Your first mission on earth is to remember, to remember who you really are, overcoming and rising above early childhood conditioning. The second mission is to live life from that place of knowing who you are, the space of expansive love. The third mission is natural, spreading that joy, in whatever way you may choose (there may be no life change at all, just being yourself more) to others humans and beings that inhabit this earth.
It takes consistent, committed effort to move through the dark and reach the light. You can’t just want to heal. You have to choose to heal.
*heal: to make whole , or rather, to return to (remember) wholeness after a period of unconsciousness (forgetfulness).
Many therapies assist in this practice. EMDR works in an almost similar way to psychedelics (So I’ve heard. It’s not a path I have chosen for myself but am somewhat familiar with the research and have heard recounts from several friends.) that does not bypass wounds and fears, but moves through them in a safe and contained way that allows the brain to reprocess memories in healthier fashions. Similarly, IFS helps us understand our (wounded, fearful) parts so they loosen the grip and the higher self can step through and reclaim loving power, as well as your direction in life. Still, the basic principle remains the same…we have to be willing to actively let go of our old stories, programmed beliefs, and negative thoughts*. It’s not going to happen (for most of us) just by praying to get rid of them (believe me, I tried). We have to exert the (free) will to choose it, to choose love over fear, in order to create a new paradigm for ourselves.
*If you feel there is a resistance or block or feeling stuck on your healing journey, I recommend looking at that block, or part wanting you to stay stuck, itself.
When I worked at an addiction treatment center, I remember a staff member there teaching a class. I can’t remember if it was about addiction, fitness (he was a strong, athletic guy), or something else, but I clearly remember him asking, “Do you want to know a new language? Or, do you want to LEARN a new language?” Personally, I’d love to know French. I took several classes on the language in both high school and college. But I never really wanted to learn it, and so I can only recall a few words.
Each of us must honestly ask ourselves this question when embarking on a healing journey. Do we just want to be healed? Or do we want to do the work to heal?
We may certainly look like we want to heal when we read all the books, listen to all the podcast, maybe occasionally chat with a therapist or take a workshop (I’m raising my hand here). But sometimes, these are easy and often subconscious ways to bypass actually doing the work. We keep searching for the key to what we’re missing instead of unlocking the potential within ourselves.
Yet let me be clear… choosing to move through and let go beliefs and thoughts we’ve held onto for 10, 20, 30, 40, and even 50+ years is not easy. Personally, I have (somewhat subconsciously) been almost determined to hold on to the belief that I’m not enough, or I’ve just wanted it to be taken away from me without my conscious effort. In the past, I’ve started the process of resisting negative voices in myself and gave up when they got louder, letting the thoughts of failure and imperfections consume me. It wasn’t until an occurrence where my ego led and I overrode a core value, missing an opportunity to experience what I care about most in life*, where I decided “I don’t want to live like this anymore” and I found the strength to not turn back (although there were plenty of falters and half step backs, the determination was just greater).
*This was my proverbial “rock bottom”. It doesn’t just have to be getting a divorce or waking up after a near overdose.
As we move through the dark (here, defined as our pain, wounds, and programmed beliefs), what is necessary to realize, so we can be loving observers as we move through, is that the beliefs and negative stories we hold on to about ourselves are not real. They we given to us each time love was invalidated as a child. If you believe you are a failure, it’s not true, regardless of how many times your mind can conjure examples of how you believe you failed. If you believe you are not enough, it’s not true, no matter how your mind compares yourself to others. Your ego only compares based on a performance value that was given to you and your mind accepted at the time as a way to better fit in to society. Failure is a conjecture of the mind, although it is more likely you’ll miss reaching a goal (or being satisfied by it) if it is not heart aligned or was driven by fear (feelings of unworthiness).
The objective here is not to ignore the thoughts, but to see them clearly: as thoughts. To observe them with the curiosity as a small child observes a leaf on the ground, then continue to keep moving. As emotions come up, the process is similar, we feel them through awareness; not attaching to the emotion, but breathing into it, which allows for it to be witnessed and released. I found parts work extremely helpful in this process, as my mind needed more understanding. In the example above, I could witness the part of my ego that just wanted me to feel better about myself, and the way I could do that was to control how far I could go and push myself. Even though it here it led me to a poor choice, I could see how the part was doing the best it could with what it had learned. I could then insert the compassion of my higher self and reassure the fear (of the part) that I could now love myself unconditionally, empowering myself with the ability to re-take the steering wheel of my life.
The main tool here comes from mindfulness, or being able to witness your experiences and thoughts in the awareness and expanse of love. Love is the answer, my friends. As Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Commit to see your wounds (triggers will lead you there), which are essentially any reasons you have for withholding love from yourself. Your ability to insert love into those dark caves is where true healing can occur. From there, you have the opportunity to start believing what you choose to believe (rather than what you were taught to believe).
As you move through the dark, always remember to keep a steady focus on the light. We’re human. Distractions are not only easy, but ingrained in our society and imbedded in our minds. There is not bigger distraction than our fear-based thoughts. Again, see them, be aware of them, get curious about their roles, but don’t allow them to be the center of your attention.
As a gentle reminder, healing, along with commitment, requires patiences. Many protector parts can get defensive when challenged and some suppressed emotions need time (patience is love) before they feel comfortable enough to arise, trusting that YOU’ve got them…you’ve got your inner child, you’ve got you. It’s okay to take a step back. Sometimes nights can be harder than during the day to come back to a place of clarity. Just know, “this too shall pass”.
Ultimately, remember this. YOU ARE A RAY OF LOVE, a ray of consciousness, a ray of light. That is who you truly are. You are not Mike, Alice, Joe, Patricia…so far, you have most likely been playing the role that those characters have been scripted to have by childhood traumas, religious teachings, and other fear-based education. When you realize this, when you come to know this through your fierce dedication to loving yourself, you have the opportunity to insert your conscious (loving) awareness into the human you embody and create a new story for yourself.
A Dog and Her Girl 