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Category Archives: God
THE MOUNTAIN TO GOD
I have borrowed inspiration from Aphraar in Through the Mists* where chapter IV is named The Mount of God. This book and the two that follow are the story of Aphraar’s life once he passes and leaves his earthly body and existence behind. The books are pure magic and I have read them again and again. If you want to know more about spirit life, God, God’s Love for us, His goodness and Laws (which are all about love) and the potential that is possible for us all then read and read them. They are my absolute favourites and I learn new things every time.
I love mountains, always have especially after climbing my first one nearly 30 years ago. It was Snowdon, in North Wales and I climbed it in a pair of borrowed plimsolls on a random trip one June. I was fortunate that it was a warm, dry day as there are parts of the climb where movable pieces of slate and shale can pull you over in worse weather and take you to your peril down the side of the mountain. But to be honest, I never gave it a thought: I was an exhilarated and fearless adventurer and I loved every step up, every step closer to the summit. The air was so clean and the views varying as I climbed until I reached the peak and what I saw took my breath away and made my soul sing. I remember holding my arms up to the sky and even though I didn’t have any thoughts about God at that time in my life, I felt such gratitude for such grandeur and beauty.
Snowdon is only 3,560ft – a small mountain compared to the 29,000 feet of Everest, but I have only managed to climb mountains in the UK so far and it has given me a taste of something: a sense of freedom and wonder, gained by the challenges it offered and it came to me that the journey I am currently on is like that. I have been listening to the amazing talks from the 2016 Divine Truth Assistance Groups and so have been reflecting a lot on my own journey with ‘The Way,’ as Jesus calls it. If you have read my blog you will see it has been a very in and out journey and when I read back on some of my posts, I can see constant misunderstandings about it and myself amid pieces of Truth. It is why I suggest you always refer back to the actual teaching on the Divine Truth website, as my learning has been slow. I can spout off stuff intellectually, but I am talking about my true learning: the soul based, emotional learning. The real stuff!
In early 2012, I was living near Glastonbury – the UK centre of many different, mostly New Age beliefs. It attracts many pilgrims looking for something and I was one of them. I guess you could say that at that time I was living in a valley down from the mountain where there were many paths crossing each other, heading off in different directions, many going round in circles, or coming to a dead end. Now in that valley there are many people who are a bit like cats: you know when a cat falls off a fence it moves so fast to act as if nothing happened and it’s in complete control, pretending nothing did happen…a bit of self delusion to create a cool facade.
When I first arrived at that valley it seemed full of wonder and interest. I saw things I had never seen before, investigated and tried some of them: yes the proverbial kid in the sweet shop. I was lost and I was looking for new experiences and I found them. But you know the thing about sweets? They are not really good for you: they are a big con. They may taste sweet, but they are made of cheap refined sugar, with additives and other nasties in them. They are there to tempt you and there are many sweet makers who tell you lies and woo you with the colour and other sensory delights as you eat their poison.
A bit dramatic you may think, but my experience there showed it to be true. Glastonbury was full of tricksters, misleading paths and lies and we may have been seeking something, but for many of us we were just feeding our sugar addiction because we wanted to feel better, to feel special: we wanted the buzz, the tingle of sherbet on our tongues.
I have a questioning mind and a certain sixth sense and I started to notice things that didn’t feel right, in fact some of it felt very off. I experienced a very addictive relationship – that initially felt sweeter than sugar, but I was tricked by my own addiction and darkened my soul. I became less happy (was it really happiness or just addiction fulfilment?) and less interested in the winding paths and stayed at home more and more. But one day I came home after some crazy event and I shouted out and said, “Whoever you are, Bob, God, Great Spirit – if you are up there I want the truth. I am sick of the lies, the inconsistencies, and the bloody mysteries, please give me the truth.”
I must have meant it, as within 24 hours I had received an email from a friend saying, “Check this out” and there was a link to the “Secrets of the Universe” talks that Jesus did in 2007/8. I watched the first one and then the next one and I sat there with my mouth open, choked up some emotion as something hit my heart and then laughed. Here it was, without realising it, I had sent up a prayer and God answered. Yes, the guy talking said he was Jesus – I’d need to think about that for a bit, but boy everything he said made sense. It was so opposite to the new age stuff I had been feeding off the previous few years, I actually felt relieved and hopeful.
Then it turned out, Jesus and Mary were over for a visit about 10 days later. When I got back home after listening to them (they were just so humble and grounded), I seemed to have moved out of the valley and was now sitting at the bottom of a very large mountain. Well I didn’t know how large it was as the clouds were around the top at the time, but it looked interesting and remember I love mountains, so it was definitely more intriguing than the valley to me.
For the next 18 months, I was excited by it, but also sometimes struggling to not be pulled back into the valley by the sweet addiction and ended up in some interesting situations, mostly because of my mediumship ( which I called channelling then) and I was tuning into so many things without discernment or knowledge. I set up a healing and card reading little place about 3 months after discovering Divine Truth, but I very quickly just got a feeling it wasn’t right in some way so stopped it. But despite this pulling in and out, I couldn’t stop watching the Divine Truth videos and I think it was the “Truth about Reincarnation” talk and the talks on spirits that really made me see that life in the Valley of New Age was not all it thought itself to be.
So I wandered in the valley a little for a while, but with a growing fascination for the mountain and a desire to climb it. I did physically leave Glastonbury early 2014, very sick of it if I am honest and I started my blog as I had decided it was time to try the mountain.
The first attempt up the mountain didn’t go to well. You think reading a book on mountain climbing teaches you how to climb it, but it doesn’t: you can understand a few ideas, but until you put one foot in front of another and equip yourself with the right things, you don’t really know. I will say for the next three years, following that decision, my attempt at the mountain was extremely slow. I have fallen over and slid back down many times; I have even told lies to others to give the impression I am an expert on mountain climbing, even though I have only gone a 100 metres at the very most; I have become very angry and had a tantrum about “how hard it is;” and berated myself for my uselessness and incapability to get farther. During these times I was often stomping round the base of the mountain or sulking, not moving an inch, throwing the occasional rock upwards.
Much of my failure has been because my motivation was wrong and I wanted to do it my way. I wanted to get up the mountain so that I could quickly forget the past: the valley of New Age, the City of Sin, the Prison of Fear and the Cage of Family. I wanted to be able to magically float up the mountain and just be at the top enjoying the view, congratulating myself I had done it and everything was different.
Well, you can’t get up a mountain like that apparently. Last year, I finally started to look a bit more closely about what my motivation was and what I had been doing wrong. So forget the sudden transformation to the top – what is this mountain all about anyway? What is so special about this mountain? I started by looking at who has already got higher than me on the mountain and what were they doing that I wasn’t.
Well near the top was Jesus – do I feel he is Jesus? Yes. Why? Because he seems to know how to get up this mountain; because he seems to walk his walk; practice what he teaches and understand more about this mountain than anyone I have ever heard: “by their fruits ye shall know them.” Coming up after him, bit further down was Mary and she is exactly the same – walking her walk. Both with courage, care and openness: unselfishly happy to show the rest of us the way.
There are a few others who have started the climb and in all these people I have seen positive changes in them over the years. Watching Jesus and Mary get happier and closer to each other is pretty awesome and inspiring. But with all the successful climbers, what is the common factor and why do they want to climb the mountain?
What I learnt by watching and listening to them is that their motivation was different – they had an interest in the Creator of the mountain. They want to discover more about how the mountain got there and why, what was its purpose, who created it and what does it say about the Creator of such an amazing, majestic thing? So now, I have been doing the same, learning about the Creator, looking with fresh eyes and questioning things I thought were true.
