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You are choosing to be here. In this place, in this living situation, in this building, in this spiritual community. You are making your choices everyday. You’re also not. Both are true. But recognizing that you are choosing is important. You are not a victim to the circumstances.

When you step outside of victimhood, you can start making choices. By simply asking yourself, how is it that I would like to spend my time? What is it that is most aligned for me right now – outside of any relational construct and without taking anyone else into consideration?

When you feel like you have no choice, you’re stuck, you’re bound, you’re imprisoned, you start behaving out of a role you feel as though is imposed on you. And that’s what feels like self-betrayal. Acting from obligation, imposition, no-choice. Feeling bound to, bound by, imposed upon, victim to. There are limitations but within those limitations, you’re also choosing. You can choose.

How is it that I would like to spend my time? What is it that is most aligned for me right now – outside of any relational construct and without taking anyone else into consideration?

You are choosing not to speak to your family right now, you are choosing not to be in a relationship but to continue living together, you are choosing that you don’t want to travel right now. You are choosing that you would like to be more selective with your spiritual communities and the support that you get.

You are choosing not to work right now. You are choosing to live in this apartment right now. You are choosing not to have a car right now. You are choosing that you don’t want to live in a bubble of a spiritual community which does not take into account the reality of your daily experience. You are choosing not to be constrained by the construct of marriage.

You chose not to go visit your father in the last year before he died. You chose not to be a part of your extended family’s life. You chose to break ties with your mother, brother and sister. You chose to start living with your partner 6 years ago. You chose all of that.

Once you take ownership of your choices, you no longer need to blame anyone or any situation or circumstance for them. You can own your choices and feel free in that.

The only obstacle in the way of that is your own self-doubt and self-judgement in regards to your choices – not trusting yourself. Not trusting that you are doing your best with what you’ve been given. And comparing yourself to others who are not in your situation and are not living your choices, just like you’re not living theirs.

There are choices, preferences within the construct of limitation. Once you can see that you can own your choices, trust yourself, trust you’re doing your best then there’s no need to give yourself away to others – to betray yourself by denying your own primary-ness in your own life.

You are choosing to buy the things you buy, to try the things you try, to not do what you don’t want to do, to eat what you eat etc. Distortion comes in when you, yourself are not clear about what actually feels true for you. And this unclear-ness comes from identifying with a role given to you. Doing the chores because you’re the one who does the chores. Doing for others what you think you have to do.

This “have to” is fear.

Fear of being seen as selfish, fear of being punished for not doing what “you’re supposed to do”, fear of others also acting or reacting without taking you into consideration. So you compromise. You bow down to the unspoken agreement. I’ll do this for you, because you do this for me.

Fear of survival comes in and you’re negotiating what feels true for you because you don’t want to rock the boat. You don’t want to ‘upset’ anyone because you’re scared of the repercussions of that upset. This is a very tangible thing that goes into the smallest decision, the tiniest gesture and the fear is the driving force behind this whole construct.

Acknowledge this fear, recognize it, recognize the behavioral-machine it puts into action, recognize the feel of it, the taste of it. It may feel like a sudden brain fog, or a descending heaviness, a feeling of suffocation. It may look like being hurried, trying to get all the things done – overwhelming yourself with more than you can handle in the moment. It may express itself as victimhood; being victim to the circumstances, to another person, to the action or behavior.

Victimhood often plays small, you start to feel small compared to another, compared to the world, compared to the tasks at hand. It may feel like trying to appease, keep the peace, “check in” with another to make sure they’re not upset. It may feel like guilt and a sense of burden towards another as though you’re causing more suffering to them by acting in accordance to your own truth.

The general telltale signs of this type of dynamic is a sense of self-betrayal, a lack of space or boundaries between you and another, a lack of space or boundaries around your own time. A feeling like things can’t wait, not allowing things to settle in you, in your own time. A feeling or urgency, powerlessness and an inability to steer the course of the day.

As well as, a sense of being burdened by another, a sense of dread, hopelessness, despair, disillusionment. A sense of obligation to another from a fear of abandoning them to themselves, to their experience and vice versa. A fear of being abandoned by the other in your own experience.

