Re-Parenting Oneself

    I have learned a lot about why I so often feel like I am walking a tight-rope between sanity and insanity. I recently watched "The Wisdom of Trauma" and Dr. Gabor Mate says in the documentary that many of us have a tendency to react to the present as if we were experiencing the past. Everything we see, we see through the lens of our past pain and this means we constantly struggle to be present. Along with the book, The Soul of Prosperity, written by Rev. Jim Webb, I have also been reading Never Broken by the Alaskan singer-song writer, Jewel and Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder, by Gabor Mate. Today, I'll just briefly talk about Never Broken.

    In Jewel's book she says that at some point on her journey she realized she had to re-parent or re-nurture herself... There's a whole lot of truth to that, but I have currently been parenting myself as reluctantly, and in some ways as savagely, as my own biological parents tried to raise us. By the time we left our biological parents we had already begun to carry our own bullies in our heads. We didn't need anyone else to berate us for not being good enough or for being overly emotional. My siblings and I have carried with us, to this day, an internal monologue that mirrors what our biological parents said to us...even though we can't remember their words, the emotional impact of our own words have been just as wounding as theirs.

    So not only did I become my own worst enemy, but once my life was good, I didn't want to grow up. So here I am now, the reluctant parent. In many ways I feel like I'm looking at life through the lens of my 8 year old self. I didn't want to grow up and now I'm experiencing all the reasons why. The responsibility of finding a place to live and searching for a new job that you pray you won't hate... I never wanted any part of the grown-up world, let alone re-parenting myself. In order to re-parent myself well, I need to learn to love myself unconditionally, which feels like a tall order.

Another Brief Prayer

Dear Mother, Father, God, I call on You right now.
Dear Mother, Father, God, I invoke Your presence here in this very moment.
Please fill me with Your strength and certainty, God, so that I may live courageously.
Please fill me with Your light and peace, God, so that I may live harmoniously.
Please, dear God, hold my hand as I step into my power, into my light.
Allow me to carry the courage and peace needed to lift my head high and walk into the world as an emissary of Your light and grace.
Dear God, erase my fears of the past repeating itself. Remind me that nowhere in the world am I unsafe.
Dear God, erase my fears of losing control. Remind me God, that I am perfect as I am. Please, dear God, restore my faith, my faith in myself and my faith in You. I wish to perceive the world through Your eyes, God, so please show me the divine order in the chaos I believe to be outside of me.
Thank you, God.
Thank you, God.
Thank you, God.
Amen.

Replacing Fears with Prayers

Prayers to address the following fears and concerns that arose this past week:
    Sometimes, I don't feel strong enough for the path I've chosen. I feel as though no matter how much healing I experience, I cannot manifest coherence in my life. I'm beginning to feel worn out. I don't know if I'll ever be able to leave this labyrinth of chaos behind. I heal a deep layer, sometimes many layers and then something explodes in my face.
 
    Please, dear God, help me see the grace in this chaos. Please dear God, share with me how this chaos is actually divine order. My faith is wearing thin, God, so please aid me in bolstering my faith right now. My heart has grown doubtful and is beginning to feel betrayed by You, God.
    So please, dear God, fill my heart with peace. Please, dear God, fill my heart with the infinite love You would have it know. Strengthen my heart with Your healing light. Restore a sense of peace to my heart today, God, for my heart is still trying to recover from the traumas of this lifetime and many others.
    Dear God, fill my mind once again with the certainty that You are always looking out for me. Dear God, fill my mind once again with the certainty that I am loved and cared for by the universe. Dear God, please strengthen the vision and the voice of my soul so that I may ignore the ego's lies and illusions.
    Dear God, I do not feel strong enough to fulfill Your vision for me, so please, lend me Your strength. Dear God, I do not feel whole enough to fulfill Your vision for me, so please show me my wholeness now. Dear God, I do not feel at peace enough to fulfill Your vision for me so please bless me with Your peace right now. Dear God, I do not feel wise enough to fulfill Your vision for me, so please pour Your wisdom into my crown. Dear God, I do not feel healed enough to fulfill Your vision for me. So please, dear God, grace me with Your healing light. 

    Dear God, please bring Your infinite love, Your infinite light, and Your infinite healing energy to and through the heart of my inner child. Please dear God, teach her; show my inner child what peace feels like. I was born into a warzone, God, so my inner child does not yet know the true meaning of peace; it is a foreign entity to her God. So please, Mother, Father, God, angels and ancestors, send my inner child all Your love, light, and healing grace. Light a candle in her darkness, in her hiding place and sit with her. Dear Mother, Father, God, angels, and ancestors, take her hand in Yours and comfort her. Hold her, rock her, caress her. Dear Mother, Father, God, angels, and ancestors, may the light You bring to her cut our chains to the trauma; may the light You bring to her free her from despair, free her from the feelings of shame and humiliation. Dear Mother, Father, God, angels, and ancestors, may the love You bring to her restore her faith, restore her sense of self-worth.
    I was born into a warzone, God, so please send my inner child a steady river of healing grace, of loving light. I ask that this river of healing remains constant so that, in time, she will trust You again, God. Let Your river of infinite love, light, and healing eternally flow through the heart of my inner child. Let Your infinite peace eternally flow into the mind of my inner child until Your peace displaces the warzone I have imagined still exists around me now. Dear God, let my inner child carry peace of mind. Let my inner child carry joy in her heart again. Dear God, let my inner child remember Your deep and abiding love for her; let her remember that Your grace surrounds her always. Let her remember that she is safe in Your loving arms. Amen. Asé. Aho. Let it be so. And so it is.

