The Truth as I feel and understand it is
that who we are, are Spiritual Beings having a human experience. We
are not here as some kind of punishment! We are here to experience being
human. To go through that puzzling human experience we call life.
The dance of life. The dance that is life.
The Dance of Wounded Souls.
We are the wounded souls. We are the Spiritual
Beings who have been wounded by coming into human bodies in the Spiritually-hostile
environment that has been present on planet Earth for thousands of years.
The conditions on the planet have changed!
That is the Joyous news that I have to share with you. The dance is
changing. Since before the dawn of recorded history, the dance of life
for humans has been primarily one of survival, of endurance, of suffering.
We have now entered a very special time in human
history. An Age of Healing and Joy has dawned in human consciousness
on this planet. We now have tools, knowledge, and most importantly,
clearer access to healing energy and Spiritual guidance than has ever before
been available in recorded human history on this planet.
The dance is changing. A Transformational
Healing Process has begun on planet Earth. We have begun the process
of breaking out of the vicious, self-perpetuating cycles of destructive behavior
that humans have been trapped in for thousands of years. The destructive
dance is changing into a dance of healing.
The new dance of healing is most simply called
"Recovery", while the old destructive dance has acquired a new name: Codependence.
Actually the term "Codependence" is an inaccurate
and somewhat misleading term for the phenomenon it has come to describe.
A more accurate term would be something like outer-dependence, or external
dependence. But it is in the evolution of the understanding of what
has come to be called "Codependence" that we have discovered and brought together
the tools and knowledge which are so vital to the healing process that has
begun.
***
The human condition is a symptom! Human nature
as we understand it is a symptom! The human condition is not a result
of flaws in human nature. Both are effects.
The condition of Codependence - which, as I said
could more accurately be described as outer or external dependence - is the
human condition as we have inherited it!
In my definition codependence is not some term
of pop psychology. It is a word that for me describes not only individual
human behavioral defenses, but the human condition itself. It is really
a lousy word for that purpose - but it is the word I have.
In my book I interweave a macrocosmic perspective
of human life (the Cosmic Perspective) with a microcosmic perspective of the
individual human process. I do this because the macrocosmic is a reflection
of the microcosmic - without is a reflection of within.
Our society declares war on symptoms instead of
healing the cause. We have a war on crime, a war on poverty, a war on
drugs (illegal drugs that is). Obviously fighting a war on symptoms
does not work - it's backwards, it's dysfunctional.
The wars outside of us are a reflection of the
war within. Humans have been at war within and without for thousands
of years. The wars, the violence, the rape of mother Earth that is happening,
are all caused by the war within being projected outward.
It is all caused by warring on ourselves.
By judging and feeling ashamed of ourselves for being human - and by fighting
our own emotional process.
The way to stop the war within is through healing
and learning to Love our own inner child/children. The inner child is
the gateway to discovering our True Self - to reconnecting with the Great
Spirit.
I have wanted for years to print a bumper sticker
that says:
"Work for World Peace - Heal your Inner Child"
Because that is the only way it can be done.
That is the only way that will work.
Saddam Hussein was beaten by his stepfather on
almost a daily basis - he was emotionally abandoned and shamed by his mother.
He is just an Adult Child acting out of his childhood trauma. Because
of his broken heart and wounded soul and reversed thinking, he has been trying
to prove to himself that he is the biggest kid on the block, and that his
parents should not have treated him that way. He has caused hundreds
of thousands of people to be killed in the process.
Work for World Peace: Heal Your Inner Child is
not some cute little saying. It is a Metaphysical Truth. It is
the key to transforming the human experience from one based upon fear to
one based upon Love.
In this article, I am going to be addressing both
the Cosmic perspective and the personal individual process - because they
are so intimately interrelated. Learning to manifest Love within -
and overcome our toxic shame about being human - is only possible through
integrating Spiritual Truth into our emotional process. And integrating
Spiritual Truth into our subconscious programming - the intellectual paradigm
that was imposed upon, and adopted by, us in childhood - is only possible
through owning the emotional wounds. Doing the emotional healing and
changing the intellectual paradigm we are allowing to define our life experience
are two different levels of work - but they are intimately interrelated and
intertwined.
I am going to start first with focusing on the
individual personal process, on how to maximize the opportunity for healing
that we have been presented - but that will by necessity include intellectual
perspectives / Spiritual Truths which will aid in that healing. I will
then move the focus to the larger perspectives in relationship to cultural
and Cosmic facets of what we are experiencing.
