Heading into Phase II, I spent several weeks doing not much else (aside from living my normal life) than being diligent with my thoughts, refocusing as warranted. Refocusing my thoughts to empower me when I noticed I was disempowered - either back in or heading toward “the battle of the two me’s”.
When I noticed thoughts appearing in my mind that I wasn’t doing something or another that I should be doing, I would smile internally and let the thought go. It became much easier to see it for what it was - old programming - and letting go was becoming surprisingly easy.
Eventually these thoughts came less often. Certainly any emotion that had previously been attached to them was gone or essentially nil.
These thoughts no longer felt like my thoughts, but simply thoughts. As if an innocent child had spoken them and I knew, even if the child did not, that the thoughts had no power. They only gained power when I believed in them, followed them, acted upon them, argued with them, allowed them to persist.
I knew that something big was coming, not only because I wasn’t feeling inspired by any of the things that typically inspired me, but because I had taken a stand that I wanted to, and was willing to, release the last vestiges of who I have been and welcome more of who I really am.
At some point I was given this powerful thought “Release means letting go.”
Release Means Letting Go
Well, duh. Of course release means letting go! Textbook definition if I ever heard one.
But there was a significance to this phrase that I hadn’t seen before. Release means letting go of the story(ies).
Stories about who we are that we have developed over time and lifetimes. Stories that aren’t the real ‘us’ but only ‘us’ as a character in a play. This play, for instance. The one Earth at this time.
I realized in a flash that I couldn’t release “who I am not” while I’m still holding tight to the story of "who I am". The story of this lifetime in this play. That’s what I had to let go of.
Sounds simple, no? Yes. Simple. Not necessarily easy.
I had to look at that concept for awhile. It brought up questions: What does that mean, give up my story? Does it mean I’m not a wife, mother, grandmother, friend? How can I not be those things? I AM those things!
Does it mean I don’t try to control people and circumstances, and I don’t allow myself to be controlled? I could get behind that.
Does it mean I’m a tidy person, not the person with the slob-like nature that I tend to project into my personal life .. in defiance of being told what to do by parties so gone from my life that it’s beyond amazing that I’d still be listening to them? I could get behind that too.
But in letting go of who I am not, is it appropriate to replace one story with another? If I let go that I’m a slob (in my private life, since I am not that in my public life .. and there it is again, that two-headed part of my nature), must I be tidy instead? That didn’t seem right. That smacked of duality. Either/Or. One or the other.
What if releasing the story means I’m not any of those things? What if it means I can behave in tidy ways, I can behave in slobbish ways, I can behave however it suits me to behave? Does it need to have a label?
Hundreds of similar scenarios arose to be examined. I pondered them for days. Things like: If I don’t do the dishes after dinner, what am I? Am I a slob or am I lazy or just very busy or a procrastinator? What am I in that scenario?
Here’s the decision I finally landed on: Maybe I’m not any of those things. Maybe I’m just a human being who .. who didn’t do the dishes after dinner. No judgement, no labels, no story “yep, did it again, left the dishes in the sink just like you always do blah blah blah” ad nauseum. These are ad nauseum judgements that I’ve silently and automatically made for .. well, for all of my life that I can recall.
What if what I was being asked to let go of was nothing more or less than all those stories? All of them.
All of them? That’s a tall order. I have hundreds, thousands, millions, uncountable numbers of stories! Let go of all of them? I slumped back in my chair. oh. my. gawd. How in the name of our lovely Gaia am I supposed to do that?
The answer came instantly and powerfully, as they always do for me when I ask a profound question.
“One story at a time.”
Of course. One at a time.
This could take awhile.
Becoming Real
I remembered a scene from the Velveteen Rabbit that has always held great meaning for me:
“It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse.That’s where we each are right now, in the process of becoming Real - becoming the Who We Really Are.
"You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.
But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
Or perhaps better said, peeling away, releasing, integrating, all that stands between us and who we are really. We're the sculptor removing all that is not the statue. Uncovering, discovering, the treasure hidden inside the stone.
