"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
Because dogs are Love, which is the true essence of God.*
*I’m getting slightly more used to using that word again because of the backward spelling, yet I haven’t quite detached it from my childhood upbringing.
Many people have forgotten what Love feels like for we have been conditioned to practice love, or conditioned love, which merely holds a scent of love within the energy of fear. And I get it…free Love can feel scary, yet it doesn’t mean we don’t have conditions, for a relationship. It just means we can let go and love the ones whose values and wants don’t match ours without any resentment.
Many times in my life I have mistaken an intense energy of attraction for love that was simply a reflection of the anxiety I carried in my body or an energetic hit that yes, I was supposed to meet that person and possibly date, but I wasn’t meant to stay when things got bad. (In my next post, Relationships ((Part Two), I’ll write a bit more about different types of attraction.)
Love feels like that gentle pressure of a dog’s head on your lap. The softness of the fur through your fingers. The “I missed you so much” look when you come home from work. The shared joy in moments during play. Love feels both comfortable and free. Always there yet without expectations. The delight is in the firmness of ever-present light.
Love is a dog. Dogs are a reflection of us, yet unlike humans almost always remain a clear mirror, showing us what we too, are made of. Dogs aren’t simply meant to teach us love, they are meant to help us remember who we are. And the more you feel like a dog, the more you will remember.
To be honest, I don’t really get visions, and I am historically, frustratingly, terrible at envisioning anything I can not see (which I will perhaps call a limiting thought). Any time Obi-Wan leads me through a guided Reiki meditation, I’m with him through the field and down the path until he says something like “then follow the light”… … Which, I guess, is supposed to take me somewhere, but all I see is black.
*I wonder if this is because, as Dr. Joe Dispenza would say, I have an (overly) analytical mind that can often keep me stuck in past cycles that were developed between the ages of 6-9 (which is a period where there was a lot going on in my life).
I rarely have dreams, but my previous landlord has dreamed for me, about Pacer finding me and bringing me Home. A few months later, I dreamed about Pacer, Love, too, reminding me She is always with me. And I think my older sister may have left me a prophecy hidden in a poem she wrote. Once in a while, I get a felt-sense from a loved one or someone else’s loved one that has passed on. It doesn’t come in words but a drop in my awareness. Sometimes I can manage to write it or say it out loud but I’ll doubt the message as soon as the words leave my lips. What I am a little better at is channeled, or automatic writing. Despite the noise in my head being so loud, I can usually eek out a few sentences, sometimes a few paragraphs, from Something beyond me. How do I know? I will be the first to tell you I don’t, because doubting myself is a religious habit. Yet often the messages are of love and answer questions that I have been stuck on, which are absolutely not the voices in my head.
In this written format, I was gifted with a vision that I could almost visualize. It was of me, walking through a tunnel of darkness, while my angels and guides held up shields to protect the dark from touching me as I walked through. It was suggested that I don’t reach out to touch the darkness, not because it could hurt me, but because it could distract me. For once I felt confident I would make it through.
Later in the week, I found myself on a snowy trail lined with Evergreens. While hiking, I periodically let out a sob or two, in both fear and grief that I wouldn’t make out of the darkness of my mind, that my thoughts would always haunt me. Then the vision came back to me, and I could almost see it. I could “hear” my older sister say “I’m right here with you Ray-Ray.” This time, too, the trees were clearing the air while my angels and loved ones cheered me on as I kept walking, again certain I would make it through. Sunshine (Pacer), of course, was leading the way.
It was also during this hike that the poem below started to come to me. The first version is a bit more personal, although I’m assuming a few other healers/empaths could relate. The second version feels universal.
*****
The Way (Personal Version)
My Love, Everyone is rooting for you. Through the darkness, the angels are calling your name. The trees are clearing the path, while Loved ones are walking you Home, and Sunshine guides the way.
My Love, You cannot fail! For this day has been scripted in the stars since the day that you were born. This is a fated day! It has always been known, not that Love would conquer, but Love’s rule would return to all. One more step, one more choice. My Love, you are not alone.
