Dearest readers,
I’ve been musing about belonging and freedom. Naturally, we should be easily able to be part of a family or group and also maintain our individuality. At least it seems simple on the surface. Thousands of years of conditional love have robbed us of our spontaneity, our ability to love self and others, and to truly trust in our own voice and in our connections with other human beings.
As a child, I had to make the choice between belonging and freedom. I sensed by the age of ten or twelve that freedom was more important to me than belonging to my family. The family system demanded that all individuality, all freedom, all friendships with people outside of the family be relinquished in exchange for belonging, for being loved, accepted, for being a member of the family. Of course, this is/was a highly dysfunctional family system. I now realize that while this family system was an extreme, it was actually a representation of the norm pushed so far as to make the intolerable part of normalcy/conditional love in our society very obvious.
At some point in my life, I realized that I chose (or some part of me chose) to be a part of this family. To experience an upbringing that was painful, but one which forced me to become aware of my own priorities. Coming up in this family with my sensitivity and quiet nature, my own soul pushed me to revolt, to choose freedom, despite the pain of being excluded and even despised. I was the one chosen to carry the shadow of the family. Everything that was painful, repressed, difficult – like disease, failure, loss – was my fault. As I got older, the more I asserted my freedom and my individuality, the harsher the punishments, anger, and vengeful spirit became.
Often, the most spiritually evolved soul in a family group plays the role of the scapegoat. Each soul in a family group agrees to experience together certain roles for the benefit of the spiritual growth of each soul in the group. I have explored freedom, the price of freedom, as well as the benefits and the liabilities of solitude.
And now, I am confronted with the necessity and inevitable ties between trust, surrender, and belonging. My spiritual and personal evolution require me to heal the part of myself that gave up on belonging, that gave up on trust when I chose freedom, and with it, for the most part, life-long solitude.
I want to preserve the part of myself that is a dreamer, introspective, and which enjoys solitude. And I want to be able to feel whole, connected, belong, to trust, give and receive, without relinquishing my personal power or individuality.
Right now, I can’t be in a relationship with others, or even in a place where I trust the Universe to fulfill my heart’s desires, if I cannot surrender or trust. When I set my intentions for my dreams and desires, I must surrender them to the Universe. Letting go and not knowing how things will come into being requires trust.
It is hard for me to get close to other people. I feel more comfortable being alone. As we collectively move into unity consciousness, I sense that my own healing requires retrieval of my full self. Healing means becoming whole again. Becoming aware of all of the pieces of myself that were deeply hurt and tucked away, and taking them out to embrace them with feeling and acceptance, and yes, with my own love. I feel so close to living fully as the powerful being I know that I am…yet to embody trust and surrender seems to be so necessary and simultaneously untouchable.
Having chosen not only this childhood but also a long chain of betrayals, abuse, bullying at home and in the workplace, relationships of all kinds where I allowed myself to be used, tricked, robbed, my soul has evolved out of victimhood into a library of human experiences of suffering and resilience. In retrospect, I believe that I chose on some level with free will all of these painful experiences of rejection, manipulation, grief, solitude, suffering. The other aspect of these experiences was to allow me opportunities to discover my own strength, imagination, and power as well as self-love and appreciation in order to help others at some point. The school of life as a human being is not an easy one.
My dream is to be free, all while assisting the planet and all of her creatures in the ascension process. To live and make a living as an artist, to be free from conventional society, its limitations, judgments, bondage. At the same time, I seek connection, and I am always connected to all that is. I have always felt connected to the entire universe and to our beautiful planet. To all of the plants and trees, to the animals. To the water, the air, the clouds, even to buildings and roads. Inanimate objects. But connecting to other human beings is the most challenging of all connections. Why is that?
The human being is no longer a natural being. Conditioned from birth to accept that beauty, love, and truth be replaced by an artificial truth, all human beings give up large portions of self in order to belong to the groups of family and society. This “fake” love which is really the acceptance of the social contract forces us to give up self-love, authenticity, and the ability to relate to one another in an honest and simple way. We all lose the ability to trust self and others as we grow up. Most of us lose touch with our intuition and our connection to spirit and to the consciousness of the planet, the consciousness of the plants, the animals, the clouds, the soil, rocks, insects, the water.
My whole life, I have been seeking another natural human being who could be my friend, my partner. Someone who remembers, who is awake and aware. Someone who knows his or her own shadow. Someone who knows that there is darkness in the light of unity and love and who embraces all of it. Someone that I can trust.
Many years ago, an archaeologist friend from Ethiopia told me about a vision he had of me. He saw me lying naked, unconscious or sleeping, surrounded by a circle of crossed swords. The other day, in my mind’s eye, I arose, twirling in a dance, and I surrounded those swords in a swath of iridescent light, each sword lighting up in a pure and brilliant hue of the rainbow. I dissolved them all into a single rainbow sword, which I used to cut all of the twisted energy cords coming from my body. Spreading my arms in an arc around my body, I created a beautiful vesica pisces-shaped aura around my body. Majestic cobalt blue wings sprouted from my shoulder blades, and a blue beak emerged from my face.
I wanted to take charge of my life, of my own healing, of my return to wholeness…myself with the universe. But I had left out the human element. The element of relationship of myself with other human beings. Trusting another human being. Receiving part of my healing…the part of power I had given away in the conditional love contract that we all share with our families, friends, partners.
Yesterday, I was debating whether I should sign up for a healing session with an internationally known healer, or whether I should trust myself to heal myself. Make myself whole again. Could it be done? Could I become whole again without putting my trust in another? I had always felt that giving up my power to a group, to a teacher or healer was not needed and even dangerous. Yet there remains this part of my personal history – a part of all of our histories – that is still wounded.
I strongly feel that all human beings are powerful beings. We each create our own reality. We are not victims, no matter how much we suffer. No matter how difficult our lives may be. As we each at our own pace and in our own way poke and prod our way through the confusing challenge of finding our own path, which is constantly evolving, trust is key. Trust in our self. If everything is One, then trusting self and trusting another should come easily. That is the way of the natural human being who has given up all conditioning and the suffering it has caused. One emotion at a time, I have taken back shards and fragments of my self. My heart. My emotional self.
Perhaps the healer has a gift that I don’t have. I am not giving away my power by going to see him. I am proving to myself that I can open my heart while facing another human being. That I can trust myself to not need to protect myself in any way. That our energy fields can merge without my losing any part of myself, my freedom, my individuality. That connection, receiving, and belonging can and should be self-evident for all of us, and not be bought at such a high price.
For me, the New Earth we are recreating together embodies a way of living that is natural for us as human beings. It is our birthright and the template for this way of being is stored in every cell in our bodies. We know what feels right. Once we stop spinning in drama and delusion of a fake and painful collective reality based on exploitation, abuse, victimization, and conditional love, and begin to wake up and remember what love and truth are, then we can begin to trust in our own power and rediscover our own voices once again.
adamevenevenadam 