It's been said that the outer world is a reflection of your inner world. If this is true, why seek answers from anyplace else?
Don't get me wrong - I love reading books and knowledge sharing, especially when my inner world surfaces something I don't know how to describe or change, but it's from rummaging around in there that these challenges become identified and overcome.
Sometimes someone outside will trigger something inside and again this becomes a need to rearrange a few pieces of inner furniture to get some perspective. But it still was never about the person on the outside.
When I say - create an epic inner life, it can start with looking at what's working and at the tiniest scale.
Let's take the cells in your body for example. There is an epic adventure taking place every day between healthy cells, fungus, viruses and disease at the microscopic level of who you are. This is true for everyone.
One way to cultivate an epic inner world is to think about the food you eat and how you position your cells to be their best selves on your behalf. Maybe it can be thought of as a great big ocean of beautiful organisms and predators. In the ocean, if you take out a predator completely then populations of other organisms get out of control and cause just as many problems.
What if the dance between healthy cells, viruses and even cancer cells is a beautiful balance where all are needed and could be loved?
Why cast hate on any of these but rather seek to find ways to keep them in balance?
What if it's all a big dance?
And what if the outer world is also a dance?
What if the dance becomes a war?
Perhaps a tumor grows or perhaps a country becomes over-run by hate or famine. How does one approach these? Are they problems or possibilities? Is there a need to fight or a need to advocate for balance?
As an individual, taking full responsibility for my experiences (without blame, or playing the victim) becomes the first step when trying to change circumstances that I do not like or to face an illness (a reality) that I hope to recover from.
On a global scale, when a country is at war or full of rage I also ask myself, what do I need to take responsibility for here? - because I am connected to these people. If the world is an organism and we are all cells, then everything we do impacts one another some way and some how.
If a country is starving, am I being grateful enough for the food I have?
If there is crime in my community, am I bringing safety through my thoughts and actions to my neighborhood?
What would happen if we all took responsibility for our inner worlds? I mean, no matter how much you love the people around you - they cannot craft your inner world or know your inner world the way you do.
You can ask for help, you can help others but one of our greatest responsibilities lies within us.
My inner world right now is asking me to accept imperfection, to practice compassion and to just love what is and to keep an amazing boundary around this.
Sometimes I see these bubbles around people that represent their inner worlds and as I talk to them I see parts of their inner world crossing the lines of this bubble. They say what they say but what I hear is something more like -
"My inner world is more important than yours"
"My inner world is suffering, do something about it"
"My inner world is going to conquer yours"
"My inner world is in charge of everybody"
Other times what I hear is
"My inner world is so beautiful, I have to show you this"
"My inner world is a mystery and I want you to solve it"
"My inner world has discovered something rare and special"
"My inner world knows the truth"
In both of these sets of examples, I feel like the boundary is being crossed or tested.
Personal accountability, personal responsibility and self confidence come from mastering one's own inner world and existing in it, for a lifetime.
For me, my truth, my inner world ... loves it when people living inside suddenly do amazing things outside.
Those things are not about me, but their example reminds me to stay in my inner world and to keep working on it. They show me my light and what's possible while all the while making me feel so calm as though what they are doing has nothing to do with me. It's like watching someone win a race without the need to cheer for them and understanding they didn't need the cheer either.
An author of a good book, a story in a film, or even a person within my community. There are just certain people I look at and admire and feel content just admiring.
Then - there is my tribe.
These individuals and I have agreed to expose parts of our inner worlds to one another on a common quest we all believe in. Even they can never know all of what's inside. But for what ever reason, the mission we are on at this moment has created inner world transparency. Regardless, there is still this beautiful boundary that is not crossed. None of us can take on the work of crafting the other's inner world. And as a tribe we do cheer, we are at the finish line for each other and we might just need that right now.
But I imagine as I grow older and more mature this sense of admiration and quite observation of others crossing finish lines will become more of how even a tribe can function. A tribe of people completely accountable for their inner worlds and thriving from owning that and sharing belonging from that place of complete accountability.
Could you imagine what the world would be like if we designed ourselves and owned our inner worlds completely?
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