I also had a realisation about the climb up the mountain, remembering my first every climb all those years ago: that I enjoyed every step and even when others told me it could be dangerous I didn’t stop. I also realised that being harsh on myself, pushing myself up the mountain would ruin the journey. I wouldn’t notice the things along the way: the mountain flowers; the way the rocks are formed; small patches of various grasses; butterflies and other small creatures who inhabit tiny homes there; the taste of beautiful mountain waters and the breath of it’s clean air.
How can I know how to truly climb a mountain, learn everything it has to teach me about myself if I try to fight the natural way it shows me to go. The mountain and its Creator want me to enjoy the journey: to be patient with myself, to have courage, and to drink the waters of Truth it offers. Because a mountain is magnificent, beautiful, strong, steady and if we take our steps with patience and awareness it will hold us and lift us to new heights and that is what the Creator wants – for us to lift to new heights: to bring us close to Him, to enjoy and experience what has been made for us and what we can co-create with Her.
You cannot pick up a violin and know how to play its beautiful harmony in a moment: only patience, desire and endurance will lead you to play it skilfully and passionately. You will make mistakes, you will learn from them just as every time your feet slip on the mountain, you become more aware of the right way to climb its great heights.
This is the Way and the Way is all about wanting to understand and to know the Creator of the majestic mountain which rises much higher than any earthly mountain can. Its views and the beauty that await I cannot comprehend, but I am finally beginning to understand it’s not about some magic wand to wash away my pain. It’s about my desire, my will and my willingness to be humble to the journey and to be loving with myself along the Way. God waits patiently for me, she wisely knows that the journey has to be done to appreciate and treasure the lessons and gifts She has to offer. God knows that with each step the magic is happening and that the heavy rucksack (of my pain) I start with will become lighter and lighter until it disappears and I suspect my vision will become clearer and clearer too. ** Why not? So that I can experience the heights of being near my Creator. I am curious to know what that will feel like: to be in the presence of Love, as Jesus and many others teach. This is my hope and I still know so little, but what I am learning bring revelations and new views. I am too curious to stop.
When I started this blog – I said I was seeking Truth with little understanding of what that meant. I still am, but now I am shifting into seeking Truth about God and I feel this is where I will truly find myself and I will not be alone.
So fellow mountaineers or potential mountaineers, put on your boots, bring all your investigating gadgets and experimenting tools. Ensure you have plenty of pockets to fill with faith as you climb, be humble to the process and allow the discovery to open your heart along the Way, so that as you climb you learn to breathe in the gift of love and breathe out to gift it to others. Be patient, be kind, allow rest, and stay steadfast, “for he shall have all men saved.” *
I shall let dear Aphraar, have the final words,
“I realised the unspeakable mercy and love that had been exercised in the design displayed before me…..My previous conceptions fell thus short of the reality of the scene which lay before me as I stood upon that mountain side; yet this was not heaven itself, but only one of the halting places within the ranch of God’s infinitude, where homeward-bound souls could rest and refresh…towards their Father’s house of many mansions.
…For as language fails me to express the quality of the scene unfolded to my view, so also am I powerless to convey an indication of the area over which that celestial panorama was unrolled…Did I say it had plains and streams? It were far more true to say my eye wandered over vast continents, fruitful and picturesque, each bounded by proportionate seas and oceans…The gardens of Babylon were forgotten in the contemplation of such horticulture attainments….. The rose of Sharon blanched its cheek in the face of rich blossoms; and the aroma from the sweet incense of Jerusalem only became a type of perfume wafted by breezes from those trees which are robed in a living green..
Peoples of every nationality, intermingled without distinction; no cold formality, condescension, or patronage was visible among them, but rather a recognition that each possessed some power to augment the happiness of his fellow, and that the society of all was necessary for joy to reach its full ideal. It was a sacred, holy sight to gaze upon…
My eye moistened, and I bowed my head in gratitude as I received the revelation, and turning to my companion, I asked:
“What is this place?”
“The Mount of God, one of the vestibules of heaven.”
Maxine Bell@2019
*All quotes taken from ‘Through the Mists: Leaves from the Autobiography of Aphraar Volume 1’ Recorded by Robert James
**These are growing discoveries about God, and much has been felt reading Aphraar’s story, as well as The Padgett messages, nature and of course the Divine Truth teaching. But true knowledge of God comes from opening to receiving Her love and I may have let one small moment happen, which led me to cry for an hour. I am scared of surrendering, and I have old false beliefs from religion I’m still shaking off. I still do not have a definite knowledge of God or His existence yet: I am seeking and investigating with a growing desire by educating myself from books, talks and use of my own logic and I find in that it’s impossible not to open to God’s goodness sometimes. May this grow in me so that what I share becomes more full of truth. Besides it’s always good to investigate yourself.
There are a wealth of talks about Relationship with God on http://www.divinetruth.com or search on the Divine Truth channel on YouTube.
THE MOUNTAIN TO GOD
I am currently just completing my fourth reading of Through the Mists recorded by Robert James Lee, but the person dictating his own story is Aphraar and I have to say I have a growing love and an immense gratitude to this man, whose passion to share truth to the world led to this book and the two that followed. (See the links page for more information).
My fourth reading immediately followed the third. Maybe because each time I read it I learn new things and my soul opens to possibilities and feelings. The books are really an autobiography of Aphraar’s life “beyond the grave.” On earth he was known as Frederick Winterleigh, who died suddenly in the 19th century, attempting to save the life of a young boy. He did not succeed in preventing the end of the boy’s life on earth, but he awoke to find himself still holding the young boy, on the slopes of a land he didn’t know. From the slopes he could view a large area of mists where people were appearing from as they walked through them. This was Aphraar’s entry into the spirit life, or afterlife as some call it: the point where our physical bodies dies, but we continue very much to live in our spirit bodies.
I don’t want to get into any debates about whether this may or may not be true, that is something you need to investigate for yourself, as I have been doing. There are lots of great talks on spirit life on the divine truth website, as well as the Robert James Lee trilogy and the Padgett messages.
As I said, every time I read these books some new feeling hits my soul: my soul expands and a number of times I find myself crying – not with sadness, but with joy, relief and wonder. They are truly my favourite books: beautifully written and full of passion. I journey within myself, as Aphraar journey’s through spirit lands, travelling to places I can only dream of and not fully imagine yet. They are an affirmation of God, God’s goodness and Love. They are a confirmation that God’s truth is absolute, reliable, loving and designed to take us far, far, far beyond than what we can even contemplate. We are in fact just sitting in the “twinkling of an eye” right now, only able to see a sparkle of the light God offers us, the life he wants to lead us too, the people God designed us to be.
I read these books and even the first book when Aphraar is at the start of his journey and I know that he starts his journey in spirit life in a place that is well above where I would be right now if I passed. Because of his desire to learn truth, to be educated he is shown by spirits in much higher conditions their homes – right up to the 7th sphere and because of that we are given a glimpse ourselves. I say a glimpse, because it is apparent that words are not enough to describe the beauty, love and peace in these places. I am a very visual person and I let my mind imagine according to his descriptions and I catch a flash of something, but then I feel this block in me and just have to understand that my current soul condition cannot comprehend such places, though I am grateful and moved by the glimpse’s that Aphraar reveals.
I have much sin (actions, thoughts, emotions, desires out of harmony with Love) to work through before I can see a wider panorama of these things. I have many things to correct in myself and many things to embrace too and I will admit when I look out of my window and compare the world as it is now and my relation to it – that I am in a similar condition, I do sigh heavily about the long road I have to travel to get there.
