We get attached to things being a certain way: our relationships, where we live, how we create money, what we eat, and how we play.  Everything.  This brings us predictability and control…and deep attachment to things being a certain way.  

Being attached to anything makes us a victim to its availability, accessibility, presence or absence.  Our wellbeing is outsourced to what is happening on the outside.  And we freak out when things change.

After a point, this desire for predictability makes us controlling, domineering, deaf, rigid, and fragile.

Yet life is the one thing that isn’t controllable.  At the deepest possible level, everything on the planet is comprised of energy, of life force.  And energy is neither predictable nor controllable.  It flows as it engages and interacts with other energy, constantly in motion and cycling, adapting and flowing.  Like the weather.

And energy, like the weather, is only, ever, true.  It isn’t right or wrong, or good or bad…it is simply true.

And that which is true, flows freely with the energy of life.

When we control what is naturally occurring, force it to be something different, we are going against the flow of life.  We are stopping the energy.  It’s like we are trying to stop the weather (and we know how well that works).

Humans, as a species, have only survived because of our ingenuity and adaptability.  

Think about it: we inhabit nearly every corner of this planet, in the most diverse conditions possible, because of our innate adaptability.  No other creature lives in every nook and cranny and corner of this planet except humans.  (And probably some microscopic organisms and bacteria, but you get the idea.)

So, rather than getting attached to things being controllable, there is an opportunity to go deeper inward, back to our more original way of being: to trust the flow of energy, and to trust ourselves to handle it. To release the desire for certainty, and to be open and available to the life that is happening all around us.  Flowing and changing with it, allowing that which appears (or disappears) to move as it will, driven by it’s own truth.  Curious.
​
To live in such a way that we are emotionally available to the life happening all around us, flowing as it flows.  Deeply present.  Fully awake to so many possibilities.  Also living in truth.

Now that’s freedom.

This is a culture that idolizes the appearance of wealth.

Why do we all want to appear wealthy when we are not?  Because we think being wealthy means something about us.

What does appearing wealthy mean about me?  Why do I admire wealth, aspire to wealth?

• It means I am safe.
• It means I do not have any problems.
• It means I am admirable.
• It means I am “successful.”
• It means I am better than others.

Because money is a store of value, the appearance of more money means the owner has more value.  We are higher in the imaginary hierarchy.  These are feelings of superiority, of being a “good” person, of external validation.

And… when I am attached to feeling superior, I am vulnerable to feeling inferior.

It’s a vicious trap.  A set-up.  A construct we believe.

Because…what does appearing poor mean about me?

• It means I am a loser.
• It means I am unsafe.
• It means I have problems.
• It means I am not admirable.
• It means I am not “successful.”
• It means I am worse/lower than ______.

And this is simply too painful to contemplate.  So, to maintain the illusion of wealth, and therefor to maintain the feeling of superiority, we twist ourselves into knots and go to extraordinary measures to create and protect and maintain the illusion of wealth by doing things like:

• Accrue debt to keep up appearances, and buy unaffordable things, simply to impress others.
• Live unsustainably.  Too fast. Too busy. Too stressed out.  Too much.
• Live out of integrity with our deeper truth for the appearance of success.
• Judge ourselves and others for our own and their appearance of wealth.
• Do immoral things - like lie, cheat and steal, and even kill.

Living within this system of superiority/inferiority, of hierarchy, is a set-up.  It keeps us mindlessly consuming and perpetuating, chewing up and spitting out, but never actually satisfying the hole on the inside.

Because trying to satisfy the internal ache through external means is impossible.  Any thing (on the outside) that would make us feel better about ourselves (on the outside) is a compensation for not feeling whole on the inside.  A substitute for feeling whole on the inside.
It’s the wrong remedy.

The underlying belief in the hierarchy is not actually true.  None of the external possessions or appearances or beliefs touch our innate wholeness, we have just lost touch with our deeper truth and wholeness.

And when we feel whole on the inside there is no need or interest in external validation or approval.  There’s simply no place to put it, and other people’s opinions and perceptions are meaningless.

And all of these behaviors and beliefs go against our innate equality.  Because underneath the belief in inequality (which is predicated on a belief in superiority and inferiority) is a deeper truth: that we are all divinely sovereign and equal.

