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Tag Archives: real self
THOUGHTS ON LOVE
We live in a world where we say “there are plenty more fish in the sea;” where we console ourselves over lost love by imagining another person is out there and that our perfect mate is our choice. We just have to find the “right” one and often these days we have a list of requirements: tall, slim, happy, positive, makes me laugh, kindness, takes care of me, nice eyes, long legs, large breasts, intelligent, sexy, a good cook and so the list goes on.
In the process of looking for a good match, we make mistakes and kiss many “frogs” before we find out prince or princess. This is the same whether straight or gay. We keep looking for that other half to fulfil our lives, that person who will make us happy and whom we can share our lives with and yet we don’t want to admit there is maybe just one other half. The truth is we are told there is not just one special person, that there are many who we could match with and we just look for that best match. A few people believe in finding “The One”, but are often mocked about this. Our ideas about love and relationships is very confused and contradictory.
In the western world, at least, our ears are constantly filled with songs of broken hearts and lost love. The other side of the coin is the number of programmes about dating, finding dates, and even weddings. We are certainly looking, but in fact many of us are pretty confused about the whole thing. I recently watched a few episodes of a programme in the in the UK called first dates. I felt it was a bit of escapism, but I also think inside I am also trying to work out this love/relationship stuff, just like the rest of you. Before the dates they are the participants what they are looking for and in so many people I notice the first things people list are physical, even down the type of teeth, the next most common thing is “fun,” “make me laugh” and “be positive and happy.” ( to me this indicates how afraid we are of each other’s sadness) .For women the other frequent request is be a gentleman and be big/strong; keep me safe and take care of me. There is very little mentioned about personality, qualities, ethics, morals, or much of any real depth. It may possibly be there, but they don’t say it.
Between the lines there is a lot of disappointment, confusion and hurt about love and relationships as well as a huge amount of fears about not being loved and accepted and safe. I too have these emotions, but what I have realised lately is that I have never felt truly seen or loved for myself. I always had this feeling that any mistake I made I would be punished and rejected. My belief is that to be loved I had to be perfect.
Then it hit me that the other side of this was that I had never allowed myself to be truly seen and that I didn’t even love or know myself so how could expect anyone else to love the real me. I don’t even know the real me, myself yet. I learnt early on in my childhood, like many of us, that to receive “love” I had to become the person that was acceptable to my parents and other adults around me. I had to be “good girl” or “helper” or “servant” or any other role that fitted their beliefs about me. I don’t remember my mother ever asking what dreams I had or what I would like to be. I just remember if I showed an emotion she didn’t like or expressed something she didn’t understand or want to hear or was too busy to listen too I was shut down, screamed at or ignored. So to not get punished or yelled at or ignored or rejected by my parents I became what they wanted and the feeling I have now is that “I” fragmented across the universe somewhere; went into hiding and quickly formed a facade that helped me survive, but in the long-term was and is deeply painful and got the point until recently where I really believe my facade is me.
This is the truth for most of us in one form or another and so we grow into adulthood with roles. For men is could be provider; strong; capable; husband; lover ( who knows what he’s doing) or “DIY-er, for example. For women there are many roles: carer; mother; nurturer; helper; virgin; sexy; sister; friend; multi-tasker and these days we are often expected to be able to and expected to be all of them plus have a career. It is pretty exhausting. But which one or any of them is us, the real us?
We can’t find love, I haven’t found love because I haven’t found me, and I haven’t found love because I haven’t even understood love. When I watched that dating programme I saw clearly, what Jesus has been teaching, that most relationships are based on co-dependency and we think that is love. We think that someone who fulfils all our needs or more truthfully, the “holes” in us is someone who loves us and we love someone if we fulfil all their needs: it is an emotionally addictive bartering system.The trouble with having a list of wants is that we are often never satisfied and is based on someone or both people sacrificing themselves or parts of themselves.
