Epiphany in disguise

Yesterday, I was observing the epiphanies in my life.

In the morning I had a lovely chat with my best friends discussing our New Year’s resolutions and how we envisage our life the next year. Life was good and I felt a sense of connection and being supported. I had many epiphanies during our discussions on how I sabotage myself in areas of my life where I feel stuck and ‘unlucky’.

After our talk, I went to have something to eat and I found my mum with a measuring tape and a list of furniture outlets. After my inquiry she told me that she and my brother had decided to move my bookshelf, put my books into some cabinet in my brother’s bedroom and stand a hanger in place of the bookshelf that so far had stood in my brother’s living room.

I went into an unexpected rage saying ‘You do not dare touch my things! If anything is on your way, I’ll take care of it.’ With that I steamed upstairs and moved the whole book case into ‘my’ bedroom. Upon my furious rearranging the living room my brother questioned my behavior. I told him that I was only moving my bookcase and books into my bedroom. I was simply told that it was not ‘my bedroom’ and I am only quest in his house. My mother seconded that by saying that I was behaving like an idiot.

The experience was excruciating. I suddenly had flashbacks from my childhood when my mother threw out my personal diaries while I was away in a summer camp and of feelings of total disrespect towards my personal items, my chosen life-style, my ideas … I felt a surge of outrage and fear.

After having moved the bookcase into the ‘not my room’ where I usually reside when visiting my family and which is full of my personal items since I do not have a place on my own at the moment, I set down with my thoughts, feelings and tears.

I felt that I was someone who did not matter. I felt the pain of my unimportance in every single bone of my body aching. I felt that I was to blame for the uncomfortable situation that arose as a result of my reaction.

The truth was that the members of my family (and the majority of society they live in) do not sense others’ existence. They can only go with fulfilling their own immediate needs. We as a society walk all over each other without realizing how hurtful this behaviour is when one’s needs are not respected. Additionally, in this situation, nobody was willing to look at what was really happening and how to learn from it.

I cannot change the way my family functions, thinks, behaves and reacts. I have tried numerous times to show them that there are other ways of living beyond going through the motion of existence without actually noticing it. They did not understand it. I gave up. I focus on myself now, my revelations, my advancement, my freedom from the traps of the ‘games people play’.

So, I set with my anguish and I asked myself ‘What is going on? Why am I so extremely upset? What does this situation tell me about me that makes me feel so outraged and hurt?’

I know now that what I feel has nothing to do with others’ actions or reactions. I take full responsibility for myself (thoughts, feelings, pains and aches). Others may act as triggers but they do not have the power to make me feel in any way I do not choose to.

So what is the ‘story’ I am running and how can I heal it?

Somewhere deep in my unconscious, I believe that my needs, wishes, rights do not matter and can be violated at any moment. I also believe that I do not have the right to have needs. I am not important. In response to that I learnt to swing myself into some rage that (hopefully) scares the intruder enough to stop walking all over me. I feel that I must defend myself in a violent way so I would be heard. Naturally, as a result of my harsh and threatening behavior the nest gets stirred up and everyone involved gets distressed.

The second act of the play is about someone to blame. Since I am the loudest and the crudest, it is obvious that I should be the one taking the blame. In the meantime I am aware that I have the deep-seated belief that I am at fault. They have the right to blame me because I made everyone upset. (Says the unknowing child inside of me.) All this, usually, launch a series of back and forth snaps, upsets, shouts, and not talking to each other for months.

People do not change, particularly when they are not aware of their thoughts, beliefs and actions. It is my responsibility to change the way I see things by healing and letting go of the past. It is my job to make myself feel important and know that I matter. It is me who need to find the way to reclaim my innocence so the inner and outer terror can finally rest in peace.

Yesterday, I was once again given the opportunity to observe my patterns, let them go, and love myself no matter what, in a way that is embracing and healing. As a child I learnt from the environment that I was a vexing, troublesome, forceful and very different person and if I behaved in an expected way I could avoid blame and punishment. Eventually, I accepted their truth to be mine because I could not see myself clearly any more. I became the black sheep, the scapegoat and the nuisance, sort of willingly.

Yesterday, I was reminded that I have a choice to play into others’ vision of me or forgive, let go and hold a vision of myself that is true to who I truly am. I am only peeling the layers of deceit off. What is essential, however, is that I am holding myself in the Light of Innocence engraving it in my consciousness so I do not need to generate these painful experiences any more in order to remember that I am a Child of God and I am inherently Pure.

So it is, Amen.

‘Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,’ (Philippians 2:14-15)

‘For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted; but the one who examines me is the Lord.’ (1 Corinthians 4:4) (source)

purity