Category Archives: addictions

BADGER CULLING: HOW DO YOU FEEL?

Posted on by under addictions, creation, denial, Ecology, emotions, fear, love, Nature, THE ENVIRONMENT, Truth

badgers

This post is a bit different from my normal posts, but it is still about love. This time it is about my love for animals and specifically a protected species that is being mindlessly killed by the thousands here in the UK: Badgers. I have decided I want to stop the badger culling that is happening. To save them, but also to pay back something to the animal kingdom as I used to be a meat eater and I can now feel how awful that is and for me helping the badgers is a step to atone for that unloving action.

To give a bit of background, I became a vegetarian back in 2001, but didn’t do it very well and became malnourished and ate fish again for a about 2 years or so. I obviously still had some emotions about food and eating to work through. Since my son was born in 1994 I had gradually gone off different types of meat, the last thing being chicken. Bit by bit I suddenly saw and felt the “meat” as a living breathing animal. I couldn’t disassociate anymore and then eventually the same happened for fish. I have now been vegan since the end of 2015, though I was hardly eating much dairy by then. I did it for health reasons and then watched the film “Cowspiracy”  which not just talked about the animals, but also the impact on the environment of the meat and dairy industry, and that completed the transition.

Since I have become vegan I have over time found it harder to understand why people eat meat. I know it is not nutritionally necessary, but I guess there has been an emotional shift in me that now it seems very odd when I see people buying and eating meat and even at times, if I am honest, I am repulsed by it. I “see” the animals and I sometimes hear their cries.

Then lately, I have the feeling I want to atone for the sin of eating meat. This is not a judgement on those that do, but just how I feel within myself. The badger culling has upset me since I first heard about it and I signed a petition, but now I am wanting to do more if I can so I hope I can contribute some awareness to start with.

The reason for badger culling, so the government say, is to reduce the incidence of bovine TB, which has devastating effects on the farming industry and their families. (Of course if we didn’t eat meat or dairy this wouldn’t even be an issue as farming would be plant-based).

Here are the facts:  (source the Badger Action Network and Wildlife Trust)

  • This year 19,274 badgers were culled ( and this doesn’t include the number in West Somerset or West Gloucestershire)
  • Next year 33,841 are targeted
  • A scientific study was done between 1998 and 2006 where Lord Krebs concluded, ” badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain” and “Culling is not a viable policy option.”
  • The primary cause of the spreading of Bovine TB has been shown to be cattle to cattle.
  • In fact, Bovine TB exists in the countryside and has been found in everything from soil, earthworms, cats, sheep pigs and more.
  • Badgers were protected by the Protection of Badger Act in 1992 and the Convention on Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats because they are a crucial part of an ecosystem. When one badger is killed the number of foxes doubled.
  • The badger cull has no support from the British Veterinary Association, the public or any wildlife charities.
  • There is  no evidence that culling has changed the level of bovine TB. In fact prolonged culling has been shown to increase bovine TB levels because it affects badger behaviour and the location of badger setts.
  • Badger Culling is more expensive than vaccination. Between 2012-14 £16.8 million was spent on the culling of 2,476 badgers which works out at £6785 per badger. Vaccinations cost £293 per badger
  • Most scientists and wildlife experts believe that vaccination is more effective as it does not  disrupt badger behaviour.
  • More research also needs to be done on biosecurity to prevent cattle to cattle spreading of the disease.
  • Here is a short film by some leading wildlife experts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhojkHMyaJg

So it all seems very clear and we can take actions: sign petitions, join local groups and write to MPs and much of that has been done. In fact, there has been a huge public outcry about this so why isn’t it changing? Why are the government ignoring experts and its voters and continuing with this illogical and awful killing?

I believe it is the same reasons, people still eat meat. We have become hugely disassociated from our emotions about animals and nature in general. We look upon our survival as dependent on us and our actions. We don’t accept emotionally simple facts, such as without trees, we won’t have oxygen; without flies, we would have piles of bodily waste products sitting on the planet. We don’t FEEL how much we need nature and in fact because of our development how we are the custodians of this planet and all the creatures in it and that possibly this beautiful place is ours to enjoy without the need to destroy it or the any living being who lives here with us. We still have very arrogant and maybe have religious justifications for “lording it over” animals, thinking we have a right to their meat, to their reproduction. Therefore, we don’t feel all our fears that underlie this: our fears about our own survival, for instance.

In the video, one expert stated he understood the farmers angry emotions about the impact of bovine TB on their lives and that because of this they wanted someone to pay. How awful, that it is now the badgers that are paying for the fact that farmers feel helpless, don’t want to feel helpless and want something to make them feel better: so let’s kill badgers and despite the evidence to the contrary. To be a farmer, you must have to become emotionally detached from animals and their suffering to varying degrees, whether it is sending them for the slaughter; putting newborn calves in tiny pens the same day as ripping from their mothers; killing hundreds of thousands of male chicks or forcing cows to produce gallons of milk time and time again after forcibly inseminating them.

But none of us are innocent in this. We demand dairy products, we love our cheese, we want our steaks and we want someone else to provide it for us, to kill the animal for us, to take the baby calf away so that we can drink it’s milk. We want that. So despite the fact than many of us are up in arms about badger culling, and we want animals to be recognised as sentient beings we actually are hypocritical every time we put on our leather shoes, or cut into our Christmas turkey. We won’t look at our real emotions – the un-lovingness in each of us that allows these things to occur and asks another person, a farmer to kill on our behalf.

We can not change things we are lying about. We can only change things when we face the truth, emotionally, of what is  happening. If you really want to stop this awful culling, you can take some peaceful actions, but you can also ask yourself about how you really feel about animals. Watch things that will trigger emotions, such films as “Earthlings,” and don’t cover your eyes or press pause. Face the truth, feel it. If thinking was the answer all the scientific evidence would have changed things. It hasn’t. For some reason the culling is continuing so this means we are not recognising something we need to.

To not eat meat again I have had an emotional shift, over time that deepens over time. There are many who become vegan for lots of reasons and it is currently quite fashionable, but if the shift isn’t in your heart you will feel “tempted” to eat meat again, you will find it difficult or you will become anaemic because of your fears around plant-based diets.

We need to do the same for all our treatment of animals. Stop disconnecting, face the truth and chose Love. We ignore what is staring us in the face because it is not convenient, it challenges our “comfortable” lives and addictions. Ironically, that is the  point, to change everything, we have to challenge and question all the ways we are doing things and seek the loving solution and the real truth. We will make mistakes, but the seeking of the truth is a very good first step. It is the that step which created this blog in the first place: an experiment, a searching and seeking for change.

I want to save the badgers. I want to learn what love is. But other times I am still very angry, in pain, wanting addictions and presenting a face to the world that isn’t me. That is the truth: a battle of my soul, a seeking and searching, making mistake after mistake and getting a few things right. But I would rather try than do nothing. As Roosevelt said:

“The best thing to do is the right thing. The next best thing to do is the wrong thing. The worst thing to do is nothing.”

Prayers for the badgers and all the beautiful creatures that share this world with me.

@2017 Maxine Bell

 

 

 

 

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Eating Meat Is Destroying Our Planet

Posted on by under addictions, Climate change, Deforestation, Ecology, Global Warming, Nature, Rainforest Destruction, Soil regeneration, THE ENVIRONMENT

Discoveries Along The Way

Hi my name is Pete Lytton-Hitchins. I was born a country boy and ever since I can remember all I wanted to do was be a sheep and cattle farmer. I remember the first time I killed a kangaroo, the first time I fell off a horse and I used to think all I would ever do was be a sheep and cattle farmer.

With the help of my family over a period of 20 years we own and killed over 100,000 sheep and 10,000 head of cattle.

In 2015 we sold the farm and stopped making money from meat farming. I say the words “meat farming” because when we farm animals we are in the business of producing kilograms of meat for human consumption.

I gave up what I thought was my life long passion. Once I released that eating meat and killing animals was wrong I no longer…

View original post 1,301 more words

SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE

Posted on by under addictions, emotions, Facade, fear, humility, VULNERABILITY

goldfish

“You use your strength to separate yourself from everyone, but it’s thrilling when your defences are down.”

This is a line said by Harry (Jack Nicholson) to Erica (Diane Keaton) in the film “Something’s gotta give.” I am not writing a film review, but I watched it because having never heard of it before it came into my view twice in 12 hours   – firstly, it was mentioned at dinner with friends and then the next day I wondered into a charity shop so see if I could find a film to watch and there it was standing out among the DVD’s on display. I felt I was being guided to watch it and so I bought it.

It came under the guise of a romantic comedy, about two people, who in their own way had shut down the idea of the possibility of a deep love and connection, both for different reasons. They were thrown into the path of each other and despite a tricky start they fell quickly and deeply in love. However, fear came up and one of them pulls back. I won’t say too much in case you want to watch it. It is funny and touching and I waited to see what it had to offer me.

On one hand it is obvious, I am terrified of giving myself to love and I struggle to receive love. I am very suspicious of someone saying they love me, because love has meant departure, manipulation, feeling used, disappointment, confusion and pain. In truth none of that IS love. I know this intellectually and I have a small feeling deep down there is something much more special that is truly love, but my emotional wounds, my parent’s/ environment version of love, like many of us, was wrong, is wrong and now I am attempting to understand what love is, but I am scared. Scared by previous experiences and my emotional knowledge of love. Yet to keep saying this is also an excuse and an addiction and re-educating myself about love is within my own power and choice.

Then on the other hand is this issue of strength. When this line was said it struck me – it was me. I use my “strength” to separate myself from everyone. I have noticed that I call my mother the bounce back queen. Despite all her own lack of self love, the damage she has done to herself and to others, how she has treated her body, she still survives, she still keeps going. She has a chronic illness- temporal arthritis which requires horrible medication, including lots of steroids. Because of this her bones are fragile and the smallest fall she breaks a bone. This year she fell and smashed 6 ribs, had a metal plate put in to fix them. She was home within 3 days. Last week, she discovered she had 2 fractures in her neck, that had gone undetected for a week and she still got on a plane to Spain for a week. Many will read this and think, wow she is strong. But is it being strong or is it being self-reliant and avoiding her vulnerability?

Last week at work, someone asked me some questions about myself, which I answered honestly and their comment was, “you are one strong lady.” It was said in a way, that I should be proud of myself, proud of my strength. It has been said to me before a number of times. But right now I don’t want to be strong. What does it really mean? I am addicted to it. I am addicted to “being strong:” to surviving through many things, to getting back up, to pushing on, to keep going. I am addicted it, but I am sick of it because it is as Harry says my strength has become the space I use to stay separate, to avoid relationships, to avoid love, and to avoid feeling. It also involves appalling self care at times because I ignore so much of my pain.

I can feel the damage it is doing to me, emotionally, spiritually and physically. I have pain in some part of my body daily and I don’t take analgesia. I haven’t for long time and I used to consider myself to have a high pain threshold. I do, but this is not a good thing, this is shut down of feelings. And there are many of you out there who do the same thing.

