 Stepping
Outside of Our "Me" World
There is a greater intelligence
that is trying to communicate with us all of the time. It exists in the
present moment but most of us rarely live there. Most of us are
utterly preoccupied with our personal "me" world - to the point of
largely tuning out the "larger impress".
For a time in our lives the larger intelligence of life is indeed
too vast to consider, and we need to focus on building a strong personal
self - a self that can fully function in our challenging world. If we
choose to do our inner work however, it does become a possibility to
open up to the mythic higher self - replete with insights, intuitions
and larger visions and plans for our life.
Meeting our own personal psychology and getting to know it
intimately "earns" us the eventual possibility of stepping outside of
it. As I said recently to my new friend Julie, "We have to face our
inner fears, before we can powerfully and effectively do our life's
work."
But for a time our inner work takes us deeply into our personal "me"
world of defensive reactions, destructive emotional patterns and fearful
stories. We as human beings go through a period of self-involvement
where we are consumed with our own psychology. "Me" can feel like it is
the only thing that exists as we grapple with our own flavor of
vulnerability. If we do not open up to our vulnerability and step into
faith and trust we can pursue the goal of "trying to feel better about
ourselves" - on a psychological level - sometimes for a lifetime.
I have been blessed to have received some higher "impresses" in my
life. Most notably in the past they came through when I was in crisis
mode - when my everyday psyche was set aside due to grief, loss and
sudden change. I had some openings about my life direction around the
death of several my family members. When I was in crisis mode, the
larger visions and purposes for my life came through mythic dreams and
through my art-making. Some of the mythic and spontaneous paintings that
I did 12 years ago are only now making sense to me.
I found my conditioned thinking came back full force however when my
life normalized again. The last 12 years have been a process of
"unguarding myself" It has been a peeling back the onion of my defense
system so that I can touch more regularly into "the larger life".
Perhaps because I have been blessed with some powerful key spiritual
openings in my life, I have felt determined to unravel my psyche. I have
tasted states of grace and freedom of wide open and inspired being and
have longed to get touch them again.
After much inner work, at some point we may get to the point where we
have unraveled our psychological stories, our family histories and our
personal patterns - so much so that we can step outside of them and no
longer feel so intensely embroiled in them. There does come a time when
our core negative beliefs no longer rule our emotions and energies. We
can learn how to meet our core vulnerabilities and we know that whatever
arises within us we will turn towards it with courage and faith -
instead of projecting it "out there". We become able to hold even the
most difficult feelings within without disturbing our outer world.
Michael
A. Singer says it so well, "The truth is everything
will be okay as soon as you are okay with everything. And that is the
only time everything will be okay!"
Releasing Stored Energies
It is true that we become more quiet inside once as we work through
our inner core pain. We all have  stored pain from
our life's experiences that we need to process. If you have been born in
a human body - you have stored pain. Moving through stored pain to
faith in vulnerability and openness to life is a difficult journey. As a
human being - you can be sure that if you have an elaborate mental
story about what is "wrong" in your life - or about what is "wrong" with
someone else in your life - you have stored pain to process.
If we are not defending against difficult feelings within - there is
no need to create psychological stories of defense around your closed
energy. When we process- feel - our stored pain that part of
our defense system dissolves and we become quiet and more content. The
aim is to open more and more as we age instead of becoming more
chrystallized into our personality structures.
Consider how Michael A. Singer so eloquently describes what happens
when life's experiences do not make it "through us" and we "store" our
'issues" away.
"What happens to that experience that didn't make it through?
What you don't realize is that that your entire experience of life is
about to change because of what didn't make it through you. Life must
now compete with this blocked event for your attention, and the
impression does not just sit there quietly. You will see that your
tendency is to think about it constantly.
"This is all an attempt to process it through your mind. All of
that inner noise is an attempt to process the blocked energy and get it
out of the way. Long-term, the energy patterns that cannot make it
through you are pushed out to the forefront of the mind and held until
you are prepared to release them.
These energy patterns hold a tremendous detail about the events
associated with them. As you willfully struggle to keep these events
from passing through your consciousness, the energy first tries to
release by manifesting through the mind. This is why the mind becomes so
active."
When the energy cannot make it through the mind because of
conflicts with other thoughts and mental concepts, it then tries to
release through the heart. When you resist even that release, the energy
gets packed up and forced into deep storage within the heart. In the
yogic tradition, that unfinished energy pattern is called a Samskara.
It's an unfinished energy pattern that ends up running your life."
There does come a timing - that if we so choose - we can start to
listen to the larger life pattern of which we are invited to partake in.
This may be commonly referred to as larger life purpose and it may bear
little resemblance to your personality level, compensatory dreams for
your life. I like to think of life purpose as the soul's unique
unfolding. The soul's dictates might involve actions and ideas outside
of our familiar comfort zone. What I have found about my larger life
visions is that they feel challenging in some way. It is as though I
have to develop my highest character to live into them. Growth is never
easy but it is exhilarating.
Quieting our psychology and peeling back the layers of our defenses
towards life is essential and courageous work. When we have the inner
strength to "take no thought" - when we refrain from conscious thinking -
we can let divine ideas fill our consciousness. It is in these ways
that we can offer ourselves to life in a way that fits the larger
patterning and reflects our own unique soul gifts and purposes.
Love to you
Shelley
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