We’re sorry it felt so hard, so heavy. Yet we can see you remembering now. You came here to understand, So you could be a flame to other’s pain.
It’s happening, my Love. Your rise above the darkness. We are ALL cheering you on!
One more breath, One more turn away from fear, and toward your loving heart. Instead of hearing darkness, all you will see is Light. You will remember, my Love, You are already Home.
******
The Way (Public Version)
My Love, Everyone is rooting for you. Through the darkness, the angels are calling your name. The trees are clearing the path, while Loved ones are walking you Home and Sunshine guides the way.
My Love, You cannot fail! For this day has been scripted in the stars since the day that you were born. This is a fated day! In this moment, the choice is yours. Choose love or choose fear. Believe in your inherent Goodness, or in the separation that blinds. Meet your Destiny now, or wait. Either way, it is all the same, for you will see, you are already Home. And we are all here, ready to celebrate your remembrance.
Why are you repenting for sins that you didn’t commit?
The only mistake you ever made was forgetting the truth of who you really are.
Remember.
***
Whether you believe Jesus came to earth to be our savior or you regard him as an important prophet, what I think we can agree on is that he only spread messages of love and offered compassion to all he met.
Yet somehow around Easter, we seem to totally forget this and instead focus on fear, death, darkness, how we are bad, and the sins that we committed.
Before I dive in, let me get one important piece straight. “Sin” simply means “to miss the mark”, or to act out of alignment with one’s true self.
And Jesus knew this. He knew we could only act “wrongly”, or out of fear, when we had forgotten who we truly are, extensions of Love (or, God). Therefore, when Jesus said “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34), he meant it. In fact, I believe he meant it so much so that he actually never even saw a need for forgiveness because how can we forgive what didn’t actually come from us, but rather there persona we developed through fear (this is an important idea from A Course in Miracles, a metaphysical text in which Jesus was supposedly channeled)?
Still, instead of focusing on the Resurrection, life, light, and the rise above the ego, fear, and forgetfulness, we’ve been instructed to focus on our unworthiness, which Catholic’s repenting for being unholy when in fact they have only forgotten their own sacredness. This belief of being separate from Love is one of the sly ways that fear comes to be the primary driver in our lives as we either strive to prove our worth or feel defeated and prove the belief of our unworthiness.
It’s so weird to me now, seeing myself as a kid being instructed by teachers, priests, and parents to “give something up” (albeit quite small, like a favorite snack) to help earn my right back into favor. Of course, my teen self secretly hated and loved the 40 days of lent, which was an excuse to feed my eating disorder and control it more. I didn’t know then that fear and control went hand in hand.
What I’m finding inspirational now, in my mid 30s, is that if Jesus and Mary Magdalene and so many other shamans, prophets, and mystics could rise above their egos (fear-based selves), the stories in their minds, judgement, and feelings of unworthiness, then maybe I can too. Maybe I can forgive the parts of me that made mistakes, the parts of me that prosecute me daily for the perceived mistakes, and quiet the nightmares that live in my head. Maybe I can believe in my inherent goodness and see the world through a lens of love. Maybe I can die and become reborn, to resurrect only the part of me that is Love.
And that is a cause for celebration. I just can’t do it by shaming myself to get there. We only move beyond fear by loving our way through the darkness and then discovering there was only Light.
***Another important point that is often only casually mentioned that it was Mary Magdalene who first saw the resurrected Jesus because she could best “perceive him”.
The most freeing words I ever uttered were “I quit”.
I quit all the things that no longer serve me. I quit putting myself into hard situations and difficult positions. I quit the adventures that are dangerous to my life and light. I quit the plans and outcomes I created in my head. I quit the relationships that are mentally and emotionally abusive. I quit all the paths that are out of alignment with my heart. I quit the jobs and trainings that I’ve forced myself to sit through thinking they would be “good experience for me to have” even though I loathed sitting in the chair. I quit accepting treatment that is below my worth. I quit placing my needs in second place. I quit control. I quit the ways I block myself from love. Most importantly, I quit the thinking that I just need to be tougher. That I need to force and push myself through pain. I quit the physical abuse I’ve inflicted upon myself. I quit beating myself up for all the mistakes I made and think I made. I quit bullying myself for all the times I failed. I quit taking on the shame whenever I do quit, whenever I do what is best for me.
