"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
Where do you block love from yourself? Where do you deny your own healing? Where do you become almost defensive in holding on to your mistakes, imperfections, and unworthiness?
Some of us can be so certain, hold such an adamant belief, about the negative judgment we have of ourselves (or others, but usually it’s a reflection anyway). We want to heal, but we simultaneously deny it from ourselves. Any perception that is not of love shows where we are misaligned and block our own divinity from shining through.
Because any other belief is simply a shadow of a ray of light, a shadow of who you really are.
I have spent most of my life trying to figure out how and what it means to be limitless. Despite hours and hours of hard work as a pre-teen and teenager, I made little progress in increasing my vertical jump, let alone dunking a basketball at the height of (almost) 5’4″. Actually, I most likely stunted my growth by using an eating disorder as a coping mechanism. Stil limited, I thought. Currently, I would like more than anything to run 20 miles in the mountains with my dog, yet that sounds both painful for my Achilles and a little more than Pacer would want to do. I have not learned how to magically heal my Achilles or prevent Pacer from getting physically older, despite doing my best to pretend otherwise.
Still limited, so I think. Helpless, so I feel.
What am I doing wrong? Are we not supposed to be able to do whatever we set our minds to?
“You’re not living up to your potential.”, fear says.
But what about when our minds are not aligned with our hearts?
No one told me as a kid that when I practiced basketball, I was doing it wrong… I was working instead of playing. Because if I’m playing and in joy, then the physical doesn’t really matter. The outcome, the achievement, the goal doesn’t really matter. If we withhold love from ourselves because of physical limitations, then we are bound by them. Yet when we allow joy to rise, we transcend them.
You see, the physical body and our physical reality may have limits, but the soul does not.
When we perceive physical limits as true limits and let ourselves become upset by them, we cage our soul and prevent ourselves from experiencing the bliss of the present moment.
What I have come to realize in my wanderings is that the energetic world is more real than the physical world that we, at some point, chose to temporarily come down to visit. Not only gravity but dense emotions weigh us down, while our soul always wants to rise. And while it is our emotions that point us to truth and give us this beautiful shared experience of this thing we call humanity, it is expressed emotions in the absence of mental stories that bring us into connection and frees our soul to move into higher states of peace and joy. This is the integration of the human and divine experience.
So, it is when our souls rise above physical limitations, when we choose to be happy despite the situation or circumstance and earthly reality, that we are no longer trapped by the wants of the mind and are truly free to experience the limitless of our true selves.
In summary, to transcend and become limitless is not to overcome physical barriers and the density of human emotions but to allow our energy to rise above it. To feel joy in the midst of failure, to love after loss. The body may be ruled by gravity but the soul is free to wander and expand. (You are not your body, you are not your mind.) All that matters is that you are enjoying the process, the journey- the adventure of the human experience.
It is only in that transcended state of joy that one may actualize potential, for it is when we understand the laws of energy that we can bend the rules of gravity.
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.
A Dog and Her Girl 