So I’m sure I’ve said this in other blog posts…but it’s worth repeating:
shame is the substance that fuels addictions.
Or a C.S. Lewis quote I remember copying out back in my college notebooks:
“…to love at all is to be vulnerable…”
Last week one of my dear friends sent me a link to this Ted talk video—->
The power of vulnerability |
Brené Brown
It seems I’m a little late to the Brené Brown party! The talk was fabulous and worth watching! I suppose I’ve been so busy reading books from the 600’s and the 1300’s that I wasn’t aware of what was going on in popular psychology culture right at this moment!
I’m glad people are still speaking about this and bringing awareness and healing to those of us who are asking ourselves:
“am I the only one feeling this way?”
I use this example with my clients:
Imagine if you were locked in a basement for 18 years and you finally got to come out and be free– you experience the feeling of sunlight on your skin– you see the world around you…you have the freedom, finally, to run around in the open air….
It’s absolutely amazing — but part of us feels like:
~ am I really allowed to experience this much sunlight?!
~ this feels indulgent
~ what do I do in this new place?
~ what if I make a mistake?
~ is someone going to lock me back in the darkness again?
~ this is so beautiful, it’s painful
~ why do I feel like crying?
~ I feel so alive here!
I remember my mentor and teacher in Montreal, Dr. Surkis, saying to us:
“When you get in touch with yourself, you get in touch with the touch you never had…”
It’s bittersweet at first…to finally feel belonging, tenderness, kindness…
Reminds me of the U2 lyrics:
I want to feel, sunlight on my face
I see the dust cloud disappear, without a trace
I want to take shelter,
from the poison rain,
where the streets have no name…
So it may be sad, or overwhelming, or new at first… but we simply must have courage to “go there!” …
To leave the familiar is to leave the family we always knew, experienced, and internalized!
People can tell us: “you are worth loving, you were always worth loving…” but we internalized the experiential message from early childhood that communicated to us “you are not worth the love, the effort, the awareness, the kindness, the protection, the cherishing …”
If we experienced rejection, getting shut down and silenced– we, some of us, internalized the shame of that rejection.
All people are given free will, in hopes that they will freely choose the “good” and choose the most loving response— but they can misuse that freedom and choose to perpetuate their own unhealed shame, by rejecting us from their own inner rejection.
If we continue to believe their lie, however, how will this cycle ever end?!
Someone has to blaze a new trail!
Someone has to take the road less travelled– find the courage to seek out the truth and live in it!
–So what– if it may feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar at first…
Real Love is worth getting used to!
You once talked to me about love,
You painted pictures of
A never never land
And I could’ve gone to that place
But I didn’t understand
I didn’t understand.
~ Elliott Smith
There has to be a way to heal our old shame and not be bound by it, not be trapped in it, not return to it over and over each time someone pushes one of those old buttons…
Our life is all grounded and rooted in love, and without love we may not live. ~ Julian of Norwich
You are not alone on this path back to Love…
We are invited, in the Holy Scriptures, to love. We would not be invited if we didn’t have the capacity within us to choose it.
No matter how dark or difficult you may find this, persevere! Continue! Ask for courage — those who seek will find, to those who knock, the door will be opened unto them.
We are loyal to those old, internalized, experiential messages and we have no need to be loyal to them any longer. They are lies.
I hear Christ, in my deepest self saying:
“This is the way of love…follow me, I reveal this love, I lived this love, I am living this love now, calling you to it, I have always loved you…choose to follow this path of love…”
No matter how hard I try to listen to my doubts — and the people that say “that is all made up…”
I hear love.
When I enter into the stillness and just let whatever is, just be…
That gentle but persistent invitation to let go of the lies, die to them, and come take this higher path — stop internalizing the broken messages — come and follow me…
When you look at the Greek in that passage it is really more like:
Come here beside me, choose, if you wish, to walk this path with me.
I am with you always.
I will not leave you destitute…
Christ modeled to us the courage we ourselves need. We will not be left without this grace if we ask God to walk with us, help us heal this old wound.
The guys at Truth Theory emailed me and asked me to write an article for them! They published it last month but I wanted to post it here in case you missed it!
Why Diets Fail ~ Dr. Cheryl article
It’s really about shame, addictions and how to keep bringing love to the cut-off, hurting parts of yourself!
I was reading the mystic, Julian of Norwich this week and I happened across her words:
The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.
Yes, of course we would and could live gladly when we are in our right mind and heart and have an experiential knowledge of His love. If we knew that the Creator of the universe loved us, why would anything in this world really even bother us?
I could spout out theology until I am blue in the face but that does not give us the experience of this deep love that Julian of Norwich is describing!
She writes:
In his love he clothes us, enfolds us and embraces us;
that tender love completely surrounds us, never to leave us…
So what do we do with the part of ourselves that feels like Elliott’s song:
“God don’t make no junk but it’s plain to see, he still made me…” ~Elliott Smith
Surely our actions and choices in our lives cannot be based solely on how we feel in a moment. There hast to be a way “out” of this pattern!
