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The Power of Forgetting Your Name

Steven Barnes
6 min readNov 16, 2020

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If I believe that at our core, we are all some combination of divine souls seeking God, children seeking Mommy’s love and Daddy’s respect, and an animal seeking to survive by moving away from pain toward pleasure…I’m not responsible for convincing you, only for acting in alignment with that belief.

What are the implications?

That there are no humans beyond redemption. You or I may not be able to save them, or may not wish to spend the time and energy to help them, but that doesn’t mean they cannot be helped or saved, just that the capacity is beyond our current ego identity. The great leaders are and were men and women who cared more about the world, their cause, the divine, or their fellow human beings than most of us can imagine. That heat, that light, burns away the impurities. They CONDUCT light, rather than generating it.

To the degree that this is true, it points the way for all of us to excel.

Love yourself. If all of us are seeking love and approval, LEARN TO GIVE IT TO YOURSELF. Be safe and loved within your own heart. Everything you have ever done in your life you have done in an attempt to escape pain and fear. Or to gain pleasure and love. That includes all the positives and all the negatives. See this in yourself, and you’ll be able to see it in others, which will give you the wisdom you need to understand and communicate with them.

If YOU are not clear on this, you cannot see it in others. If you have not connected to your own Source of…

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Steven Barnes
Steven Barnes

Written by Steven Barnes

Steven Barnes is a NY Times bestselling author, ecstatic husband and father, and holder of black belts in three martial arts. www.lifewritingpodcast.com.

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