We have been immersed in a process of becoming for eons. One could argue since forever and always.
Getting Outside the Box
But in the most recent play, our becoming was becoming as contained in a box - a box called “Life on Planet Earth”, translated as “life in third density.” In that play we were becoming more of who we are by being a third density human, with all that being a third density human entails - duality, greed, abuse, misery, suffering; power over and overpowered by.
That old becoming was a fun experience, a grueling experience, every type of experience imaginable. But most of us are now done with that becoming, the becoming inside the box. Not all of us, but most of us. Some are still deciding.
Humanity's Turning Point
We’re at a turning point in our becoming. We are now 'becoming' as an expanded being. 'Becoming' the more we have always been. We are including in our selves - but no longer limiting ourselves to - being human. Shedding the illusion that allowed us to become more than we were by focusing all of our awareness inside the box.
But it’s a turning point that takes awhile. It takes a big ship an amount of time to make a turn, it doesn’t happen instantaneously. This is a big ship, this ship of all humanity. A very big ship indeed. But we are in the process of making that turn.
We do so by starting to release the decisions, the judgements, the conclusions, the logical responses that have kept us immersed in our stories, stuck inside the box. This is when we start realizing that it’s all story!
Even the parts we enjoy are stories. We can keep those stories, as long as we enjoy them. As long as they empower us. But even then it’s helpful to remember that they’re just stories.
If something happens inside a story that changes how we feel, remembering it’s all story is very helpful. It keeps us from charging off into powerful emotions that are tied to the story but not to 'us' - to who we are outside of and beyond our stories.
And we release them one story at a time. I am not a slob. Neither am I tidy. I just am. Sometimes I do things that appear slob-like, sometimes I do things that appear tidy-like. What does that say about me? Nothing. Nothing at all. That’s all judgement, all related to the story.
Stories surround us, but they aren’t us. We create them in order to have experiences. It’s the experience that lives on, not the props or the stories.
We each have literally zillions of stories. Do we need to examine each one? I can’t answer that. I’ve been examining mine as they appear, particularly when I notice some negative emotion attached. I know that emotion is tied to the story and not to me, so recognizing, releasing, and integrating the story is both doable for me and important to me. It frees me for different experiences, more joyful experiences. Because “more joyful” is what I choose.
When I find myself ensconced in an emotion like “that pisses me off!” I ask myself “what’s the story?” In one case the story is that people should be courteous. When people aren’t courteous, it pisses me off. That’s a story. How should people be? However they are. Some behave in discourteous ways. What does that say about them? Nothing. Nothing at all.
As I become aware of more and more stories, instead of being angry or upset I often find myself laughing. It really is becoming funny to me how many stories I have, and how deeply I have believed them to be real. “They (whoever ‘they’ refers to in any given moment) are [ fill in the blank ].” No they aren’t. That’s a story. A story that I made up, based on whatever decisions I made for whatever reasons I made them at whatever point that I made them. I added to their power over time by living through similar experiences and not stopping to determine whether the story continued to suit me or not. Automatic. Preprogrammed for my own convenience. Robot like.
A Story Is Just A Story
A story is just a story. The power comes from realizing that I can shift the story or change the story. Or not. My choice. Always my choice. As it is for all of us.
When I see something that occurs for me as a negative, and can see it as part of a story, it takes the bite out it. It loses its emotion and therefore its power.
The war of the selves, my two-headed way of being, control vs defiance, defiance vs control? Story. All of it. I step out of it when I realize - remember - it's a story. And I no longer need it.
That's the process - separating the story from me, me from the story. I am. The story is whatever the story is.
I can't imagine life without stories. I can't imagine there'd be much to do. But I don't have to be my stories. I can just be, and play in the story. Or change the story. Or write a new story.
And I don't need you to change your story to suit me, your story doesn't affect me. Not really. If your story doesn't work for me I can create a new one. For me. I will draw to me, and be drawn to, others who are creating stories similar to mine. That's the true beauty of the Law of Attraction.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
So, one might ask, how is it going for me after all these weeks of discovery and outward non-doing?