I can look back on all my relationships and see in each one I became who they wanted me to be. I fitted into their life, rather than discover what I wanted and when their were times I started to seek something for myself the relationship would start to break down: the bartering system started to shatter. In this process, I compromised myself in so many ways: self-love, sexually, ethically and morally. Over time, my disappointments and hurts and pain got deeper and my demands to them got greater. I tried to have control over everything and I got angry and more in addiction. My fear and sadness got greater and the things I did and the things I wanted partners to do to stop me feeling my sadness and fear got darker.
Co-dependency is a sticky, thick, ugly thing. It is all about facade and it may feel “comfortable” or “safe” because it helps us avoid painful emotions, but is does not lead us to love. How can we be intimate when we are not being our true selves? We are being a lie and living a lie. I feel very sad about the lie I have lived for so long and because it has been lived for so long there is a lot of lies/facade to break down and a lot of unlovingness to myself and others to face.
So how to do we change it? How do I change it? For me, apart from a lot of self-reflection and increasing my longing to understand and know the truth I have also been trying to learn about love; the real truth about love – God’s truth about love. It isn’t easy and I find myself confused at times, fighting between old belief systems, the world’s belief systems, versus what Jesus and Mary are teaching. The facts are there though – look at the world – if we knew love, it would not be as it is. If we knew about love, we would not be so obsessed with our version of romantic love that seems to go wrong constantly. We are not being honest that we just don’t know. The fact is I think we just have to start again – look at the whole thing again.
Something else has hit me in recent years and listening to Divine Truth is the idea that I have a soulmate – THE other half of my soul: the perfect partner for me, created for me by God. Yep, despite free will, it seems that we don’t have a choice in who our soulmate is! That is pretty confronting if you compare it with the world’s view. We can of course reject our soulmate and try to defy what God created for us, but for me it is a fact I can’t ignore. I am not sure if I have accepted it 100%, but I do know that I can’t just look at any man anymore. As those of you who have followed my blog you will know I have suspicion who my soul mate is, but because of all my emotional injuries I really don’t know for sure and to be honest, not even sure how I could have attracted him into my life even temporarily. I have some deep emotions to heal around gender and sexuality and other things.
But, logically, it makes sense that to know the other half of me, I need to start knowing who I am. If I want to be intimate with my other half, I have to find that intimacy with myself: fearlessly and I have to start challenging my beliefs about love because they sure haven’t worked so far. The “love” I have known has been conditional and in God’s eyes that isn’t love. Jesus teaches, love is a gift: unconditionally and in my heart I don’t know that yet.
I have been reading a book called “Loveability: how to love and to be loved” by Robert Holden and he talks about our deep fear that we are unloveable and it has led to our obsession with falling in love. This obsession is about being loved rather than being loving, indicating that fear of unloveablity. He says we need to stop falling and start thinking what real love is. This is what Jesus has been saying for 2000 years – what is real love and indicating that real love is demonstrated constantly by God in so many ways in our lives.
In the book, unconditional love is summarised and is very similar to what Jesus teaches so I like what was written:
- “Love is not an act… not an audition.” Jesus says that love and truth go hand in hand so you can not love or be loved if you are in facade.
- “Love is not a bargain.. it is not a currency you buy things with…Love does not make deals. Love does not say, ‘I will give you love, but first you must give me something else.” This is the bartering system I was talking about and most of us are in these type of relationships ( any type of relationship). I love this quote by Hafiz, “Even after all this time, The sun never says to the earth: “you owe me!”
- “Love is not idolatry… when you don’t feel equal you give yourself away and take on a role.. they block intimacy. They conceal dishonesty.” I have done this many times – made myself smaller, less important than the other. If you make someone else higher than you, you live in fear and suffering: this is not love. It is a lack of self-love at the very least.