And now,
I picture an angel
placing around my shoulders
a blanket of peace.
It is so soft
it distracts me
from any residual discontent. 

No Enemy to Fight

Day by day,
I am learning how to accept myself.
Day by day,
I am learning how to embrace myself.

Step by step,
I am beginning to accept my past.
Step by step,
I am beginning to embrace my path.

Though the road has often been treacherous,
though things have not been easy,
I am starting to appreciate
where the road has taken me.

Everything has led to where I am now;
a place of belonging,
a place overflowing with love,
a place where I could learn to sing.

I am starting to understand
that my past is not my enemy.
I am starting to see
that my idiosyncrasies are not my enemy.
In fact, there are no enemies for me to fight.
Just my ego calling for love
after feeling hurt and abandoned.

The Love That Never Left

    As you are a soul, nothing from this world can tarnish your holiness. As you are a soul, no form of violence can mar your perfection. You have believed that if you had ever been a beloved and holy child of God, it was before your trauma. You have believed that if you had ever been an innocent, sacred, and divine being, it was before you were vandalized. But I would assure you that in truth, you are My beloved and have always been, and as My beloved child, you cannot be defiled. You have also believed that I could not love you and let this happen. But I promise you, My love for you never left. You have always been surrounded by it, embraced by it.
    Please know that I do not want My children to suffer, but you had wanted to come here to suffer so that one day you might learn that you need not do so. Not only that, but you wanted to try to teach people this truth. The path you chose for this incarnation has not been easy, I know this; but you wanted to do something powerfully good with it, something beautifully loving with it. Your soul is whole. Your soul is loved. Your soul is made in God's image and with God's perfect vision. Be rest assured that nothing on your path has ever had the power to take you away from My love. Be rest assured that nothing on your path has ever had the power to strip away My gifts to you. I love you through eternity and my gifts to you remain yours through eternity.

No Finish Line; Bringing Light Into the Dark

    For the longest time I have felt the need for there to be a finish-line for my healing journey and that only if and when I crossed it could I be worthy, only when I crossed it could I be deserving, could I be lovable. But there is no finish-line...and it took me a while to be ok with that. Because when I realized there's no finish-line, I felt it meant I would never worthy, deserving, or lovable. Now I am beginning to see it in a different way. One, the reason there is no finish-line is because healing is not linear and also because time is an earthly construct. Time doesn't exist on the other side of the veil, not the way it does here on the earth plane. Secondly, I have begun to realize that we should approach the healing journey with the open curiosity of a child exploring. The child does not have a destination in mind, nor does the child judge what he/she finds. The child looks at every new thing with wonder...which just might be another word for love. Learn to love every landmark, learn to look at the whole of your healing journey with wonder.

Bringing Light Into the Dark

You are not running out of time.
There is no race, there is no finish-line.
Your journey within is much more important
than your life-path, than your story.

What you bring to your dark surroundings
is more important than the darkness.
What you bring to the wounded
is more important than that which wounded you.
What you bring to the blind
is more important than that which stole your sight.
For you are bringing light into the dark
and you have chosen to do so.

You came here to be a shining light for those who could not see.
You came here to restore your vision and that of humanity.
You came here to be a light in the dark.

Angels of light fell from heaven
like shooting stars into the deepest nights.
They wished to kindle fires of hope
within the souls who lost their way.
But the only way to do so,
was to feel wounded by the wounded,
was to feel the root of humanity's pain
and to then transform that pain and sorrow
into something new.

You are not the darkness you have seen around you.
You are a holy being bringing light into the dark.
You are not the swirling shadows that have surrounded you.
You are a sacred being bringing light into the dark.
You are not the heavy storm clouds that clash with thunder and lightning.
You are God's beloved bringing light into the dark.

And there is no finish-line for the angels of light to cross.
Just keep shining your light into the night.

Disempowering the Past

The first step you must take to disempower the past is to stop condemning yourself for how the past has shaped you. Stop condemning yourself for your idiosyncrasies, your maladaptive behaviors and patternings. Acknowledge that you have always done the best you can and believe wholeheartedly that your best is and has always been enough.

The next step you must take to disempower the past is to begin to allow the light that you carry, the light that you are, to take precedence over your story. Allow yourself to experience, fully experience, the light that you are. You are the Light of God, not your trauma. You are the Love of God, not your past, not your fears. You are the Grace of God. Not your less than pleasant circumstances or upbringing. Be the Light. Be the Light. Be the Light. Remember who you are and be the Light of God.