Where Have You Strived to Fit In, Only to Realize You'd Rather Not?
And I don't just mean into pants that button...
Through the last few decades, I’ve worked to fit myself into a lot of situations that were not aligned with my soul. The only way this could happen, is that I had no idea who I really was. However, the universe gave me opportunity after opportunity to discover who I wasn’t, which ultimately led me home to myself.
Imagine creating your own little world where you could totally be yourself. Where you are so fully yourself, without regard to what anyone else might think, that you get rejected by all the people you once sacrificed part of yourself to try and placate, and suddenly there is room in your life for new opportunities and people that truly suit you to come in.
What’s so interesting to me is that I chose this opening meme and typed the above words and then hours later, I came across powerful, universe affirming information to not only share with you, but which has also alreadyhad a huge impact in my own life. Ask and it is given. I feel like I’ve lived two entire lifetimes already, at 57 years old, and I’m thinking the 3rd time is the charm. While there is little evidence of it when I look around, I’m sure a whole new world is unfolding that will a reflection be the highest good for the highest number, just around the corner (give or take a couple more years of hanging in there)!
I know I’ve said this before, but I believe with everything I am that this is a time for rapid healing to take place within people. All they have to do is want it. Never before has information on modalities for how to do so been more available, but also I feel the veil between our layers of consciousness has thinned making it so much easier to become aware of things about ourselves we never would have suspected before.
I spent at least the first 30 years of my life trying to figure out how to fit in, before I ever questioned myself as to just what it was I was trying to fit into. Who decided “this is the way to be” and why did I think that was even worthwhile?? I was on a mission to be anyone other than who I was.
I thought I was such a scrawny, pathetic loser when I was in about 5th grade, and I’d have given anything to be one of the “pretty & popular” girls. Who just smiled and boys would fall all over themselves to be in their good graces. I took the fact that those boys didn’t notice me to mean something about me. Never did it occur to me that it meant something about them, particularly that they weren’t a good match for me. The other boys didn’t even register on my radar, only the ones who didn’t seem interested in me.
Around 5th grade is when I first recall striving to get approval from my teachers. I wrote poems for the school newsletter and also got to illustrate it. I felt so special. I was also a lunch hostess, delivering milk to the classrooms for lunches, a classroom aide who would come during lunch to wash the chalkboards clear of the morning lessons, and a safety patrol girl who would stand on the corner of my street before and after school to make sure the little kids all got across the street safely while walking to and from school. I was already compensating for not being wanted by being needed. It would take me 40 years to experience the true cost of that.
One day after school I got to my safety patrol corner and there was a little bunch of picked dandelions buried in a mound of dirt. I knew what boy, also on the safety patrol, had put them there because he was the only one who would have already been out of school and ahead of me. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him as a person, but he was not one of the cool boys. He was shy and quiet (like me). I didn’t want anyone to see that they had been left for me and I kicked them, so they scattered all over the place. I didn’t want to be affiliated with him in any way and further reduce my chances of being seen. Later that night when I was lying in bed, I hoped there was no chance that he would know I had done that. Since he would have been around the corner from me, the only way he would have is if he were hiding to watch and I didn’t think he had been. I felt terrible that I would be that mean. Not terrible enough, however, to give any energy at all to him in response. I just pretended I didn't notice he was trying to get my attention. I never mentioned the dandelions to him or anyone else.
I’ve thought of this many times over the years, but today while I was typing I decided to look him up on Facebook. What might my life had been like if I chose a sweet boy rather than always pining after the bad boys? I was an objectifier. I systemically chose boys and later men who objectified women for their sexual attributes, and whom I objectified for their ability to earn money/potentially provide for me, or at least contribute to the life I aimed to have. I’m not saying I was a gold digger, but I wasn’t messing with no broke n@+g*rs. I might have been sweet on the outside, but inside I was struggling with self-loathing and desperation to be loved, but because I had no sense of self-love, I could not possibly be attracted to someone actually capable of loving me. You attract what you are and not what you want. Self-love is imperative. I can honestly say I only cracked the seed on that in the last two years, and slowly a sprout started to grow and I’m tending to it like my life depends on it, because it does.