- “Love is not special…. such as, “I’ve been saving all my love for you.” You are making someone into your “holy cow,” Robert Holden says, and use them to “milk as much love as possible.” Love is not exclusive for one person, the goal is to love everyone. When you love you can love anyone ( though of course soulmate love or love with God with is different – though I will admit I am struggling with this one).
- “Love is not selfish..Love is full of desire. You are intent on knowing the whole person… drop the mask and stop hiding. ” This makes me feel that Love is brave and open: it flies and dances. I have felt lust and infatuation – both feel addictive and selfish – it is all about what you can get.
I think hearing that Love is a gift has been one of the most important things I have heard. It really made me think about my demands, my fears and truly how loving or not I have been over the years. From this point, I can ask myself: do I really love this person freely, without condition? Am I willing to gift my love without expectation or demand? Then if I feel any demand or expectation I know in that moment I am not loving them.
Also, do I really want to know them? Do I really want them to know me? Am I prepared to be vulnerable and open and humble to the errors and fears in me? This is intimacy – being prepared to be completely vulnerable and it scares the crap out of me and yet I am also curious. I have tried the other way and it has brought me much unhappiness, and suffering.
We need to be prepared to see the mountain of evidence that we know little about love and that’s okay. Just be honest about where we are at and build a desire to know the truth. When I was a child I had this feeling, among all the chaos around me, that if they just loved more things would be better: that love would be the answer. When we are kids we do know much more than the adults around us often. I grew up sadly, feeling my heart had been very badly battered and bruised – but it wasn’t and isn’t love that does that. It is not-love that does that. So to find love, to know love, we need to look at the not-love in the world: the not-love in ourselves, our false beliefs, our neediness, our fear, our grief.
We can’t change things we are lying about – because a lie isn’t a reality: it is a lie. Only the truth can create change, because it is truth and logically truth is real. For me, my personal truth is too impacted by emotional baggage at the moments so I look for a greater truth – a higher truth and only God has that. That is what makes God, God – she knows more than us – about love and about what is true. Jesus says to learn about love we have to learn about Love from someone who obviously knows more about love than us. Weirdly, we often try to learn from others around us who know as little or less than we do: we all scramble around in the dark together. So stop scrambling and look for someone who carries the torch. Only they can show us the way: the ones who carry the light: there are a few on earth, but a more guaranteed source in God. Praying for the faith to really know that in my heart – what a day that will be!
@2017 Maxine x
Itsy Bitsy Truth and Updates
I feel I want to be honest in where I am at right now and in my relationship with Robby, and with God. The journey of writing this blog is part of my own spiritual journey to know God, to know myself, which includes the other half of my soul: my soul mate. During this journey I have written in facade, in addiction and hopefully some truth. I still have emotions about being judged and disliked, of being attacked and hurt for not being “perfect.” But I have realised I have to face these fears and share as truthfully as I am able at this time, because I have a desire to share Divine Truth, to be in harmony with Love and to share my journey in the hope it invites some of you to try the experiment and seek God’s Way of Love, which I feel to be beautiful and unique in it’s power to change us and change this world. Most of the Divine Truth I share will come via Jesus and Mary, and any other “truth” is likely to be my personal truth. As you listen, question, feel and investigate for yourself. I suggest that all you need to do is to be open and bear with me as I try to express what is in my heart. If you want to know more ( and hear a much better explanation of what I am talking about) please go to divinetruth.com.