These dynamics play out unconsciously, in the darkness when there’s no light shed on them. But once you can see these things playing out in you, you do have a choice:

• Don’t buy into any self judgement or condemnation for the fact that these dynamics are playing out or resurfacing in you.
• Give yourself space in all that you feel and all that you do.
• Disentangle from any relational tentacles and be attuned to your own body and your own experience with gentleness and devotion.
• Realize that there is no reason at all to overwhelm yourself. If a conversation or a a task is overwhelming to you and you have the ability to remove yourself from said task or conversation, then do so.
• Recognize that there’s actually no problem. That given space, time and understanding, everything resolves itself by itself.
• Identify any sense of urgency in you; the sense of urgency is an illusion and does not serve or support anything other than reinforcing fear.
• You can choose how you spend your time, you can choose the boundaries you set with others in your environment, you can choose to be kind to yourself.
• Validate your choices and realize that you are making choices all the time.

In a place where no one speaks the language of Love, Love’s trying to find me, and I, it. In this corner of the world, darkness prevails and to speak of Love, to follow Love, to yearn for Love, to stand for Love is unheard of – it’s completely foreign. Almost like Love hasn’t touched this place. Almost like, the entire universe and everything that encompasses truth is somehow outside this land, outside its people. It feels as though Love doesn’t exist here. It’s unfathomable here.

Even though the same trees grow, the same wind blows, the same sky, the same moon, the same sun – the same everything which is everywhere is here too. Yet, the feeling of being so far removed from the rest of the world although illusory feels utterly and terribly real to the one who feels stuck here. Cornered here.

My body is filled with the fear those in love with darkness have instilled in it. The more I move towards Love, the angrier it seems to make them. The more fear rises in me. The closer Love moves towards me, the stronger they seem to get in their resistance to any any sprout of Love trying to blossom within me. Like a flower growing in the crack of the pavement being stomped on by an unconscious passerby. So it is, with Love and me in this place.

Don’t praise and don’t condemn. Try to stay in neutrality as much as you possibly can. Not in a contrived way, but really aim to not jump to or arrive at any conclusions. Be conclusion-free.

Praise comes with expectation. Condemnation comes with grievance. Praise is uplifting someone – raising them above the rest. Putting them on a pedestal where they’re bound to fall.

Condemnation is pushing them down. Concluding their wrong-ness is eternal. Both are limitations, caging others in either with perfection or utter malice – no middle ground. Both limiting – to yourself and limiting to the other.

Condemnation is a non-acceptance at its root, a rejection of the other. It comes with a sense of dullness and monotony – endless time. The preciousness and never-to-be-repeated nature of things becomes hidden when you start living from a place of condemning others and judging them.

Both praise and condemnation carry a judgment. And judgment limits your ability to let things filter through you. Where you can find hidden gems in what you had previously condemned and unexpected surprises in that which you had previously praised.

There is something inherently scary about the dense masculine conditioning in its destructiveness, abuse of power and blind arrogance. The unpredictable, compulsive, impulsive, repulsive way in which the false masculine behaves and on which patriarchy is founded scares women to their core.

There’s a deep female wound which feels betrayed by the false masculine. Betrayed by his unreliability and his antagonism toward her. She is furious at his abuse of his given freedoms. Feeling as though she has to rely on keeping his madness at bay; she resents him for it.

She tries to control his actions and behavior out of fear for her own safety. Because of the imbalance of power, rights and cultural, as well as, social inequality between them, she is in a bind. She feels as though her freedom depends on him; the father, the son, the husband, the brother – but that he is utterly unreliable.

A codependent relationship is born out of a fear of him ‘losing his shit’ where she develops a strategy to control his behavior by either manipulating or appeasing him. This is most apparent in the marriage culture where women are encouraged to exercise their ‘wisdom’ when it comes to dealing with their husbands. This ‘wisdom’ is nothing but a strategy born out of fear- the fear of men.

Admit to this fear. Don’t try to act unafraid or force your ‘independence’.  Don’t berate or judge yourself for all the ways this fear leaks into your words, actions and behavior.

It’s understandable why you’re afraid. Why you’re wary. Why you’re traumatized into silence. Into not even bothering. It’s understandable why you don’t trust why you feel like he doesn’t have your back. It’s understandable why you live as though you need to justify your existence to him. As though you don’t own your time, your space or even yourself. It’s understandable. And if there’s shame there; shame for being in this place of terror – include that too.

