Original
Purpose
By
Kelly Tobey
Whether
fact or fiction, imagine that before we were born we were still formless
energy plugged into loving spirit. Imagine that we look down on planet
earth and decide – wow these humans could use some support – a lot
of them tend to get lost in patterns of hurt and have forgotten about
the love that is available to them.
Some
of them seem to be able to open themselves from time to time to
receiving love directly from source, some seem to be able to receive
love through nature, some through creativity, others are reminded of
love through their connections with other people. And how sweet that
looks to see them connecting to love and sharing that experience with
each other.
As
we observe, perhaps we get curious about what it would be like to be
able to experience love while in a body. What would it be like to have
physical sensations responding to love?
Imagine
that while still in the state of formless energy, plugged into loving
spirit, we make a choice to ground our loving energy by being born into
form as a human. Perhaps we noticed that some people were having
difficulties in responding to being loved by others. We thought that
coming in as a loving human would give us a chance to help people that
were getting lost, reawaken to love. So we take on the inspired original
purpose of wanting to support others in giving and receiving love.
Because
it is so easy to feel the connection to love while in the state of
formlessness it is likely that we would step forward towards humanness
with lots of confidence that we would be able to wake others up to this
wonderful feeling of unconditional love and of feeling valued.
Yet
in the process of coming into form we get introduced to lots of new
experiences. Some of them are not so wonderful.
While
still in the womb we may be lucky enough to hear and sense that we are
wanted, or we may find out that our parents have fears about their
capabilities of raising a child. Perhaps we hear and feel them dealing
with their struggles in life. Regardless of whether our parents are
capable of sending loving, welcoming, messages to us or not, at least at
this stage things are going well at a physical level. It is nice and
warm here in the womb. Feels wonderful to be floating around freely and
having all food needs taken care of.
Time
passes and this womb home changes from comfortable, into snug, into
restrictive, into imprisoning. Perhaps this is our first introduction to
discomfort or even pain; and there is more to come as we take action to
break out of this home that has transformed into a constrictive space.
The only way out of the confinement is through a narrow opening much
smaller than our body. We may want to get out but it looks impossible.
Then this body that surrounds our own body, this body that used to be
gentle and nourishing, starts to push at us trying to force us through
that tiny opening. Now we are likely getting an experience of pain as
our body is crushed into temporary distortion as it is forced through
this opening.
Even
if we are lucky enough to have nurturing loving people welcoming us as
we come out, we are starting to find out through the birth trauma that
there is no erasing the fact that this human experience is going to be
challenging. We may have gained some self-confidence in our survival of
the birth process, but whew, it has hard earned. How confusing to have
mother go from being the source of nurturing to being a source pressure
and even pain. Even if she is loving to us when we get out of the womb,
how do trust that she wont be the source of pain again?
As
well, during the birthing experience we have picked up on the pain Mom
may be going through. If it is the case we may be feeling that we are a
cause of her pain. How confusing that we came here with the intention to
bring love and yet we end up being the receiver and giver of pain!
We
have just had a taste of some of the reason why we saw a lot of people
feeling disconnected from love when we looked down to earth earlier from
our formless perspective. We have just experienced personally how
difficult it is to feel the presence of love while going through
experiences of pain.
Once
we are out of the womb we start to experience the needs that come with
caring for a physical body. Needs for food, warmth, cleanliness, and
nurturing.
As
our life unfolds we shift between times of living out our purpose by
beaming out with the loving energy that we are a channel for, and times
of forgetting love as we get lost in the neediness that arises from
being in body.
We
start to discover that our idea of just coming in and radiating love to
wake people up is not as effective as what we had predicted. We
experience that although our radiance is received from time to time,
many times it is ignored or even rejected.
What
is going on? We had thought love would be so irresistible. Love feels so
good, wouldn’t it make sense that people would want to drink it up all
the time? Why do they refuse it?
Well
perhaps it is because all these people at one time took a very similar
journey to the one we are taking. They came to bring love like we did.
Yet when time and again that love is not received it is easy to start to
believe that we are a failure because we are not able to fulfill the
purpose of our mission in the way we had envisioned it while still in
formlessness.
To
compound matters, at times we are the catalyst for others pain (like
when we came out of the womb), and our needs become a burden for others
to handle (such as our need for our caregivers to look after us a
child). What happened to that original intention to bring love?