There is no judgement is this because we live in society, that celebrates this kind of strength, this way of coping. I am English and we have had a long tradition of stoicism, that “stiff upper lip” nonsense: “chin up!” In other words, pretend it doesn’t hurt, don’t be emotional, just grin and bear it. The words that aren’t said here are “don’t be emotional because that will trigger all my emotions which will make me and everyone else around me upset and we don’t want to be upset because we don’t want to feel our emotions either. Avoidance, facade and all of us meeting each other’s emotional addictions.

What I feel now, is that this is incredibly sad. It is incredibly sad that we are so locked up, that I am, because when I lock up my negative emotions I also lock up my positive ones. So I can not experience my joy and happiness as I should. It is the way our soul works – suppress one emotion and we suppress another and it builds up to the state of numbness and de-tunement many of us live in.

I am not happy being like this and I am sick of being “strong.” It means I am overly self-reliant and I don’t let others in and I don’t let them help me. Then I feel alone and then I feel upset and angry that no on will care for me: a vicious cycle. Compassionately, I have reasons why I became “strong:” it was a survival technique and in fact I was taught to be this way, to support my mother and to care for my brothers and I certainly wasn’t encouraged, like many, to feel or acknowledge my own needs. I may be “strong” to the world as it currently is, but the truth is I am weak in knowing myself, and allowing myself the real strength and courage to feel all of my emotions.

There is small part of me that wants to be vulnerable and the times I have allowed that have been the most amazing times and I have felt almost beautiful. After the crying, we often feel more peaceful, especially when it is a causal emotion. I long for that peace and yet I must have a greater desire not to feel at the moment, to hold on and if I really want to progress more quickly something’s gotta give.

Being vulnerable is something I don’t emotionally understand properly. I feel inside it is weakness, as many do. Most of freak out when too much emotion hits the room. We can cope with a bit, but if it goes on too long, either with ourselves or others we judge it, we get fidgity, distract ourselves, talk ourselves out of it, eat ourselves out of it, drink ourselves out it; anything to lessen the “drama” of a roomful of emotions.

But emotions are E – motions. They are meant to move in and out, like a river. Often, instead , they sit in us like a rock and despite on some level we feel the weight of stuck emotions we have become experts in pretending they are not there. It is similar to being very overweight, we keep buying bigger clothes, bigger chairs and bed, put elastic in our belts so we don’t have feel too uncomfortable and aware of that extra flesh.

Being vulnerable would be to put on those trousers we can’t fit into, feel how uncomfortable they are now, walk out in them, feel exposed and allow all the feelings of that to come. So for me this acts as a key to accessing my vulnerability – getting out my comfort zone.

In November I did a four day workshop called Solo Autobiographical theatre. I had 4 days of being outside my comfort and it was transforming in the sense that I faced fears, didn’t live in them, felt emotions, felt exposed and at the end felt empowered discovering bits of myself I hadn’t before. So now I am signed up for 2 terms of this and I keep looking for ways to get out of my comfort zone. Actually, I think I will call it my addiction zone, because I would say most, if not all, of my so-called comfort zone is full of emotional and physical addictions. It is pretend safe zone, but truly an avoidance zone and the truth is, the reality is this addiction zone may give me some sense of gratification, but it has not brought me real happiness, love or joy. So, on an experimental basis I would say that experiment has failed and it is time for  new experiment. No real love in our life is no real life at all: it is living life in the greyscale, instead of vibrant colour.

I have so much to learn about vulnerability and blocks to work through to allow it more in myself. Then I feel, I will also learn more about being strong in the true sense, strong enough, courageous enough to feel, to feel my emotions, to feel my Self and awaken all my senses, and start waking up to truly living again. It is in there, because God made us that way. She didn’t create robots after all, she created living, breathing, dancing, singing, creating, thinking and most of all, uniquely of all, emotional beings: all that makes us human.

The ability, the desire to feel all of our emotions all of the time is humility. Humility allows vulnerability to be present and allows us to move those negative emotions out of us and let in the new, more joyful ones in. Our current definition of strong for me is rigidity and denial: a painful holding on: the inhale. Vulnerability is softening, allowing, surrender: the doorway to more truth, joy and freedom: the exhale. Sighing…

“You’ve got to learn how to fall, before you can learn how to fly.” (from the film).

@Maxine Bell 2017

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT…ROBBY

Posted on by under abandonment, addictions, Divine Truth, Emotional Injury, emotions, Expectations and Demands, Facade, fear, Gender Wounds, heal, humility, Hurt Self, REal self, Soul, soulmate, True Self, Uncategorized

me and robby edit 2

 

This is a topic I have been thinking and feeling about for a few weeks and I had a big fear about writing it and being “wrong” and there is still some fear there, but in the process of feeling about the topic of Robby, so to speak, I have come to some new awareness. Robby and I are currently apart. We have not lived together for over a year now. During that year we been apart, and then drifted back together, tried to make a go of it, but it has not worked.  It has been very confusing, sad, scary and at times frustrating. By October, Robby had had enough of the to-ing and fro-ing – and over the next few weeks it became apparent that we were not resolving anything and going round in circles, nothing was clear except that and so we are now just friends. However, for me, in my own pondering and feeling about all this, no matter what seems to happen, and unlike other relationships I have been in, there is something about Robby that I cannot shake off. When we are apart, I never feel quite separate from him …there is a pull in my heart in his direction that in many ways makes no sense when I look at what our relationship has been so far. So what is this strange and curious journey we have been on and in some ways are still on?

In the ‘About Me’ section of my blog I talk a little about my relationship with Robby and the feeling that we may be soulmates, but also that we don’t know that because we both have a large amount of emotional injuries that impacted our relationship and in fact any relationship we may try to have still. We have been on a roller coaster over the last 4 years a bit of good, but a fair bit of bad and ugly too.   Robby has given me permission to talk openly about our relationship and he has a strong belief in the power of my writing to help others and discover my true self along the way.

The issue of soulmates, sexuality and gender wounds is a massive one for all of us and it impacts our world greatly. Jesus and Mary teach about soulmates, but they have also experienced their journey together and so talk very much from personal experience. I will give a brief explanation of soulmates, as taught by Jesus and Mary, before talking more about Robby and I. I highly recommend listening to the Soulmate Relationship talks from 2010 on the Divine Truth website (or go to the Divine Truth YouTube channel and search under soul mate) for a fuller understanding of what I write. I also found the talks on Sex and Sexuality very helpful. There are also shorter talks on Partnerships on the Divine Truth FAQ channel.

Jesus teaches that God created billions of souls (her children), who before they incarnate on earth are not conscious of themselves as individuals and it is the incarnation process that allows us to discover our individuation. Each soul has a unique personality and quality that is a gift to our life. When the time is right to incarnate a soul is drawn to a parent in a law of attraction for the parents so that they can progress in love: the child reflecting back unhealed emotions, (that is the current situation in our state of error). Before it incarnates a soul splits in half and one half incarnates first to one set of parents. The second half incarnates sometime after, anytime from a short time up to about 20 years after.

God, our parent, has both male and female qualities. Each whole soul can have a mixture of male and female qualities to a varying degree. Most souls are fairly even so that one half will be born into a male body and one half into a female body (heterosexual). Some complete souls will be predominantly male and will split into two males bodies (homosexual) and some will be predominantly female and will split into two female bodies (lesbian).

Our soul represents the true us, containing such things as our personality, emotions, memories, intentions, passions and desires. Incarnation is the time we individualise and learn about love. When we incarnate we gain two bodies: a physical body and a spirit body that exist at the same time and are encompassed by our half of the soul. Currently, when we “die” our physical body dies, but we continue to live in our spirit body and we continue to live our lives as we have, making choices, experiencing and living. Spirit world contains many spheres, from the lowest to the celestials. We move up the spheres by progressing in love: some through the natural love path, reaching the sixth sphere – the highest sphere attainable through that path. Others choose the Divine Love Path and can pass into the celestial spheres, of which, there are currently 36, but development there is infinite so there may be more in the future.

During our life on earth we can all meet and be with our soulmate. However, because our current soul condition on the earth is nearly all equivalent to the first sphere because we have so many emotional injuries we may never meet our soulmate whilst on earth, or we do and don’t recognise them and/or reject them or sometimes we could be married to them and not know they are our soulmate and in fact still have a very co-dependent addictive relationship: so we are in a relationship with them, but it is a damaging one, on a soul level and is not really a soulmate relationship. As I understand it, being in a soulmate relationship requires the main qualities needed on the Divine Love Path (also called The Way of God’s Love): truth, love and humility from God’s perspective as well as desire to progress in love from each half of the soul. In the end, if one half of a soul progresses to a high state of love the other half will automatically be drawn to them.

Currently, on earth, we are not taught about soulmates or it is told incorrectly as it was to me through the Twin Flame teachings, so we grow up not even aware we have one soulmate, one perfectly made mate, just for us: one of God’s gifts to us. Our soulmate will have similar personality traits and in their progression the same main desires and passions. If the soulmate halves choose the Divine Love Path and get beyond the 7th sphere they can continue to progress to the 36th sphere and join again in Soul Union. This is what Mary and Jesus have done and is the only state that allowed them to choose to reincarnate. I don’t think words can convey the state of bliss that must be and it is not something I feel qualified to comment on. The Robert James Lee books and the Padgett messages give some idea of what it is like in the celestial spheres as well as the power of the soulmate relationship. (See the ‘Extra’ section on my website).

soulmate

So where am I? I can only give the perspective from my current viewpoint, but I do feel that all the information given by Jesus and Mary is correct. It just makes sense to me. It is clear and loving. God created us to innately seek two things: God and our soulmate so we all have this ember burning in us somewhere and many of us have memories of feeling this longing, for the One. These days it is often decorated in Hollywood and Mills & Boon ideas of romance: we meet, we know, we seek, we find and once we really decide then that’s it – happiness with little or no problems: remember that final screen kiss which silently promises all?  But we all know from experience it is not that simple and in fact there are more songs and more movies about the loss of relationship than about successful true love. I have come to the truth that with my experience of “love” from my environment as a child, I do not know much, if anything, about real love: love that is unconditionally without demands or expectations, that just exists and lives regardless. We believe we have it for our children, but as a parent, I do not always unconditionally love my son. When I am tired, angry, afraid I do not love him regardless. I do not have that level of development. I want to, but I do not and I know I have little, if any memory, so far of being unconditionally loved as a child, so what do I know of it?

I decided it is better to start from the truth I know so little and try to discover the truth, because the reason I currently struggle to love or to receive love is because the “love “ I have experienced has been very conditional. This is true for many of us, including Robby. He does not remember being loved at all. His father was strict and emotionally distant and his mother was so wrapped up in her own woes and anger at men she could not love as a mother should. They provided a secure physical home and food and clothes, but no affection, only rules and regulations and harshness.

My mother’s emotional injuries mean that she was such a wounded child she could not give us love, but in fact demanded through projections that we love her, make her feel better and provide her with things that no child should have to. As the eldest, I particularly felt this: my mother’s neediness and instability. I felt like her emotional husband and carer/parent.  My father left when I was about 4 or 5 and I had two stepfathers all of whom I felt rejected by in various ways. There was domestic violence, alcoholism and day to day drama. Where were lessons in love in any of this?

