Who exactly are we trying to impress?

There is something quietly exhausting about the way we often live. We may look perfectly normal while drinking our coffee, answering messages, doing the shopping, replying politely to someone who has just said something profoundly irritating. But inside, a small theatre is often open.

And on that theatre stage stands…I, you, he, she…..us!

Trying to be good enough. Trying to be kind enough, to be useful enough, to be spiritual enough, to be calm enough, successful enough, attractive enough, clever enough, healed enough, positive enough, or at least not too obviously confused.

It is quite a performance, isn’t it?

Strange thing is that we think that somewhere in the dark we imagine there is an audience watching us…..a hidden panel of judges, perhaps, with very serious faces, and scorecards in their hands.

One gives us a 8 for parenting, another a 5 for inner peace.

Someone in the back lowers the score because we secretly ate the last biscuit and blamed “the children.”

But let us ask the simple question: Who exactly are we trying to impress?

Most of us have lived for years with the feeling that we must somehow justify our existence. We must prove that we are worthy of love, of respect, of being seen, worthy of taking up space.

And because we believe we are a separate little self in a very large world, this seems completely normal.

When we identify only with the body and personality, we naturally feel vulnerable. We look at life through a very narrow opening, like someone trying to understand a cathedral by peeking through the letterbox.

Through that tiny view, everything looks fragmented.

Other people seem separate from us.

Their opinions seem powerful. Their approval seems necessary. Their disapproval feels dangerous.

So the mind invents a judge.

Sometimes that judge looks like a parent , like a teacher, a boss, a partner, a neighbour, a Facebook comment section, or that one person who can raise an eyebrow in a way that makes your entire nervous system pack a suitcase.

But the deeper judge is not really outside us.

It is the ego’s voice within the mind, whispering: “You are not enough yet.

Try harder, be better, show them, prove it!

And, of course, the ego is very clever. It never tells us clearly what will finally be enough. That would be far too generous.

So we run….and try go prove ourselves.

But the audition never ends. If we succeed in one area, the ego points to another. If it is a rigged game, because the ego does not want peace. It wants us always almost there, but never home.

A Course in Miracles gently exposes this strange theatre. It does not ask us to become better actors. It invites us to leave the stage.

Then something shifts.

We begin to see that our worth is not something we manufacture. Our worth belongs to what we are.

Imagine a lamp covered by many different lampshades.

One shade is elegant. Another is old-fashioned. One is colourful. One is a little crooked. One has a stain nobody talks about. One thinks it is very important because it came from an expensive shop.

But the light itself is untouched by the lampshade.

The shade may change. It may be praised or criticised. It may be fashionable for a while and then suddenly not. But the light does not become more light because someone admires the shade. And it does not become less light because someone rejects it.

That is our situation.

But we do not have to prove our innocence or our value.

The only thing we are really invited to do is stop believing the voice that

says we are lacking.

That voice has never told us the truth. It only keeps us busy.

And perhaps tomorrow morning, before stepping into the day, we can pause for one quiet moment and say inwardly:

“I resign from the audition….I resign from proving….I resign from defending my existence…..I resign from trying to become worthy of Love.”

Then we can still do what needs to be done, but without the heavy burden of self-justification, without constantly checking the imaginary scorecards or living as if some invisible jury is deciding whether we are allowed to be here.

The seats in the audience were empty all along.

The Judge we feared was only a thought.

And the Light we tried so hard to earn was already shining quietly

within us.

No applause required.

With love and light,

G.