"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
These men, I am just like them. They blame, I shame. I internalize my hate, They externalize their pain. Me and these men, we are all the same.
Each of these men, lives inside my head.
Trump, he doesn’t really bother me anymore. His bigotry is so outrageous, I can easily call out his show.
Putin scares me a little more. So charming and so smart. He makes me doubt myself, his lies so carefully contrived. Yet void of love, equals void of truth.
Hitler… I dare not tell my parents how many times… how many times he has tried to annihilate my life. Just as he slayed his own innocence, his own artist, he dangerously threatens mine.
Hope. The darkness consumes. So close… Then another part beckons… a dog… a friend… some distant light within.
Keep going. You are meant to be here. Love is on your side. The darkness cannot win. You will shine.
****
(This is part of a much longer poem that I’ve been thinking about but procrastinating on since December.)
Sometimes, my own shame response astounds me in its inappropriateness, even when it consumes me. I spent days feeling shame around a favorite picture of me that a wonderful photographer had taken because I did not wear my favorite bracelet, which was in my pocket. I felt shame after having an amazing outing with Pacer, after realizing I double hit “record” and did not get the video of me skiing with her running free behind me. Sometimes I even get this feeling when I know I’ve made the right decision, it’s just not the one that boosts my ego. And I KNOW it’s ridiculous. Well part of me does. The rest of the voices in my head berate me in various ways: that was so dumb, go back and do it again, be better, try harder, you’re obviously not enough. While I am exhausted by my healing journey and the work I’ve put into it, I can feel my closeness to it. I know there’s a few more feelings to feel, a few more parts to witness, a few more thoughts to observe and walk past. If there ever was a lie, it’s shame, the ultimate but not un-permeable block to love and truth.
Life is a paradox. Relationships are no exception to this rule. In fact, relationships are probably the “exception that proves the rule.” Which means, for me, the more I have accepted that I am the problem in relationships, the more clarity I have gained in realizing I wasn’t the problem. I was attracting the wrong people. That I was, actually, in relationships with partners who couldn’t meet my wants or treat me in the ways I deserved to be treated.
If you haven’t read my first relationship post yet, Relationships: The Problem is Me, I highly recommend starting there, because both these things, that I both was and wasn’t the problem, are absolutely true. I had to admit how I protected myself from love, admit to my own fear-based behaviors, examine my belief systems around relationships, and how I related to myself, before being ready to receive love..
The catch is, if you are coming from a place of emotional immaturity* (from a therapeutic view) or low vibration (spiritual perspective), it’s almost impossible to attract the love and the relationship you want. It’s more likely that you will be provided with a mirror, or someone who reflects back to you all your wounds…especially if you are someone who came to this planet to self-actualize (or rather, heal all wounds to become the truest version of one’s self). Personally, I wasn’t attracting (with a few exceptions) men who could mirror love back to me but instead men who mirrored back my fears, doubts, and demons in my head.
*Just like I don’t use ignorance with a negative connotation, neither do I use the word “immature”. Actually, the more we admit these things, sometimes the smarter we are. Emotional immaturity really just means someone is still learning how to interpret and metabolize their emotions in order to gain a greater sense of peace. What really matters with ignorance and immaturity is that one is willing to grow.
Another way to say this is that intimate* (in-to-me-you-see) relationships will reflect back to you exactly how you see yourself, which may be completely unconscious.
*A friend recently pointed out to me that other relationships, be it friendships or mentorships, reveal back to us how amazing and lovable we truly are.
To be completely apparent with you, the lovely reader, it’s pretty sad how many guys have apologized to me for treating me poorly, including one that maybe didn’t need to and 2 or 3 others that should have. It’s probably obvious from your kind, outside perspective that I shouldn’t have been treated poorly, but it does reveal my inner world. No one has ever been more critical, judgmental, punishing, abusive, conditional, or dismissing of me than me. At least in my recent past.
Another paradox worth noting here: Not all attraction means you should be with someone.
Obi-Wan and his wife helped me with this one, so I won’t take credit, but I wanted to share it because this is something we should have all learned in high school. We can be attracted to various and many people throughout our lives. Some will probably become friends. We may find others appealing to look at. Others we may come into contact with for creative collaborations or support in healing. (This one may obviously have been one of my challenges: as a psychosoul therapist and healer, I can be attracted to the wounded people). Sometimes it’s because there is some type of soul contract we have with a person in this lifetime. (Ooops. I’ve often gotten stuck here too. I have often overextended the timeline on those energy attractions.). Most forms of attraction do not mean that you’ve met someone you should have sex with or would even want to build a relationship with. In short, when you feel attraction towards someone, it is worth exploring what that attraction means. If there is potential for a relationship, it is then worth exploring shared values and dreams in life.
