I’ve been preaching up a storm lately. It’s an old favorite sermon of mine, all about the limitless possibility in front of you: “Fulfillment, people! Reach for fulfillment!”

Recently, it seems like a fire has been lit under my ass about this. I think it’s because the current political intensity, climate intensity, and overall globally intense energy is creating an opportunity for some deeper levels of self-awareness.

The basic premise of my sermon is like that old adage about how God can only give you the very best, but you won’t receive that, so you never get what you want.

What I want to crack open here is why you won’t receive the very best god/life/source has to offer.

Why don’t we accept the best?

First, I want to invite you to recall a situation where you were making a choice between an couple of possibilities.

Option #1: Definitely a dream come true—almost unimaginably awesome.

Option #2: was more familiar, a little more accessible—a little easier to handle.

And you choose option #2.

For my recollection, I think back to college. I had a very genuine guy ask me out. Well, we started hanging out and kinda fell into dating, sort of… College days, right? He was sweet, kind, handsome, very talented and smart, had his shit relatively together… basically, he was pure sunshine.

He had a few roommates, and one of them was sweet, broken, totally under-actualized, and kind of overall sloppy. And instead of sunshine, I got with sloppy.

That was my way of saying no to the best thing that life was offering up to me.

And the kicker was that I never got what I really wanted. Instead, I got three years of back and forth hell with Mr. Sloppy, and I got years of reinforcing the same tired, painful stories about myself and the world. I said no to life’s sweet offering, and instead choose what I could handle. And I paid for it.

Here is the clincher: sloppy roommate dude was familiar, sure, but also I could have sworn to you that I was “called” to be with him. That it was “fate” that was putting us together.

Now, we all have these situations. Seriously, if you don’t think you’ve been in this situation, look again. Let’s be real, we tend to be idiots.

And I really value things like a deep heart’s calling, or feeling guided. When you get hit with those feelings, they are very real, and worth honoring.

But I can also tell you that pain can fake those things in the most subtle and strange ways, which makes it tricky to spot a real ‘guided hearts calling’—unless you know what actual fulfillment or right action feels like. Because if you can spot that, then you will notice that—regardless of the sense of a “heart’s calling”—if it’s not really fulfilling right up under your feet, it’s not actually your heart’s calling. It’s a painbody pulling an excellent impersonation of your inner guidance.

Life/God/Guidance/Deep heart/Source/whatever-you-call-it is only creating the best for you. As in, right under your feet, in this moment, life offers right action. It’s the only “direct from source” action that life offers. And you can feel that harmony. It’s not a compromise, it’s not a hiding out or settling, it’s a sense of total fulfillment and obvious intelligence all around.

The only thing guiding or calling you towards less-than-fufilling action is painbody filtering or distorting and indulging fear. Basically, it’s the same old shit—indulging the tired, painful story of “me who is lacking” or “life that is a struggle” or “God is a mofo”.

What is behind that impulse? What is the painbody guiding you?

My money is on the old, deep, dark, “I’m not good enough.”

Sure, sometimes it’s, “I didn’t know better.” That is the one where you just didn’t have enough life experience or advocates in your corner to say to you, “This is not right, it shouldn’t be this hard. If it was right, it would look and feel like this…”

But more of the time, it’s going to be a version of, “I am not good enough; I am not worthy.”

This devil of a belief makes it really hard to act in harmony. When faced with an awesome, dream-come-true opportunity, it grips your system and makes you panic and run, or damage and sabotage, saying NO! to all the good things that come your way. Sadly, this is why you won’t reach up for something better.

And that breaks my heart.

That is why this, my favorite sermon, is like a fire under my ass in these dark days—the one that I preach like a maniac, because I want you to want God. I want the best for you. I want you to be safe, I want you to be loved full on. I want you to know that you actually live in heaven.

And if I am being really honest, I don’t want you to run from real love, or sabotage your healing journey.

I don’t want “I’m not good enough” to get any airtime in these days of shifting tides.

And just to make this really clear, here is how you can spot its imprint in your life.

Exposing “I’m not good enough”

I define fulfillment and the subcategories of what a Mego (me + ego) is going to choose like this:

Pain. We choose pain all the time. It sounds like this: “I am deserving of this,” and/or “It will never ever get better than this, this is my lot in life.” Basically, it’s our ancient slave programming booting up.

Suffering. Slightly easier than choosing pain. Sadly, this one is often honored in many spiritual traditions. It sounds like: “This situation is my teacher. I’m here to learn, and I am sure learning!”

“Two out of three ain’t bad.” This is what I call it, but you might call it ‘pretty good’ or ‘not that bad”. It sounds like: “This is good. It’s working. There are moments where it is actually great. I am working it out and it’s not bad at all!”

Fulfillment: This one is unmistakable because of the right action and harmony in it for you. It sounds like: “Oh my god. I didn’t know it could be like this. It’s amazing. I couldn’t be happier. I don’t know where this is headed, but I’m going with it.”

My wish for you is that you won’t settle for anything less than fulfillment in every single area of your life. Because fulfillment is life/God/Source/the Creator’s choice for you. It’s where you are meant to be. Another (very “spiritual”) way to say this is that “fulfillment” means “with God”. Even if there are challenges and struggles, they always resolve into a deep dance with God, into bliss, into intelligence. With every up and every down you are face to face with intelligence and bliss.

Anything less than that is where you as a Mego have placed yourself against God.

But hey, you have free will, and that is how you can exert it.

You can’t force fulfillment

It’s worth pointing out that anything less than fulfillment will never become fulfillment. You can’t heal and “work on it” until it becomes fulfillment. That job, or relationship, or diet, or exercise program… it’s not going to bring you to fulfillment one day if you just work hard enough. Because where the Mego puts you is distorted, and you can’t use your separate will to evolve a distortion.

You can work and heal anything below fulfillment. For example, suffering can evolve and become “two out of three ain’t bad” one day. But it will never become fulfillment. Because God chooses fulfillment for you. Or we could say life is leading you to fulfillment but you are opting out and actively sabotaging it with “not good enough” and you won’t become “good enough” one day if you fix it.

That is the conclusion of ego. But its false nevertheless.

We notice fulfillment right away. It’s so undeniable. We might have some painbodies that cloud it, sure—our ol’ “I’m not good enough” can distort it—but you won’t miss it, per se. You will just sabotage it.

So, my job most days is to be aware that when people are walking away from fulfillment, it’s because the pain of “I’m not good enough” is just too dense, too big to handle. That gives me compassion and better insight to what a person is really up against. And then I can be an ally, praying for you find the courage to transform that old, tired, painful story.

Want to change that old story? Start here…