Pretty well. In some ways nothing has changed. I have ups and I have downs, but the downs aren’t so severe, they don’t last as long, and I can identify stories for being stories more quickly and more easily. I notice that I'm far less defensive / defiant in all areas of my life.
Sometimes I can let experiences or emotions go just knowing they’re story. Sometimes I’m not quite ready to release them.
But the awareness is there, and that’s all that matters to me. From that view a lot has changed, and changed in important ways. I feel like I’ve crawled out of the sludge that Aisha's friends talked about.
One big story I’m continuing to pick through is the story that keeps me from writing. This is a core story, one that has many twists and turns and sometimes takes me to dark places.
But it’s coming. It’s a process. “All is well in all of creation and all is well with me.” And even that is a story, but a helpful one. Anyway it works for me. It brings me back to my Self.
And what did I learn over these past weeks?
For one, that giving up struggle can be a struggle in itself. But the process works, if we allow it to. Struggle can be interrupted. It can be seen for the old, no-longer-useful programming that it is.
I learned that sometimes you just have to live inside the emotion of a thing until you “get it”. Until you’ve felt it so deeply and so completely that you, as your true Self, are willing to let it go. Then the letting go comes easily.
Accepting Responsibility for My Creations
I suppose this process is my way of releasing a vasana - feeling it long enough and deeply enough that I find completion with it. I'm complete with it when I can accept, appreciate, and honor it as my own creation. Then it easily occurs for me as story and not as me.
At that point the experience becomes integrated into me at the soul level, and thereafter it doesn’t have the power that it once had. I know this because the emotional charge is gone from it. When an experience has been integrated it doesn’t “push my buttons” anymore. When and if a similar situation comes up again I’m able to laugh about it or simply let it be, rather than becoming engaged with it emotionally.
How many years have I lived inside these paradigms of control, of unworthiness, of guilt, of shame, of whatever story I lived, stories that I focused my power of creation into while simultaneously declaring myself a victim of them? Too many. But on the other hand, exactly enough.
Will the process look for everyone like it looked for me? Will it even look like that for me every time? Of course not, on both counts.
But that’s part of the beauty and sweetness of the journey, isn’t it? There are always things to discover about ourselves. We are magnificent! even in our imperfection. Potentially because of our imperfection. And in one way or another we are each waking up to that realization.
The Illusion
It won’t always look like discovering our true selves is what’s going on. Very often it will look like we just got sick, or it will look like we just got angry, or it will look like something ‘just happened.’
Very often we don’t know until we’re in some kind of unpleasant experience what there is to be discovered about ourselves. We don’t know how it’s going to play out or how we’re going to deal with it.
We have free choice always, and we never know ahead of time what we’re going to choose.
Will we choose to discover, to integrate, to get close to discovery or integration, to take back responsibility in the matter of our own stories? .. or will we keep playing the same program, pretending someone or something is 'doing it to us' until we are ready to choose something different?
Discovery
If we think about it, we might realize that our lives are all about discovery.
For in discovering ourselves we discover something about Source, of which we are all an integral and self-same part. If we did not exist, if our loved ones did not exist, if our friends did not exist, indeed if those we say we loathe did not exist, God would not exist. It’s unfathomable in its ramifications.
Stuck as we have been in the reality of our illusions, our various states of being have become so familiar, and we’ve become so good at labeling them, that sometimes we don’t see that there’s a larger discovery underneath what looks a normal or common experience.
Sometimes we have to interrupt normal with something different - not infrequently something painful - to allow ourselves the opportunity to see those experiences from a different perspective.
That’s not a bad thing at all, no matter how uncomfortable an experience might be while we’re experiencing it. They all have value. "It's the journey," as the saying goes, "not the destination."
And what an amazing journey we are on! Just sometimes it doesn't look like that. Sometimes it looks like "the way it is." When it looks like that we forget that we hold the power to create it "the way it could be." But we always have that power, all we need do is exercise it. And we can do that anytime we choose.
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