Half the time it was unconscious of what I was attracting, I swear. There was little to no separation between ME and the voices of the protector parts* in my head. Hence why I dated not an overt narcissist, but a covert narcissist. He didn’t treat me well, but he showed me myself. Or rather, my ego self, my fear-based sense of worth. He showed me how easily I could settle for less than what I deserved because this is what I believed that I deserved. “This part of my life is good, so I can take this part not being good.” My excuses were that I didn’t have anywhere else to go and because I really was “content enough.” It’s not that I ignored my inner world. This information just hadn’t been consciously available to me at the time. I needed life to show it to me, plus a few more years of deep underworld journeying and a complete unravelling of my ego-self to see it clearly.
*A reference to IFS therapy.
Perhaps the more challenging “situationship” for me was with the guy I really loved. Or, I thought I was in love with, but more likely was an “infatuation” to use Elizabeth Gilbert’s words in “Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage” ( a great resource for talking any young person out of marriage). To be honest, I had known much earlier that he was my “David”. I always knew he was emotionally, mentally, and physically unavailable. He showed this to me time and time again. But I wanted him to love me so I could feel like I was worth loving.
My attraction was actually desperation.
This allowed my mind to create quite a story in my head that would haunt me for months following.*
*See below for a podcast on how we create untrue stories in our head.
It really wasn’t until a few months ago, until the end of the December’s Mercury Retrograde that beautifully closed out the year and the end of an era, that I could see how poorly he treated me. But again, it hadn’t been clear to me early on. I honestly don’t think he saw it (he was both good of heart and completely aloof). More honestly, I talked myself out of seeing it over and over and over. Because I didn’t love or trust myself enough to walk fully away and close the door.
So when he messaged, in the early hours of the new year “I’m glad I could be a beacon.”, I didn’t even bother to reply and correct him that he was mistaken, that the role he had actually played was that of the angel of death.
Perhaps they are the same, anyway.
In those final conversations, I was able to stay aware of my anxious reactions, even though I was still very much in the emotion.
I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to stay in that energy field anymore. So I quit it. I finally disliked my behavior so much, I quit, just like most quitting happens. Still, quitting is so, so hard for me. It feels like failure. No one told me it would also be freeing. Free to move out of a cycle and accept, at least the possibility, that I was worth more. Freeing to admit that, no, I don’t think it’s okay to openly flirt with someone and then not pursue further contact with them. Freeing to agree with myself that it’s okay to ask for my personal love languages to be given once in a while and not just accept how another person wants to show me theirs. (thank you, Queer Eye, Season 8, episode 1, for highlighting this). Ah, and there it is…
It’s okay for me to have wants.
It’s okay for me to want clear and loving communication. It’s okay for me to respectfully communicate my emotions without the fear of triggering another person and then needing to care for them. It’s okay that sometimes, when I’m hurting, I want to be held. It’s okay for me to want to spend time with someone, to have some safety in plans. It’s okay for me to want someone to want to adventure with me. It’s okay for me to ask to be seen. It’s okay to want a definitive relationship status, not for control, but for a comfortable container of expression. It’s okay, as my sister told me years ago, to want someone who chooses me, too.
For some of you, this might seem simple. For others, you’re probably with me, horrified at the thought of asking anything of anyone. All of these things, growing up, just weren’t okay. I would either be burdening someone with my emotions if I dared share them, told to toughen up, and was given countless examples on how to suppress feelings. It’s also not very Catholic to ask for more.
To be thought of as needy by anyone, would mean I was too much, the paradoxical partner of not enough, yet equally as fearsome. It’s a thin tight rope to walk.* I was bound to fall off. And thank goodness I did.
*This theme was perhaps best represented in The Barbie Movie.
When you’re alone in the dark, the only option is to choose yourself. To take your own hand and say “I love you.” You deserve to have your needs and wants met. And because I’ve always got you, we have the freedom to walk away from anyone and anything that is less than what we deserve.”
This is what heals the abandonment wound. You, Higher Self, showing up for your Inner Child the way your caregivers just couldn’t. This is the safety that confounded me for so long in my continuing education as a therapist. It’s not the promise that life will be smooth and we will never get hurt. It’s that we can always feel free to be our true, authentic selves and even if others don’t like us for it, we’ll always have our own back.