I just gotta get out of this prison cell
Someday I’m gonna be free, Lord!
Find me somebody to love…
~ Freddie Mercury / Queen
We pray to God for relief…”Please God, this pain is too much — what can I do to be free of it? What can I do to genuinely be free of it, not run to something that will just mask my shame and make me feel good in the moment — I want a real solution that will last.”
You need a love that’s gonna last
~ Prince
As a side note, if you wonder why all of these artists, philosophers, musicians and poets of old have access to these kinds of deep truths and understandings of the complexities of our inner psyche — here’s one writer (a priest) that I found a few weeks ago who described exactly why!
In creating a work of art, the psyche or soul of the artist ascends from the earthly realm into the heavenly; there, free of all images, the soul is fed in contemplation by the essences of the highest realm, knowing the permanent noumena of things; then, satiated with this knowing, it descends again to the earthly realm. And precisely at the boundary between the two worlds, the soul’s spiritual knowledge assumes the shape of symbolic imagery: and it is these images that make permanent the work of art. Art is thus materialized dream, separated from the ordinary consciousness of waking life.
~ Pavel Florensky 1882-1937
The problem, however, that we run into (Florensky writes much on this) is that we can get “lost” in a certain place within our spiritual imagination and we think we are growing closer to God and doing all sorts of “spiritual things” to please God, when really– we are in a place that is akin to the dreaded sleep in Tolkien’s Mirkwood Forest, or listening to the Siren’s songs of old, or C.S. Lewis’s Dark Island — where our “dreams” are being played out — but truly, we have put ourselves in a kind of sleep.
It is too much to describe in one blog post, but I know myself well enough to know that I will not stop in my pursuit of giving people this warning and as much understanding of it as I can…The spiritual Fathers from long ago (400A.D.) call it “prelest” (Here is the wiki, but that often is edited. Here is an Orthodox site that describes it as well.)
It is actually a really painful subject for me to talk about — but I remember reading a certain Madeleine L’Engle book (Two Part Invention) where she said something about how her most painful books often turn out the “best”…not necessarily commercially, but because they cut to the quick…
My part here, in this blog, besides to assemble all of these thoughts that have helped me on this path we are contemplating together in this “weekly session” — is to say, that sometimes we have deep trauma or rejection from early experiences in life. We have the capacity to seal them off and bury them with tons of “numbing glue” and not even realize it. As much as we try to just take a big stamp and stamp it over our face “God Loves you” “Jesus Loves you” etc. It doesn’t work that way. True healing does not work that way.
God did not create a static ocean that just stands still, in one place…the streams feed it, the rivers feed it, it is in motion. Like the word “e-motion” it is in motion. When our past is extricated away from us and our feelings are frozen solid and there are deep painful places we dare not go — we can’t just think a “Jesus Stamp” will make it all go away. Jesus did not put a “Jesus Stamp” up upon the cross. He lived a reality where he experienced the abuse –as an innocent man–, scorning its shame — he could have escaped at any moment, he didn’t. He didn’t face it to be a doormat or a pleaser either. It is a mystery — like the quote I put on Facebook last week:
We see…it is not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to every question but to make us progressively aware of a mystery.
~Kallistos Ware
We must do the best work that we can, always, to stay watchful and meaningful, and vigilant, to pursue truth in our innermost parts and to invite God to truly Love us, to clarify these great mysteries — and help us to heal these old, old glued over wounds. We must begin to be honest…to not force ourself, but do not accept our old excuses either, because they are lies.
“If we don’t pray according to the needs of the heart, we repress our deepest longings. Our prayers may not be rational, and we may be quite aware of that, but if we repress our needs, then those unsaid prayers will fester.”
~ Madeleine L’Engle
and then Julian of Norwich writes:
…the goodness of God is the highest object of prayer and it reaches down to our lowest need.
and she writes this:
Grace transforms our failings full of dread into abundant, endless comfort…our failings full of shame into a noble, glorious rising…our dying full of sorrow into holy, blissful life. …. Just as our contrariness here on earth brings us pain, shame and sorrow, so grace brings us surpassing comfort, glory, and bliss in heaven…And that shall be a property of blessed love, that we shall know in God, which we might never have known without first experiencing woe…
It is so important that we do not use “spirituality” as a way to escape from the problems that we have. We were given a human body and psyche — Soul, Spirit, Mind, Heart — I won’t differentiate all of those now, because I have run out of the time I allotted for this “session” — but when we turn to an “all mystic” approach and insist on “staying up in some kind of spiritual high” — we are not respecting the fact that we are living within a body. We can get lost in our own imaginings…
When people do not know what to do with the pain of their past, we find ways to try to “get over it”… Sometimes the best way over — is through.
