Nobility...inner wisdom

I was given a chapter from a book by Jack Kornfield called The Wise Heart by a good friend. We were talking about limbic resonance so he gave me this reading. I found other aspects more interesting and very much in-tune with our conversation.

He wrote about our hidden nature...the true self that we hide in order to survive the traumas of life....
covering our innate nobility 
is how he phrases it.
He goes on to explain that nobility comes from the root gno (as in gnosis) meaning inner wisdom and/or illumination.
He explains that most people easily allow their fears and thoughts to define them...and that we  resist the noble aspects of their shadow more strenuously than they hide the dark sides...it is more disrupting to find that you have a profound nobility of character than to find out you are a bum. 
He goes on to say that...
Our belief in a limited and impoverished identity is such a strong habit that without it  we are afraid we wouldn't know how to be. If we fully acknowledged our dignity, it could lead to radical life changes...

Every time I read passages that resonate with my issues I am reassured that I am not alone, or abnormal, and probably following a very human path. I do wonder what people who have had "normal" healthy childhood experiences struggle with. We all struggle. I will have to remember to ask the first person that I meet who has had a perfect early life.

So we all protect our inner most life...we protect and isolate the very center of who we are...from the "other"...and yet, in reality we are one collective soul or consciousness having this human experience. We expend enormous amounts of energy creating this separation and disconnect...long for connection...but fail to realize that we are still, and always have been part of the whole. What silly creatures we really are. But we continue the illusion because we are so ego driven that we cannot bear to give up our "identity" which is really the illusion.

So how do I, or we, come to acknowledge our true self?
I keep coming to the word vulnerability...we allow ourselves to be seen and known.
Simple, but not easy.

My brain is circling around this idea...I think I stop here and sleep on it.

Love and Light,
Maggie