Month: December 2020

I can be on the phone with a stranger I’ve just met and be completely in tune with her because of our shared experience. I can love her immediately because the pain of our past makes us sisters. I’m speaking specifically of not loving myself, not treating myself well.

I understand what it is to let others do and say things to you that hurt. I did that for years as a child, as a teen, and as a mother. Consequently, I felt wretched. Nor was I able to contain my feelings. My emotions ran amok like wild animals in a cage. No, like mutant fish evolving into monstrosities that crawled out of the mucky tank, horrifying and ugly and scary. Are you with me? Do you know what I’m talking about? I’ve been in that horrible darkness and wanted out.

But the way out is through, not around, not in denial. You must go inside to where all that dark stuff is.

But don’t go there alone. Go with help. Good, strong, understanding, competent help. I was lucky to find it. I had many human guides, many good therapists, and friends. None of them were perfect, and all had their limitations. That is why we also need to call upon Spirit. Spirit guides us, loves us, and protects us when we ask it to.

Spirit is not pushy or assertive. Spirit has exquisite manners and will only come when bidden.

But even then, I didn’t always remember to listen. That takes discipline. Once I said hello to Spirit and acknowledged Spirit in my consciousness and in my heart every day, my life turned around. I changed my attitude, began to take better care of myself, and to treat myself and others well. I realized that what I need and want is to both ask for and accept help when given. And to be grateful for it.

For too many years I tried to survive on my own, to do everything my way. I didn’t trust anyone. Spirit would try to help, and I would push it away, which was crazy because I was so miserable!

I was afraid to be vulnerable because I’d been hurt by people so many times before. I allowed them to take advantage of my innocence, many who were so sick themselves they had completely lost their way and had devolved into those kinds of creatures that filled my fish tank – dank, ugly, awful mutations of horror.

It took a long time, but I have learned to love and value myself. I discovered that I have a voice and that I need to speak up and use it. That’s how I treat myself well, by checking in with Spirit and confirming what I know to be true and then letting others know how I feel by saying yes, I want this, or no, I do not want that. These are my boundaries and you have violated them, or you respect my boundaries, and I am grateful.

None of us have to walk this path to selfhood alone. I now reach out to others. Let’s share our journeys. We don’t have to walk them alone.

“And all day long she sings softly to herself for joy, saying: Shall I show thee what God is? No one finds peace apart from [h]er.”

Saint Catherine of Genoa – A Sea of Peace

I’ve wasted years twisting myself into a pretzel trying to get people to like me. What pain and sorrow that is!

Today, I enjoy my Self. I revel in the luxury of just being me. Who cares if I’m not to everyone’s liking? No one is! Not even God! So why should that matter to me?

When you are trying to feel loved from the outside in, it doesn’t work, and it’s extremely painful. You have to feel love from inside.

But when what’s inside hurts a lot, that is difficult to do – to love yourself.

I got loads and loads of help slogging through the mess inside, and finally…finally, I enjoy what’s there. It’s a lovely home!

So, don’t give up, dears, if your home is messy and painful at the moment.

Perhaps you can accept for one tiny moment, that this is the way it has to be right now. This period of your life will pass. With hard work, perseverance, and determination you will, eventually, know yourself for the gift that you are. I know it. I’ve done it. We all can.

“The cloud weeps, and then the garden sprouts.

The baby cries, and the mother’s milk flows.

The nurse of creation has said, Let them cry a lot.”

Rumi – from “Muhammad and the Huge Eater”

Translated by Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi

When I was 16, I was homeless for a short period of time, and one cold and gray day got lost in the woods. I’d climbed up a wooded ridge, crossed a dirt road that ran along the crest, and then down the other side, where I found a small lake at the bottom of the ravine. It was very still and quiet. The sandy shore all around was raked into even grooves. I did not like the place. It felt eerie and unnatural. But when I turned and looked into the hills, I saw smoke lifting above the trees. I decided to see who lived there.

I found what I believed was a path to the cabin, but the path petered out.

I found another path, but it too stopped abruptly.

I looked for a high place where I might get a clearer view and found a large boulder. I scrambled to the top of it and stood above the trees. There was the tendril of smoke off in the distance. But there was another, and another, many tendrils dotting the hillsides.

