I have been through a bit of a process since the beginning of 2022. I started the year so positively. I had my goals in place. I was focused until the first unmet goal. I slowly started to think I was delusional to think I could have what I wanted. Slowly and consistently each day I went down the spiral into self-rejection. Try as I might with all the transformation work I have done, over the last three years, I still couldn’t break free of the tyranny of my own thoughts! Before I knew it, I found myself believing the old lie: that my presences does not matter. Instead of asking for help, I hid away. It’s in these dark moments when I come face to face with my programmed self. My transformed self becomes invisible. I know she is not gone; just enfolded in love.
I am free when I believe that I am totally enfolded in love.
This week as I read a piece of writing that reminded me of how I sometimes think that to be free I must reject what has and is happening to me and what I did in my life to this point. The stuff I believe is and was “sin” is fundamentally gauged by the norms of my society and social up bringing and not necessarily the truth.
Instead of looking at my life with regret and shame rather trust that everything that happened to me and every choice I have made has been instrumental in bringing me to this exact point in my life right now. As I turn back, instead of rejecting me, I embrace and love all of me because I did the best that I could do with the information and knowledge I had at that point.
I am suspicious of my false self! I do need a gift of faith to see not what is in front of me, not the story playing in my mind but what is enfolded in the truth--I am love.
Love is always there, even when I don’t feel it. It is enfolded in my Being; it is who I am. It is my true nature. My gift is also the story playing in my mind, because in embracing the story, in love, I find freedom from the tyranny of my thoughts.
On Wednesday morning I had this distinct impression that I am a survivor. I saw myself standing in this moment. I felt to turn back and look at my timeline, starting from today looking back to my biggest mistake then my next biggest mistake.
That time I lied. That time I got really very angry. When I was a teenager, angry with my father for some thing or other. I was frustratingly kicking water around, when suddenly I slipped and quickly inched towards the edge of the waterfall, my father grabbed at me to save me.
That time when I was teased for not being able to climb the rope ladder to get into the tree house because I was too scared.
The time when I was about four years old and sitting on my grandmother’s kitchen counter while she was trying to feed me lunch. The only way she could was to smack me on my leg so I would cry, and she would shovel food in my mouth, saying “Eat dam it, eat!”
Those memories and all the times I felt silly or stupid or hurt someone, were shown as big red dots on my timeline.
There are the great memories, when we laughed together as a family, those happy, happy times, when I got married, had my children. When my grandson was born, those were big blue dots on my timeline.
When I got to beginning of me, my mother and fathers’ journey was there, I saw the red and blue dots.
I felt to go further back and further back and even much further back to my Adam and my Eve. The timelines were full of red and blue dots. I had the sense that if that line did not survive, I would not be here at this moment. I come from a very long line of survivors.
I am reminded of what Mrs. Which from a “Wrinkle in Time” said, “Do you realize how many events, and choices had to occur since the birth of the universe leading to the making of you, just exactly the way you are!” I encourage you to consider what Mrs. Which is saying in this quote. The answers might leave you breathless and in awe and wonder of you!
I felt to look further back into the darkness. Before time began, I was reminded of Revelations 3:18 and 1 Peter 1:20. As I was gazing into the darkness, I saw the shimmering light of a golden thread weave its way through the spaces where Infinite Love dwells, without exception, in every person in my genetic line. As I turned to face the future, the golden thread weaved its way beyond my now.
And somehow, I could love what is, what was and what will be.
What am I saying here?
There is a point when I take responsibility for my past and letting it go. Allowing healing through my understanding of Infinite Love and Acceptance. I want to be free. To live in integrity. Choosing to love the red dots as much as the blue ones. To get to the point when I can say to myself as older Adam said to younger Adam in the Netflix movie, “The Adam Project”; “Holy shit! I spent 30 years trying to get away from the me that was you and I will tell you what kid, I hate to say it, but you were the best part of me”.
I believe that there is no right or wrong way to live my life, as I embrace a non-violent, way of being, I am enfolded more and more into Loves energy. I will look to my left and I will see you, and I will look to the right and see someone else and when I look, really, really, carefully, I will see the same thread running through you, because we are all connected. We are all survivors.
Without my darkness I would not be where I am today. I am grateful for the fight. The moment of transformation happens when I can love my small-self, my failures and imperfection, my joys, and my successes. When my true-self can look at my small-self and love her. My small-self can look at my true-self and trust and love all of me because I am a radiant survivor and so are you!