In the last few weeks I have suddenly realised that I am smiling a lot (its been a while) , with the feeling that I am blessed to have discovered what I have, since I first heard of AJ/Jesus, and what I continue to discover about the Way of God’s Love. And I smile, not at any special time, it is just in ordinary moments: when I am walking to work; putting out the rubbish; strolling round the shops buying vegetables; driving or the other day I was just sitting in a car wash after my car was in the flight path of a dozen seagulls. This was the third time in a week so it felt like an another attack. It was most certainly the law of attraction showing me something, but as I sat in the car wash, I was so grateful I knew about God’s law of attraction: this wonderful gift that constantly presents itself to show what we still need to heal and what is healed. I haven’t always liked it, sometimes I have screamed at it when it seemed painful or I just haven’t got what it was showing me. And to be honest even after I heard about it in one of the Divine Truth talks, I didn’t really take on board that paying attention to it would be really helpful! That is what happens when our brain hears something, but we don’t really want to hear it on a soul level – mostly because we are in denial or resistance and hold error in our soul that is challenged by the truth we are presented. However, something has finally sunk in ( 2 years later ) and I have started to pay attention and feel the truth of it more in my soul. So when something happens I can ask: Ok, so what is God trying to show me? If I do that and soften my heart I can feel the answer. If I soften and be humble then my guides can also help me. Now I can really start to appreciate the gift that it is. Funny thing is we feel God as so distant and yet he talks to us constantly through his laws and the love that created them.
In many ways this has been the most challenging two months since I discovered Divine Truth just over 3 years ago, so smiling a lot is an interesting development and proof that the more we feel our error, the more we feel joy: we just feel more! Some truth that Mary shared with me after I wrote for some advice, dropped a bomb in the life that Robby and I shared. A life that was comfortable, but plodding on. We had a certain cosiness and routine with each other, but little passion or deep connection. Also, I had been working in a job for a few months that I realised had a small amount of soul desire in it, but many addictions and I felt trapped and drained: trapped in my job, trapped in my addictions, trapped by my fears; trapped by a low income: surviving but not really living. I was stuck in a rut and felt that for some reason my soul condition had degraded and I couldn’t work out why. At the same time I had been reading the Padgett Messages and continued to listen to Divine Truth videos and there was a stirring of increased desire to have a relationship with God and heal my soul. I knew about God’s Way of Love, but hadn’t been living it and was and am blocked to receiving God’s love: I am still not on the path; still not walking the walk. I wrote to Mary and received a reply. Jesus and Mary don’t always reply to emails. If they feel you are in addiction it is not loving to reply and meet you addiction, just as a loving person would not give an alcoholic a beer. As they will testify, I have written in addiction a number of times (awkward smile). It is not loving of me to do that, but in my wounded state, my avoidance of feeling the real emotion, my fingers tap away and I click on send. I have realised when I feel compelled to write I must not: a compulsion is an addiction so stop!
This time, despite some addiction in my email, that stirring of desire for God, meant I received a truthful and loving (and ever patient) reply. I had to face some harsh truths about my unloving behaviour at work, represented in my rebelliousness and arrogance. This happens to a lot of us who try to follow the Divine Love Path. We listen to a number of Jesus’ talks, understand them very intellectually and think we know what love and truth is and in the end we end up using these Divine Truths ( what we think they are – not what they actually are) to feel superior, be condescending and arrogant. All addiction! All unloving! And for me, it’s to avoid feeling inferior, insecure and worthless. I thought I was doing the right thing – I called it truth, but when Mary said not, and I felt about it, it felt very yukky. Getting past the shame, I then felt what I thought was loving to myself and others was actually arrogant and very unloving. No wonder I felt my soul had degraded. Jesus and Mary are both more progressed than I am and have received God’s love so I listen to what they say. It’s not that I can’t question it and I feel it’s good to, but most importantly I feel the truth of what they tell me in my soul – not all of it ( If I did I would be more progressed than I am!), but certainly parts that I am ready and willing to hear and feel, enter my soul. In the spirit world, spirits (people) that are more progressed in love and truth have brighter spirit bodies. If they are brighter than us, they have more truth and love in their soul (which we can also feel) and it is humble to listen to what they tell us. The brighter the spirit the more truth they have. Jesus and Mary feel like that. I may not see their spirit bodies, but I can feel they have more love, that they know more truth. They are not just talking the Way, they are walking it – as they have for 2000 years – and this too inspires me to listen to them and try to walk the same path.
