Around six years ago I was at a point of complete despair, not feeling any reason to live, everything around me seemed like it was taken away. At this moment I surrendered completely and when I did, a different worldview was shown to me. Many insights came to me during this period, but as it turned out I was not able to drop my personality and just wholly accept this way of being without such a familiar wrapping. Slowly my dense world settled again and I was identified once again with my personality, my self-image and how I saw the world. But there was something different. I was aware of my identification with my self-image and my reactions and from then on I was intensely questioning all aspects of my behavior as I became aware of them. I felt that this first wake up call, was like a beacon showing me what ‘being’ would be like beyond my personality. I still see it the same today, I will know I am home when I have went full circle and feel once again in my body how I did at that time.
I don’t need any confirmation for this from the outside from others, my own sense of serenity and of being non-reactive and accepting to what life presents to me will be ruler for accomplishment. I am no longer convinced by what my heads tell me, or the thoughts of others regarding my own progress. I know how I will feel at my deepest level, in my body, when I am clear of the unconscious elements of my past. What I am convinced about is that it is a growing process, and I see that I have been gradually dropping parts of myself as I go on in my journey. I have heard stories of some people who are able to surrender completely during experiences of this type, but given my own journey and seeing how it works with me I have my doubts that this is possible. I don’t say it isn’t possible, as it is dependent upon one’s past, but I think for the majority of people with built up structures of personality, it has to be deconstructed piece by piece, as one is ready to face the separate issues which hold it all together. So I see it is a growing process, where as one drops a part of one’s ego, then this energy that was previously being used to hold onto some image or desire, is freed resulting in a higher level of one’s vibration or awareness level.
Over the years I have had various insights, which have shown me more detailed information about the inner workings of the personality, and why I cling to it. Each such experience has raised my level of overall awareness, resulting also in that my reactionary way of responding to life has lessoned over time. This doesn’t mean that I don’t react, just that I react less often. It seems now I am faced with looking at the core issues, being asked to resolve them, as the strong reactions of late are causing once again the extreme pain and feelings of being alone. The period I am in now is interesting to me, because it reminds me so much of that time six years ago, it is like I am coming full circle facing the same core issues that I saw way back then. But today I feel much stronger, having unloaded through questioning and gaining self-knowledge about many of those parts of myself, that I could see no longer were of benefit to me.
I see that I am growing more compassionate about other people, realizing it is a growing process, and everyone is on their own path along it. Nothing about it can be forced and we can’t change other people, what we are left with is acceptance of how life is, in regards to ourself and others. Recently, I have looked over some of my written dialogs with people and what I see in them is usually the technique of pointing out the faults in the other, trying to show them how they are unconscious and clinging to their self-image. I am feeling that hardly anything that I’ve written in the last 6 years is truly creative and that anyone would get any benefit out of reading them, except perhaps to see how judging others isn’t creative. While I can stand back from these kinds of dialogs and see that what I’ve expressed is true, I don’t see that this kind of dialog is creative. This way of responding only causes a defensive reaction in the other person, and it makes me feel elevated and superior being able to see the faults in others. This kind of dialog is what I see as negativity, which comes directly out of the personality, judging and condemning others, not being able to accept them for who they are right now, and meet with them where they are at in this moment. When one responds in the way to point out that the person is reacting out of their unconsciousness, or that they are ‘reacting’, then the possibility to relate to what the individual actually expressed via their ‘growing process’ (reaction) is entirely missed. We never meet eye to eye in this way. Instead the judgment of the other coming from my way to defend myself, only serves to strengthen my false sense of self. In essence it makes me feel superior by showing the inferiority of the other.
Recently in my life, events have triggered strong reactions from my personality. I realized that the content and reason my ego was giving behind these reactions was a repetition from the past – that I had had these same kinds of reactions before. So obvious to me was that I had not resolved them the last time, but had only suppressed them, in essence I was repeating. Knowing that I was reacting and also that I was clinging on them and giving them energy to exist, which also had the side affect to give me great pain, then I was motivated to find out what I could about them, to try to deal with them this time and clear them up. Through this process, I have gained more information about my personality and also as a result, I am starting to feel more compassion for myself and for other people, realizing how hard it is to let go of this old history and also how we project our needs for confirmation and try to get love from people outside of ourself. The kind of dialog where people are telling others, that they don’t get it, that there is no realization, that all is intellectual and they are still reacting or even ‘crazy’, is something I am no longer interested in expressing to another person.