I quit. I quit. I quit.
***
At age 18, I have the words “Never Quit” tattooed on my body. This sealed the shell of my ego, my tough exterior, the chest the closed me and everyone else off to my treasures, my emotions, my softness, and my love. I’d stay stuck for on and off for almost another 18 years.
My ego, while divided into many parts, was mainly fabricated by fear to protect me from what I thought was love. But the ego doesn’t know love. “Never quit” strengthened my resolve that I was tough, independent, and didn’t need anyone else. I could always keeping doing, always keep pushing, I could never stop..
…and by never stopping, I never had to see what I was burying. I thought it was me that loved to push and keeping going, and I do really, really love playing outside, but it was my ego that held the secret from me. The secret that if I always kept running, it was It who would get stronger, while I would continually disappear into the night.
It was “I quit” that set me free. Painful as it was to unravel from layer and layer of fake skins.
A few months ago, I was riding my bike on weathered dirt roads. I spotted a glimmer and hopped off my bike. It was a key. Not just one of the copies you get made at the hardware store. This one was decorate as if old-fashioned. As if it was the key to something special.
I’ve held the key to my own treasure chest. I’ve peaked into my soul and slowly let parts of it escape and be seen. Sometimes I still close it and lock it at night. But I know hold the key. The lid, I feel, is almost ready to be thrown up, the chest turned upside down, never to lock away the treasure again.
I’ve been getting really good at letting people pass me. Partially because I’m relatively new to skiing and mountain biking, partially because I don’t have time to train like the professional and semi-pro athletes around me, partially because my bike and skis are used, and partially because I’ve been practicing mentally letting go. (The exception seems to be snowshoeing up mountains, as Pacer and I tethered together seem to generate supernatural muscle power from our legs and glutes.) Last week when a skier caught up to me, I laughed when I realized it was Travis Macey. Out of all the people who could pass me, I absolutely could not care that it was Travis. Of course, however, Travis being Travis slowed down and skied with me to the top. This week, it felt like a male skier intentionally waited to start until just after I did. This left my mind constantly wondering if he was behind me and wanting to stay ahead, which I witnessed as I simultaneously did my best to ski my ski and enjoy the company of the pine trees. I knew the game being played, the race to the top, was ALL IN MY HEAD, whether or not the other skier was hoping to pass. It still took me out of the present moment, but at least I could see the game my mind was playing and choose to, at least partially, be an observer and remove myself from it the silliness of it, even laughing at myself for my involvement.
****
Did you know that comparison- including gossip and judgemental attitudes- are
forms of hypervigilance? Not only are the questions “Do I fit in here?” and “Am I enough/not enough to be liked?” being asked, but so is “Am I (mentally and emotionally) safe here?” This, for most of us, is based on the unconscious fear that we may not be liked or accepted for who we are. Hence, we are constantly scanning and assessing our environments, lest we be ostracized from the group.
While the majority* of us would reject the old-school caste system, our society is semi-secretly and semi-obviously built off of this “better than”, “less than” system. Less consciously, the majority of us also live by this system internally, in our minds. If we truly reject this hierarchy of beings, we must also learn to both acknowledge and then not listen to the part of us that compares and criticizes others and ourselves. More deeply, we must heal the programmed belief that we are not enough and stand in the fullness of our light, realizing we have always been worthy, lovable, and enough.
As usual, I suggest inner child work as a main healing tool. The unconscious or subconscious belief that causes comparison, because of the root wound of not feeling enough, was developed during childhood due to parental misattunement. Or, more specifically, a child’s egocentric view of life and parents/caregivers who were emotionally unavailable and/or emotionally dysregulated. Your inner child must know that Higher Self You will always accept her for who she is and never abandon her.
