Greatness is Whatever YOU Define it To Be
What is greatness? Who defines what greatness is? Whose definitions of greatness are you aspiring to in the way you live your own life? These are just some of questions I asked myself today. And you know what? I got answers. My own. That’s the beauty of facilitating a connection to your own wisest self, the part of you that can speak to the parts of you that need healing, new perspective, love.
Here’s how I tuned into myself today:
I started the clock, setting it for 40 minutes. I had my journal out, a nice sound bath playing in my ears, and a prompt to get me going.
Today’s prompt:
What I know about healing is…
With a deep breathe, and an especially long exhale, I put pen to paper and wrote this, letting it emerge not from my mind but from a deeper place beyond the mind:
What I know about healing is…that it happens in its own timing. It can’t be rushed or prodded along at your desired pace. It has a pace of its own. When emotions arise, that’s a signal that something is ready, something is releasing, something is healing.
Healing occurs on all levels: personally, collectively, interpersonally. Healing is always for you first and foremost. It’s an act of love towards yourself. Therefore, an act of healing can only occur when there is space available to receive the love behind it. Love gently pushes what needs healing forward and says it’s time. Love is always there.
This is why we don’t heal alone or on our own. Love is always there. If there’s no space for love to come in with healing, healing doesn’t come. I see them as linked, joined, a package deal.
Then I asked myself:
What needs healing in me today? What do I have space to love?
The part of me that doesn’t feel like she’s enough to play with the leaders of our world, to play in that realm alongside them as an equal, like I don’t deserve to be grouped with the best among us.
My next question to myself:
Where does this belief that I am not enough begin? What put it there so firmly?
I see my years as a dancer, back in childhood. Wanting so badly to be recognized as a standout performer and never being chosen as such. And I remember simultanously being critiqued for not trusting myself enough to remember the steps, always looking to the dancer next to me to be sure. Leaning on them to be led.
I wanted to be seen as someone my own actions weren’t revealing me to be. Is there now room to give love to this part of me that wanted attention, praise, recognition, even when she didn’t earn it, so to speak? Can I honor her frustration, her disappointment, her performance? Can I respect why she wanted what she wasn’t willing to have? Can I look on her with only love?
What does this little girl need to hear today?
Whether others see your greatness or not, do not let that dim your shine. Be great with or without the praise. Perform even when no one’s looking at you. Greatness isn’t about recognition or praise that raises you up above all others. Greatness is achieved moment by moment, day by day, internally, intrinsically, a measuring up to your own standards, not striving for another’s.
What are my standards for greatness?
If I shut off and out all of the world’s standards I’ve taken on as my own, what I’m left with is peace and ease. Do I feel peace? Do I feel ease? My standards for greatness are peace and ease. Peace means I’m living in integrity with my own highest values in all that I do, speak, think, and feel. Ease means I’m living in flow, being a vessel.
Said another way, the one to receive my award for greatness is the one that lives in integrity with themselves and gets out of their own way to be a channel for something greater. That’s the only form of greatness I should be striving for, because it’s my own.
How did that land for you? Both the practice of setting a timer and journaling with that part of you that knows, the part of you that has your answers AND the message that came through when I did that?
Yes, that message was for me, but also for someone else who may find this post, read it, and remember that there are parts of themselves too that are still striving for someone else’s definition of greatness, and feeling less than because of it, or empty in the attainment. Why? Because it’s not their own definition of greatness.
I leave you with a new prompt:
What are your standards for greatness? What qualities do you deem worthy enough of your recognition? Are you living up to them?
About the Author
My name’s Amber Dunlap. I’m an Inner Voice Facilitator and nomadic travel writer, exploring my inner world as my much as my outer. If you’d like to work together, I do offer one-on-one Inner Voice sessions and a free monthly newsletter over on Substack. You can also follow me at @nomapsamber and @innerjourneyswithamber on Instagram.