During my adult life I had relationships of course. The first serious one was just like my father: irresponsible, chauvinistic and at times frightening. After that I has boyfriend the complete opposite: passive, but still wanting looking after and I did it because I had looked after my mother and I knew nothing else. I had a few brief affairs that were painful and finally a more caring relationship, but we were more friends than lovers. Following this was a “big connection” that was just a highly addictive and damaging relationship. (Not coincidental during my interest in New Age ideas that encourage and feed this “I just felt this amazing connection” stuff). By the time Robby had come into my life I really did not want a relationship. In fact I told God I would wait as many years as it needed until I found my soulmate, as that was the only one I wanted. I had the desire, but it was a desire, coming from pain and disappointment and fear of more pain and disappointment, though I don’t think I knew that at the time.

I was working as a healer and doing readings in Glastonbury when Robby and I met. I had just come across Divine Truth, but was still uncertain and still trying to understand why the “big connection” had come crashing round my ears and was still working as healer/ card reader. Robby came thundering into my little room asking for a reading and I remember this feeling of feeling slightly knocked sideways by his presence. I composed myself enough to do a reading and found him to be unusually honest about himself. For him, he had a relationship at the time that was coming to an end, and he had had a feeling, and told her so, that his soulmate was nearby, without having a clue what he was saying.  But over the next few weeks, he used to pop in to say hi and we became friends.

During that summer we bumped into each other sometimes and one day he came on a trip with a Dutch friend down to Tintagel. Robby is Flemish so they could chat in Dutch. We had a great day with her and my son and I was touched by Robby’s playfulness. I ran into the sea and Robby joined me and I remember this point when he came towards me, didn’t touch me, but I felt something. Only I was aware of it, but it frightened me and I pushed it aside. There had been other times before that when he would text me, intuitively knowing when something was up and when I saw him, he began to disturb my equilibrium, which I kept trying to ignore and I still like his company.

Then one day I had been to see a friend at the Ashram and afterwards I had a strong urge to go to the orchard behind Glastonbury Tor. All the way there, I kept hearing Robby’s name, “Robby, Robby, Robby,” again and again. Unbeknownst to me he was sitting in that orchard telling God he was ready for his soulmate. A few minutes later I suddenly appeared. He didn’t tell me at that time about his prayer, but we sat together. I did not feel relaxed, (my equilibrium blown again) and he touched my shoulders at one point and it made me really nervous. Nothing was said between us, but I could not shake the feeling that something was going on.

As friends, we had made a deal of honesty right from the start, so after a couple of days of feeling this, I decided I needed to be honest and confront what I felt was happening. I knocked on the door of the caravan where he was staying and asked him if he felt something was happening. He honestly said he didn’t know. However, something did change and we arranged to meet for a coffee the next day before I drove off to a friend’s wedding for a few days. By that time, Robby was often sensing me and he knew before I arrived back a few days later that I was about to appear and I did. This sort of thing continues until today.

For two weeks we had a wonderful time and then he lost his accommodation. Without a doubt I suggested he move in. Not normally what I do, but it felt right. We were big into “signs “ then and numerology and we took the he “sign” of a rainbow and the number 2222 appearing, as well as a love song on the radio as signs this was the right thing. Robby moved in and I think we had another couple weeks of a honeymoon period and then the shit started to hit the fan, so to speak.

Robby’s anger and the issues from his previous relationship with an alcoholic, my sexual issues from my previous relationship – both related to deeper causal emotions. Lots of things got triggered. We made attempts to understand, feel it, but we weren’t very good at the feeling part – still aren’t. We were both heavily suppressed as children and so allowing too much emotion terrifies us. Over time we settled into a pattern, which actually became a heavily co-dependent relationship. So regardless of being soulmates, or not, we not really loving each other. Co-dependence is a bartering system and is never loving and in fact degrades our soul. If we are soulmates, that of course, impacts our whole soul.

One of our big co-dependent emotions was Robby wanted to be rescued and I was addicted to rescuing. Robby’s desire to be rescued created neediness in him, and was part of low self worth and not feeling loved. It meant he often projected a lot of fear.  My rescuing was something I have been doing since a child to my own detriment, but I would say in later years has also become part of my horrible control addiction. For me, control feels like security, but it is an unloving and ugly addiction, creating a lot of angry projections.

As you can imagine, this is not the making of an open and passionate relationship. We also, like most, have many gender wounds: layers of anger and hurt. There was and still is so much “Stuff” in the way it is a miracle we are still even friends. But we are and when we decided to try and break that co-dependence things improved individually. Robby learnt to stand on his own two feet more and I felt less drained and demanded of. We have been at least trying to feel what is really loving in some areas.

The other thing we do trigger some deep emotions in each other. For instance, I trigger a lot of Robby’s injuries about his mother. He struggles to see me emotional and I have let him shut me down many times (something I am also used to letting happen and choose to). His mother was constantly sad and crying. He triggers lots of things in me: anger at men, hurt over being used for what I can give rather than whom I am and many things. These triggers are a gift if we have humility – the willingness to feel all of our emotions, but I have not been good at that, though I am getting better in some areas.

But all I know is right now, I look at Robby and I have such compassion for his injuries. I see and feel his struggles – sometimes more than I feel my own. I see both of us blundering along and have compassion and understanding that right now to be intimate is almost impossible until we heal more, but mostly until we have a real desire to be humble in relationships, a real desire for complete truth and a real desire to learn about love, to love and be loved. John Bradshaw, in his book, Homecoming, talks about when we have unmet needs as a child, when we are not validated and accepted and loved for who we truly are, we lose our authentic self, we create a facade and become what our parents and others want us to be. We do it to survive as a child and by the time we are adults we forget and continue with our facade, which grows ever stronger as we continue to live in our hurt. So how can we be intimate, be our true selves with someone when we don’t have a clue who that is. He says it is impossible to be intimate if we have no sense of self. That makes sense in my life and my relationships. Neither Robby nor I have much sense of self.

For me, the other big emotion is abandonment. When Robby recently said he felt open to a relationship with someone else so that he could experience something more loving, I felt numb. I am disassociated, but when I let some feeling come, inside I felt “Well I expect it, they all leave; I will never be the one to be the one that wows them – I am just not enough. I don’t blame them, I am just not lovable. No one will love me forever and I am not surprised.”  My wounded child is so hurt she believes it, I believe – emotionally. That is the grief that I am afraid off – it seems so overwhelming still. But there it is.

Normally, through all the difficulties I would have totally given up and not been too bothered about seeing that partner again. But with Robby it is different. The truth is I have some big emotions, a huge amount of fear that is even preventing any desire for a relationship – until I think about Robby. I don’t feel I want to go back to what we had – there was much wrong in how we were doing things. And sometimes, I look at other men, and I find them attractive and I know Robby has felt the same with women. Yet now even, when I do, I often think, “oh but that’s not Robby.” I know I have a ton of stuff to heal and a lot to learn about being loving in a relationship and still a lot of anger, fear and sadness about men to release. That will remain as such, until it doesn’t, but if I try to truly imagine being with someone else, I can’t. I also, don’t know how it could work with Robby, but I can’t break this feeling that he is somehow part of me.

Only time and my willingness to heal my emotions will reveal the truth of him being my soulmate or not, but in the meantime here is the punch line….

Quite separately, Robby got offered a new job and took it. I applied for a new job and took it. It turns out we are now working for the SAME team and work together every day! It is proving hard to get rid of each other… lol!

So watch this space….

THERE IS ALWAYS A GIFT OF LOVE

Posted on by under addictions, Disability, Emotional Injury, God's Love

gift-box

This summer has been extremely busy for me. I have been working and selling and packing up my bits to move to a smaller – and more importantly cheaper place to live. But mostly, I have had the task of helping my son set up his new life following his graduation from college where he achieved an NVQ in Hospitality as well as a number of other qualifications and certificates. He has worked hard for three years at the most progressive college in the UK, as far as I can see: Foxes Academy.

I drove round hundreds of miles to check out different colleges, but nothing stood out like Foxes and when we visited I got that feeling right in my gut that lets me know: this is it! This is the place! (Or the person or the thing to do) When it comes to my gut feelings about Ben it has always worked out.  I have fought many a professional, found my voice on behalf of him many, many times and followed my gut, listened to my heart, had faith and quietened the fears created by professional opinion and “realism.”

I have spoken up on his behalf much better than I have for myself. I have discovered a strong assertiveness and determination with regards to helping him create a meaningful and happy life more than I have for myself.  On reflection, this is an error, as in God’s eyes I am no less important than Ben; in God’s eye’s I am equally loved and equally have the right to a happy and meaningful life. Intellectually I get that; emotionally I have yet to. But that will come – when the error is released.

In the meantime, Ben has not had the ability to speak up as he would have needed to or access to the right information or understanding to fight for his own needs because Ben has Down’s syndrome.  He has had to grow and learn and experience in a body and brain messed up by an extra chromosome – well that is the physical cause.  The emotional and soul based cause is multi-generational, including myself and his father: error based emotions eventually impacting the physical world so much as to “disable” a potential healthy human body, which in turn impacts the soul. Of course we have the potential to help our children to heal by correcting the emotional error and false beliefs in ourselves.

However, I did want to talk too much about Ben’s dis-ability, but rather his capability. I am not trying to brush over the struggles and pains of having a disability or of being a parent, but this summer, I have just felt the beauty in Ben, the silver lining, the way God uses every situation to Love –  and I wanted to share it. I may have been Ben’s voice many times; I may have drudged my way through a ton of paperwork, phone calls and meetings to get basic rights for him whilst ignoring the doctor’s so-called predictions of what he wouldn’t be able to do, but in the end it has been Ben who has done it.

The truth is Ben has proven them wrong many times: crashing through their thinly disguised pessimism. The truth is Ben has a soul based knowing at times uninhibited by fears of looking silly or sounding ridiculous. The truth is he like many people with learning disabilities, smash through our complicated thinking with a simple, heart-felt answer to the big questions about life and love. The truth is I may have helped Ben at times, but he has helped me and others in deeper, more meaningful ways ten-fold over.

What I find amazing is that even though it is human error and arrogance that has caused these problems, a gift has been created for us and in this gift is another demonstration of Love – the love of God: pure, simple and powerful.  This is what I want to demonstrate today.

For my son it is not an easy at times: he is frustrated he cannot speak clearly and be understood easily. He has limits on his intelligence that mean he cannot just go out in the world independently – he has to rely on the help of others. His dreams are restricted compared to others of the same age.  For instant, he cannot just hop on a plane to Japan if he wishes; he cannot go to the bank and sort out a mortgage.

In our materialistic, economy-based Western world he is unlikely to be seen as a success because he is unable to earn lots of money to plough back into the money market, or become a celebrity, or get a degree in Astro-physics and design a rocket to Mars. We have encountered people who ask what a person like Ben can contribute to society. Are they just not a drain on the economy? (This included a cardiologist we once met in a famous London hospital!).

