Caroline Myss Talks Living Life To The Fullest

Posted: 10/06/2013 11:38 am EDT

The following is an excerpt from ORIGIN Magazine.
Interviewer: Maranda Pleasant
Maranda Pleasant: What are the things that make you feel most alive?
Caroline Myss: Teaching. My research. Writing. I love hanging out with my friend
s and family. I really, really, really love articulating original thought. Thats
probably my core, my biggest buzz. Because then it makes me feel like I know why
I was born. Reaching original thought, where I know that Im perceiving something
that only I have seen, and I need to incarnate that. Thats it right there.
MP: What is it that makes you feel deeply vulnerable?
CM: Through the years of my life, the older Ive gotten, the more sensitive Ive bec
ome to the suffering of people and to my inability to really fix that. I wish th
at proportion was different. I wish I could help more. Unfortunately, thats not h
ow the equation is working out here. I can sense and feel this wretched compassi
on that I dont want. But its there. Its a very painful kind of compassion. Its not o
ne you look for. You dont want this kind of compassion; it just happens. The amou
nt of suffering you actually can feel, you want to be able to do something about
it. You want to be able to attend to it, to change the system that is making th
is happen. Because you are so aware of how unnecessary it is, and therein lies t
he deeper pain.
To feel the suffering and then to know the pain of the unnecessariness of it. Th
at right there has me in its grip. The only way through that is serious prayer.
I cant get through it any other way. Ive got to believe that thats making a differe
nce somehow. I cant see the difference, but Ive got to believe it does, because in
some way it lets me sleep at night. My only other alternative is to become angr
y, and I cant go that direction. I have to trust that there is a force greater th
an me that also knows and sees this, and breathes with it and knows that its part
of a grander plan, and all the good things people do matter.
MP: You mentioned prayer. Do you have any practices that help you maintain that
center in the middle of chaos?
CM: I do a lot of reflection. I do. I spend a lot of time in reflection and cont
emplation. I guess the way the old mystics used to do. I dont do meditation. Thats
not for me. Its not my thing.
MP: [laughing]
CM: I have no use for that. Sorry, but I dont. Get out of here. I dont think most
people know how to meditate -- they fall asleep and they call it meditation. I p
refer a kind of sweet, deep, rich prayer in which a person goes in and says, Tak
e me down deep into the reason you gave me life. Take me down deep. It silences
the chaos in me. Take me away from my sense. I need to go away now, because Im in
chaos -- take me down deep. Hover over me, because I need grace. I say that a l
ot, many times a day. So thats my practice.
MP: Wow.
CM: I hold myself accountable for my contradictions. I deeply, deeply believe in
the mystical laws. I know that every thought sends an eternity in motion. I mea
n, I know what I am capable of as a teacher; I know what Im capable of because of
my intelligence. But I also know that thats useless if -- I have been humiliated
so often, when I think that I can combat the terrors of life with intelligence.
Because you cant. Itll bring you to your knees.
I grew to understand or really grasp a sense of what the power of being humble i
s -- that becomes a practice. Otherwise youll be crushed by your fear of being hu
miliated. Itll control you the rest of your life. I really understood that. I hav
ent mastered it, I havent come close to it. Someone asks me whats my practice? I do
nt want the fear of being humiliated to have authority over me. I dont want it to
come near me. I dont want it to have a voice in my decisions. I dont want it to be
anywhere near me. Whats my practice? That one. I dont ever want to humiliate a hu
man being, and I dont want the fear of being humiliated to participate in my thou
ghts.
MP: Yes.
CM: I dont want to ever, ever give that kind of pain to one living mortal. And I
will not give that thought power in my life. Thats my practice.
MP: If you could say something to every woman on the planet and they could hear
you, what would you want to say? What is the message that you think we most need
right now?
CM: Oh my god! I mean, wow! If I could say something to somebody, to humanity? A
h. Let me see.