Stop fighting what things actually are. In you, in your surroundings, in those closest to you, in those who have an effect on your life. Not wanting to be affected is a rejection of the reality of being affected. Not wanting to be ‘involved’ is a rejection of the reality of being involved. Trying to help others change so that you are no longer affected, bothered, squeezed, scared is an agenda. Softly embrace things as they are. Exactly as they are. Without trying to find a way out.

Speak your truth and be squeezed. There is nothing to be done, to be figured out. You’re not ‘failing’ for being affected. That’s an extra pressure that you put on yourself. A standard of untouchability because you hate being affected by those people. You hate their influence in your lives, not just that, but their existence in your lives. And that’s understandable. But they are. No matter how much you try, they seem to weasel their way in. And you’re powerless in their weaseling, in their influence.

Something in you is imagining a life outside of this. But that in itself causes suffering in you. It’s a denial of things as they are. This does not mean to conform and cave in to victim-powerlessness. But there’s something to not fighting force with force. Something to accepting the squeeze and softening to the point where there’s no longer anything to squeeze. Not opposing, not saying no internally. You can say no externally but inside you’re saying yes.

Don’t hate yourself for this experience, for this challenge. You haven’t failed and as a result, you’re here. You haven’t betrayed yourself for being here. You’re in the process of un-betraying yourself. But softly. Without violence and pressure. Without the veneer of ‘this shouldn’t be so’. It is so. And there’s relief in just admitting that without hate, without resentment. Just saying yes to the fact of it, you are here.

What makes you want to reject this experience is this idea that your dignity is hurt in this. You need to get out of this situation so that you can not be on the receiving end of such bullying. There’s pride in there. This pride is actually a protection, a defense from being hurt. It’s a wall. A no. But this ‘no’ alienates you. Not in the sense that you’re trying to fit in, but it alienates you by limiting you. Your ‘no’ becomes a prison that you have to live in to prove a point.

Your ‘no’ becomes a prison that you have to live in to prove a point.

We’re taught that to say ‘yes’ to hurt is to be defeated. Is to be weak. Is to lose. But that is erroneous. Saying yes in this way is a yes to what is. Not to the person or behavior but to what is. It’s a deep acceptance of things as they are, people as they are, without deeming it wrong, shouldn’t be.

When you have the capacity or are the capacity to say yes in this way, then the squeeze is no longer a squeeze. It’s no longer meeting an opposition in you, it’s moving through you. The rub of it falls away. Everything can be exactly the same on the circumstance-level but it’s effect can be completely different. And that’s the freedom. The freedom is not changing things outside, that can happen, it can help, but it’s not freedom because things are outside your control. The freedom is inside, it’s a breaking down of all the walls, all the places in you that cave from bombardment, that try to ward it off.

That’s not to say that you should stand in the face of abuse and take it, no. You’re free to move or not move as you please. You’re free to say yes or no… all of it. But you’re inwardly not bound by any stance, any opposition, any protection . Your untouchability comes from seeing how touched you actually are and admitting to it. Not denying it. Not protecting from it. Because the fact is you’re touched, any protection comes after the fact. So in a way it’s not effective because the harm has already happened. If anything it can solidify the harm even more, make it stuck. 

Your untouchability comes from seeing how touched you actually are and admitting to it.

But you yourself need not doubt your sincerity, your willingness to see, your ability to take right action when action is needed. That’s not what’s in question here. This is prior to all that, it’s acknowledging what’s here, what’s already the case before anything needs to happen. And this acceptance is all inclusive, it’s whole. It doesn’t leave anything out and say, ‘all this is ok but this little bit right here needs to change’, no. It’s accepting all of it, with you, and everything in it exactly as it is, exactly as you are. 

And this is what it means to surrender. The word surrender itself has a negative connotation to the mind. The pride in you won’t want to surrender, thinking itself to be more powerful than surrender. But surrender is the most powerful thing, deep surrender. In there is rest, relief, peace, humility, tenderness, acceptance, belonging, heartbreak, love and paradoxically untouchability- all in bowing to what’s actually here. 

The power of letting things go. There’s a freedom, a power in lettings things go. Not as an agenda but a real willingness. When you compromise yourself, your integrity – you feel it. You feel it in the inauthenticity of your words. When the words coming out of your mouth don’t match the reality of your feeling.

Letting things go is letting go of need. The need for something, someone. When you feel yourself twisting for the sake of an agenda, an outcome – that’s a telltale sign. A sign that something in you in compromising, being inauthentic – out of fear.

