Jackson Strong: The Ceiling Is Made of Worthiness

Activating self-worth is, I think, one of the most important things we can do — and it has been one of the hardest things for me to do.

What finally moved it was learning to see myself through my Creator's eyes. I believe that is the greatest paradigm shift available to a person: to see yourself from a higher perspective than the one you've been using. Outside the flaws and the failures and the frustrations and the fears, and the rest of the f-words that show up the moment we turn our attention on ourselves.

Because the default view is a narrowing one. Lack. Imperfection. Comparison. And it gets tighter and tighter until all you can see is everything you're not — and you lose access to the opposite of that entirely. The unconditional love. The love without borders or restrictions that simply recognises the beauty alive inside you.

The man who lost $150 million

Dave Meltzer is a wildly successful entrepreneur. Some years ago he lost more than $150 million.

He and I were invited to speak at the same event — still one of the moments I feel most grateful for — and I asked him about self-worth.

He told me the reason he lost all of that money, even after all of that success, was that deep down he did not feel worthy of it.

That answer has stayed with me, because it names something people would rather explain with market conditions or bad partners. The ceiling wasn't external. It was made of worthiness, and he hit it from underneath.

Then I did a smaller version of it

As AUREA came to life, I found myself hosting and collaborating with people far beyond me — in their reach, in their businesses, in the way they express. Standing on a stage with Stephen Brooks, Charles Eisenstein, Shay Rowbottom and others I had admired for years.

And deep down I did not feel worthy of being in their presence.

So I sabotaged it.

After our first event there was a beautiful and genuinely painful stretch where I got very angry at some people. Some promises hadn't been fulfilled. Some things legitimately did go wrong in how it ended.

And I way overreacted. I took things far too personally.

It took me a while to see that what I was actually doing was upper limit syndrome — the thing where you finally get to the height you wanted and something in you starts working to bring it back down to a level that matches what you believe you deserve.

When I did figure it out, there were some very challenging apologies to make and some difficult conversations to have. Thankfully there were people who could still see me the way I hoped to be seen — who could hold that I had good intentions, that there were bumps in the road, and that I am still a stumbling, bumbling boy in certain ways.

Boy consciousness

Later I went deep on my own, and got a very stark mirror held up to me — energetically, emotionally, physically — about where I was still operating from boy consciousness.

It shows up in specific, unglamorous ways. Not moving toward conflict. Procrastination. Putting off the painful thing. Staying comfortable.

And at the deepest level, as self-critique — as not owning the being I was created to be. Not owning the man I was created to be.

I do believe, and I am grateful to be reflected this by people around me, that I am here to be a king. To create a kingdom. And to let that essence move through me in the ways most beneficial to me and to others.

The part that's easy to get wrong

Here is the kicker, and it's a two-sided instruction that most people only ever receive half of.

Do not judge the lesser aspects of yourself. Find the felt, physical, somatic sense of not judging yourself — grace, peace and ease for all of you.

And simultaneously hold yourself to a high and beautiful standard.

Most people pick one. Either they're endlessly gentle with themselves and never move, or they hold the standard and flog themselves against it. The whole thing only works when both are true at once.

What makes it possible is believing — in the core of your body — that a perfect, infinite genius of unconditional love and absolute wisdom created you as you, on purpose. Which means hand-crafting all of it. The messed-up relationships. The limiting thoughts. The traumas and the dramas, no matter how awful.

I'm inviting you to find the perfection inside all of that. To see it as exactly what it needed to be for you to become the version of you that could carry it — and to find the transformational story inside your own life.

The elixir is the point

The final step of the hero's journey is the elixir for the people.

The elixir is you bringing back the gift. The love. The insight. The medicine that came out of you suffering through the poisons of the world — the things that looked like betrayals and tragedies and traumas, and turned out to be the stepping stones.

And I guarantee you there are people carrying the exact same story who believe they are the only one.

I got you

When you can open the energetic field, open the heart, and see yourself outside of the comparison and the blame and the shame — you can find the part of you that was told it wasn't good enough. Or told itself it wasn't good enough.

That version of you is still in there. And you can bring them to the front and say the only thing they ever needed to hear:

I got you, buddy. I got you, little girl.

From there, compassion for yourself and compassion for other people turn out to be the same move. I had no idea how to do that for most of my life.

Not needing to know the outcome

One more thing that has been enormously powerful for me: surrendering to an outcome far bigger and wider and more fascinating than I can imagine — and praying only for clarity into the next step.

Not the whole map. The next step.

I'll also call myself out, since I'm asking you to hold a standard: I intended to run a prayer call recently and didn't follow through on it. That's mine to fix.

A meditation to embody it

Reading this changes an hour. Feeling it changes the identity underneath the actions — and the actions are what build the life.

So if you're somewhere safe and quiet, try this.

Start with the simplest gratitude you can find. The clothes on your skin. The air in your lungs. Nothing grand.

Then let each breath carry you gently backwards in time. Ask your higher self to take you to whatever moment will serve you most right now — it may be something difficult that wants alchemising, or something beautiful that wants remembering.

Then bring your attention to the base of the spine, and move up.

The root, and its steady red light of safety — with nothing to be done, only allowed. The sacral, and the creative power that can catalyse life. The solar plexus, expanding out like a sun, where the knowing of your worthiness fuels your confidence. The heart, radiating green, holding the light and the shadow and the pain and the purpose together — and, as the science actually shows, sending neurons up into conscious awareness. The throat, where the voice aligned with the Divine may sound revolutionarily different from the one you've been hearing all your life. The third eye, your antenna. The crown, and unity.

Take a slow breath, hold it at the top, sip a little more air. Then swallow, and feel it integrate all the way down.

And from that place, receive whatever transmission is meant to carry you forward.

You are not doing this. You are allowing it.