growth
Through The Looking Glass
We tend to not see ourselves accurately. We too often choose to focus on our shortcomings and weaknesses, such as we perceive them to be. And I believe we are all guilty of this. I have not in all my years met anyone who was truly satisfied with themselves – until it was sometimes too late.
I was just as guilty of this as anyone else. My childhood was one that I wouldn’t have wished on my worst enemy. I was abandoned by both parents when I was very young. I was raised by an aunt and uncle, who took pleasure in reminding me that my parents did not love me. My aunt also took every opportunity to beat the daylights out of me, while my uncle did nothing.
When I hit puberty, several older males in my ‘family’ began to stalk and harass me. I’d go into the kitchen and soon find myself backed up against a wall. Nobody believed me. Nobody did anything to stop it – not even when I was raped at 16 by a family friend’s son, who was deemed to be a “good boy” and “would never do anything like that.”
I could go on and on about all the horrible things that happened to me, but once I turned that momentous age of 16, and having had the experiences that I have had, I left my aunt and uncle’s home. I went to live with my boyfriend, his sister and their mom. When I left, my uncle dumped all my clothes on the front lawn.
Change – The Sublime Season Of Necessity
We are part of a world that is continually changing. It’s happening in the very air we breathe. But why is change so difficult? For most people, creating major changes in their lives makes for a difficult and unsettling period. The reason being that attachment to familiar activities, along with the people, places, friends and family which have constituted one’s world thus far, increases the probability of not wanting to let go. But change is inevitable, and without it the pain endured by trying to remain unmoved is almost unbearable… growing in intensity with each day endured.
Nothing remains the same. Try as we might, we cannot continue to live in an unaltered world. Chaos is part of dissolving our imagined pristine worlds. Chaos fosters the creative change so vitally needed in our day-to-day living. In all actuality, people don’t change; seasons do. And, when the season of change is upon us, we are powerless in the face of it. To surrender totally remains the only option, if we are too prevent an extended, abysmal stay in an unwanted reality.
In order to stay alive, we must destroy the food we eat by consuming it, through the destructive process of assimilation. If we left it in an untouched form, by not digesting it and not having it changed into the chemical composition we need, we would literally starve to death. So too must we participate in the process of destroying some of the existing elements in our lives in order to continue living more fully. We can only procrastinate, hide, deny and resist for so long, until ‘creation of the new’ demands our response, with or without our approval.
Let Your Authentic Self Sparkle
Too many relationships are ruined by worrying about what other people think of us. We worry about what people will say, what people will think. I’ve seen many people disconnected from their loved ones in this way, with their only means of continued communication being social, or texting. They’re so afraid of expressing the things they should say, and so on.
If we could just remove our hardened shell and reveal who we really are, and allow our souls to sparkle, be authentic and keep it real with one another, I think we would connect perfectly.
In today’s world we are so brainwashed to think we have to be something we are not. I see so many people communicating, but putting on airs, acting like they are someone they are not, to try and impress, or to sell an idea, or sell themselves as someone else. It can take a toll on the body, mind, spirit. If only we could allow ourselves to show the world who we truly are, and to speak our truth, and sincerely connect with our loved ones, family members, friends, we would all have happier, richer lives.
Sometimes we stop being who we truly are, because the person we communicate with snaps at us, or has a problem with our opinions or how we view the world. When we share our thoughts and opinions freely, these people make us feel like we can’t be who we truly are around them.
An Accelerated Path
Many people come to me after years, sometimes decades, of trying everything else: Astrology, Numerology, Genetics, Past Life Regression, therapy, and so on. Years of being understood, validated, affirmed, and being told narratives regarding why they are the way they are, did not bring them all the answers.
There is worth in all of the above practices, both in Psychology and Spirituality, or Metaphysics. However, growth requires challenge, and we are now in a ‘feel good’ culture, where if anyone gets upset, there is the potential of backlash, or even a lawsuit.
In the 1960s there was an amazing education role play called Brown Eyes, developed by an elementary school teacher. You can look up the video online, as well as the reunion footage years later with the kids, who are now adults. The game created a scenario in which children, and later also adults, were able to experience the profound effects of discrimination, prejudice and racism.
However, teachers were eventually sued for doing this role play in class, because of the emotional upset caused by the experience. Of course, the role play was not upsetting to the minority children who experienced the discrimination and prejudice all the time in their daily lives.
Turning Inward To See What’s Going On Outside
We often lose our way when we look to the outer world for direction. Relationships, people, places, things, careers, education and events cannot fully guide us on our delegated path of destiny. When we disassociate from the starkly remarkable and precise direction of the inner world, we veer off course. With an external focus we become confused and fearful about our footing and our particular place in the universe.
The outer world is an ever-evolving, unreliable mirage, without boundaries and purposeful meaning. It merely reflects conditions; it does not detect. In other words, the outer world is an outward expression of an inner nebulous experience of desire for permanency. Giving credence and value to it unnecessarily, as a separate functioning entity, brings elevated perplexity and condescending despair.
Things occur for reasons incomprehensible to us. Though we go to great lengths to add our unsolicited opinions, and smear our unjustified ignorant remarks so callously, the truth remains, while the rest falls away. Nothing we say or do can change one iota of what is to be.
We are not now, nor will we ever be, greater than the Tao that sustains us. It matters not what one relates, refers and registers this sacred energy as (god, universal spirit, nitrogen), the impersonal movement requires no acknowledgment to carry out supreme super structural force and intent. In other words, we will not be consulted on the sublime activities which occur in our lives without consent or confirmation.
The Challenge To Remain In The Light
What is the one area of your life that you would prefer to improve or change entirely? Mine without question would be to remain in the Light.
We live in a digital age, where we have instant access to information of all varieties… some truthful, others not so accurate. Once in a while this leads to something of value, but for the most part it is just a bombardment of noise, which is mostly designed to make us purchase and consume more products and services than we really need.
Scare tactics, for example, encourage us to buy more medication and nutritional supplements than any reputable doctor would recommend. Fearmongering convinces us to install excessive additional security for our homes. And airbrushed models tempt us into buying an endless assortment of goods that seldom add much value to our daily lives.
Meanwhile many of us have the tendency to complain about the government, the exorbitant rates charged for our monthly utility services, and the escalating cost of food and basic necessities.
The personal challenge for me is to allow myself the guilty pleasure of discussing any of these topics without vibrating into a negative state of mind. I can physically feel, in my body, the moment my energy starts to get into that negative energy frequency.
Purity Of Purpose – The Enigma Of Our Soul’s Journey
None of us really know what we are doing. Though we go about our days with full intent, saturated purpose and determined objectives, the real sublime reason why we are motivated to act remains hidden from view. We awake in the morning with a concentrated objective, having calculated the outcome and minimized the barriers.
We proceed as if what we will achieve has something to do with us. So much so, we either take blame for the mishaps, or bask in the glory of the success. Neither response is accurate, or appropriate. We think we know what we are doing, but we do not. We never know. We only project, and in those projections, we are wrong.
There’s much more to the picture left unseen, than seen. So much is hidden from view. It’s simply amazing how we go about our days denying how much crucial information we don’t have access to. We work with what we see in an obscured partial light, but we attack the problems as if we have all the goods available.
The truth is, our present knowledge and insight, no matter how much we may have paid for expert guidance, is always limited and biased. Yet, we continue to make all of these unnecessary plans and believe that unless they unfold exactly and precisely as we have ordered or constructed, we have in some way failed to accomplish our preset goals.