Letting things go is also letting go of self-imposed limitations. When endless possibilities become only one possibility. When open-ended-ness becomes a very small world. Your world becomes small when your attention is honed in on one person, one thing, one possibility and suddenly there are no options available outside that.

Letting things go means letting go of codependency. Needing someone to be something for your own well-being. Needing something for you to be ok. It means letting others be as they are without needing them to change and without their behavior or beliefs meaning anything about you.

Granting them complete freedom unto themselves and in turn complete freedom unto yourself. But this can’t be faked. It can’t be mentally believed.

It means being completely sovereign. Sovereign in your total knowing that nothing and nobody can affect you without your consent. Nothing can have a pull on you unless you give it that pull. On a practical level, that means being really aware of boundaries. Understanding what your boundaries actually are.

Boundaries include protecting your space, your field from someone else’s drama, negativity, spiraling, behavior, choices. It means not needing to jump in to ‘save’ anybody or needing to protect them from themselves.

There’s a freedom in that, in letting others be completely unto themselves. And knowing that you have a choice in your involvement and in being ‘company’ to someone else’s misery. You have the choice to stay out of it. Stay clean. You have the choice to stay true to yourself.

 Feeling trapped and owned by – family, partner, husband, society, culture, religion, country – is something to see in yourself as a woman. It plays itself out very subtly but powerfully. In feeling trapped or owned by, you’re not your own, you don’t belong to yourself. You’re someone else’s prior to belonging to yourself. And this feels suffocating for its a limitation that had long ago been imposed on your own sovereignty, your own potentiality and possibility. 

When you’re born into this world as a girl, you are treated differently from the start. The family, the parents  have a different flavor of ownership over you compared to that of a boy. That ownership is beyond just a parent – child dynamic, it’s a parent/ society/ culture / religion – girl dynamic. There’s a sense of property to it. A sense of we own you. Your movements, your potential is determined by us. You’re within our constraints.

Whereas a boy in being male has inherently more open-ended potentiality. It’s encouraged in him that he can be all that he wants to be. Comparatively. There’s no sense of being constrained or tamed the same way a girl is. Perhaps in other ways, this freedom is not fully true but there’s a world of a difference between the parent-boy and parent-girl dynamic.

This is something to see and acknowledge for yourself as a woman. That this feeling of life being just outside you, just beyond your grasp, is a symptom of this being owned by dynamic. And some women are happy to stay in the confines of that. They like it actually. There’s a ‘safety’ in that for them. “Being the girl.”

But other women have wildness in their blood. They can’t stomach this type of thing. And the feeling sense of that wildness is an intolerance to this kind of entrapment – a sensitivity to it. Like being lactose intolerant, it’s almost like an allergic reaction. Feeling suffocated is one of the symptoms of this allergic reaction. Suffocated by any sense or feel of this limitation no matter how subtle.

The playing out of this happened while growing up to solidify that this is in fact ‘your reality as a girl‘. The limitations imposed on you in your childhood and adolescence where you couldn’t really have a life outside of the family. Unless in secret or in hiding or as an act of complete rebellion which was seen as intolerable for the family.

Not having any sense of agency to make something happen for yourself outside the confines of family was a very real limitation that was felt and imbibed in your system. Friends were replaceable, your own interests and hobbies were negligible; child’s play – not serious, not real. Your feelings about what you wanted to study or pursue were unimportant, completely neglected as kind of a luxury type of thinking. Your life was not your own and the idea of it being your own was considered frivolous thinking.

This outside treatment of you was then internalized. You started neglecting your needs, your wants, you didn’t even know what you want because it didn’t matter. Your focus became on others, their lives being the primary lives, yours secondary to their lives. And you became a kind of burden in that way. Somebody the primary folk had to take care of begrudgingly. And so this is what is playing out in you right now.

And any possibility that presented an opportunity just for you on your terms became out of the question. Not just for them but for you. This is where self destructive behavior comes in. When you yourself actively and unconsciously sabotage your own potential. Because it hurts too much. It goes against so much in you. That the sabotage is a kind of ointment to that hurt. ‘It’s not possible anyway, so I might as well stop trying’. Things will always be just beyond my reach. It’s for others, who come from first world countries and have parents who understand and support them. But me, no. 

