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:
Tag Archives: Emotional Injury
BELIEFS ABOUT FATHER
Dennis Arthur Falloon (My Dad/ Big brother)
My father recently passed and even though I know he continues his life, in his spirit body and that he is still the same man, really in the early stages of a life that will continue for a long time, I felt so many emotions because the story of me and my dad is complicated. I have gone from angry, confused, very sad and grieving and full of regret. I am still in the process of unravelling and allowing all this to move through me. It is coming in fits and starts. Not a river, but more like someone turning the tap on and then off again.
The other part of this is that lately God has been showing me in many law of attraction events that working through my block to Him in relation to how I feel about men and myself in relation to men is really vital right now, if I am to progress. The emotions and beliefs I currently hold are blocking me from my true Father. God’s truth is that the person I understand as my father is in fact an older brother, who had the role of caring and teaching me. I can say and understand this intellectually, but I don’t know this in my heart, which means I don’t know this at all. To think God is my father, to read this, to hear this from Jesus (in fact my dad stuff also affects how I feel about Jesus) – and Mary, is one thing, but to know this truth deep in my heart is really knowing it, really feeling it and that is an emotion I don’t have and in fact I am not yet truly convinced emotions will help me. It is in my thoughts a lot and maybe a few times in my life I have opened the door of my heart slightly to feel what this means, but mostly I can’t and I can’t because my experience of “father” has been difficult, confusing, frustrating and mostly painful and I have held on to the emotions, either in denial, resistance and/or fear.
How we feel about father, about men comes through the belief systems of our parents and environment. So how my mother feels about men, how my father feels about himself as well as other prominent people in our younger lives, whether it is grandparents, teachers or others. Some of these beliefs are generational and some from our parents experiences. Then to add to that are our experiences with our fathers and other men around as children, and how that effects future relationships with men. From those causes come the effects of how we relate to male relationships and how we view ourselves in those relationships. The most powerful effects come from us holding onto these emotions, suppressing them as children and then as adults. Sadly, most of us are trained to suppress our emotion, which means most of us are living in the fear and other negative emotions created from our childhood. Even if you think your childhood was okay, you may only have to examine your current life and your relationships to get an idea if you are carrying mistaken beliefs or error-based emotions in you.
For myself, I have a number of things I am clearly aware of and many others that have yet to come to light for me to fully understand and Jesus teaches that these awareness’s all need to be feelings and not just thoughts for me to really know why I do what I do.
My father was 22 when he married my mother, who was just turning 18 and most of my life I have heard my mother’s version of what happened in that marriage. She claimed my father was distant and violent. She described him pulling her down the stairs by her hair and other such stories all culminating in the day he left, well abandoned us, leaving my mum a single parent with two small children. This was about 8-9 years after they married. After he left at some point, mum and I and my younger brother, Dean moved into a caravan. We had very little money and I can remember mum begging the lady in the shop for some bread to give us some toast. My mum’s family did not help and apparently not my father either. During that period my mum had a male friend visit. He had been one of our neighbours in our previous house and was going through a divorce himself. It wasn’t too long before they decided to get married and within a year or so mum had had my other brother.
Mum was married to him for about 5 years or so and it was not a good time. I don’t remember my father’s violence, but I do remember my step-father’s. I remember my mother’s breakdown and suicide attempts were during this time ( probably what would now be post natal depression on top of the abuse that went on). We were all vigilant when he was there. He ruled the house through fear. At that time I was very grateful that we lived in the countryside and could roam out of the house most of the day. Also, at that time mum was friends with the vicar from our previous home. He was regular visitor and I went on brownie camps with him and others. There was something odd about him and I can remember some uncomfortable feelings around him and even writing this brings up fear in me.
This whole period wasn’t good, and many things happened: some I remember and a lot of it is still blanked out. I started to have regular nightmares, repetitive and frightening and ones that I felt I had to cope with alone. My mum got away from this marriage, when she met someone else and with his help and a couple of friends we were woken one night, put in a car in our night clothes and moved out of our home. We slept in the home of my mother’s new partner, who was to become my second step father and with two new step sisters. Like many in those days, we were not really told anything or asked how we were. We just had to accept the changes.
Out of all of my mother’s relationships this was probably the best. He wasn’t violent, but they were very focused on each other. Life did not settle and my mum still seemed affected, histrionic and unpredictable. I do not need to go into all that happened, but all I knew was I felt very alone, was often and continuing from my younger years, the parent/carer to my mother. I couldn’t wait to leave home.