“The growth of love is not a straight line, but a series of hills and valleys.” ~ Madeleine L’Engle
Here’s a 1 minute video…
a Blessing Poem of John O’Donohue’s before he passed from this world:
I am sitting here, quieting my mind, open to what surfaces regarding how to teach and inspire you even more, in this one hour I have to write this, on the subject of Panic Attacks.
I trust what comes to surface, I am thinking of the amazing singer and lyricist, Freddie Mercury. His song, “Play the Game” is what I “hear”:
Open up your mind and let me step inside
Rest your weary head and let your heart decide
It’s so easy, when you know the rules
It’s so easy, all you have to do
Is fall in love
Play the game,
Everybody play the game of love…
The idea of letting someone into our intimate space can provoke anxiety for some. We were created with this longing to love, to be loved, to know, and to be known…to have a purpose, a destiny and fulfill it. I like how Freddie Mercury brings up this idea of a game– because there is a risk in a game, of losing. One of the elements of love is that it involves free-will. A person can always invest and then step out, move away, hurt us, etc. We can choose “not to play” and then miss out all together and freeze our hearts, or cover them with plastic fakeness, or bitterness and sarcasm, or harden them with a wall of stone.
We are often so used to our heart in one of those hardened conditions that we don’t even realize it! We can have sadness, broken beliefs, bad experiences from early childhood and we stuffed down our confusion, anger, rage, grief, guilt, etc– and it is like you put dry-wall plaster over it all and hope that it just goes away. It is a way of disassociating with it or dis-identifying with it. We do not like all of that… so we “bury it,”
like Elliott’s song so aptly describes:
his body’d been buried below
Way back in the day
Oh my, nothing else could have been done
He made his life a lie so
He might never have to know anyone
Made his life a lie you know…
~ Elliott Smith
Why wouldn’t we want to act like everything is perfect and fine now? We really really do not wish to repeat the trauma or chaos or rejection and pain we felt from the past, so we think if we just bury it below then we can move on and build a happy life and learn to love again. Unfortunately, that is like building a house on sinking sand. It’s not as if we even “think” this out, as a child. If we experience pain and no one is there to teach us what to do with it or how to walk through it and release it…or if no one is there to comfort us and love us — what else are we going to do?
I need a sound bite of Henry Rollin’s song, where he screams out ….”rage…I love you and hate you both at the same time…” His solution is to crush the rage somehow and turn it into a diamond.
There is something to that… in a way. I met with this professor a couple weeks ago, he had been a pastor in Santa Barbara for many years, Dr. Jerry Root. He said “pain that isn’t transformed, is transferred…”
I could honestly write 1,000 pages right now on what that means, looks like, etc. We have this limitation of time. There’s no way I would sit and read a 1,000 page blog post! I know myself better than that, so I won’t write one for you!
So, lets understand, like the alchemists of the past– they wanted to transform lead into gold. It is no “coincidence” or accident that Christ’s first miracle was to turn water into wine. He was turning one liquid substance, water, used for cleansing, into another, rich, and beautifully tasting substance– wine. The master of the ceremonies of the wedding said “you have saved the best for last…” Of course, if you know me, you know I wish to talk about all of the amazing spiritual insights and depths we could go into with just this first miracle as recorded in the Gospels… but let’s stay, today, on this topic — of why we get these “anxiety attacks” seemingly out of nowhere.
So, imagine, if the theory that I laid out so far is correct — first, we are innocent children, we “let someone inside our mind/heart” and we play the game of love…we get hurt or crushed in some way…”we bury the ‘body'” and live a lie, so that we never have to “know” anyone. How can we know anyone or anyone really know us when we have our child self that has been cut off and ostracized from ourselves like a pariah carrying our shame– we want nothing to do with that pain. Yet, some part of our subconscious selves KNOWS that we have buried someone. It feels the guilt and weight of that.
The other part of “never have to know anyone” is that we have created a wall around our heart (with the plaster, etc.) and now we have a built-in barrier between ourselves and other people.
Before we go on to see the “cure” — Look for a second at how you can “tell” your heart has been plastered over. I know some people– that insist “I had a great childhood, nothing was ever wrong…” and yet the father was an alcoholic, or both spouses were cheating on each other or one of them was, etc. (The cheating is an indication that something is broken down and not working in that family.) But, how a person like that could “test” their own hearts — is to examine:
“Am I always looking down on other people? judging them, gossiping about them, telling their “wrong doings” to others, making slighting comments and putting them down?”
This is a person who is not living in meekness and humility. When we are that way, our actions are telling us that we have this dark, broken part of ourselves buried below, disconnected from ourselves and we have no desire to be reconciled to that part of ourselves and love, transform, heal and forgive/integrate the child we cut off, back into our own person.
