Insight from a Poker Player’s Story

 

 

Yesterday I attended a friend’s birthday party and a financial teacher who loves poker said that most poker players like to focus on what they are really good at and ignore their weak spot. When asked, one player said she wasn’t willing to invest the time and what it took in being really bad before becoming good.  For some of us, it isn’t about the time, but instead about the discomfort in experiencing incompetence, vulnerability, and the feelings that come with an intense learning curve. One’s poker didn’t improve much, she said, from focusing on one’s strength; yet, took quantum leaps from growing just a small increment in the area of weakness.

This morning while journaling, I experienced this story from the perspective of spiritual awakening. The path back to one’s Wholeness includes re-living old perceived wounds and feeling the pain associated within them until realizing the original wound contributed toward a Soul Ripening and a trusting of the Universe/God. Eventually the realization comes to us that what we once saw as a wound was actually a gift for ourself and our way out of the wound benefits all of humanity.

Each of us tend to value that which we believe to be scarce, limited, or rare. This is why we attach the word “value” to our perception. An individual who deeply values love, often has a story of abandonment, believes love is limited, or has lived a large part of their life without it. Same with money. An individual that values money typically didn’t have it at one time, felt the pain of its absence, or is so awake they see the psychic pain associated to living multidimensionally without it. We could replace the words money and love with peace, safety, joy, right work and more.

The beauty of the poker player’s story to me is to look at the area of our lives that appear to us to be impoverished, lacking, or not existent. And to really see that area until we realize whatever we believe to be lacking exists, always has, and is within us. It involves being willing to continue to observe as part of our daily spiritual practice until we develop within ourselves the certainty of this Presence and can lean into it.

I vividly recall the day I woke up to the realization that I am what I was seeking. I was on my morning walk to Starbucks for a cup of tea when one step I took included the wounded perception of who I thought myself to be and the next step I saw my life through my Soul. At that moment I had the realization that if each of us were to live from the Wholeness we are the world would be different. This is good news.