My step father was very hot and cold and I never knew where I stood with him and there was period where he disappeared, left my mum in a meltdown and me caring for her and my two brothers. He had a strong belief that we all needed to earn our keep and when I was 10, in the first year we knew him I was cooking bar food in the kitchens of a pub we lived in and ran. It felt like we had to earn “love.”
So I could summarise my experiences of fathers as distant, disapproving, untrustworthy, weak, angry, frightening, abandoning, emotionally and physically absent, and never feeling good enough to be loved, love was very conditional on me being “good” in their eyes and earning the right to it. I felt very unseen and unheard and lost. I now realise this is how I feel about God. I have projected all my dad emotions onto Him, feeling his disapproval, distance, anger and feeling totally unloved and unlovable, like I am the only child he will never accept. So I think about wanting to receive God’s love, but with all these negative emotions I am too frightened to open my heart to my version of God.
On top of that I felt and heard all of my mother’s feelings and beliefs about men: they are weak, useless, selfish. A good man would provide for a woman, make her feel safe and secure. Mum was never satisfied with the finances we had. Being married was seen as proof of your “alrightness” as a woman. She indicated that sex was unpleasant and their physical bits ugly. Yet at the same time I had to act like a lady. I was not allowed to pass wind or swear and had to sit nicely, have long hair (that’s what men preferred). Lot’s of messages that I had to perform and present a facade of nice, good. Her ideal man for me would be someone earning a good amount of money and demonstrate his love to me with gifts and holidays etc. That was her dream really, one she never got.
I have told you all this just to give an example of some of the beliefs and emotions that effected me and many of you will relate to too and it was through all these filters, all these beliefs and all the damaging emotions from these experiences that I went out into the world with. I had also gone to an all girls school, had no confidence in myself and so the idea of men and relationship terrified me. I was too terrified to touch myself, let alone let someone do it. Mum had made me feel ashamed and scared of my own body and feelings and other childhood experiences had left me with no real sense of myself or my boundaries and many dark moments happened from that space.
My father had left when I was 4 or 5 and I didn’t hear from him until I had left home, was living in London aged 19. I had a call out of the blue. We met up. I remember two visits and some letters and I can’t remember what happened, but at some point he disappeared from my life again. As the years went by there were two occasions when I turned up at his house out of the blue. One time, when my brother wanted to meet him, and another when my son was about 2 or 3. Each time we would have contact for a while and for one reason or another he seemed to disappear again. So the last time I saw him physically was about 20 years ago. In the last 3 years my brother contacted him and met up with him and he and his family even went to stay with my father for a few days. I wasn’t asked to join them, but I did start an email communication with my father. The last email was last summer when I told him I had had the all clear from cancer, he replied and I replied to him, but then he didn’t reply back. What I didn’t know was that about that time he was being diagnosed with cancer, but one that he never recovered from and so he passed just over two weeks ago.
After my father left us, he did meet someone, remarried and had two more sons. These two sons were the ones who decided we needed to be told our father had passed and they have been truly kind and understanding and invited Dean and I to the funeral last week. It has been a rollercoaster of emotions and also we have discovered lots about our father we didn’t know. He had many friends and family at his funeral and he was described as gentle, loving children and nature. I felt immense grief and still do. I am very sad that we didn’t get to know each other better; I am very sad that many years were wasted because of my fears and hurt, but also because of my father’s hurt too. He would come towards us, but then for whatever reason back away again so that I felt unloved and unaccepted again and again. I also felt that because I look like my mother, he could not see beyond that to ME. He was very traumatised by what happened with my mother and is the reason he said that he could not maintain contact with us – it was like he was afraid of her and her behaviour.
The information we have had about dad certainly changes the story my mother has relayed all these years and she did not respond well to knowing we wanted to go to his funeral, meaning that my father’s passing has also triggered some dark emotions about my mother and how much she was a block to us getting to know and have some sort of relationship with our father and how she may have manipulated the truth because of her own fears and anger. I am struggling to put all the pieces together, and can only now continue to let myself fall into the emotions that arise from all this. I am switching between romanticising my father, to trying to see the truth and to find the balance, as well as not blaming myself for not contacting him, even though I can see I was avoiding another “rejection.” But it has been really good to find out more, to feel things and to want to continue to.