I was reading the scriptures the other day (in the daily prayer readings) and the Prophet Ezekiel had written this re: God:
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” The New Living translation says:
“I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.” (Eze 36:26)
For me, regardless of what any skeptics say about God– I am so amazed, still, all the time, that we have these writings in Holy Scriptures, and in the life that Christ lived out in his own body —we have access to the Father, God– Creator of all things, and that this same God, is interested in restoring us and healing us. In one sense, all of the scriptures, if you read the whole Bible in one long sitting, you would just see this pattern of God offering His constant love, and people turning to block Him off — and make idols, and form hearts of stones, then God keeps accepting them back, providing a means of forgiveness while not excusing their wrong doing— we wreck it again, there He is offering love again….
I have to wrap this blog post up because I leave in about 5 min.
Here was the commentary at that verse about how God wants to reveal to us the path to make our hearts tender again & not leave us there, lost in the pain and trauma of our childhood.
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary “36:25-38 Water is an emblem of the cleansing our polluted souls from sin. But no water can do more than take away the filth of the flesh. Water seems in general the sacramental sign of the sanctifying influences of the Holy Ghost; yet this is always connected with the atoning blood of Christ. When the latter is applied by faith to the conscience, to cleanse it from evil works, the former is always applied to the powers of the soul, to purify it from the pollution of sin. All that have an interest in the new covenant, have a new heart and a new spirit, in order to their walking in newness of life. God would give a heart of flesh, a soft and tender heart, complying with his holy will. Renewing grace works as great a change in the soul, as the turning a dead stone into living flesh. God will put his Spirit within, as a Teacher, Guide, and Sanctifier. The promise of God’s grace to fit us for our duty, should quicken our constant care and endeavor to do our duty. These are promises to be pleaded by, and will be fulfilled to, all true believers in every age.”
I honestly think this age old tradition of praying “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me” aka “kyrie eleison” can and will transform all of our deep psychological wounds… but it is a mystical and contemplative practice. I don’t mean just substituting our anxiety and obsessive “pushing down” with reciting a prayer mindlessly — but mindful, and sincere — When we sincerely ask God, He can help us see what is disconnected in us and enlighten us and fill us with His Spirit and Truth to cleanse and re-join these cut off parts.
I’m going to direct us back to some of the basics here, but do NOT let the simplicity of what I am about to say fool you! My experience over the last 20 years has led me to see reoccurring patterns. This is my art/skill/craft/expertise!
If and when you understand these patterns then you can set yourself free, for the rest of your life.
“You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
So, addictions, or any kind of self-betraying (or other-betraying) behavior occurs because of shame. Another way to describe this fuel of addiction is:
I am cut off from the True Source of LOVE.
—> This “disconnect” creates SHAME.
—> Shame is what fuels addictions.
Why else would I keep going back to alcohol, drugs, cheating on my spouse, workaholism, eating disorders, faking-perfection, obsessions, video-games, tv, or other addictions? These kinds of behaviors are NOT in alignment with how I would like to treat someone that I love.
We cannot make these behaviors go away, no matter how much we “try”– we have to see what the root cause is, and heal that. Once we identify the cause then we can find a true cure!
This disconnect from the True Source of Love occurs out of some form of ignorance/ not-knowing, in fullness. ( I.e.: “Forgive them Father for they know not what they are doing.)
Ignorance: I was never taught and/or never experienced a real depth of love and intimacy. I wasn’t shown the truth of what this means! In addition to that, I was taught, by my parent’s behavior or the environment around me, that Love is not available to me — for whatever reason, they showed me that I was not worth the effort to love in that immense capacity.
If you do not “have it” you cannot give it away — so my parent’s “not having” this love– communicated to me that I cannot have it either, but that is not the truth — it may be the truth of what we experienced, but it is not the truth of the fullness of Love we are meant to have and live within.
This disconnect from REAL LOVE, that we often “feel” but never recognized or put words to, may look like one of these:
“Not measuring up” : No matter what I did, it never felt like it was quite enough for me to feel truly secure and loved.
“Too Busy to recognize my need for Love”: I’m so “busy” all the time, working, I have no need of “Love”– I pushed that aside long ago. I’d rather stay busy and numb myself to those tender feelings and experiences.
“I’m just gonna wait here“: They told me it was coming…I “know” I am worth loving…I’m just going to keep taking this substitute (_________) until the Real thing shows up…it’s “just around the corner.” “Maybe if I run faster?”
“It must be my fault”, I’m just a horrible, unlovable person…that’s just the way it is. I have hurt too many people to deserve love.
——————
Look, it is vital that each of us learns how to walk in integrity, with dignity, and self-respect. This is what it means to “Walk in Love!” To Walk in Love = to Walk in Truth — in the most loving way possible..and even into the seemingly impossible.
When we cut ourselves off, or are cut off, from the true path of Love, then we experience the feeling of shame and emptiness. That shame and emptiness is way too painful of a place to “live” in, so we create defenses (really early in life!).
Some of these defenses are:
Depression: We numb our need for Love, press it down and squish our heart so that we don’t constantly feel the pain…we get so used to deadening it all that we don’t even realize what we are actually “actively” doing — de-pressing.