One of the key things that Aphraar learns in Through the Mists is that there is no instant spiritual growth and there are many passages referring to this and a beautiful poem that I will put at the end of this blog, but for now Aphraar summarises , “ Salvation does not guarantee a sudden transition from debauchery to the white-robed through, from the ribald profligacy to ‘sing the song of Moses and the Lamb’; it means ‘acceptance in the beloved’ when the penitent prodigal has carried out his determination to arise and go to his father – has made the pilgrimage from the far country to the homeland..”
In the book, Aphraar debunks the Christian beliefs about heaven being a place where everyone is sitting around playing harps and singing, “Glory, glory, glory.” As you will see if you read the books, life is very real in spirit life, maybe more so than here, because you are seen clearly as you are – you cannot put on a facade and pretend: it is all out there for everyone to see. For me, I am beginning to long for that, I am tired of the facades I have. It is exhausting and like existing in a black and white movie: limited and grey.
Aphraar’s story makes me long for the technicolour life: I love the beauty of nature here on earth, but I long to see the nature in its full, magical abundance as Aphraar describes it; I see the wonder of people changing here, but it feels very small compared to what he describes and experiences for him and others that he meets and observes there. A life of continual growth and change, rising us up and taking us home – our real home.
But a key point in this growth and change is US. God has provided the solid foundation and the means for us to grow, but we are the catalyst: we have to want it, desire it. Your will notice in the quote above that the prodigal “carried out his determination to arise.” He had previously used his desire in a negative way, even though he didn’t feel it was negative at the time as he was just using his free will (sound familiar?). In the end it didn’t make him happy and in suffered and it was only when things hit absolute rock bottom that he realised his mistake (sound familiar?), and that he had sinned – he faced the truth about himself and did what he could to return, even willing to return to his father’s house as servant. Again it was his desire, but this time a loving desire and only his desire, his willingness to return, humbly that achieved his goal. We must want to go home and like the father in the story, God will run towards us and prepare a feast to celebrate our return.
The story of the prodigal son is a wonderful story (Luke 15 v 11) – full of so much truth, hope and love and part of that truth is what we do with our will matters. We have free will and just as we put a lot of energy into using it in selfish and unloving ways, we can use it in more powerful, loving ways and this book gives information on where that can take us.
I do feel I have a mountain to climb and I do feel I have taken myself a few steps up and then fallen down again at times and in that I have sat, stubborn, apathetic, tired and despairing at times. There are many reasons for all of those emotions and my lack of action, but I don’t completely give up ever and if you have read my blog you will know some of the difficulties of the path I am attempting to follow, but I also know it is only me that gets in the way. It’s my choice every time, as it would be on an actual physical walk up a mountain, to stop, to give up, to get up , to try again: something inside hopes and longs to see the view from the top.
The funny thing is I absolutely love mountains. The first time I came across mountains and climbed them I felt like I was flying: I didn’t care too much about the aches in my legs or the thoughts of ‘how much further.’ I just love the feeling of getting higher, the sense of achievement, the expectation of what might come next, overcoming challenges and the absolute joy of reaching the top and discovering that the view from the top was so much better than you even imagined! The air feels clear, the sense of space is incredible and then there is the beauty you witness: the surrounding hills, plains, forests and lakes, the sky, clouds and birds who feel close enough to touch. Then around my feet, rocks, grass, small mountain flowers: breathtaking. I never want to go back down, because I never feel as free down there and I want to feel free.
In those moments, I want to drop the weight of my pain, the armour of my facade and I want to see if I can touch the sky and I wonder who is in the sky: are you there God? Can I reach your from here? Can I feel your breath? Touch the sun and look at things through the soft light of the mountain: true or not, God feels closer on the mountain top.
When given a view of the seventh sphere, which is the sphere that those who are seeking a relationship with God, have received a large amount of His love through their desire to do so, are in a transition: from human to divine angel. They are about to take off, to traverse mountain peaks much higher than we imagine, one’s so high they were not previously in sight.
Aphraar becomes speechless with the atmosphere of “irresistible happiness,” and the sight of “some azure-tinted, celestial mountain.” He further describes, “Heaven lay unrolled before me. I can find no other way to convey even a crude suggestion of the scene – its purity, its beauty and its peace…in the distance – however far the eye might travel – undimmed, distinct and vivid as the foreground, there rose to view chain on chain and tier on tier, the heavenly mountains – countless hills on which equally countless terraces were spread – terraces large as plateaus, each vying with other in mansion, parks and flowers, like models of angel cities standing in galleries Divine, all canopied with the smile of God. Each terrace was bathed in its own distinctive glory, the brilliance increasing with the ascent… “
And this is just the sphere before the true Celestial spheres. To give you some idea of the mountain to climb, the earth is currently in a first sphere condition – not even at the top of the first: from hellish conditions rising to increasing light and beauty, until we have grown more in love, to move to the 2nd sphere, and onwards. All of us can do it. Everything is in place for us to start the climb – it is just up to us now to make the choice. You can get to the 6th sphere, without God, or to go on beyond there and infinitely, you have to want a relationship with your true Parent. Jesus describes the two paths as the natural love path and God’s way of Love. To me it’s like deciding to climb Ben Nevis or Everest: both have good views, but which mountain has the greatest view – the one that takes us to the greatest heights.
But there is no instant way, no quick fix; we are responsible for correcting our mistakes, for choosing to learn about Love, or wanting a relationship with God. The Father has a feast waiting for us and She has cleared the path for our return, but we have to investigate, to wonder, to want God’s version of Love and Truth and surrender our own: to be born again – not through the sacrifice of anyone, but through the example of the first man who found the way home to His father, to our Father.
We can decide to climb the mountain and we can stubbornly say we know the way and insist we find our own way without help and guidance: we are likely to get more lost that way, to face more danger, to want to give up. Or we can take the advice of those who have travelled this path already and know the route well. The guiding hand is there – He’s just waiting for us to take it.
Maxine Bell Oct 2018
Here is the poem from Through the Mists: Chapter 17: A Poetess at Home
Waiting
Waiting now upon the threshold,
Just within the porch of life;
Safe from all the storms and tempests,-
Hushed the discord and the strife;
Stilled the heart with its wild beatings,
Calmed the hot and fevered brain
Waiting now, and resting sweetly,
‘Til the Master comes again.
Waiting, where the rippling wavelets
Of life’s river lave my feet;
Washing off the stains of travel,
Ere the Master I may greet;
Till the voice is full and mellow,
And I learn the sweet, new song;
Till the discord is forgotten,
That disturbed my peace so long.
Waiting, til the wedding garment,
And the bridal wreath is here;
Till our Father’s feast is ready,
And then bridegroom shall appear
Till the seeds of life have blossomed,
And the harvest- home we sing.
Gathering up my life’s long labours
For my bridal offering.
Oh! ’tis not as men would teach us –
Just one step from earth to God;
Passing through the death-vale to Him,
In the gard that earth we trod;
Called to praise Him while aweary,
Or to sing, while yet the voice
With Love’s farewell sob is broken,
Could we, fitly, thus rejoice?
No! we wait to learn the music,
Wait, to rest our weary feet;
Wait to learn to sweep the harp-strings
Ere the Master shall we meet;
Wait to tune our new-found voices
To the sweet seraphic song;
Wait to learn the time and measure,
But the time will not be long.
Wait to understand the glory
That will shortly be revealed
Till our eyes can bear the brightness
When the book shall be unsealed.
Oh! the vision would o’er power us,
If it suddenly were given
So we wait in preparation,
In the vestibule of heaven.