I’d been chasing mist. I’d been following deer tracks that went nowhere.

I was cold and hungry. The light was falling. I abandoned the deer paths and headed straight up the ravine. Dense scrub brush halted my way.

I went back down the ravine and looked for a better approach. But soon I was against the thick undergrowth again and could not get through. It started to drizzle. The sky was growing dark. I got down on my hands and knees and barreled my way through the sharp cartilage, but it resisted, held me back. My toes and fingers ached with cold. I was terrified I’d be stuck there all night.

I got down on my belly and crawled. Brambles grabbed my hair, thorns scratched my face. I clawed my fingers into the dirt and crawled inch by inch, knowing the road was somewhere above me.

I heard the distant sound of tires crunching over gravel. I clawed my way towards it, the sting of branches raking my scalp, thorns tearing my sweater. The beam of headlights flickered through the dense brush. The car passed and complete darkness fell, but I knew I was close. I just had to keep pushing.

With one last effort I was free. I stumbled to my feet, relief flooding me as Venus gleamed in the dark evening sky.

Life is like that, a series of misperceptions and wrong turns in the woods. I was once homeless, feeling abandoned and lonely, lost in the brambles and thickets I had crawled my way into, but I never gave up, never completely abandoned myself. If you find yourself in similar woods, hang on. Lean on Spirit and your own fortitude. Look for beacons. You will find your way.

It is not impossible to love yourself. It may feel like a daunting task, but know this – you are already loved, already cherished. Isn’t that a joy worth discovering? Isn’t that a joy worth fighting for, enduring for? Yes! Yes, it is! I tell you – don’t give up on yourself. Never, never give up.

The Shining Self

To be united with the Lord of Love,

Imperishable, changeless, beyond cause

And effect, is to find infinite joy.

            The Tejobindu Upanishad

Life can be difficult, challenging, painful, and confusing, and still there is always hope. Hope for redemption, for awakening to love.

But when I am in pain, or when I am fearful, I doubt myself. I doubt my goodness, my worth, my purpose. At such times, I ask, what am I supposed to do with my life?

To love unconditionally and whole heartedly. Love yourself. Love others. Love life.

But how can I love when I am in such pain and doubt?

By coming to me and laying it all at my feet.

What if I don’t believe in you? What if I don’t have faith? What if I only believe in myself and in my pain and in my doubt, because that is all I can see and feel?

Then I would ask, what has that given you?

More of the same. Hopelessness. Anguish.

Would it be worthwhile to try something new? To entertain the notion that you are not alone? That there is indeed a power greater than you, a power over which you have no control, be it the sky, the air you breathe, the life force that gives the plant on your shelf new shoots. Could you maybe talk to that greater power? I tell you that part of belief and faith comes in sharing that doubt and grief with a power greater than yourself. Say, “I hurt. I doubt myself. I don’t like this, but I’m going to sit with it and see what happens rather than push it away.”

You might do this alone in prayer. Or with your therapist, or with a spiritual adviser, or a friend, or within the membership of a 12-step program of some kind, or in your journal. Write about it. Draw a picture of it. Talk to it. Ask what this pain, this shame wants. You have been resisting it, trying to make it go away, don’t. All it wants is to be noticed, to be accepted. Only then can you change your attitude towards it. You cannot change your attitude towards pain and shame if you are constantly resisting it, which only makes it stronger, like weight resistance makes your muscles stronger, resistance to pain makes it stronger as well.

Jesus did not resist pain. He walked right into it and transformed that pain into a gift and release for us all.  We are no longer trapped in the horror of guilt. He went before us, and now the path is open. Open for all of us to be together in love and harmony.

But why doesn’t it feel like that now? Why is there so much heartache and strife now?

Because there is.

You must accept it before it can transform you.

It’s a mystery.

My life of misery, of self-doubt, and self-hatred has been transformed into one of gratefulness, joyfulness, love, and forgiveness, for myself and for those who hurt me. Jesus forgave and loved all the people who hurt him, because he knows that love is the true state of our being. And the paradox is that tragedy and pain are part and parcel of love and joy.

It’s a weird mystery, and one I am learning to embrace. It deepens my knowing of God, and of the glorious soup of which we are all a part.