Pleasing: this is much like busyness, we do what we can to achieve, please, perform, or otherwise “fill up” a broken “other” (like a fragile parent) –with the hopes that they will somehow see our worth and fill us up with real Love. Note: “pleasing” is always paired with “waiting”, your life is constantly on hold, while you wait for the other person to “get it“, that you are worth loving.
Apathy: we act like we don’t need this Love, and get used to living on scraps…(this is like depression, but seemingly more resigned to “I just don’t care!” –where depression is more like a continual loss and sadness.)
Anxiety: We surround ourselves with drama and attack ourselves with anxiety, it is like a fog that works to distract us from the deeper pain and loneliness of being cut off from Real LOVE.We can get so “lost” in the terror and anxiety that we burn out our adrenal glands (I am not a medical doctor so research more on that if you wish!) — all for the “service” of running from experiencing the real feelings underneath and finding the cure/the balm they are asking for.
There are many others, but it is the same basic pattern, showing up in a myriad of ways. When we learn this new Formula–then we are equipped to take a step back and SEE what is going on– and free ourselves!
Here is a quick drawing of one of the patterns of addiction — that I often write out in a therapy session so that my client can visually see what he or she is doing:
I often call this “The Boot and the Carrot”. You have this giant boot behind you, threatening you; and this carrot (or some mostly-empty-temporary-reward) in front of you– and you constantly put yourself back on this “treadmill”– and THAT is where you are choosing to live!
When we are drowning in shame, that is when we “use” whatever addiction we have on hand, in efforts to try to fill up the emptiness that our disconnect from REAL LOVE has created. Then, I feel more shame, because of my secret addiction, and run to more addiction or back on the treadmill to try to “prove” my worth…which is impossible to prove.
Accepting Real Love is about choosing to receive what is already here. We are afraid of it and have forgotten it is available to each of us, in an infinite amount. I am reminded of Christ’s words: “for I have come, not to judge the world, but to give life to the world.” or in the same book of St. John, Jesus says: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd…”
You are free to choose the life of the endless boot and empty carrot for yourself, but then you are missing the deeper experience and reality of REAL LOVE! This REAL LOVE is what I am constantly making the effort to put into words in all of my posts here. The real love involves having the courage to step off the treadmill.
Look at this beautiful invitation to a different kind of Life–that my dear friend Elliott Smith wrote into his lyrics for us:
I have become a silent movie
The hero killed the clown
Can’t make a sound
Nobody knows what he’s doing
–Still–hanging around
Can’t make a sound
The slow motion moves me The monologue means nothing to me
Bored in the role, but he can’t stop
Standing up to sit back down Or lose the one thing found
Eyes locked and shining
Can’t you tell me what’s happening?
Why should you want any other
When you’re a world within a world?
—-
Now, knowing Elliott, I’m sure he had 100 different layers of meaning for this song as well as “no meaning”– and I have touched on some in previous posts, but, for now, let’s just see it as another description of how to get off the repetitive, destructive or monotonous cycle– and begin to know real Love.We can then let go of this disingenuous, yet familiar pattern we’ve been offering ourselves!
The Way to let go of addictions is to recognize your disconnect from the real Source of Love, and then heal that— and pray to the Creator, God, to help you on this path. You would have no NEED to get back on the “treadmill” over and over if you were connected to, and living within, the real source of Love…if you knew the real essence of who You are and the depth of Love that God continuously offers us.
Elliott’s song as a description of this process:
I have become a silent movie— transformed into this quiet place, where you are observing what is going on, from outside yourself, like watching a movie and not being caught up in lots of dialogue — the constant drama of your competing desires, that each claim to be “you.”
The hero killed the clown— The hero is your better half, the courageous side of you with high thoughts and aspirations of love — I imagine the breath of God in Adam– like when Aslan breathes on Lucy in the Narnia books — the awakening of the deepest part of our Soul; the “clown”, in my understanding, is your present day personality, or warring desires that always claim to be “you” —you are on a path to find out how to NOT let the clown part of you dominate over the True Hero.(I do not want to confuse anyone at this point, but it is important to point out that our warring desires can mimic the hero and act like they are the hero — doing such a “good job” to kill off the joyous child-like part of yourself which can be clown-like.For example, the super-ego coming in and “like a boss” trampling over the tender child-like parts of ourselves that are beautiful and free.
I’ve heard it said, time and again, that every virtue has the propensity to turn into a vice. Jesus said “my children know my voice” — you can ask God for discernment regarding the part of your Soul to align with and which parts to “repent”/ turn away completely from. The scriptures remind us we are at war against the ‘world’, the flesh, and the devil: “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.”
