When we find ourselves with our internal peace disturbed, it is a call to healing and restoring our own personal power. Our internal peace is our power, our truth-teller. It tells us when something is not right. It usually comes in the form of someone doing something we judge, that outrages us, that offends us.
And, it only has the power to do so because we have an underlying painful energy pattern that is ready to be healed along this dimension. When we heal the underlying painful energy pattern, we are free to engage with the world to address the external situation - if we still wish to. We will have cleaner, clearer perspective from which to engage with the world, and the power of our internal peace and truth to fuel it. Here is the process:
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When we are outraged on behalf of another person, group, etc, it is a deflection of something we are not looking at within ourselves, taking responsibility for within ourselves. This is not to say that we shouldn’t feel immoral behavior is wrong, or work to fix it, but when it causes us to lose our peace then our opportunity is to look at what in this is ours. Where are we feeling powerless, abused, steamrollered, etc, in our own lives?
Once we know what it is, then we have the opportunity to heal it. We heal it by acknowledging the underlying energy pattern that perpetuates it, honoring the underlying energy pattern, and giving the energy pattern back to the highest original source. It is not ours to carry. This releases the energy, and creates more space for us to carry that which is ours to carry. When we create that space, we will hear more clearly when we are out of this alignment. We may need to make changes in our own lives to reflect the truth we see more clearly. That’s ok, at least we are taking responsibility for our own lives - which external outrage can be a deflection, distraction from addressing. And then, once we get into right relationship with the dynamics within our own lives, we have a cleaner perspective from which to address the problems in the world. This isn’t advocating doing either our inner work, or the outer work, or not doing the outer work. It is advocating doing both - but in right order. The internal clean-up comes first, and the external work comes second. It cannot change on the outside unless it changes first on the inside. The path to personal power is, ironically, to give up external power.
First things first: the ability to control another person is actually force, not power. True power is internal, it is being right-sized, equal, respectful, and honoring to all around us, listening to our truth, and using our agency in service to that which has no agency. That is powerful beyond measure. External force, the ability or desire to control another person, actually distracts us from our personal power. And so, the path to personal power is to give up external force, control and feeling superior (or inferior). The path to personal power is to pursue freedom. Here’s what I mean by this. We are all aware, consciously or unconsciously, of our personal power relative to those we interact with. Visualize a heat map, with each person a different color or size relative to the others. We know exactly what it looks like in our minds, and where feel superior or inferior to others. When we feel superior, or a desire to control another, we are weaker because we are vulnerable to the actions of another. When they do as we like, we feel good. When they don’t do as we like, we seek punitive control over them. Our peace, our feeling good, is completely dependent on the actions of others - which ironically gives them control over us. And we never actually feel safer, we always feel more vulnerable. In truth, we are all equal. We are all equal because we all have agency, and all beings with agency are equal. Any jockeying for power with other equal people is a distraction, it distracts us from knowing our own personal power. Giving up control of another removes the illusion of power and holds us accountable for doing what is ours to do. Giving up control over another makes us face the parts of us that we like to avoid. In truth, we can only ever control ourselves, and by control I mean listen to. We avoid our own personal power because it holds us accountable to knowing our truth. Our power lies in being accountable to our truth. True freedom, true power, resides in giving up the illusion of force. Giving away our “power,” and listening to ourselves. (Except it really isn’t power, it’s force and superiority.) We do this by consciously releasing power. By seeing where we feel bigger than another and consciously pulling our power and control back in. By consciously releasing the desire to control another. This is an act of great will, because giving up power is terrifying. Our world tells us to horde power and control because it will make us safe. It actually doesn’t keep us safe, which we intuitively know because we never actually feel safer. Giving up power is actually freeing. It is freeing because it is true. It puts us into right-size with those of other agency and equality. True power comes from recognizing our own equality by recognizing it in others, listening to our truth, acting with integrity (wholeness) in alignment with our truth, and acting in service of those without agency. We don’t have to do everything, we have to do what is ours to do. When we are right-sized, acting upon our truth, doing only what is ours to do, and employing our agency in service of those without agency, we are powerful beyond measure. Spending time in nature is soul nourishing. It provides a feeling of bliss, of unity, of interconnectedness, of divine connection. Completely open hearted.