*The outliers have, most likely, developed a strong ego-complex, such as narcissism. The wound is still there, but they have built such a shell around it that they are in complete denial, using toxic power to help keep themselves in denial. Lesser cases would be the “over-dependent” person, or perhaps even the hermit, who instead choose to remove themselves from the physical world rather than share a part in it.
I considered not sharing this one, as it is quite personal not only to me but my family. However, I wanted to give everyone reading this the opportunity to believe in signs, synchronicities, and magic. Mom and Sandi… I hope you are okay with me writing this openly, and if not, I hope that you can forgive me.
Not long ago, I finally went back. I went back to the spot off of Hwy 24 in Leadville where I got the news from my older sister that her time here on earth was limited, finite. I parked at the space where mine and Sandi’s bodies remembered they were much more water than skin and bones. Yet, when I parked at the Mineral Belt Trailhead, I didn’t have much time to process. The parking lot was busy, which I soon realized was because a local college or high school track was working out there, some of the team XC skiing while others ran loops on the groomed ski trail. Because Pacer and I are both quite sensitive and highly attuned to the energy around us, my main priority was to put my own skis on and get into the quiet of the woods as quickly as possible.
After a mile or so, we got into our groove and my mind started to quiet. Around two miles in, the pine trees started to close in around us and I thought, “This would be a great place to see Sasquatch.” Minutes later, Sasquatch appeared (maybe just a large black cut out, but let’s use our imaginations) and Pacer made a new friend. I laughed at my mind’s conjuration, and we skied on. While Sasquatch was cool, he (or maybe, she?) wasn’t our sign. Actually, I wasn’t expecting one, which is perhaps one of the best parts about magic… it’s always there, and it reveals itself more easily when your mind isn’t holding on to any particular expectation or trying to predict future events. At the same time, you should always expect magic. It was when we crossed the road, splitting the trail, that I saw it on the back of a sign (this is not the first sign I’ve gotten on a sign…I think it’s the Universe’s way of ironically chuckling and saying “here’s your signier sign!”)…a sticker of a crown.
But not just any crown. This one is gold, with three plain and slightly crooked points. This crown is the signature logo of the band “Train”, my older sister’s favorite band, perhaps a hair over Matchbox 20*. Think “Calling all Angels”, “Drops of Jupiter”, and “Hey, Soul Sister.” While the band Train is still well known, I can’t say its a super popular band in the mountains of Colorado, nor have I ever seen the sticker before (and at least in my area, people put stickers everywhere…the back of cars, on stop signs, bathroom stalls, on the signs naming ski slopes, etc.). It was almost as if my older sister was saying, with her own signature eye roll, “I’m right here! I’m literally always with you.” This was obviously not just for me, but my family as well.
*As you’ll see throughout this post, my older sister often speaks to me through music and her favorite bands/artists: Train, Matchbox 20, Goo Goo Dolls- while born in the ’84 and ’88, we were 90s kids-, and Justin Timberlake (specifically, “Can’t Stop the feeling”, the song my mom played at her post funeral lunch), and Avril Lavigne (my mom played “Head Above Water” at the cemetery, which is when I sobbed and Ieft mascara stains on my dad’s shirt.)
My signy sign.Me wearing my Amanda’s hoody.
As I was saying before, the funny thing about magic is that magic is all around us and in us. We’ve just been trained to not see it. Even me, just last year, thought I didn’t have enough of it and went out in search for more. Yet when my mind starts to quiet it’s like my awareness opens up and I can “see” more, as in I can see how foolish it is to believe magic is sparse or needs any action on my part to come into fruition. (As Michael Singer likes to say, we’re on a planet spinning around the sun at just the perfect distance that life can grow and we can breathe without burning or freezing, and we think we need to control things?)This all led me to seeing…
Yep.
A white rabbit.
