I make a point of putting myself out there in a number of ways. I want to demystify this ‘healing thing’; create a relationship that hopefully allows others to connect to me or folks like me with trust; provide my own catharsis, and help myself keep it real…nothing like knowing there are a potential few million people who might read what you write and call you on your shit to keep you honest, no?
I hold back on things, though. The first is how I’ve come to know myself. In part, I hold back because I can’t quite articulate what I know. I know (I think, anyway) the meaning behind & within it but I can’t wrap my head around it in a way that makes even sense to me. If I can’t explain it to myself, I can’t explain it to anyone else. No need to add to the confusion or otherwise muck it up more, I’ve said to myself & no one else (cue the Neil Diamond, yes?). I thought I could wait until something (I dunno what) coalesces and later attempt to explain but that misses the whole point of me Stepping Up.
So, I’ve been a chicken. Big fat lying chicken. Not an overtly lying chicken but the holding-back, Imawussy type of chicken. I fully admit that I’ve been afraid. I’m afraid now. I’m actually writing this and am going to hit ‘publish’ when I’m finished. ‘Publish’ means I can’t take it back. I can’t go back. There’s no need to attempt kidding myself or anyone else. In An UnCommon Experience, I shared an experience that pushed me where I didn’t think I was ready to go. What I didn’t do was describe the subsequent experience of a week later like I said I was (yep, a wuss there, too). There’s been a progression of things since then culminating in another, more recent, powerful experience.
Two Sundays ago, when in a session with another amazing woman, I got soundly chastised by that voice that’s not a voice, the thought that’s not a thought. I was clearly told that what I’ve been couching in terms of humility (I’m not special, we’re all just little ordinary people, blah-blah) & awe was not that at all.
I was reminded that it was fear. My fear. No doubt about it. Good old-fashioned fear. Fear of what other people will think of me. Fear of what this means for my life. Fear of moving into ‘not knowing’ as much as ‘knowing’. Fear that I’m not cut out for this. Fear that I don’t know what the heck ‘this’ is. Fear that I’ll end up feeling more isolated from most other people than I do already.
Heck, I’m so afraid that I keep getting up and walking away from the computer after I type a sentence or phrase. It’s taken me weeks of trying to figure it out, being slapped upside the head with a bazillion things that are nothing more than distractions, confronted by my own choices that I allow to hold me back. In fact, two weeks to work up the nerve to write and three days to actually do this.
The truth of the matter is that I’ve been called, pushed and pulled (dragged?) into stepping into me, into who I am, my true power. I’ve been called to name it, own it, move with it and in it. And I don’t even know what ‘it’ is.
I know the presences that merged with me two Sundays ago made it clear that I’m no longer able to duck & dodge who I am. “Did you think we’d let you forget?” I have no connection to the three presences that were identified by the client (who gamely shared this experience with me step-by-step) with one exception. I happen to know of Paramahansa Yogananda because Autobiography of a Yogi is one of the books I bought to try to figure out what’s been going on with me (I never did finish reading it.). I’ve heard of Sai Baba somewhere but never of the third that she identified as one of the others’ teachers. As an aside, I feel presences around me w/ some frequency and I occasionally I assign a personality to them—sometimes I call one Christ b/c it just feels what I think Christ-like is to me in the moment. However, I don’t generally know a bunch of dead dudes like my friend, Simon.
I really have been afraid. Without exception, I’ve been afraid to say out loud to another or even to myself that the presence I feel so profoundly—most profoundly during sessions—really is me. Nothing from outside of me. All of me. My within put with-out to be shared.
You know, it has come naturally to me to speak of seeing you and me as the Divine. To feel that, to know that at this level requires me to relinquish a few things I’ve held onto and admit a few others that I may not have wanted to. It requires to me stand up and accept that I am special. That I am extra-ordinary. The thing is, you wouldn’t think that’s such a hard thing to do but for me it is.
For decades I’ve wanted to feel special. I wanted to hear it from parents, friends, lovers, and with very rare exceptions haven’t. I’ve certainly known I was different. That bit couldn’t be missed. Despite that I still felt invisible. Still do. Hell, I feel like screaming “SOMEBODY SEE ME! FEEL ME!! HELP ME!!!” as much now as I did when I was 2, 10, 12, 20 years old. (And, when you don’t see me, I’m actually doing that! I mean, not all the time but when the goin’ is rough, oh yes!)
This new reckoning actually really does require me to not give a good shit what others think & put myself out there whether or not anyone will ever see me or, well, give a good shit about me.
The thing is, I really don’t know what this is. I really don’t know how to articulate it. It’s an experience and a way of being that I never knew about, planned for, sought or imagined. I don’t know me now. I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know what to do with me. It’s cool to hear from other’s that they feel God’s presence when in my presence. A pretty nifty thing. Talk about some validation. However, to intentionally move to the understanding that what they are feeling isn’t from some idea of God coming to visit while I work, that it is the whole of me–little ol’ Ingrid me—is another thing altogether. To come right out and say that floors me. I don’t have the presence, it’s not a visitation. I am it. I am all of that it. All of those things that string together these things between us and that are us. And all things. This is who I am.
I’m not a person of faith. I don’t ‘have faith in’ anything. Never have. I don’t get that concept. I don’t ‘believe in’ anything. I ‘just know’ a lot of stuff but that’s not been much help lately. I don’t know how else to be. I do know that how I’ve been ‘be-ing’ me ain’t working so well. I give in the way I feel I’m supposed to. I ask questions, I ask guidance and get bupkus. There’s no ‘fluff-n-stuff’ in how I’m me. I was actually stunned when a person at my last group session said in response to my question of why they came, “Well, I looked at your site and it just seemed like it came from the heart. Like it was all you. Not a packaged thing.” I think I looked at him like he had three heads before I replied, “Why would it or I be any other way?”
Why would it be any other way? It’s now time for me to own all of it. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know what that means for the rest of my life. I feel afraid. I feel alone. I feel frustrated and am tired of being hungry. And, there’s so much more I don’t know.
I do know, though, that I’m getting ready to hit “publish”. Here goes sumpin’.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”
Marianne Williamson got that right.
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