There are two reasons this is both arrogant and ignorant. Firstly, Ben did not choose this. He did not choose to be born in this body; he did not choose to have a learning disability or a heart defect or poor eyesight or poor speech.  It is not his fault. Ben has to try to survive against the odds in many ways and has no choice, but to need help. He is part of the most vulnerable in society – not by choice, not by harming himself or others, but just by being born as he is.

Secondly, not realising what Ben and people like contribute is to really lose touch with what being human is or created to be.  To value only the material, the physical, the monetary is empty: a house built on sand.  Ben demonstrates every day his humanity, his love, his openness, his free spirit. He is as capable of being inhibited by external forces; including me of course as any person is, but mostly, I have tried to allow him to just be him: loving, cheeky, fun, kind and brave.

Ben demonstrates to me how to let love flow through you, he reminded me how to be silly again. He taught me spontaneity, living in the moment, how to be free in that moment. I let go a bit with him. I happily would sing out loud on my way down and around the shops with him in his buggy. We would make up songs and rhymes to teach him colours, numbers, shapes, animals. I sang “Chitty, chitty, bang, bang” for hours and hours.

He gave me a chance to love freely. My heart skipped a beat to watch him sleep, to wonder at this miracle of life that lay before me. When he was born, it was traumatic – discovering he had Down’s syndrome. It was traumatic that first year before the holes in his heart were repaired.  But I always loved him from the womb all the way through. My heart ached, not knowing what he or we were going to go through, but I knew he was innocent and he needed care. I was a single parent, for most of the first ten years. It was tough at times: I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know how to love myself, so loving someone else wasn’t always possible.

I would struggle, but then the magic would happen. A trip to the supermarket became a dance down the aisles or me running about picking up clothes he was trying to remove. Nothing was “normal” and yet it felt more alive than normal. He walked three years earlier than they predicted: he was out of nappies three years earlier than they predicted. He loved to dance and sing. We had our own secret sign for music. He walked further than they said he would. He was incredibly fit following his surgery; he never got fat and he never had mucus and the hearing loss they predicted.

He was and is a near- fearless climber, loves to free-run, break dance and can drum for hours.  He learns the drums by listening to music over and over, repeating it many times until he knows it. He can recognise a song from the first two notes. He is a romantic and loves feeling “in love.”  He wants to marry one day. He is a stronger and braver swimmer than I and a good athlete.  He is incredibly perceptive about people and his reaction to someone says a lot.

Music, sports and food are his loves. When he eats he does not talk and will not talk with you. Instead, he sits and tastes passionately every mouthful. If he goes out for the day, the first thing he will tell you is what he had to eat.

At college he was challenged to go beyond any previous pre-conceptions of what an adult with a learning disability can do.  For years, post 16/18 education has been much the same old thing: life skills, gardening, craft and animal care, possibly a bit of catering. There was no particular goal except to teach some life skills and give them something to do for 3-5 years. Foxes have a different view: they are getting them ready to have a life – to live as independently as possible, to find meaningful work and interests and relationships, including love and sex relationships. Foxes are all about outcomes.

Since he left for college 3 years ago, I went on quite a journey within myself: a grieving and a lot of facing some harsh truths about my parenting.  I tried to be the parent I didn’t receive myself, but not having a clue I have made many mistakes.   When he left for college I spent a day sorting through the 5 boxes of paperwork from his years in education and the health system. It took over 3 hours to burn it and I cried over most of the papers I read through. I told myself I was letting go, but it took a bit longer than that and in truth, is ongoing.

The first two terms Ben did well, settled in, enjoyed his work and social life, but he also had some problems with a girlfriend who was controlling and bossy and was easily influenced by others. He came home for the holidays and we had some sticky moments. It took a while for the penny to drop, but I started to see that I was micro-managing too much – in fact trying to control his choices, as well as project demands at him.  At times he was aggressive with me and/or himself.  I was doing too much for him and expecting him to fulfil emotional “holes” I needed to fill myself. I started to see I was harming him and what I was calling love wasn’t.

Over the next few months I focused on “un-hooking”, watching out for my addictions with him and try to own the feelings and fears. It wasn’t all perfect, but goodness a change happened in him. At college, the penny dropped that he was there for himself, for his own aspirations and dreams. He started to do much better and cope much better with the challenges that came. Last year he was second outstanding learner and he has come out more mature, more confident and capable. He is bold and decisive and chose a new life, living with a friend, away from me, with support workers to help him. He was fully involved in interviewing and choosing his support workers and we are currently settling him into his new life.

I still have to watch myself, to step back. I encourage Ben to tell me when I am being to bossy or interfering, when he wants me to not be around or not to help. We are really working on a more honest relationship and he is speaking up more clearly and assertively. His courage is incredible and I am honoured to see this young man grow. He has such character, such a sense of fun and incredible love in him. He also shows a perception about life and talks about wanting to teach others how to have an open heart.

I feel stiff next to him. I can feel the walls around my heart built up from my injuries – from my childhood and what has happened since.  Yet I have this son – well God’s son, this soul in my guardianship demonstrating to me that opening is the way forward. He is lighter and freer than I and I long to feel that.

As parents of children with disabilities, the trauma of discovering your child is not quite what you thought, what you may have been through with them – through illness, or schools or other care needs creates a strong protectiveness.  We can feel them so vulnerable that our fears and unshed tears drive our actions, which we may think of as love, but isn’t always, especially as emerging adults. We can feel an internal pressure to make them feel okay, to feel better because we don’t want to feel vulnerable about them ourselves – somewhere inside we may know unconsciously we have some responsibility for what has happened. Whatever our feelings, and for their sakes, we need to own our emotions – our fears, our grief, our anger, feeling overwhelmed, exhausted –  we need to be brave and honest and unselfish.  Like any adult, they need room to breathe, to explore and to experiment. They need room to make mistakes and learn how to cope with that and to learn to live in a world they probably don’t really get, but one they can benefit from given the right help balanced with the right freedom to choose and live.

We must not patronise them, they are great teachers:

Ben’s bravery shows me I need to be braver.

Ben’s openness shows me the freedom in breaking down those walls around my heart.

Ben’s spontaneity and joy is there for my inner child to awaken again.

Ben’s pleasure in simple, everyday things demonstrates an unspoken gratitude and acceptance.

Ben is happy in his own skin, happy to say he is handsome, he is a dude, and he is a good dancer. He is not obsessed in judging his body as I have mine. He is just “this is me and this is okay.”

For Ben, life is now, in this moment – whether it is eating something delicious, doing a cartwheel, drumming to Muse, or singing along to Lazy Town. He is not wasting energy mentally fretting over yesterday or tomorrow. The only real time for him is now and therefore he gains more from the moment than I do.

Ben has compassion. He is not happy to see a man sleeping in a doorway, or a child screaming or a dog yelping. He “feels it in his heart” that something is not okay and he wants to change it – with Love and kindness.

Because of all this, Ben is closer to God than I at the moment. These qualities he demonstrates are qualities and attributes of God.  There is the gift: God appears in many ways, through many people and the way they live their lives. Even in what can seem a tragedy to many, God finds ways to express and demonstrate Love, to help us see where we can improve, where we can be more honest and reflective, to create change.

I don’t believe we have to have a world with people with Down’s syndrome or other disabilities to demonstrate all these qualities or to bring out these qualities in ourselves. This is unloving as having a disability is not easy and I have seen grief and confusion in Ben at being “different,” but until we learn we have a choice in all these things, until we turn to God more and our own spirituality and soul, we can be good guardians to these brothers and sisters, whose worth is equal to our own. They often help us open our heart, have more compassion and understanding.

They can give us a taste of our Father, a doorway to heaven, by their own demonstration of love, fun and kindness, but also by what they bring out in us: patience, tolerance, humour, love, compassion and kindness.

In many ways, Ben is a man and in many ways he is Peter Pan – never growing up.  But I sense none of us really understand what being grown up is. We live in a world of injured souls, whose need to control their environment and “manage” life is seen as being an adult.  So in this way, Ben helps me question my own “adulthood”, my addiction to control, to avoid fear, what true responsibility is.

Maybe the Peter Pan’s of this world remind us of what Jesus said,   “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.”

(Matthew 19:14)

So thank you Ben, and all the “Ben’s” out there. In adversity, you shine, with no self-pity. In a controlled world obsessed with what others think, you dance and sing, no matter what; you are freer. In a world full of competitiveness and hierarchy you only see equality; no man lesser than yourself. And most importantly, in a harsh world – you love.

love Maxine “mum”

mj-ben

Warts and All

Posted on by under addictions, cancer, denial, Divine Truth, emotions, Facade, heal, resistance, The Three Selves, Uncategorized

I think this has been one of the most difficult posts for me to do and it happened almost accidentally. About two weeks ago, some emotions came up ( hurray!) and some realisations about my cancer, the surgery and most importantly my facade and my addictions: the part of me that exists to avoid feeling the fear, sadness, grief and other emotions: it does not want the hurt self to express itself. It is also about how incredibly good we are at self deception – how good I have been and how resistive we can be even when faced with a life-threatening disease. Crazy hey? Maybe, but true, especially when fear is your God, like it has been for me, for a very long time.

We all have a Facade Self (see my blog about this called “In Search of the Real Self: Cracking the Shell” from December 1, 2014) . It is initially caused by our parents, when they shut down our real self, by suppressing our emotions in some way and it continues to develop every time we don’t feel an emotion. As a child the Facade can play the role of protector, as we create a persona our parents are happy with and where we can avoid punishment or harm. We have created many facades to deal with many situations. As an adult we don’t need to continue with this but we do.  The truth is it is not a very nice creature: it is untruthful, arrogant, condescending, arrogant, addictive, insensitive, unemotional, irresponsible,  resistive and so forth. ( Jesus gives a great talk on this – I will put a link below).

So I had some realisations and I tried to journal them. I journal a lot. I always have done since I was a child, but now I do it more often and it helps me keep track of what I am learning, truths and untruths, memorable events and I now even jot down points from the talks I listen to that are very relevant to me. It can also be cathartic and enlightening because as you write you can discover things you didn’t realise before or express emotions through writing. I have written a few “letters” to God and others this way.

But that night, I could write – my hand froze, but I wanted to express myself, I wanted to talk. So I switched on my PC and made a video. It was just for me at the time, though as you will see I address to an unknown audience too. I even forget to mention my name until the very end! It is very raw and very rough. If you choose to watch it you will need you volume up maximum as I was only talking into the laptop microphone. Also, hang on in there past the first 10 minutes or so as I waffle, but I find my way a bit more as I go on. There was no plan, or no structure at the time, just feelings and thoughts. I have sat with it for the last two weeks to make sure I didn’t want to publish this in an emotional addiction of some sort. I don’t think I am, but I have been wrong about that before. But that is part of the journey – being prepared to be wrong and feeling fears, but not living in them and this is also what publishing this video is about. (It is an hour long )

The good thing is, these last few weeks have been a turning point for me and this video and what was going on for me at the time is part of it. Watching the video back has also been a useful tool and I hope it will help you as well – that is my intention in posting it. I know some of you who read my blog have been listening to Divine Truth for a few years like I have, and have been stuck and resistive to personal truth like I have. I believe my soul darkened during this time and now I finally have a desire to stop this, to choose love and to start to switch from fear as my God to the God that loves me and wants the real me to really live and be happy. So I have started doing a number of things to develop my will to love and to live more truthfully. It is a tiny start, but a start – but that is another blog, another time.