By the way, I found his Facebook profile, which is quite limited, but it looks to me like he is truly fulfilled. He is married with children, and you know how you can just tell when someone emanates genuine vibes? He and his wife and kids all seem to have that, and I’m so happy for them as a testament to what happens where self-love lives. Not like something that happens in 5th grade can necessarily break ones spirit, but if I’m being honest, 5th grade kicked my ass in more ways than one. Then again, if he truly had self-love he wouldn’t have made anything I could’ve done mean anything about him. He’d have had the knowing that shitty behavior was on me.
I especially dated several shit heads in the last 7 years. I knew they weren’t good down into their souls. I knew they were all self-loathing, but with facades blocking most people from ever suspecting. The way I had been for so long, which is why I could recognize it. I had thought, however, that I had healed this inside of me, but I hadn’t, which is why those men/lessons came into my life. I had to be hit on the head with several energetic frying pans until the message reverberated all the way down into my soul. I was focusing a great deal of my energy on trying to have them see their deviant ways, so they could live up to the potential I saw in them, so they could then be my prince charming in return. Unfortunately, or fortunately, that isn’t how it works. The happily ever after I was going for was still not MY happily ever, but rather some version of what I’d been conditioned to believe was happily ever after.
How exactly was I conditioned? In part, by observing the relationships around me and the expectations of those around me to ultimately live some version of what they were living. Even though I imagined a completely different kind of life for myself, I eventually ended up with multiple versions of that which I hadn’t wanted for my life. I knew I didn’t really like many of the things about the last few guys I dated, but I completely ignored those things and only focused on the things I did like. I also imagined (like any good fairy tale) that somehow those characteristics I didn’t like would one day poof into thin air. They did not. I was literally in turmoil at times, knowing these men were not good for me, yet I didn’t express that to them, or better yet just completely disconnect from them. Thankfully, time after time, they did things that made it impossible for us to stay together, and only after promising myself to interrupt a huge pattern, was I able to eventually see the dynamics of what was happening. The details this will eventually be available in my book, “When You Feel Like You Always Get the Short End of the Dick.”.
Choosing to abstain from all dating (and by dating I mean sex) until I had created a life on my own that I was absolutely content with, was key to me seeing that I thought my happiness was somehow dependent on being in a relationship. The problem was that relationships for me meant sacrificing what truly made me happy for the sake of keeping him happy and interested. That meant never saying anything that made me unhappy with the relationship. That also meant not being my true self, particularly talking about the kinds of things that interest me, that almost always are not interesting to men…or at least the ones I was physically attracted to. Eventually I came to realize that in relationships, it was as though I was addicted to feeling bad. I now know this is related to my childhood. I felt extreme anxiety about my parents relationship with each other and with me. While it may have not felt good, it felt like home. I “knew” how to do that. How to stay small. How to not rock the boat. How to not anger him so he wouldn’t leave. Even though I had ideas for a relationship of a different dynamic, I always defaulted back to what I knew. It wasn’t a choice, it was the way my brain was wired. I accepted bread crumbs and in my mind they were a huge relief that I was wanted, rather than the red flags that should have sent me packing on my own accord.
Most of the men in my life have not had the capacity to talk beyond “what’s up”.
Only notice the people worth impressing and ignore the rest. It’s as though I was hell bent on feeling bad about myself. My interactions with potential nice guys didn’t produce the same anxiety hormones that were produced with guys who didn’t have the capacity to appreciate me, and the feelings from those hormones is what I mistook for love/attraction. If I notice a guy checking me out now, it’s an automatic no for me, whereas that used to be the first breadcrumb that got my hormones pumping IF I also found him attractive. Now I know more than likely he is objectifying something about me. If he has a nice vehicle or is dressed nice or is particularly charming, that is also an automatic no, because I’ve had a pattern of objectifying something about men as potentially being able to financially contribute toward me being happily ever after. I know these aren’t absolutes, but the nicer vehicle he has, I think the more likely he is hoping women will objectify him for it (but will later resent the hell out of it for the money he doesn’t want to spend), and the more glammed up I see women, the more I know they are hoping to be objectified for it (but will later resent the hell out of having to always be ON and competing with all the other women who also ultimately will attract his gaze). Subconsciously, of course.
