"But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ." – The Little Prince
The belief that everything and everyone is good? That we are always loved and inherently enough?
That people act poorly not because they are bad but because they have forgotten love. That we act poorly because we have forgotten who we are. That we have been treated poorly not because of our own fault, but because others have forgotten too*.
Innocence, as @the.alchemist recently said, is different from naiveté. We don’t hang around people who are going to treat us poorly. But we do believe they are inherently good.
Innocence then is, in a sense, freedom. Forgiveness is embedded by innocence. We forgive others for acting out of fear (in particular, the fears of being unworthy, unlovable, and not enough) and forgive ourselves for the same. When not weighted down by fear or shame, we are given the ability to fly. Even in the physical limitation of gravity, our density is less because we let go of the heaviest of emotions, giving ourselves the ability to know that as we move through life, nothing is real besides Love itself.
It is out of innocence that we are born and back into innocence that we will die… (more in part 2).
*Young children often quickly forgive their parents for hurting them, be it emotionally or physically. While some may believe this is bad, it’s often what saves a child from further harm and allows them to move through difficult situations. The problem is that the mind creates a story on how the child must be bad to deserve such behavior and this belief can be carried on to adulthood if there is not quick intervention in childhood.
I am the most brave when standing still. When I am writing reflections through tears under the fire of a lamp, or feeling the feels and weeping into my dog’s fur. I am the most brave when I ask for connection. When I share my feelings with a lover, knowing at any moment he could walk away. I am the most brave when I walk into my therapists office, making sure no secret is left hidden, no emotion left unfelt. I am the most brave when I shine my light within. When I witness my wounds and kneel before my heart.
****
Like Pacer, you can be brave and still be scared of thunderstorms. You can hide under the covers and paw your Mom for comfort.
Why?
Because bravery has little to do with external actions and everything to do with one’s ability to go within. To shine a light on the fear that drives them.
I could ski down a double black and still be a coward for giving into to my need to impress for the fear of not being enough.
Or, I could be brave and ride my mountain bike slowly down a green, even though I know my riding partner thinks I’m slow and scared.
Maybe I will give a speech to a room full of strangers, because my heart wants a microphone even though my conditioning tells me its safer to stay quiet.
Brave is the step I take- or don’t take- when following my heart.
Fear can be considered physical survival, but many psychotherapists now call that instinct.
What most of us think of as overcoming our fears is actually an ego-survival mechanism. If I do this, I am great. If I achieve this, I am successful. If I don’t do this, I am keeping my small-self identity in place.*
*This is very much a “know thyself” topic. Type A’s and Type C’s tend to be does and could find value in stillness. Type B’s can obviously find great value from going within, but may also need to take an actionable step.
Plus, as Dr. Ellen Langer writes in her book The Mindful Body we don’t often account for risk assessment when we label someone as brave. My bike riding friend, to me, appears to be fearless. And maybe he does care less about crashing then I do. But really, he’s a much more skilled rider, and what I often see as huge risk is a small obstacle to him.
As I’ve studied bravery over the past year, I think I’ve finally started to understand what it means to be safe, to be fearless. In a human body, there is always risk. Risk of being physically wounded, and the perhaps worse risk of being emotionally hurt. But it is the parts of ourselves that have learned to protect our human vulnerability that carries the fear.
We will all die.
But Love will always be there.
And if we can do, or not do, and know that we will and are still love, we will always find safety within the shelters of our mortality.
My confirmation name is “Joan”, after Joan of Arc. At 13, I picked this saint because I saw her as tough, and Sebastian (the Parton Saint of Sports), was either not allowed or I didn’t like the name enough (I don’t remember). But 20+ years later, I believe her. Joan wasn’t being tough when she stated “I am not afraid. I was born to do this.” She was being brave. She knew who she wasn’t and who she was. She was brave in the face of both physical and ego death.
Brave is the step you take when following your heart, The only truly brave act is being completely oneself in a word of people who have forgotten who they truly are.
We’re all a little yin and yang. Light and dark. Conscious and unconscious. Masculine and feminine. Sun and moon. Found and waiting to be discovered. Known and unknown.
Good and bad? That one, I don’t so much agree with. We ALL have the capacity, in our forgetfulness, fear, and greed, to act poorly and with hate. But I believe we are all good inside. If only the light could shine upon the shadows.
To light up our own shadows, to remember who we are. Because I am not who you think I am. You are not who I think you are.