With love, Maxine.

 

 

 

The Emotional Truth About Cancer

Posted on by under addictions, cancer, Divine Truth, emotions, Expectations and Demands, Facade, fear, God, heal, Uncategorized

heavy-burden

“I have come to believe that cancer is the physical metaphor for the extreme need to grow [in  love] ”

 Dr Lewis Thomasgk . My add in is in brackets.

I have found this the most difficult blog to write so far. I have written and re-written and re-written a number of times. The reason is, I am writing about having cancer and it has brought up fears just in the idea of writing. Others do this everyday, but in my fears, I over analyse sometimes (sometimes? Alot!), but also I am trying to discover the truth in everything I do so I have been feeling a number of things about why I have struggled to write this particular post:

  1. I am afraid of other’s peoples emotions about me having cancer.
  2. I am afraid of other people’s judgement about me writing about my cancer.
  3. I am judging my own desire to write – that it may be narcissistic, self-absorbed.
  4. I am afraid of exposing myself too much, the stuff I view as “bad” as I have an emotional addiction to being a “good girl” and a false belief that if I am not perfect I will not be loved.
  5. I am afraid of the opinions and feelings of two people I hugely respect, Mary and Jesus, thinking bad of me in some way. I know intellectually they do not judge me, but love me and it is my injured self that projects my “parent” stuff at them – creating a huge fear of disapproval, judgement and punishment. I don’t even know if they read my blog anyway.

The truth is I can not guarantee it isn’t self absorbed or addictive in some way. I still have a lot of error in me in understanding what the truth is. However, there is also the desire to share to help others ( which could also be an addiction, by the way). But whatever is going on, because of the fear I decided to write and just feel those emotions. especially as fear is an emotion I struggle hugely with.

When I first started to write ideas for this blog a few weeks ago, I started going into lots of detail about what I was doing for myself, physically, to heal my cancer and also explain the positive and negatives of different medical approaches: conventional vs alternative or mix of both. I then stuck a bit about emotions on the end, but as time has gone on I realise this is not the information I need to share. There is a ton of stuff in books, videos and websites on treatments for cancer: I have accessed a number myself, but what there is hardly anything about is the true cause of cancer and what the most important thing we need to do, to heal. This also applies to any illness, not just cancer.

Before, I came across Divine truth teaching I already had the view that emotions are the cause of our illnesses and I tested this out when I had an issues with my kidneys in 2010. I used more of a technique, that Brandon Bay used and wrote about in her book “The Journey.” A friend helped me “talk” to my kidney to find the cause, which of course was an emotion, which I attempted to feel. Somehow I did enough and I recovered and didn’t need to go back to the hospital again. Though I still feel there is much more to feel in that area. I had tried Louise Hay, but even though I thought some of the causes made sense I didn’t feel the affirmations were enough. I just didn’t resonate with talking myself out of my disease.

So, when I heard Jesus say that there is an emotional cause for every illness and every accident I accepted that and so I accept that my cancer has an emotional cause. However, I am also aware I haven’t always treat my body lovingly, in fact terribly at times, and I have had food addictions since I was about 10. They are not as acute or harsh as they were years ago, but they are still there. I still use food to suppress my emotions. I also, feel that I have some disassociation with my physical body through various traumas and I notice that I refer to my body parts as “she”, as though I am not part of them. For instance, my reaction to my diagnosis included feelings towards my cervix and uterus – I felt sorry for what she had been and was going through. I was diagnosed at the beginning of September with cervical cancer and it took me three months to realise what I was doing and the day I changed the words to, “I have been through a lot,” did I feel grief come up. From that, came the desire to be as loving to my body as I can be through this process.

After a bit of research I decided to treat my cancer naturally. The conventional treatment was a radical hysterectomy where they even remove the top of your vagina. I am in the earlier stages of the disease and to me this seemed – well radical! I also took advice from intergrative medical practitioners, so as not to be irresponsible and it does include nutrition and other therapies. What I now realise is that my reasons for not wanting surgery are very mixed. Yes, I knew there was an emotional cause, but for someone, like myself who is so suppressed and terrified of most my emotions, not having surgery certainly seemed risky. But, I thought I could at least give myself some time to try. I also, had fears in me about handing myself over to the mercy of the doctors – well-meaning as they may be, I didn’t want to be powerlessness. This is a particular fear in myself, and many women. I have experienced that many times in my life, as a woman and had some very negative sexual experiences, including being raped when my drink was spiked. So maybe saying a fear is underplaying what I feel is really there – terror. From wanting to avoid feeling powerlessness, I wanted control, but this also led to a feeling of rebelliousness: “You can’t have me!” So I know many have said I am very brave to not have conventional treatment, but I don’t feel it is necessarily brave what I am doing, but driven by other emotions – some of which I have identified, some I have not.

At the start, I did have a lot of fear and I even had to feel that maybe I wanted to die. I have felt despair a lot in my life and I noticed a part of me really felt that maybe going to spirit world would be easier. Fortunately, through Divine Truth teaching, I know that that is madness and we do not escape what we need to heal by passing to spirit world and in fact if we pass in a poor condition, with lots of addictions, it is very challenging. God does not allow us to run away from the truth, even when we refuse to acknowledge it. He is always trying to bring us home to Love. So I looked at my life and I felt some sadness that I had not as yet truly lived because of the emotional damage I am still holding onto. Enough damage to have caused cancer, to threaten my life. My parents were the original cause, but boy oh boy I have piled huge amounts on top of that with my own choices that haven’t been loving. I have treated myself very, very badly and hurt many others from my wounded state. It is difficult for us to admit what we have done that hurt others and we are not aware that we are doing most of it, as our view of love is so twisted and incorrect.

When I first heard Jesus use the word ‘sin’ I recoiled as it triggered my experiences with religion. I belonged to a baptist church when I was 17/18 years old and they preached what sinners we were and hell and damnation and God being angry with us. This so connected in what I received from my parents: anger, disapproval, not feeling good enough, being a really bad person that in the end I couldn’t stand the church any more. I was already in a state of no self worth and self punishment so felt I didn’t need anymore. Having recognised what triggered me, in the end, I understand that we do sin – we do make unloving choices, action and thoughts all the time. It doesn’t define us though and that is where Jesus’ true teachings, that he is sharing again now, differ. He encourages us to face the truth of our sin – to awaken to it – but we need to do this without judgement, to really feel the truth and feel sorry for what we have done ( repentance). But he also teaches that we are all God’s children, deeply loved, are the pinnacle of God’s creation and we have the power to change things in every moment. So I am less afraid of the word sin now and less afraid to look at my own sins. How can we change things we don’t even admit are there. The truth will set us free.

But that is a whole big topic, told better, by Jesus and Mary, than myself. Not long after my diagnosis I wrote to Jesus and Mary for some feedback and they kindly sent me some information about cancer they had put together ready for some FAQs they are making about physical illness. The first day I read it and shoved it under a book – didn’t want to hear it. A week later, I picked it up again and tried to absorb what they had said. When I opened to it I could feel what they said was the truth. However, I went into a complete shut down about the specific emotions for about 2 months or so. I had become temporarily homeless, as Robby and I decided to not live together and my finances were terrible. It all happened at once and became my excuse to avoid those emotions. I felt a few other things, but I basically went into survival mode. I did the physical things I needed to do, was kindly offered a room to stay in, but just tried to survive.

I realise now, that is how I have lived a lot of my life and always afraid that my whole world was going to crumble. This is what I learnt from my childhood: survival, but not living. It was the chaos and uncertainity of my childhood that leads to my huge addiction to control everything in my life, especially my emotions. Survival mode helped when I was a child, but has created a large amount of pain in my adult life. Noticing this has increased my desire to live now – to really live, to learn what that means and what really loving means. When I felt this I decided I needed help to unlock myself. I was praying to God sometimes, but my will to feel was not and is not strong enough because of my fears. Once I admitted I needed help I was looked for a therapist who had experience with trauma and I found one really quickly then. So finally, I was beginning to be ready to deal with some emotions in a currently patchy way. I only hit the surface a lot of the time, but I have experienced some deeper feelings – often in the middle of night – when I am alone and not distracted by anything else. ( Distraction is a big addiction of mine).

I have since re-read a number of times what Jesus and Mary wrote to me explaining that those of us with cancer are very blocked to personal truth. To block that we create many addictions and we want those addictions met. We do not understand that to create cancer it means that over a long period of time we have been very out of harmony with God’s Laws of Love: love of self and love of others. We also, often continue in those unloving ways which means we are not taking responsibility for the cancer in us. In fact, we are willing to create a self-attacking life threatening illness in order to get our addictions met – which indicates a lot of anger in the adult with cancer. We have a lot of demands that everyone else responds to those demands and the our cancer. We give to others often to get something back, but can continue to believe we are altruistic when we are not. Also, we do not understand that spirits are heavily involved in the disease due to our co-dependent demands and addictions with others.

Depending on your own response to these words, you may feel a bit like I did when I read them it is pretty harsh. The truth is that sometimes the truth can feel harsh. But the truth is the truth whether we like that truth or not and Jesus and Mary have been dealing with truth for 2000yrs: I have not. They know about real Love and I do not. They are more progressed in love than I am and so I need to listen. I mentioned above, how unlovingly I have treated my body for instance and that is just one group of unloving actions in me. What I haven’t wanted to know, until lately, is how my actions and thoughts have affected others. I have acted out of my hurt and hurt others, I have done a million things to avoid feeling emotions of anger, fear, terror. Even that is unloving to myself and to others because I am not being truthful. I am wearing a facade of “being ok,” of “being good” or whatever: we wear a thousand masks I sometimes feel. The cause stems from my childhood, but I have continued to make unloving choices. I have ignored, feelings inside that helped me know what was wrong and I have put so much energy in trying to control everything in order to “feel safe” and avoid my fears.

Inside I am terrified I am unlovable, that everyone will abandon me, that I am as terrible a person as I was told by my mother. But when those feelings start to surface the fear of how big they are leads me to do anything not to feel them and these become addictions and facades. Things like distracting myself with everyday tasks, eating, facebook, calling a friend – these are the easy ones to name. They are addictions every time I use them to avoid what I really feel, every time I lie to myself and others. This suppression shrinks my soul; when my soul is full of error and negative feelings there is not enough room for the good feelings – not the pretend I am happy feelings – I mean truly happy from deep within. My control addiction is massive – I try to control my environment, my  home, myself and those around me. I am demanding all sorts of things in my addictive, suppressed state: “save me, save me;” “Please make me feel loved, valuable, worthy etc;””I don’t want to feel my fear, stop me feeling my fear” – and many more. And if someone doesn’t meet that demand then I get angry. We all get angry when an addiction isn’t met – whether it’s a physical or emotional addiction and that is very unloving. So over the years I have suppressed and suppressed and done everything in power to maintain this control over my emotions so I didn’t have to feel afraid and vulnerable and sad. In the process I have created a lot of damage to myself and to others and it now culminates in cancer. Our body is our last wake up call. There have been many wake up calls – God sends them out all the time through our law of attraction – either a good law of attraction letting us know we healed the error in us or a law of attraction letting us know we still have something to heal. The damage seeps from our soul, to our spirit body and then to our physical body. And that is what my cancer is a massive wake up call or as the quote above states… “physical metaphor for the extreme need to grow [in  love]. “

Cervical cancer is caused by low sexual self worth. Jesus says it is suppressed anger with the male’s desire for sexual intimacy without emotional intimacy, or your own demand for emotional intimacy without sexual intimacy. It includes the willingness to sacrifice self by pandering to men sexually or emotionally rather than emotionally resolve the situation internally. It also includes an emotional unwillingness to engage sexually, but still physically engaging in order to avoid men’s disapproval or to obtain your own sexual satisfaction.

