…and they lived happily ever after

“The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.” ~W. H. Auden~ Poet (1907-73)

How’s it going for you right now? If you are like most of us (me included), it is getting pretty intense. It seems like one thing after another is popping up and sweeping through my life. Life is a bit like standing in the middle of a war zone while bombs explode all around, not sure whether to duck and cover, dart left or right, or flip the channel and hope the screen changes to a more benign picture. Sound familiar? What happened to happy endings and walking off into the sunset happily ever after?

The ground I stand upon is breaking apart quickly now. The last holdouts of ego are being burnt away. Evidently when I invited God to clean house, He took me seriously. Everything I still held dear, my relationships with family, the lives of loved ones, financial where-with-all, everything with the one exception of Love itself, is vacating the premises. And, it is painful. There are no white knights coming to save me and I have no hope that the cavalry will be coming round the corner anytime soon. I wrote a note to a friend yesterday and it says it all. (I am glad she is a good friend … can’t imagine getting a note like this one.)

“I feel like I am sitting in the fires of hell burning down to the last puff of smoke … painful it is to say the least. Details aren’t important. Thank you for your love and warm embrace. We all need those around us to hold the space as life has its way with us. Ours is to be with what is regardless of the contents. Most of us think that if we listen to the Divine voice we will be protected. Not exactly true. We will be present … which is another way of saying alive instead of being dead (caught in illusion) or not being with what is. That’s all I know right now. Listening doesn’t make life Good. It makes us alive, capable of being here for each other. It is only mind that believes life should be other than it is and that is in the fire. I can smell it crackling and sizzling on the coals.”

Standing amidst the incoming volleys is the most courageous of human acts. Choosing to neither run nor hide, but to stand right in the middle and feel the pain is hard but, not doing it is unthinkable to me. That would mean consciously choosing to be absent. Maybe that is why anti-depressant use has doubled in the last few months. They dull our experience of life and make it appear more bearable. Life is painful. Life isn’t always joy and happiness. It includes watching the suffering of others and being present to their pain and to our own as well. But, if we aren’t going to be present, we are simply one of the dearly departed – absent and incapable of being of service to each other.

I wish I could get a hold of the Brothers Grimm. I would ask them if they knew what they were doing when they wrote all those fables that programmed little children to believe life is a wonderful fairytale with a happy ending. Perhaps they lived on a less remedial planet and had access to the advanced information that is only available once this part of me that is separate burns away. Maybe they knew what I am only now glimpsing, that once the vessel is purified, life simplifies, and all that remains is Love. Perhaps once the last embers turn to ash, there will be greater understanding. Running and hiding or revoking permission is out of the question. I choose life with all of its messiness, with all of its potential. I am here. Perhaps that is the white knight – being present. I hear the bluebirds singing their happy tune and the sunset is stunning. Can you see it?

“For those who immerse themselves in what the fairy tale has to communicate, it becomes a deep, quiet pool which at first seems to reflect only our own image; but behind it we soon discover the inner turmoils of our soul – its depth, and ways to gain peace within ourselves and with the world, which is the reward of our struggles.” Bruno Bettelheim ~ child psychologist and author (1903-1994)

Quite backwards from what mind expects

 

The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds. — John Maynard Keynes (UK Economist)

 

There is not one of us that, if we knew how to, wouldn’t let go of outdated, unwanted and often times destructive thoughts, beliefs and behaviors—our demons.  It wasn’t that long ago that I sat in meditation and cried out in pain, “God, help me!  I don’t know how to let go.”  I was looking at an old tape, a sense of not being accepted or loved by my Dad.  He was long dead and yet as alive as if he was standing right next to me.  I knew that the old tape had to go. I just didn’t know how to let it go.  I sat there with my hands tied up in knots, little pillars of rock, trying to open them and let go of the beliefs trapped within them.  

 

Old tapes continue to run regardless of how many times we say “No! Go away.”  Within days, if we are lucky, or moments later, if we are not, the tape begins again.  Sometimes the voice is loud and resonates with familiarity—a voice from the past—a family member, a lost love, a past hatred.  If we pay attention we will hear our own voice speaking.  Sometimes words don’t formulate and the tape is nothing more than a bit of discomfort.  Even so, we know what it is saying.  It says, “You can’t do it, so why try?”, “Who are you trying to kid?” or “Watch out or they’ll find out who you really are.”