A Story about Hurt in Wolfdom
I have just read a wonderful story, written by a sister also trying to follow the Way. It is a lovely analogy of all of our stories and the hope we have to do things differently. Please check out the link below:
A SOFTER STEP WITH MYSELF
I have recently become friends with a young woman who impresses me very much. She is humble, gentle and yet has a fire in her belly when it comes to following her passions and wanting to contribute something good to the world. She is willing to work hard and do what it takes to fulfil her dream, but she does it all in a quiet way. During one of our chats I told her about my blog and that it was about my search for truth and that I started it after I discovered the Divine Truth teachings and told her a little about them. I awkwardly explained that Jesus and Mary were back.
I still have fear and shame about saying that because I still want people to like me and not judge me. As soon as I do say it I can feel doors shutting and minds closing and receiving a “look” that ranges from doubtful to condescending. I hate the feeling that people think I am either mad or hugely gullible. The sad thing is it then prevents people from looking at the teachings themselves – they can’t see past the Jesus thing – so miss out on something wonderful because of their belief systems – and we have so many false ones around God and Jesus: both get mixed into religion and religion is man- made, not God made. Ironically, Jesus is mostly man-made as religion has translated his teachings to their own devices. And Jesus is Jesus – I’m pretty certain he is and I am certain HE knows who he is and I’m pretty certain because he walks he walks, he knows lots of things no one else done and he is as I thought he would be: kind, humble, direct and brave – those were my thoughts when I was 17/18, was a active part of a Baptist Church, but always getting into trouble for asking too many questions and in the end I left –but the other thing is I often cry just listening to him these days – there is so much sincere love in him and that is kind of love is rare and I feel it.
But I am digressing – because my friend did react a little, but she still went home and read some of my blog posts. I did warn her some of them are pretty intense – particularly the last one. (There’s that fear of other’s judgement of me again). I am not sure if she will read it again, but I wanted to share her feedback as it relates to what I wanted to talk about today. She said, “I have read some of your blog – it is intense, as you warned me, but I honestly think it is amazing Maxine how far you have come and how much you are committed to personal development even though that is such a challenge for all of us. I think you are very hard on yourself. Most people don’t even try. I know how hard it is to hear and accept it but really it is incredible everything you have come through and done and I hope one day you will truly appreciate this.”
The bit about my harshness with myself and her compassion for me brought up an emotion for me, one that is coming up in various shades a lot lately as I reflect on where I am at, what God’s Law of Attraction is showing is in my soul for healing: and it’s a lot about my lack of self worth and related to that is my addiction to being harsh with myself and I re-read my last post. I wanted to be very direct in my post as I felt it was important, important for me to talk about that subject as I am awakening to these things. However, there is a tone of severity in it and it’s not the first time. I have had so many events lately encouraging me to soften and have compassion with myself: to be patient and loving with myself.
I have felt I am being more loving with myself than I used to be and in many ways I am. My harshness took a severe form of self harm for years and that has changed, but self criticism and self judgement is insidious and so subtle day to day. I have been observing myself every day and noticing how just in a moment I judge. I have even found myself judging others for things I am insecure about in myself! It has become a complete habit, an addiction – a normal way to live!
Watch yourself and you will find similar, in fact in the Western society I live in, it is positively encouraged to judge ourselves and others and often in very superficial ways. It is an awful way to live and I am beginning to feel a deep sadness about it and stopping the criticism when I notice it and looking more deeply into why I am doing it.
I agree with Jesus and Mary that as children we learn to judge, berate and belittle ourselves, because it is easier to do that than feel the pain of being judged, berated and belittled by our parents and in fact we even get rewarded for taking the blame at times.
My sadness is the rising of memories of how much I was blamed as a child for things that were not my fault – such as my mother’s unhappiness. That is a big weight for a child to carry on her shoulders. It’s the “I’m never good enough” emotion and it runs deeply in me. Sometimes I feel grief about it sitting in my chest and it starts to rise and it feels like it will choke me. I’m not quite willing to let it come all the way yet.
So in my last post there was a lot of truth in what I said about being very suppressed and the big impact on my life, but also a lack of compassion. So I have been experimenting -allowing more gentleness with myself and it feels so much better and emotions flow more easily: it’s a learning curve and ongoing process. I can feel this little girl in me and she is very sad about what was happening around and to her. To acknowledge her and let her cry – let myself cry will be such a relief. It will feel so strange too and it is also why it is happening very slowly right now in lots of little moments throughout the day, but it’s so much better to finally pay some attention to the pain.
Mary gave me some feedback in 2016 about being more compassionate with myself. It was feedback about an interview I did for a podcast where I hadn’t realised that I wasn’t being treated lovingly by the interviewer. That I didn’t notice unloving treatment hit me, but mostly what hit me was the love and compassion that I heard in her voice for me and I cried, both touched, but also finding it difficult to receive.
Two years on and I beginning to get it as I’ve been trying out and paying attention to God’s messenger – the Law of Attraction. I also notice how many more spirits surround me and join in with the harshness and when I am softer, they have less say and I feel lighter.
I have always been “strong,” and it is a quality that is admired in society, but I’m tired of it, tired of being told to keep going. I don’t want to be strong anymore, because actually I don’t even understand that term anymore. I may have kept going, picked myself off the floor a thousand times, but do you know what got me back up or stopped me killing myself even? It wasn’t the thought, oh I must be strong. It was hope, like a whisper in my ear – a feeling I can’t explain much more than and for a second I wasn’t alone.
I recently watched an old talk called “The Laws Governing Self Love” from 2009 after seeing a few quotes on Facebook from a Divine Love Daily quote page that was started. I found them difficult to watch and from what Jesus said so did most of the audience: we really struggle with self love. I have realised I don’t know much about self love, and I suspect most of us don’t and that talk highlights so many areas still to be understood about self love ( and Love).
The section of the talk about forgiving yourself was particularly poignant and at one point Jesus says, “A person who is merciful towards themselves doesn’t judge themselves for taking 25 years to get to a place that could have taken them 3 months. They don’t judge themselves about that.”
Recognise yourself? I did. No wonder I find forgiveness of others hard, I haven’t forgiven myself and I am pretty certain there are some things I think I need to forgive that weren’t my fault. But the list of things I need to forgive myself for is long and I can feel now that softness will allow that; compassion and understanding, which will allow me to love myself enough to cry and yes have mercy with myself, just as God does.
What beautiful words they are: compassion, gentleness, mercy, grace, forgiveness. I can feel some wonderful healing alchemy just saying them: there is movement in them, like a beautiful river. Very different from the sounds of judgement, harshness, critical and I wonder at the symbolism in the language, but it’s true – say them out loud and you will feel the difference.
So right now, in my life, I am very insecure about many things. I don’t really get how to love myself yet and I feel scared about lots of things. People scare me somewhat because I find it hard to believe I am lovable. I just to say this because I know so many of you feel the same inside yourself. But I am in a much better place than I was three months ago when I was pretending I was feeling great and trying to convince myself and others that I was heading for bigger things, and such similar things.
I am better because I am slowly learning not to hide away from myself and now I have the power to change things because I am bringing them out into the light. But most importantly, I am realising it is not about pushing, shoving or forcing myself into submission, but leaning into patience, understanding and love with myself.
When I was a nurse, we didn’t stick a little plaster over a deep wound to hide it and pretend it wasn’t there. Instead we opened the wound, allowed pus to seep out and gently cleaned it every day, until all the yuckiness had gone and new cells then had room to grow and fill in the hole with fresh tissue and blood supply. We didn’t rush it, couldn’t rush the natural processed that needed to occur, allowing the body time to heal so that the job was done properly and would remain healed and healthy. We knew that the infection and the hole weren’t permanent, but just a consequence of an injury and we knew the body had an incredible capacity for healing, with tender care and patience.