My Alice in Wonderland signs started happening a few weeks earlier. The white bunny came while skiing down another trail outside the town of Buena Vista. I caught only a glimpse, but I saw the magical creature. My mind instantly went two to things: 1) perhaps this was the reincarnation of the bunny I killed the previous year while mindlessly driving up the road below (this of course, led to intense feelings of guilt and many tears), and 2) the rabbit that led Alice down the hole into Wonderland, or Underland. (In Tim Burton’s rendition of the classic book and later Disney film, Alice referred to Underland as Wonderland when she first visited as a child.) Always the one looking for animal symbolism, I drove home with the intention of looking up the rabbit’s message, while, of course, Matchbox 20’s newest song came on the radio with the lyrics “I know you think I’m gone, but I’m all in. Don’t get me wrong.” (I believe when I looked at the time, it was 2:22, just to triple my signs for the day.)
My first Google search led me right to this site (the blogger’s name, of course, was Amanda- my older sister’s name): https://www.amandalinettemeder.com/blog/white-rabbit-spirit-animal-medicine-symbolism. Her post not only talked about Alice in Wonderland, but a white rabbit symbolizing the release of fears, play, and awakening intuition, or, the inner mystic. Exactly my journey of the past 7 or so months, and, what I believe, what I’m waking up to.
In the next few weeks, I received more signs: A scene from Alice in Wonderland paired with a Carl Jung quote in a random Instagram post, photos of white bunnies, and a client mentioning “not going down the rabbit hole”. Normally, I would have agreed with him…when we’re spinning in a rumination cycle, we’ve got to breathe and recenter. This time, though, I had the insight that maybe, instead of going just halfway down the rabbit hole, I needed to go ALL THE WAY DOWN, and follow my beliefs back to their root, and decide for myself what was real and what wasn’t.
I watched movie one, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, a day before my mind and old belief systems once again tried to take rule. As you may know, the book is full of good quotes, such as “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Yet, the line that Tim Burton added that struck my heart and raised emotion came from the Mad Hatter:
Mad Hatter (to Alice): I don’t like it in here. It’s terribly crowded.Have I gone mad?
As to which Alice replied: “I’m afraid so. You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”
The following week, as my mind tried to tell me more stories of how I screwed up and wasn’t enough, I pondered and pondered on what Alice meant. Eventually, I gave in to asking for guidance after Obi-Wan sent me a cryptic quote:
“To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world – in order to set up a shadow world of meanings.” – Susan Sontag
I replied back, “I feel like you’re trying to tell me something :,)”) before replying back with the Alice in Wonderland quote, speaking to my frustration. Obi-Wan’s reply was very Obi-Wan-ish, and perfect:
“Whoever has the ability to be aware of large amounts of stuff, if they can learn to use the awareness, will be on the cutting edge of changing others awareness’s.
This is how the dark becomes the light and light creates new darkness.”
My mind doesn’t have to bring me down if I can rise above it. And, if by simply reading my words, I can perhaps allow you to start questioning all the voices in your head (or parts, to be more therapeutically correct, in reference to Internal Family Systems), then we all have the opportunity to see things in a new way. Which, psychedelics, or not*, is the point of the movie. To question reality as we perceive it and then choose the world (the heaven or hell of our minds) we want to live in. Then, the unconscious becomes potential.
*As a psychosoul therapist, I am supportive of using psychedelics as a tool for healing. And, while I’ve had many people infer or tell me I should try psychedelics because of what I write about, I have not yet tried them. There are several reasons for this, but the one I’ll name now is that I’m interested in seeing how far I can get into the magical realms of energy by simply quieting my mind and believing what I know, for I often don’t believe what I know to be true.
It was shortly after this when my “rabbit hole” signs started shifting. To be precise, I pulled an Oracle card that read: “Slip down into the rabbit hole of enchantment and wonder.”
To be honest, I’m not sure what “enchantment and wonder” actually looks like for me anymore. I do know I had it as a kid. I loved to build forts, both inside and outside, and get carried away in games of imagination, be it “dress up”, playing with barbies and stuffed animals, or playing “cops and robbers” with my best friend across the street (Terry, I believe, actually did end up becoming a policeman). I remember the last lingering wafts of imagination clinging to my youth after I watched Bridge to Terabithia and then wandered around the trail-less woods under a cloudy Ohio sky. Somewhere soon after, it must have left me, although my love for wandering (and often getting lost) in the woods blessedly stayed.
