Un-cover Your True Self - FORBES ARTICLE
I’m incredibly proud to have been featured in FORBES with an important message about a different way of living.
The article is in Spanish HERE.
This is the translation in English:
The Hebrew word for barefoot is phonetically translated to ‘yahef’. Although it is the word used for barefoot, what it literally means is ‘without covering’. So, I’ll invite you to take a journey with me into what this means and what it says about how the concept of value is transforming in our world.
We’ll begin back in the World War II era. My family comes from Eastern Europe and in a span of about 20yrs they had to pick up whatever they could grab in order to flee two of the most terrible dictatorships in history, first Hitler and then Castro in Cuba. This might be seen as the unluckiest circumstances, but they were lucky enough to see a trend early on and make a run for it before it was too late, and at the same time leaving behind their communities, possessions, business, pretty much everything except what they could carry.
This pilgrimage was set in the middle of the largest revolution in the history of modern humans. It was the beginning of the age of consumerism. Our basic needs (in the first world) became so deeply and easily met that we didn’t have to spend all day working anymore and so big companies capitalized on opportunities to occupy our time with shopping and experiencing.
Then came me, in 1988, raised through the peak of this culture of consumption. I spent the first 28 years of my life acquiring. I was always trying to be someone.
Here’s the thing about being a consumer - it is not our natural state as humans. If you take a moment to look deep within and really check-in with yourself, each of you can admit that you were put here on Earth to be of service. Metaphorically, humans are meant to be more like stars than like planets - to radiate rather than to consume. Then, how is it possible that we ended up here?
The answer is simple, we were told many stories that changed our perception of ourselves. They were practically shoved down our throat (just like at the advertising trends over the years). And the subtle, overarching message of the stories is, ‘you are not good enough’. If you have this ‘lesser than’ image of yourself, then you must acquire external things/experiences in order to be ‘enough’.
The above is a simple explanation, and the result is something very messy and hard to accept. We humans have created layers of stories to cover ourselves up because of the belief that who we are is not OK. We go around wearing masks that are so well crafted that we can’t even see them. We are quite good at seeing other people’s masks, but not our own.
To give an example, one of those masks is ‘my feet are inherently weak and fragile’. And so we need supportive shoes. Now, I’m not saying that wearing shoes is wrong or bad, but the shoes that our society has given to us and that we have accepted are devices that do not honor the truth of what our feet are capable of doing - what they were built for. I say this humbly as a result of having studied medicine, written research studies on foot & ankle reconstruction, and co-founded a large foot & ankle medicine practice.
When I discovered the truth about what I’ll call natural foot health it was like God or the Universe or Source or whatever you want to call it, delivered to me my service to humanity. I was meant to share this message with the world. As I connected more and more with this mission, the masks that I had been wearing started to peel away. Anything that I was doing that took energy away from this had no place in my life anymore.
What began for me as a way to transform the way foot & ankle care was delivered and educated became a journey into the deeper levels of being human in the context of the modern world. These days I carry the title of healer (which is distinct from the title of physician). For me, a healer supports people in removing the layers of what they think they need to be in order to reveal the beautiful essence that is their being. It is real, root-cause healing - that occurs on an emotional level.
The questions that I close this inquiry with are, what is more luxurious than living in your truth? What would it be like for you to live without covering?
With love,
Jeff ‘Yaheff’ Shub, MD