The events of September 11th and the reactions
that have been generated by that life event are all about codependence in
my view. The act itself was a desperate codependent acting out - the
act of wounded souls lashing out at an external manifestation they are blaming
for their pain. The reaction from most people in the United States
has been very much a codependent reaction. The genesis of the terrorist
act was in fact - at least in part - the result of the codependent relationship
that the United States of America has with the rest of the world.
In part 2 and 3 of this article, I am going to
be talking about where it is important to focus our healing attention in order
to maximize this opportunity for growth. When I do that, I will share
more about the Planetary conditions that have caused codependency. I
am going to just share two sentences here from a longer quote I am going to
use later, to stress the importance of the concept of codependence in my
view.
I stated earlier that Codependence was a new name
for the tune that we have been dancing to. What it used to be called
was the war between good and evil.
"(The term "old-soul" refers to the stage of consciousness evolution
an individual has attained by this lifetime - it does not mean better than,
or farther along than, those who do not have to do the healing. There is
no hierarchy in the Truth of a Loving Great Spirit. Those who appear to have
low, or no, consciousness in this lifetime are simply doing their healing
in another space-time illusion parallel to this one. All old-souls are born
at a heart-chakra level of consciousness and therefore have more sensitivity,
and less capacity for denial, than other people. In other words, the gift
of having access to Truth and Love carries with it the price of greatly increased
emotional sensitivity.)
Due to the planetary conditions, the human ego developed a belief
in separation - which is what made violence possible and caused the human
condition as we inherited it. The reflection of that human condition on the
individual level is the disease of Codependence. Codependence is caused by
the ego being traumatized and programed in early childhood so that our relationship
with ourselves and the God-Force is dysfunctional - that is, it does not
work to help us access the Truth of ONENESS and Love. It is through healing
our relationship with ourselves that we open our inner channel and start
tuning into the Truth."
Many, many people around the world are awakening to
the True Spiritual Nature and Purpose of life. They are awakening to
the Truth of Love, the Truth of ONENESS. This is happening because access
to Higher Consciousness is more available to individual human beings on planet
Earth than ever before.
Through following intuitive Truth - the vibrational
resonance of Truth felt within - people around the world are being guided
to heal self, access Self, and reject the limiting belief systems that have
trapped humans for so much of the recorded history of this planet. It
is those of us that have been led to healing, to recovery, to following a
Spiritual path, that will have the capacity to see recent events in a larger
context - so that we can access Love energy and consciously focus on manifesting
it on our planet.
When we look at reality from a different perspective,
on a higher level, in a larger context, then we can start seeing how what
we perceive as tragedy on one level, can fit into the plan perfectly on a
higher level. How it is a perfect part of the larger picture, of a
longer journey. Then we can begin to understand how the pieces of the
puzzle fit together.
The Twelve Step Recovery process is so successful
because it provides a formula for integrating different levels. It is
by recognizing that we are powerless to control our life experiences out
of ego-self that we can access the power out of True Self, Spiritual Self.
By surrendering the illusion of ego control we can reconnect with our Higher
Selves. Selfishness out of ego-self is destroying the planet.
Selfishness out of Spiritual Self is what will save the planet.
It is because there is more than one level of reality
that life is paradoxical in nature. What is True and positive on one
level - selfishness out of Spiritual Self, can be negative on another level
- selfishness out of ego-self. What a caterpillar calls the end of
the world, God calls a butterfly.
Humans have always had expressions that describe
the paradoxical nature of the life experience. Every ending is a beginning.
Every cloud does have a silver lining. For every door that closes,
another door does open. It is always darkest before the dawn.
Every obstacle is a gift, every problem is an opportunity for growth."
There is always a silver lining if we look for
it. If we focus on the part of the glass that is empty we can perceive
tragedy and impending doom. If we focus on the part that is full, we
can be grateful for gifts and recognize opportunities for growth.
Here are a few things I am grateful for:
That the death toll in the buildings of
the World Trade Center, which on many days held 50,000 people in the twin
towers and another 50,000 below the towers, was not much greater than
it was. That so many people could make their way down stairs from 80
or 100 stories up in time to get out of the buildings is Truly a miracle.
That the wing of the Pentagon that got hit had
just been renovated to strengthen it against terrorist attack - which greatly
reduced both the damage and the death toll.