The other painful truth that came up for me in the email, was that Robby’s addiction to spirits and his addiction to be looked after was currently his main motivation for being with me, and of course I was meeting his addiction to be looked after with my own addiction to rescuing others and to avoid a feeling of aloneness in me. Hence, co-dependency. This hit me like a truck. It hit me because I had already started to realise it, but had put my head in the sand. Also, I was doing yet another “caring” job, as I have done for 30 years, as I have done most of my life, but about that time I had begun to feel how depleted I was and how much grief I had about forgetting myself. It is not that Robby and I care nothing for each other, but that we still both have so much error in us and so little knowledge of real love, our relationship is unhealthy and unloving ( in God’s eyes) in many ways. At times we have felt we were soul mates and yet neither of us is in a condition to know that for certain. Something has kept us together – whether that is a soul mate connection or addiction is as yet unclear.
For the first weeks after Mary’s email I emotionally left the relationship completely….if it could be called that, as we both fear intimacy so much. Much of what we have had has been addiction and facade. Though, I will say we have also triggered much in each other which has also helped us progress in certain areas and I feel we have learned how to be a bit more loving with each other and I am very grateful to the truth that Robby has told me. He is much more fearless in saying what he feels than me. It has not been easy, and after the first 2-3 weeks of a honeymoon period we have either hit big periods of triggering, projected and received anger, been confused and hurt with intermittent periods that were more peaceful, but would have included the facade of happiness often created by co-dependency. Emotionally leaving the relationship was caused by huge fears that came up for me, that I didn’t allow myself to feel. Instead I froze in my fear and closed my heart. Robby, of course, felt it, but was confused by the suddenness and cause and I was initially too scared to say anything. Coincidentally, he went home to Belguim for 10 days and I will be honest and say I was glad of the break. Of course, I was running away and living in my fears.
Eventually, Robby and I talked. It wasn’t comfortable, but what I find amazing is that every time that happens, every time we talk more truthfully, and don’t live in the fear, it feels so much better: a weight is lifted and we are able to feel our emotions better. So we had to admit our addictions with each other (those we are aware of), but then face the fact that until we had more of a relationship with ourselves, having a relationship with someone else was impossible. Also, what became apparent was I have a greater desire for God than Robby and at the moment he is resistant and angry at God and not wanting to listen to Divine Truth. This is painful for me because I wanted to share this path with someone and avoid that loneliness I really feel inside. So now I can’t avoid it: which is good.
Robby and I have decided that we must break out of our addictions and one thing we have both have faith in is that if we are soul mates, being in more truth and love will eventually bring us back together again in a more loving way or if we are not, allow us to separate, peacefully. Love and truth is, after all, the magnetism that draws a soul mate to you. If we are not with our soul mate at this time that may include the truth that we don’t really want to meet our soul mate, because our fear is too great or our gender issues are blocking the relationship.
So for now, Robby has a real desire to experiment and follow his desires. He has never really done this: he was so shut down as a child by his parents, never seen as an individual who had the right and free will to discover his passions. He lost his will very early on and now has a desire to find his will again and find ways to open his heart and expand his soul. He has decided he would like to do this by working in area of need in the world: do something meaningful, that will take him out of his comfort zone. For him, he has decided he wants to volunteer in Nepal, following the earthquake. He has set up an appeal for funds and been putting lots of energy into making it happen and trying to embrace the journey of all that it brings up for him.