If
we have turned our purpose into a sense of duty, we will have a demand
on ourselves to ‘save’ the world. Every place we see people feeling
disconnected from love and we are unable to transform it; every place we
feel we add more burden to others; will be situations that will trigger
us into feeling like a failure, incapable of living out our duty in the
way our expectations are demanding we should.
If
that original purpose changed from being a vision to inspire and
encourage us to keep reaching out with love, into a sense of duty with
all the trappings of having to live up to set expectations, then we are
set up to feel like a failure.
If
we were fully conscious of these dynamics that are playing out we could
start to unravel them, but unfortunately most of us at a conscious level
will have forgotten why we came here. We will have consciously forgotten
our original purpose of bringing in love. Yet it is not forgotten in the
subconscious mind.
Consciously
we may have no idea why we sometimes do not feel ‘good enough’ but
in our subconscious mind, when our purpose to awaken people to love has
changed to a duty and we have failed to accomplish it, we will be eating
away at our own self-esteem. On top of that we can start to take on
guilt and shame about the neediness we have as a human that can feel
like a burden to those that we thought we were coming to support.
If
we look out at the family we were born into and see that they are still
sometimes suffering and disconnected from feeling love, our subconscious
agenda to save them can make us feel like a failure. With that feeling
of failing can come more guilt, shame and self-condemnation.
Unfortunately
in this world we have come into, it is common for punishment to be doled
out when someone fails at something, or makes some kind of mistake. The
punishment can come in various forms, from – withdrawal of approval -
through to various forms of attack.
The
subconscious patterns continue to build. We have made our purpose of
bringing loving awareness into a duty.
When feeling we are failing at that duty, it leads to feeling
guilty about the failing, then the next layer is to feel we need to be
punished for failing. What better way to punish ourselves than to block
the receiving of love. The irony of this situation becomes obvious once
we understand how the patterns are set up and unfold, but remember that
at this earlier point in our lives all this is happening below our
conscious awareness.
If
we start to consciously understand how this pattern of blocking love
gets set up, we will start to see why so many times people will refuse
to receive our freely given love. They too have set up their own blocks
to love because subconsciously they believe they have failed their duty
to save everyone with love and so feel they need to be punished.
Lets
look at the next layer that gets built into the subconscious mind. The
weight of the shame that comes with feeling like a failure for extended
periods of time becomes almost unbearable. In a culture that hands out
punishment for mistakes there is always a search for whom to make
responsible for the mistake. After a while, in order to get out from
under the weight of shame and self punishment our minds will get
creative about how to shift the shame of self, into the blame of others.
So to attempt to shift the feeling of failure in ourselves for not being
able to save people with love, we will blame them for blocking love and
not giving love to us.
Now
we can judge others for being ‘bad’ and not living a loving life
style. This can extend from judging people in our immediate family right
on through to judging people we have never met but have only heard about
through the media.
This
unconscious attempt to shift away from feeling like a failure at our
purpose to bring love, by blaming others, does not work. In fact it
tends to add to our underlying sense of failure because to get lost in
judgment and blame, we get further and further away from our purpose of
being loving. This deepens our sense of undeservability and reinforces
our unconscious desires to punish ourselves.
These
patterns are likely the foundation to every dysfunctional behavior we
play out. Examples:
Ø Why would we try to push our loved ones into changing their life for the better? Telling them to - read this book. Go to that workshop. Quit that behavior. Eat this way. Etc. etc.
Because if we see them being anything but happy and loving it is an unconscious reminder that we feel we have failed our duty. If we do not want to feel like a failure we will try to control and push them into success, disrespecting their free will.
Ø Why would we get caught in patterns of perfectionism, relentlessly pushing at ourselves?
Because we are trying to make up for unconscious feelings of being a failure, thinking if we can reach that point of perfection we will feel better about ourselves.
Ø Why would we block receiving abundance in our life?
How could we open to truly receiving abundance when we carry an unconscious belief that we do not deserve it because of thinking we failed at our original purpose to bring love.
Note: True abundance comes from receiving fully. We can be surrounded by lots of things and people without ever fully receiving them.
Ø Why would we go into rebellion against our family members, carrying anger against them?
It seems easier to blame our family and make them bad than to surface the deeper feelings we carry of feeling guilty for not being able to transform them with love.
Ø Why would we dive into depths of hopelessness and depression?
Because feeling defeated at accomplishing our purpose to bring love, leads to a sense of pointlessness.
