Positive role models are so much easier to identify. The big strong older brother who always looked out for you may have been your first role model, or your Dad, always that wonderful kind guy who was the rock of stability for the entire family. Perhaps it was your Mom or Aunt, grandmother or neighbor. Whoever this first person was, you remember how you felt about them, and why, to this very day you still have this person on a pedestal of admiration.
Even if you did not have a single family member that you could even hope to emulate, because their behavior was so bad [we have all seen these families!], think back to who you did admire. Sometimes you may not know the individual personally. Boys often focus on a sports figure someone larger than life who came from a greatly disadvantaged background to becomes someone of wealth and power. Some boys have decided that if he could do it, so could they. Girls look at movie stars and hope that one day, that glamour will be theirs and they can be removed from their dreary surroundings.
Some young people find a coach or teacher to copy and some people simply pick a figure from a movie or television show. Super heroes abound for a reason. Super heroes overcome tremendous odds to save the day and make the world a better place. Super heroes are never victims! They know how to get around the most difficult odds and sometimes the obstacles are tremendous! There is a security in realizing that a super hero can rise above even the most terrible, evil threat.
If you are fortunate enough to have read fairy tales as a child, you may have come to understand that awful things happen in the land of make believe. Maleficent witches, diabolical sorcerers, and cruel parents have terrified children drifting off to sleep. Only the brave prince or the kind fairy was able to save the day. Perhaps that kind fairy, that good fairy was the role model you chose to emulate. Perhaps you decided that to escape your childhood you had to become that handsome, daring prince, willing to take a chance on confronting the scariest thing around. Again, if the mortal person or spiritual fairy, or angel in a book could do it, that may have opened the door for you to believe that you could also overcome your childhood or your difficult family. Maybe you hoped that another family could adopt you out of your misery. Maybe you even created that reality and you were finally adopted out of a bad family situation.
Hazing, rites of passage, initiations all included overcoming a terrible hardship. In each of these, there is someone to show the way, provide the path, and open the door. Eventually, you become the role model for another person to follow. As you find your own inner strength, the light that now shines from within you, may be just the light that will shine for someone else. Sometimes, without realizing it, you become your own hero.
To do this, you have to realize how far you have come, how much you have grown and how you are climbing the ladder of spiritual as well as practical success. Sometimes, people never realize it. Other times people do come to understand how far they have come because someone else puts them on a pedestal and tells them so. Who knew you could become the dawn for someone else’s awakening!
Perhaps you have used the role models in your life to form your life in a wonderful way. How many times have you quietly expressed gratitude to these people for what you learned? Perhaps as you thought of them thousands of times, you did say a quiet prayer of gratitude for their being there for you, for being in your life.
When you can look at a role model, any role model as a tool of karma for your greater good, then you have taken a giant leap forward in your own soul evolution. You will have dropped the cruel, crushing, cloak of victimhood and donned the magnificent, measured, mantle of potential greatness and accepted the karmic insight that was offered to you. This concept represents tremendous spiritual growth in one lifetime. Anyone can do this. Everyone is presented with these opportunities.
Decide to do this, look at what each positive and negative role model taught you from a dispassionate place. Take any emotion attendant with your relationship with that person and set it aside and then look at what you learned from this person. In part four of Role Models, we will explore some poignant examples.
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