Fifteen years ago, the year I graduated from college, I started asking my new colleagues to call me Jay instead of Jomar.

You see, I got this incredible opportunity to work at the biggest, most influential talent agency in the world; Creative Artists Agency. Many folks know it as CAA.

Here’s a picture of the building I took:

I remember walking up for my interview and feeling out of pocket. I felt completely out of my zone. When I walked in, everything was made of expensive marble and the rooms were made of glass. It was the kind of place I always dreamed of working at. A-list celebrities were walking through the halls. Sports figures like Cristiano Ronaldo, Derek Jeter and Lebron James made up their roster of representation. The place smelled full of opportunities.

And then here I was, this brown kid, 1st-generation immigrant from the Philippines with the audacity to actually feel like he can hang in that arena.

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So when I got the job offer, something flipped inside of me. I felt like I could no longer be the previous version of me. I felt like I had to be someone new.

See, there’s something valid about this idea of becoming someone new when you level up. But back then, this transformation I went into was rooted in FEAR. It wasn’t rooted in SELF-TRUST or SELF-LOVE. It was a knee-jerk reaction, really. I didn’t really have a reason. It came from an unconscious place.

The last 10 years of my life has been working to make the unconscious more conscious.

I didn’t know it at the time, but there was a lot of anger inside me. There was a lot of shame, guilt and insecurity about who I was. This led to seeing myself as a victim of my external circumstances. I looked around and found some sort of justifying reason as to why I didn’t have as much success as others. I convinced myself that I would never make it to the top of whatever field I decided to jump into.

I held onto these beliefs so tightly, in an unconscious way, and they limited my success. They limited the way I saw myself in this beautiful, miraculous world in which we get to inhabit.

So I think that’s why I started asking people to call me Jay back then. I didn’t want them to see all of this. I believed that if people started calling me Jay, all of the unbelief, lack of confidence and not-enoughness would magically disappear. I would all of a sudden feel like I belonged in that powerful arena that is CAA.

That’s just not how true transformation works.

The Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön says,

“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.”

It is 100% true that there is something indestructible, incorruptible and immeasurable within us.

That which is Infinite. That which is Divine.

James Finley says,

“It isn’t just that we’re in the presence of God, but God giving God’s self to us as our presence.”

Creation’s spirit Itself is moving through us as us. Moment by moment. Breath by breath. Heartbeat by heartbeat.

This is our True Nature.

Our work of transformation is to relax into this understanding. To come back to this Original Wholeness.

And the path back to this is to expose ourselves over and over to annihilation. In other words, we must detach ourselves from all the ways we connect our sense of wellbeing and certainty to the things we have, to our titles, our status, our money or the way we think other people see us. All of these must be deconstructed. We must let all of them go.

This is a lifelong practice. In reality, this is the work we are invited into for the rest of our lives. But Spirit won’t impose itself on us because then it wouldn’t be Love. We are free by birthright and we have choice. Spirit then will only whisper, knock, nudge, invite, but it will never impose.

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Our only job is to say Yes over and over and over again.

To look into our deepest fears and our deepest longings. To see the whole process as an everlasting dance.

Over 10 years ago, I first sat down in a room with a professional who guided me through all the ways I fortified my ego. Week by week, I stepped into annihilation. It was scary because I believed that if anyone knew about the thoughts I had about myself, I wouldn’t be loved. It literally felt like dying, because perhaps, that part of me was dying.

Since then, I realized that the only way to keep growing was to keep finding my scary edges and joyfully walking into them. To keep taking risks, even if they’re something micro like asking for a free desert, raising my coaching rates or wanting a night out away from my wife and kids.

At the beginning of this year, I asked my wife for a few nights away by myself in Joshua Tree.

Even the process before asking revealed all of these unconscious beliefs about my marriage, the requests I can and cannot make and why I deserved some things and I did not deserve others. There was fear of rejection, fear of not being seen and fear of not knowing what I would actually do with that much solitude for the first time in my life.

But I remembered what I learned in this work…

Aliveness is on the other side of annihilation.Peace is on the other side of fear.Love is on the other side of isolation and solitude.

All of this is available for you too.

In fact, by virtue of reading this, part of you has already felt Spirit’s invite to come alive. To claim what is yours. Tiny step by tiny step forward.

You are worthy of your greatest dreams.I repeat, you are worthy of all your greatest dreams!But it won’t just come to you. You gotta do the work.

Thank you for reading A Sunday Kind of Blog. If you find value in my work, please support by sharing it.

And if you find that you can’t go down this path on your own, know that you are not the only one. All of us need safe guidance into this terrain and I was blessed enough to find safe spaces to do so. My invitation for you is to reach out to me or someone you trust for a professional referral to help you claim your biggest self and your most audacious dreams. Life is too precious and too short. You deserve all that you want out of it!

Book your EMERGENCE call here

Fair warning. If you book, it’ll be a little scary, but I promise it will be safe, with zero judgement, you’ll always be in choice and there will be some laughter along the way too.

With much love,

Jomar

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