It has made me acutely aware of the filters through which we see and feel things and how as children we absorb emotionally so much, so many beliefs and so many emotions from our parents: all of it obscuring the truth. I want to be able to separate God (as father) from my father as my father (rather than the older brother who was given the opportunity to be my temporary father, guide and teacher). I want to be able to separate my feelings about my earthly father from my heavenly Father, but I can’t right now. It is all overlapping and difficult, but it is just as it is and until I feel more about my father and my relationship with him and my step-fathers it won’t happen.
I am also learning that thinking something really doesn’t work. I am a great thinker, I have spent much of my life in my head, trying to figure things out and getting exhausted in the process so I know it doesn’t work. It may give a temporary fix- up, but it is a plaster over a gaping wound and the only thing that will heal that gaping wound will be to open up that wound and let all the pus (feelings) out so that it is clean and ready to let in truth and heal. I was a nurse and I know how wounds heal; I know we have to clean them to allow the new cells to grow. If we don’t clean out the yucky stuff there is no room for the new. It is the same with the error/emotional damage in us; it is the pus, that once removed allows us to feel the truth of a situation and that is what sets us free.
So through the process of allowing feelings to move through us, however long they may have been in us. If I allow this now about my father, I will find out the truth about him, but also most powerfully, I will understand better who my true Father is and then and only then will I develop trust that he loves me and wants to give me His love and then I will let it in.
It is very easy to look at this spiritual path I have found – The Way of God’s Love, and say yes I want to feel God’s love, but the truth is I don’t right now. Because of the injuries I have around fathers (and subsequently men) I feel too afraid to let God’s love in, or even trust that God loves me and wants to give me His Love.
Today I heard Jesus say that we are often putting all our energy into trying to change ourselves in order to receive God’s love. We have got it all wrong, because it is receiving God’s Love that will change us, transform us. So starting with trying to change ourselves – which is bloody hard work, exhausting and often pointless, because we are often coming from our minds and willpower – we should be looking at what stops us emotionally from letting God’s love in NOW and then working through those beliefs and emotions so that we can then let this Love in and let God transform us.
The penny finally dropped with me today on that! I have been so addicted to trying to improve myself, to be perfect so that my parents might love me and accept me, I have not seen the truth of allowing God’s power to transform me and therefore not seen the true power of humility (having a passionate longing to feel all my beliefs and emotions all of the time, no matter what anyone else thinks or feels).
The other wonderful thing is that God knows which emotions I am able to deal with right now and shows me daily by the law of attraction what ones to focus on, so I don’t even need to mentally work that out! All I need to do is pay attention and be willing to feel what comes up.
So for me this time with my dad and about my dad is an incredible opportunity to experience emotions I have had buried for a long time. I have gained some understanding this week about my father, but I can feel I have much more inside. So I pray to go there, to have the courage to do it and be grateful for all that comes.
So if you are struggling to with how you feel about God – that you doubt He is even there; that if He is he is just to awful or frightening, take time to list all the things you feel about Him and then have the honesty and willingness to see that all the things you feel are how you may feel about your parents or other adults around you (including religious ones) and try to separate God from that as you do. I have longed all my life for a father who loved me totally and unconditionally, who found something special in me, accepted me, and wanted the best for me. Because of my emotional injuries, I have tried to make my father something he wasn’t or even in the times he may have tried to do this not believed he did and I do need to find some peace through this by releasing emotions. However, the crazy thing is my dream father does exist and has done all along: my true Father God and when I get to feel this truly – wow! What a day that will be!
But in the meantime, I continue to search emotionally with and for my earthly father (probably in error and truth in different moments) and I hope through my own mediumship and emotions that I may talk to him again at some point. Or maybe I won’t need to if I feel the emotions, who knows? And I have a process of forgiveness and repentance to go through too. I do wish him well though, and I do hope he seeks his true Father too. I am still dreaming I can feel… that is where I am at…
Dennis Arthur Falloon, may you ask and it will be given to you: seek and you will find: knock and the door will be opened for you. Have courage and walk with the light ones.
For me, softening, desire, honesty and courage are required. I am fortunate enough to even have an awareness of all these different things as taught by Jesus and Mary: they have given detailed instruction on how to clean that wound – it’s all a case of whether I really listen and act accordingly, or even want to. I feel my journey with my father/Father will continue for some time, all dependent on my own will, but in the meantime I hope my own reflections help you with your own.
FATHER
When I was 5 you came to bring us gifts of love
Made with your own two hands.
