“The embodiment of dignity inwardly and
outwardly immediately reflects and radiates the sovereignty of your life, that
you are who and what you are beyond all words, concepts and descriptions, and
beyond what anybody else thinks about you, or even what you think of yourself.
It is a dignity without self-assertion, not driving forward toward anything,
nor recoiling from anything—a balancing in sheer presence.” –Jon Kabat-Zinn
Personal sovereignty,
then, is its own reward, something that exists independent of our intimate
connections and experiences with others—it is the intimate inhabiting of our own
life. Right here. Right now.
In its barest
aspect—sheer presence.
Our
relationships are important too, but they are ultimately gifts. Sometimes the
dance lasts a lifetime, sometimes an evening. The point is never to forget that
answers to personal fulfillment are not to be found in the life of others, but
the life inside ourselves.
In the words of
Jorge Luis Borges:
“So plant your garden and decorate your
own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring
you flowers.”
Which is to say,
self-possession (personal sovereignty) is an inward journey characterized by
difficulty, discipline and the knowledge that the moment we are in, is the liminal space holding all that we long for, that we might use whatever circumstances we may find ourselves in
as fodder for eliciting the warmth, intimacy and love we so crave.
Locate your heart
and you locate the source from which all the rest flows.
