"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
When my older sister passed away, after the brief stage of the ego anger/fight for survival, innocence took over. She was not mad about her early parting, she accepted loved ones at her death bed, allowed us to hold her hand.
Being 36, the same age as when she passed, when she had less than two months to live… I wonder what I would do? Or perhaps, not do.
I have often been driven by ego wants and desires. Not that they are necessarily bad (although sometimes destructive). I have wanted to do things, see things, achieve things before I die. I gotten stuck on destinations and forgotten about the journey. And with that, I have experienced many nights breathing in the shallow breaths of yet another existential pain as time all too quickly passes and what once was has already changed. In those labored prayers, I have often overlooked the fact that my ego is simply fighting for its existence, or at least the existence of others in relation to me. I have changed. They have changed. Life has changed. Or worst, life has changed and people/animals have died and while I have stayed the same.
Yet if I knew, if I knew it was my time to die in a few weeks time, I hope I’d forget about all those wants and desires. Instead, I would hope to follow a similar path as my older sister, who seemed to remember what truly mattered. Maybe I’d go to the mountains a few times if I was able with those closest to me, during the times my ego gets scared, to tap into the peace and love that awaits me. But most likely, I’d spend my dwindling time with family and friends, allowing them to say their goodbyes and let love be shared. I’d want to return to innocence, my belief in true magic, joy, and an existence without fear. The purpose of my death being to light the way for others. To come back to the remembrance that when we die, only love is left behind, for that is all that is real, all that is eternal.
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.
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.
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 unconditional, divine, free type of love we were all born with but thought we lost when our own emotions, essence, and unique gifts went unseen or uncared for. Yet it was never lost. Love can only ever be blocked from entering, but is always there, waiting for you to open yourself back up to it.
What blocks it? Often the lower mind. Our beliefs about our unworthiness and badness. The part of us that made up stories to explain why others didn’t always show us love, when we were shunned for being emotional, or simply told we were born with original sin (crazy, I know). If anything is unreal, it is those stories. Out of fear, we used our miraculous imaginations to make up nightmares rather than create dreams of Love.
Dogs (cats, cows, and all animals) can be our guides back home to Love. Their own lack of ego, their innocence, and fluffiness have the ability to break down our own barriers to Love. And the crack they put in our armor can be the gateway to allowing even more Love in, be it from other humans, our angels, our Higher Selves, and/or goD.
So the question never is “why does no one love me?” and the statement never is “I don’t like myself.” but instead “how am I blocking Love?” when that is what you are.
If we were enough, the subconscious belief is that we would always be loved (our parents wouldn’t have denied OR GIVEN love for a REASON, but simply because we are lovable. The “too much” wound often comes from not being allowed, or even being shunned, for being emotional as children. What a child makes up from this is that they are not liked/or loved when they are emotional, which is synonymous with being human, and so they learn to close off this essential part of themselves to be accepted.
Personally, I didn’t quite see this until a painful situation and feeling safe enough to be a little emotional. And emotions, especially emotions that seem out of place, often lead to our subconscious wounding. The other key for me was having my subconscious reflected back to me (Which is part of the reason why our emotions are not meant to be felt in isolation. When we can share our emotional selves with a therapist and/or someone who cares about us, the stories our mind creates lose their power.). After telling ~3 trust people with “clean mirrors” (they weren’t going to mirror their own wounds back to me), kindly saying something like “It sounds like you really believe that your emotions/pain/”darkness” is too much for someone else to love you?” or gentle negations. Which was enough for me to finally see “Oh, maybe that is just a belief that I have kept thinking since childhood. Maybe it’s not true.”
While I can’t say this instantly broke the armor around my heart, it did put a crack in it. And ironically, the break in the armor has led to more bravery in sharing my emotions and myself with others, giving Love a chance.
(If you’re wanting to work through your subconscious wounds (re:deep healing), I highly recommend working with a therapist, or at least a good friend, because it’s hard to see ourselves “from the inside”. Or, if that is not your path, reflective journaling is an amazing tool, too.)
I woke up from a dream, or perhaps nightmare is the more accurate word, slightly after 12 am on May 4th.
I was in a war zone. The building we were in was no longer a building, the grey bricks only a few feet high. Sparks, debris, and shrapnel flew freely in.
My mother tried to protect me. She laid her body over mine, a small and slender child. I knew we weren’t safe. That her body, hugging mine, would simply get hit first. It was likely that we would both die. Now or later, I wasn’t sure. At the same time, I felt her love inside the shelter of her body over mine. I felt her desperation, trying to protect her daughter, me. I could tell she knew it was probably hopeless too, but she held onto that sliver of hope. And somehow in that, in her love, I felt safe.