This is our natural state. Our truest true. This bliss is available to anyone who chooses to open themselves to the mystery. The keyword is choose. When we feel anything that is not this true, peaceful, open hearted space, it has been covered over by a barrier. We acquire these barriers through our ancestors, our life experiences, our family patterns, and our culture. Because these barriers are acquired, our true state is always waiting for us underneath. We simply have to choose to remove and heal the barrier. The barrier is an energetic pattern, which may be returned to the highest original source. This path is a choice. Anyone can choose it. But it must be undertaken consciously, because it is either or. We either choose to experience our true nature, or we choose the barrier. On this path, nature provides the doorway to our individual divinity. But, this is a partnership. It is not one more thing that humans receive, or abuse. It comes with a responsibility. A responsibility to assume our place in the larger whole. This requires actually giving up the power in the outer world. The trade is this: do I choose to experience, feel and know divine connection and bliss, or do I choose the human idea of power. In the truest sense of partnership, one side cannot exploit and use the other solely for gain. They are interdependent: each bringing that which is uniquely theirs to bring. Nature brings the Divine. Humans bring the agency. Together, we heal each other. My role in healing nature is clear: Every time I am in her church, in her realm, I bring an offering, and I restore peace by removing trash. Through this path I have come to learn that our human ideas of power are actually incomplete. It is time to be up-leveled. Humans have gotten caught in a web of jockeying for position amongst each other. In truth, we are all equal. We always have been. When we fight for power with another equal, we’re fighting for that which is impossible. Because we all have agency, we are actually always all equal. Our circumstances and our innate qualities may differ, but *we* are equal. When we shortsightedly fight each other for power over another, we are caught in a web of distortion. Any one who has agency is equal. In truth, the purpose of our agency is to serve those that do not have agency. The environment. Children. Animals. It is time to assume our rightful place within the greater hierarchy. Filled with divine spirit, the spirit flows through us out into the world. Unfettered greed and individual abuse of power have gotten us into this position. We are unhealthy being this disconnected from the interconnectedness of life. We must give up the old ways in order to heal. Healing comes from assuming our rightful place in the greater whole. And the correct use of agency. We restore both by returning to greater integrity, greater wholeness. We heal ourselves by coming into right order in the greater ecosystem. We heal ourselves by returning and restoring that which is not ours. We heal others by the correct use of our agency. Interdependence. Interconnectedness. When the ways of the world hurt, make no sense, simply don't fit, this is always home. True north. It always catches me, meets me where I am at, able to nurture and cradle me like a babe, or share and witness my highest bliss. My truest true. TRUST this, she whispers. And I do.
Amen. I do not know your path, and I do not know what is right for you. I do not know the whole story. When I judge, I hold myself superior. I am not. What is mine to clean up and heal from our conversation is to take a complete responsibility for what is mine in this. This is very hard to do. This is very painful to do. It is far more easy to be smug about my judgement of your life.
Feeling certainty about anything, especially something that is not mine to be responsible for, enables me to feel more in control. It is always easy easier to feel in control about another’s circumstances than ones own. My opportunity is to heal the desire for control within me. Every time I judge another, or feel superior to another, it is an act of control. The desire to control another is the opportunity to be healed. Thank you for being my teacher in this lesson. Feeling superior to another is related to control. And assumption of control, and active control, something. Control is the opposite of humility. And the opposite of humility. Control has no place in a relationship of equals, and we are all equals. This is painful to look at. The fear of humility. This culture runs on deference. Power structures that assign a value to human life based on arbitrary characteristics that are unequally distributed among the population. There are a select few characteristics that hold all the value, regardless of the human beings attached. Human beings are full and complete and complex. The attributes are narrow and defined and rigid. To give up control, to recognize the role that control please in my life, and to exchange it for its counterpart, humility, means to give up the ways of the culture. To turn my back on the values of the culture. By virtue of what I look like, where I was born, and some inherited characteristics, I possess a combination of attributes that accords me power in this world. This power structure runs on control. Control and the illusion of superiority. To heal the places within me that are connected with control means to disempower myself within the culture. To set aside that which affords me power. In exchange for humility. There is zero power in humility. Or, I should say, there is zero external power in humility. Humility is the more true state, it is deepest within me, underneath the barriers and layers. It is closest to my deepest, divine truth. Love. Peace. It is counter culture. And, on the other side of fear, is healing. To lay down my power shield and assume humility is deeply healing. This is a private act, this reckoning. Nobody will ever know if I do it or if I don’t. Except me. Except me. Here is the prayer: Ancients. This desire for control, I feel it between my ribs. It is active right now. This desire for control covers over my deepest truth. My truest self and state. It is not mine. I have inherited it. Acquired it. With deepest honor for the fate and path of the original highest source, I give this shield, this barrier, back to the highest original source. It is not mine to carry. I seek restoration, a path back to my truest state. In honor of the original source, in honor of the highest original source of this barrier, I give it all back. With honor. With gratitude. Thank you for the life that you have passed down to me. I will never know your fate. The fates involved of all those that give me life. I will never know. In honor of every one of those fates, and gratitude for this life, I give back the shield, the barrier, that I acquired. I give it all back to the highest original source. This part of me that values control over humility, I give it back to the highest original source with honor and with gratitude for a life and a fate that I will never know. I bow my head in gratitude for this life. The privilege of this life, which was only possible because of that life. Thank you. I see this shield, and I give it back to the highest original source. It is not mine to carry. I knowingly and intentionally and reverently give it back to the highest. I choose to align myself with my deepest, holiest self. I choose to return and restore that which is not mine. In doing so, I make space to better carry that which is uniquely mine to carry. And to better hear and to know my path. That I may live it with the highest honor and reverence for all that it entails. To the ancients. To the ancients, to the ancients, to the ancients. I am carrying something that is not mine. What is mine is underneath this. In order to carry what is mine, I need to give back what is not mine. What is shrouded over mine.