Looking back, even in 5th grade, I don’t think I was alone in looking around and trying to figure out the best way to “be” and I also think this has grown into an epidemic thanks to social media. Back when I was in my most formative years, as far as I could tell, I was growing up in a relatively poverty ridden area, and I felt a sense of panic that any one of the dysfunctional families of my friends, could be my possible future if I didn’t “do” something to ensure that didn’t happen. I’ve always been very leery of drugs and alcohol because that was a common factor among so many of them. Yet from a young age, I discovered having a couple drinks allowed me to more easily “be” a totally different person than I otherwise had access to as my plain ol’ self.
I remember working in a CPA firm, which had been my dream for at least the 5 years prior, and thinking, “well, this sucks!” Having already passed the CPA exam prior to starting to work there, two years of experience in a public accounting firm was necessary to obtain my license. I hated just about every minute of it.
Always being hyper observant of others, I observed all the ways I didn’t want to be, and all the ways I “should be” in order to be successful there. The people who seemed to have it the easiest were the beautiful, peppy ones. They could spend their time charming current and potential clients (and the powers that be…the partners of the firm) and as a result, do less actual work. That would have been my preference, since I was new and didn’t have a lot of practical skills yet, and had incorrectly assumed I wasn’t going to be very good at the job (because it hadn’t come as easy to me as other jobs had). But I also knew I didn’t allude the confidence or have the self-esteem necessary to be one of the charmers. For one thing, I still secretly hated everything about how I looked, yet I bought the right suits, carried the right purses, and got the right hairstyles, but underneath it all I still felt like I was an imposter pig trying to hide my true self by putting lipstick on. I also had yet to discover how to “fake it til you make it”.
I wish I would have had the wherewithal to know no matter what I did to spruce myself up, there was no way in hell that could have ever have been the right environment for the true me. But that is where the big money was, and I was sure that money was the answer to my dilemma.
If I could buy all the things that these seemingly successful, shiny people had, I would be one of them too. And then I could live happily ever after. Ultimately, I was able to buy all those things that I thought would make me happy, and, uh, WTF? Why was I still not happy? I believe the universe gave me all of those material things so early on so I could experience “that’s not it” sooner than later, but it still took me many more years to discover what truly was it. And actually, I’m still discovering.
I remember a deciding moment at a very fancy Christmas party at a country club, when I knew I could no longer work at that firm. I had a couple drinks to help me relax, but it was clear the partners, were all chumming it up with one another and the particularly shiny people, but had absolutely no desire to talk to me. A few months prior to that, during a bank mixer, where we were supposed to hobnob with the bankers in hopes of getting client referrals, I had garnered up the courage to try to have a conversation with two of the few partners I actually thought had some humanity/humbleness to them. The only reason I had managed to muster up the confidence to do so, was because the bank we were entertaining was the bank I had worked for during the prior 10 years. I had a very progressive career while working at the bank and was well respected by several of the bankers in attendance. I had talked to several of them and was feeling particularly good about myself…good enough to step out of my comfort zone and attempt some small talk with the partners. The partners entertained talking to me for about 2 minutes, before they literally turned their bodies in the complete other direction, actually squeezing me out as though I wasn’t standing there at all. It was one of the most humiliating moments of my life to be left standing there facing their backs. I don’t even think they really realized they did it, but rather they just had no interest in what I had to say.
