Barriers to connection, healing myself

I used to think I was afraid of other people.  Then I realized how much power that gave away, and remembered a deeper truth - I am way more afraid of my own wild, uncontrollable self than I am afraid of what anyone can do to me on the outside.  And, even more true - I have the power to heal this fear, this pain, every time it comes up.  Now I heal myself bit by bit, every day, as this fear rears it's head.  And return myself to freedom, to power, to love. 

And that's way better than requiring anything to change on the outside of my life.

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​​One place external strife, abuse of power, a lack of integrity, disharmony begins is inside of me, and inside each of us.  As the saying goes, hurt people hurt people.  While the world is rising up to address abuses of power in our political structures of power (which is awesome!), there is also an opportunity to heal the cycles of pain, abuse of power, fear, lack of integrity, etc inside myself.  Because anything that creates a disturbance to my internal peace is a barrier to peace, to love, to harmony...a place where I am blind, controlling, out of integrity, abusive, deaf, within my own life.  Places where I am (potentially) acting out a mini-drama of the external world.  

And unless there is freedom, peace, love, harmony inside of me then I will not be truly free on the outside - no matter what the external circumstances.  

For example, last night I had an experience that activated a cycle of fear within me.  An exchange with two strangers that left me feeling vaguely unsafe, especially on behalf of my children.  I noticed that I *thought* I was afraid of the people - and the fear was that I thought I couldn't protect my loved ones.  That was the thought, "I can't protect my loved ones from evil."  

I believe that everything is a projection, and what I fear "out there," I fear even more within myself.  And so, an even deeper truth was that, "I can't protect myself from evil."  I felt vulnerable and unsafe for my own personal safety.  The risk that the strangers presented wasn't an overt threat of any kind, more a vague sense of fear that I didn't know what they wanted - which left me feeling vulnerable to "evil" that I couldn't see or understand.
(I'm leaving this intentionally vague because the point is the cycle of fear it initiated, not the specific events.)

And then, an even deeper extension of fear: I'm afraid of myself, of the "evil," or uncontrollable, parts of myself, within myself.  The places where I hold barriers to love, to peace, to harmony within myself.  The places where I judge another, and especially where I try to control another - like my kids.  The places where my response to an event is outsized to the actual event.  And I suspect that the desire to control another person - like my kids - is always an outside response to an event.

This is an opportunity to heal the fear and pain at the root source:
1. When the fear is active, feel it as it relates to another - whatever/whoever I'm assigning externally as the disturbance to my peace.
2. Turn it inward - I fear those exact same attributes within myself.
3. Feel the fear within my body.  See the blocks created within me that prevent connecting with the person.  The feelings of a barrier between people, of a block, of a narrowed focus.
4. "I take complete responsibility for my internal peace, my integrity, my internal health, and for healing myself."
5. Turn this fear, this pain, this block, over to the Divine.  Just turn it over, ask the Archangels to deliver it fully to the Divine, ask to release it from my body.
6. Allow the feelings to move, until humility and peace and connection and tenderness return.
7. Thank the external person, event, etc for allowing me to see myself more clearly and returning myself to my humility, to my neutral state of love.