I am  not sure at what age my sexual injuries started. I remember something strange when I was a girl – it a feeling I had that something that just happened wasn’t okay and my mother’s views on sex and the body did not help. As I said above, I experienced some very unpleasant things sexually and I handed my will over, like many women do, so many times. I had sex when I didn’t want to, with people I didn’t want to and I got forced into things I didn’t want to and I did things I didn’t want to – to avoid the man’s disapproval and anger and because I didn’t have enough worth to say no. So from that I agree with everything Jesus has said: I wanted emotional intimacy when it wasn’t really available and I let men have sex with me without emotional intimacy and yes over time that made me mad and very sad. I did sacrifice myself and my true values in order to gain validation and approval and avoid anger and disapproval. I was also a hypocrite, demanding emotional intimacy when I was unwilling to give it myself. So I agree that I developed an angry demand that a partner should make me happy sexually, when I could not do that myself; that he be emotionally intimate while I was a closed book. I feel angry about the way women are treated as objects and bodies and I have a lot of shame about the things I have done and a lot of sadness about losing my innocence, and my self.

It is the anger that creates the cancer. If you look at how cancer tumours look, they are knotted, tight tissue, red, inflamed and nasty looking – in a way an image of anger. The underlying fear and grief is there too – the cause, but it is feeling and releasing of this anger that will heal my cancer. I do not find this easy AT ALL. I judge my anger as a bad emotion – so I hold it in. When I do try to express it, it can often whittle away again. I have managed some of it and when it happened I went straight into some grief which is good. But there is  more, I can feel that as I write. I am the Queen of Holding On so learning to let go, to jump from the plane, as Mary once described in her blog ( a great article on fear ) is part of my journey right now.

What I feel would help me most is to receive some of God’s Love – the most powerful healing force in the universe. So looking at why I block Her Love, why I prefer my addictions to Her Love and increasing my will to love are all required. I have been talking the talk of Divine Love for a while – looking at that narrow way and thinking that sure looks good, it makes sense, I can feel it in my soul, but looking is not moving and I need to move. The fact that I had to get cancer to start being more truthful is crazy really, but that is where I am at and I can’t say if I can do this or not. God knows I can and growing my faith in the Laws she made to help us is essential and having faith in myself, and for me my biggest block is my terror of overwhelming feelings.

But what I have learnt on this path is that sometimes you can think you know something, but when you do get to feel it, you were wrong. So some of what I write today may be true for me, but when I do progress I may discover I missed a lot of crap. But I am okay with that right now. I know very little, but what I do know is that intellectually I accept that releasing my emotions will help me and in fact I have some evidence in the few times I have hit something I feel so much better. But I am aware I like to hold onto my anger – it makes me feel strong and I don’t like feeling weak – or what I perceive as weakness. I am just afraid of letting go. The irony is when I soften I feel so much lighter and so much less tense: the rock becomes the river. This just goes to show it can take a while to re-educate our hurt selves, to build faith.

For me I carry a rucksack of heavily suppressed emotions, piled on top with addictions and then the accompanying spirits who are in co-dependence with me. It is pretty yuk! But I have a little faith that can change: a tiny seed, but a seed no less. One thing I never doubt is the truth in the spiritual path I have found. So yes, being honest about our emotions will start the cure for cancer and feeling them fully ( without hurting anyone) will cure it. If we remove the toxic emotions from our soul – it will seep through to our bodies and allow our physical body to rebalance and detoxify and heal itself – just as God designed.

At my recent check up, things were looking a little better. But if these events – these effects bring me closer to God, to my self and to my soul mate then that is what matters most. It truly does as they all lead to life, and love and joy. When I truly feel this I will feel anything, any time and any place and learn what to be fully human really is in all our softness.

With huge gratitude to Mary, Jesus and all those who take part in the videos that inspire me, challenge me, give me hope and keep me going.

With love

Maxine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE PRESENT MOMENT’S TRUTH

Posted on by under addictions, Divine Truth, Emotional Injury, emotions, Expectations and Demands, Facade, God's Love, God's Truth, Hurt Self, trauma

sibling-child-abuse

“Traumatic events, by definition, overwhelm our ability to cope. When the mind becomes flooded with emotion, a circuit breaker is thrown that allows us to survive the experience fairly intact, that is, without becoming psychotic or frying out one of the brain centers. The cost of this blown circuit is emotion frozen within the body. In other words, we often unconsciously stop feeling our trauma partway into it, like a movie that is still going after the sound has been turned off. We cannot heal until we move fully through that trauma, including all the feelings of the event.”
― Susan Pease Banitt, The Trauma Tool Kit: Healing PTSD from the Inside Out

The trauma stuff is difficult… very difficult.

Lately, I have been examining all areas of my life. God’s Law of Attraction has been powerfully indicating to me how very out of harmony with love and truth I have been living. My old habit and still only fading habit is to look at myself judgementally in this – but I am gradually encouraging myself in more compassion for myself. It is very gradual, but I want to alter the harshness and pointless judgement of everything I say and do: that old, old voice that whatever I do isn’t good enough. This voice goes way back to a very young age and runs very deep, but it does not mean it is the truth. It is only what I was led to believe and I constantly have to remind myself that God does not believe this of me, in fact she believes I am able to do so much and waits patiently while I re-educate myself in her truth that I am ” the most wondrous of her creations.” *  Besides, self-judgement and self blame is actually a way to avoid how powerless we feel, it cons us into thinking it is just a matter of control, of getting it “right”, then we won’t feel so bad. I notice that if I don’t judge myself, blame or shame myself I am left with a  gap of “What do I do now?”

I have a long way to go before I know this in my heart, God’s truth about myself, but I feel lately I resist this truth a bit less, letting it creep very slowly into my soul. I have made mistakes, I have completely misunderstood love and what is right or wrong. Lately, I find myself without a home, little money and a body that is suffering. When are bodies are sick, we have to know that we have been missing all the other signs that our lives, our souls are misaligned and lacking in love: love for ourselves and for others. We are disconnected from our real selves, living in darkness to a certain extent, denial of our own denial, suppressed, suffering, lacking in joy, identity and love. Maybe, this is too frank for some of you, but getting frank and honest with myself, I realise is the only way forward and some of it ain’t pretty and some of it is incredibly sad.

I feel I have nothing and yet I have everything. It is strange, surreal place to be and yet a place of some fear,but also wonder. When are arms are empty, they are ready to be filled. Yet to say my cup is empty is wrong, actually as lately, I have been blessed with incredible kindness from friends and strangers. I realised a few weeks ago that I keep everyone at a very long arm’s length. I walk around with a warning sign flashing “don’t come to too close, keep back, stop!” At the same time I get angry when other’s don’t seem to care, I project my frustrations out in a unspoken demand of ” make me feel better, come on, make me feel better – NOW!” This projected anger helps me avoid the fears and terror and grief that no-one, not one soul, not even God loves me: that I am totally alone, abandoned, hung out to dry, irredeemable and unloved. It helps me avoid that feeling of powerlessness again: I can’t control people or how they feel and I want to on some level so I feel safe. Over the years, I have done so many things to avoid feeling unloved and unsafe, created many physical and emotional addictions. I have been seething with anger, frozen with fear and all hidden ( or I would like to think so) behind my “nice girl” mask. This mask is about control, not letting rip, not expressing my anger – even when alone, not feeling my fear, not breaking into a the million pieces of grief that I sometimes feel rising in my throat.

So I have created a panic button which freezes me when I feel someone is getting too close. I don’t know how to receive love because my beliefs about love are that it is conditional and that if someone “loves” me they will want something from me, take from me, use or abuse me. But, not allowing myself to express my anger, means I just fire it out silently to those who get in the firing line: damaging myself and them. It’s yukky stuff. I have tried to rant or shout or scream when alone, but it doesn’t last long so I always gave up. Now I realise, I am just going to have to practice it, same with the other emotions, practice, desire, desire, desire. And don’t live in the fear! So I have been letting people in a little and received kindness and unexpected love. Instead of ducking out of that tea with a friend, I just go and try to deal with whatever comes up for me and have a desire to be more loving, less demanding.

With all this observing of myself and my habits, my constant freezing in certain situations and sometimes flight/fright reactions I realise what a state of stress and struggle I am constantly in: no wonder my body is sick right now. So now I have to admit, that I have a lot of trauma to release from myself and I need help. I pray to God, I talk to him, I try to talk more and more to him, but still have blocks. I am looking for a trauma therapist too and a dear friend has sent me a little online trauma course. I can feel my resistance. My intellect knows I need this, a bit of my heart is crying out for it, but my fear and resistance in going there still exists. Just writing about it causes my throat to constrict a little and some desire to run a million miles away.

However, I have been doing that for far too long. I am currently blessed to be staying with new friends in a cosy home, where I have a little room and shower room. I gave some of my furniture to a charity and the rest of my stuff is in storage. But I am in a new location, in a beautiful Devon town, surrounded by green hills, currently changing into the golds and reds  of autumn. I can walk out my door and be in the countryside within minutes, I can buy wonderful organic food and enjoy this friendly town, which is softer and gentler than where I was living only 2 weeks ago. To me this is a sign of my desire to be softer and gentler, to find God in this “green and pleasant land.”  For a while, I will nestle here and learn more about love: loving myself, loving others and loving God…trying to get to know the truth. I pray I can truly start to heal, to stop resisting, to stop being strong and trying to control everything.

I hope I can start to peel the layers of the onion to get to that trauma place. I can feel there are dark places I don’t want to go, memories I am afraid of, truth about my family that is difficult to bear, and truth about how in my own denial, my own survival techniques, I myself have been much more unloving that I have ever liked to admit. I may have been damaged as a child, but I have continued to damage myself dreadfully over the years in every area. I currently have a huge wake up call, God is knocking loudly on my door and for that I am grateful.

The root meaning of crisis is opportunity so for me my current crisis is an opportunity: a great act of love calling me to love more in every area. I can’t say I am aware of the purity/impurity of what I write: I just write, in the hope that we all stop denying what our lives are reflecting back at us. If we are in struggle, we are not facing the truth about something, we are not allowing our feelings to be present: it means we are resistant and fearful, not trusting what God is trying to show us.