When I wrote to Mary, I wanted to quit my job, but I decided initially to return to work, but with more humility and from that place decide what to do. So for the last couple of months, I have been working with a new attitude and awareness. I have been watching out for that rebellious and arrogant streak, trying to be more humble to what comes up for me. It is an absolute journey for me, as it will be for many of us, having learned to shut down my emotions as a child and continued to add to that all my adult life. So my constant prayer at the moment is to be a river of emotion, rather than a rock of numbness. I am using my bit of will to love, by softening to my law of attraction and the emotions it encourages me to feel. I have had some fear triggered, though have yet to fully surrender to the terror. And I have had grief about the loss of myself and the false belief that my needs don’t matter and to the loss of my dreams, loving desire and passions. In the feeling of my grief, I have begun to remember the things that make my heart sing: music, art, ballet. I started to draw again and love it and I am not worrying about the result, just enjoying the experiment. I have cried when I have watched dance and felt the desire in my soul and body to move and in that I have been guided and found a teacher who is willing to teach a 48 year old ballet! There is more to feel so that I create the funds to make this happen. I went to an open day at an local art college and for the first time for a very long time I felt alive and connected to the real me: I could have flown home that day and one of the courses there made my heart sing. It was wonderful.
Returning to work with more humility has allowed me to feel that I need to step back and out of my addiction to rescue. It is just helping me avoid myself, and the fear that I am so awful, and unlovable. Also, I have a lot of anger and grief about service, false beliefs that love is sacrifice and it affects my life hugely. I need to feel these emotions as I want to have a more pure desire to serve. On Monday I handed in my notice and signed up with a teaching agency: it will allow me flexibility and hopefully time to pursue my desires to follow the Way, to do my art and my writing and in the process the best way to serve. I have an interview for an illustration degree (yay!). I do not yet have the funds, but I know my desire for this is everything and changes everything. I am going to let myself experiment and play. I am terrified about how I will survive financially; I am terrified of not being in control, of, as Jesus puts it, “letting go of all the balls;” I am terrified of the chance my dreams may not come true; terrified of many things. However, I know that triggering my fears is one of the biggest gifts I can give myself. I know fear has been leading my life, giving a false sense of security, but keeping me shriveled and not really alive – far away from God and far away from my real self. Fear is my very real and painful prison, but only I hold the key to my freedom. I have to want it and I have some faith that as soon as I put the key in the lock to turn it, I will be surprised that the door will fly open. In her blog, Mary describes feeling our fear as jumping out of the plane. We need to jump: I need to jump; I am starting to want to jump because I want to know me and I want to know my parent. I have now moved from crouching in the cabin of the plane and feel I am standing at the door – most of the time, though still holding on for now. But I am taking action at last.
I am curious about God, this Being, this Creator, our Parent, because as I read more about God and God’s love and as I hear more about Divine truth I long, even more,to really feel this love, to understand its source. I am terrified of love too, because I have so many false beliefs around it, but there is a stirring of faith that God’s love is something so special, so wondrous, that when I do eventually feel it, I will wonder why I waited so long and laugh at my own foolishness for choosing fear instead, for so long.
I am so grateful for discovering the teachings of Jesus – the real teachings of a soul that has been closer to God that any other human I feel – so far. Because we can all do what he has done, what he is doing, what Mary is doing. God made us all equal and equally capable of following her Way. I have some barriers to break down to be able to receive God’s love and say I am really walking the path and I want to share my journey, because this truth is so awesome and in the sharing of my own journey I also learn. I feel there is still some narcissism and addiction in my sharing, but I know if I am open, God will show me how to purify me desire to write and serve, and the more humble I become so it shall be. But I also know (intellectually) that it’s ok to not be perfect and to allow this to be a journey where I will still keep tripping up for now. My main goal right now is to look at my resistance and blocks to God and receiving his love and to be that river – the river of humility, feeling everything, discovering who God intended me to be, discovering what it is like to feel the flow of Divine Love in me and experience it’s power for change in my soul.
So this is update on where we are: my attempt at less facade and more truth. It is a bit bitty, but I hope helpful.
I want to end this post with a quote from the Padgett messages: some incredible Channelings to James Padgett at the beginning of the 20th Century. Many of the spirits are Celestials and talk of Divine Truth, Divine Love, Spirit World and other topics. I highly recommend them ( see extras page). This quote is from Volume One, from Solomon of the Old Testament. It truly touched my soul and I have re- read it a many times and intend to follow his advice. Here it is:
What is the greatest thing in all the world?