That some courageous passengers on the fourth
plane prevented it from being used as a bomb on some other building in Washington
D. C.
That people are recognizing their connections
to each other - are reaching out with Love and compassion to each other in
recognition of shared humanity.
That millions of people are learning more about
the grief process as a result of the TV stations needing to fill so much time
with talking heads. At least some of those talking heads are communicating
good information about healthy grieving.
That so many people in the recovery / healing
/ Spiritual community are calling for healing and transformation instead of
just revenge and retribution.
Focusing on the part of the glass that is full does
not mean to deny our feelings about the part that is empty. It is very
important to own our feelings about what has happened. Balance is achieved
by owning our feelings at the same time we are choosing to focus on, and
define our reality from, Spiritual Truth and Higher Consciousness.
Here are a few of the things that I feel very sad
about:
I am very saddened by the wrenching personal
trauma suffered by those who lost loved ones in the terrorist attack.
As well as the emotional trauma suffered by those who were in and around the
buildings that were destroyed - and those who watched it unfold on television.
I am sad that the wounded souls who were the
hijackers had suffered such emotional devastation - and had their trauma
twisted into such rage and hatred that they felt they had to commit suicide
and mass murder to prove their worth.
I am deeply sad and enraged that once again
in the history of humanity, religious beliefs have been be so twisted and
perverted as to allow a man as sick as Osama bin Laden to provoke an obscenity
such as this in the name of his God - and a man like Jerry Falwell to speak
obscenities that he claims come from his God.
I find it very sad that it takes a tragic event
for us to recognize our common humanity and our connection to each other.
I feel even sadder that for most people this recognition does not extend to
all humanity.
I feel sad that most of the people who are giving
such glowing testimonials about missing loved ones probably never said those
things to the loved one while they were alive.
I feel sad that our society is so emotionally
dishonest and dysfunctional. The news anchors are busy stuffing their
own feelings and keeping up appearances, while their reporters are being emotional
vampires trying to steal a few minutes of air time for honest emotions from
people who are traumatized and grief stricken. A sad symptom of an
emotionally dysfunctional society not unlike reality TV shows where real
people are put into artificial situations to entertain an emotionally starved
society with real emotional reactions. What we are seeing is the ultimate
reality TV. (It has been mind boggling to me how many times I have
heard anchors greeting or being greeted by the people they were interviewing
with the standard "How are you doing?" "I'm fine." As in, "I'm fine.
We are hearing now that the death toll is going to be 5000." Something
is definitely wrong with this picture.)
I feel sad that this moment of opportunity for
healing is being turned into the kind of "us vs them" polarized conflict that
is at the core of the Human Dilemma. The very black and white perspective
that has trapped the human race in vicious cycles of destructive behavior.
I feel sad that some of the most famous teachers
in the "New Age" movement sent out a message that supports polarity and shame
about being human.
I feel sad that so many people do not know how
to own the feelings they are experiencing in order to maximize the healing
opportunity that is available.
For most of my life I couldn't cry for me.
I could cry for you. I could cry over a sad movie or starving children
in Africa - but I could not cry for me. That is a symptom of codependency.
Because we feel toxic shame about our being, we can have compassion for other
people but not for ourselves.
A very important part of recovery is owning our
feelings. That means owning that the grief we are feeling is our personal
grief, about the emotional traumas we have suffered in our lives. Telling
ourselves we are crying for them is emotionally dishonest. When someone
we love dies we do not grieve for them, we grieve for our loss, for our feelings
of abandonment.
It is vital to the healing process to focus within,
on our relationship with ourselves. Life events trigger unresolved grief.
If you have been "falling apart" about the recent events, it is important
to own that it is your unresolved grief that is causing the intensity of
those emotional reactions. Ask yourself how old you are feeling.
This is an opportunity to get more in touch with your wounds so that you
can heal them.
It was very sad to me when Princess Diana died,
to hear a healer and Spiritual teacher I knew talk about how she had cried
for days for Diana. She wasn't crying for Diana - she were crying for
her self, for her own wounds. Princess Diana was a very powerful symbol
for many women. A symbol of the fairy tale come True. A symbol
of the fairy tale being an illusion. If you told yourself you were
crying for Diana, you were missing an opportunity to own your feelings, to
release some of your grief. (Which of course is not something to judge yourself
for - it is something to learn from.)