The opposite of which is complete rebellion. Trying to prove something to them. To the family, to the husband, to society. See? I am worth something… But there is violence in this kind of rebellion. Because it tries to overpower by denying what’s there. The fear, the hurt, the worthlessness. It tries to gain a sense of agency by annihilating the powerlessness and limitation that is felt and imbibed in the system. From years of your own conditioning maybe even ancestral or collective. 

So no wonder you want to escape, you want to grasp at something beyond this imprisonment, beyond this self-neglect, beyond living as a secondary character in your own life.

Accept that this is so in you. Stop trying to fix it or change it. Bring kindness towards it. Bring kindness towards the fearful one in you who had no choice in all this. This is the environment she was brought up in. This is the reality of what’s playing out in you. Don’t deny it, don’t try to overpower it by being ‘strong’ or overcoming it. Be gentle and kind towards it, be willing to suffer it, in other words, be open to it – don’t reject it.

Learning to pace yourself and respect your limits and individual capacity especially and specifically when it comes to spirituality is a really important aspect of being able to fully receive teachings from the ground of your own authentic experience. It can be really easy to overlook your own needs and inner guidance when you’re in a retreat setting or belong to a spiritual community or sangha.

The momentum of a retreat or the group field can take you over in a way where you are no longer tuned in to what actually feels right or true for you anymore. For example, you may need to skip a session or take a step back from the teachings and instead you overlook that need in yourself because you’re trying to keep up with everyone else. You don’t even consider it as an option and that in itself is a sign that something feels obligated in you and trapped.

You might be triggered and feeling into a deep trauma or wound and your capacity to receive the teachings or even be in a group setting may be compromised. But instead of honoring that need in yourself, you choose to power through. You reach your limit but you override that limit within yourself.

Or it might even be time to move on entirely. The teachings may have served their purpose in you and moving on may be what’s needed. But this can be really hard to do if you’re looking to your peers for cues. Or if you’ve developed an emotional attachment to the sangha or teacher. And you’re afraid to let go of the comfort, safety and habit of being with a spiritual community in a certain way at a certain time etc. 

Powering through is a really subtle thing that happens in retreats or spiritual community settings and is sometimes even encouraged. But it’s a really important thing to look out for especially if you have a trauma background. There’s a very fine line between being open to teachings by being receptive to spiritual transformation and being spiritually violent with yourself.

“I signed up for this whole retreat and I need to power through.”

This is when spirituality turns violent. Violent spirituality comes from a very masculine and traditional idea of what spirituality should look like. It doesn’t recognize taking breaks, going slow and really honoring your own needs above all else. It kind of strips you of your own authority in a way. Trying to be the best student is something that always plays itself out in this dynamic.

When you bypass your own limits and capacity to power through a retreat, you become less attuned to what feels true for you. What’s true for you might not look spiritual or in tune with everybody else. Only you know your limit, only you know what you’re experiencing. And in this way, only you can navigate your experience no matter what that looks like on the outside to anybody else and regardless of the setting, circumstances or money paid.

In bypassing your own well-being for the sake of the retreat, you lose touch with that inner navigation and you’re lost. You’re at the mercy of others. You’re at the mercy of ideas of what you should be like in order to belong or be accepted. You give away your authority and you try to get it from outside yourself. 

This is when the retreat can mutate from being a place of safety and being held – something you chose to be a part of – into something obligatory you have no say in. It’s no longer about being authentic to your experience and the ability to be receptive to the teachings from an innocent and grounded place.

Sharing within groups and exchanging with teachers can also be really triggering. There’s a number of things to look out for here. If the retreat group is small in number, there may be an overwhelming urge to try to fill in the silences by sharing. You can sense this as a background anxiety about how we’re going to “fill up the time” we have together. Sharing from this urge is never a good idea.

Another thing that can become activated in retreats during exchanges with teachers is an ongoing comparison with others with regards to their shares and exchanges with the teacher. This can become overwhelmingly obsessive and destructive to your own process and unfolding in the retreat container. It can also trigger an inauthentic urge to share or exchange with the teacher in order to ‘get’ something.

Sharing with a group or teacher from inauthenticity or lost authority puts you in a compromised position. You are no longer able to gauge whether sharing something is appropriate for you in the moment or not. If possible, it’s important to not judge yourself for these patterns and instead just be conscious and honest with yourself about what’s happening.