Prayer and faith on the part of mortals; and Love – the Divine Love – on the part of God. The latter is waiting, and the former causes it to enter into the souls of men.
No other truths are so great and momentous to men.
Let what I say sink deep into your memory, and try the experiment. I know you do try, but try and then try and never cease trying. Love will come to you and with It faith, and then knowledge and then ownership.
love Maxine ( trying and trying, again and again…)
In Search of the Real Self: Cracking the Shell
Jesus has a great analogy of our three selves. He likens us to an egg and for me that image works really well. The beautiful golden center is our real self: the wonderful true self that God created, the one we are trying to discover in our physical incarnation. The egg white is the hurt self: that part of us that is damaged from the environment we are brought up in from conception. The shell is the outer layer, our facade self: the part that is firstly created by our parents and environment and then developed by ourselves. It is the part of us we create to survive, the part created by the suppression of our real self and hurt self: the suppression of our emotions. It is this part I am focusing on today as it is this part that is the most heart-breaking for me at the moment.
But first, the real self. To be frank, I know very little about the real self. I have some intellectual understanding from the Divine Truth teachings and my own hopes. It is the part most connected to the soul God created me to me: my true personality, my true desires and passions and the part aligned with God’s love and truth. Very few of us discover our true selves in our physical incarnation because currently and for thousands of years now we just haven’t developed in love enough: love as God understands, not the human version. Our real self is hidden just like the yolk of an egg: hidden deep in the core, unseen until we crack open the egg, let the shell break and the white ooze away.
The white of the egg, so to speak, the next layer of our selves is the hurt self: the damaged, wounded child mostly. It’s the damage we inherit, the damage done to us by our parents and others in our environment, and we can build on that damage by not acknowledging that hurt child, ignoring her and acting out from this hurt place. This lost child is full of pain so it can feel a hard place to go. Why do we need to relive it, we ask. We don’t, but we use this fear to justify not letting her have a voice. As adults though, we can provide a safe place, a loving permission for her to express and feel all that locked up emotion without actually reliving the events. Yes it will feel overwhelming, but it will set us free. I haven’t got there really. I have cried over events from my past, but so far it’s mostly tears over the effects, rather than crying about the cause. The adult me thinks she protects her by keeping her locked away, too scared of being overwhelmed with emotion. And sadly, I have got very very good at locking her up. I have been listening to the Divine Truth teachings for nearly three years and sometimes I have felt I was on The Way, but the truth is I have listened to much and understood a lot with my mind, with the odd flash into my soul. I feel very much I have heard Truth in these teachings, but The Way is an emotional journey – it needs to be felt, experienced because the change happens in our soul and our soul is emotional, and our soul is connected to God, and God is emotional. I find it a beautiful concept, but one so different to what I know: it is a huge shift. Yet, at the same time I am very tired of the old way, the way mostly managed by my facade.
So we come to the shell, the mask, the facade. Well I listened to a talk on the facade about 18 months ago and I don’t think I really heard a thing. I know the meaning of the word, but I didn’t get it and now I finally know why. The recent teachings on deconstructing the facade were like a big bell ringing in my ears: I got it! Well much more than I ever have. Weird really as I believe it was my facade which prevented me from understanding it before. Our facade is created from wanting to avoid the pain, from the moment we are not accepted as our real self, in our real emotions, by our parents, our facade starts to be created. We start to become the person our parents want us to be, our teachers and the rest of our world wants us to be. This facade is about fitting into the world, surviving. We become the person our parents are happy with to avoid punishment and judgement. Very sadly, we lose touch with finding or knowing our real safe as layers of hurt develop from this rejection of our self and the building of facade we believe necessary for survival.
