I closed my heart because I didn’t trust myself

Posted by admin in Blog (Weekly), Blogs

May
30

I have known this for a long time and am slowly learning to accept and even welcome that which I see in others is in me and a projection of myself. Whether it is the positive/light or the negative/darkness, it is always about ME. Often, what I have disowned in myself (shadow) or I refuse to see in myself, I can easily see it in my brother or sister. It is because we are mirrors for one another. We are invited to love all parts of ourselves and if we are unaware of something that is hidden from our consciousness, we cannot love it. I have 2 examples of seeing myself in another to share with you this week.

Of course, it is easier to accept that when I see the light and positive in another that it is also in me. I often see kindness and gentleness in Larry and I always affirm him for those qualities, although he doesn’t always see that kindness in himself. I recently realized that no matter how much I affirm him, he has to believe it for himself and it is impossible for me to do it for him. That is an inside job.

So I decided that rather than “over-praise” Larry when I see kindness in him because I want him to believe it about himself, I would turn it back on me and affirm and appreciate myself for my kindness and gentleness. If I see it in him, it is in me.

Larry and I are participants in a weekly book study group. There is a woman in the group who I admire and like her energy. She shares from her heart and is honest and open. She shares her struggles as well as her spiritual progress. What I particularly admire is her relationship and love for God. Since I easily see the light and love in her, I choose to embrace it and see it in myself.

It is not so easy and I am not always willing, at first, to see in myself what I don’t like in another. In fact, sometimes it takes a while to see the truth and set myself free. When I spot something in another person that I don’t like, it is easy to point the finger and blame, judge and even call them names.

It is a normal reaction, if you will, to “close our hearts” and withdraw from another person if we feel hurt, judged or misunderstood. I became aware that I also close my heart when I don’t trust someone for a “perceived” wrongdoing to protect myself from further hurt. I am wondering how often over the years I have closed my heart and lost relationships.

When I close my heart, I block the energy (God) from within. Not only is my heart closed, but my mind is also closed and it closes me off from all energy.

I had a situation with a friend that took me quite a while to recognize what was really going on. I wasn’t ready to see my part until I was willing to ask for help. I prayed and asked Spirit to show me the truth and set me free because it was really troubling me and I had lost my peace. I just couldn’t figure out why I didn’t trust this person and felt so uncomfortable when I was in her presence.

I heard Spirit say, “You need to relax and not stress about trying to “figure it out.” I often like to figure things out in my head because it feels like I have some control. What an illusion that is. Spirit said, “All you need to do is open your heart.”

The truth set me free as I listened and opened my heart and mind. What was gently revealed to me by Spirit in meditation and a dream was that I didn’t trust myself in some areas and was projecting it on to her. I got the message and the stress and “uncomfortableness” was completely gone when I was in her presence again. I have made a commitment to myself and God to keep my heart open and not close it when I feel threatened or afraid.

Larry

I have been thinking about how incredible creation is. It seems that the longer I live, the more I become aware of how all creation is connected. We are connected to one another and to nature.

Although our perspectives can be different and we may be seeking our consciousness in different ways we are still the same. We are looking for the same things and we have the same doubts and struggles, as well as the same hopes and dreams.

Sometimes we see another person and think, “Boy that person has got it all together and I wish I could be like that.” All I’ve got is this crazy “roommate” in my head that never stops talking, telling me what to do and what not to do. Most times it is judging me and encouraging me to judge others so I can feel better about myself. I bet if I talked with the person I thought had it all together they would laugh and tell me that they have the same type of challenges that I have.

I am grateful for the opportunity that Pat and I are participating in a book study group on Michael Singer’s book, “The Untethered Soul”. We read a few chapters each week and then get together once a week to share our perspective on what we’ve read. There are 13 people in our group. We’ve traveled many different paths and are currently living on Maui. We have wonderful, diversified, intelligent people who share openly from their hearts.

We are all unique in the way we are seeking to grow and become more conscious in our spiritual lives, but I am amazed at how alike we are in our life experiences. We all struggle with the same insecurities, doubts, fears and not good enough thoughts and behaviors. We help each other to expose our egos and not allow our egos to have power in our lives. We are all trying to accept our life situations and not resist. We are attempting to keep our hearts open to Spirit’s power and not close our hearts to what life brings us.

I see this experience as a wonderful opportunity for me to grow and become more conscious, so that I can become a more complete vessel of love. Through this experience, I am learning to become more patient, offer kindness, have more compassion for others, accept what is and not resist, let go of control and recognize and expose my ego. I sincerely hope that I am offering the attributes of patience, kindness, compassion and understanding to my fellow group members.

I had an opportunity this week to accept and not resist: I volunteer at a local organization delivering meals to the homebound on Monday afternoons. I agreed to fill in for someone last Friday. Well, I got into my very relaxed mode on Friday afternoon and forgot about filling in. Pat came into the room about 3:55 p.m. and asked me if I was going to deliver today. I jumped up and said, “OMG, I forgot.” Fear, resistance, stress, anxiety, judgement were all fighting to get into my psyche at once. I flew out of the house and started hell bent down the mountain. Then I asked myself, “What are you doing?” I needed to calm down and not resist what was happening, but just accept it. I said to myself, “So you’ll be a half hour late, its ok.” I was able to accept and allow what was happening to happen, I just let go of all the negatives that were clamoring for attention. I allowed my peace to return and everything went along very smoothly.

We discussed in group how we handle challenges in our lives when our energy becomes blocked or negative). One of the ways we all seemed to respond to energy blocked was to get out in nature by walking, running, swimming, going to the ocean or mountains or just sitting outside. We all sought the energy in nature to somehow nurture our wounds, calm our anger and help us reconnect with our healing power within. We remember that we are worthy, we always have been worthy and we always will be worthy because we were created out of love and we are love.