It is in healing this wound that moves empaths out of the shadows and into the light. Instead of getting stuck in seeing others’ potential and staying with them until they get there (which may never happen), we let go trying to change what is and simply step into our own potential. We walk in the energy and love we believe in.
Choosing oneself, myself, means knowing that while I need to validate and accept myself first and foremost, I can, at the same time absolutely know I deserve to be treated well. Confidence, then, is being able to walk away from things and people who devalue my worth and move toward the love attracted by self-love.
The more we love ourselves, the more room we have to love another, and the more we can allow love in. Love attracts love, yet when you are in love yourself, the less you need love from the outside. Which is why true partnership becomes a co-creative act of higher expression.
*****
Other notes and helpful resources:
-In 2023, while I was not given a committed relationship (for good reason, I was gifted with another reflection), I was blessed with “3 wise men ”, all married, all a little bit older and wiser than me. While only my interactions with Obi-Wan were frequent, all of them accepted me freely not for who I appeared to be but who I was. They presented me with the gold, frankincense, and myrrh* of time, curiosity, and positive-regard, the gifts of healing.
-Being a therapist has actually shown me how expansive love is. I truly love all of my clients. They are all special to me and hold space in my heart. There is never less room for a new client. My heart just seems to grow with each new person.
*No, I am not comparing myself to Jesus. I am, however, relating us all to Light and the gifts we all deserve that can help us return back home to it.
-Highly Recommended Book: Calling in “The One”, by Katherine Woodward Thomas. (This book contains one of the most in-depth personal workbooks that I’ve found whether you want a partner or simply want to heal your old wounds.)
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.
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?
If we can still love those who left us, who broke our hearts, who moved away, and who passed on, does that not prove love’s infinite existence?
The greatest act of love I have ever witnessed is watching my parents saying goodbye to their eldest daughter. My older sister had spent a long two years fighting cancer, and when it came to the point where she was clearly closer to Somewhere Else than here on earth as well as looking more peaceful than she had in weeks, they didn’t say, “You’re my daughter. You are supposed to outlive me. You have to keep fighting, because I need you.” (Let me be clear, I do not judge anyone who has said that to a loved one on their “deathbed”.) No. Instead they said. ”We love you. We don’t want you to be in pain. You don’t have to hold on anymore. You can go.” And while my sister did hang out until after my dad’s birthday (I know that was her choice) and I believe my parents, as well as my twin sister and I, releasing our attachment to her physical presence, is why she was able to pass peacefully in her sleep a night later. Letting go was an act of unconditional love.
When she died, all that was left was love.
Personally, my greatest fear (I don’t think I’ve ever admitted this before), is losing my* dog. (Well, her and my twin sister.) To be honest, I’ve never been sure I could survive it. And there is something inherently beautiful and almost innocent** in that, that my greatest fear is in losing unconditional love. Specifically, the embodied presence of unconditional love that has been almost constantly by my side for over a decade now. While I still hold onto the hope of her living to 20 (not unheard of for an Aussie), I can only free both me and her by accepting that in most cases, a dog’s lifetime is significantly shorter than their humans. (Maybe this is because dog’s are already so close to God/Love and as furry angels, are more helpers to humans wanting to evolve.) And, even though Pacer is still happy to have some big adventures with me in the mountains, I also have to admit that she prefers snuggle time and getting doted on by her aunt and uncle even more. I’m so grateful, too, because she already physically thrives beyond other pups. So, when the time comes the most loving thing I can do for Pacer is let her go back Home. Of course, if she is ever sick, I’lI do anything I can to help her heal. But I don’t want her to have to stick around because I need her and I’m lost without her. Because that wouldn’t be love on my part, that would be fear.
*Again, this word “my” is part of the problem…the possession of another being that is also not actually separate from us. **Innocence predates fear. It is love without fear. My feeling comes from more of a child who recently lost her innocence.
Could I…will I…be able to survive that? Love will always survive it.
In truth, I know energy doesn’t die… especially an energy like Pacer’s (this is the first law of energy). I know that part of Pacer’s purpose in coming to earth was to remind me of the love that always surrounds me and that is within me. I’m usually just too blind, too unwilling, to see it. I also absolutely know she will always be with me. I truly believe we’ve always been together in some way. It’s the fear and lie of absence that always gets me. That and the amount of pain I know my body is capable of feeling. Really, I’m not sure how the skin around my 5’4 frame has survived the amount of pain I’ve held on to in the past. Yet I know I can hold more love then I have yet tested, because of all the times I’ve allowed pain to break me open. All I can really do right now is keep seeing the fear and loving it, not away, but anyway… that and snuggling with Pacer.
