Friday, May 15, 2020

No Substitute for Safety for the Innocence Within

Navigating the sea of paradoxes that is our human life is a task for which the programming we took on in our developmental years can hardly be said to equip us well. I speak for those of us whose parents were not saints and paragons of angelic virtue. Who found ourselves surrounded by a profoundly sick society and adjusted our identities accordingly to cope and achieve a semblance of functionality. When the wind blows in our favor, it seems all is well, relatively speaking. But duality being what it is, the opposite of smooth sailing also takes effect in turn, and it seems we find ourselves struggling to make any kind of headway, or even to keep our little boat from taking us further from our destination than we were before.

And what might that destination be? To anyone who has spent long enough drifting on these shifting waves and currents, it is the thought of terra firma that calls to us in our hearts. The shore of peace, where storms may rage, but never unroot us from our deep, abiding connection with the Permanent. The journey, we learn, is not to somewhere out there, to some literal mythic utopia of ultimate satisfaction that, mirage-like, ever recedes and eludes our reach… but inward to the essence of Self, beyond conception, beyond labels and divisions and judgments. Beyond hope and fear, desire and revulsion, subject and object.

We can form a concept of this transcendent Self and it too becomes reified, fetishized, an object of pursuit. Our egoic operating system adopts and incorporates the concepts of spirituality into its existing dynamic and bends them to its purpose of perpetuating the illusion on which it is based. We can observe this at play in the subtly toxic games engaged in by those who identify as spiritual. It is all too tempting and easy, inevitable even, that we try to attain or seize that tantalizing Thing using all the methods at our disposal. To storm the gates of Heaven. There will be no shortage of opportunities offered to that end. And all set up to produce the result we unconsciously need: disappointment and disillusionment.

Of course, since we already are the true Self, experiences partaking of Its nature will spontaneously arise in our awareness wherever they are not blocked by hypnotic entrancement into the dualistic dreamworld of ego identity – the matrix. It is in fact our entire underlying reality and even – hard as it may be to accept – gives rise to the matrix overlay. It is the Source of all that is. We have created and voluntarily inhabit our own prison. And yet some part of awareness is always free. It is the part that remembers, however dimly, who we really are.

In meditation, we may try to cultivate that remembrance. To turn attention inward toward the silent Source of thought and emotion. This can be a training, a preparation, for awakening. When the distinction between Doing and Being disappears, awareness aligns with itself and, through unknowing, knows itself as One.


https://lonerwolf.com/oneness-wholeness/





https://blogs.psychcentral.com/unleash-creativity/2015/03/pit-of-despair/


All this high-level talk becomes useless and irrelevant, however, in moments when we find ourselves deeply enmeshed and hopelessly stuck in a state of suffering. When our wounded inner child has given up knocking at our door and has smashed its way in to demand our full attention. In its desperation, when all else has failed, it stops our entire world and we face the impossibility of going on. Our fantasies revolve around images of a bullet to the brain, a chemical ender of the vital functions, a noose around the neck, a sudden meeting with the ground after a great fall. We know not how to bear to live, to carry on. The force of our inner hell has overwhelmed us. And it need not even be so drastic. The escalation into crisis is only to make us fully aware of the blockage that was already there, to put an end to our bypassing it.

What was it that was blocked and why did we keep it that way? Pain is what it was and the lack of love extended to the one who was in pain is why. This may not be a perfect answer, but it’s the one I’m seeing now in my own experience. It was the fear of having to go through that pain, the fear that we wouldn’t be OK if we did. It was the lack of safety, acceptance and self-worth that we internalized from our early experiences of the tragic limits of our parents’ wisdom and capacity to extend unconditional love to our child selves. Now that we are grown up, we have the chance to expand those limits and clear the emotional debris that resulted from our unmet needs.

How can we do this? It can be very simple. We create a space of love for the child to safely go through whatever it needs to go through. A space to Be where the context is of unconditional support, safety and acceptance. We imagine the divine Parent, an embrace of infinite love and caring. We can rest in that embrace and cry all our pain out of our suffering heart. Finally allow that weight to be lifted from us in a sacred exchange of gifts. Through feeling our pain, we pass the information of that experience on through our soul, surrendering it to the Spirit. In return, Spirit and soul are restored to our conscious being. The human vessel lightens and clears, leaving room for more refined, expansive energies to flow where held pain once resided. A greater coherence, balance, and stability arise from the death of the old configuration and rebirth into the new. And the soul is one step closer to its eternal destiny as a conscious expression of God, co-creating and intimately connected with the totality of creation.

Keeping it simple here boss, never mind the fancy jibber-jabber. It’s all in good faith and good fun, easy come easy go. May Love endure through and in spite of everything. Ciao my friends, and bon voyage mes amis. Thank you for this moment. May you go in peace.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for this emotionally intelligent articulate expression The boat analogy reminds me of a sign I bought to help me cling to like a raft in a crisis (unconscious inner child alert!) it says "You can't stop the waves 🌊 , but you can learn to surf 🏄 " Inner.child healing is essential ; we need to have the courage to really feel however terrifying or long it takes An understanding of Attachment styles is very supportive & enlightening to help navigate & heal. & human love ❤️ support Guided meditations online are brilliant too Whatever we need to help us swim through the white water rapids , race over the waterfalls hit the depths & surf the waves to reach a calm harbour & safe shore 🙏 Where our inner child can laugh play & build sands castles on the beach 🌊

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