Perhaps if I had stayed in the CPA firm longer than the 2.5 years that I did, I would have become more and more knowledgeable as an accountant, and would have won their respect in that capacity, but I’m glad I didn’t because, ugh, I was worthy of their respect for no other reason that I am a fellow human being working on the staff of the firm they owned and I don’t ever want to work with people who are that shallow and I especially don’t want to ever be that shallow again, myself.
What never occurred to me was going to work for a smaller CPA firm. I imagine I could have encountered a good group of people working together that would have brought out the best in me sooner, but I wasn’t ready to discover the best of me yet. I still thought the best of me was something outside of me yet to be acquired. No way would I have considered going to a lesser known CPA firm, because I still needed “status” to compensate for the low sense of worth inside of me. Now that I had experience, I could have gotten a job at an even bigger CPA firm, but I also knew that was going to be even more uncomfortable to fit into, so I chose to change career directions altogether.
At that particular bank mixer, I retreated back to the table where some of my fellow “un-dynamic” coworkers were and ended up having a fabulous time with them, by making fun of the “uppity” partners. That’s my gig. Bringing lofty (i.e. haughty, proud, aloof, arrogant, disdainful) people down to size behind their back. While doing this sort of thing brought me decades of satisfaction, it was still compensating for my low self-worth. The more I come to love myself, the more I don’t even notice these kinds of people. I’ve got better things to do, like stay home!
I wish I would have been able to enjoy every second of the amazing dinner and fancy desert at the Christmas party, and the centerpiece I won. I did keep the beautiful handmade wooden reindeer pair and gold painted resin Christmas trees that were at each woman’s place setting, for 25 years, recently passed along to one of my daughters. But instead, I was filled with anxiety about not being “enough” not just at the event itself, but for weeks afterward. There was live entertainment, but as much as I loved to dance, no way was I comfortable enough to just relax and have fun. But even later in life, when I was both accomplished “enough” and had learned the social skills of how to roll with the big dogs, it wasn’t the least bit enjoyable for me, though it likely often looked like I was “in my element”. Rather, it was draining and afterward I would admonish myself for selling out on who I really am, for the sake of fitting in.
For years and years I found myself trying to fit into places that I didn’t belong. Not because others didn’t want me there, but because I didn’t really want to be there. I thought there was still something for me to overcome in order to be there. I didn’t know I didn’t want to be there…I was convinced I did want to be there…but that I just hadn’t figured out how to be comfortable there…yet. But finally, I did start to see the appeal of only being in places where I was comfortable already…without having to do anything at all, at least as much as possible.
Given the “hustle culture” that is even more prominent today, I am so grateful by now that I know the importance of comfort. After spending decades getting out of my comfort zone, purposely, to accomplish things bigger than my fears, I would now never do anything in an environment where I didn’t automatically feel comfortable. It’s not only unnecessary to feel anything but comfortable, but anything that isn’t that will never lead to long term fulfillment.
I haven’t read the book “The Comfort Zone” but I recently ordered it after hearing the author, Kristen Butler, speak in a “You Can Do It” Hay House author event. She lost a significant amount of weight after realizing it was achievable by only doing things she was comfortable doing, and not all the things that didn’t bring comfort that she had been doing after numerous failed attempts prior. One of the testimonials for this New York Times bestselling book is “She has thoughtfully laid out a clear, concise, implementable road map to accomplishing your goals and dreams while honoring who you are in this present moment”. I look forward to reading it, because I am committed to discovering anything and everything that can keep me in a deep love affair with myself, with a honeymoon phase that never ends.
Being committed to being comfortable doesn’t mean I don’t do things that I’m hesitant to do, as long as underneath that feeling, is a knowing it’s what I’m supposed to rather than pushing myself in situations I don’t want to be in but think I “should”. Does that make sense? I’m asking myself as much as I’m asking you. There is a difference in doing things that make you nervous, but yet you feel you are guided by your soul to do them vs. things that feel like you “have to” do in order to be successful somewhere you wouldn’t otherwise be successful in. For instance, back in the day I participated in a lot of sales training and became very good at sales, and while I didn’t love sales in general, I was passionate about the idea of “financial freedom” that I was selling. But in the particular business model I was working in, I also had to sell a lot of people on getting out of their “comfort zones” to also sell products, since a significant source of income was overrides on other people’s sales. It hadn’t been out of my comfort zone to sell products that were aligned with what I believed in, but when I grew more and more uncomfortable incessantly talking other people into also selling these things, which I didn’t believe would pay off for them and that their time would be better invested elsewhere, I had to stop doing it. I did not find comfort in trying to get other people to be uncomfortable.