A garage for my brother and a dolls house for me,
But I had a sinking feeling,
A look on your face, I didn’t want to see.
You knelt and spoke and I felt so sad,
Like my heart would break in two
As you walked back to your car.
My heart cried out, “Do you feel it too?”
I lost you that day for a further 15 years,
But I am sure I didn’t even cry or let out tears.
Because life got tough and no one replaced you.
In fact, I spent my time hoping it wasn’t all true.
So after 15 years you called me on the phone,
I was shocked, afraid, but hopeful,
I’d been feeling so alone.
We met, we talked, but it wasn’t simple.
I carried my scars and fears on the way,
You didn’t really understand
And you disappeared again one day.
This happened again and again through all my adult years.
I didn’t know how to be myself;
I longed for acceptance from you.
But I constantly felt rejected,
Even if it wasn’t true.
I wish you had persevered
And not given up on me.
I wish we could talk right now,
Because I can finally see.
I saw our story through my mother’s eyes
And other hurt that happened,
Didn’t make me wise.
You also had your story so you sometimes locked up your heart
And now I struggle to understand
What happened, what wasted times
Were spent apart.
Cause a part of me from long ago
The little me I feel
Turned into woman now, is still not able to heal.
Because I still wish for you and hold you in my heart
Mixed up with bewilderment
Of why we were kept apart.
So now you have passed through the mists
To the other side,
I pray to feel the emotions
I have kept locked up inside.
To grieve all the broken dreams of you,
And set myself free,
So that maybe one day
We can talk again and you will sit with me.
That we will find peace with this,
And can let each other go,
And be as God intended
As only He can know.
May we know our brother-sisterhood,
Instead of clinging on to pain.
And knowing our true Father
Can love each other freely,
Without self-gain.
I’m sorry that it couldn’t be
What it was meant to be,
But I have some faith, that one day I will know
That God loves me truly
As he does you too:
Where-ever we go,
Whatever we do.
We are both his children.
And to feel that deep inside,
Will be the greatest gift of all.
Where true love does reside.
@Maxine Bell 2017
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT…ROBBY
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).
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
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”
Sisters, Sisters, Sisters….. there were never such devoted Sisters….
Sisters, Sisters, Sisters,
There were never such devoted sisters
Never had to have a chaperone “No, sir,”
I’m there to keep my eye on her
Caring, Sharing,
Every little thing that we are wearing…..
This is the song from White Christmas and a while back it kept popping into my head so I took that as a hint from my guides about some emotions that were coming up for me around friendships, particularly women so writing this helped me explore it a bit more.
If we believe we are all children of God, all men are our brothers and all women are our sisters. So when I refer to sisters here I talk just not of biological sisters we may have had, but also about our friendships: an area that has been a challenge for me all of my life.
All relationships have been a challenge for me, but those with women I have found difficult in ways I can not describe fully yet, as I am still investigating, still feeling through painful emotions and I have a way to go yet.
I find it hard to believe I am accepted and loved. I feel rejection in all sorts of scenario’s: an anxiety and fear that does not actually relay the truth of the situation – it is often just my fear and I live in it still and in the last few years it has got worse. Of course it has: I have not felt the causal emotion – the reason it all started.
The words to this song, from the movie White Christmas, intrigued me years ago: I had never had a friendship like that. I had had what I thought were close friends, but they didn’t seem to last. When I was a kid, we moved around a lot, so I made friends and then I would be off. One year I left a school, then plans changed and I was back there in September, but off again within a few months. I remember my discomfort at having to return after having said goodbye to everyone. I felt like everyone thought I had lied about leaving. When I was 12 we moved to Devon and I did stay in the same place for 6 years but by that time I was already uncertain and unsure of myself. I still made friends, still giggled together with others on the bus home from school, still compared notes on boys, but never felt that closeness with one particular friend and even if it started to feel like that, it seemed to change. I often felt like a strange creature with a secret world that no one understood or knew about: I often felt like an observer of my own life. I would relate to a certain point, but mostly I felt so utterly alone, in my thoughts and behaviour and with my feelings. My only true friend became the ocean, where I went to talk, cry, sing and write poetry: its strength, beauty and far out horizon gave me space to feel and express myself.
