Self-Worth, Your Connection to the Universe, and Your Eternal Sacredness

The Healing Sanctuary
The Podcast

Welcome to this week's episode of the free edition of ​The Healing Sanctuary! This week, we're talking about your eternal validity. What is it that makes you sacred, in every moment, with every breath you take?

This episode is a deep dive into your own creation and divinity. It's going to take you on a beautiful journey through the Universe, and show you a different perspective on yourself and your place in it. We're also going to hear and talk about one of my all time favorite quotes, which you can hear a preview of through my Instagram below!

I can't wait for you to join me in this soul nourishing conversation. It's a topic that's close to my heart, as I often struggle with my own sense of worthiness and eternal divinity.
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These public episodes are provided as a service to all who are on a healing journey, in need of some support, and in the process of awakening to their powerful inner self. You can find the private, members only version of The Healing Sanctuary here!

The Healing Sanctuary: Meditation & Empowerment · Self-Worth, Your Connection to the Universe, and Your Eternal Sacredness

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​Below, you will find a transcript of this episode (it's based on my notes and is not an exact replica of the episode). If you know someone who would benefit from this talk, please share it! You can find me on all the podcast apps, including Spotify and iTunes, under The Healing Sanctuary. These podcast episodes are free resources for anyone who needs it, and separate from my membership service.

The Healing Sanctuary: September 13th, 2022
Self-Worth, Your Connection to the Universe, and Your Eternal Sacredness

Hello and welcome to The Healing Sanctuary! This week I’m talking about the innate value inherent in every single human, including you. This is the divine value and worthiness we are all born with, that you can never lose or diminish in any way. This divine, innate value is as eternal as you are, and with every breath you take, you breathe as a sacred being with the entire Universe. You ARE the Universe.

This is something I want to talk about, because seeing myself from this perspective has helped me through some of my hardest times. When I am drowning in low self-esteem and anxiety and a sense of worthlessness, and I cannot get out of it, this has always been the thing that could pull me out. It feels like it just cuts through all the noise and all the stories and the external bullshit and gets me back to my self. It gets me back to that safe place inside of me that is warm and loving and always knows, I am worthy, and I am here for a reason.

Right now, I want you to take a few deep breaths and repeat to yourself, “I am the universe.”
What do those words mean to you? Do you feel like there is the Universe, and then there is you? Or do you feel like there is the Universe, the wholeness of its magnificent expanse, and that you are one with that wholeness? Do you see yourself as woven into the cosmos, or do you see yourself as separate?

Take another deep breath. I am the Universe.
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There is no point where the Universe ends and you begin. It’s not like there is the entire, spectacular Universe, and then somehow, from outside of all that cosmic wonder, you were accidentally created and then plopped into this world. You are not separate from everything out there, you are within it. When you look out, you see the Universe, and when everything out there looks back at you, it also sees the Universe. What you see when you look outwards looks back at you with the same wonder and awe.

Feel now the breath in your body. Bring your awareness fully onto yourself breathing, and feel your breath coming in and out.

When you breathe, the Universe breathes with you, because you are one. You were created from the same materials and you are a living, breathing part of the whole. Your existence is intertwined with the beauty and sacredness of every star in the sky. Every breath you take doesn’t just breathe life into you, but it breathes life into the Universe. You are the Universe.

Every breath you take is a sacred experience. You are a sacred being. You could never diminish or become something less than sacred, because you could never separate yourself from the Universe, from the source of beauty and all creation. Just as you are, as the unique, individual you are, you are perfect and divine. There is nothing wrong with you or who you are, but there is something wrong with the cultures and societies that we live in that teach us that we should somehow be ashamed of the fullness of our own self. There is something wrong with the mentalities and judgements that try to make us feel less than sacred because we don’t fit into other people’s idea of who we should be. There is nothing wrong with you. There never could be, because you were created by the Universe, and every part of the Universe adds to its richness and it’s vitality. Every part of the Universe is sacred, and it’s not your job to convince other people of your innate validity and sacredness. All you need to do is to breathe and feel that you are One with every ounce of magnificence that exists within you and around you.