Paying attention to these things playing out in you is actually a huge part of any retreat or sangha. These dynamics reveal themselves more intensely in spiritual communities you may have been a part of for a while. Being conscious of these subtleties in you within these group dynamics is as important as what’s being formally shared or presented as the teachings themselves.

Recognizing overwhelm in yourself is crucial. It’s easy to lose yourself when your spiritual unfoldment is intensifying. These tender parts, these tender wounds, need the utmost of care, respect and patience as they come undone. When these parts are active, it is actually violent to be overexposing yourself.

It’s important for your well-being to be able to discern when your system is overwhelmed or on the brink of overwhelm. And to be able to recognize these signals from your nervous system. It’s actually not helpful to be on the receiving end of spiritual talk when you’re in that state.

When the deepest wounds or traumas are activated, it’s time to tend to yourself first and foremost.

If that means being the only one who doesn’t share, so be it, if it means leaving a meeting entirely, that needs to be an option. Because otherwise you’re trapped and you feel like you don’t have the freedom to leave anymore lest it be inappropriate.

The fear of leaving is always an indication that you feel trapped. And that more likely adds fuel to the fire of whatever deep wound has opened up. The feeling of being trapped is actually a symptom of the trauma expressing itself in the setting of spirituality.

The notion of leaving and bringing that sense of softness and gentleness to yourself within spiritual unfoldment may even seem foreign to you. It can be a belief in you that spirituality has to be violent in order to be effective. But that is simply not true.

When you don’t respect your own boundaries, your own capacity, you start to become resentful. Resentful of the teacher, the group, the teachings themselves and you lose the capacity to be able to receive these teachings. It is much wiser and more loving to be in tune and honest with your own authentic unfoldment while remaining soft and gentle rather than forceful and overpowering.

This is more of a soft, feminine type of spirituality whereby there is no goal, and you do not have to overcome anything or get anywhere. You can be gentle and kind without becoming complacent. In truth, it’s an art much like everything else. But if masculine spirituality has been the ‘norm’ for you may have even traumatized you, then leaning towards the feminine may be what’s needed.

Your own path is unique and may not look like anyone else’s. Navigating your path genuinely and without violence is ultimately a solo journey and in that you must have the ability to trust yourself and your inner guidance.

I thought they owed me something. That they should act differently than how they’ve been acting since I was born. My non-acceptance of them demanded they be different than they are. So that I could feel safe, loved. So that I wouldn’t be heartbroken at the abyss that lay between us. The unfillable gap that haunted me in every way. In every communication, every touch, every situation that mirrored it even more.

And because I could not admit or even see the truth for myself, it all be came too scary. They creeped me out. They were absolute strangers to me even as a child. I could not relate to any one of them. And their animosity towards me was obvious. Mother, Father, Sister, Brothers, Nieces, Uncles, Nephews, Cousins. And I denied these feelings, these knowings, these gut instincts because it was too dangerous to acknowledge them.

I am slowly coming to realize that they’ve been doing me a favor all along. Telling me, showing me who they are and I have been refusing it. Denying it. Pushing it all away. Saying no, no, no! You can’t be like this, you have to be like that so that I can have the slightest of chances of being able to survive here. So that I can love you, because if this is actually who you are, I can’t love you, I can’t survive, and you can’t and don’t love me!

Oh, how much I have suffered from this denial. Non-acceptance. How much I unknowingly made myself suffer. I did not know. I did not know any better. And for that I can bring mercy to myself.

Mercy for not knowing. Mercy for doing my fucking best to cope. Mercy for how strong and resilient I have been. Mercy for the pain, the inexplicable pain that would implode at the depths of me at the slightest chance of being seen. Being heard. Being loved for exactly who I am. Mercy mercy mercy. 

Mercy for my non- acceptance. Mercy for my rebellion. Mercy for my wanting things to be different. Wanting the fairytale of family to be true for me too. 

When they excluded me from my fathers funeral they were doing me a favor. They were saving me the trouble of having to travel with them in the dark of night, in my heartbreak and loss to a strange village to bury my father. It wasn’t my place. It has never been. And rightly so. 

I shouldn’t have been there because I wasn’t. And I would not want to be. And that’s the most important admission. To myself. To myself. To myself. I did not want to be there burying my father. 