How we get so afraid to feel? It is what makes us human, our ability to feel all range of emotions, to dance in the fire and swim in the waters of our feelings. We were meant to be a river and we became rocks. The rock may be long lasting, strong, tough, solid, but it can not create water. Whereas,  water can shape and alter the rock in shape and form. A rock is static, rarely moving from one place, restricted. Yet water, can move over any place, it can permeate and move through tiny places, or gush through huge ravines. It connects everything and so much life exists in it. Indeed, the human body is 70-80 percent water. Water is free, ever-changing, sparkling. I love water, whether it’s a hot shower, a wild river or the vast ocean, so it seems mad that I have chosen to be a rock for so long! A stubborn, self reliant rock! I thought it was the only way to be, the only way to survive, but all I chose was an existence, not a life, not living. So can I join the gushing river? I hope so, though my fears make me step into a gentle brook first, dipping my toes in.

God knows I could dive in, I just have to believe it myself.

I do believe that being more compassionate with myself will help me soften to the emotions I need to feel, including those layers of trauma. One of the first things in the online course I am asked to do is to sit everyday for a short period and feel my body. That is become of aware of the feelings and sensations in my body. When we have had trauma we disassociate from ourselves so much. I have lived with various physical pains for years and just become used to it, almost numb. When I did the body exercise yesterday, I became aware of hip pain, knew pain, discomfort in my lower back, thoracic spine and an awful pain in my shoulders and neck: a feeling of someone pulling down my shoulders, but it being so rigid in my neck it was very uncomfortable and stiff, then from that pains in my head. Also, I realised I wasn’t breathing  a lot of the time. So I am doing a lot of holding on and the pain in my body represents suppressed emotional pain. Reconnecting with my physical body and it’s pain may be the first step and I can see the logic in it so I shall persevere.

But what I realised too it is easy to be distracted by trying to solve things externally. Yes, I can eat healthily, I can go for walks, I can receive other treatments, but it is my willingness to “dive in” that will produce results. And in fact, I do want to do this with God, not on my own. My self reliance is like a cancer in my soul and it needs a lot of work: it needs humility, a whole ton of it. In biology, cancer cells are very good at tricking the bodies inflammatory responses so that the normal immune responses don’t attack the cancer cells. Well my self reliance is the same – it is very good at tricking me and telling me there is no other way, but to help yourself: it is arrogant and rigid and I need to remind myself that it is a very good trickest and I must desire to know the real damage that is being done and to want to change it, by becoming more God reliant and more self responsible. Self responsibility is not self reliance, by the way, it is more humble and willing to face truth. Self reliance will accept anything, including lies, in order to maintain being “right.”

When I was younger, this self reliance, this toughness, probably helped me survive, and so well that I have a belief that I can not do without it. At the moment, this feels like one of my biggest battles, my biggest belief system to break down, the biggest shell to crack. But if I do, then I feel I will allow myself to feel those terrors and traumas and stop putting on the “strong” facade. May the ice queen melt! May she find a space and scream and shout and shiver and cry! Self reliance is nothing more than a big, ugly rock that needs smashing into a thousand pieces!

I know I have jumped around a bit today – trauma to tantrums, rocks to water, self reliance to surrender. It kind of symbolises my own unravelling, and that’s ok.

The quote from above about being the “most wondrous of your creations” is from the prayer that Jesus wrote. It was changed into the biblical from of the Lord’s prayer, but this is the full, unedited version ( As on the divinetruth.com website). I love it. Some of the words challenged me when I first read it, but now I love it , even when my emotions struggle with it, it reveals much and it has the power to express everything I can’t always find the words for:

My Father, Who is in Heaven , I recognise that You are All Holy and Loving and Merciful, and that I am Your child, and not the subservient, sinful, and depraved creature that false teachers would have me believe.

I know that I am the greatest of Your creations, and the most wonderful of all Your Handiworks, and the object of Your Great Soul’s Love and Tenderest Care.

I know that Your Will is that I become at-one with You and partake of Your Great Love which You have bestowed upon me through Your Mercy and Desire that I become, in truth, Your child through Love, and not through the sacrifice and death of any of Your Creatures.

I pray that You will open up my soul to the inflowing of Your Love, and that then will come to me Your Holy Spirit to bring into my soul this, Your Divine Love, in great abundance, until my soul is transformed into the very essence of Yourself; and that there will come to me faith – such faith as will cause me to realize that I truly am your child and one with You in very substance, and not in image only.

Let me have such faith, as will cause me to know that You are my Father, and the bestower of every good and perfect gift, and that, only I myself, can prevent Your Love from changing me from the mortal to the immortal.

Let me never cease to realise that Your Love is waiting for each and all of us, and, that when I come to You, in faith and earnest aspiration, Your Love will never be withheld from me.

Keep me in the shadow of Your Love every hour and moment of my life, and help me to overcome all the temptations of the flesh, and the influence of the powers of the evil ones who so constantly surround me and endeavour to turn my thoughts away from You to the pleasures and allurements of this world.

I thank you for Your Love and the privilege of receiving it, and I believe that You are my Father – the Loving Father who smiles upon me in my weakness, and is always ready to help me and take me into Your Arms of Love.

I pray this with all the earnestness and sincere longings of my soul, and, trusting in Your Love, give You all the glory and honour and love that my finite soul can give.

AMEN

AMEN!

with love

Maxine

Itsy Bitsy Truth and Updates

Posted on by under addictions, Divine Truth, Facade, fear, soulmate

me and robby edit 2

I feel I want to be honest in where I am at right now and in my relationship with Robby, and with God. The journey of writing this blog is part of my own spiritual journey to know God, to know myself, which includes the other half of my soul: my soul mate. During this journey I have written in facade, in addiction and hopefully some truth. I still have emotions about being judged and disliked, of being attacked and hurt for not being “perfect.” But I have realised I have to face these fears and share as truthfully as I am able at this time, because I have a desire to share Divine Truth, to be in harmony with Love and to share my journey in the hope it invites some of you to try the experiment and seek God’s Way of Love, which I feel to be beautiful and unique in it’s power to change us and change this world. Most of the Divine Truth I share will come via Jesus and Mary, and any other “truth” is likely to be my personal truth. As you listen, question, feel and investigate for yourself. I suggest that all you need to do is to be open and bear with me as I try to express what is in my heart. If you want to know more ( and hear a much better explanation of what I am talking about) please go to divinetruth.com.

In the last few weeks I have suddenly realised that I am smiling a lot (its been a while) , with the feeling that I am blessed to have discovered what I have, since I first heard of AJ/Jesus, and what I continue to discover about the Way of God’s Love. And I smile, not at any special time, it is just in ordinary moments: when I am walking to work; putting out the rubbish; strolling round the shops buying vegetables; driving or the other day I was just sitting in a car wash after my car was in the flight path of a dozen seagulls. This was the third time in a week so it felt like an another attack. It was most certainly the law of attraction showing me something, but as I sat in the car wash, I was so grateful I knew about God’s law of attraction: this wonderful gift that constantly presents itself to show what we still need to heal and what is healed. I haven’t always liked it, sometimes I have screamed at it when it seemed painful or I just haven’t got what it was showing me. And to be honest even after I heard about it in one of the Divine Truth talks, I didn’t really take on board that paying attention to it would be really helpful! That is what happens when our brain hears something, but we don’t really want to hear it on a soul level – mostly because we are in denial or resistance and hold error in our soul that is challenged by the truth we are presented. However, something has finally sunk in ( 2 years later ) and I have started to pay attention and feel the truth of it more in my soul. So when something happens I can ask: Ok, so what is God trying to show me? If I do that and soften my heart I can feel the answer. If I soften and be humble then my guides can also help me. Now I can really start to appreciate the gift that it is. Funny thing is we feel God as so distant and yet he talks to us constantly through his laws and the love that created them.

In many ways this has been the most challenging two months since I discovered Divine Truth just over 3 years ago, so smiling a lot is an interesting development and proof that the more we feel our error, the more we feel joy: we just feel more! Some truth that Mary shared with me after I wrote for some advice, dropped a bomb in the life that Robby and I shared. A life that was comfortable, but plodding on. We had a certain cosiness and routine with each other, but little passion or deep connection. Also, I had been working in a job for a few months that I realised had a small amount of  soul desire in it, but many addictions and I felt trapped and drained: trapped in my job, trapped in my addictions, trapped by my fears; trapped by a low income: surviving but not really living. I was stuck in a rut and felt that for some reason my soul condition had degraded and I couldn’t work out why. At the same time I had been reading the Padgett Messages and continued to listen to Divine Truth videos and there was a stirring of increased desire to have a relationship with God and heal my soul. I knew about God’s Way of Love, but hadn’t been living it and was and am blocked to receiving God’s love: I am still not on the path; still not walking the walk. I wrote to Mary and received a reply. Jesus and Mary don’t always reply to emails. If they feel you are in addiction it is not loving to reply and meet you addiction, just as a loving person would not give an alcoholic a beer.  As they will testify, I have written in addiction a number of times (awkward smile). It is not loving of me to do that, but in my wounded state, my avoidance of feeling the real emotion, my fingers tap away and I click on send. I  have realised when I feel compelled to write I must not: a compulsion is an addiction so stop!

This time, despite some addiction in my email, that stirring of desire for God, meant I received a truthful and loving  (and ever patient)  reply. I had to face some harsh truths about my unloving behaviour at work, represented in my rebelliousness and arrogance. This happens to a lot of us who try to follow the Divine Love Path. We listen to a number of Jesus’ talks, understand them very intellectually and think we know what love and truth is and in the end we end up using these Divine Truths ( what we think they are – not what they actually are) to feel superior, be condescending and arrogant. All addiction! All unloving! And for me, it’s to avoid feeling inferior, insecure and worthless. I thought I was doing the right thing – I called it truth, but when Mary said not, and I felt about it, it felt very yukky. Getting past the shame, I then felt what I thought was loving to myself and others was actually arrogant and very unloving. No wonder I felt my soul had degraded. Jesus and Mary are both more progressed than I am and have received God’s love so I listen to what they say. It’s not that I can’t question it and I feel it’s good to, but most importantly I feel the truth of what they tell me in my soul – not all of it ( If I did I would be more progressed than I am!), but certainly parts that I am ready and willing to hear and feel, enter my soul. In the spirit world, spirits (people) that are more progressed in love and truth have brighter spirit bodies. If they are brighter than us, they have more truth and love in their soul (which we can also feel) and it is humble to listen to what they tell us. The brighter the spirit the more truth they have. Jesus and Mary feel like that. I may not see their spirit bodies, but I can feel they have more love, that they know more truth. They are not just talking the Way, they are walking it – as they have for 2000 years – and this too inspires me to listen to them and try to walk the same path.

The other painful truth that came up for me in the email, was that Robby’s addiction to spirits and his addiction to be looked after was currently his main motivation for being with me, and of course I was meeting his addiction to be looked after with my own addiction to rescuing others and to avoid a feeling of aloneness in me. Hence, co-dependency. This hit me like a truck. It hit me because I had already started to realise it, but had put my head in the sand. Also, I was doing yet another “caring” job, as I have done for 30 years, as I have done most of my life, but about that time I had begun to feel how depleted I was and how much grief I had about forgetting myself. It is not that Robby and I care nothing for each other, but that we still both have so much error in us and so little knowledge of real love, our relationship is unhealthy and unloving ( in God’s eyes) in many ways. At times we have felt we were soul mates and yet neither of us is in a condition to know that for certain. Something has kept us together  – whether that is a soul mate connection or addiction is as yet unclear.