All human beings share the same emotions, the same
emotional process. The reason we feel empathy for others is because we have
felt the same feeling. The details of what caused those feelings may
be very different, someone else's circumstance may be much more dramatic -
but the emotions are the same.
I went to Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings
for many months before I spoke. The reason I didn't speak is because
my wounding was not as dramatic as theirs. I did not come from an alcoholic
home so it appeared that my childhood wasn't as traumatic as theirs.
That was the disease lying to me - comparing the outside circumstances in
order to minimize my wounding. My wounds are my wounds - and
I need to own and honor them. If I don't own my right to my pain, I
cannot own me - I cannot Love me. We were all emotionally traumatized
in childhood. We had our hearts broken and our Spirits wounded - because
our parents were wounded, because civilization is emotionally dysfunctional.
It is very important to own our personal pain.
To grieve for our loses, our feelings of abandonment and betrayal. It
is vital to grieve for the impact that codependence has had on our lives.
It is necessary to own and honor the child who
we were in order to Love the person we are. And the only way to do that
is to own that child's experiences, honor that child's feelings, and release
the emotional grief energy that we are still carrying around.
It is also very important to take responsibility
for our feelings. If we are allowing dysfunctional attitudes and beliefs
to define our life experiences, then we are setting ourselves up to generate
victim feelings. The intellectual paradigm we are empowering sets up
our expectations and perspectives, which in turn dictate our relationships
and emotional reactions to life.
Part of the defense system of codependence is disassociating
from our own emotions. We had to do that as children - we had to find
ways to not be present in our own skins because the emotional pain was too
great. One of the primary ways we learned to do that was to be in our
heads. Long before we found alcohol or food or work or relationships
to distract us, we learn to be in our heads in fantasy.
"What if" and "if only" are fantasies. They
are part of the disease thinking. "What if" I had been in that plane.
"What if" my loved one was missing. "What if" I had to jump out of that
building. To have a fantasy projecting ourselves into a situation and
then get all emotional about something that is not real, is part of codependence.
I can remember when I was in College, and some
kids were shot and killed by the National Guard at Kent State as part of an
anti war protest. I freaked out. "What if" my girlfriend (who
was my higher power at the time) had been shot by those National Guardsmen.
I can remember crying and sobbing and yelling at my mother on the phone about
something that was a fantasy - it wasn't real, it never happened to me.
We create emotions out of the attitudes and perspectives
we are holding. It is very important to start taking responsibility
for what we are creating emotionally. There is plenty of grief and sadness
to go around about real things without having to fantasize. What really
happened to me back then was my grief from childhood got triggered but I
didn't know how to own it, so I created a fantasy to attach it to.
Empathy is feeling compassion for the pain of others
because we can relate out of our common humanity. "Falling apart" or
getting hysterical about something that did not happen to us, is a sign that
our personal unresolved grief has been triggered.
Emotional honesty and emotional responsibility
are very important if we are going to see clearly. See ourselves, other
people, life events with any degree of honesty and clarity. This is
why the inner child healing work is so important - because until we start
having internal boundaries so we can own our grief and change the dysfunctional
programming we are not capable of a very high degree of emotional honesty
and responsibility.
Death as Transition
One of the dysfunctional attitudes that causes us to
have insane expectations and therefore to set ourselves up to create negative
emotional experiences is to be in denial about death.
Life is a journey, a process - it's not a destination.
Life is continuous and constant change and growth. We were taught to
fight and try to control the change, to resist the growth. We were
taught to swim upstream, to go against the flow. No wonder we get tired
sometimes.
We were taught that death is a great tragedy and
that we should spend our lives fearing and ignoring it. We were taught
to fear death and to never live life. That's backwards.
Death is a transition, a transformation, death
is a milestone in the longer journey. It is not a tragedy to be feared
- it is an eventuality to be accepted. What is tragedy is not enjoying
living while we are here.
Life is temporary and transient. Ignoring
that reality and denying it's inevitability, sets us up to be traumatized
when something happens to break through our denial. The Truth of existence
is that safety and security are illusions that can be gone in an instant.
The reality of this human experience is that we
are born alone, we die alone, and in between everyone in our life leaves us
or we leave them one way or another. Loss is an inherent and unavoidable
part of human life. That means that grief is also inevitable.