It is our job, with the help of God, to transform and see, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God– and to recognize who the True HERO is. It’s not the one desperately running on the treadmill– because, in this new formula: “The slow-motion moves me”
You would have no need to “prove” yourself if and when you are connected to the True Source of Love:
“The monologue means nothing to me“ : Our outer (present day personality) self, is just a role, that we cannot stop (like a costume that is ours for a certain time). It is NOT our real Self. It stands up and acts like it is “us” …We have been given a body and are embodied within it– but the reflection of me in the mirror is not the sum-total of “me” inside this body. My body will die and be buried and yet my Soul carries on.
“Or lose the ONE THING found” –is LOVE, it is the “Pearl of Great Price” — our Soul saved –by and in God. This is a great mystery, yet we must consciously choose to allow and petition God to keep revealing it to us and in us. We have forgotten who we are and we are just now remembering…Jesus invited us: “You, come and follow me…let the dead bury their own dead.”
“Eyes locked and shining…can you tell me what’s happening?“
Yes! You are an initiate. You are connecting yourself, if you choose, to the Love of God– you are being transformed, and transforming into something of much more depth and beauty than the boringness and the slavery of our pettiness and addictions!
What “right” do I have to cut myself off from the Source of all Love? If we are all connected, then as I cut myself off from Love, I am also cutting you off from Love. (This goes into quantum physics – which I certainly like to study, but cannot yet explain…)
Clearly, I could go on and on to describe this is deeper and different ways– but, most people these days don’t have the time or attention span, etc. I’ll write more blogs and I have others available here and my YouTube channel! (www.youtube.com/user/drcherylmeier ).
Please share a link to my blog with like-minded people who you think would enjoy looking at life from these perspectives! I know what I have to say is valuable –because I see so many lives, and my own, so deeply healed and transformed; this is why I put the time in here, to offer this insight freely.
I wish you much Love! You are not alone.
Tiago Iorc – My Girl [Acoustic]
Wow! I just found the (above) song! I quieted my mind to see what would “fit” and I thought: “I’ve got Sunshine…” So I searched on YouTube and this is the first one I was “drawn” to… In this beautiful acoustic version, Tiago Iorc, who I do not know of, slows the song down, and –captures the beauty and essence– the FEELING of what Real Love feels like, vs. the “quick fix” of “rotating relationships” and addictions we often run to. The true “Sunshine” is the Source of all Love– “my girl” is “real” but also a signpost to the Real- REAL….(I describe all of this here in my “Girl Longing” songs/playlist on Youtube!) Enjoy!
This Unreleased Elliott Smith song, “Dancing on the HighWay” is what I used this time to make this video.
Instead of doing a seminar for an hour, describing all of the amazing hidden Spiritual and Psychological meanings– I made the choice to only use pictures this time!
Just before Elliott wrote Dancing on the Highway (1999) I had given him a copy of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy (it was written around 520AD). In the book Lady Wisdom consoles Boethius who was falsely charged, imprisoned, and condemned to death. Lady Wisdom/Philosophy shows him that nothing has been taken from him that he doesn’t already -still- possess. –It’s like what Elliott says in
“Can’t Make a Sound”:
Why would you want any other, when you’re a world within a world?” ~Elliott Smith
Bob Marley conveys the same idea:
“Man is a Universe within himself” ~ Bob Marley
and Jesus reminds us:
and “The Kingdom of God is within you” ~ Jesus
This song “Dancing on the High-Way” follows the same pattern as Boethius. To me, Elliott is describing what happens when you listen to Lady Wisdom, as mentioned in the Proverbs… Even more so, the wisdom and truth of God — as revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Himself. Christ is, indeed, our lost love. We are the bride of Christ and he is our groom.
Elliott describes the transformation of letting go of your flesh/physical self and seeking to follow the narrow path that Christ calls us to follow, in Him. To me, Elliott’s songs about “death” are about the –necessary death– the death of your ego, your fleshly desires, impulses, and the “mask” of yourself–which isn’t YOU…but it pretends to be you!
and all of George MacDonald’s books are free here:
(I gave Elliott The Princess and the Curdie (in 1998) but
The Princess and the Goblin is the first of these two books!)
…It is a one hour seminar I presented recently, then I recorded a longer, more in depth version for YouTube. It is on Psychological and Spiritual growth. Although I have authored 3 books, this is my first Video, so it is not as polished as I would like– but what I say is purposeful and there are deep concepts that have changed my life and my client’s lives.
It’s all about learning to remove the barriers between ourselves and LOVE. If you would like me to expand on any area– comment at the video or here.
Much Love to you!
Dear Ones,
As we continue on this journey, I invite you to learn how to let go of “shoulds”! I just drew a picture of the progression to more freedom in your inner and outer life.
Ok, so let’s work to understand this, because it changed EVERYthing for me, truly!! I learned it from Dr. Alan Surkis’ (my internship was at the Montreal General, and Surkis was Head Psychologist, so I didn’t include this in my book, cause it’s his work…I literally use these ideas every day in my office, so thank God he taught us this– I’m including it here.)
