Sunday, November 4, 2012

Falling into Soul

If you want to be at peace, you are going to have to do the work of healing yourself. If you choose not to do that, and it is a choice, then you will live a life of confusion, pain, and darkness. And there's just no good reason for that. Life can be so achingly beautiful, even when it's painful, like it is today.

It can feel so overwhelming, we run from it for as long as we do. It's like anything else that is unknown. We let fear of the unknown take over and decide we'd better stay where we are. Or worse yet, we let fear get in the way of what we think we know from our past experiences that were negative, even if they are completely screwed up. Because it is familiar. We may not know it is familiar, but we all revert back to what we know.

Really, we should be running towards that rabbit hole. Diving in head first, with our mind quiet and our heart open - let me know myself. Let me sit in front of the mirror of my soul and download the information that I already know. That I've somehow forgot, covered over, or run from.

Some people get stuck playing with the Queen for years. They look long enough to identify their stuff, but that's as far as they want to go. So they can tell you why they are the way they are, but they don't make the moves necessary to do anything about it. Healing requires action. Identifying the source of your pain is a start, but it is not the place to quit. Justifying an unhappy present as the result of a disappointing past is not going to get us anywhere.

We love to be the victims, the heroes, or the martyrs. We love our stories and our rationalizations and our coping mechanisms, whether we realize it or not. Those are not the moves that bring peace and understanding. Get real. In a compassionate way, look honestly at our stuff, deal with anything that isn't serving us. Look for the pattern and find the source. Commit to feeding thoughts, words and actions that are going to lead to joy, love, and growth. Start starving everything else. Give up the coping mechanisms that keep us numb - running away, avoiding, attacking. Put the crutches down, start digging into the hole.

Before Alice got to Wonderland, she had to fall pretty hard down a deep hole.

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