INTRODUCTION
The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.
—Joseph Campbell
I had a dream about my mother after she passed away. In this dream, I was transported back to the kitchen in which I grew up. It looked like the same kitchen I was in at 10 years old, but I was my age now—38. The kitchen was vibrant and alive. I could see the blueness of the walls; I remember touching the countertops.
I thought, “Oh, my God. I am here. I am in this kitchen. I can’t believe it!”
It was so solid and so real—more real to me than this reality right now. It was as though someone or something had put me in this kitchen to see what my life was like in a very real way, at that point in time.
I looked towards the stove and my mother was standing there, smiling at me. I walked over and looked at her in disbelief because I knew it was her.
I took her hand, kissed it and said, “I love you so much.” Gratitude and love were pouring out of me.
Her smile was filled with love. “Tell them what I told you.”
“What? What do you mean ‘Tell them what I told you’?”
“Tell them what I told you when you were growing up.”
When I woke up from the dream, I wrote it down in my journal and then thought about something that happened between me and my mom when I was boy.
I was about 10 years old and my mother and I were sitting at the kitchen table painting trees. About halfway through, as I looked at our trees, I compared my tree to hers. I felt like my tree looked like a lollipop and her tree looked like a real tree. I got upset and started to leave the table.
“I’m done. I quit!”
“Oh, no, Michael, your tree is beautiful!”
This made me angrier. “No, it’s not. You’re just saying that. You always say that.”
My mother said, “Let me show you something, Michael.” She took a little bit of yellow and put some on my tree. “Do you see that? Do you see that?”
“No.”
Then she added a little orange. “Do you see that?”
I started seeing something. “Maybe I do.”
“You go and get some color.”
I got some color and added it to my tree. Then we were both putting color—orange, yellow, blue, all kinds of colors—in this tree.
When we were done with this tree, as a 10-year-old boy, I thought this was the greatest tree in the world. I still remember the feeling in my heart and the image of this tree with all of its different colors. We put this tree up on the bulletin board and looked at it every day. We talked about the story of this tree for the rest of my life.
I felt a little clearer when, in my dream, she said, “Tell them what I told you when you were growing up,” but there was still something missing. What was it? Then I remembered a statement my mother said and wrote in cards to me hundreds, maybe thousands, of times throughout my life.
My mother was a very intense and loving woman. For my whole life, my mother would look at me directly in my eyes and say, “Michael, you are a gift to the world.”
In between my ears, and for many, many years, my response was, “I don’t believe it. You’re just saying that because you are my mother. It’s not true.” I had always believed that I wasn’t good enough, that I couldn’t do something or that nobody loved me.
My mother’s beautiful gift was that she said it to me enough times so that, at one point, I started to entertain the idea. I started thinking to myself, “Maybe, just maybe, I really am a gift to the world!” As I began to accept this statement as true, I had real experiences that supported that belief. Living my life and giving away this unique expression of this gift is like her intention being fulfilled.
Khalil Gibran said, “The song that lies silent in the heart of a mother sings upon the lips of her child.” This book and its messages are about me singing this song. Once I started believing my mother’s words, it has been my mission to share her messages and pass them on to you and to the rest of the world.
We create the experience of our reality through our thoughts, feelings and actions. We may think it’s about attracting things outside of ourselves, but it’s about the story we are telling ourselves about ourselves and about what is actually happening outside of us. These stories—and the words we are saying to ourselves in between our ears—create the experience of our reality.
I am using myself as an example in that journey—from not believing in myself and not believing who I am to the place of believing that I am a gift to the world. I invite you to join me in this journey and open yourself to experiencing yourself as the gift I know you already are.
We do not see because we have eyes, we have eyes because we see.
We do not hear because we have ears, we have ears because we hear.
Consciousness precedes form.
—Michael Bernard Beckwith
Beckwith said that visioning is seeing beyond what we see with our physical eyes. We all have “seeing,” “hearing” and “listening” conscious energies, which manifest in the forms of our physical eyes and ears. So often, we assume that whatever we see with our eyes or hear with our ears is the absolute truth. Then we say to ourselves, “I’ll believe it when I see it” as opposed to “I’ll see it because I believe it.”
At that kitchen table with my mother and the tree drawing, I realized that she was holding a vision of my potential fulfilled. She always saw me as a gift to the world, even when I didn’t see myself that way. Holding that vision or holding someone in that vision is a very powerful thing. I don’t think she had a specific idea of what “it” was going to look like, but she could see my potential. Whenever she would try to describe it to me, I would think she was crazy because I wasn’t seeing it or believing it myself. She saw it when she looked at me and at the picture I created for myself. I was holding the intention “I’ll believe it when I see it”; she was holding the intention “I’ll see it because I believe it.”
When Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, he said, “I have a dream that one day … little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.” 2 He saw that. In the remarkable way he talked about and explained this vision, it was as though it were already happening. It impacted millions of people because he was able to share his vision in such a way that people could see it. We believed in and trusted what he was saying because of his conviction and sincerity. In today’s world, we are seeing parts of that vision being fulfilled by the simple fact that Barack Obama is president.
We all have the ability within us—not just within me, Martin Luther King, Jr., or great visionaries—to see beyond what our eyes are showing us and to hear and listen beyond what our ears are telling us. Helen Keller couldn’t see with her physical eyes and couldn’t hear with her physical ears, but we all know that she was able to see and hear beyond the physical form.
You have the ability within yourself to look at people, see and listen to them and identify their potential—even when they don’t see it. You can hold people in that vision of their potential fully fulfilled. You can know that they have all of the tools, resources and capability to do it, whatever “it” is. You don’t need to have a specific agenda of how that potential may be fully realized, but you can see that they have it within them and ultimately apply this ability to seeing the potential in yourself as well.
We humans all have an untapped potential far beyond what we can imagine. We only use 5–10% of the potential of our brain power and the other 80–90% is untapped. That’s a lot of untapped potential!
Our potential continues to expand and grow infinitely so there is no limitation to our potential being totally fulfilled. Unlike a glass of water that can be completely filled, our potential is constantly being filled. We are unlimited beings; our potential continues to expand. I hold this vision behind my eyes and in my mind. That is the vision my mother held of me. That is the vision I hold of you and of all human beings.
My sister, Theresa, is severely mentally and physically retarded. She’s about 50 years old now, but she wasn’t expected to live beyond 10. She doesn’t talk and I believe that she is totally deaf; she basically sits in a wheelchair. When I go to visit, I have had experiences where, in my rational mind, I would think, “Why is this? I don’t understand.” I would ask God, “Why, why, why?”
One time, Theresa turned and looked right at me and I looked right at her. We were gazing into each other’s eyes for what seemed like an eternity. In that unforgettable moment—for maybe 20 seconds—it was as though she were saying, “It’s okay. It’s okay. This is what I chose and I am perfectly happy with who I am. You may not be able to understand that from where you are, but it’s okay, brother. It’s really okay.”
Obviously this experience was beyond words, but it was as though she were telling me that, even though I can’t understand it, she was in bliss. This was how she was a gift to the world and how she came to serve: by allowing others to be of service to her. There are people who serve and take care of her 24/7—somebody bathes her, changes her diapers and feeds her. Although it seems as if they are ministering to her, she is actually ministering to them. She’s their teacher. She’s also been my teacher.
You can use that sort of visioning to see yourself and others in the fullness of your potential being realized and fulfilled. By seeing the potential, visioning, holding another in the fulfillment of their potential—fully fulfilled, fully realized, fully expanding into that realization—it’s very possible to hold yourself in this way, which will create a very real experience of this manifesting for you.
How do you see yourself?
When you look in the mirror with your own eyes, what do you see?
Who is there?
It only takes a few minutes to set a simple intention. With as much sincerity and earnestness as you can possibly bring up, put your hand on your heart, close your eyes and repeat these simple intentions to yourself:
With sincerity in my heart, it is my intention to see myself and who I am.
It is my intention to see all of the potential inside of myself.
Now open your eyes, look deeply into the center of your eyes and give yourself permission to see who you are and all the potential that is there.
It is my intention to give myself permission to really see myself fully.
It is my intention to give myself permission to see my potential fully realized.
Whatever my mother did with me that day in that painting and with that tree is the same thing I do with clients, friends and family in my coaching business. With my mother’s guidance, and with gratitude to her, I learned how to see and believe in my own potential and then help people see how beautiful their “tree” is and how beautiful they really are.
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MICHAEL PAUL BROWN is a spiritual life coach who helps people turn their blocks into blessings and take the energy of those blessings to propel themselves forward to manifesting the essence of their heart’s desire. He has coached hundreds of people individually and led many groups of men, women and teenagers on the topics of spirituality, personal growth and transformation. Learn more about Michael and receive a free video e-course on “Manifesting Your Dream” by visiting ChangeYourLifeCoaching.com.
