I want you to find the gold. Not money (not yet anyway), but the gold inside of you. You know - that bright solid gold goodness that is at the heart of your desire to grow. If you are suffering, your beautiful and courageous gold is still encased in fear, beliefs, stories, and thoughts that were formed in order to protect you from a threat that you once perceived (or where told) exists In her book, Trusting the Gold, Tara Brach tells the story of the Golden Buddha in Bangkok, Thailand. A huge statue of the Buddha was encased in plaster and clay centuries ago to shield it from the threat of invading armies. It wasn't until a period of prolonged heat and draught caused the clay to crack did the monks in the village see the light shine through the layers to reveal a solid gold Buddha underneath. Isn't that a beautiful metaphor for that child who came into the world with no armor, no casings, no clay? The cracks in our own layers form over time as we grow, and they are also accelerated when we encounter a big life change. Your gold WANTS you to SHINE your light into the world. As you grow bigger than the layers that you adopted to shield you, you can come home to yourself and the gold that has always been there. When you come home to who you are, you can look clearly at the detritus of your emergence and grieve what was lost to time. It's important to look around for a while. Examine each piece of conditioning, every identity, expectation, norm, and every hurt that buried your gold so long ago. Imagine all that gold encased, unseen in the dark. Once you take your time to know (and care for) all of who you are, you can begin to liberate your gold! Not just for you either. But for others, too. Because when you know YOUR WORTH and you act from A PLACE OF WORTH (solid gold!) then you make a mark that has meaning for you and makes an impact. Have any cracks formed lately? What is shining through?