I absolutely love my magnificent journey!
You can call it “spiritual”, or a journey to self-awareness, or self-realization, but regardless of what you call it, what I know for sure is that it is a delicious crazy-ass ride!
I was rather “quiet” with my writing, over the past few years. Mostly because I was playing it safe, trying to not rock a particular boat. Honesty, my spiritual-ego was attempting to “control” a situation by managing conditions in the hope I could avoid upsetting another, who didn’t like how I openly share my life. Although I suspended much of my blogging, the upsets didn’t stop. Thank goodness!
What finally “snapped” me out of that story, and caused me to Shift & Lift, was the discomfort I felt for withholding my Truth—my brilliance! You see, through writing and teaching, I remain transparent. By not writing and sharing the adventures of my journey, I was holding unto “secrets” that literally acted as blocks in my energy field. I guess it’s the same for a songwriter that stops writing songs, an actor that stops acting, or a rose bud cut off before it could bloom. I’m a teacher of spiritual principles, and my life is the classroom where I experience my lessons, which I then have the privilege of sharing with others, who are learning from my examples!
I truly felt dishonest. Something felt way off. Writing is one of the ways I share my own journey, because I love, love, love, being transparent. You see, when there is nothing to hide, there is no need to hide! For me, transparency is delicious, and that way no one need wonder what I’m up to. I lived in hiding between age ten and forty one, and honestly, it totally sucked wind to live a pretend life.
At forty one, I entered the journey that began to reveal the magnificent and brilliant “me”, which I had kept hidden inside, as I allowed my ego mind to justify all kinds of fear-based beliefs about who I was supposed to be, or couldn’t be, in order to be liked, approved of, and loved by others. Yep, I was the “people pleasers” association’s poster child.
One of the wondrous gifts of my magnificent journey, is that there is nothing that causes me discomfort that I don’t look at, in order to become more aware of the layers of fear-based beliefs, which my insidious ego uses to hide the real me. You may even be familiar with one of my Lainaisms: “every irritation is an invitation to question my ego’s motivation.” Here are a few of the fear-based beliefs my ego used to justify hiding my magnificence, so I could feel safe:
“Saying nothing is more spiritual.”
“Keep the peace to be at peace.”
“Let it go.”
“They won’t get it anyways, so why bother.”
“By keeping the peace, I’ll be like Jesus, Buddha & Mother Theresa.”
“Eckhart Tolle said this too shall pass.”
“shhhh…don’t make waves.”
“If I speak up I’ll be punished.”
The crazy-ass part is that all of these fear-based beliefs, along with others that are similar in nature, had me convinced that “I” should not say what I needed to say. My ego was deluding me into believing that from my superior “spiritual” perspective, I was doing the right thing. I was choosing to believe that to be a good spiritual “Saint-Monk” meant I could only experience peace by not upsetting others. Which is spiritual code word for: Manipulation! Bottom line is that I, while under the influence of my ego, was simply attempting to control the behavior of another, so I wouldn’t get hurt. Ouch!
I noticed I was becoming a spiritual martyr…hello! If I didn’t have the level of awareness that I have, thanks to the teaching I do, I could have easily shifted and drifted into a completely dis-empowering victim story that would have snuffed my light, my voice, and my power, rendering me once more a depressed messed. But because I had crawled from my ego’s web, quite a few times before, especially during the darker years of my journey, I was actually aware of, and observing, what was going on almost as if I was watching myself from outside a two-way mirrored interrogation room. It honestly felt like an episode of the Twilight Zone!
The point of this long story is that as our consciousness expands deeper into Truth, our ego goes along for the ride. And it is always—and only—the ego that wants to become spiritual. That which is Spirit within us, doesn’t need to “get” or “become” what It already is. The spiritual journey is a return to our authentic Self. And the return is simply a becoming aware of, and then releasing what covers up, blocks, and imprisons that which is already Spirit/Soul/Source, brilliant and magnificent, within us.
I am very grateful to have experienced this incredibly interesting exercise in self-awareness. This process showed me, not only why this journey takes a while—usually lifetimes—but more importantly how to recognize the traps our spiritual ego places on our path. By the way, there is nothing wrong with saying nothing and letting things go. However, spiritual discernment allows us to do these things out of love, and with compassion. This is done without manipulations or expectation, which honors the magnificence in ALL of us.
Since the ego lacks any logic or discernment, it uses otherwise beautiful spiritual Truths, to insidiously perpetuate separation. Since I was judging another “less spiritually capable” than me, my judgment came from MY fear, and it is fear that always leads us to control and manipulate. Instead of respecting, where we each are on our journey, I judged another while I made myself superior, and offered as punishment the withholding of my Truth by not writing much. Hello…who missed out on what I love doing? ME!!!!
This strategy, like all ego strategies, always backfires because all that that suppressing and withholding did was to imprison my authenticity, within my self-imposed fear-made prison walls. The irony is that our egos think that no one sees what’s behind our protective walls. And yet our ego’s shenanigans are always quite obvious to others. I was so grateful to many of you who has asked me why I wasn’t writing or offering my workshops as often. Some of you called me out, because you weren’t fooled!
I assure you I’ll never hide again! Because when I hide my magnificence, fearing others will shrink because of it, ego uses my silence to withhold from ME—My Truth—the very love, joy, and peace, that allows my life to unfold with fun and ease!
My beloved friends, I know Truth. Yet the real purpose of our journey is for us to experience all of the ways our ego justifies why we should shrink and hide, and once we are aware of this insanity, we can choose again, to NOT buy into that BS—Bullshit or ego Belief System, it’s all the same.
I, like everyone awakening, is undergoing a transformation that is bringing into our conscious awareness EVERY belief we hold that is based on fear, and muzzles our voice. I will share how I continue to follow the call of God/Source, which is what awakens us from the ego-made illusion of fear. I am very clear about what I am—a magnificent child of God–and I am clear how I (all of us) forget that. My personal work is to live by Truth and serve as an example for others of what awakening is really about. In the words of Esther Hicks, “I know this stuff, but I don’t always live it.” Thank you for your love and companionship on this beautifully delicious journey!
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” — Marianne Williamson