One of my favorite quotes in regards to this was said by the astrophysicist Neil De Grasse Tyson. He was once asked, “What’s the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?” and he responded:

“The most astounding fact is the knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on Earth, the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light… When I look up at the night sky I know that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe. But perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, when I look up—many people feel small because they’re small and the universe is big—but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. There’s a level of connectivity.”

I love that quote so much, and it’s one I return to often. It’s just kind of unbelievable how miraculous our existence is, and yet very few of us walk around thinking about our sacred connection to the sun and the stars, to the wind in the trees, to the sparrow that sings outside our window, to the wildflowers that bloom in spring. We don’t see our own self in the perfection of nature, even though we are a part of that nature. We are natural beings, and every person, of every sexuality and body size and gender and race is absolutely as good and wonderful and worthy of love as a rose in full bloom.

Despite the fact that every cell of our body contains all the magic and mystery of the Creator of all that ever was and ever will be, most of us walk around as if we have to explain why we’re here. We almost feel as if we have to apologize for our own existence, which is pretty disconnected from the fact that our existence is in itself a blessing and a miracle.
To really understand what a miracle it is that you’re here, we need to take a little trip back in time. We need to look at what actually led to your existence, and what the truth of your being is, the truth that exists in your heart and outside of all the noise in this world and in your thoughts.

Much like your own self, no one knows what happened before the Universe appeared as physical matter. It’s origins are as mysterious as you are, because you are truly the Universe reflected in human form.

Before all of space exploded outwards, it began as one, hot primordial atom. Everything as we know it was packed down into this hot, dense point. Which means, even if you can’t conceive of yourself now as being one with the Universe, you were at one time pure potential energy melded into that one point. Everything came from this one singular point of origin, and that includes you. Your creation began with the birth of time, because what makes you was contained in the birth of the Universe. And not only that, but that crucible of life was birthed from the divine, Creator of all that is. Everything began as one with the sacred source of life, and everything still is one with that Source, just in a different form.

You are still one with the Divinity of creation. You are still divine. You are still valuable and worthy. You are still the perfection of life itself personified, and anything or anyone who tells you otherwise is telling you a lie about your truth. There is literally no way for your existence to somehow be wrong or a mistake or less than perfect, because you came from perfection. There wasn’t the source of the Universe and life, and then you just appeared here from some unknown, dark force. You came from the love and light of all that is, and that is what fills your lungs and breathes life into your body in every moment.

But before you took your first breath, there was still that hot, dense, primordial source of infinite possibility. 13.8 billion years ago, that dot expanded out in what is known as the Big Bang. In an almost indescribably short amount of time – as in a hundredth of a billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second – an inconceivable amount of change and growth happened. This period is known as inflation, and during this time the universe grew exponentially and doubled in size at least 90 times.

As it expanded, it began to grow cooler and less dense. At the same time, the first particles began to collide and the first chemical reactions in all of time and space occurred. Within a few minutes, the first nuclei formed. As the universe expanded, temperatures cooled and protons and neutrons collided to make deuterium, which is one of the building blocks of life as we know it.

After 300,000 years, the first atoms formed. 300,000 years might sound like a long time, but keep in mind we’re still 13 billion years away from the conditions that led to you existing. As space.com describes it, “For the first 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the intense heat from the universe's creation made it essentially too hot for light to shine. Atoms crashed together with enough force to break up into a dense, opaque plasma of protons, neutrons and electrons that scattered light like fog.”

From here, things cooled enough for electrons and nuclei to combine and form what’s known as neutral atoms. At this point, free electrons became absorbed into the collecting masses, and the Universe became transparent. This allowed light to shine for the first time, and these first rays of light are detectable today in the form of radiation from the cosmic microwave background. Light isn’t just the source of life – it’s also how we look back in time to our own birth.

After about 400 million years of this expansion, cooling, colliding, and creating, the first galaxies and stars formed. Following a few BILLION more years, the Universe begins to expand quicker, and you see the first signs of the spiral galaxies of what the Universe will eventually look like to us.