Love is the only force that can survive death. In death, only love will remain.
*Note: Because we are human, it is essential that we love ourselves when in pain. In doing that, we can also realize that pain is an occurrence that happens when we feel separated (by our minds) from Love.
And this is my new hope for 2024: To love each day, so much, that it hurts.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Love So Much
I love my* dog so much, it hurts. Leaving her for a grocery trip, I feel the pang of absence.
I love some people so much, it hurts. Sometimes, my gratitude for connection comes out in tears.
I have loved some people so much, it hurts, especially when they died or left me.
I have loved the Earth, the mountains, the rivers, the animals, the Sky, the birds, the sun, and the moon so much, it hurts. I don’t ever want to leave.
Rarely have I ever loved myself this much, so much, that it hurts.
Usually, it hurts because I don’t love myself at all.
I wonder what this means, that I can love a dog, another being, the mountains, so much that it hurts, but it also hurts that I can’t love myself the same.
If I loved myself like my dog, it would mean I could be weird and make any wrong, and I would still love me.
If I loved myself like I loved my dad, my sister, my mom, it would mean I didn’t care what I did, I would just want me to be happy.
If I loved myself like my sister who passed, it would mean I would love myself through death.
If I loved myself like the lover who left, it would mean I would love myself, even after breaking my own heart.
If I loved myself like the mountains, the rivers, the sun, the moon, and the stars, it would mean I found both expanse and home, everywhere I go. I would never have to leave.
I would love myself so much it hurts, and turn around and love again, realizing love is limitless, that I have only mistaken pain for love, another for myself, life for death, and see that it is only Love that remains.
*It always feels a little bit wrong to use the word “my” with a dog, like we can own such precious, loving energy. Really, I prefer the Hawaiian phrase “animal kahu”, meaning I am the guardian and protector of these enlightened beings.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Remember
I love Pacer so much I could snuggle with her for hours. Wouldn’t it be great to live life this way, to snuggle with Love for hours?
Yet I rush through both, snuggles and life.
Why?
Have I forgotten all that matters?
Actually, I think that is precisely it.
Remember.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Love as a Phoenix
Have you ever loved someone so much that you would die for them?
I have done this for Pacer.
Not physically, of course.
Instead, I threw my fears, my ego, into the flames. It was a slow, painful death.
She never asked me to do this. In all my destruction and false identities, she would have kept loving me. Even if I hurt her, as I did and almost did… she never took an ounce of love away.
You see, I could not give her the conditional love I offered myself.
I could only love her, unconditional love in physical form, back with unconditional love.
So out went the conditions of my ego- And truly, I almost died.
She still loved me, even when I had no honor to my name.
In fact, I felt shame.
For not being enough. I felt unworthy of love. Still, she loved me all the same.
I tried to figure this out, to sort through all the pain, to find a reason why, why was I still worth loving?
Of course, dogs don’t speak in words. Dogs only speak the language of love and light. I received a snout sighing on my lap, and felt message that said, “My Love, you have always been worth loving, anything else was a lie, I am the only truth.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Expand
Love so much, that it hurts, Let it hurt so much that you break open. And find your freedom.
Understand that you had to break. That fear was just a shell. The love inside your heart was always beyond it too.
…is my capacity to love. Few have seen my heart open. My sister. Pacer. Friends have gotten glimpses. I have less fear around them. Sometimes I feel it as it pounds, my heart trying to escape through the cracks. It tries to escape, but I remind it that it is not safe here in this man-made world. Most ex-lovers would tell you that I’m guarded. That I am scared to love. And they would be correct. The one thing I am best at? My ability to hide and protect, it is only here that I excel. I am terrified to reveal the expansiveness and depths of my heart, for fear of the pain that could replace it.
This is the story of my childhood. Doubting love exists. Seeing the desperation and hopelessness in my dad’s eyes, as my mom gave back the Christmas present and later left. The church told me love had to be earned, I needed to get rid of my bad to gain entry into heaven. Conditions. I, left alone with emotions I wasn’t allowed to show.
And so, I have spent most of my life in pain, or at least finding ways to numb it or control it.
And even though I know now that it is my fear of Love that has caused my pain, that has separated me from others, separated me from myself, separated me from Love, I still don’t know how to overcome it.
People will leave of die. I swear if Pacer departs before me, I may not make it much longer with out Her. Boyfriends won’t stay because I’m either too much or not enough.