My curiosity never completely went away either, and its only grown stronger the more I’ve let go of judgement and comparison. And so, it was my curiosity that led me to the second movie, Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass*.
*Again, I watched the Tim Burton edition, although I have fond but distant memory of watching a much older version with my older sister.
I won’t rehash the full movie for you (beside the fact that the Mad Hatter also endured the “not enough wound” for being a little different, as witnessed in scenes with his father) and instead tell you what thoughts the movie led me to, or maybe, reminded me:
1. What I cannot see, because I have forgotten how to look, is all the times in my past where I have been guided and protected. And, the times where I have chosen my own ego way, when I tried to control rather than (co)create, how my guides worked overtime to make sure I remained safe. I may have ignored the signs, rejected my emotions, and gone astray, but I was and never have been alone. Especially in the times I felt the most lost.
2. The one fundamental truth that I have come to fully believe in is that life is far more magical than we have been trained to see.
Which is kind of weird, but exactly the point. In order to see, we have to unsee. To make our own choice, we have to acknowledge all the choices that have been made for us. To see reality clearly, we have to see what we’ve been trained to believe and interpret. To get to know who we really are, we have to make friends with all the voices in our head, whom may or may not be real. Is the world good or bad? Or does it lie in the gray? Are you or I to be trusted? Or is it all the same? Does heaven or hell exist anymore than Wonderland or Underland exist?
Perhaps we have all gone mad. After all, all the best people have. For it is we who know the secret, that it all depends on how you choose to perceive it.
And, when we let go of judgement and what we think we want, life will bring us exactly what it is that our soul desires..the deepest, unimaginable, fairytales of the heart.
*There were actually way more signs and synchronicities than I could comprehensively include in this blog post without making it longer than you or I are willing to read off of a computer.
**A friend sent me this almost as soon as I finished the full draft of this post.
Does anyone else get confused when someone asks, “How do you do?”, or “How are you?”, “How was your day?”
To an on looker, it would appear that I freeze for a moment, a moment too long. It’s why most would say I’m quiet, while I pause, debating if I should say what’s on my mind or how I’ve been trained to respond, with an “I’m good” or “fine.”
What I really want to say…
No, maybe it’s too much…
But maybe not…
In my head I’m wondering…
Do I tell them about all the ideas running through my mind and about all the stories I want to write? Or maybe I should tell them about the white horse I watched running through the field from my window. And the cat! Oh, how I laughed, because it was not our field cat that I saw sneak out of the shed, not the one who’s food was inside. Maybe I say that? Or what about all the things I felt? The deep love I felt while watching Pacer nap. My delight in once again ending up at Brenda’s register at Natural Grocers and how, even though she can have a tough exterior, that I find so much joy in giving her the space to smile. Maybe how I felt it in my body when the sun moved behind the clouds? Or do I reveal the tears I cried watching Good Grief? …WhichI mainly viewed because I like Daniel Levy, and thinking that maybe because I knew the plot from the preview, I wouldn’t cry. Do I say how I teared up watching Alice in Wonderland too, because it made me understand myself and my purpose a little more? And the cows! How, as I rode my bike past, I wished my soulful friends a good day, pedaling away before they could sense the fear and sadness I felt about their futures. Is that too much? Ah! Maybe I talk about the snowflakes. How, in the reflection of the morning sun, I became mesmerized as I traversed up slopes of sparkles that took me Somewhere Else. Or the love… the love I felt, the love I released, and maybe the love I found. That reminds me of…can I say it? The guy I once dated, just a few precious times but felt our energies intertwine. How he told me I spoke too elusively, like I was keeping a secret, not understanding that ethereal is my native tongue? And maybe if he tried to, we wouldn’t have grown so far apart?
