Reaching beyond ourselves

'Be a rainbow in someone else's cloud.'

                                                                  Maya Angelou

Once we have been on the journey of becoming for some time, another movement of the spirit begins to play its part in the dance. All of the world’s major myths and wisdom traditions have been speaking of this for over two thousand years and more recently, some of our philosophers and psychologists have begun to do so too. One of the first to write about it was Abraham Maslow. His research led him to believe that if we are fortunate enough to live in an environment in which we are able to become what he calls ‘a strong, real self’, we will in time begin to choose what he called ‘higher goals’.   

Gradually, we become much less concerned with what we want from life than with what life asks of us. We become more altruistic, more concerned with others’ wellbeing and with the problems they are facing in their lives. We develop a greater sense of social responsibility. We become actively involved in alleviating the problems within our society and within the wider world. Driven by a passionate desire to make a difference, we seek meaning and purpose through pledging ourselves to causes that matter more to us than our own personal interests. We develop a clearer vision of how we could be and of how the world could be if all of us were to enter into the soul journey to which we are called. We long for others to come to know the inner transformation that we are experiencing, to find their own way to the truths that are setting us free, to discover the inner treasures that are so enriching our lives. We long for them to enter into their own dance of the spirit. Maslow called this growing capacity to reach beyond ourselves ‘self-transcendence’.   

Another of the writers to highlight the importance of self-transcendence was psychologist Viktor Frankl. Frankl was an Austrian Jew and a holocaust survivor. As a result of his concentration camp experiences, he came to see this capacity for self-transcendence not only as a fundamental aspect of our humanity, but as the fullest expression of it. Being able to reach beyond ourselves is, he writes, the ultimate goal of life, the chief purpose of our human existence and one of the most important hallmarks, both of our humanity and of our spirituality. The paradox is, he says, that we do not fully become ourselves until we have learned to look and reach beyond ourselves. 

Writer Maria Harris calls this movement 'traditioning'. We often think of tradition as a set of rules, laws, rituals or teachings that we hand on to others. It is, however, the act of handing on that is the tradition. Traditioning is the way in which we communicate ways of knowing, of being and of living from one person to another, from one generation to the next. There are many ways in which can play a part in this process of traditioning - for example, through teaching or mentoring, through acting as role models or simply through loving and caring for others.

In her book, 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings', writer Maya Angelou tells the story of her turbulent childhood. She was raped as a little girl and was so traumatised by the experience that she stopped speaking for nearly five years. It was one of her teachers, Bertha Flowers, who enabled her to find her voice again. She would often invite the child into her home. Not asking her to break her silence, she would spend time reading to her from one novel or another. Angelou tells us that listening to her beautiful voice was like listening to singing and in time, Flower's loving acts of traditioning not only empowered Angelou to reclaim her voice, but enabled her to find her way to her gift as a writer and poet. Bertha Flowers was the rainbow in Angelou's cloud who loved her into becoming. She freed the caged bird to sing again.

Perhaps the most important way in which we tradition, however, is simply through being who we are. For eventually, the changes that are happening within us as we journey become visible to others. If they have known us for some time, they may notice that we seem more at peace with ouselves, more comfortable in our own skin, more fully alive. They may see us as walking taller in the world, as forging our own path with more self-assurance and a deeper level of trust in ourselves. They may notice that we are making healthier and more fulfilling life choices and at the same time, are more willing to set aside our own desires and interests for the good of others. We are, in effect, traditioning a way of being and it is in this way that our own personal rebirth begins to ripple out into the world.

This is, however, not the end of our journey for entering into the process of traditioning brings with it new awakenings, new discoveries, new struggles to let go and new parts of ourselves to embrace. And so the dance continues...

Bibliography

Maya Angelou (2024) I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Virago

Viktor Frankl (2004) Man's Search for Meaning. Rider

Abraham Maslow (1971) The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. Viking Press

©Copyright Kaitlyn Steele 2025

Kaitlyn Steele

www.insearchofsoul.co.uk 

kaitlynsteele16@gmail.com