At least these are the lies I tell myself to keep me feeling safe- I disconnect from what I truly want.
Anxiety lives in the push-pull of my heart.
My older sister’s transition broke and exposed me to a part of me that I thought I had lost. The part of me that is neither here nor there but everywhere, loving even after death.
What I truly want?
To love so openly, so carelessly, so deeply and so freely, that I cry not in the fear of losing, but I laugh in the beauty of it all. To, in the fierceness of my wild heart, let you know, let myself know, let the world know, that I love You, and allow your Love in return.
Recently, Obi-Wan* (my Reiki therapist) told me that even when I’m at my lowest of lows, I’m still at a higher vibrational frequency than most people. I gave him an incredulous look. He had seen me at some of my lowest points and even cried with me in his office (and that my friends, the masculine recognizing and being with the pain of the feminine, is the power that will heal the Earth)**. What was he talking about? How could that be true?
And then I realized he was right. Even when I was just feeling “okay” (sometimes joyful, sometimes still having ego/panic attacks), I had, without almost any effort, called in a 3 bedroom house on 5 acres on hidden piece of land that offers both privacy and easy access to trails (and, most importantly, is perfect for Pacer). I would have never even had thought to ask for such a large, beautiful space. I didn’t think such a space could be within my budget. In fact, I hadn’t even know the space existed in Salida.
The message for all of us: Maybe life doesn’t have to be so hard. Maybe, as Mary Oliver wrote, we just have to “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” (Translation: To live beyond our ego (human) desires and allow our expansive, open, and vulnerable hearts (the voice of our soul) lead the way.) Maybe, when we relax our grip of control (fear) and allow life to unfold, we will be presented with more love and beauty than we ever new existed.
*I might have to change the nickname for my Reiki therapist as I recently met a man who’s last name is pronounced “Kenobe” and also holds the nickname Obi-Wan.
**Therapeutic cry: Obi-Wan wasn’t taking on my pain, he was simply bearing witness to it. As an empath, I would have tried to make him feel better if I saw him taking on my pain and then felt bad for having emotions. Instead, he simply allowed tears to form in his eyes while he energetically stayed both strong and calm so I could relax ( be messy) and release my pain.
When I was a kid, I would use my imagination to escape the fear-based reality given to me by adults. The rules, the sins, the “eat your lima beans or you’re not leaving the table.” Of course, using one’s imagination was deemed inappropriate not long after age 6, reserved only for books* and movies, so I kept most of my day-dreaming to myself. The woods were full of fairies, magical creatures, and talking trees. I was happy to wander for there for hours.
*Perhaps why I have always found solace in books and was THAT kid in school who would be found reading while walking down the hallway.
My own fantasy land right in the middle of the grey skies and the unhappy adults of Ohio.
But now…
…I wonder if I’ve had it all a little backwards.
Maybe my fantasy world IS reality.
And what I thought was reality is all made up. Maybe it’s still in physical, tangible form, yes, but created from the perception of a fear of an unconscious mind.
Are you following? If not, take a moment to let your mind play and your perception shift. (No, you do not need to take drugs to do this. Really, this is what all the spiritual teachers talk about it, I’m just simplifying it a bit in my own way.)
I may not have yet met a fairy, but there are literally butterflies everywhere this summer. I’m also positive that I know several human angles in my life that are supporting me on my journey, allowing me to fall but never break. Obviously, I live with a magical creature (Pacer). And science proves that trees do talk! (Thank you Suzanne Simard and the many other wonderful scientists/researchers exploring the inner lives of plants.) I’ve also got something better than castles…really, why would I need 500 rooms? To hoard more stuff that will only ever keep me trapped? I’ve got mountains, open space, and stars that wink to me in reassurance. Places to run free.
Pacer, the magical Narwhal of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Sure, there are some villains and demons out there. Most are in my head. Or created from someone else’s head.
In my college dorm room, I had a printed piece of paper hung on my wall that said “Life is what you make of it.” I think I’m starting to get it.
Reality is what you choose to believe in. It’s not ignoring the bad stuff…I’m still going feel my heart sink each time I hear about another school shooting. I’m still going to vote, donate to animal rescue organizations, recycle, and support women’s rights advocates. Yet I am going to choose to believe in love and joy over fear and hate.
Because when I can sit still long enough, let my thoughts settle, and calm my anxiety, I know at my core that love, joy, and light are the basis of reality.