So you see, I have known all along what to do!
Anger, Addiction, Suppression, Resistance and Denial: The Dark Night of the Soul.
It has been a long time since I have written my blog. I have thought many times to write and then changed my mind, which relates to the comings and goings in my own soul: the feelings of overwhelm – which I still don’t like and then dipping ( bit of an understatement) into resistance – preventing the flow and making words difficult. But I do have a desire to share so that it may help others just as other people words and experiences have helped me, so here I am.
I was completely blocking God and God’s truth out for a while, struggling with other issues in my life and stubbornly being self-reliant and following old patterns and addictions ( emotional and physical). But during the last couple of months my desire for change and to learn more has come back and I have been spending more time listening to videos and reading about God. What I have found really useful is journaling as soon as I wake. I scribble away about sleep state, dreams, things that that I felt the day before – just about anything, without restraint and I am learning things about myself all the time.
I love what I read about God and the universe we live in, most of the time, but sometimes the contrast between where I could be and where I am hurts and that is what I am going to write about.
To understand more of what I am about to talk about, it will really help you to listen to “How the Human Soul Functions” and “Emotions and Feelings” on the Divine Truth FAQ Youtube channel and on the Divine Truth channel, “Understanding your Emotional Self” from 2014. ( Also found on divinetruth.com)
I am going to list many of them and then explain further below: (please also see the glossary page for some short explanations of some of the vocabulary I use)
- I am an absolute Master of suppression, resistance, and denial.
- I am full of anger – mostly adult anger, related to my many, many addictions that I use to suppress, deny and resist more painful emotions such as fear, shame, grief.
- My anger is there every day ranging from mild annoyance to full blown rage. I do not allow it to be felt.
- I believe that controlling/denying/resisting my anger is a good thing, but God’s truth is if it is in me it is coming out into my environment, being projected at others. Denying it is the worse thing.
- God’s truth is my anger is very, very damaging to myself and everyone around me. It is hellish and whilst I have it in my soul I am in the Hells.
- I have not awakened to the sin (something out of harmony with love) of what holding onto my anger is doing to myself or others.
- I hold onto my anger as I feel in control and more powerful. I do not want to feel weak and vulnerable.
- Ironically, I am currently more able to be manipulated and controlled by spirits in my current condition. The feeling of power is a facade, but one that I like and I am willing to be in addiction with spirits to maintain it.
- My huge amount of anger and addictions is covering about a huge about of fear and terror that I don’t want to feel. I am very desensitised to most of my emotions, in fact.
- I am the creator of my own suppression, denial, resistance and substitution of emotions – though I was also taught how to this as a very young child, by my environment, but I have honed the skill!
- The original causes may be from my childhood, but I have added and added to them and in fact, whether I like this or not, I am the only one who can release all of my emotions. I am the only one who can allow the expression of my anger – allow it to flow.
- Expressing my anger must be done alone to be done in a loving way.
- The anger is part of my facade as are my addictions and it is will take an EXTREME use of my will to release and break down my facade. It will be the hardest thing I do, ever, I feel.
- Living in suppression and resistance and denial has not made me happy and has led to suffering and pain and will continue to do so if I continue to hold on, especially now I have heard God’s truth on this.
- But the suffering and pain is God telling me something is wrong – it is a message to call me to correct it, to try a new way: it is an act of love – something I struggle to understand emotionally as being shut down to emotions, also means I am shut down to love.
- God is offering me a solution in every moment, but I need to make use my free will in a loving way and allow myself to become sensitive emotionally, ( as God designed us to be), to develop a desire to love ( allowing myself to feel is loving), a desire to receive Gods love ( which will speed up and help the whole process), a desire for God’s truth and a desire to be humble to truth and love and feeling all my emotions.
- When I accept all that I just said in point 16 emotionally, my life will change dramatically.
- When I accept point 17 emotionally I will know this.
This is a really important point that Jesus (AJ ) mentions again and again. We cannot KNOW something until we feel it emotionally. Our soul, which governs everything in our life, is emotional – it learns and experiences emotionally or for many of us now – it’s not learning much because it’s do full of error-based emotions. I can vouch for this from my personal experience. I am an intelligent person. I pick up a number of things quite easily. My IQ is pretty good. Even Divine Truth I can spout off the theories and things I have heard Jesus and Mary say pretty well. However, despite all the things I “know” intellectually my life remains quite small and restricted. How come an intelligent person like me can’t sort that out? With all the information I am holding in my brain I should be in a high-flying career possibly, in a good relationship maybe and out there in the world, doing more, even having a few adventures. But also, I have listened to the Divine Truth teaching for 6 years and yet only a few small changes have occurred and in fact I am still dodging the big stuff all the time.
From that, it is logical and obvious that I don’t really know it. I have just retained information. If I really knew that Divine Truth and God’s Love would change my life in wonderful ways wouldn’t I be doing it every minute of the day? I am on my third reading of the Robert James Lee books, where there is such incredible information on the how everything in this universe is based in Love and how much God is doing to call us home to know our true selves and to know Him, to be happy. I do cry when I read some parts of it. It does touch me in some way, but if I really believed everything Aphraar tells us in that book, I would be living and breathing those truths every minute of every day. I am not. Therefore, something is stopping me from truly knowing and understanding it and it’s not my intellect. Also, I am very determined about something when I want to be. So I have a strong will, but it is questionable in how I am using it right now.
So if it’s not my intellect and not a weak will, as such, it has to be emotions. Over the years I have tried many ways to heal – Christianity, atheism, psychology, therapy, hypnotism, NLP and various other new age methods, yoga, meditation, chakra clearing and the list goes on. They helped somewhat for a short while, but inside lay this deep despair at times, a feeling of lack about myself, a hopelessness about love, confusion about life and much self doubt and poor decision making.
So it is and has to be emotions in me. I haven’t known the truth emotionally indicated by my life and how I feel. For instance, at work I have had a facade of confidence, capability, but many times I would go home and cry, criticise myself, feel crappy, eat a lot to comfort/suppress and also get mad at people for not helping or making me feel better ( addiction).
The world is currently in a state of avoiding and being terrified by emotion. The world is currently in a terrible state: wars, lies and deceit, secrecy, fear, poverty, children are being murdered by the millions. Our desensitisation is not working! Our hidden dark emotions of anger and fear rule our lives. It is so obvious really. We have created many things from our intelligence – space rockets, computers, medicines, but we can’t feed everyone, or provide shelter for all, or take care of the plants and animals that actually help us sustain life. Something is wrong and it is not our intellect.
So despite all my “efforts” at healing, I am now in the place of having to face the truth of the layers of what I feel is protection and safe, but actually, is just a pile of addictions and anger to avoid how I really feel; how much fear and shame and sadness is still in my soul. I keep trying to skip the anger as I was taught it is not something that is not “ladylike” to express; I have to be a “good girl;” if I express I am damned to hell forever; I will be punished, denigrated, shamed and blamed; I am selfish and horrible; afraid of what expressing my anger will mean/where it will lead. All these false belief systems that I live in and ignoring God’s truth that I am allowed to express my anger ( lovingly) and it is good for me to do that as it’s the top layer; it’s loving to myself and the world to let emotions flow.
Firstly, I am letting the people who taught me all that still rule my life and I am shutting out the one parent, who loves me unconditionally. My God is fear, a prison of my own making. But WE CAN ONLY CHANGE THE THINGS WE STOP DENYING and I guess I am moving out of the denial phase. I have been doing that very slowly for the last couple of years, but now I am facing up to the fact that i do have a big pile of unloving emotions in me and sitting on top of everything is my anger/addictions and a huge facade.