I have been a product of my programming. Age 0-7, we are in a hypnotic state, simply absorbing the information around us. The training continues after, plus the rebellion of the programming, which is often still a byproduct of the messages learned and rarely pure of heart.
Yet we need not disown our programmed parts, our human self. We simply must remember the light and dark of who we are. Our divine self and human self becoming one. An embrace. Being moved by the energy that which we are, allowing the human self to actualize the love in physical form. Beauty made manifest.
What if you’re already living the life of your dreams? What if you already have all that your heart desires? What if you’re in the experience that your soul wants for you? What if you’ve just been to blind- too judgmental of yourself, too jealous of others, and too busy comparing yourself to everyone else’s life to see it?
Maybe we’re also just too programmed in wanting- not just in material goods, but epic experiences, and personal achievements as measures of self-worth.
It’s like we’re desperately dehydrated and we’re all walking miles and miles for water when it’s always been right there, right under our feet.*
The other day I was talking to my twin sister about joy and Joseph’s Campbell quote “Follow your bliss.” I told her I didn’t know how, that I didn’t know what the line meant. “I mean, I really just care about Pacer, you and Sage, and playing in the mountains.” “But that’s why you’re here, in Salida, with all of us”, my sister said. I complained further, “I haven’t been able to play in the mountains like I want to for years…” I was going to continue about financial stuff, but the annual “Hooligan Race” down the Arkansas River was finally about to start. Which was perfect, because I realized I didn’t really have anything good to say. She was right. I don’t have a whole lot of extra cash, but I have enough to pay for rent and food, enough time for the experiences I want to have outside and with family, my 2 favorite people 10 minutes away and the best dog ever, all of us in a quirky little mountain town. Everything else is fluff, or an excuse as to why I can’t be truly happy now, with the main fluff being the thoughts in my head on what I need to do, have, or achieve to be worthy of joy, love, and contentment (re: inner peace).
I know I’m not the only one with this old programming, believing in the physical when it’s love, beauty, and connection that we all really want, and most of us already have. You’ve seen It’s a Wonderful Life too, right? If we want, if we’re willing to let go of the old stories, we could be happy at this very moment.
*On a podcast, I fumbled on this story, retelling an event in Scott Harrison’s book Thirst: A Story of Redemption, Compassion, and a Mission to Bring Clean Water to the World where an older woman a village in which a well had just been dug couldn’t be happy, saying something like “You mean it was there all along?” and thinking of her years of suffering walking to get water. I too, am often like this woman. I know I could be joyful at any moment but often prefer to hold on to my past, perhaps as a way to give my suffering meaning.
Last year, on two different podcasts, I stated that the masculine* witnessing and being with the pain of the feminine had the potential to heal the world.
*While gender stereotypes play this out in a way that is more evident in the world, I’m specifically talking about energies, not physical bodies. My own inner masculine energies have at times been quite toxic and harmful. While I tend to experience this internally, the world always shows me what I need to heal with external people and events.
What I realize now is that it was only part one. Part two is the feminine forgiving the masculine for all the ways he tried to control, tame, or kill her wild spirit. Perhaps more easily stated, it is us forgiving the parts of ourselves- the interval voices that criticized us, told us what to do, who to be, and how to act, and hid or attempted to annihilate our love after mistaking it for weakness- because those parts were only scared. Scared of what? Being unworthy of unconditional love. But that is simply the myth of the ego.
Part two is forgiving the parts of ourselves that we least want to see (but might also like). (For me, it’s my inner narcissist**, the part of me that wants to be special “a special snowflake”, or what the AA program calls the desire to be “terminally unique”. I’m embarrassed by this part, I don’t like it, it’s beat me up and abused me, and…I’m afraid of losing it. Who am I without it? And no one, no part, is more scared than the narcissist. “If I am not special, no one will love me and I will cease to exist”is the main fear of this shadow part. Its other half is often the “never enough” part. Can I love this part? Can we love this part of ourselves?)
The free spirit of the feminine being gently guided and held by the masculine is the integration of both energies, where two become one, and separation ceases to exist.
**A word on narcissism. Therapeutically, I don’t believe it is overused and cringe when I hear people say that it is, as it often denies the experience of people who have been in relationships (whether romantically, the child of, etc) with people diagnosable narcissistic. That is, when someone doesn’t simply have a narcissistic part but who’s identity is their narcissistic part and becomes the role they play in the world. So, all or almost all of us have a narcissistic part, but not all of us our narcissistic. And, once we admit that, the narcissistic identity projected in the world will most likely lose its power.