However, emotionally dysfunctional, patriarchal
societies taught us that being emotional was weak and shameful (whereas violence
was strong and necessary), that our worth was determined by external factors,
and that life was a test that we might fail if we did it wrong. Since
being wrong included being imperfect emotional humans, we were set up to
live life dysfunctionally. That is why it is so important to have a
Spiritual belief system that helps us make some sense of this human experience
we are having.
When I first got into twelve step recovery in January
of 1984, I had great resistance to even hearing the word spiritual because
I associated it with religion and God. The concept of God that I had
grown up with was a mean, vicious SOB - and I didn't want anything to do
with that God or anything having to do with religion or spirituality because
of the Spiritual abuse I had suffered at the hands of the shaming religion
I grew up in.
But I was desperate. I was willing to try
anything to stop living in the hell my life had become the last 5 or 6 years
of my alcoholic drinking. I was told that spiritual was not the same
as religious, and that I could choose a concept of a Higher Power of my own
understanding. I was desperate enough to start trying out this 12 step
thing - and to consider their idea that maybe there might be a Loving Higher
Power.
So I started on a quest to figure out a concept
of a Higher Power that could possibly be Loving.
One of the first things I needed to do was to change
the context in which I viewed life. I realized that if I looked at
this life experience as if it were a one time thing - that our existence began
with birth and ended with death - there was no possible way that it could
be fair and Loving. Not with billionaires on one hand and children
starving to death on the other.
The only way I could see that it was possible that
there was a Universal Force that could possibly be Loving, that could possibly
Love me in my imperfect humanness, that could possibly have a Divine Plan
that was somehow fair and equitable - was over the span of multiple lifetimes.
Reincarnation is what made sense when I started searching for some Spiritual
answers.
"All the worlds a stage and the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and
their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts."
- William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II Scene
1
We have all lived multiple lifetimes. We have
all experienced every facet of being human.
We are now not just healing our wounds from this
lifetime, we are doing Karmic settlement on a massive scale, at a very accelerated
rate.
Karma is the Loving, wonderful law of energy interaction
which governs human interaction. Like the other levels of Universal
Law, it is about cause and effect. In this case, "what you sow, you
reap."
Karmic Law dictates that every action of cause
on the Physical Plane is paid for with a consequence of effect on the Physical
Plane. In other words, no one can end up in the hole, or in some hell
in an afterlife. (Hell is here on earth, and we have all experienced it already.)
Starting to see death as a transition, as a milestone
in a longer journey, made life make more sense to me. It at least had
the possibility of being fair and Loving, if the part of it I could see was
only a small piece of a much larger puzzle.
The next leap was to realizing that if there were
such a Force, then it would have to be so powerful that everything was unfolding
perfectly. If there is a Loving Higher Power, then everything happens
for a reason. There can be no accidents, coincidences or mistakes in
such a plan.
If there is such a Higher Power then even the worst
tragedies, the greatest injustices, must be part of the Divine Plan in some
way, on some level. I realized that not only was it not important that
I know why - it was impossible from my limited human perspective. So
I needed to start choosing to have faith that such a thing as an All-Powerful,
Loving Higher Power existed.
When I started to believe that maybe a Higher Power,
a Universal Force, existed which was Truly All-Powerful and Unconditionally
Loving then life started to become a lot easier and more enjoyable.
Then I could start to see that the "accidents" and "coincidences" are really
miracles. That the "mistakes" are really opportunities for growth.
I do not believe that it is possible for any human
being to fully understand how it all works, for anyone to see the whole puzzle.
What we can do though is to start having some faith, start remembering (what
I am doing here is reminding you of what you already know on some level),
that all of the pieces do fit together perfectly, that everything is unfolding
perfectly according to the Divine purpose of a Loving Universal Force - and
that we are Spiritual beings who are a perfect part of that Force who have
come to Earth to have this human experience.
It felt to me as if I were remembering things that
I couldn't remember ever having known. The feeling of Truth that resonated
within me from such statements as "Everything happens for a reason" and "The
Force is with you" was so powerful that I paid extra attention to those types
of statements - and started integrating them into my emotional relationship
with life.
I certainly had never felt like this place was
my home. For as long as I can remember, I felt like someone had screwed
up in the Transporter room and sent me to the wrong planet. It made
sense to me (and brought a great deal of relief) to start believing that being
here in human body was just a temporary visit, kind of a Cosmic boarding school
- and that since I was part of the ONENESS of a Loving Universal Force, I
would of course get to go home when I finished with this role and exited
this particular stage.
