There is a positive side to everything you experience just like there is a negative side.  It is all a matter of your perception. If you can change your perception of events that happen in your life then you are well on your way to a more peaceful  state of being within yourself. I bring this up because everything I experienced in my past served my growth and made me who I am today. All the people that I interacted with along my life path have made me grow in different ways and for that I am grateful. I realize that the belief systems that were created based on my programming led me to suffer at different times in my life. This suffering could have been prevented if I had challenged my belief systems which would have proved them to be faulty. I did not have the awareness then that I have now. Everyone has the right to create belief systems that serve them however you have to see where they originate in the first place.

After I did a life review, I did two key things. Firstly, I identified the one person who was the most influential  on my life path. Secondly,  I identified five key messages that I believed were important to follow based on this person’s influence. (I go into detail in my book that I am currently finishing with regards to this process so I won’t spend time on the details now.)The reason I bring this up is so you can see how programming occurs. I was programmed by other people’s beliefs that were close to me when I was growing up. Their opinion mattered a great deal to me and they had a successful life path so naturally I assumed that their advice was golden. I examined the five messages and then came up with beliefs that I had created based on these messages. These beliefs became my truth which was not necessarily a bad thing at the time. This led me to a life path that was reasonable and safe. But was it really me? Only separating yourself out from your programming will begin to shed light on this whole issue.

I looked at the messages and then the beliefs that I had created based on the messages. I asked myself whether having these belief systems served to increase peace and well being within my spirit or did they do the opposite? Many times they did the opposite so I started to look for myself in the midst of my programming. I started to examine my belief systems and create new belief systems in my life that would afford me the most freedom. I wanted to emerge from my self imposed box whose parameters were defined by my programming. I found more peace and well being within myself when I observed how many of my belief systems were too limited and thus limited my overall potential for happiness.

I realized that just because I perceived that I came from a family with a limited world view did not mean that I had to keep the limited world view as my operating system. They were likely a product of their own family programming; the cycle keeps repeating when there is no need to question it. There are positives and negatives to programming – if you are happy in your life,  with your life, then there will be no need to question your programming.  I needed to develop my own identity free of my programming and this was the process by which I would do this…

When I realized that my self esteem largely came from externals and was based on what I was achieving, I decided to spend time doing nothing. I wanted to see if I could handle the space of doing nothing. I wondered what that would bring up for me. Would I be a neurotic mess or would my compulsive nature take over in an effort to preserve my perceived sanity? I decided to stop being busy, stop doing and instead listen for the silence… listen for that tranquil pool that existed deep inside of me. In that silence, I would find a peace that I had not known before. Who was I when I separated myself out from my programming? I was someone that was, more or less, at peace. I wasn’t at peace in the beginning. I had to first get used to the space of being versus doing.  After a time, I was surprisingly serene. I stopped listening to the voices that were telling me to do more, be more, achieve more… For a time, this silence caused me significant anxiety. Voices would fill the void of silence. I would hear voices inside my head shouting ‘Go for a run. You are lazy’ or ‘Get busy. You are not accomplishing anything.’ I would see the whip of self flaggellation hanging on the inner walls of my cranium, eager with the anticipation of being put to use. In reality, I wanted that whip to be put to permanent rest. I wanted to see how accepting I could be of myself existing in a passive space.  For instance, I really wanted to be okay with just walking. Why couldn’t I allow myself to walk? Why did I feel that I had to be pushing myself so hard all the time? I wanted to see how it felt to just walk and contemplate and observe the beauty around me. I wanted to be receptive, to be in the feminine aspect of me versus the masculine aspect of me. How good it felt to be receptive! To allow versus actively seek. To soften into the passive space within me…I wanted to open myself up like a hollow flute and see what music would flow through me on its own accord with no evidence of my prior conditioning…

This time in consciousness is about healing that needs to take place in the core of your being. All the parts of you that you wish to stay in the dark now must be illuminated and that can involve pain if left unconscious. I have done a lot of work on myself over the years… a lot…but there are still moments when my ego rears its ugly head and I realize that I have so much more healing to do. In that moment, I ask myself for the higher light of my being to illuminate the darkness so the depths of my unconscious pain does not hurt another rather it be transformed…Where pain exists, also lies the desire to heal it. The desire for healing arises from your soul’s longing; a depth that is eternal thus the reality of your own potential for personal healing and redemption is limitless…that is where the possibility to transform your pain into something beautiful exists…but first the pain has to be fully acknowledged… You have to see yourself and fully accept yourself in your imperfection. You have to see yourself in all your ugliness yet see the divine spark barely visible that lies buried beneath.  You have to see how deep and wide the pain thread lies and follow it back to its origin. Once you follow it back to its origin, you will often find a limiting belief that has kept you in that painful place.

I had this experience recently in seeing myself in all my ugliness, that painful shameful place that I would rather not knew existed inside of me. I had to see it and it was not a moment of glory for me rather it was my dark, shadowy, scared fragile self that existed in the depths of my despair. I realized that by projecting my unconscious pain at someone else that it would bounce back with incredible force in the opposite direction thus exponentially potentiating my pain in the process. I had to make it conscious and I had to find its origin in me. When I traced the pain thread back, there existed a small frightened child that felt she needed to be punished for her imperfection. That small frightened child chose to punish herself via starvation when she was younger and thus was hospitalized twice in her teenage years. The 40 year old woman that I am today wants to let go of the belief that I need to be punished if I am not perfect. I also need to let go of the belief that others need to be punished if they are not perfect. That is a dark side of me that needs to be illuminated and transformed. I want to leave this pain behind by making it conscious and live my life in an awakened state, knowing I will always make mistakes but I can love and accept myself completely in my imperfection and love others and accept them completely in their imperfection…and in that moment I will be set free. I choose to reflect on things in the moment, be more vigilant in terms of my reactions to others around me versus impulsively acting out when my pain body get activated. Rather I choose to witness it silently and ask for it to be illuminated so I can understand how I can best heal it in myself so it does not inflict harm on anyone else. Then I ask for personal forgiveness and ask for God to help heal the situation for all parties involved…