We have just lost touch with this wholeness by participating in the external hierarchy and validation cycle.

And these compulsive behaviors and beliefs will never work, because external validation and internal wholeness are mutually exclusive. It’s a made-up construct that keeps us controllable.

Exercises
1. Look at the hierarchy clearly, and all the ways in which you participate. 

• What are 5 things that make you feel superior in your life? 
  
• What are 5 things that make you feel inferior in your life? 
  
• What do you do the protect and maintain, or abandon and reject, those things?
  

​2. Once seen clearly, release the energetic pattern of hierarchy, and restore the connection with your innate wholeness. While feeling into the feelings within the body that the energetic pattern activates, say or write the following statements:

• “Please help me.”
• “I have carried this pattern, this belief, this energy, this construct for so long.”
• “This pattern keeps me small.  It keeps me disconnected from my wholeness. It keeps me believing terrible things about myself and others.  It keeps me in a cage.  It keeps me disconnected from my wholeness.”
• "This pattern keeps me petty, judging myself and others, and busy maintaining and protecting and upholding this system of harm.”
• “This pattern keeps me disconnected from life.  Emotionally unavailable to myself and to the life all around me.  It keeps me pursuing and living a life that is unsustainable.”
• “This pattern, this belief, this construct, this energetic pattern is a barrier to my awareness of my wholeness, my awareness of my True Nature.”
• “This pattern was acquired.  It was inherited in my DNA.  It was learned in my family.  It was learned in my community.  It was learned in my culture.  It was learned through pain.  And I repeated it.  I believed it, carried it, perpetuated it and repeated it.”
• “I carry this pattern, I believe this pattern, I repeat the pattern out of loyalty.”
• “I am ready to grow up.”
• “I see this pain.  I see this energetic pattern.  I see this cage.  I see this belief. I see this barrier. And I honor this pain.  This pain that this body has carried for so long.”
• “I now choose differently.”
• “This pattern is a barrier to my awareness of my wholeness.  This pattern keeps me disconnected from the life all around me. Keeps me emotionally unavailable to the life all around me.”
• “I now choose differently.”
• “I choose to be free.”
• “I take complete responsibility for carrying this energetic pattern.”
• “I take complete responsibility for releasing this energetic pattern.”
• “I take complete responsibility for embodying full awareness of my wholeness.”
• “I take complete responsibility for releasing the energetic pattern.”
• "I take complete responsibility for my freedom.”
• “I dissolve this ancient energetic pattern.  I dissolve the ancient energetic pattern, completely and permanently.  I dissolve the ancient energetic pattern, completely and permanently, at the deepest root source and connection.”
• “I dissolve this ancient energetic pattern, permanently and completely, at the deepest root cause and connection, and release it to be free.”
• “I dissolve this ancient energetic pattern, permanently and completely, at the deepest root cause and connection, and release all of the accumulated energy  I release the energy to be free, as all energy is meant to be.  I release the energy, to be free, as all energy is meant to be.”
• “I dissolve the ancient energetic pattern, permanently and completely, at the deepest root cause and connection, and release all of the accumulated energy.  I release the energy to be free, as all energy is mean to be, and return it all back to the Highest Original Source, and back to the Energy of Life.”
• “I release, I release, I release, I release, I release.”
• “With honor for all.”
• “Namaste.”
• “Thank you.”
• “Amen.”

What if the "ego" is just acquired social conditioning, domestication, that is held in place through energetic blocks?  Ego = energy blocks.  Ego = entangled energy that is ready to be dissolved and healed?

Guilt is a place where we are entangled with another energy.

We feel guilty because we behaved in a way in which we perceive that we harmed another.

In truth, we can only ever harm another when *they* hold beliefs that go against their wholeness.  So, our behavior shows them places where they hold their own wounds.  (And they can only ever harm us when we hold beliefs and energetic blocks that go against our wholeness.)

We only, ever, take the behavior of another personally when we believe that their behavior means something that goes against our wholeness.  (Otherwise, we see clearly that their behavior is only a reflection of whatever is going on within themselves.)

When we feel guilty for our behavior, and for "harming," another, there is simply energy to dissolve there.