9 Billion years after the Big Bang came from that primordial atom, the solar system and Earth itself came into formation. To consider the vast amount of material chaotically flying through the Universe, and the trillions and trillions and trillions of events that led that material to form our Earth by our Sun in a way that supports human life, that supports your life, is nothing short of breathtaking. The staggering amount of things that had to go right in order for you to exist is so astounding that there is just no way you’re here by accident. There is no way that all of that happened, that billions and billions of years of things happened in divine order and in the exact right way, and then it somehow all went off the rails with you. It’s just not possible.

The divine force of the Universe, the Creator of all that is, knew exactly what it was doing when it added you to the masterpiece it was creating. And it knew exactly why it made you the way it did, because you are exactly who you’re supposed to be.

And in our brief retelling of the history of the universe, we’re almost at the point when your brilliant existence shows up in all this cosmic wonder. After 10 billion years from the birth of time and space, life on earth appeared. This life began as single celled organisms, which is a perfect reflection of the fact that the Universe began as one single unit. The Universe is constantly reminding everything within it that is and always has been one with the whole.

About 600 million years ago, plant life emerged for the first time. 250 million years ago the Triassic period began, at which point there was one single continent. 200 million years ago the Jurassic period began, 145 million years ago the Cretaceous period began, and with this the continent separates into two, and the Earth begins its early growing pains of the world we would come to know.

But first there was the mass extinction. 65 million years ago nearly all of life was extinguished, and as the world evolved and recreated itself anew, the conditions that led to human life finally began. 450,000 years ago the Neanderthals had their time to shine, and then about 200,000 years ago what would become modern humans, home sapiens, first appeared.
From 200,000 to now, things moved at lightning speed, and homo sapiens went from cave dwellers to building the first villages and onto the first cities and onto modern agriculture and modern technology, all in the blink of an eye.

And finally, after 13.8 billion years of creation, everything led up to you coming into this world and taking your first breath. You are a continuation of all that evolution, all that came from the first primordial atom to now. And you, by all means, should feel proud of the body and the life that you inhabit. It is nothing short of a miracle. As Neil De Grasse Tyson said, “The atoms that comprise life on Earth, the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light… When I look up at the night sky I know that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe. But perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us.”

And now I just want you to take a few deep breaths and repeat to yourself, I am the Universe.
I am the Universe.

You are the Universe. You are a miraculous creation that was 13.8 billion years in the making. 
You are meant to be here. You are here for a reason. You are a divine part of the whole. There is nothing about you that was designed wrong or somehow deviated from the perfection of all that is. There are people who will tell you otherwise, but those people have lost touch with their sense of sacredness. They cannot see their own validity, and they are so scared of the beliefs that tell them that they are somehow a mistake that they’re just projecting all that fear outwards onto anyone and everyone they can so that they can distract themselves from the pain of being disconnected from their own innate sense of worthiness. People’s judgements of you do not define you. They define the person who is using them so that they can look anywhere besides inside their own self.

You are not obligated to carry or take on anyone else’s pain or false sense of validity. The only thing you need to do is take some deep breaths, and breathe into the sacredness that has been with you since you were just pure potential energy, existing as hot molten fire in the primordial atom of the Universe. You have existed, in many different forms, since the birth of time and space. You are eternal and you are infinite. All you must do is return to your breath, because when you breathe, you breathe with the Universe, and you come back to all that goodness and beauty and wonder that lives in every cell of your body.

You do not have to look outwards to see how wonderous the Universe is. You just have to look inwards, at your own Divine self, because you are the Universe.

You are the Universe.

And with that, we are at the end of this week’s episode. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey of what is not just the history of the Universe, but also the history of you. I hope you enjoyed it and helped you to see yourself in a way you perhaps haven’t before. I really appreciate you joining me for this episode, which was a little different, but one that means a lot to me, because I often need to be reminded of my own worthiness and eternal validity also.

I enjoyed talking about this so much that I would love to do a meditation on it that will hopefully help you to have an even deeper experience with this. So next week, instead of another discussion, we’re going to meditate on this. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating, so that others can find this podcast. And if you would like to learn more about changing your inner story and finding the eternal divinity that dwells within you, visit my website at melissa-field.com, or join me on Instagram @meditate_with_melissa.
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Thank you again and I’ll see you next week!