The treasure you’re looking for is always within you

Learning about yourself is a life long study.

There’s no limit to how far you can go, once you decide to get going on the road to self knowledge.

Like the colorful ragtag protagonists in ‘The Wizard of Oz’, you can get on your road and follow it to your own Emerald City, looking for treasure. Along the way you might run into a witch or two, as well as some other shady characters. “Oh no!” you might say, “I’m running into obstacles! Will I ever reach my treasure?”. Then one day you ‘arrive’ to find that the treasure you were looking for was always within you.

This is consciousness. This is where the fun really begins.

Once you think you know everything there is to know about you, along comes another opportunity to grow, redefine yourself, and learn something new. If you can welcome the opportunities abundant in every moment to expand and embellish yourself, you can attract more of them.  

It’s okay to order up the nice, fun, funny opportunities, the ones that validate you and make your heart sing. Change doesn’t have to happen only under difficult conditions. Yes, it’s time to laugh out loud, especially when you can recall, hopefully with amusement, the lessons you had to learn the hard way. Oh well! Moving on….

The energy of change makes some people nervous, while others get angry, and still more are excited. It’s funny when people resist changes, since more of them are happening faster these days. Like Lucy and Ethel in the famous chocolate factory scene, it’s difficult to handle the pace of what’s coming up the conveyor belt some days. As Lucy says to Ethel in that scene, “I think we’re fighting a losing battle”.

One definition of unconsciousness is not knowing, being unaware.

If you want to become aware of who you truly are underneath all of the responsibility, stress, judgment, work, anxiety, and just plain old busy-ness, it can sometimes feel like you too are fighting a losing battle. All of that other energy piled on top of yours can create a whole lot of unconsciousness that is difficult to navigate. Like driving through a thick fog, you might feel the need to slow down and be extra cautious about what's coming up the road toward you.

This is where having a regular meditation practice can help you to clear out what you’re done with, let go of what you’ve completed, and be able to discern what’s yours and what isn’t. Meditation, especially grounded meditation, helps you clear out that foggy unconsciousness. When you release and let go of energy that isn't yours to start with, you can see and think more clearly.

Once you become aware that many of the energies you’ve taken on aren’t even yours, it’s easier to release them. Grounding and meditating regularly can help you free yourself from the energies that get in your way. As you drop the old unconsciousness, your treasures begin to surface. They were always within you, every step along the way.

"Stop looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love - you have a treasure within that is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer." -Eckhart Tolle

• ©Kris Cahill
  Image @Unsplash