Ø Why would we get caught in pushing ourselves with a perfectionistic drive into accomplishment after accomplishment in an attempt to prove our worth?
Because of wanting to make up for our subconscious feelings of unworthiness that is formed by our guilt about not fulfilling our self enforced duty to ‘save the world’ with our love.
Ø Why would we get righteous and evangelical about our beliefs, attempting to force them on others?
Because of feeling like it is our duty to save the world.
Ø Why, instead of holding a place of compassion, would we feel angst about the pain and suffering in the world and frustrated with the lack of speed involved in transformation?
Again because of feeling like it is our duty to save the world.
Ø Why would we get involved in power struggles with our partners, forfeiting happiness for the demand to be right?
Because if we can prove them wrong then we can blame unhappiness on them and avoid being accountable for our part in the situation.
Ø Why would we get lost in patterns of sacrifice, desperately trying to please others while forfeiting self-care?
Because we get to unconsciously punish ourselves for failing while at the same time trying to make up for the failure by attempting to please others.
Ø Why would we spend years being blocked to what our purpose is, living lives that do not feel purposeful?
Because
of the unconscious fear that if we consciously rediscover our original
purpose it will lead to feelings of grief about not having lived it. As
well, living a life disconnected from purposefulness, is a great way to
punish ourselves.
If
we continued to explore dysfunctional patterns we are likely to find
that most, if not all are foundationally created from the underlying
dynamic of inspired purpose turned into duty and the following
ramifications of that. In uncovering this it becomes clearer and clearer
why people are not readily opening up to the state of love even though
it is continually available to us, and nothing is blocking it except our
refusal to receive. Of course we are not consciously out to block love.
The blocks to love all maintain their power over us by staying below our
conscious awareness.
So
now that we have spent this time establishing the ‘bad’ news, how
about some ‘good’ news? Well the ‘good’ news starts with gaining
more and more clarity about what is driving the dysfunctional blocks.
Which we have been starting to unravel with this reading.
Fortunately
the next steps are simple. Not always easy to apply
because of our tendency to slip back into unconscious patterning, but simple.
One
of the underpinning keys is to get clear that our purpose to bring love
to the planet is not a duty. I repeat, it may be our purpose to
bring love but it is not our duty. When we fully get this, not
just mentally and conceptually, but get it with the core of our being,
then we can start the process of forgiving ourselves for every mistake
this misconception led us to make.
The
list of mistakes is likely to be long, and we are likely to make lots
more mistakes in the time that it takes us to learn to correct our
misconceptions. So the process calls for lots of patience, compassion
and mercy on ourselves.
Thankfully
Spirit forgives every mistake at the same time as it is being made.
Spirit never holds our mistakes against us even for a second. The only
one that needs to forgive us and take us off the hook is ourselves.
Again, the process is simple even if it is not always easy:
Ø We make a mistake.
Ø We take ownership.
Ø We acknowledge and process the emotions.
Ø We forgive ourselves.
Ø We apologize to self and/or others.
Ø We make restitution when relevant.
Ø
We re-dedicate to loving action or non-action.
The
process of forgiveness is not about condoning mistakes, it is about
having mercy on the essence of the person behind the mistake. In the
process of self-forgiveness if we stop at the step of forgiveness we
leave ourselves more vulnerable to slipping back into another mistake.
If instead we take all the steps including the crucial one of
re-dedicating to love, then we open ourselves up to the path that leads
us away from re-doing the mistakes.
Let
the re-dedication to love flow out of inspiration, not out of duty. Our
free will choice to love or not is totally honored by Spirit. Love is
not a state of control or pressure so it cannot be forced, rather it can
only be experienced while in a state of choosing it with free will. So
any pressure on ourselves or others to be loving is oxy-moronic.
To
honor love, all pushing needs to change into offering. Living a purpose
of sharing love flows out of offering. Free will honored, no duty
involved, no need to push.
Why
would we want to live out a purpose of sharing love? Well for one thing
it dissolves every dysfunctional behavior. Every act of dysfunction
comes from forgetting how to live in love.
The
journey may be long and we may be faced with many steps, some easy and
some difficult, but we can always rely on the simplicity of the
following. Any problem we face can be met and eventually cleared by
acting on the answer we receive when asking this simple question each
step of our journey: What would love invite me to do in this situation?
Crucial:
the question has to be asked of Spirit’s interpretation of love, not
of ego’s interpretation of love.
This
is accomplished by building our discernment and our intuitive connection
to the messages of love.