There's an opportunity to de-personalize the behavior by seeing it simply as energy.

It is energy calling itself back to life.

When we see the ego as part of us, we hold our behavior as personal, part of us, that we have it and that it's wrong.

What if, instead, we see our pain as simply a place where we hold energy that is ready to be dissolved?  This depersonalizes the cause, the behavior, all of it - it's simply energy that is ready to be dissolved.

Guilt lives in the belief that we could have done otherwise.
We couldn't...
(Until we could.)

It's like holding ourselves responsible for not translating the classics from their native Greek
before we could read.

Instead:
(Deeper)
Energies come together
Blindly playing out our learn-ed parts
Energies call to be released, set free
We honor the energy
And we are free.

​The end.

What would self-respect do right now?

What would self-respect say right now?

When the pattern has historically been to get mired in shame, blame, or guilt, instead try someting new:
 - Allow the energy to move in the body.  No stories, just watch the energy move.
 - When it has subsided in intensity, but is still active, inquire within the body what self-respect would do right now.
 - Do, say, follow those instructions.

Let it be over.  Move on.

1. Our truth is holy.  Our deepest truth is the holiest thing about us (because it is the closest thing to God). (John the Evangelizer)

2. Truth is felt within the body.  The mind is the realm of culture, of man-made judgements like right/wrong, good/bad.  The body is the realm of the true/untrue, it is where the truth is known.  Because the truth is the holiest thing about us, that which houses the truth - the body - is holy.

3. When we are connected to our truth, when it is flowing through us, we feel the deepest peace imaginable.  This is when our bodies become churches - holy spaces where the divine and the material meet.

​Amen.

So much of our communication as a culture is for the purpose of releasing pain.  Judging, gossiping, analyzing, predicting, venting. explaining, rationalizing.  All for these happen for the sole purpose of releasing pain, or of being seen, of being understood, of seeking to make ourselves feel better, of restoring internal equilibrium.  (All of these are impulses of the unhealed pain.)

On the healing path, we learn that no one is entitled to our attention.  No one.  Not my child, my spouse, my siblings, my parents, my boss, my employee, my friends, my neighbors.  If someone is not in a peaceful state of mind the communication is an extension of, a release of, a perpetuation of, a recycling of, their internal pain.  (Or mine, when I am the one doing it.)

This is why we feel barfed on.

There is another way.

The greatest gift we can give another is to not be available for their pain, because that forces them to look at it, to see it, to take responsibility for it...and perhaps even to heal it.

Instead of being available to receive it (even when that only takes the form of listening), we can trust them to handle it, and make ourselves unavailable.

We can disengage, silently honor their pain, honor their path, and trust them to handle it.

(And, when this happens to us, we can honor our pain, honor our path, and trust ourselves to handle it.)

We can clean our own pain, and the underlying wound that gave it a home in the first place, it changes everything about how we perceive the behavior of another.

It takes discipline to practice this, until it doesn't.  Until the cost of exchanging pain with another becomes too much to bear, and we choose to instead take complete responsibility for our pain, and only our pain.  (There's plenty, trust me.)  

And, this slows the roll of life considerably.  It may take a day to have a conversation, but when (if!) it happens it is clean.  

If this resonates, here is an opportunity:

1. External practice: "I am no longer available to receive the pain of another."  Until it has been cleaned by the owner, cleaned of the internal wound that allowed the pain to find a home in the first place, it is not yet a conversation that is ready to be had.  Simply honor their path, and be unavailable. "My energy is cycling, and I am feeling stirred.  This is not yet a conversation that is ready to be had."

2. External practice: Accept the invitation to witness, to honor, another's pain, provided they do not speak.  Silently witness another witnessing their pain.  

3. Internal practice:  When and where I give my attention to another, when it is not consistent with my deepest truth, is a place where I am out of integrity with myself.  Where I am trading the peace of another for my own.  Looking at why I would do so, shows me where I am not yet free.  We learned to do this, and we can unlearn it.  The Peace Power Path is one way to heal the learned/acquired energy of going against our wholeness.

4. Internal practice: When the energy and pain are cycling, and the coping techniques are activated, choose to take complete responsibility for my pain. The Peace Power Path is one way of doing so.