People often express confusion about Sydney Banks’ advice to “just be yourself; be ordinary.” They hear it as if it means “mediocre” or “not realizing your potential.” Actually, the deeper meaning of “ordinary” is “part of the order of things,” and that is what we point to with the Principles. Everyone comes into life with extraordinary gifts: the divine universal energy of Mind powers us to be able to create Thought and become Conscious of our Thoughts as our reality. To be ordinary is to be comfortable in your understanding of the order of things and the power you have to use these gifts to create the life you want. That’s special, but it’s available to all people, so it’s ordinary.
Thank you, Judy & Christine, for this episode’s topic and for explaining the original meaning of the word ‘ordinary’. Our ability these days to understand that being ordinary is a very good thing is perhaps like swimming against the current because modern life — especially since the invention and popularity of social media — offers too many ways to claim and maintain a ‘special’ persona or lifestyle. But allowing ourselves and others to be ordinary sure is a great stress-reliever!
This episode covered another important topic: the mistake therapy clients often make in believing that their therapist is the source of their happiness. That mistake is brilliantly portrayed in the Apple TV+ limited series _The Shrink Next Door_, which is based on a true story of a three decades-long therapist and client relationship that went horribly wrong.