I need to and am beginning to want to swing the pendulum of my strong will across from suppression, denial, resistance, substitution and fear over to one of truth, love and humility. Even as I say that I can feel how difficult love is for me and I feel overwhelmed with the task ahead, but fifty years of destroying my life in many ways so what is another fifty sorting it out – though the more desire I develop for Love, Truth and humility the faster I will progress. But in perspective I will have a much longer time of good things that the fifty years of hell I may have been in.
I am curious and that helps me: What is it like to be an emotional being? Can I really feel that God exists and that She loves me? What would heaven be like? What is love like? What is it like to be truthful and fear less? Who am I really without all this “mud” stuck to me? So many questions and curiosities stirred by discovering these teachings and witnessing first hand two people walking that walk.
So what will help me/us?
- Developing a sincere desire to Love and be loved, particularly from God.
- Developing a sincere desire to receiving God’s truth.
- Developing humility – the sincere desire to feel all my emotions all the time and to receiving truth.
These three things will include help me have a strong will to release my anger, my addiction and break down my facade. From then underlying emotions will be able to flow out more easily. My hurt child will be able to grieve, my fear will be able to be felt.
Please note – in saying this I am saying what I have learnt from Jesus and Mary who DO know this because, unlike myself yet, they have done it – they are doing the experiment and they and their lives have and are changing. But intellectually, it makes some sense to me – having tried pretty much everything else!
In the new age world, the dark night of the soul refers to feeling painful emotions, suffering in some way. I now feel that it may be difficult to feel certain emotions, but that is not where the dark night of the soul is. The dark night of the soul is the denial, suppression and resistance we are in; the life of physical and emotions addictions we live in day in, day out, where we cling to our “comfort” and “security” , but are in fact living in dark prisons of our own making, thinking and feeling small; living lives far away from what God intended. We are living in a dark, grey world from our souls’ perspective and the only way to bring in the light is stop the denial.
I have so much more I would like to say, but it is a long blog and well done if you have gotten to the end. I will write a follow up. The Divine Truth teaching shakes us to the core, but goodness we need it. Looking truthfully at ourselves, at our world right now will change everything. It’s not pretty, but it’s not permanent, but we need to take the first step.
WE CAN NOT CHANGE THE THINGS WE ARE DENYING AS THEY DON’T EXIST UNTIL WE SEE THEM.
@Maxine Bell
The Difference Divine Truth Has Made To My Life
I haven’t written for a while as there are some changes happening and I am re-evaluating my blog – well my life actually. I have been taking some actions to help myself follow my desires, find work I love, find out more of who I am. I have been very busy and struggling at times with my 9-5, Monday to Friday job. Also, the last 15 months have been intense with things I have had to do for my son, who is an adult with Down’s syndrome. That story is a whole new post, but needless to say it has impacted life greatly and I have to look at my law of attraction and what it is really saying to me – not what I think it is saying.
I don’t find that easy, but the fact is I haven’t created much time to think about God or the Divine Truth teachings. I haven’t been able to help with the transcribing or watch many videos. What I have been doing is to keep challenging some comfort zones and have done a course to help me discover my desires and give me some tools for that. It has been really good. I have done some performance poetry, which I have loved and wrote to people I never would have done before. There has been fear and battles with apathy and/or addictions, but I keep finding a step to take and it feels good.
I am also connecting with people again and boy that brings you lots to learn about yourself, your fears, your addictions and your fears. Much more effective than hiding away – which I was doing for a few years.
I haven’t found time for everything and certainly still not spending enough time on things I love, and still emotionally resistance to feeling the deep stuff. I have discovered how important being present in my body is to feeling and realised how long I have been escaping out of my body to avoid feeling so now have some spinal work to see if that will help me unlock some emotions and of course I have to be willing.
I haven’t heard my guides for a while ( I don’t feel worthy a lot/resistance or in addiction, which prevents them helping me), but today I was sitting knitting ( a new hobby) and it stops me thinking and opens up another part of me and I started to write what I was “hearing” and got reminded that in all my busyness, my doing and trying, my intellectual working out of my issues, that I am still avoiding the big one: my relationship with God. Every time I have tried to do it, I stop as soon as I hit something, so my guides said that I need to prioritise above all else my relationship to God and all the things I am trying to and weighed down by will become clearer and easier. God’s love above all else will help me change my life. To feel my lack of faith, my blocks to God’s love are the biggest thing to focus on.
I have listened to this so many times from the DT talks, but like many, I keep going for the easier stuff ( or so it seems) as I don’t really know or have faith in the power of God’s love and I am afraid of it too. My guides gave me 4 pages of advice about this and then this is how it works. The law of attraction brought me a conversation with a friend, it triggered some emotions about men. I immediately went out for a walk, found a quiet country lane and stomped along swearing and ranting at God – so pissed at Him. I was rambling on like a mad woman until I actually ended up talking to my human father and crying about him and the feeling of never being good enough to be loved: touching the side of that deep fear that I am not lovable.
The funny thing is, I think of Divine Truth every day in some way and I wanted to write about the difference it has made in my life and I am not even on the Way yet, not properly. I haven’t opened to God’s love and I have lacked humility so many times. Yet, it has impacted my life hugely. What will it do when I really let God in?
So I thought I would write a list of how I feel Divine Truth teachings have helped me and changed my life already. For those of you who are curious maybe this will make you more curious. What I do want to do is acknowledge what it has done, with gratitude to Mary and Jesus (That’s me in 2013 – yellow top, just behind Mary and Jesus) for sharing what they know, with so much patience and compassion and for God, for creating such a system, that doesn’t let us get away with anything, but takes us to a place, a path, to our real, amazing selves. I am getting an inkling of me, a twinkling out of the corner of my eye, enough to make me look further. There are others such as Jesus and Mary, and the people like Aphraar ( see Robert James Lee trilogy on the extras page) who know more than me so do look there. In the meantime, here is what the DT teachings have done for me:
- Understand that I have a soul, a spirit body and physical body and that I am a soul and how that works
- That I am created to be emotional and that my soul is the power, not my mind.
- Some understanding of how the universe works, who God is and His Laws
- The difference between God’s love and truth and human understanding of love and how little we/I know of real love.
- To start to see the truth of my life and my soul condition, my emotional injuries and the sin ( things out of harmony with love) in me.
- How my suppressed emotions impact the world negatively
- How fear has been my God for a long time
- That God is interested in me, the real me, the “pinnacle of his creation.” and not the facade me
- That I matter.
- That there are absolute Truths
- Information and understanding of the spirit world and spirits.
- Understanding of spirit influence in my life and how I can change that.
- That what I think and what I feel can be very different and it is always the emotions in me that guide my life
- Some understanding of soulmates – that God designed a perfect mate for me and why I we currently don’t know that because of our emotional injuries.
- That I have spent much of my life in a facade, which has grown as I have grown, due to my fears and addictions to avoid my emotions
- To have compassion with myself
- That following my desires and passions is important. That my unique gifts make a difference to my soul and to everyone else around me.
- That there is a difference between natural human love and God’s love and they create two different ways of healing and growing and the potential of the second is far greater.
- That all the information I have learnt ( as above) has given me hope and empowered me. I had thought that life was meaningless, empty, but that it isn’t and that my younger feelings that Love guided everything is true and that I if I grow faith in this and God’s love for me, everything in my life can change.
- I am becoming a better person because I can examine and feel more truthfully about when I am sinning. I have stopped denying I have these ugly emotions in me.
- My desire to experience these emotions (without harming anyone) will set me free. I have the choice.
- To seek for my real self, to seek beyond what I thought I knew.