I moved away from the ocean when I was 18 and my tentative relationships with women continued. I would seem to make good friends but they only lasted a few years and then they were gone. We would lose contact or something would happen and we no longer had anything more to say to each other. One friend ended our relationship because I was “too thoughtful.” At the time it made no sense to me and I learned to trust or like myself even less: not knowing when I was giving too much, which sometimes led me to feel worn out and resentful if it felt like others were just taking and not giving: not understanding what I had done “wrong.” If problems arose in friendships I would often bury my head in the sand: not answer calls, pretend not to be in, panic if I bumped into them, or pretend everything was fine, but retain feelings of anger, confusion, fear,sadness and even devastation within.
I was too scared to speak up in case I was not liked anymore: I averted disaster to avoid the pain of rejection or judgement or punishment. The truth is I had become ashamed of myself, unsure, and certain I was not truly liked, that people would find out in the end how awful I was – that the real me was a bad, unlovable person.
Naturally, it was not just that I moved house a lot: in fact the constant moving, the never asking how we children felt about it was just a clue to the fact our feelings or the effects of the changes on us were never considered. I still have huge blanks in my memory, but my feelings tell me that everything was about the adults, especially about my mother. She was needy and narcissistic. Her own childhood, her own family history created a parent who really struggled to be a parent at all. How can you love your children when you do not know about love? When you do not know how to love yourself? All you do is believe that the world is against you and you fight in whatever way you need to to get attention, to get “love”. For my mother, the need was so great, the pain so deep, that she used her children to meet her emotional needs, which is very damaging.
The most painful emotional event for me was how my mother would pull me closer, tell me I was her favourite (which didn’t make me feel comfortable), get what she wanted from me, which could be any form of caring for her – either emotionally or physically. Then I would not do something as she expected in some way, if I didn’t make her feel better, if I didn’t stop her pain, didn’t do enough chores, didn’t listen to her enough, she would push me away – tell me I didn’t know what she was going through, that she “had sacrificed everything for her kids” and that we were ungrateful and I was a terrible daughter. I would stand confused. I tried to please her more and more. I would get her breakfast in bed, I became an entertainer to make her smile. I feared her wrath. I feared the uncertainty of her moods and the events it created. I feared rejection and abandonment.
I became a carer, a people-pleaser. I had been taught my emotions didn’t matter and in fact to express them was “selfish.” I learnt that love meant I had to earn it, I had to be perfect: in this way the love I dreamed of became unattainable.
My fears became so great I suppressed them hugely and many times my own law of attraction brought me events where I was rejected by friends. Of course this is God’s law working with love to help us feel and release the painful emotions – but that is something I have only understood in the last couple of years. Most of my life I have continued to suffer and hide my pain, my aloneness..
Rather than face others judgement I judged myself first and have self punished myself in many, many ways all my life: through food, through poor self-care, through relationships, living in fear and not following my dreams and desires. I gave myself the slap before others did – it seemed the easier option. It is a route many of us take. One that imprisons us in fear and suppression. A prison cell that only we have the key to.
Of course I never did reach the perfection I felt my parents wanted, no matter how hard I tried, particularly with my mother. So I mostly felt unloved and unaccepted. The rest of the craziness of my childhood led me to feel invisible and insignificant. Most of my life I have felt that no matter what I did or who I was, I could not be loved.
So why would I believe that a friend could really love me? Every other minute I wait to be “unloved”, rejected and alone. How can I trust my sisters, when the one big sister ( my mother) who was meant to guide me and teach me about love and trust, manipulated and hurt me. It may not have been consciously, but it happened. My hurt happened, as it has for so many of us on this planet: living and in spirit.
This is a fear, covering up a huge amount of grief and what is particularly painful for me right now is that it blocks me from receiving God’s love. I find it nearly impossible to connect to the feminine aspect of God. I often call my Father, but I can not say Mother to God without that sick feeling in my belly: an indication of my fear, blocks and pain. I have found the most incredible teachings of God’s truth and yet I can not fully embrace them whilst I block the most powerful love in the universe through my false beliefs and emotional injuries.
I recently wrote to Mary and Jesus and Mary said my unwillingness to feel my fear was blocking my progress. I totally agree and so I have been praying and letting myself start to feel some fear – it is a tiny trickle at the moment and sometimes I still revert to anger to avoid my fear, but I will keep going as what I do feel now is the pain of my suppression. I feel like an immovable rock and it hurts: it feels heavy and yukky. My body talks through pains in my shoulders and back: it tells me that my suppression is a burden, a heavy sack of “not love.”