 

If the thread of hope is not too dim, we look away and try to bull our way through, chiding ourselves for allowing such thoughts residence within our heads.  We must try harder, do more visualization, meditate more, pray more, chant more, set better intentions—a hell in itself when seen clearly.  For others of us, quickly, silently the flash of inspiration is forgotten, little more than a passing fancy, something we aren’t even quite sure existed, except unfortunately at a sub-conscious level.   

 

As we turn away, rather than turning towards, our unspoken agreement adds another layer of unworthiness.  It is subtle and ever so deadly.   As soon as we are willing to see this though, the possibility known as ‘letting go’ emerges.   Letting go is actually a misnomer.   A better word would be its description—letting it in.   Turning towards begins the process.  As we turn towards the thought or belief with a willingness to see it clearly we stop the energy of denial and resistance that dams up the universal flow and damns us to our small inadequate image in the process.  

 

Most of what I have discovered as I fully engaged this grand experiment called life has been quite backwards from what mind expected.  Letting go is a perfect example of that.  Letting go implies disconnecting from that which you wish to release, a separation so to speak.  In actuality to release oneself from being at the effect of (a type of addiction to) a thought or belief, a reconnecting is in order, or said another way, re-integration. 

 

To the mind it doesn’t make sense.  Minds need separation in order to compare and contrast. Mind constantly breaks things into smaller and smaller pieces.  As we attempt to let go by disconnecting ourselves, we are in essence, further intensifying our separation, the real reason we were attempting to let go in the first place.  We wanted to let go of the thought or belief because it kept us small and disconnected. 

 

Re-integration puts the pieces back together.  It makes us whole again.   Every thing about it feels backwards, in fact rather nonsensical.  Pay no attention.  That is merely the ranting of a delusional mind that believes it has all the answers, the same mind that daily creates more separation and pain.  If you can sense the possibility of insanity, you might want to consider experimenting a bit.      

 

Step One: Intentional Stopping

With eyes wide open, turn 180 degrees.  Choose to turn and face rather than run and hide.  When you catch even the tiniest of glimpses, stop.  Even if it is just a sense of something, in the moment quite unknown to you, stop.   Declare to the world that you will not run, that you will not hide, that you will stand and meet your demons.  I have found no way through my fears, and what are unwanted thoughts and beliefs but fears, that does not include this step.  Stopping is a leap of faith that will catapult you into a truth that is so much more than what you think.  It is well worth any discomfort.

 

Step Two: Uncompromising Curiosity

As you face your demon, be curious about it.  Decide that you want to know everything there is to know about it.  Walk around it metaphorically speaking, and inquisitively study every facet, down to the very foundation upon which it stands.  Fall so deeply into wonder that you marvel at how amazingly creative you and your demons have been.  Allow yourself to be totally surprised, completely in awe of your new discoveries. The demon is your diamond.  Dig deeply to find the entire gem.   

 

Step Three: Gracious Hospitality

Invite your demon to sit down, pull up a chair and join you.  If it wants to stay, fine.   If it wants to go, that is fine too.  Desire neither its departure nor its presence.  It is your thought, your belief.  It is a part of you. Give it your complete ‘Yes’, your full acceptance.  In time you may fill hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of chairs.  Sit with your demon(s).  Breathe them into every cell.  Allow them entry into your heart.  Deny them no more. There is nothing to fear.    

 

The path of re-integration takes courage, for at times it will feel as if you will die.  What is dying though is the sense of a separate self.  Last time I checked I was still alive and I have been practicing re-integration for years.  When the folly of further separating oneself, of denying what is present for you in this moment, is clearly seen, courage comes more easily, the choice more choice-less, a natural ‘of course, what else can I do’. 

 

You can’t go through it

Without going through it

‘Til it goes through you

‘Til you know the truth

Kenny Loggins, chorus of “The Art of Letting Go”