We don’t even know how much we are living as a facade and we develop it further as adults: developing many facades depending on where and who we are with. One for our parents, one for our lovers, our friends, our work. Most of us even accept we have a facade for work, and one for our family and some friends, but we often believe we let our real selves out with our long term friendship and love relationships. However, our facade permeates every aspect and every relationship. I had, like alot of us, a childhood where my emotions were suppressed and I was punished if I did not conform to my parents idea of being a “good girl” and on reflection, I see my facade was developing from a very young age, and as more events occured, the more I buried my real self and my hurt self. It deeply saddens me to see how much and thick my facade is.
So what is the problem with the facade? Jesus describes the qualities of the facade as insensitive, unaware, false, controlled, untrusting, dishonest, insincere, illogical, unemotional, immovable, thoughtless, irrational, reckless, irresponsible and careless. It loves compulsion, addiction, resistance, manipulation and coercion: it loves cruelty, nastiness, meanness, arrogance, condescension and superiority. It is the main cause of our unloving actions. Do you recognise it’s existence and influence in your life? in this world? Yep! It’s pretty unpleasant, dark, even tragic that we are so far from our true self, from Truth, and from Love, real love.
All week I have been reeling a bit from the realisation that it has been my facade keeping me from God; from feeling my hurt self; from knowing my real self; from knowing Truth and from feeling Real Love. The facade cares not for any of those things. The facade cares only to keep it’s addictions met: to have it’s own way. Mine is controlling, minimising and untrusting. Mine controls my emotions and tries to control my environment and other’s in it. It pushes me to follow compulsions, to do anything to feel good and avoid the pain inside or search for the real me. However, the feel good of the facade is temporary, relying on the quick fix of addictions. It is the greatest con artist and the reason for much unhappiness and unloving behaviour. It’s our dark mate, disguised as our friend. It sucks away the life in us, we age and shrivel. Pretty awful stuff!
But my goodness what a discovery: this truth. The walls of my facade are thick, containing many bricks, but I plan to knock each one out. It will be the hardest thing we do in our life, says Jesus, deconstructing our facade, but the most rewarding. Once a crack in our shell appears, our hurt self can ooze out and we can start to taste the golden yolk of our real self. Therein lies our true joy and therein we can connect with our true parent, God, who is patiently waiting for us to want to know him, to receive her love and receive all of the gifts he has waiting for us. Knowing God, knowing ourselves, finally experiencing real love, free from addictions is where our true life is, our real happiness and the transformation of our souls into an ever expanding wonder of the universe.
As far as I can see, there is no other way. This all makes so much sense to me. Why? Because it is SO different from other things I have tried or studied: because it is SO different from how we live in the world now, how we know ourselves – that way hasn’t been working and the world is now in a dark place. I want something different, for myself, for the human race, and for this beautiful planet. So I am about to start the most difficult thing I have ever done: deconstructing my facade. I have been feeling it this week: it’s heaviness, it’s rigidity, it’s addictions and habitual behaviour. I can see it rears it’s ugly head in my writing, interferes with my expression. It feels like a heavy tight suit, some thing like a straight jacket. It restricts me and I don’t want to be restricted. It keeps far away from love, and I want to find out what love really is. It lies to me and I don’t want lies anymore – I am looking for truth. It pushes and shoves me and I don’t want to be pushed, I am tired of trying. I want to connect to God, even though I don’t really know what that will mean yet and I want to experience love with my soul mate and know my whole soul.
So here I stand: knowing very little about love or truth, not knowing who I am. I am confused, but at peace with being this way as I have faith it is all to be found and even though I may have given up on God for most of my life, he never gave up on me and I have a teeny bit of faith knowing God will be more a wonder than I can imagine. Thank goodness there are some who are The Way – Showers. They give me hope and faith this is really worth trying and not listening to my facade – I have some faith in myself.
I want to become a Divine Angel: a healed human, feeling God’s love all the time. When I feel this I can see rainbow colours and lights in my third eye: it looks pretty cool. Just putting one foot forward….. and one day I hope that foot will belong to my real self only.
