Once we become 'sick-and-tired of being sick-and-tired' and make the conscious choice to step fully into our power, there is no turning back. Even if we think we are throwing in the towel, there is no way to un-know what we've learned. We can't graduate from college then decide we want to be kindergarteners again.
Awareness changes everything. And once we begin such a journey there is sometimes the misconception that this 'enlightenment' will cleanse our lives of any and all turmoil. This is the old way of reasoning - believing that if we are good, only good things will happen to us or that being bad equates to bad things happening to us. Shoot, simply believing, "Things are happening to me," rather than "I have the ability to change my circumstances," is a victim mentality. There is zero personal-power in this rationale.
Self-awareness is an infinite journey. There is no end, no achieving it, or 'getting there.' It is a deep exploration into ourselves. This awareness naturally shifts our life experiences. My guess is that we purposely came here, forgot who we were so we could find ourselves and from that process of remembering, we expand. This might mean walking through experiences we don't enjoy and yes, sometimes it means walking through the pits of fricken hell! Remember we don't grow very much living behind a white picket fence. We grow in the trenches. The more intense the challenge, the greater the growth.
I won't kid you, moving through our shit isn't what I'd put on the fun list! But if we don't deal with it, it will keep rising to the surface until we do. This isn't a one-time, "okay I'm done," type of process either. We have layers of entertaining stuff to explore; blankets of beliefs we've collected along our journey, to sift through and decide if they're rubbish or not.
So how do we begin rummaging through all this? By reconnecting to ourselves; by allowing ourselves to feel again; by no longer throwing up armors to divert our pain, but rather sinking into it and expressing whatever it is that comes up. The goal is to integrate our stuff so we're no longer directing our pain outward toward others. Anger, sarcasm, blame, etc are simply pain's bodyguards. They are defense mechanisms we use as protection to hide the fact that we're hurting.
When we attempt to side-step our pain, it will continue to 'act out' in our every day lives. By feeling our stuff we move 'through' it, not around it.
This 'moving through' is rarely done in one fell swoop (thank goodness for that would be horrendous!) but gradually over time. Our lives can be flowing quite smoothly one second, then suddenly out of nowhere, something happens that pisses us off, or knocks us to our knees, or triggers us in some way. This is simply more of our pain rising to the surface to be examined and dealt with. When this happens, are we gonna fall back into that place we know so well, where we leap into defense-mode ready to attack, or are we gonna really look at what's going on within us so we can finally move beyond it?
There is of course, no 'right or wrong' answer. We have free-will afterall. And let me reiterate, it's no picnic in the park moving through our stuff, namely because it calls for the very thing that perhaps we are most afraid of - vulnerability. It requires us to fire our bodyguards, lay down our defensive shields and no longer numb ourselves with our favorite 'feel better' addictions. It insists that we feel everything.
I remember during my earlier 'shit processing' days, I often became deeply frustrated with myself for not being able to reach some mystical place of free-flowing peace that it seemed like everyone else was achieving.
Well, I eventually learned that it's not a place, but a way of being. The more pain we process, the more calm and peaceful we become because we're no longer lugging that baggage around. Then this peaceful state of being becomes our normal modus operandi. When we're willing to be vulnerable and face our true selves on a regular basis, it allows us the ability to walk out the other side of our pain, feeling powerful.
To each one of you who are experiencing something challenging right now, know that you are standing at a crossroad of expansion. You decide the direction. If you choose the incline leading to the summit, just know that there will be a few boulders to climb and perhaps some ditches you'll stumble into, but your willingness to 'feel' it all will enable you to get right back up with a minimal amount of bruising.
I love you all so much!