I am also taking steps to not live in my fear: I called a friend I haven’t seen for a long time. I suggested to someone at work we go out to a cafe one day for a drink. I felt my fear when confronted with a woman at work who scared me. It’s amazing when you do feel your fear: everything changes. She is now more respectful of me and friendly. God’s laws working perfectly. The power of emotions to change our soul, even if it is just a little bit, which then in turn change our life. So if I start to feel more, my life will change more. These little steps out of my fear may seem silly, but for the last 3 years I have been a bit of hermit – avoiding situations where I might feel unaccepted, judged, or have to face angry women: avoiding friendships. Even when I write to Mary I feel my neediness – “love me, love me” as I seek approval. It’s sad and it’s also an unloving demand to Mary or anyone else I project it too. If I just feel the emotion that will stop. I have been in huge denial, and I at least hope that is changing.
Mary wrote some great stuff on fear and how to “jump from the plane” on her blog and she herself is a great inspiration as to watch her change throughout the videos on the Divine Truth website over the years and it has increased my faith in the process God has provided to heal our soul. To see her and Jesus, increase in love, increase in joy and passion touches my soul and provides hope and an example for us all: they really, really walk their walk.
At the moment I am still standing near the door of my plane (metaphorically) and starting to feel what the worse thing that could happen is if I feel my fear. I could die, I could go mad in the terror of my fall, but then I remember there is no death: then I remember that God loves me and wishes me no harm and I have daily evidence of that. Yes the fear I need to feel may be a castle of terror, but it is holding me back, locking me up and these days my desire to be free is starting to overtake my desire to be “safe.”
So watch out sisters, I may be coming out of the woodwork. I may even start to feel you like me: I may even start to like me myself. It doesn’t matter: all I know is it’s time for a change and it’s time to discover more about myself. Praying to be braver, more humble, more loving and more truthful: one step or one leap at a time.
Maxine
An Aside:
- I will put a link to Mary’s blog in the Extras section of the website.
- Please note my previous posts are all below this one. You have to scroll down. Until I get the finances to upgrade it is a little fiddly, but I hope you find it worth it. 🙂
- I am going to start adding books that have helped me too.
PAINTING MYSELF….
Much of who I am has been lost much of my life.
Many of you may feel this, I do.
It doesn’t mean we have done nothing with our life, but it can mean much of what we have done in life, work and love has occurred more because of the belief systems we were brought up in: what others made us believe about ourselves and who we are. With this understanding I wonder how many of us actually follow our true desires and passions? Or are we following what others expect of us or what we feel is responsible, sensible? Or even what reflects our own lack of self worth or an inability to break away from cultural and social expectations? In fact there can be a huge self deception or denial that this has happened: we are so used to be “other” me we forget to even question who we are. I started writing this weeks ago and it has taken time for me to feel what it is I actually want to write as I have a myriad of emotions attached to these thoughts and the journey of self discovery continues.
I have known for years I wasn’t who I really am, but have felt lost in the search, apathetic and despairing at times as I listened to voices in my head saying I wasn’t worth the effort. Thank God in between these moments were gifts of clarity and a fighting spirit that told me there was something else and to keep searching. I prayed and then I was gifted a wonderful law of attraction when this picture popped up on Facebook a while ago: it grabbed my attention and I never did read any of the words that came with it, as just looking at it, feeling what it meant for me was enough. It sent me into hours of feeling grief: a deep sadness that I didn’t know who I was. I stared at the beautiful lady, an artist’s creation, but asleep and unaware that she was a work in progress. She was alive, but not living. Yet the artist continued to paint, to bring her more alive: maybe one day she would notice and wake from her dreams to dance across the canvas. Maybe one day I will, I thought.
But first I needed to feel, to feel the incredible sadness I felt that at 47 I still couldn’t identify fully which bits of myself were really me, the true me: not wounded me, not facade me, not the me everyone else thought or expected I should be. I have searched before, but now I realised I had been looking with my mind too much: positive thinking, doing, doing, doing, change your thoughts, but all without really feeling so a temporary change followed by denial and frustration with myself. So logically if my mind hadn’t worked it out enough to make a permanent change I needed to experiment with another way. I have been listening to Divine truth talks for just over two years now, but it has taken time to get past some of the confronting emotions they bring up in me. On a soul level I recognised that I had found something beyond what I had known before and that it wouldn’t leave me. I had been asking passionately for truth a year before and I wasn’t going to throw it out when it finally came. In the talks, Jesus constantly says we need to develop humility: a willingness to feel all of our feelings. God made us emotional beings and yet we live in a world of fear: one where the biggest fear is feeling. In fact I think we have a terror of it, so convinced are we that emotions that overwhelm us, might kill us. However, I believe, it is suppressing what we truly feels is what kills us.