***In-between my multiple edits, I was reading “Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self Love” by Jonathan Van Nest, and read this line, ” Being normal is being completely unique, because nobody is the same.” (I love paradox)
I am a protector of innocence. A warrior of Love. A guardian of beauty. A defender of Truth.
You’ll never see me touch a gun, but I will slay with my heart. My ability to see you through your fear, the only sword I need. My armor, the denial of hate.
I stand for what man tried to take from me, came close but failed. I was simply poisoned, and entered a deep slumber, awakened by my own sweet kiss.
I refuse to go to war, but I’ll throw my body over a child, protecting what is real from your lies. Kill me first, and as my body fades, you’ll remember too: Only love exists.
I am a protector of the innocent.
****I wrote this poem shortly after an experience I had where I did not defend myself, my own innocence and love. I played into the “bro culture” pretending I was being the “fancy” one for requiring vegan food. This, at least, is a step above my high school self trying to fit in. Now, these weren’t bad guys whatsoever…I simply, unconsciously, stepped into a role that I needed to see and ask myself “Where do I not protect my own heart?”
This also got me thinking about what I find sexiest in a man. Brute force, acting cool, big muscles, and guns…definitely do not. But I am highly attracted to men who are willing to use their intellect to protect their heart and the hearts of others, to see and feel their own innocence and be guardians of it, the divine masculine standing alongside the divine feminine (energies that are inside all of us).
The hardest part about letting go… …is actually letting go.
It’s not waiting for someone or something to take my thoughts and low self-esteem away from me, saying “I’m ready! Take this [shitty thought and sadness] from me!”
Instead, it is an active choice.
To say “I don’t think like that anymore, that is not how this me feels”. It’s not being judgmental towards that old version of myself. It is having compassion for her, knowing that she was doing the best she could. But it is letting go of my attachment to her, her thoughts, her beliefs about herself, her projections, her old stories, and her weighty emotions.
And, it is in letting go, that I break free. I let go of gravity, and free fall deep into the unknown. I expect a crash. But instead, I fly.
“When you have a mind that is disciplined, your soul can finally be free.“, a note scratched in my copy of A Course in Miracles.
I have had to detach from the word “discipline”, clear from it my past understanding of it, and reclaim it with new and proper meaning.
Before doing the above exercise for myself, I attached “discipline” with past memories and connotations. It was the strict rule of Catholic school, plaid skirts or weirdly pleated khakis, control, rulers, and a form of punishment. It meant staying inside the lines, not being too weird or too different, and staying boxed in a set of beliefs. It was me trying harder and harder to be better, to improve more, yet staying stuck. I came to associate “discipline” with the energy of “toxic masculinity. Yet every shadow side has a like side, and the word kept coming up that seemed helpful or positive. It seems contradictory to my beliefs to tear down the videos or memes where I saw the word, so it was of my choosing to explore it more.
I finally got it when I was listening to Marianne Williamson give a talk on A Course in Miracles (a book that I’ve been reading for several months). All I remember her saying was “a disciplined mind”, and I understood. My mind is often out of control. It can’t decide what part of me to listen to, often chooses darkness, and believes the voices that tell me how I screwed things up or I’m not enough. My mind is quite undisciplined. And really, that’s part of our culture. We’re taught to be distracted and told there’s nothing that can be done save for a pill if one’s case is severe enough.
We’re also taught that choosing to think positively is “Pollyanna” or dismissive of a mental health diagnosis. Actually, to be blatantly controversial: Joy is a choice. Freedom is a choice. Peace is a choice.
I say this because anything else take away a person’s agency, the control they do have of their life. Lack of agency leads to greater depression and anxiety. I want my clients, I want myself, to reclaim our power. (While it’s absurd to me, we still do this to heart patients too…doctors forget to tell their patients that they can change their diet, exercise habits, and stress levels to improve heart health, and instead prescribe drugs with hefty side effects). Now that choice may be, “I want to feel better”, “I’ll try again tomorrow”, or “I’ll go for a walk”, but it is still a choice over darkness.
With that, I will acknowledge, “easier said than done.” For some of us, the grip of our fears, protector parts, egos, anxiety, depression, thoughts, beliefs, etc (whatever you want to call it) seem intertwined with our very being. This is not true, but the feeling sure feels true. That is why, with both myself and clients, I first just get curious about parts/identities and work with them to see if I can loosen the grip of fear. Why is it there? What is the part protecting? What safety needs to occur for suppressed emotions to be seen and felt?