Or, maybe I talk about the fear I felt before I could catch the thought that caused it. Then I can describe, to help shift their energy as well as mine, how all my fears became forgotten, how they just melted away, like Frosty on a sunny day returning Home, while watching another sunset. How I once again got lost in the beauty of it all, and in the lostness was my expanse. Or do I talk about the deer, who greeted me and Pacer soon after the sun said goodnight? How I know they are my spirit animals, always protecting me and turning me towards my own spiritual self. Maybe, maybe, I just say “It was a magical day.”
But by then, just a few seconds after processing this all, all I see is a shoulder and the back of head. My time has passed. The stranger is still a stranger. I say a quick “I’m good”, as we both continue down our different paths.
Yet now, now at 35 and years of inner work, I still feel okay rather than overlooked. I’m grateful for my courage to diverge from the normal way. I know there are others like me, who crave depth and run from superficiality. At heart, I actually think that’s what we all want, the neurodivergent and those who are not. We aren’t meant to all be strangers. We are meant to connect. To see ourselves in one another, a soul behind a face. And no, it doesn’t mean I have to leave my solo nature and animal time behind. I can still be an introvert and wish for depth that can be shared, harmonizing the two.
I’m still a little awkward at it, being me. But I am freer than I ever was.
Would you believe me if I told you I was an expert swordsman in a past life?
That I became so skilled, in fact, I learned to disarm my enemies rather than harm them? (I guess I’ve always been an empath.) That I continually grew in honor and rank until…until I realized that I really just liked being with everyone else?
Whether the psychic was speaking metaphorically or not really doesn’t matter*. And she wasn’t just describing to me my past. She was telling me my future. All of our futures, really.
*If anything is egotistical, wouldn’t it be bragging about a past life?
Maybe I’m one of the many leading the charge against darkness, fear, and evil, using my sword not to fight but to disarm. I’m just sharing my pain, what I’ve learned about it, my light of awareness that grew from my journey through the dark, and my love.
We’re at a time where so many people are beginning to realize that attacking, criticizing, and killing other people solves and heals nothing. That in hurting others, we’re only hurting ourselves.
Instead of using your own sword to attack or defend*, can you use it instead to disarm? *As in, defend your position, your view point, or how you protect yourself from love.
Instead, can you love so fiercely that the other person feels safe to put down their shield and shed their armor? Can you shed your armor, too?
The paradox (more on this soon) is that the more vulnerable we become, the more invulnerable we are. It’s the opposite of armored. The more stripped and exposed we become, the more we can get know love and our true selves…and once you remember who you are and what is real, nothing in this physical world can hurt you.
(My therapist trick: When I want to judge, it helps me to remember that fear creates evil, that underneath hate is fear. In the fear is a scared inner child that has been exiled, that is really just looking to be loved. There may be a small few, I’m not sure, who have managed to completely annihilate their inner child, their innocence (pure love)…but in 99% of people we want to judge or call bad, I believe this to be true.)
Beauty Pain: Waking up to the knowledge that life is both beautiful and fragile. It’s seeing the hate and fear, but realizing there is even greater love. It’s the awe and the tears encompassed in the breaths, the limited breaths that mark our beginning and our end, while watching a golden-pink sunset. It’s what you feel both in watching a new life enter the world and a life surrender to death. It’s the lifespan of a dog. It’s the bittersweet feeling of a holiday party full of loved ones- full of love-comes to an end. Its the overwhelming gratitude when a once met friend pays me 8x the amount my book is worth. It’s my sobs seeing god in everyone and everything, even when others do not, and the most innocent being killed. It’s forgotten love. It is the acknowledgement of feeling. It is the acceptance of being human.
So many of us spend so much time rushing and worrying that we miss the beauty of what surrounds us, be it the people, animals, or nature, only to later realize that our time on Mother Earth is limited…which makes life all the more beautiful.
It’s hard to use words to define the term “beauty pain.” Perhaps I described it better in past posts that more so provoked the feeling rather than tried to define it:
Still, I think my older sister said it best in her journal, the few words she wrote in her dying year: “Life is beautiful…even when it’s not.”
Each time I come back to this term, I come to understand what it means to be alive a little more. I come to more deeply know myself.
