This is the third installment of seeing past your defenses which in reality should be entitled seeing past my defenses…lol. It is a very lonely and disconnected place to believe you have figured it all out and no one else seems to have a clue. I will admit I have a unique approach to life that affords me very little stress or anxiety, and anger is almost non-existent. However, I profoundly realize and tell people all the time, it isn’t because I am strong but rather because I am exquisitely sensitive. blah blah blah blah blah, I do go on and on and often…lol
That unique way of looking at life is both valid and also a defense. It was uncomfortable for me to feel those feelings and I found ways to change my beliefs and chronic habits of thoughts so that they became a thing of the past. It was also not easy for me to be around those that still had those feelings and almost became my mission to “teach” people how to do life my way. That obviously doesn’t work. Instead of actually loving people and getting to know them, I was constantly teaching. My defense…and teaching whether they wanted to be taught or not. Pretty annoying, arrogant and completely ineffective.
Not only doesn’t it work but those emotions are a guide, I had to have them to get where I was going and every person experiences them differently so I can’t possibly know if it is as uncomfortable for them as it was for me. Emotions and the language of emotion is so very complicated and unique to each individual, only in compassion and empathy beyond the expressions and words can I actually experience another person.
The most effective transformative agent is being your authentic self and unconditional love. In order to do that I have to be authentic, not teach. In order to be authentic and experience compassion and unconditional love, I have to get past my defenses. They can be very, very tricky, especially when I had convinced myself that I didn’t really have any. That is when they are most destructive.
One might think that not having negative emotion would be a good thing. Others might feel that not having negative emotion might mean sociopathic tendencies…lol. Negative emotion is neither a good or bad thing, just as directions on a highway are not a bad thing. A negative emotion is just guidance.
Also what people consider negative might not be actually negative. Intense emotion can feel scary or bad to some especially if that intense emotion has been associated with loss or hurt. Yet to feel intensely because you loved deeply is a beautiful thing even in the face of loss or “hurt”. To learn to be in the intense emotion of love even in the face of loss and know it’s okay, is so very powerful.
When I stopped making the struggle of others something to be eradicated but rather something to love them through, then I could learn to love myself in my own authentic struggles. Instead of striving for perfection, instead striving for being truly me and authentic. Looking honestly at myself and seeing for the first time that the reason everyone’s struggle was so painful for me was that their struggle was mine as well.
I recognize a little of myself in every person I meet, and I also recognize that there is a completely unique and wonderful being playing his or her game of life just right, that isn’t me and can add greatly to my experience. I had been missing that gift…a lot. I don’t have to make someone’s choices wrong because their choice seems to make them more likely to be upset, or guilty or anxious etc. I can love them and be with them and even if it’s uncomfortable find the joy in loving and appreciating them. Letting whatever process they are going through take place and trusting that they would find their way, letting them discover it, instead of trying to beat them over the head with my own personal dogma. Guilty as charged…lol
I recognize that I was interpreting the life of others through my choices and I know better than that. It is a very sneaky thing, judgment. Especially to a person like myself who has worked purposely to eradicate judgment. Actually anytime you try to rid yourself of something, you make it stronger. The way to rid yourself of something is to starve it and feed the opposite aspect of yourself. I finally get that after 22 years of intense self development…lol.
Unconditional love can only eradicate judgment and even loving the judgers is required. That includes myself. I have had so many aha moments in the last month and can finally see that as far as I have come, there is an infinite amount of aha moments to come. It is a never ending lovely unfolding or ever greater capacity to love and appreciate, others and myself.
That is why I am feeding the other through this series of appreciating more fully those I have been blessed to have in my life. Not only am I appreciating the good but in appreciating the struggles I have found a new way of looking at them that puts the “perpetrator” in an intensely compassionate and beautiful light.
Now I not only appreciate the result of growth that my struggles gave me but also appreciate the amazing people who were part of it, doing their best, and because of their power and unique, amazing qualities were able to be a part of my life to fill the role of what I had to experience to move to the next level. I also recognize that if I had been the person I am today that the experiences would have been totally different so in a sense I “failed” them as much as someone could say they “failed” me. No one really failed anyone.
I am not beating myself up nor wallowing in regret but I am taking personal responsibility for my life and experiences, not just choices. In that is incredible power, but more importantly, the beginning of true compassion and unconditional love. Selfishly that is what I am after…for there is no greater feeling than loving someone profoundly and appreciating their true self and magnificence.
Intellectually I knew that if my life wasn’t everything I wanted it to be then there was something within me holding me back. The missing thing was actually getting over myself, seeing my defenses for what they are. Even the ones that have given me the perception of success, are holding me back from the very thing I truly want.
It is in being authentic and sharing that part of me that the insights and aha moments can come, and the beautiful thing is that they can come from amazing people that have been in my life all along. They can come from the so called negative experiences that can happen as we navigate this game we call life. They can come from making a wrong a right. They can come from just a moment appreciating nature or meditating.
The most beautiful thing is the connection to others that is what we came here to experience because there really is no separation. What is within me is what I see outside myself and if I can’t love that unconditionally then life is hell, but when I can love all of me unconditionally then I can love all of you unconditionally and then life is heaven. Profound and deep, intense appreciation and love is all around and in me, us, the world.
You have to get over yourself, your defenses, your stories, your walls, your fears, being right, being perfect…or rather I have to get over myself, my defenses, my stories, my walls, my fears, being right, being perfect. That way I can love…me, you, and every adventure this life has in store for me.