So, back to the chart– consider the way you operate on a daily basis. If you listen to how you speak to yourself and others and you hear lots of:
“you really should be doing this, and you shouldn’t be doing that….” or
“I really should get this done quickly!” or
“Sorry, I can’t go, I have to stay here!”
…then, guess what, you are about to have a major beautiful change in your life!! (if you choose to change)! It’s interesting because you can go through my blog or my unbreakable bonds book and see that I don’t have any “shoulds” as directives. (I saw some in the link to the 7 promises, but Daskalos speaks Greek primarily, so I’m just seeing that as a translation difference perhaps!!).
You can feel it in a person’s writing, when there aren’t shoulds. It is a refreshing and enlivening feeling!
Should is an irrational imperative:
“you must”
because I said so….
Should is similar to shame and many other sh words…. If I motivate myself by shaming myself into doing things, then I am manipulating myself with shame. And why would I want to manipulate myself with shame? (sounds simple, right?).
We live in much closer alignment with our higher self and with God when we choose to give ourselves freedom . It’s best if we have a great respect and understanding of true freedom–which I am not going to cover extensively in one post, but the best example I was given was by Dr. Jerry Root (! I just love him, he’s dear!!) — he gave the example of Joe Theismann– when his leg bone popped out during an injury at a football game — you didn’t hear Joe jump up and say:
“This is great!! Now my leg is free!! It can move in all directions!!”
Our leg was designed to move forward and backward — not 360…. There are certainly many many many limitations we do place upon ourselves because we mistakenly think that humans can only do “this” with matter –when Joshua/Jesus walked on water, multiplied the fish and the bread, etc. So it’s important to not be stuck in limitations we have because of our forgetfulness or ignorance….
We do have the ability to choose to walk in love. We have the freedom to motivate ourselves by shame (which always leads ourselves to one form of addiction or another) — or we can learn how to offer ourselves free choice.
So let’s look at the scale again:
1) Should, irrational imperative:
“shhhhh, be quiet, because mommy says so…”
Then 2) Ought –this implies thought, for example:
“I really ought to be quiet in here, this is a place people come to for serenity and I ought to respect that…”
Then there is 3) “I want” :
“I want to be quiet in here, I enjoy the quiet…I want others to be quiet, I’ve thought about this, and I want to respect their request for this to be a place of quiet…”
And lastly, 4) there is “I choose” /
“I like”
I choose to go to that place where they ask for quietness!! I’m so excited to refrain from talking there!! I like having a place I can count on where I can quietly collect my thoughts!
—– it’s something like that!!
Usually I use the example of helping an elderly lady across the street– you can go through the exercise again to “get it”:
“I should help her”
“I ought to help her”
“I want to help her”
“I choose to help her, I like helping her!”
Or consider this, what would you want your fiancé to be saying on your wedding day!!
“I really should marry her”
“I ought to be marrying this guy…” (right?!!)
“I want to marry her”
“I choose to marry this woman, I love her and I like that I get this choice to marry her!”
It makes a huge difference in your inner psyche when you shift from should up to ought, up to want, then up to “I choose” (then learn to live in that place of “I choose/ I like”)!
It makes an incredibly huge difference, after you change this within, because then you naturally change how you relate with others like your spouse and kids.
Should has lots more to do with being “polite” or pleasing someone’s temporary wishes. For example!!! We often teach our kids:
“you should listen to me, because I said so!!”
then we get sooo angry at them for doing drugs, sleeping around, or whatever teens are doing these days– when we taught them to operate based on shoulds/pleasing others!!!:
“do what I say, without your thought involved, without your will involved, just because I said so, and I expect it, and it pleases me…”
We are blind to the fact that we taught them how to please and indulge themselves and others by demanding that they please us.
It is not about them pleasing us (as I understand it). It’s my job to teach my kids (and myself) how to freely choose to walk in Love. Yes, I correct them and give them consequences –but they do not have to do the right thing in order to please me — but because, like Joe Theismann knows, because that is the best way a leg operates, from front to back… It’s my job to teach my kids how to be wise– how to awaken their thirst for truth, for what is kind, and for wisdom.
We get to discover, research and learn about what is truly Loving, if being Loving is even our goal?!?!
Lets look at one more example of how “should” is shame based, and therefore, it only works temporarily and it crushes the inner person!!
“you really shouldn’t eat that– you’ll get fat–and then you’ll be rejected…”
Or “you shouldn’t drink that…”
“you shouldn’t be looking at that….”
Vs. I choose to invite myself to let go of that behavior. I choose to explore and look into what I think that old behavior has been giving me,
in what way has that been feeding me(?) how can I give myself a more satisfying and lasting form of healing/filling that old emptiness??
Should is like being on a treadmill– with a carrot in front of us and a boot behind us. It is a very surface motivation that does not run deep. We do not/cannot have deep conviction if/when our actions are the outflowing of a bunch of shoulds. It’s basically based on whose boot is gonna come down the hardest on our head?! — with shoulds our choices aren’t based on:
“what is the true good?”