I would remind them that this day of your life will never come again. Do not use
one day of your life carelessly. It will never come again. Youll never see the p
erson youre sitting across from in that light or in that way. You will never see
the sunset twice. This day will never come again. Knowing that every single day
is so filled with potentialyou cannot wait for life to give you anything. You hav
e no right to feel entitled. You are not entitled to anything. If you really get
that, if you actually get that youre not entitled to be loved, not by one person
, not by anybody, and if you get that and then you look at people who love you -
- who love you -- who think, my life is better because you, you are in it -- tha
t they get up and think, my whole world is better because youre in it, that for s
ome reason they love you, and that they walk this world when youre not around thi
nking, but youre in it, and they come home and they want to call you, they want t
o come home and see you, your face -- you can never make a person love you but s
omehow they do. They do. That you are not entitled to. That you have it should b
e your first clue that there is a God taking care of you. You cannot make a mira
cle like love happen. That is what Id tell. You want proof of God? Thats it.
MP: Wow. [laughing] Thank you so much.
CM: Which you also should appreciate -- never, ever mistreat someone who loves y
ou. Because youre not entitled to that love.
I put my classes online because there are so many people around the world who wa
nted to study sacred contracts, but they couldnt make it to the United States six
times while I was teaching it. All my material took three years to convert to a
n online course. It took all my lectures and all the lectures of all my faculty
members, everything -- we converted it to an online class, because so many peopl
e from around the world wanted to study this, want to study this.
If you know your archetypes -- and not just yours, if you know how to perceive t
he world in archetypes, through archetypes -- everything changes. Everything. Be
cause you have two things: you can see through one eye which is impersonal, and
through the other, which is personal. Thats the way the game is written down here
. Its two things: its totally impersonal and its totally personal, simultaneously.
Thats the nature of the mystical experience of life. Everything about life is imp
ersonal, but you have a personal experience. And the bridge between the personal
and the impersonal is called prayer.
MP: Wow, Im just taking you in. Lets talk about your experience with Oprah and Supe
r Soul Sunday.
CM: First of all, I really enjoyed that interview, because I felt so relaxed. Wh
ich is a different experience than being on the Oprah show. She has a gift to ma
ke you feel comfortable. I think that thats just part of her charisma, part of he
r natural grace. She has the gift of making the person shes talking to feel like
youre an old friend of hers. Thats a real gift.
She also has the gift of always making you feel that she respects you in your wo
rk. You feel very comfortable opening up to her. In Super Soul Sunday, she has cre
ated an atmosphere where you can have a type of conversation thats a bit more int
imate or open than I think you would on her former television show. I think that
was her intention in creating SSS. Because Oprah is one of the rare human being
s whose creative intentions truly are motivated by goodness. There arent a lot of
people you can say that about. There really arent.
caroline myss
MP: Now Im looking at my own intentions, making sure they all come from goodness.
CM: I think they really are motivated by goodness, and I think she works with a
lot of grace behind her, and I think thats why shes flourished and why people have
flourished as a result of her being on the earth. People have benefited from he
r; they have healed, they have grown, they have found their lives changed. In th
e privacy of their living rooms, by reading books shes recommended -- she has cha
nged the lives of millions and millions and millions of people whom shell never m
eet. I know from conversations, people will say, Oh, I love the Oprah show, I jus
t love Oprah -- shes generated fields and fields of love. I know that that kind of
love, though it doesnt necessarily go to Oprah, it goes somewhere, and it goes i
nto the collective pool of creation. It gets distributed into matter, into physi
cal matter. It creates consequences.
That kind of love has physical consequences. Maybe in some way it offsets bad de
cisions people are making somewhere. Somewhere, somehow. It goes into a collecti
ve pool because all energy creates matter, and its subject to the law of creation
. Maybe it offsets all the psychic free radicals people generate with their dark
thoughts. Shes like this big spinner of grace, of good thought and positive grac
e. She makes people feel good about themselves; she makes people believe they ca
n heal; she makes people believe they can do better in life. Thats a lot to shoul
der. Thats her role. And so when I think about her, I think shes one of the great
souls of our time. Thats how I see her.
MP: Wonderful! Is there a current project now? A book?
CM: Yeah, I have a new book out on archetypes.
MP: Well, we cannot wait to read it. Beautiful as always. Thanks for joining us.
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