As I know that each individual is in a growing process, there is no instant point of ‘getting it’. People do the best they can and become ready to deal with those hidden parts of themselves, when they are ready to do so. By responding to the actuality of the person, beyond one’s tendency to judge – from one’s still center – then there is the possibility to grow oneself and also to give space to the other to grow. Dropping one’s own resistance to what is, accepting the present moment as it is, without the mind’s opinions is our biggest challenge. This seems to me the only truly creative way to help ourselves and other’s grow beyond our personalities, and this way of responding is entirely in our own hands. We have the choice and can direct our consciousness to attend to and observe our own reactions or we can use it to stay mired in our internal dialog, which mainly is used to protect our own self-image. I see that our challenge is to grow to where we can accept another where they are at and to also accept ourselves. By accepting what is, we aren’t denying reality by clinging on our reaction, and we are in a position to let go of our tendency to defend our reaction and then we are available to relate to the other and to ourselves.
I know my personality consists of it’s interpretation and then if I believe it, then I move onwards into judging my reaction and that of the other, and then if I become identified with it because of my own needs I will become convinced of my worldview, of how I am seeing it. The next step the personality takes, is to then outwardly attack the other, to express thoughts and emotions to the outside either directly or by getting the confirmation of others behind me. This kind of tendency, I am seeing quite often going on inside myself and I find it very hard to let go of. For this reason, I’m not interested in talking with anybody about how I’m feeling or seeing things these days, because I don’t trust myself, and feel that any of this kind of talk will only strengthen my way of seeing things and this is not what I want. I am seeing inside that even I can predict the behavior or reaction of people in certain scenarios and know what is behind it, that when it is voiced or becomes actual, then I still go into my internal defense mode, justifying my take on things.
This kind of reaction has a tendency to easily suck me in and make me unconscious. Even I know this is a reaction and it is best I don’t give any heed to it, it is incredible how persistent it is. Last night I was watching this and kept saying to myself: drop this, shut up, don’t listen to this voice, this is your reaction, don’t trust the content, be open to other views, by giving it energy you strengthen your world view, just relax and let your reaction go – instead breath into spaceless presence. I know this is the thing to do, yet also I see it is hard to do because the way that my ego has developed over the years to defend it’s self-image, is a pattern so often practiced and entrenched that it goes on automatically, almost with a life of it’s own. I see that the most I can do at this time is watch it, be aware I’m doing this and then make a decision to do something else, to keep trying to drop it and not ‘give heed’ to what ‘I’ (my personality) is telling me about things. This also I find difficult to do, because I am so used to listening to what I tell myself about how things are, that to drop it, leaves me without a familiar interpretation, thus also lies the difficulty of the matter, to be willing to set the voice aside and have no worldview, no foundation of interpretation to fall back onto.
Not wanting confirmation from others, of that which I already see no reason to trust in, leaves me in a void space, at this time feeling very much alone. I do trust that another kind of knowingness will eventually replace the old way, but at the moment I have lost interest in nearly everything. This is because I see that all my activities and my ideas to do something are being done at this time to avoid confrontation with myself. Thusly, I don’t want to do anything else at this time, except to meditate, watching myself and others to find out what might be the answer to drop this old way of being.
Having been able to consciously set my interpretation aside a few times, a clarity comes to me that contains a knowingness much more vast than anything that could come from my personality, so this gives me another kind of confirmation drawing me away from the old habits of the personality. What comes from personalities is repetition and ready-made practiced responses that are mainly defensive, typically having the result to inflict further pain in others or oneself. So then the decision to keep dropping this head talk, moving away from my mind view, becomes easier over time, as I realize what comes out of it and what purpose it serves.
So I see it’s a matter of practice to lay down a new habit that has been so long entrenched, but that with continued practice in this direction, the inner voice will grow stronger as the energy given to the mind is withdrawn over time. The thing I am working on now is resolving the great pain that I feel in my heart. Over the last few days I realize that my main emotion I’m feeling inside is that of feeling hurt greatly by the actions of others – I feel a great loneliness, I feel greatly misunderstood and all this is felt as a tremendous monster pain in my heart. I have been doing meditation just feeling this pain in my heart, trying to understand it without reacting out of my hurting feelings. I can see that by continuing on with this process, that eventually the pain in my heart will be healed. So far I’ve seen that this pain that is being held in my heart center in nearly all the result of my trusting in another person on the outside whom I loved deeply then feeling that they did some terrible wrong to me, hurting me in a way that I felt I could never forgive them for and then the resulting feeling being that I did not want to ever risk loving another person again. Thereby, having the side-affect to harden over time my defense to not be hurt again.
Over the years I see that this pain has accumulated from relationships with various people, whom I fully risked to put my trust and loved them with all my heart. As far as I can tell, the first major hurt came when I was very young, and so I see this set up the unconscious pattern that I have repeated in my further relationships with people. I see that all these relationships ended in the same pattern of feeling they hurt me and then not feeling able to forgive them for what they did to me, then the subsequent feelings of anger towards them, which served to harden my self-defense and isolate and close off the pain that I was feeling inside myself. I think most people have a similar pain in their heart, which they also are building up over time by repeating certain scenarios out of their early experiences, in a similar way to what I have described above.