“What if your ability to feel pain is the most beautiful thing about you?” I scribbled in my journal.
What if?
What if my biggest weakness is actually by biggest strength… my capacity to love? It is in my heightened senses, the depth of my emotions, that makes me so human and so alive. And yet, I feel and have felt so deeply that I have tried to numb my pain and attempted to reject my humanness, claiming my want to leave this planet, with doG (Pacer) always grounding me back.
Maybe it’s because I grew up in the midwest to baby boomer parents, loving but mostly unemotional (outwardly), that I learned to deny pain, thereby rejecting myself. Showing emotions wasn’t really accepted in my family. My mom got laughed at (with me as one of the perpetrators) for crying during a movie. No one was there to tell me that my depth was my power.
Eventually, I learned to carry and hide so much that I learned to fear it, to fear my pain. Honestly, I thought it might kill me if I let myself feel it all.
Yet, maybe…
Maybe I don’t have to fear pain, because pain is just love. Maybe it’s sometimes wrapped in a cloak of fear or tinged with sadness, but it is still love. And maybe my pain, my love, is my gift to the world, because my pain carries my light. In fact, pain is a big part of the reason I chose to practice psychotherapy (what I know call “psychosoul therapy). I didn’t want others to have to feel what I felt. Now I know they both do and they don’t… They just have to accept their pain, because their pain is love and shines a light on “wrongness”, the wrongdoings created from darkness. The worst part of pain is actually resisting feeling it.
(However, I can lessen my pain. Here I realize I’ve used the word “pain” in different ways in my blog – thank you for giving me the space and grace to process and shift. Sometimes, what I mean is really “distress” or “suffering”. What has helped me a great deal is learning to check in with myself when my emotions feel heavy and then bring awareness to the thought I’m thinking. Usually, my thought is far, far away from love. Additionally, I’ve learned to “tap in, tap out”, a great skill for any empath. It’s an amazing gift to tap into someone else’s shoes, but it is neither helpful for the empath or the other person to get stuck in the other person’s energy field. Switching to compassion helps me help others.)
It is my pain that makes me mortal and it has been my fear of pain, my resistance to it, that has kept me from Love. It is Love that makes me immortal. When I resist pain, I resist both my humanity and my divinity. When I accept my pain, when I accept my beauty pain, I accept my humanity and my divinity.
In all the best movies about light and dark, be it Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or Harry Potter, the protagonist always asks themselves the question: What if I am just like them?
What if I am just like Darth Vader? What if Im just like Lord Voldemort? What if Im just like Sauron?
The wise teacher usually replies with something like: Well, it’s your choice.
Do you want to believe in fear? Or do you want to believe in love? Which is the same thing as saying, do you want to give your energy to the darkness? Or do you want to give your energy to love?
Most of us, at some level, have already made that choice. We’ve chosen to, to the best of our conscious ability, to be good friends, good neighbors, good partners, and good community members. Some of us have taken another step and chosen to be good to the earth and all the animals that inhabit earth. Yet most of us have forgotten to look at how we treat ourselves.
In order to look at that piece, I believe the better question is: What if they, the villains, are just like me?
What if Darth Vader is actually just like me? What if he simply just chose to believe in fear, and in doing so, shut down to love? What if he killed his own innocence before trying kill everyone else’s? Because…he got so scared that he thought he had to dominate the planet in order to feel powerful, because he had actually lost his own true power when he left his innocence and creativity spirit behind?
In the end, we don’t have to fight the darkness. We just have to make a choice. Darkness is just forgetfulness, which invites in fear and we create these crazy stories in our head of not being enough and unworthy of love. When we shine the light of love and truth on darkness, when we choose to love ourselves even when we’ve made a mistake- a choice that wasn’t in alignment with love, darkness can’t survive. Darkness was never real in the first place, just made up. Instead, we can put our own light energy into the belief, the deep knowing, that we are all enough and all deserving of the highest form of love.
The choice is yours: Will you believe in your own light?
A Dog and Her Girl 