The Ability To Feel
When I was a very young child I noticed how unhappy everyone in my family was. I then began to notice that there was so much of the same unhappiness all around me. I watched it, but I also shared it. Everyone felt unloved. At least, I know that is what we believed we felt. It is as though we are all standing in line facing and focusing all of our effort on receiving the love we need from the person standing in front of us, whose back we are facing. If we could all just turn around and give exactly what we are seeking to the person behind us, seeking the same love and approval, we would all, in turn, receive what stands between wholeness and ourselves.
I believed that if someone married me, I would feel loved; I would be happy. Then I believed that if I had a child of my own, THEN I would feel loved and be happy. When my only hopes for happiness left me still feeling worthless, I entered therapy. I went to the Alfred Adler clinic in New York City. On the intake questionnaire they asked: If you died, what would you want written on your gravestone. My response was, “Denise was WELL LOVED”. I believed that if by the time I died, my legacy was having been loved by many then I would know that somewhere along my journey on this earth I had found the happiness that I was seeking. All I thought I ever wanted was to feel loved. But what feeling loved really meant to me had nothing to do with another person loving me, but having some person convince me that I was worthy of loving.
I think about that gravestone often, and at various points in my life I have revisited the inscription considering what I would want written at each of those points in my life. At one point, about ten years ago, I arrived at my final revision of that stone. I realized that I would know that my life was all that I could have asked of it, if my gravestone says, “Denise LOVED WELL”. The reality is that the only way that the void of love within remains constantly filled is if it is constantly poured out to others. Here is a story that I read somewhere:
“With an angel for his guide, the visitor is first ushered through the gates of Hell, which, he is surprised to find, are made of finely wrought gold. The gates, in fact, are incomparably lovely, as is the verdant land¬scape that lies beyond them. All this is quite astonishing to the visitor, who turns to his angelic guide in disbelief. “It’s all so beautiful,” the man says. “The sight of the meadows and mountains . . . the sounds of the birds singing in the trees … the scent of thousands of flowers. . . .” And then another scent catches his attention: the aroma of food being prepared.
The angel leads the visitor toward an immense banquet table laden with every sort of delicacy. However, something is terribly wrong. Hundreds of people are seated around the table, but they all appear to be starving. Their emaciated condition is painful to see in the midst of such bounty, but even worse is the frustration and anger they are obviously experiencing. Each person at the table has a long-handled spoon chained to his wrist. The handles are so long that no one can place food in his mouth. But that does not prevent the condemned souls from trying. For all eternity, they are struggling to feed themselves a meal that is right before them, but that might as well be a hundred miles away. Taken aback by the tragic spectacle, the visitor is now more than ready to visit Paradise, and the angel immediately complies. At once they pass through an¬other set of golden gates, alike in every detail to the gates of hell. In fact, a great deal about the two locales seems to be identical, including the banquet table and the diners chained to their utensils. But the people around this table are well fed and happy, despite the fact that their circumstances are identical to those of the damned. The difference is not in the physical situation, but in how they respond to it. As you might have guessed by now, instead of trying to feed themselves, each of the souls at this table feeds the one across the table.”
Remembering that the ego through which we incarnate in each lifetime is little more than an accumulation of experiences and beliefs of our past lives. Change – growth and the merging of the ego and higher self are instigated by the soul. Each life is the next chapter in the evolution of the soul. This plotline of this life carries with it a repetition of situations from prior lives that were not resolved, not balanced. It also contains new areas experiences and challenges for further growth, and the fruit of lessons that we have mastered from past lives to share with others in this one. . All souls who are late young, mature or old have lived through lifetimes of conditioning as beings stained at birth by original sin. Few adults living today were not there at the birth of this age, which is drawing to a close, and this age was born with the imprint of original sin.
