Voices Within
You have, in your life, had unpleasant experiences. Every one has. Many of the most difficult times have come from those who claimed to love you as they hurt you, from parents, from lovers, from friends...
As you try to heal your life you often find these ugly experiences remain. They cause you to criticise and abuse yourself, to lash out at those you care about, to doubt yourself and grow weak... to fail again and again and again. These dark memories leave you feeling bitter and broken, or lost and hopeless. They lead you to doubt your competence and back away from your convictions... They take from you, often, those things you've worked hardest to gain.
And so you find your mother's voice inside nagging you constantly, an abuser's words cruelly whispering within. You realize you are explaining or justifying what you are doing to a critical father, spouse, lover hiding inside you. You are constantly seeking love or approval from an aloof parent only you are awre of... who never gives you what you crave.
You know what I'm talking about. You recognize these things. Every one of you has had these experiences. You may be having one now. And in an effort to heal, to get free, to begin to live a life you can be proud of, you try to destroy these destructive pieces inside.
There Is a Cure
You can "kill your parents within." You can destroy all the things they've given you. Or rather you can try and keep trying, as these pieces won't go away. They will continue to pop into awareness as long as you wear a human form and likely beyond.
But fear not! There is an easier way. A simpler way. A way that will take the most horrifying and brutal pieces of your pasts and give you, in their place, gifts of great beauty and power. A way that can change you from a shadow of a person, a broken and frightened child, into a person of power and grace, of astounding potential.
The Mystery of Acceptance
That way, that path from the ugliness inside back to your greatest beauty and power is a simple way. Tho, like many simple things, it's not always an easy one.
It begins with acceptance.
Stop fighting they ugly things others have put inside you. Stop struggling with them and trying to bury or destroy them. Accept them within. Accept their gifts. Accept the pain and abuse and violence and neglect and so on, for these dark things have great gifts within them.
Accept them not as invaders, living within, enemies that you tolerate.
Accept them not as locked room and deeply buried sarcophagi, hidden so far from your awareness that you forget they are even there.
Accept them NOT as enemies, nor even as masters. Nay, give them no control of their own. Do not even allow them anymore to be seperate from you.
THEY ARE YOU. these parts. They **are** you. Whether they have grown into your flesh, remade your emotions and perhaps conquered them, wormed into your thoughts and now dominate them, subsumed your habits, chained you away from your heart, claimed your sexuality as their own, raped, destroyed or overwhelmed your imagination, ensorceled your dreams, or... They are you.
The Way Back
As to your parents, your abusers and any who have hurt or controlled you...
Whatever form they or their machinations, their dark workings, have taken in you...
Stop fighting them!
Stop trying to destroy them!
1. Accept them as they are, these pieces, for now they are part of you. Accept them and allow them to be whatever they are, exactly as they are.
2. Recognize... This Is Important. Recognize that these things, whatever they are, are NOT your parents, your abusers, your rapists, your jailers, ... They are now part of YOU. They are you.
3. Move yourself inside each one, one at a time. Move there and claim that place. "You are not a seperate thing," you declare with all the will, strength, power, self, ... you have access to. "This is me. However ugly or beautiful, however strong or weak, however sacred or unclean, pure or vile, strong or weak, lost or sure... Someone else may have put this here, but now This Is Me."
Allow it no will of its own, this thing, no seperate mind. Do not stop it's thoughts, actions, words, ideas... no matter how much you disagree, hate, fear, or whatever... Claim it. "This too is me."
4. Expand. As you claim that piece in you (as you) expand to fill it, and fill it with who you CHOOSE to be. If your life choice is kindess, fill this piece with that. If it's strength, use that. If it's will, or hope, or love, or light, or life, ... use that. As you stand within this place of confusion, horror, pain, dark memories, ... as you claim it as your own, expand your self to fill it and overflow it and integrate it within you. And as you do, fill it completely with what you have chosen to be and to express in this lifetime. Fill it with your light, saying all the while, "This too is me." And in filling it and claiming it, it becomes part of you.
5. Once it becomes part of you, accept its gifts and let them become yours.
** if it was a great lover who broke your heart, for instance, at this stage of acceptance and integration, let their abilities as a lover become part of you, changed by what you have filled this place with.
** if it was a rapist or abuser, let their strength, their willingness to claim what they want, to break tradition and act in their own way... their willingness to change the life of another... become yours. Only change their darkness with your light, with your choice.
** if it was a nagging or critical or angry mother, let her gifts become part of you. Claim them as your own.
** if it was an abusive or absent father, let his gifts become your own...
As you slaim these gifts and fill them with your light, with your CHOICE, with the power of your life path, you will see that every gift has value. Even the darkest of gifts, things that have kept you in fear, a slave, for so long, are simply twisted shadows of something beautiful. Accept these gifts. Claim the light side of them.
6. Remember that any act taken from fear, from anger, from a desire to control or enslave another (even another part of your self) will lead you into shadow. Remember this. For the claiming of these gifts will bring up memories of much fear, of much anger, of much abuse of self and others... If you are careless, you can repeat those mistakes and harm yourself and those around you.
Make a better choice. As much as you can Act Always In Love, from Love, following and expressing Love. Act from a place that begins in joy and childlike wonder. Act from whatever you have chosen to anchor your life in. When you lose that, pause. Go back to an earlier step.
7. Continue. Remember that anything you have carried for some time has changed you. It has developed habits in you, spawned emotions, buried traumas and practiced fears... Do not be so naive as to expect to do this once and be done. It is possible that, in each and every moment for the rest of your life, these things will pop up again. and again. and again. When they do, repeat the simple steps above. Once you've done them a few times, they will become automatic, as easy as breathing... Keep going.
8. Joy vs. fear. They will come back to you, these oft-times painful gifts, whether in moments when you least expect them, or when you sit down intent on dragging them into the light. Again, and again, and again, the pieces of your past will return to shape your present. When they do, KEN (know in your guts) them as presents, as gifts. Do not fear these times. Expect them in every instant and accept them when they come. Celebrate them as gifts, giving every moment of your life the chance to be christmas, birthday, name day, hannukah, or whatever day of gifts your inner child recognizes.
Gifts of Beauty and Power
All of your greatest gifts in this lifetime are ones that have come to you in moments of intense emotions. Do not accept only those that came with emotions you prefer. Accept them all, recognize them as parts of yourself, move into them, expand and fill them with who you have chosen to be, embrace their gifts, in joy not fear, and continue, dancing thru your life, discovering in every moment new wonders to celebrate, new toys to play with, new experiences to love and honor, to celebrate and be grateful for.
The Angel
02:15 04/16/2014