Know thyself... Heal thyself

So often we start from the premise that we "know" who we are. My name is Jenn, I am a mother, I am a wife, I am a daughter, I like chocolate, I am a vegetarian, I am a healer, I have blonde-ish hair, it is very thin. I love to sing. We assume that our basic characteristics define us, we place ourselves in boxes as we are conditioned to believe that these things are unchanging, and therefore say to the world "who we really are".  But I challenge that... who we are conditioned to believe we really are is constantly changing. It is never the same from one moment to the next. Lets explore this a bit... Could it be our conditioning is actually what is found in the word... BE-LIE-f?

I havent always been a mother... this is only a recent phenomenon... Really recent in fact. Sure I had my son when I was 30 (11 years ago), but I dont actually think I embraced the role of mother until about 6 years ago... before then I cared for him (he never went hungry or naked or without hugs and kisses and bedtime stories), but I was so unsure of who I was in relationship TO him, that I looked for every kind of distraction possible to run from the fear of being found out I didnt have a clue what I was doing! I have come now finally to accept the fact that parenting by definition comes with some insecurity, as we are changing in every moment so are our kids... just because they loved Teletubbies when they were 2 does NOT mean they will appreciate the purple dino's song when they are 10 and you are picking them up from school. Can you imagine the horror? But we are conditioned to believe that things stay the same, that we should stay the same that our relationships should stay the same, so we seek to make them our friends so that we feel close to them, we seek to never ever upset them because we are conditioned again to believe that there is no security in love, and that relationships are fragile and temporary. We hold back our truth, even if we know it is the only way to sanity, because we are afraid our children will stop loving us. We feel that maybe we were maladjusted because of our parents behavior, so we try to do better, we read every parenting book and join every website with the best and latest advice, and we push away our truths... It is what it is until it isnt.

I have always been someone's daughter, but what has that meant? Was it my responsibility to look after their emotional needs, was I here to make THEM happy? What could I possibly do to earn their approval and love? Was being smart the best way? Or perfectly behaved? What about marrying the "right" person or choosing the "right" career? Did they love my brother more than me? What did it mean if they didnt love me, or approve of me, or appreciate me? Who was I in this dynamic? What did it say about ME? Was I generally unworthy if I didnt have my emotional needs met in the way *I* needed them to be met? Were the presents and gifts attempts to quantify their love for me? Was their attempt to be my friend or foe, an attempt to try and manipulate me into again being who they thought I should be? Was their love for me so fragile?  I know it sounds ridiculous on paper, but is it really? We relate to the world through our interpretation of God/Source/Creator. Our first real experience of this was in infancy when we were totally dependant on another for our survival. If all of our needs were met and we felt secure we knew that the world was a safe and loving place to be, if not, well, it could be down right frightening. Now as we grew, we may have had experiences that challenged those primary beliefs, and thus our understanding of our world and who we were in relation to it changed as well. We may have done something like leave a religion that traditionally our family held on to, and in their disappointment pushed us away. Or married someone they didnt approve of, or a myriad of other things... We may not have understood that their pushing away was a reflection of THEIR insecurities...

I could go on... how we change our desires and beliefs a million times throughout our life, but yet we have a sense that there is something fundamentally central and core to our being... something that indeed stretches beyond all relationships, all jobs, all roles, all beliefs and feelings... there is something an essence or what I will call soul... that resides somewhere in us and at the same time in GOD, or source creator. Something that is as unchanging as love itself. To be clear our experience of love changes, but the love the energy and essence of love is love.

When we understand that who we really are is love, and is loved, our paradigm begins to shift. We see that we are the creators of our experience SO THAT we can know what it is to change and grow. We can see all the relationships in our lives reflecting our own selves... silently whispering lessons that we long to learn, heal experiences that we have misunderstood. No relationship no matter how brief is insignificant. The lady with the crying kid in front of you in the grocery store, is an opportunity for us to give love, or reflect on the crying baby within us all, questioning what need are we seeking to have fulfilled in this moment, are we somewhere in our life crying out to be heard. Is there a truth we want to speak but are afraid of standing in our power. Are we afraid that those around us may not recognize us and therefore not like us if we speak or live our truth? But here is the thing... when we refuse to live OUR truth, we are saying to everyone around us that they do not have permission to live THEIR truth. WOW!!! Lets look at that... when we look to our hearts and reflect on what our soul truth is (in love) and then we refuse to live it out of fear, we say to our children, "dont follow your dreams because it may hurt someone", "Be what is ok  and safe in the world, if you have a passion, keep it to yourself." "Dont rock the boat." You see the way we support and offer love to ourselves is the only thing we can offer others. We may say the right words, but people respond and feel our truth in our actions.

As we allow ourselves the gifts of honesty, we allow others to be honest with themselves too. Yes there may be some hurt feelings, but like I have observed in some relationships would I prefer to have relationships built on conditioned response and white lies that can be controlling or manipulative or would I prefer relationships based in transparency? I know what I prefer, but there are those who would prefer the superficial stuff because the real raw connection is scary... I can understand that, but it makes healing oneself... nigh on impossible. Because ALL illness is created from this disconnection with soulself... and that connection can only be made in clear heart wide open transparency.

What if we were more than a collection of learned patterns and beliefs? What if who we are extended beyond this lifetime or any lifetime? What if who we are was infinite and ever changing? What if who were are is known only in the unknowing, only in the constant questioning and redefinition? What if the limitations we experience or place upon ourselves werent even necessarily from this lifetime? What if in shining a light on all that we are, even the bits we dont like, we were free to BE well and whole. After all by definition we can not be "WHOLE" and cut off bits we think others wont like. It is only in embracing the shadow, shining a light on our fears and conditioned limiting beliefs about ourselves that we can heal ourselves. We are so much more than we have imagined ourselves to be... who are we to play small or expect another to?

It is as we accept and allow ALL that we are and ever have been and yet will be, that we heal ourselves, we return to the wholeness and innocence that we are. And as we heal ourselves we allow those around us to heal as well... so in essence when we heal ourselves we heal the world.

We are each moving from the darkness of thousands of years of limiting beliefs into the light of change... into the light of knowing we can not ever fix our knowing in one place in time or space, for everything is in constant flow... and all we are asked to do is let go...  Come on in the water's fine!!! And away we float on the waves of love... and light...

Blessings,
Jenn