- To be truthful and that love and truth hold hands and one can’t exist without the other.
- Without knowing some of the Divine Truth teachings I would not have coped with the cancer as well; I would not have understood it’s root and causes, I would not have found a reason to keep living.
Many of these statements are just intellectual understandings for me at the moment, some are hopes that they may be true and a few have really hit home. When I first listened to Secrets of the Universe back in 2012 it really hit my soul that truth I had been seeking was here. I didn’t anticipate how much it would rock my world and uproot every belief and everything I thought I knew. Until recently, I built any self worth I had on my intellect and then to learn that my intellect meant so little and in fact I honestly had to admit my intellect alone had not found the answers or healing I was seeking. I have been and continue to be confronted with my own unlovingness, my own lies and self-delusion: in fact most of the things I have known have been shown to be wrong and boy do I resist the change, the challenge to my belief structures and hold onto fears and anger: anything to feel safe.
BUT I have not been happy in my so-called “safe” zones. I have been a shrivelled mask of my self, disconnected and disassociated from real love and life. With Divine truth I have seen things differently, experimented with new ways and admitted truths to myself and it has made me now think more carefully about my choices and my behaviour: asking what is really loving in this moment? What would Love do? What is God’s truth?
It turns out that God’s truth is that we are all very, very important; very, very loved and with a ton of potential to be amazing ten times over, once we choose to seek true Love. Divine truth has and is changing my life and this is with only small steps on my part. I observe others doing better on the path than me and so the changes in their lives are greater and for some reason I can never and do not want to let it go. There is nothing like these truths. This is not meant arrogantly: I have tried many other things and beliefs and nothing sparkles in my soul like this.
It has gifted me so much already and I don’t think I know it fully yet, but it has. My outlook on life has changed and now my actions are starting to follow in certain areas, at least. What we are seeking is already here. I hope in the next few years I can demonstrate more, and be walking my talk more than I am now. But whatever I do, you can choose to check it out for yourself and if you do I hope some of the things on these pages help you.
In gratitude,
Maxine
Said Better Than I Can and One of The Greatest Gifts I Can Give You…
After a few weeks of resistance and rebellion and not feeling happy at all in that space and then spending a good amount of time in nature this weekend -swimming in the sea, walking on the moors, by rivers, where despite ranting at God, when faced with such beauty I can not help but be awestruck and challenged by the different perspective that beauty and the love of it’s creation/Creator confronts me with. I am still feeling bloody-minded (there are fears I don’t want to feel), but I came across these interviews from 2011, after a friend was interested in what I was telling her about the divine truth teaching and having not seen these all the way through before, found them really good and poignant for me to feel other things beside just my resistance. Just can’t deny these teachings or these two amazing souls!
In the first video Jesus and Mary talk about their identity, why they are back on earth, who God is, why we struggle with believing in God, soulmates, and a basic summary of what they teach and demonstrate. In the second video the subjects range from the Law of Compensation, forgiveness and repentance, non-violent resistance, why Hitler came about, 9/11 and earth changes. All really interesting stuff and a good introduction (along with Secrets of the Universe talks on the Divine Truth information page on this website) – if you want to get an overview of what I talk about regularly or are just curious about the fact Jesus and Mary are back on earth. They are interviewed by Geoff Whitehouse who says he has been an atheist for 20 years or so and been reading Richard Dawson and suchlike, but meeting Jesus and Mary has made him rethink…
PART 1
PART 2
Be open, enjoy.
Maxine
SURVIVING AIN’T LIVING
I had a realisation in early November that I had spent a lot of my life in survival mode. In fact it has become a recognisable bed I was lying in, but not a very safe one. The last 3-4 years have been particularly bad and my external life had reflected that financially, in my home situation, physically via the cancer and emotionally just feeling numb and being okay about having so little.
Living in survival mode means you are always living in fear: fear of death, fear of destruction, fear that the few things you have in life will crumble away and you will fall into the abyss. That is how I have felt for as long as I can remember. This terrible fear led to becoming a control freak – trying to manage aspects of my life – money, relationships, day to day living, and my son – so as to feel “safe.” Living in the fear, but pretending to yourself you are not; “its okay you’ve got it all under control Maxine.”
But the fact is in all those aspects of my life, I may have controlled them or felt I did, but they weren’t natural or loving and none were being done very well. Control does not allow for love to flow and controlling addictively to avoid fear is unloving. Avoiding fear, living in fear is unloving, restrictive and self-denying as well as unloving to others as to avoid feeling vulnerable you try to control those around you, sometimes heavily disguised as “taking care” of them, but still controlling them.
Being in survival mode is really bad for your health too. When we are in flight or fright mode we produce adrenalin by the pint and all this adrenalin constantly pumping around our system isn’t good. In the end it creates a toxic environment and it is exhausting. Now that I have started to pay attention to my fear, I have become aware that daily I do so many things to avoid feeling unsafe physically, emotionally and spiritually.
I have become an expert in batting back, ducking, avoiding, distracting myself from feeling fear. In the process I have created a facade that is dull and hard and uncreative. I have lost more and more of myself.
However, compassionately, there are some deep causal events and emotions that started this whole survival mode. John Bradshaw, in his book Homecoming, says “a witness to violence is a victim to violence.” I had a father who was violent, a step father who was even more so both, physically and mentally to my mother. I sat on the stairs or behind my bedroom door many times listening to the shouting and violence going on near me. I even have a memory of standing in my cot and feeling this big dark red cloud coming into the room. It was rage – I think it was my father’s rage, at my mother, I don’t have the details, but I feel panicky and scared…and there is still much I haven’t remembered yet.
Then there is the other violence, of being shouted at, clipped round the ear, blamed and shamed in one way or another as my parents, unable to cope with their own emotions, sent them my way. The terror that comes when you think your mother has killed herself – again and again and again: all these things and so many more. I wish my experience was unusual, but it isn’t or am I minimizing it? As a small child, all these things shake you to the core and it has left me with the constant feeling that my world will end at any moment, that there is no solid foundation to exist from and at times no real love to be found.
When I hit the wall in November, my body aching from doing a job that was too demanding and pushing myself to the limits with it, and only months after major surgery and cancer and then coming home to live in a place I really don’t like, reduced down to living pretty much in one room with no space to get the things I love out – my art materials and writing materials and no money to buy new clothes when I need to or enjoy things I love, counting every penny and struggling to pay off some debts.
So I started to feel some emotions about it – yes mostly effect emotions – sadness, and some frustration, but mostly sadness, at the situation I was in, and created by my unhealed emotions, my choice to keep suppressing them. A painful realisation, but to be frank to feel something was a good thing and it created some small shifts in me, about what God wants for me and it not this – this small life.
In relation to this, for the last 2-3 of years I have also become aware that I have attracted a large group of spirits who do not want what is best for me, but only want to control my life, zap my energy and keep me small and at times completely destroy me. They have been with me for a good while I feel. By not feeling my emotions I allow that attraction to continue. It has been tough dealing with this. I feel them sitting on my shoulders, at times suffocating and crowded. It has kept me awake at night the last few months and I have felt I have no privacy whatsoever. Every time I try to take a step forward I feel they come for me. It has felt like a real battle for my soul. So I am in the process of feeling more truth about this, bit by bit.
I am letting myself feel that facade, I am returning to long-ignored passions that connect with my real self and I am doing a few things to come outside of my “comfort” zone/prison. They are a few small steps, but I am feeling a shift in some areas. I still have much to learn and feel and discover, but letting that control addiction go is tricky, but I really am beginning to dislike it. It doesn’t feel like me, just like a strange creature that has taken over. Plan A: to turn from rock to river!