“what is the highest good?”
“what is treating myself and others with the highest amount of dignity and respect?”
“what would I want another to treat me like?”
Like all my posts, I choose to end them before I take up your whole day and mine reading/writing it– there’s much much more to this dynamic–but we can begin here to build this foundation for freedom & wisdom.
(wow!! I just watched that, now I know why my intuition suggested it!!! Look at how Marley is present in that song, in each moment… And the song is revealing the different parts of yourself that are important to shoot/resist — in order to truly be free!! It’s like one Marley song conveys more than this whole post!! Love to Bob Marley!!! And LOVE to you.)
I had the radio on for 5 min the other day (am) and the host said:
“I used to love her, but I’m just not in love anymore….”
I seriously thought about calling in…but that’s what’s great about this blog, I can direct that energy and understanding here so people that want to learn and want to free themselves, can.
Marriage and relationships are a funny mystery…if we understand part of their purpose then we can appreciate this place of “being married” much more!
Imagine, for a moment, that you have all these old emotional wounds from childhood– but they may be “dormant” — you have “sufficient” space between yourself and most others –where very few people activate these old wounds….
Enter—> a spouse and kids!
A spouse is like a mirror, he or she brings out whatever “deficiencies” or wounds you have. Remember, we “go back” to where we were hurt in childhood, we find someone familiar to push into that old role of our parents. (Notice the word “family” in familiar…Our spouses often reactivate our old family drama.)
What we find out though, through our anger and disappointment, is that we found someone who was wounded in the same way as us—who reacted to those wounds, in an opposite way than us. (I’ll explain/describe, below). That person is just as “disabled” as us, but they can empathize well because he does know the same pain.
Here’s the example:
Let’s say that both partners were neglected in childhood. One child may react by becoming a performer, outgoing, seeking attention to try to fill the neglect….the other child totally shuts down and became introverted– trying to deny his felt needs for love and closeness. Both people “magically” find eachother –(the shy person wants to be more outgoing and “confident”…the outgoing one is exhausted from performing and doesn’t want to feel so needy)…. they think the other will heal them…when, really, they have both just reacted an opposite way to the same pain. (What they each need is the solution not a reaction.)
Regardless of how that example sounds marriage is still a sacred union that can truly be the catalyst we needed in order to SEE what was broken and take responsibility to heal it. (It CAN be healed, it’s just that we are now adults, our parents and spouses cannot heal us…only we can, with the help of the Creator, who is LOVE, who gives this LOVE freely….we just don’t yet experience it…if we still think it’s our spouse’s job, or that we’re meant to just be empty, resentful, performing, or begging the rest of our lives…etc).
This is why though, we have that phenomenon where we experienced falling in love and once we find out that person does not have the solution, but their own reaction
—and we find out they are not healing us
— and our inadequacies are all the more apparent,
—and we engage in a “power struggle” trying to push the other person into reading our mind and loving us in all the ways our parents didn’t…
—and it’s still not working…
—then people complicate everything cause they think that diving into a new pool (affair or divorce) will solve everything, when really, they just needed to learn how to swim! (it’s a CS Lewis quote, in his book “The Four Loves” …we like the sensation of diving/”falling in love” so much but we never learn to swim…).
Even when we leave our spouse for the affair the broken patterns we have within us, do manifest in the new “affair” relationship anywhere between 2 hours and 2 years (Harville Hendrix’ book: Keeping the Love You Find is the best book I’ve found on this– except for he emphasizes that the other person can heal you, and they can’t, not in and of themselves, — but Hendrix has amazing insight as to how we are wounded in each stage of development and what it looks like as adults and that our partner does act as a mirror and shows us what needs healing…just look at the re-occurring arguments! They point to exactly what you are wanting.)
One more point before wrapping up this post, that I’m sure to mention lots more– is Shakespeare’s quote:
“Thou dost protest too loudly!”
Look to wherever the energy is–and you will see what old pain keeps getting re-activated and then you can begin to take the steps to SEE it, take responsibility for your own pain, and begin to heal it!
It’s the pie/pizza rule…. If your spouse or child does something that really only warrants addressing with 1/8th piece of the pie, but you are throwing the WHOLE thing at them…then that 7/8ths is your own unconscious “baggage” not theirs– and the more you over react with them, the less chance you have of actually addressing the 1/8th that needs to be addressed at some point–and a MUCH less chance of ever seeing your own stuff because you’re so lost in rage at theirs.
Jesus was showing us they way to heal when he directed us to take the log out of our own eye then we will be able to remove the speck out of our brothers.
There’s lots more…but this will help you be more loving and compassionate to that kind person we’ve been engaging in all this madness for so many years! I know, they’ve been doing it too…but you can heal what is missing, and learn to forgive “all debts owed to you” from the past– and it REALLY cuts down on resentment….
Dr Cheryl Meier's Blog 