God Complex

A professional therapist once told me that I had the ‘God Complex’ and I have to tell you that I was deeply offended, not to say outraged.

Although I don’t believe in a man with a long white beard who sits on a stone throne, I do believe in a higher universal power and I’ve never thought for one second that I resemble that power.

Once he calmed me down this person explained that the ‘God Complex’ comes from trying too hard to be good, to get everything right, and to fulfil the expectations of others: expectations that are often completely different depending on who you’re with and their relationship to you.

He told me that many people suffer from this complex and it isn’t that they feel god-like or believe that they’re in some way fabulous, it’s simply that they are under a great deal of pressure from the people around them never to slip up, never to say the wrong thing at the wrong moment, and always to deliver whatever the people around them need whenever they need it – even if they didn’t know that there was something to be delivered.

Many of us feel afraid of making any mistakes whatsoever, of taking the wrong job, of upsetting family or friends, of not succeeding in life and having the perfect house and two point four perfectly turned out and beautifully well balanced children.

That fear of making mistakes can descend into fear of doing or saying anything in case you get it wrong. It can also descend into saying whatever the person with you wants to hear, only to find out that you’ve contradicted yourself when talking to someone else and now everyone thinks you’re making things up.

Being who you are and being true to yourself are two of the hardest things you will ever attempt. Part of the problem is that parents can only bring you up in their own image and based on their life knowledge and experience. They can’t clutch knowledge out of thin air and deliver it to you, partly because they don’t actually know who you’re going to be when you grow up so they don’t know what to grab.

You are a new and unique human being and your parents could create you up to a point, after that you have to create yourself. Part of that self-creation has to be learning about, defining and understanding yourself – warts and all – so that you can say to other people ‘this is who I am’.

When you are clear about who you are then other people will be equally clear, because the only person who can share that clarity with them is you.

You will, of course, encounter people who refuse to accept you as you are, always seeing you in an image that they have created in their own minds. If you love them then carry on being yourself and let them have their dreams, if you don’t move quietly on with as little fuss and fanfare as possible. Most importantly, be yourself no matter what.

It is up to you to define whether you are doing well or struggling, succeeding or making mistakes, flowing with the joy of life or tripping over the boulders of outrageous fortune; you and only you.

You know that you are not God (the Universe, etcetera) and therefore you know that you are not perfect, meditate on that idea for a few minutes and truly allow yourself to realise that you do not have to be perfect and no one has the right to ask you to be perfect. Well not unless they can deliver unconditional perfection one hundred percent of the time, and avoid the people who believe they can like the plague because they’re deluded.

If you are on the Spiritual pathway then you also know that we are here on this earth plane to learn, and mistakes are (sadly) a very good means of learning, but they are not the only way.

As one of my Guides once said when I was really struggling:

Eduoard: “Did you enjoy school?”

Me: “Yes.”

Eduoard: “Did you enjoy university?”

Me: “Oh yes!”

Eduoard: “So if you enjoy learning then why do we always have to learn the hard way?”

Me: Silence!

It was a very good question. Yes we make mistakes on this plane in order to learn, but we can also learn through joy. We can learn through having the right job, for being in the right relationships, from living in the right house in the right town and having the right holidays.

So if you do feel that you suffer from the God Complex, forgive yourself, learn about yourself, become yourself, learn from your mistakes but also allow yourself to learn the easy way, and when anyone points out that you’re not perfect remind them that you aren’t God so that’s only to be expected.

As my therapist said to me if you believe in the stories of the Bible that God created Adam and Eve, you could also look at this life and conclude that might have been a mistake – a big mistake.

I don’t actually agree with him because I think humanity has done as much good as bad, but it was an interesting point.

Go forth and be you.

In Love and Light

© Deb Hawken - First published in Silent Voices 2010