For the first weeks after Mary’s email I emotionally left the relationship completely….if it could be called that, as we both fear intimacy so much. Much of what we have had has been addiction and facade. Though, I will say we have also triggered much in each other which has also helped us progress in certain areas and I feel we have learned how to be a bit more loving with each other and I am very grateful to the truth that Robby has told me. He is much more fearless in saying what he feels than me. It has not been easy, and after the first 2-3 weeks of a honeymoon period we have either hit big periods of triggering, projected and received anger, been confused and hurt with intermittent periods that were more peaceful, but would have included the facade of happiness often created by co-dependency. Emotionally leaving the relationship was caused by huge fears that came up for me, that I didn’t allow myself to feel. Instead I froze in my fear and closed my heart. Robby, of course, felt it, but was confused by the suddenness and cause and I was initially too scared to say anything. Coincidentally, he went home to Belguim for 10 days and I will be honest and say I was glad of the break. Of course, I was running away and living in my fears.

Eventually, Robby and I talked. It wasn’t comfortable, but what I find amazing is that every time that happens, every time we talk more truthfully, and don’t live in the fear, it feels so much better: a weight is lifted and we are able to feel our emotions better. So we had to admit our addictions with each other (those we are aware of), but then face the fact that until we had more of a relationship with ourselves, having a relationship with someone else was impossible. Also, what became apparent was I have a greater desire for God than Robby and at the moment he is resistant and angry at God and not wanting to listen to Divine Truth. This is painful for me because I wanted to share this path with someone and avoid that loneliness I really feel inside. So now I can’t avoid it: which is good.

Robby and I have decided that we must break out of our addictions and one thing we have both have faith in is that if we are soul mates, being in more truth and love will eventually bring us back together again in a more loving way or if we are not, allow us to separate, peacefully. Love and truth is, after all, the magnetism that draws a soul mate to you. If we are not with our soul mate at this time that may include the truth that we don’t really want to meet our soul mate, because our fear is too great or our gender issues are blocking the relationship.

So for now, Robby has a real desire to experiment and follow his desires. He has never really done this: he was so shut down as a child by his parents, never seen as an individual who had the right and free will to discover his passions. He lost his will very early on and now has a desire to find his will again and find ways to open his heart and expand his soul. He has decided he would like to do this by working in area of need in the world: do something meaningful, that will take him out of his comfort zone. For him, he has decided he wants to volunteer in Nepal, following the earthquake. He has set up an appeal for funds and been putting lots of energy into making it happen and trying to embrace the journey of all that it brings up for him.

When I wrote to Mary, I wanted to quit my job, but I decided initially to return to work, but with more humility and from that place decide what to do. So for the last couple of months, I have been working with a new attitude and awareness. I have been watching out for that rebellious and arrogant streak, trying to be more humble to what comes up for me. It is an absolute journey for me, as it will be for many of us, having learned to shut down my emotions as a child and continued to add to that all my adult life. So my constant prayer at the moment is to be a river of emotion, rather than a rock of numbness. I am using my bit of will to love, by softening to my law of attraction and the emotions it encourages me to feel. I have had some fear triggered, though have yet to fully surrender to the terror. And I have had grief about the loss of myself and the false belief that my needs don’t matter and to the loss of my dreams, loving desire and passions. In the feeling of my grief, I have begun to remember the things that make my heart sing: music, art, ballet. I started to draw again and love it and I am not worrying about the result, just enjoying the experiment. I have cried when I have watched dance and felt the desire in my soul and body to move and in that I have been guided and found a teacher who is willing to teach a 48 year old ballet! There is more to feel so that I create the funds to make this happen. I went to an open day at an local art college and for the first time for a very long time I felt alive and connected to the real me: I could have flown home that day and one of the courses there made my heart sing. It was wonderful.

Returning to work with more humility has allowed me to feel that I need to step back and out of my addiction to rescue. It is just helping me avoid myself, and the fear that I am so awful, and unlovable. Also, I have a lot of anger and grief about service, false beliefs that love is sacrifice and it affects my life hugely. I need to feel these emotions as I want to have a more pure desire to serve. On Monday I handed in my notice and signed up with a teaching agency: it will allow me flexibility and hopefully time to pursue my desires to follow the Way, to do my art and my writing and in the process the best way to serve. I have an interview for an illustration degree (yay!). I do not yet have the funds, but I know my desire for this is everything and changes everything. I am going to let myself experiment and play. I am terrified about how I will survive financially; I am terrified of not being in control, of, as Jesus puts it, “letting go of all the balls;” I am terrified of the chance my dreams may not come true; terrified of many things. However, I know that triggering my fears is one of the biggest gifts I can give myself. I know fear has been leading my life, giving a false sense of security, but keeping me shriveled and not really alive – far away from God and far away from my real self. Fear is my very real and painful prison, but only I hold the key to my freedom. I have to want it and I have some faith that as soon as I put the key in the lock to turn it, I will be surprised that the door will fly open. In her blog, Mary describes feeling our fear as jumping out of the plane. We need to jump: I need to jump; I am starting to want to jump because I want to know me and I want to know my parent. I have now moved from crouching in the cabin of the plane and feel I am standing at the door – most of the time, though still holding on for now. But I am taking action at last.

I am curious about God, this Being, this Creator, our Parent, because as I read more about God and God’s love and as I hear more about Divine truth I long, even more,to really feel this love, to understand its source. I am terrified of love too, because I have so many false beliefs around it, but there is a stirring of faith that God’s love is something so special, so wondrous, that when I do eventually feel it, I will wonder why I waited so long and laugh at my own foolishness for choosing fear instead, for so long.

I am so grateful for discovering the teachings of Jesus – the real teachings of a soul that has been closer to God that any other human I feel – so far. Because we can all do what he has done, what he is doing, what Mary is doing. God made us all equal and equally capable of following her Way. I have some barriers to break down to be able to receive God’s love and say I am really walking the path and I want to share my journey, because this truth is so awesome and in the sharing of my own journey I also learn. I feel there is still some narcissism  and addiction in my sharing, but I know if I am open, God will show me how to purify me desire to write and serve, and the more humble I become so it shall be. But I also know (intellectually) that it’s ok to not be perfect and to allow this to be a journey where I will still keep tripping up for now.  My main goal right now is to look at my resistance and blocks to God and receiving his love and to be that river – the river of humility, feeling everything, discovering who God intended me to be, discovering what it is like to feel the flow of Divine Love in me and experience it’s power for change in my soul.

So this is update on where we are: my attempt at less facade and more truth. It is a bit bitty, but I hope helpful.

I want to end this post with a quote from the Padgett messages: some incredible Channelings to James Padgett at the beginning of the 20th Century. Many of the spirits are Celestials and talk of Divine Truth, Divine Love, Spirit World and other topics. I highly recommend them ( see extras page). This quote is from Volume One, from Solomon of the Old Testament. It truly touched my soul and I have re- read it a many times and intend to follow his advice. Here it is:

What is the greatest thing in all the world?

Prayer and faith on the part of mortals; and Love – the Divine Love – on the part of God. The latter is waiting, and the former causes it to enter into the souls of men.

No other truths are so great and momentous to men.

Let what I say sink deep into your memory, and try the experiment. I know you do try, but try and then try and never cease trying. Love will come to you and with It faith, and then knowledge and then ownership.

love Maxine ( trying and trying, again and again…)

BEING A SLAVE BY ROBBY

Posted on by under addictions, emotions, fear, humility, love, poetry, Prayer, ROBBYS PAGE, shame, soulmate

Today I am going to share a poem Robby wrote a few weeks ago. It is beautifully written and sincere. Like me he has written from a feeling and then let it evolve.  When I saw it I was moved by it and the look on his face. Both of have issues of self worth from our childhoods that have spilled out into our adult lives and our subsequent actions from that wounded space: we weren’t really made to feel we had any passions or desires, like alot of us….very sad.

But, I also had another emotion come up… “Oh no this is a good poem, but I am the writer…. I am not good at much, but writing I am ok at. It took me 30 years to even admit to anyone I had this passion and now my soulmate is writing well. I am disappearing again….agh I am not good enough”   Panic! A huge fear came up, I felt threatened. What an unloving thing to feel about your soul mate. One minute I was moved and proud of him, the next I was caught up in my own fears which have led me to conveniently forget to post this until now. Yukky stuff, yes? Often we can admit how unloving we are to ourselves in our injuries, but less easily how we can be unloving to others.  My fear of being nothing, my belief I will never be good enough made me unloving to the other half of me! 😦 Robby and I have experienced this so many times, when our addictions and fears hurt the other. To be truthful about is painful and shameful. So much of the narrow path yet to walk… but a blessed path it is too.

So tonight, I finally had some humility and thought “Deal with your insecurities Maxine! Just feel it and don’t project it out or avoid it and POST the poem!”  In fact I know that God’s law of attraction will gift me the opportunity to feel even more if I do and for Robby to a chance to receive and share.

Sorry hun it has taken me so long….. Here is your wonderful poem, the rawness of your heart:

 

slavery

 

BEING A SLAVE

BY

ROBBY JACOBS

I don’t deserve the way I feel

Being, wondering, searching in the mists: it feels so surreal.

Everything around me feels and looks the same,

Pounding and beating myself, I have no-one to blame.

Why does it hurt when I feel ashamed.

Ashamed about the darkness running through my veins.

Bitterness, revenge, hatred, all being so cruel,

I just need to feel these feelings, like there are no rules.

Please, please, please hear me if you are there,

Please notice that I am in real despair.

All I see is darkness, I need a way out,

I don’t even know who is listening, while I scream and shout.

I scream, I shout, til I can no more,

Holding onto anger, falling, crying on the floor.

Howling, crying, releasing those tears.

I don’t know what is happening, not feeling any fears.

This my child, is where I exist.

You will find me there, when you stop resist.

I am here for you in all my glory,

I am here for you to tell you my story.

Feel, play, dance and know it’s safe,

Free your emotions, don’t be a slave.

Free yourself from all your restrictions,

Observe yourself when you are acting out addictions.

Take the time to admit the truth,

Your fears are stopping you, from experiencing my truth.

I tell you, my child, it is ok to feel,

Experiencing my love, notice I am real.

Now go on my child and experience life.

Go on my child and remember it’s safe

To free yourself, from being a slave.

I never heard a voice so sweet.

Caring, loving, not stamping his feet.

I never felt a love so pure,

Knowing that love, being my cure.

I wiped my tears, feeling loved and seen.

I wiped my tears, feeling blessed and serene.

Standing straight, facing myself

No more despair, accepting myself.

For the wounded child I became,

Feeling and knowing I don’t have to live in shame.

Step by step, day by day.

I ask God to guide me on my way.

Trusting God will always be there,

When I feel moments of total despair.