The fact of the matter is that we all came here with a special gift to contribute to the amazing weave of life, and as such we have a unique nature possessed of special talents and abilities that serve us in fulfilling our purpose.

This is what we at Natural Success call our Greatness or Genius and some like Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela call our Light. And it is also true that we are all wounded in relation to our Greatness. 

Our egoic belief system is formed around beliefs that we are not viable being and expressing exactly who we are. Our egoic orientation in life, then, becomes about manufacturing what we unconsciously perceive to be a more socially acceptable identity. Of all the misconceptions we are subject to in life, this is the most disempowering of them all.

From personal experience and working closely with thousands of people over twenty years, I have been able to confirm time and time again that it is only when a person claims their true nature and purpose that they begin to manifest their dreams and experience their bliss. In my own case I always had a block around expressing my knowledge.

Yet when I finally overcame this block enough to write my first book, The Magician’s Way, it connected me with my deep joy of writing. In practical terms I have made millions of dollars from a combination of book sales and the successful seminar business that the book promoted. As for making a contribution, imagine how satisfying it is when teenagers write to me and tell me that they wanted to kill themselves and that since reading my book they are once again back on track with their lives, or couples confide what a nightmare their relationships were and how they are now smooth sailing again.

Like Bill Clinton, each of us have deep seated fears about being and doing what we were born to be and do.

We may long for life to be a certain way, to take a certain path, but beginning to head in that direction brings up tensions, even pain. We feel bad for doing something for ourselves, maybe we feel incapable, or believe that we will starve in a profession where only a few succeed and many fail. The dragons vigilantly guarding the treasure of our true nature and purpose are as varied and unique as our own spirit.

Most people, often even those that we admire as go-getters, are operating in a way that steers them clear of tension and pain. Yet the truly spiritual person, the creator, the warrior, the magician, they use their Will to hang out with the pain that says they can’t be true to themselves, and thereby are able to stand being in their Greatness, that inner territory out of which their genius and bliss arises.

There is a big alliance of pseudo-spiritual and personal development models in the world that hold that Will is bad, and that peace and abundance will flow from not imposing your Will in life. This fallacy is born of a number of short sighted conclusions, chief among them the observation that when we go for things in life it creates conflict, often with others and invariably within ourselves.

And yes, when we give up on going for those things the tension eases. I wish I had a hundred dollars for every time I heard someone say, “I knew it was the right decision to give up on such and such, because now that I’m not going for it I feel a whole lot better.”

If feelings, especially good feelings, were the standard of measurement for how good life is or how true we are being to ourselves then these anti-will models would be valid and I myself would instantly abandon my will. But the thing is that our feelings, especially the heavily charged ones like shame, anger, fear, depression, frustration, emptiness, etc, are not reflections of reality as most people believe. Rather, they are personal reflections of limitation. Our negative emotions are merely telling us what beliefs we are holding about how we can’t have what we want in life.

Firstly, you will not live your Greatness, only the pale shadow that is the identity you believed you had to assume for your survival.  Secondly, you have no potential for real and meaningful growth in life. The weak and the misguided believe that emotional stability is the aim of life. As such they will never see the self imposed limitations they are bound by, or more important even, go beyond them.

Will is not good or bad – it just is. Will is the mechanism by which we assign the power in our consciousness. There’s always a voice controlling us through our thoughts and feelings, telling us that who we really are can’t occupy the world we live in.

And, at the same time, there’s another voice crying out for us to unleash our true contribution. It’s all too easy to rationalize, especially with “spiritual” justifications, heeding the naysayer within us.

As we teach in our trainings at Natural Success, it is a much more vulnerable option to drop our protective concepts and follow our hearts. To say that it is also the more rewarding choice is a massive understatement. When you know the difference, you realize the one is drowning and the other is swimming.

Thanks for that one, too, Joseph Campbell.

• Written by William Whitecloud, Founder of Natural Success