The majority of people on earth, or at least in the western countries feel in some way inferior to almost everyone else alive. I have admired to so many people who I believed were confident, and self-assured only to find out that the singular difference between them and me was that they were better at pretending. Some assuage their feelings of inadequacy by telling themselves that they are superior to others. The more they immerse themselves in their superiority the less they have to acknowledge their feelings of inferiority. Some make a great show of telling everyone how great they are, while others find a skill, talent, or physique that they use to draw a constant flow of accolades. Then of course, there are embellishments such as wealth, fame and power to make one look superior.
People insist that their religion is the only religion acceptable to God out of a need to feel superior. It is the need to feel superior that causes people to insist that their choice of worship is the only true choice of worship. Jealousy is a sign of insecurity – God could not be jealous unless He was insecure about all of the other gods being worshiped. However, if there is only one God then that one God is not jealous, not wrathful, and not angry because all of those are symptoms of insecurity. Regardless of how superior we appear, and how content we may be with that appearance, within ourselves there are no props that can change how we feel. So, we look to intimate relationships to give us that feeling of adequacy by showering us with love. The problem is that the material world or rather the external world is impermanent. Whatever fills us up today will be insufficient to the task tomorrow. Someone will always come along smarter, prettier, wealthier, more powerful, more famous, more creative, more talented, younger etc. Everything external that matters today will not matter tomorrow, next week, next year, or whenever. Whatever exists in the external world has a shelf life. If that is where we seek our value, or sense of lovability, then we must acknowledge the expiration date.
Our past lives of belief in original sin have convinced us that we are defective. Now is the time to understand and to instill in the young children born at the dawn of this new age that we are each created so perfectly, so flawlessly, that there will never be more than one of each of us. We are each so perfect that we cannot be duplicated. We are each original signed creations of our Source, and there is not now, and will never be an artist superior to our creator, nor will there ever be materials superior to those from which we are made because we are made from the Creator. It is the uniqueness of our design that makes us each so great. And we are each here to add that unique color, that unique quality that is each of us to the great work of art that is in a constant state of becoming, entitled “Life”.
Love is. It does not exist because of what we do, or who we are. Love is unconditional. Many people have found through regressions that they suffer from debilitating illnesses in this life so that they have the opportunity to be taken care of, and to feel love from others who receive nothing in return. It is the only way that their souls can guarantee the experience. If someone loves us and we push them away because the love does not come wrapped in the package that we are expecting, although may they move away – they do not stop loving us.
All of this concern over being loved and being lovable dissolves into itself when we stop worrying about being loved and strive to be love itself. No amount of love, adoration, worship or praise can change how we feel about ourselves when the lights go dim. Most people I know who do not feel loved are really not very loving. Whatever they give to others or do for others has some form of string attached, even if it is a required amount of expressed appreciation. They may not feel that they are measuring, but they can give an extremely accurate account of their expressions of love – for people who are not keeping track. Whatever experiences have closed them down do not matter. If we want to feel loved we must take the risk of loving unconditionally. And what happens when we do this, is that we forget about what we are not getting because we are overwhelmed with the joy of what we are giving. Then suddenly, out of the blue, we look around and are astounded by the amount of love that is coming to us.
Destiny Confronts us with Choice – choice creates destiny
There is no reason to feel robbed of choice by destiny, or to worry that the wrong choice will ruin our destiny. All choices accomplish our destiny. It is through the choices that we learn, and it is because of the ability to make choices that we come to this particular planet. It is our journey that sets up the situations in which we must make the choices and it is through making the choices that we reach our destiny.
One thing that we cannot deny is that there are many synchronicities in our lives. These synchronicities show us that there is a plan. There is destiny, which is a destination. However there are many ways to reach it. There are many rivers that empty into the same ocean. Those many rivers in our lives represent our choices. In every moment of our lives there are choices that we make, those choices determine the experiences that we will encounter on our way to our destination, but they do not change the destination.