I realized that I wasn't really figuring things
out so much as I was paying attention to where I was led. I started
to let myself be guided by my intuition, by the feeling of something resonating
within me. One of the first things I was guided to, when I was only
about 3 months sober, was a mind boggling, paradigm smashing book called Illusions
by Richard Bach. It presented me with concepts that it took me years
to understand intellectually. But I knew instantly that the book was
full of Truth.
In order to become aligned with Truth so that we
can stop the war within and change life into an easier, more enjoyable experience,
it is vitally important to become clear in our emotional process and to change
the reversed attitudes that we had to adopt to survive. Those reversed
attitudes are what cause our dysfunctional perspectives - which in turn,
have caused us to have a lousy relationship with life.
I am going to quote from a book now, and again
a little later, that is my own personal favorite book of Truth. I feel
a great deal of Truth in this book. It has guided me and helped me
to remember my Truth and to become conscious of my path. It was a very
important part of my personal process of enlarging my perspective - of being
able to see this life business in a larger context.
It is a book called Illusions by Richard
Bach. This is one of my favorite quotations from that book.
The mark of your ignorance is the depth
of your belief in injustice and tragedy.
What a caterpillar calls the end of
the world the master calls a butterfly.
The "depth of your belief" is about perspective.
If we are reacting to life emotionally out of the belief systems we had imposed
on us as children we will then see change as tragedy and feel that being
forced to grow is shameful. As we change our attitudes toward this
life experience, when we can start viewing it as a process, a journey, then
we can begin to see that what we used to perceive as problems are really
opportunities for growth. Then we can begin to realize that even though
our experiences in childhood have caused to think of ourselves as, and feel
like, lowly caterpillars - we are in Truth butterflies who are meant to fly.
We are all butterflies. We are all Spiritual
Beings.
I used to use the caterpillar - butterfly quote a lot when I spoke.
I would usually say something like "a measure of your Spiritual Awakening"
instead of "mark of your ignorance" in order to soften it a bit. We
codependents are such experts in beating ourselves up and shaming ourselves,
that we tend to see the word ignorance as being something that is our fault.
In fact, the word ignorance refers to a lack of knowledge, of not being informed.
The reason we didn't know how to set boundaries, or have healthy relationships,
was because of ignorance caused by not having anyone to teach us - no healthy
role models, no resources for learning how to be healthy. We not only
did not have resources to teach us how to relate to life and other people
in a healthy way - we were taught the very opposite of healthy behavior in
most cases.
There is no shame in having been programmed to react to life from unhealthy
perspectives. That is what recovery is all about, learning to change
our programming so that we can start seeing our self, our relationships, and
life more clearly - instead of through a filter of false beliefs and mistaken
attitudes. One of the most insidious aspects of the disease of codependence
is that, as we awaken and become more conscious - start seeing that we have
some part in how our lives have unfolded - the very disease that caused our
dysfunctional patterns turns right around and causes us to judge ourselves
for the things that are being revealed to us.
The Truth is that we were powerless over the programming adapted by our
egos in response to being raised in dysfunctional, patriarchal, emotionally
dishonest, shame based, Spiritually hostile environments - until something
caused us to start awakening. In most cases, our Spiritual awakenings
were caused by some life event that felt like tragedy to us at the time.
As I say in my book, the Universe works with the carrot and stick approach.
The way I think of it is that my Higher Power works
with the carrot and stick approach: like a mule driver trying to get
a mule moving, he can either dangle a carrot in front of the mule and get
the mule moving after the carrot, or he can take a stick and beat him until
he gets moving.
It is a lot easier on me to follow the carrots
that my Higher Power dangles in front of me than to force the Universe to
use a stick to get me moving. Either way I am going to get to where
the Universe wants me - but the carrot method is a lot easier on me.
***
No matter what our personal stick is, whether it is
Alcoholism or love addiction or overeating or whatever, it is the vehicle
which has forced us to start awakening. It is the blessed gift that
has started our awakening to consciousness of our path.
As long as we were living life out of the false belief systems imposed
upon us in childhood, we were incapable of hearing the messages. We
kept thinking that when we got the relationship, or the money, or the house,
or the success, when we got to the destination - then we would get to experience
happily ever after.
So, the Universe used the stick to wake us up. Whatever that stick
was, whatever life events caused us to start waking up - relationship breakup,
DUI, heart attack, emotional break down, whatever - it felt like a tragedy
at the time, but was in fact also a gift that brought about a new beginning,
a Spiritual awakening.
