We Have Moved

Our new blog site is at:

http://x.namastepublishing.com/blog/

Lesson from A Supermodel

By Namaste Staff Writer

“She’s an icon for our era,” said one interviewee of Kate Moss on the day she launched her line of clothing.

The debut, replete with Kate herself in the window of the Oxford Street store in central London, allowed customers to purchase only a limited number of items lest they sell them at auction on eBay. Some are so desperate to purchase the new fashions that they’ll pay an inflated price to get their hands on them.

An “icon,” says Merriam-Webster, is “an object of uncritical devotion.” In other words, when you look at a supermodel, you see what you want to see—you don’t see the real person.

What’s actually happening is a two-fold process. We project onto the person an idealized image, and we borrow from the person a sense of identity.

Each of us is born with a fundamental identity that is who we essentially are. In growing up, this essence becomes largely, if not totally, buried. We learn not simply to be ourselves, but to act in a certain way.

This act is based on our self-image. Our self-image is the way we’ve learned to picture ourselves, think of ourselves, imagine ourselves because we have lost touch with who we really are—lost touch with our essence. Many of us have not a clue who we really are. What we have come to know as midlife crisis is often the first inkling many of us get that we haven’t been ourselves at all up until now.

A person with a solid self needs no self-image. They don’t have to imagine themselves at all, but can simply be.

In the absence of awareness of our authentic self, we borrow a “self.” That’s what happens when we create an icon out of a supermodel. We project onto her what we’d like to be, and we borrow from her a sense of identity, by wearing her designs, that makes us feel like we are finally “someone.”

But when your identity is a borrowed sense of self, you are actually acting as if you yourself are really no one.

There is only one way to be “someone,” and that’s to become aware of who, in your essence, you have always been—the person who is hidden beneath layers of social conditioning.

Our true being is in fact “an object of uncritical devotion,” if we but knew it. We are each resplendent expressions of the divine, with nothing whatever to criticize about us.

In fact, it’s our self-critical attitudes, fostered by the way we have grown up, that have caused us to abandon our natural self. Each of us is forever apologizing for ourselves in one form or another, instead of simply accepting and enjoying being who we genuinely are.

You don’t need to be like Kate Moss. You need to be you, which is every bit as precious and delightful as the real Kate Moss, whoever she may be. She is no better than you, and you are no better than her. We are each other’s equals.

If you like the clothes Kate designs, by all means enjoy them. But don’t look for an identity through them. Have your own identity, and dress in clothes that bring out the glorious being that you truly are.

“Uncritical devotion” is what each of us needs to experience for ourselves. When we feel this for ourselves, we will be able to feel it for each other—in a way that appreciates, values, adores, but never idolizes as an icon.

Tired of feeling inadequate? Tired of those self-criticizing voices in your head? Want to simply be your natural, divine self?

Namaste Publishing offers several books and CDs that will help you become aware of your own true being. Especially helpful are The Presence Process by Michael Brown and A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. You’ll also enjoy Living as God by P. Raymond Stewart.

You are simply divine. So is Kate. The day we all discover this, appreciation will replace all need for icons.