I’ve been imagining myself living in the Charlottesville, VA area because there is a lot of wealth in the area… wealth that “could” easily contribute to the vision I have for a healing community for women. I am savvy enough, through the years, that I could create a non-profit and solicit donations from the community, however, it would be out of my comfort zone to do that. Not because I lack the skills to get such donations, but because I won’t feel good doing it. I’d be adulterating myself. Being inauthentic. Being “fake” charming to get folks to open their wallets. But I’ve come to realize that what would be comfortable to me is to live in that general area, for the least amount of money I can figure out how to do that in, while working in a job that requires the skills I am comfortable doing, and wait for the opportunities to present themselves…meet the right people…have the right property show up…etc. without having to hustle for it. If nothing else, I’d be comfortable while waiting for my soul to show me the next steps.
I saw this reel today from a spiritual influencer, Teal Swan, titled “Do you identify yourself as somebody who really needs and likes alone time”, and that led me to finding an article, written by her, titled “Do You Need Space? If So, You are Being Inauthentic”. It drew me in because I was thinking it is not inauthentic for me to need space, but as I read on, I quickly realized she was saying it is the fact that you are being inauthentic in life, that you need space (to recover from the energy expanded from having been so). Also, I’d heard both good and bad things about Teal Swan and don’t know much about her, so I was apprehensive about reading it at all, but it felt like a sign and in my opinion, she was spot on in this article.
The premise of her article was to introduce the concept of “Enmeshment Trauma” which I’d never heard of it, but am now certain I am greatly afflicted by enmeshment trauma. Happening on her article is a perfect example of what I mean by even wanting to heal (or become aware of what there even is to heal from) is enough to attract the right resources to you in order to do so.
She says “If you have suffered from enmeshment trauma, the minute that a person steps into the room, you will instantly feel as if you need to cater your every thought, word and action to their desires, needs, perspective, and preferences. You will instantly try to create connection with them by anticipating the reaction they will have to anything you do or say, so you can only do and say what will get you a positive reaction and avoid doing or saying anything that will get you a negative reaction. You will immediately lose your authenticity for the sake of the connection. It’s like walking on broken glass. The tension and pressure you feel as a result of not being able to be natural will be immediate. And it does not matter whether the person is someone who can actually welcome the totality of you as a separate person or not, you will feel this way anyway because it is the way you’ve been conditioned to be in your early life. The other person is essentially a trigger for you to not be yourself. The way your boundaries dissolve is a bit terrifying. It’s as if around other people, you can’t figure out how you feel, you can’t figure out what you really think, what you really want, what you really need, and you can’t act in accordance with any of this personal truth. You have lost access to your personal truth.”
For years I thought I had developed people skills because they are necessary to function (in the world at large where I’m rarely excited to be anymore), but really they are manipulative (though subconsciously triggered) because I use them to ensure that people I want to like me, actually do. Yet while I’d developed the self-confidence to do this, I was actually selling out on myself by doing it out of necessity to compensate for my lack of self-worth, which was non-existent without the approval of others. I wasn’t “being”, I was jumping through hoops. Being who I thought other people wanted me to be.
Writing these weekly newsletter articles has been hugely healing, because I’m continuously presenting who I “really am”, often even discovering that while I’m writing. While it is only words on a page, without having to experience anyone’s reactions with my own eyes, it also gets me in touch with how to be this in face-to-face interactions, as well. To the point, I can’t be anything but this.
