The Blog

I think of “wholeness” in simple terms.  I experience wholeness as loving myself just the way I am. I relate to it as loving life just the way it is.

Wholeness is the affirmation and acceptance of the man or woman you are and are becoming, encompassing the whole of you—your failures and successes, your strengths and weaknesses, your joys and sorrows, your positive qualities and those that are not so positive. Wholeness is a sense of perfection emerging from the imperfections. It is an authentic moment in which the authentic person that is you is felt by you, opens wide in you, and is welcomed into the heart of all that is. Five seconds of this feeling is enough to transform the day.

Our authentic self is found right here, right now, through our openness to our immediate experience, whatever that experience may be. If we judge, reject, or feel conflict with our present experience, the sense of wholeness will instantly splinter and fragment. Fault finding obstructs the experience of wholeness, eventually calcifying into the belief that we are not good enough. We underestimate our strengths and undervalue our worth and often end up feeling separate, alone, inadequate. We develop a slavish concern for the expectations and evaluations of others. It can reach the point that we have no sense of our own strengths and talents, and no awareness of who we really are.

The Red-Pencil World

Most, if not all, of us have been conditioned to be fault finders. It is a kind of cultural virus that has infected us. Fault finding springs from the age-old belief that humankind is, by nature, flawed and untrustworthy. This notion is ingrained in nearly every institution in the world, in every strata of society—in family, religion, government, education, and workplace.

We were all reared in a red-pencil world, and it has shaped us. This red-pencil coercion had such a deterring effect on Albert Einstein that after he had passed his final examination, he found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to him for an entire year. Einstein said: “It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom. Without this, it goes to wrack and ruin without fail.”

We believe an oxymoron that says we fortify strengths by focusing attention on weaknesses. Meanwhile, it is our innate strengths that grow weak. Our strengths, not our weaknesses, have power to point us in the direction of the unique contribution we are here to make.

Becoming a Strength Finder

Becoming a strength finder is simple. It begins with quieting the voice that says we are not good enough. The best indicator of strength is the fire it lights in our hearts whenever we exercise it.

1. Make a list of at least five of your strengths. Write them down.
2. Pick one strength and, starting tomorrow, commit the morning to strengthening it by becoming familiar with the various ways you can put it to use.
3. As you use it, acknowledge its value.
4. In the afternoon, commit to seeing one strength in another person and acknowledging it, at first quietly to yourself, and then openly to the other person.
5. Identify three people who are attuned to your strengths, and use the relationships to affirm you.

Take small steps at first, weaving your strength into other functions you perform. Then commit to growing this strength by gradually increasing it, this week, the week after, and the week after that, until you begin to feel it growing what is best in you.