Soldiers walked in over the bricks and through the smoke. And, while I know this is simply how my brain put this together and most likely not how it actually works, they shot at cannons to make them fire off into the distance. They didn’t look at us. Their faces remained ambivalent and frozen. I couldn’t tell if they were trying to protect us, kill us, or just didn’t care. I didn’t know whose side they were on. But that’s kind of how protecter parts work…
*While I’ll use Internal Family Systems language, archetype, identities, etc. can often be interchanged.
It’s kind of hard to see what they’re protecting. Another protector, another defense mechanism, the cynic protecting the anger, the ego, or the exile, the inner child within? I think some, at least the soldiers in my head, just forget. They forget what side they’re on and they just do the job they’ve been programmed to do.
In therapy, we say there are no bad parts. They’ve all learned how to do their job to protect an innocent part when there was no caregiver to protect them or help them feel and experience their emotions, to help the child feel loved even though they were sad, angry, or simply in pain. Even the addictions, even the suicidal thoughts… they’re just trying to protect us from more pain, trying to. make us feel better when we don’t know any other way. Every shadow side has a light side. The inner critic, a cheerleader. The judge, a compassionate leader. On the spiritual side, some teachers and texts simply teach to notice but not attach to the (unhealthy) ego and all its voices of fear. We might not be able to stop the thoughts, but we don’t have to give them our energy (power). When we practice this long enough, the voices of shame, guilt, unworthiness, and hate get quieter, giving us a chance to notice the subtle but ever-present voice of Love.
And so, to further our dream interpretation, I’ll provide a framework. I was taught dream interpretation as a graduate student at Naropa University by Katie Asmus, one of the leaders in the field of wilderness therapy and owner of the Somatic Nature Therapy Institute. She taught me and my cohort that in dreams, a part of us is represented in each person, animal, or even object that stands out. In this view, dreams are symbolic, offering us views into parts of ourselves that are often subconscious in everyday life. I also believe that in dreams, especially nightmares, our psyches are actually helping us play out and process fears so we don’t have to in waking hours. I will add that, even though it’s often hard for me to see, I’ve heard from multiple people that I am often guarded and protective. I rarely see how my fears play out (the voice of it can sound very rational) until after everything (ie, a relationship) has been destroyed.
During the dream, I felt most of my presence in the little girl. My innocence, my unbridled love and joy for the world and other people, was being threatened. And yet…
Stepping into the role of mother, I feel (moving into first person here) a deep, fierce love for the child curled under me. Yet I am also human, so I try to regulate my nervous system, hoping my child doesn’t feel my fear. I know she is a sensitive child, so even if she feels my fear, let her know that she is loved… A sacrificial love, willing to do anything to keep the innocent child alive. But even if we both die, she must know that she is loved. And that will be all that matters.
The soldiers I have, in part, already examined. Yet stepping into their shoes, I feel lifeless. I’m just doing what I’m told, having forgotten what I’m fighting for. I gently sense the presence of the mother and little girl, but I try not to see them. It might make me crack. So I fire bombs. Bombs at other men, who are most likely just like me. I am hopeless. I don’t care if I get hit anymore or die in this war. I’m tired. I just want the war to end.
The cannons and bombs, perhaps, represent my anger. The anger that I actually rarely feel, besides the shame and self-loathing I feel for myself. Maybe I should let it out a little more. Maybe I should defend the little girl. She doesn’t deserve to live in a gray world full of shadows. Blowing things up might not be the answer, but fighting for Love? I’m not sure exactly what that means. How do you fight for Love with Love? Without killing and without dying? But maybe, maybe there is a way…
Ah, I won’t let the darkness of the mind kill the light within.I will protect her from the voices of fear and attack thoughts in her head.This is the Mother’s role.
The almost non-existent building… God, I hope this is my mind. My ego. The structure I’ve created around myself is crumbling. It’s never really protected me anyway. It’s never kept the fear or sadness out. It’s really only made me hate myself and be scared of the world I walk in, the world I’ve made. The walls were always a false sense of protection anyway.
Now that I look back…
The mother and daughter…the fierce loving protector and the innocent child. They are covered in dust and ash. Yet they are otherwise left untouched. But maybe it doesn’t matter, because that little girl knew she was loved. And love is the ultimate protection. She rises.
“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.)
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.)
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”.
A Dog and Her Girl 