not promoting your Self
“When you are it, you don’t have to say anything about yourself. At the higher levels, you have no interest in promoting yourself.”
- Susan Hawkins, in the preface of The Map Of Consciousness Explained
While scrolling through IG yesterday, the book The Map Of Consciousness Explained by David Hawkins popped up in the Story of someone whose content I really enjoy, so I decided to check it out. After reading the reviews and knowing this individual was recommending it, I decided to purchase it, and thanks to the magic of Amazon, it arrived last night.
This morning, I picked it up, thumbed through the pages, and started to read the preface, written by Hawkins’s wife, and couldn’t put the book down, especially after I read a line that I felt was written for me–it was like this quote jumped off the page:
“When you are it, you don’t have to say anything about yourself. At the higher levels, you have no interest in promoting yourself.”
My immediate thought was that I wanted to get THERE–that level where I’m so good at what I do that I don’t have to tell anyone. But then, as I thought more about the book and the brief comments about ego in the preface, I realized that Susan Hawkins wasn’t talking about developing a skill but a mindset or, better yet, reaching a higher state of consciousness to where there is no internal need to promote my Self.
That level of consciousness seems like it should be easy, yet it seems so hard to reach.
“How will people know about me if I don’t tell them?”
I immediately thought about the first episode of Musings with Morgan where I discussed why I changed my professional title from “financial advisor” to “life planner”; that question was an opportunity to tell every about me and promote my new focus on life planning, advising, and coaching. If I were operating at a higher level of consciousness, I would not have needed to answer that question–I would just be a life planner.
Susan Hawkins does share in the preface that we don’t always stay at a certain level of consciousness, so while I can see periods of time where I recognized the lack of a need to promote my Self (I’ve even written about it before), I can also see periods of time where I did feel the need to promote my Self–I don’t think this fluctuation of levels is bad.
I don’t know this to be true since I’m only through the preface, but I don’t think reaching a level of not having to promote your Self means you sit in silence knowing you are who you are. I THINK this level of consciousness allows you to educate others, which shows your expertise and gifts, and by serving others, the “promotion” naturally occurs—when you are DOING the work and serving others, you don’t need to promote it.
I’m interested in seeing what Hawkins wrote about my theory.
For now, Susan’s quote is going to stay top of mind, especially as I catch my Self going into promotion mode; I’m interested in seeing how things unfold if I can stay in the higher state of consciousness, quiet the ego, do the work, and just be the person I know I am.
“When you are it, you don’t have to say anything about yourself. At the higher levels, you have no interest in promoting yourself.”
See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,
JC