Pretending to be beyond reproach does no good. The truth is you are affected. Your life is touched by what happens around you, people’s actions or lack thereof do bother you. Your current circumstances are a grievance to you. All of it. You are not beyond reproach. Start there.

Acknowledge your non-acceptance of things as they are. In you, in others, in where you are – physically, mentally, emotionally, relationally, ‘spiritually’. Letting go of the spiritual gymnastics and coming back to the raw unfiltered ugly truth of it. There’s hate. There’s anger. There’s non-acceptance. You are affected. You are hurt. There’s pain here. And you’re not handling any of it like you would like to.

In the ‘spiritual’ mind, you think you’re at twenty – you think you’re not affected. You believe you’re ‘higher’ than everyone because you ‘know’ something. That you are beyond it. You deny your non-acceptance and call it acceptance. You deny your being affected and believe you’re beyond reproach.

In truth, you’re below zero.

You can’t transcend. You can’t accept. You don’t know how. The truth is it all gets to you. All of it. Every little bit. And that in itself is something you’re trying to hide. Not only hide from others, but also hide from yourself. You don’t want to admit it. Because it’s too scary. Too hauntingly real.

If others know they can affect me, they will keep at it. But if I pretend I am beyond reproach, they will stop.

Unconcious belief

You can bring kindness to yourself for believing that. Because it is a valid conclusion. A self defense mechanism. This has been the case. And so you were trained to hold it all in. Pretend nothing bothers you. Pretend you’re not affected by their behavior towards you, their antagonism, their bullying. That they can’t get to you.

This is where the unprocessed anger is. Denying, burying, repressing – so that, they can realize the futility of their actions and get tired of even trying. That’s the intelligence in your system trying to protect you from harm. It’s something you learnt as a child to be able to survive your living environment.

That’s a testament to your resilience as a kid. As a human. As a grown up. It’s a testament to your ability to survive amidst madness and violence. So, just seeing that mechanism. And maybe even thanking it for all it has protected you from. Acknowledging its validity and intelligence.

They’ve hurt you so much, you couldn’t take it. You couldn’t handle this much coming at you. Understandably so. It’s pain-full. Unbearably so.

The truth is, they can hurt you and they have been. They do get to you and that hurts… a lot. It hurts that those who are meant to watch out for you are the ones most out to get you. And the more you go off script, the more their efforts double proportionally. This is valid, this is real. In the sense that what you’re feeling and the pressure of it is not an imagined thing.

So let’s just see that and admit that. Without trying to fix it or change it. Just as it is. You’re in pain. You’re struggling with this. And rightly so. It has been hard, it has been challenging, still is. The inner demand or pressure to not struggle is what causes unnecessary pain. The demand to be beyond this already because it’s too painful. It’s too much.

It’s admitting you are vulnerable here. You are affected. You are hurt. That is scary. It’s admitting your helplessness, powerlessness. Admitting that your defense mechanism doesn’t work. You are completely and utterly bested. That’s the fact of it. The truth of it – unfiltered, raw.

You’re bested and aching – and the world appears to be twinkling, sparkling, dazzling. Others seem to be coming and going much more freely than you. They seem to be not dealing with anything you’re dealing with. And that is utterly frustrating. Being pinned while the world sparkles.

This fantasy of the sparkling world – which is somehow beyond you- has been a mental escape from this painful reality. The fantasy itself is a denial of the pain. Just like the defense mechanism of being beyond reproach, this fantasy has been like a hope or distraction of something to hold onto, fantasize about, day dream about to escape the pain.

In reality this fantasy is a at the root of the pain. It’s a reaction to the pain. An admission of the unbearability of the circumstances which the fantasy creates an out of. This fantasy of a sparkling world is a symptom of your non-acceptance of the painful circumstances as well as a reinforcement of the pain itself. If it could speak, it would say, “This can’t be it, there must be something better!”

Out there, there is something, somewhere, someone – which is NOT THIS.

Unconscious belief

Similarly to the seeing of the being beyond reproach defense mechanism for what it is, you can do that with this too. Just see it. See it play out. What it does. See the miraculous intelligence of it. See the trips it takes you on. Don’t judge yourself for getting lost.

These are ancient mechanisms that have their roots in us. Just recognize these things for what they are. Also see and acknowledge the non-acceptance and pain at the root of these mechanisms that drive them to play out in you.