When I started to feel this pain inside me, then it was overwhelming; I saw that only I wanted any kind of diversion to not look at it, to not feel it again. To be with this pain and to feel it was excruciating, to bring it all back to life again. Then it became clear to me why we humans do everything we can to not confront ourselves or to question ourselves, at root it is because we don’t want to acknowledge this deep pain that we are holding in our hearts. So then we find every way under the sun, to divert ourselves and defend ourselves, all to protect us from having to touch this pain again. But then I see that the only way to heal this pain is to bring it back to life, to meet it head on, to feel it and consciously move through it and understand why it’s there.
Feeling the pain in myself, I also saw that it’s not only emotional pain, but also along with it there is the physical pain in one’s body, which most likely results and is in place from the unresolved emotional pain. We hold various tensions in our bodies coming out of our habitual way of responding emotionally which we adopted early on as a way to defend ourselves from being hurt again. Over time we continuously respond in our unconscious emotional way to defend ourselves from our pain. As emotions are expressed in the body, then these corresponding areas of the bodies which we use over and over again to defend ourselves in our own unique way, eventually start to reflect the pain we haven’t resolved on the inside to the outside.
Subsequently these areas of our bodies become frozen and blocked, so that the life force or energy can no longer move through them and this built up tension causes pain and eventually disease in those areas of our bodies. It is interesting to note, that one can study the chakras, and the associated emotions that are related to these energy, nerve and gland centers of our bodies and directly discover the methods one has developed to emotionally protect oneself and also the body will tell you what traumas you received early on in your life, which caused you to respond and defend in these ways. One can find out about these defensive emotional ways we protect ourselves, by going within and observing one’s body tension and breathing at the moment one is feeling a strong reaction.
At first it is very hard to just observe and sit with the emotional, mental and physical pain, and not give way to the temptation to find some way to escape from it. I see that we use every way to escape from facing our inner pain and I see that a way one person uses is not any worse than another – we all have our ‘drug’ of choice – and all of our choices are the same, to avoid self-confrontation. From food, sex, talking, attainments, relationships, being famous, activities, work, drugs, alcohol, stimulants, athletics, spirituality, Internet, television to entertainment – nearly all of our activities and choices are for one purpose: to avoid facing ourselves. Probably most people if they are interested in seeing it, can easily identify in themselves one or more ways that they are using to escape from facing themselves. Easily we can feel that we are superior to others when we fall into the tendency to judge another person’s way to escape, thereby with this behavior not able to see our own ways that we are escaping.
I think what is most important is that we see our own ways we use to avoid self-confrontation and a main one is how we condemn and judge other people. Judging others by itself can be seen as our technique to avoid ourself, when we judge others we are not able to see the stake in our own eye. I think when the threshold of facing one’s inner pain is arrived at in one’s journey, then many are not able to continue on within, and this is the point where we are tempted to fill our void with doing something else – anything to avoid the inevitable. This is our continuous and endless substitution game to avoid coming home to our truth.
But in the end our growing and accumulating unresolved pain will eventually turn us back to ourselves and to our healing. I see that the inner pain has to be resolved to soften and open one’s heart center, and healing oneself is the only way to be compassionate for oneself and others. If the heart is blocked by being full of pain, then one is not open to receive the love that life gives us all around. Instead the human being, being full of pain has the need to defend itself in every way, so that it won’t have to feel that pain.
I am now working on trying to forgive all the people that I feel have caused me pain, and even more difficult to forgive myself for the pain I have inflicted upon others. So far it has helped me to realize that pain that I inflict upon others and that has been inflicted upon me, comes out of unconscious behavior to protect oneself from feeling one’s inner pain. The words of Jesus ring truth through my being: “Forgive them father for they know not what they do.”
Transmuting emotions I see is a step that has to be completed to become fully conscious and accepting of oneself, and to be able to move into the next level of compassion to stop accumulating more pain by inflicting it upon oneself and others in one’s daily doings. I see that the main motivator that keeps our personalities intact is to protect this deep wound of pain inside of ourselves, and so I can understand my own motivating behavior and also that of others. People hurt others and feel hurt from others because of our unconscious need to protect that core of the ego that feels so alone, constantly under threat and wounded. In a sense, we are in love with our misery and our pain, and any reason to protect ourselves gives us our continued justification and reason to go on in our old painful way. To move beyond this, each of us will have to face the challenge alone to heal the core issue, and only after successfully doing this, will we be able to move outwards towards being compassionate and in a position of true forgiveness. To be able to receive love and to be able to give love, we first have to resolve and clear out the pain of the past, thereby healing ourselves and creating an open space that can receive and reflect the abundant love that is ever-present and all around us.
Betsy
July 13, 2005
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