So I recently completed a course last fall called Self-Mastery A.K.A. Self-Discipline---for the 2nd time. The first time I dropped out at the last minute because I didn't feel as if I was mastering a part of my life, quite honestly things seemed like they were falling apart and for the final project I was to get up in front of the class and start talking about how I was demonstrating mastery. Well gratefully the second time around was a completly different experience and I actually finished. So I thought I'd share my final project with you.

 

One of the concepts covered in class focused on emotional maturity, our ability to really become aware of the repetitve emotional patterns that keep showing up in our lives, the point being, once you can see something---only then do you have the power to change it.

So I was really aware of a relationship pattern that kept emerging over and over again, and no matter how often I analyzed it, and THOUGHT I had learned from it, it still persisted and didn't change. 

 

So I finally got so frustrated that I was willing to do whatever it took to break the cycle. I was feeling the all too familiar unhappiness of feeling quite helpless, but at the same time knowing intellectually that I wasn't helpless, more accurately just CLUELESS. But since I kept looking for the answer it finally came.

 

It wasn't anything like I expected.

 

For an entire day I just let myself feel pain. Why? What good can that bring? Well...one of my favorite spiritual teachers Eckhart Tolle says that if you can allow pain to be, to sit with it, you release it while it's in your body before it can take over your thinking.

When we are troubled emotionally, I think our instinct is to avoid the pain as much as possible, one of the easiest ways to do this is to find the nearest distraction or escape - the underlying cause of all addictions. So when you try to avoid feeling the pain, the message it wants to deliver decides to find a diferent avenue and starts to take over your thinking. So now you start thinking negatively and start planting the mental seeds to perpetuate the cycle yet again. UGH.

 

Anyhoo- so I'm sitting there feeling my pain, not judging it -- just letting it be, and I asked myself "What am I saying to myself that would keep me feeling this way?"  And I heard an answer, underneath I was feeling completely unnecessary on this planet. Yikes! I wasn't even aware that I was feeling this way but that was because I was so busy trying to not feel the pain from such a false, yet still powerful belief. So I'm sitting here knowing that this ISN'T true, yet totally aware that my subconscious mind is operating from that belief and therefore perpetuating this pain.

 

Soon after I realized the beauty of this entire experience, yet another reason to look to the power that lives within all of us. And once I did this, once I actually asked for help from the ony place that could truly give it to me, I experienced a love I've never known before and that is quite difficult to explain with words.

 

So anyhoo, long story short (ha ha TOO LATE) , I decided to write a poem about the entire experience and recite it with dramatic flair...

Unfortunately you won't be able to experience the flair but I think the essence still remains...

 

 

 

Lost in a cyclical pattern of blame, shame, and regret

I looked to the outside world for what I could get.

Help! Help! Tell Me I’m beautiful, and perfect, and right!

I kept trying to prove my own worth with all of my might

Completely avoiding the message,

the lesson from my soul

Truly the antidote that could make me whole

 

For I was playing a game of hide and seek

And the rules of the game were in ego’s favor

For victim hood, addictions, isolation I could savor

and crawl inside of never to be found

Until finally…….. I heard the sound

You see it only took 5 years

or perhaps more accurately a few thousand tears

The whisper of personal responsibility has cracked me open

And now the lies that I have swept under the rug have lost their hiding place

The space of love shouts “Let yourself feel the pain, why hide?”

It’s only a message from inside

that initially knocked gently, politely, lightly

But now in the midst of my distress it raps with heavy blows

For at times I want to cry, I reach for the nearest distraction,

let me focus on the inadequacies of your infraction!

 

 

But no…. not this time

This time I will let it be and feel the hurt, it has lied to me!!!

“You’re unwanted, unneeded, unnecessary

And in this world………… life is scary!”

 

The ancient traditions have talked of a power

Once you give something a name………. It can NEVER be the same!

And now I see with clarity

I thought your actions caused my pain

I thought your transformation would erase the stains and scars I’ve been coping with

But instead I see you just reflect the fear I hold inside, the love I’ve denied,

Now I am humbled, my hiding place has crumbled

And I turn to what has always been

 

My soul starts rejoicing; this is the beginning of relief

The complete destruction, the demolition of a limiting belief

For all the people, situations, and events in my life

Were butchered by the sharpness of such a knife

 

And for the first time

I ask the question

 

“GOD

What does it FEEL LIKE - to be loved by you?"

 

And to my soul’s delight…..

 

God…

 

 

never…

 

 

stops….

 

 

answering.