Those synchronistic moments are destined points. Each path that we take, each choice that we make takes us on a journey towards our destination, however no one way is longer or shorter although some may be easier than others. This is where our free will comes in. We come here with certain karma and certain things that we must learn. We can learn them the hard way or we can learn them the easy way, each way represents a path that we take, but neither path changes the destination. If, for example one has to learn patience, one would be in such a hurry that corners would constantly be cut and experiences rushed through. One would be faced constantly with choices that would give the impression that there is always a way to cut corners and skip steps to get ahead. Each fork in the road would provide all that would be needed in order to take the easy way out. It would always be the most apparent option. That choice will always seem so tempting and so obvious.
Along that path if one takes the easy way there will always be traps, which will begin to appear as soon as one is too far in to turn back. Always ending up working twice as hard as would have been the case had the task been handled slowly and with patience from the beginning. One would notice at one point that this scenario exists and perhaps choose to do it the slow cautious way from the beginning, therefore changing the path from one that is difficult to one that is smooth. Thus now creating a path in which everything falls into place.
One may on the other hand continue choosing the apparent easy way believing that just changing one thing will make it right. However, each time there is one different thing that will go wrong because the destination is to learn patience. I always believed that I had to find the perfect job. I went from job to job never staying more than one year in any place. Each time I was disappointed to find that I was no further ahead than I was at the job before that one. Finally it dawned on me that it was not being in the right place that was the problem; not staying in one place long enough for growth to happen was my problem. When I committed to staying in the next place that I landed regardless of how much I wanted to move on, my life changed. This was a part of my process.
There are many lessons in our lives that we must learn and the paths that our lives take depend upon our learning those lessons. An easy life is not the birthright of the majority of souls here at this time.
We learn our lessons regardless of what choice we make. We teach what we are here to teach no matter what we do. We are each the student, the teacher, and the lesson. In spite of how we react to our lives on earth, our souls are learning. All of the lessons are predestined. It is through the soul’s journey that we meet each lesson. The journey is the lesson and each lesson is the adventure. We always get where we are supposed to go, even though many times it is not exactly where we planned to go. It is however exactly where we agreed to go before we incarnated.
The clock that we are on here is not a clock marked by seconds, minutes and hours; it is a clock marked by lessons, agreements and destiny. It does not matter how long it takes us to reach a certain point, all of the things that we consider wrong turns and dead ends are merely the places we had to go to get the tools and the emotional strength that we needed to move to the next destination.
There are special relationships that we are here to have. Most of them are not to be permanent, but all of them have a specific lesson within them for us to learn. We are never with the wrong person, each person allows us to perfect some part of ourselves. Each person in our lives reflects those things in us that we need to focus on. We come from one Source and we journey towards returning to that Source. While we are here on earth, we are learning that we are one. All of the souls that we meet, and all of the souls that inhabit the planet with us along with the ones who have left us here, are one.
People risk destroying themselves and their lives in order to “fix” their bodies to make them more attractive to others. They change their faces, blow up their lips, and vacuum out their stomachs to attract someone who will love them. But if they are attracted by the things that we do to change ourselves – it is the change and not us that matters to the other person. So the feeling of being unloved remains. If there is something about ourselves that we want to change for ourselves this is fine. Yet if we are changing our bodies in order to attract that special someone who will love us, we are missing the point. When we meet someone special we feel a sense of fate around the meeting and this is because it is a fated meeting. been a feeling of fatedness about the meeting. We can fix our bodies to attract other bodies, but it will never attract someone’s heart or soul. What I see around me are a million lonely Barbies looking for their Kens. When we work on the inside, on who we are, we will attract to us someone interested in who we are. That special someone will love us, that love will be love soul to soul. Even more importantly, that person is destined to be with us when we are ready, not ready on the outside but ready on the inside. There are many superficial experiences that we have and learn from. Yet what affects us on the inside, those things that touch our souls are the things that are in our destiny. We do not make them happen we can only grow to meet them, and make sure that we are prepared for them when we do.
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