To circle back, this all comes to getting to choose what you want to believe. What wolf to feed? Love or fear?
While true free will is in this choice, what we do know is this: A mind disciplined in Love will set the soul free.
(This is a very short blog on what I could be a very big topic. Actually, I’ve had a copy of an essay “Mind Control: Becoming a Jedi” sitting in my drafts for months. Perhaps I’ll finish it in the coming months.)
My dad worked as an electrical engineer at the same place for nearly 50 years. Actually, at 71, he still works part time at that company. The job definitely plays well to his analytical brain, but I would never call being an engineer his purpose.
His family titles probably give more insight into his purpose. He’s known as the “toy guy” and the “car guy.” He’s always got toys for the little ones in the family…and toys for himself. He probably has well over 1,000 Matchbox cars in his collection, plus minions and disney characters throughout his house. He’s also the guy everyone calls…whether it me, my cousins, or his brother and sisters and in-laws…for car help. It might be advice on what needs to be fixed, how to get it fixed cheaper, him fixing it, or he’ll lend you a car for as long as you need it. Actually, multiple family members have driven a car first owned by my dad. My dad is the guy who wanted to go to Harry Potter world for his 62nd birthday, and we’re already planning on Disney World/Galaxy’s Edge trip after he turns 72. He’s the dad who still reminds me and Sandi to remember our “happy thoughts” and sends us “unbirthday cards.” My dad has been through a lot of loss in his life, and the joy he still finds is my inspiration as I try to rise above my own darkness.
Part of his purpose comes through his own wounds. While he loves re-telling stories of gathering a group of friends for a baseball game, my dad had a paper route before he was double-digits and quickly became a caretaker for his younger siblings when his own dad had a stroke and later passed away.
His childlike wonder reignites the flame of those who have forgotten theirs. He is a protector that keeps his family safe. He is a Wizard among those who have forgotten their magic. That is his purpose.
Thinking of my dad’s purpose has helped me discover my own.
I might still say that “I help people remember who they are”, or ” I help people become free”, but more simply, I help people feel safe to express their emotions, be who they are, and feel loved. Sure, I did pick a career where I can do that for a living (and it certainly blossomed from my own wounds) but what I have chosen to do really doesn’t matter because I am the embodiment of my own purpose.
I have been on the search for freedom for nearly my whole life, intensely for the past two years, with a balanced measure of both dedication and desperation.
Yet I live in a privileged country, am of white ethnicity ,pretty enough, able-bodied, and grew up solidly middle class. I’ve also been somewhat rebellious in conforming to societal norms.
So why did I feel so trapped, like a bird in a cage? Or like the elk I saw with a fishing net trapped in his antlers? Or the cows I see trapped behind wired fences that surely aren’t there for their safety?
Last summer, I read an Instagram post that said “You can’t find freedom in the same place twice*.” I simultaneously felt a resonance with the message and with an internal “fuck.” Again I had been going to the mountains to find freedom and to my dog for happiness, with a painful Achilles heel that said “You can’t keep going to what’s outside of you to experience what’s within.” The gateways to the experiences you want to have are not the experience themselves. I had caged myself in the wide open, and trapped the being I love the most. Pacer is meant to be my teacher and the Love I am guardian of, not a need to fill what I feel I lack.
But of course, when going on any inner journey with a destination “in mind” (freedom), contrast is usually first experienced. I had to come face to face with all the things that held me down, that kept me from flying: my thoughts, my past, all my old beliefs that cause anxiety, depression, grief, and deep fear. The scariest thing about going into those depths is feeling the impossibility of getting out. It wasn’t long ago that I tearfully told a friend, “I feel so trapped.” I write about this so openly and vulnerably now because I believe this is the dark side of the human experience.
While this part of my journey isn’t quite over, I sense perhaps a shift. A shift in perception. A slight release. A willingness to see and choose differently. It’s taken journaling, meditation, shadow work, allowing life to reveal to me what’s unconscious, tracking my emotions, parts work, friends, books (rec: A Course in Miracles) an almost constant stream of positive messages through podcasts and channelers, and holding on to the belief that “only love is real.” I look forward to recounting my journey as hopefully a guide for others to become (remember) free too.
A Dog and Her Girl 