Teal goes on to say “When you are away from people, away from the trigger of another person, you can have yourself. You have access to how you really feel, what you really need, what you really think, and you can act in accordance with that. You are in touch and able to live out your own personal truth. Sometimes you may even wish you didn’t need connection at all because the ‘price’ of connection is the loss of your sense of self, loss of a sense of free will and freedom and incredible degrees of pressure.”
This has been one of the hugest benefits of time alone. It was a huge benefit of moving 1,700 miles away from the area I always lived in. It was a huge benefit of living alone in Mexico for 4 months. In both of these cases, I got to experience how I established myself in a new place, and the patterns I engaged in order to do so. I could also see how I’d grown over the course of the 6 years in between each of those moves. Then I moved again, a couple hundred miles away, but in with my cousin, and could see my patterns engage in a new way. When I move again, I will see even better still what patterns are left to interrupt. Each time I get more in tune with what is comfortable and what is not, as I hone into creating a life that is ideal for me, rather than adjusting myself to another person. I can even imagine having a man in my life some day and what that might look like not completely losing myself in order to do so…because I finally know what I won’t compromise on, whereas in the past I compromised everything…because “I” didn’t matter.
I do just want to reiterate that anything in quotes above/below that were taken from Teal Swan’s article can found on her website: TealSwan.com
She also said, “enmeshment trauma is most common in households where one adult (or more) refuses to see a child as his or her own person and instead regards them as an extension of themselves… The child is not allowed to have their own desires, needs, perspectives, feelings or thoughts. There were consequences for that. In order to maintain the secure connection, they needed with this adult, they had to lose their sense of themselves. They have to forfeit their autonomy. Therefore, the desire to develop a sense of self is as strong for them as the desire for merging is for people who have suffered abandonment. “
Wow, I could see this from a variety of perspectives. I can see it in parents who were disappointed in their own life choices, and lived somewhat vicariously through their children’s accomplishments, and shamed them when they weren’t achieving “enough” or in situations where more successful parents were sure they knew what was best for their children…deterring them from what they wanted to pursue into directions that would be more prosperous… in their opinions.
But also, I could see it in myself, with my parents having no expectations of me, other than seeming to prefer when I wasn’t seen or heard. That I would scramble to find who I was through desiring acceptance by the “right” other people, defined in no other way (initially) then by their opinions of me.
A 3rd way I could see this playing out is with my own children. It wasn’t that I had particular expectations of how they should be, but I tried to help them do/be/have what it took to fit into the situations they wanted to fit into, more than I tried to help them find their true (inner) selves and encourage them to be okay and comfortable with that. How could I have, since at that point, I was still defining myself by other’s opinions. Many times, I befriended a mom of someone they wanted to be friends with so the friendship they wanted would be more apt to develop. Thankfully, they ultimately ended up being friends with the people who had moms I felt I could be authentic with and actually liked, and I breathed many sighs of relief when other friendships, with moms I had been more inauthentic with, fell to the wayside.
The first thing that you need to work on, according to the article, is boundaries. She says a lot of great things about boundaries. A BOUNDARY IS THE IMAGINARY LINE THAT UNIQUELY DEFINES YOUR PERSONAL HAPPINESS, YOUR PERSONAL FEELINGS, YOUR PERSONAL THOUGHTS, YOUR PERSONAL INTEGRITY, YOUR PERSONAL DESIRES, YOUR PERSONAL NEEDS AND THEREFORE MOST IMPORTANTLY, YOUR PERSONAL TRUTH FROM THE REST OF THE UNIVERSE. It is imperative to get in touch with your personal “everything” then communicate that and act in alignment with that.
The second thing she says you need to do is to commit to a path of authenticity. Notice and mend the incongruencies between your inner and out self. By committing to authenticity, any people who do not belong with your true self will gravitate away and leave the space open to be filled by the people who do not belong with your true self and in turn; you will feel ease around them.
This is exactly what I meant when I started this article and chose the opening meme and wrote the first paragraph, and hours later, I came across her article.