I wanted to share this, to help those of you who may be doing the same as I have been. It is so important to be honest with ourselves, to look at our lives and see what it is showing us about our unhealed emotions, our self worth and our denial. We do have the power to change all this and we have much greater power to change all this if we include God in the process. Step one, for me, is working through blocks to receiving God’s love. (which would so help me soften to emotions).
The blocks I think I have identified about God are (constantly up for review!):
- Anger that God has made this so difficult (I feel it is very difficult).
- Fear I will never receive God’s love/lack of faith
- False beliefs about God judging me and deciding I don’t deserve Love ( parental stuff)
- An addictive demand that God should give me love despite my lack of desire/fears about receiving or when I am being unloving.
- Lack of faith that God is good and that her Love will make me happy.
- I have more faith in my addictions
- Lack of self worth prevents the openness to receiving.
- A fear of emotional overwhelm/losing control if I receive God’s love; what will happen?
These realisations have created some changes. A week after my meltdown a new job came up and I got it and I am working in a more loving environment – though still having to watch my own self care in it, and with that my finances have improved and I am looking for somewhere new to live, and I am writing more and have joined something called solo autobiographical theatre which is triggering memories and emotions and pulling me out of a comfort zone and challenging me to do it despite fears that come up.
The Divine truth teachings are never far from my mind and heart. The God blocks are still there, but by listening to the videos by Jesus and Mary, I learn about God’s truth and re-educate myself about Love and Truth and error and as always nature is one of my greatest teachers about God and her Love. Also, books like the Robert James Lee trilogy (see the extras page) give such hope and wonder and curiosity to keep searching and investigating the truth about God, and Love and life. I am blessed to have this knowledge and experience at my fingertips and I do not want to walk away from it until I start to really walk it and keep walking it, with no turning back and no fear.
This year is about my moving out of survival mode, of really finding out what being me is about, what loving myself is really about: to move from the pretend love that feeding my addictions gives me and finding out what God’s love really feels like. To create a blunt analogy I feel I have been clinging to a pile of hard crap that I have convinced myself was a soft cushion: comfortable, but sticky and not allowing me to move much. Clinging because I felt there was this deep bottomless pit below, a drop into the unknown, to a point of meaninglessness and death, very related to childhood fears and flight/fright mode. Now it is time to let go of clinging to this crap, falling into the abyss…whatever it may. My feeling is instead of nothingness or danger , I will find God’s hands there ready to catch me and lift me up to greater heights, even with wings to fly – just has he planned. I can see even see that knowing smile…… Yes my child, here YOU are… here you truly are…
Oh goodness, now won’t that be wonderful…
Maxine
THE GREAT SEAMTRESS
Once upon a time there was the Great Seamstress. She lived in a place far, far, away, but with the eyesight that could see far and wide, and yet could also thread the thinnest cotton through the tiniest eye of the smallest needle. This Great Seamstress had always existed and only she knew the secret of her existence. For many, many years she had been gathering threads of every colour, making needles of every size and printed fabrics of every design she could think of. She had a plan, a most incredible plan that would change her life forever. For a long time now, the Great Seamstress had been sewing alone and had created many beautiful things in the first stages of her plan.
She had stitched a huge black fabric, and weaved into it circles and spirals of colours, and small sparkles of gold and silver that created light against the dark. Amongst the dark, were also many wonderful circular planets of different shades and colours and one particularly special circle that stood out among the rest, because of its vibrancy.
On this planet, which she called earth, she had stitched many blue and green fabrics in swirls and waves to make the sea; she had sewed white and violet clouds into the sky, as well as a yellow circle, she called sun that was so bright it lit up everything around it. Her needle had gone up and down millions of times creating tiny delicate flowers in many colours into the grass, which had been made from thousands of stitches in greens and browns. From there, sprouted small and large trees made in rougher fabrics and tiny leaves in many different, intricate patterns and shapes for the Great Seamstress loved variety.
As the patterns grew, grey, red and brown rocks appeared in solid, thick fabrics with translucent blue rivers running over and around them. Some were big enough to create magnificent mountains. In other parts the land shapes were in yellows and ochre, soft hills of sand. As she sewed the Great Seamstress was pleased with her work and was having great fun in her creating. She began to add more and more shapes, more stitching, more hues so that more and more plant shapes were formed, more landscapes of every variety made. Her work was good, very good indeed.
She looked at her design. Here was a place to live. But who was to live there? One of the secrets of the Great Seamstress was her heart. It was a heart that spanned time and space, that grew infinitely and was so full and overflowing with love that she wanted to share this love with others; others that would be creators like her, others that could enjoy the playground she had so lovingly made, stitch by stitch. She formed a plan and she looked inside herself, for the Great Seamstress held another secret and that secret was that she was also a Great Tailor. She possessed the qualities of the imagination and skill of a Seamstress as well as the practical and mathematical skills of a tailor.
She now knew who she would like to share her love with: she would make many, many little seamstresses and tailors, who could learn how to sew, and in time become as good as she was at creating and together create a great and magnificent tapestry. She knew that as they grew, that through her magic, more threads and fabrics would be created and she would put no limits on their potential, as long as they worked with love, as she did. She grew very excited and in no time at all the first little seamstresses and tailors were born. The purpose of their life would be to learn about the greatest of all things, love and to discover their individuality, for each seamstress and tailor was capable of making their own unique part of the tapestry.
And because the Great Seamstress knew the love of her own Great Tailor, she made it so that each individual was half of one picture and when they found the other half of the image they were to make, it would bring them an even more blissful and wondrous life as one work of art. Each work of art would be one piece of the Great Tapestry of life so that she could share her love and the spark of life and existence with all of them and as they became more and more skilled in their making, the tapestry would become more and more beautiful.
However, the Great Seamstress was also very, very wise as well as loving and she knew that to truly allow her little seamstresses and tailors real creativity and growth they would need to complete freedom to experiment and discover the wisest and most beautiful ways to stitch. She also knew that would make mistakes and some may even want to destroy what they making, not being able to see the potential of what could be and that they would even forget the Great Seamstress herself.
Before they came into being, to start stitching, she had already anticipated the mistakes that would be made and she had used her magic and her love to make laws that would allow her little ones to see their mistakes and encourage them try a new stitch, or a different stitch, one that would lead them back to her love and to their own potential. Those little seamstresses and tailors that progressed would learn over time about these magic laws and know how to follow them and they would not be afraid to ask the Great Seamstress for her love and help. Some of the little Ones would, however, take a bit longer to learn, would refuse her help, and would make more mistakes, before they realised the right and better way to sew their life into the beauty she had planned for them.
But the Great Seamstress was in no hurry. She would wait for eons, for all her little seamstresses and little tailors. She would rejoice in their triumphs and wait patiently during their mistakes, quietly and gently guiding them back onto the right path. For she loved her little Ones greatly, and wanted them to all to find a blissful life where they could truly express and create their uniqueness, where the stitches that made, fabrics that they used, would make a beautiful, sparkling, everlasting tapestry together, that they all could enjoy.
And so whether you are a little seamstress or a little tailor, please know that even if you think you have forgotten to sew, you never truly can. It is in your very beingness that the Great Seamstress created you to sew, to find your other half and to find the Great Seamstress herself. Sometimes she may seem unreachable, but that is just our own insecurity, because she is always there, always waiting and always loving you very, very much. So do not give up hope, but know that you are a very, very important co-creator of your uniqueness and part of the Great Tapestry of Love, so keep sewing, one stitch at a time; one stitch closer to your Self and one stitch closer to the great Love of the Great Seamstress herself.
@Maxine Bell 2017