A more accurate title might be “Ignorance is bliss…until it’s a constant discomfort that we try to alleviate with drugs, alcohol, food, shopping, exercises, and compulsive busyness” …but I thought that title was a little long. And so, I’ll define bliss here as not a pure state of joy, but an illusory state of happiness that masks internal pain and external reality.
Before I dive into that loaded statement, let me start out with some context.
My sister is one of the most compassionate, loving human beings you will ever meet. She cares deeply about other humans and ADORES animals. So much so that it literally breaks her heart every time she sees or thinks about animal cruelty. She can’t comprehend why anyone would ever harm an animal.
Similarly, I have a lot of friends who care deeply about Mother Earth and are strong advocates of climate change. They live off the land, use little electricity…and even build their own earthships.
At heart, these are my people.
Yet how do we make sense of cruelty and carelessness without becoming extremely judgmental of our fellow human beings? How can we honor our shared humanity instead of creating more separation?
Per usual, I find answers in going a level deeper and exploring inner worlds from a mental-emotional lens…
…because the truth is, people won’t care about the earth or animal welfare if they remain disconnected from themselves. It is our egos (voice of fear) that cover up our own internal pain and keep us from accessing our true selves. This blocks us from love.
Most people fear the pain, run from it, numb it. It feels too scary to feel, because most of us weren’t taught to honor and feel our emotions. I can’t blame them. Turning our gaze toward the truth…the wounds of our past and the cruelty of the outer world is opening the door to pain, and that pain requires immense bravery to face. I recommend keeping in mind that pain is really just a guide to joy.
This is highly reductionary, but on a mental health level we first have our protector parts (inner critic, over-thinker, etc) that keeps us from feeling the pain of unworthiness, not-enoughness, etc that we felt as children. A shorter way of saying this is that our ego separates us from our true selves. The healing begins when we can “re-parent” our inner child and learn to love ourselves unconditionally. The ego doesn’t necessarily disappear, but its death grip starts to loosen.
In a similar way, we block out the pain of the outer world because the pain feels too much to face. With real life critics and alarmists coming at us from all sides that resemble adults shaming us as kids, we further shut down and refuse to look at the reality we, fear, has created. The choice then is either to ignore animal cruelty, climate change, etc. or accept it. But to accept it is to acknowledge not only the pain we’ve caused others, but our own pain. And how the hell are we supposed to do that if we don’t know how to feel…if we don’t know that is OKAY to feel? So we split and separate ourselves from others (human and animals)… and from love.
The science on animal consciousness and global warming is irrefutable. People who deny these things are not stupid. They’re not necessarily ignoring the facts (no matter how hard they try to make an opposing case), they’re trying to suppress pain.
Compassion is really the only way forward. But god, that self-judgement is so hard to get rid of. This is where the fight is…not against each other, but to keep loving ourselves even when our minds get loud and our hearts want to break into a million pieces.
Once we touch on the pain, there’s a fine line between “fuck it” and keeping our gaze towards the sun in the midst of darkness.
I’ve been to that “fuck it” place too many times…considered if the physical pain of crashing my bike would feel better than the internal turmoil I was experiencing. “It might be nice to just give up”, chimes the pleading, desperate voice of my ego (for those familiar with IFS, this would be the last resort “firefighter”). I’ve had to fight for my Light, trusting that my heart and my joy would guide me back to my purpose and to Love.
I didn’t do this on my own. I prayed for help. My Reiki therapist witnessed my pain and cried with me. That may have been one of the most single healing acts a person has ever done for me. He then waited several days, until I was ready, to help me see how I gave my power (my internal joy) away to my ego, to my Achilles and to running, to the perception of how I feared others would see me, and to the darkness of the world.
If I give in to the cruelty I witness, if I decide to judge others for the harm they cause the earth or their chosen ignorance, I give my power away, too. I might say “fuck it” or I might stay angry forever. While anger is a powerful motivator, it eats away at our insides if we hold on to it. Yet if I can release into love, I might actually be able to hold on to my power and create change.
You see, only love creates love. War energy creates chaos and fear. (Our hearts move us forward, our egos keep us stuck.)
If I can step into my own pain, yes, there’s going to be a lot of tears and potential screaming. But from the dark only light can be created…in fact, this is how the world was created and how humans formed from the stars. The only thing that can be found in pain is a well-spring of love. For myself. For others. For the earth. For animals. This is how we re-unite under Love.
(Pacer napping photos are of my leg, other two photos are of Pacer and my sister.)
“The eyes of an animal have the power to speak a great language.”- Martin Buber
A Dog and Her Girl 