She references some videos she has made to help with both boundaries and authenticity that I plan to check out this week that are on her website. I was able to find this article by searching “inauthenticity” on her website.
It’s excruciating trying to fit into the environment you think you are supposed to. Whereas decades ago, I would have bent myself like a pretzel trying to become like the other pretzels, now I wouldn’t stay for any longer than I absolutely had to in a place that didn’t “feel” good to me.
Your boundaries are not for other people to respect, they are for you to know where it isn’t safe or good for you to go. Your boundaries are for YOU to respect.
This is why some people stay in jobs they hate or in relationships (with significant others, friends and even family members) that don’t really honor them and instead actually just make them feel bad over and over and over again, yet they keep going back for more, like an addiction to feeling bad like I mentioned above. We don’t really honor ourselves, and often we stay small just so we can fit in and be allowed to stay in hopes that something will change, and we will be seen for the depths of who we really are. But it will never happen because those people are not capable of seeing your depth. It’s more than a choice, it’s a compulsion. It supersedes logic. However, when you put the boundaries in place and commit to authenticity, you can no longer go there.
I’ve considered myself to be a very adaptable person, and I can adjust to many situations. I have a knack for compartmentalizing. Probably that’s why I’m a good accountant, because accounting is compartmentalizing numbers in a way that reflects how a business is doing…where its weak spots are vs. its strengths. Then someone can know if it’s worthwhile to continue in the same manner, or where to put additional energy…increasing revenue and/or decreasing expenses…in order to be more prosperous.
But from a deep personal perspective, until recently, I’ve never done such an analysis for myself. What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? What do I care about? What don’t I care about. What do I truly enjoy and what do I truly dislike. It’s a worthwhile exercise, particularly if the thought of continuing in the same manner is not appealing.
It can be especially difficult if your current situation is tolerable, or even great in terms of flexibility and financial security, but just not where you think you are supposed to be.
It can be hard to make the jump. I basically look at it like, worst case scenario, we can create a life similar to what we already have, anywhere else we are drawn to be. Or in some cases, return back to a near identical life that we leave behind, should we decide it was a mistake.
I’m starting to realize so much stress comes from looking at things as black and white. Either/Or. Choice A or choice B. When two opposite choices are weighing on us, it creates a taut line, extreme choices, neither of which feel good, with little room for options. There are a lot of possibilities that are in between two extremes, and the more we can ascertain what we need, and move in the direction of feeling better, the more variety ways of making that happen come into view.
So, I want to end this week’s article by acknowledging that it is Easter. Having been raised in the Christian faith, I think of Christianity as a huge source of programming not only in my own life, but in society at large. We will never know which parts of the bible are true and which parts were written to manipulate us into being a certain way for whatever reasons that served the writers. More and more I question that which I was taught to believe, by people who were also taught to believe it, but for which doesn’t leave much room for our own thoughts and intuitions of what might also or otherwise be true. However, I first saw a sticker representative of the meme below, about a year ago, and I thought it was hilarious. Regardless of your beliefs, which I entirely respect, I hope you can find the humor in it, as well.
On a more serious note:
Matthew 28:7-8 KJV And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him; lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulcher with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.
And with this, my own thoughts and intuition tell me that the second coming of Christ (consciousness) will be through enlightenment of that which is broken within us, buried in our subconscious and unconscious minds, being revealed to us so that we know what there is to heal…for ourselves and the functioning of the planet as a whole… to finally know the peace intended for the world (which, if you look around, is hard to believe is possible regardless of your beliefs). For I have always thought whether or not Jesus was/is real, that we could not go wrong by living life in a way that Jesus was said to live. There was no religion called Christianity in the days he was said to walk the earth, but those who followed him faced their demons and sought to be like him, which IMO, is not at all what today’s Christianity looks like.
As always, my apologies on any typographical or grammatical errors I may have missed. I truly appreciate you reading my words and I am sending you all the expanding love I have as I typed these last words while my bed beckons to me!!