So I have and continue to feel what has brought me to this point of not knowing myself and even though I have a good way to go some of the clouds have started to lift. First thing, was at least intellectually accepting first until I feel it, that I am not what those voices have told me. I am not a piece of crap, a worthless person: I am not the only one God can’t save. The voices after all are just the voices of other adults in my childhood and human in spirit form that have similiar beliefs to my parents who join in the emotional abuse: the voices are just other wounded humans, who because they are not willing to feel their own feeling project at children, like I was, and that I/ we carry through to adulthood. Until now I have not known how to quiet the voices. Of course when you see why they are still wounded and still needing to hurt others ( consciously or unconsciously) there is the clue: I NEED TO FEEL MY FEELINGS not to stay like them. I also need to believe GOD’S TRUTH ABOUT ME: I am unconditionally loved and loveable – a wonderful creation. I chose to at least accept these two things intellectually at first, and as I allow my emotions to be felt I have started to feel these truths more in my soul: a tiny bit right now, but its a start.
So what emotions? Well we will all have our own journey with this, but for me the first part was a life time of suppressed anger. I have for two years been making excuses about feeling my childhood anger: on we haven’t got enough space, what about the neighbours etc etc . However, the truth is I have been so terrified of punishment, of not being seen as a good girl, I chose not to feel and release it. Now I go in my bedroom and beat the crap out of my bed and look I am still alive! AND no one punished me! AND a couple of times it has led me to tears of sadness. Step by step , layer by layer : anger, fear, grief. Praying for God’s help and God’s love. I have stubbornly been very self reliant all of my life ( it felt safer) , but now I am finally surrendering to the idea I want and need help. And if I want help why not go to the top guy/girl. Always better to ask help from someone more loving, more knowing, more truthful than yourself. Stuff self reliance, giving God reliance a go!
This surrender is now uncovering joy I haven’t felt for years, love I didn’t know existed and a gentle blossoming and feeling I matter and I might even have something to contribute. I am allowed to follow my passions and desires! When I was younger I was made to feel I had to be responsible for others, I became a carer of my mother many times , as she struggled with life, unhappy in her own unfulfilled dreams. The projections and expectations were so high I believed I had to care for others, except myself: in fact anything I did for myself was just selfish. Sadly, many of us believe this and the world is full of those who believe they need to self sacrifice themselves versus those who have a deep sense of real self-entitlement. Both are wounded states, from deep insecurities and self- doubt. I shrank in these false beliefs, I got lost, and in recent years have left my shattered dreams at the bottom of an ocean of despair.
There have been times when I pursued dreams and I remember the feeling of aliveness and passion: sheer joy. Yet they didn’t seem to lead anywhere because at the end of them ( like the degree I did when I was 30) I was lost again. My sense of self has been too fragile and I believed I would never be good enough, not matter what I did. I was also filled with an overdeveloped sense of responsiblity to my son and others: it was easier to help others than myself: huge amounts of guilt. If I truly decided to help myself I would need to face the truth of what happened to me as a child, I would need to feel how unloved and unaccepted I felt: that was too painful. Like many of us, I didn’t want to feel that.
Now I do! But now I can feel it ( work in progress!) , not deny it. If I feel it , it moves and it eventually moves out of me: e-motion. The more I experiment with this, the more I feel the benefits. This really does work. I am healing my relationship with myself ( which includes my soul mate) and with my creator, my parent: God. I still have a huge amount to discover, but like any good scientist, I now realise, things change because you don’t give up just because you have a bad day. I feel like a I am crawling out of my chrysalis and God is holding my hand. Still scared, but not trying not to live in my fear.
Every day I grab more moments to find myself. The other day I had to shop for new clothes and as I tried on clothes I went on quite a journey working out what clothes were really me, tuning into feelings of expectations from others, my fears of what others would think and my small wounded self. Interesting how a shopping trip can become a new trip: finding me. Feeling my way round I found some great clothes.
So now I am an artist of myself and God provides the canvas……….. layer by layer, brushstroke by brushstroke……. here I come…..
With love to my brothers and sisters,
Maxine Bell