There is always a silver lining if we look for it. I am talking
about having some faith here. We can choose to believe that everything
happens for a reason. You know on some level that is the Truth.
We cannot know the reasons right now. It may be years before we can
see any silver lining at all with what seems a senseless tragedy. Get
angry certainly. But if you channel your energy into hatred and bitterness
it will hurt you more. Tune into the intuitive Truth within you - everything
happens for a reason. It is my belief that even such a catastrophic
event as the destruction of the World Trade Center is a perfect part of the
Divine Plan of a Loving Higher Power.
Life events are wake up calls. They are opportunities for growth.
If you lost a loved one
If you lost a loved one last Tuesday, if someone who you care about is missing
or dead - own your grief. Know that your grief is about you and your
loss.
Try to not buy into the messages from the disease that are telling you
that you could have done something that would have prevented this loss.
Try not to buy into all the guilt and shame messages coming from the disease
- that you shouldn't have had that argument with them, or that you should
have told them how much you loved them the last time you saw them. The
disease is always heaping guilt and shame on us - tell it to shut up.
You were doing the best you knew how, there is nothing you can do now to change
what has happened.
Be nurturing and Loving to the wounded inner children within you.
Tell the wounded inner child that believes he/she is somehow responsible for
what has happened, that feels that he/she is being punished by God for being
unworthy, that those messages are a lie. Nurture the emotional places
within you that feel abandoned and betrayed. Be as Loving to your self
as possible one day at a time, and you will not only survive this - you will
learn and grow from it.
Feel your feelings and release them. Give yourself permission to
let it all out. Wail and scream and sob. Try not to let
the messages of an emotionally dysfunctional society, or the discomfort of
emotionally repressed people around you, keep you from owning the grief to
the fullest. They want you to pull it together and get yourself under
control so they will be comfortable. Let it out! Release it!
Do not shame yourself for it, or apologize - it is marvelously healing to
grieve. Owning our grief is part of being True to our self. In
an emotionally honest society Dan Rather would have been crying and sobbing
on his own program - serving as a role model for others - instead of keeping
up appearances and stuffing his grief until some of it leaked out on the
David Letterman Show.
Catch yourself when you stop breathing as a way of holding it in.
Allow yourself to breath into the pain so that it can be released in sobs
and tears and snot running out of your nose. The more you can let out
now, the easier it will be to move through this grieving. Suppressing
the emotional energy will not make it go away, it will just cause it to build
up pressure within you.
Allow yourself to be angry at God for the pain that life entails.
Scream and curse at God for the dysfunctional world we live in that causes
wounded people to do things like this to other people. It is much healthier
to be angry at God than to be angry at yourself or to focus blame and hatred
on someone else. God can handle it - and he/she/it knows you are just
releasing energy, and is happy for your healing.
Do not let yourself be distracted by fantasies. Don't torture yourself
trying to imagine what they must have been feeling in the moments before
death. You can't know what they were feeling - they may have been at
peace at the very end. The details of how someone dies are not important
to the grief process. We are grieving for our loss, not for how they
died. We hate it when someone we love dies violently at the hand of
another - but the effect is the same as if it would have been a car accident.
Death is a transition, a transformation. It makes no difference
- except perhaps in positive terms of increased Karmic settlement - rather
they suffered or were terrified before their death. If we torture ourselves
trying to imagine the details of how they died, we are empowering a fantasy.
When a loved one dies and we hope that they didn't suffer, that is about
us wanting to protect ourselves from feelings - not about them. They
are finished with this lifetime. They may be very grateful to have
gone in a sudden death instead of enduring growing old and senile.
Is it preferable to wait around and spend years incapacitated by a stroke
or Alzheimer's?
They are free of this human experience now. They have broken out
of the cocoon and are flying. They are no longer trapped in limited
consciousness.
Know that it is natural to experience anger at them for leaving us.
Anger and envy that they get to go and we have to stay. Anger at being
abandoned and betrayed.
If you are experiencing survivors guilt, be nurturing to your self.
Know that you are still here for a reason. Know that you cannot understand
what that reason is right now. It may take years before you can look
back and see that this ending was in fact a new beginning - that there was
a silver lining.
One day at a time. One hour at a time. Five minutes at a
time you can get through this. There is a Loving Force in the Universe.
It is on your side - it just doesn't feel like it right now.