That which is not mine was inherited, learned, absorbed, or experienced. But because it is acquired, it is not my natural state. Because it is not my natural state, I can give it back. In order to most fully carry that which is mine, I need to give back that which is not mine. To restore it to the highest original source. To restore the most original source, the original ancient one, to greater integrity. And to restore myself to greater integrity as well. Healing consists of restoring wholeness. Restoring integrity. Integrity on the inside. Enabling us more fully carry that which is ours. Healing ourselves also means healing the original source wound as well. They go together, restoring integrity in one means restoring integrity in all. We heal in response to wounds, barriers, pain. It is ours to heal if we are experiencing it. Conversely, if we are not experiencing it, it is not ours to heal, right now. We cannot heal for another. It is everyone’s rights and responsibility to heal what is theirs, what is appearing for them. We cannot heal for another what is not ours to heal. This is painful as a mother, who wants to shield and protect her children from everything. The truth is, I do the world a greater service, by healing what is mine, modeling for my kids how to do it, teaching them how to heal. How to take responsibility for what is theirs. How do I know the difference? If it is disturbing my peace - in one way or another - it is mine to heal. If it is directly happening to us, it is ours to heal. Period. If it is not directly happening to us, it is not ours to heal directly, it is ours to heal indirectly. By healing that within us that wants to point out and do for another what they are unwilling to do for themselves. We never know what is best for another, only for ourselves. I repeat: we never know what is best or right or true for another, only for ourselves. The desire to point it out to another, to force our opinion on another, is what needs to be healed. Having an agenda for another human being is what needs to be healed. As a culture, we have gotten in the habit of talking about other people instead of talking to other people. Or talking to other people when we are not clear what we want them to do, when have not taken responsibility for what is ours. Also, feeling outrage on behalf of another is disempowering to both. It dishonors the power of the involved parties. The opportunity is to heal the desire to control other people. Healing the desire to control other people. Controlling other people is disempowering to all. Honoring the innate, God-given, power for everyone to heal themselves is where our power lies in this world. We all have agency. Because we have agency, we have the responsibility and privilege to use it. Failure to do so is our responsibility. Doing so on behalf of another human being is disempowering as well. Nobody needs another human being to be their savior. Therefore. If something disturbs our peace, it is ours to heal, directly or indirectly. Every act of intentional healing restores our wholeness and integrity. It restores it in us, it restores it at the original source. It empowers us, and through extension it empowers others. Empowering ourselves to take complete responsibility for our healing, heals the world. Now, this is true on the human-to-human plane. We have to stop jockeying for position that is ultimately an illusion. Any belief in a power structure is an illusion. It is a choice. Because there are those that are truly at our mercy, vulnerable. Children. The environment. Animals. They are the ones that need our saving. Not another human with agency. To my tender heart: Your wound is your genius. Rather than avoid the pain, welcome it to see what it tells you. Then actively contribute that thing to the community. With courage.
Be tender with your wounds. They are where your genius lie. I’ll not pretend to be emotionally available for something for which I am actually not emotionally available. In the past I have done so to protect the “feelings“ of others, or to be liked. Or to keep the social smoothing in place. Nobody needs that. Nobody actually needs that. And, if they do, it is not my responsibility. If I am unavailable, I am unavailable. It is not personal or rejection or a lack of liking someone, I am simply unavailable.
To act otherwise is an exaggerated sense of my own importance. |
Norma Van Horn. Categories |