re not tap­ping into the “You” poten­tial­ity that’s within.

“There is no way to hap­pi­ness. Hap­pi­ness is the way.” This is an old proverb, but I think it’s one of the most pow­er­ful ones I’ve ever heard because, if you are seek­ing hap­pi­ness through suc­cess (i.e., goals, accom­plish­ments, or pos­ses­sions), then you will never find it. I guar­an­tee it.

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

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