growing up spiritually means letting them go." ~ Rogier F. VanVlissingen
Yesterday I encountered an image (on facebook) of a new born baby and a half. Possibly (probably) due to the influence of depleted uranium introduced into that area of the world by my country during a war. This baby had other body parts emerging from it, another set of legs, and entrails visible, barely enclosed in a transparent sack. What struck me were two things. One, the uniqueness of that body, the unpredictable strangeness of such a sight, a one-of-a-kind mutation that my eyes had never before encountered. And two, what struck me equally, was how there was no flinching to be felt in my heart or belly. Not that I'm implying that flinching–in pain, sorrow, anger, devastation– would not be a valid response, especially for the parents and hospital personnel. My response, up close and personal, might have been different. But overall, something in my response to what used to horrify me and make me feel anxious and depressed has been changing.
Does this change have to do with setting healthy boundaries, learning to separate what's mine from what is someone else's problem? Partly, perhaps. Does it have to do with learning how to maintain my separate bubble of well-being in spite of what goes on in the world around me? Partly, maybe. Does it have to do with numbing down feeling and pulling away so that traumatic things are no longer registered by my sensory apparatus? Hardly.
Here's another picture, symbolic this time. Picture a capital U. On the descending side is learning to grow up in worldly terms, which involves building up one's defenses. The ascending side represents growing up spiritually, in which one experiences a dissolving or falling away of those defenses.
Psychologically speaking, it is normal and natural to pull away from what frightens us, what causes us pain. The first time a toddler touches a hot wood stove might be the last. There is sudden learning about what is safe. The stove is impartial and impersonal. Learning about one's physical environment and how to navigate it safely, if we can control some of that, is valuable on a practical level. Physical and verbal abuse might be a lot less easy to get away from, and teach one to not trust other people. Even in a life with no such abuse, it is common for most people to learn, from more subtle negative experiences, to shore up the belief that it is not safe to keep one's heart open at all times. We learn to practice conditional loving as part of growing up, in order to try to not be hurt. Being somewhat defended is part of most people's personality profiles.
What is at the very bottom of the U? A turning point, at which one recognizes that any time one's heart is closed it hurts oneself. No matter what the reason, no matter how many valid excuses there are to remain defended, eventually the awareness comes in that opening the heart is going to help more than staying closed down, shut off, and pulled away is going to solve anything. (It's not as simple as a one time revelation, I'm pointing at a general trajectory.)
The ascent I've begun up the right slope of the U has entailed a reversal of much early learning. I've been given, by life, by grace, many instances of discovering that it is possible to open my heart in spite of what is happening. Deactivating the conditioning can be very intense. There is encountering what used to be taken as an excuse to close the heart, and then choosing to be willing to not shut down in anger, blame, fear, or numbness. To allow, to accept, to stand in the fire of strong feeling, to experience pain while staying open. (I'm not talking about being abused nor advocating that anyone "turn the other cheek" physically.) I'm talking about feeling whatever feelings come up when I encounter things beyond my control to change, those things which used to regularly make me feel out of control and hopeless, broken hearted, despairing. It's not that I don't still feel my heart breaking sometimes, I do.
Open hearted unconditional love is NOT the same as wearing rose tinted glasses, in fact it's closer to the opposite. The journey of spiritual maturing is more about taking those glasses off, one encounter at a time. What is it to be in the world as it is without withdrawing into the defense of self-protection, the defense of closing down and pulling away? Or the defense of getting angry and lashing out and fighting back, blaming the world for making one "have to" shut down one's heart? What does it feel like to allow the frozen, rigid, calcified, traumatized aspects of ourselves be melted back into awareness and rejoin aliveness?
It requires a hell of a lot of courage. But each application of courage releases more awareness to be employed in loving. Rather than searching for light in the darkness, waiting until there is proof that it is worth risking, one opens up one's own heart to let the light of love shine into the world anyway. As one grows in trust and willingness to let love in and through one's own very tiny vulnerable little self, at the same time this love is melting that sense of separate selfhood back into the all. Far from shutting down and pulling away from life, it is a re-emersion back into all of life. A gradual loosening of the boundaries of "me" to include "the rest of the world." If there is the willingness to participate, if we surrender to that inner yearning that longs to love unconditionally, then in spite of previous "lessons" we remember that opening makes it easier, not harder, to live in this imperfect world.
Open hearted unconditional love is NOT the same as wearing rose tinted glasses, in fact it's closer to the opposite. The journey of spiritual maturing is more about taking those glasses off, one encounter at a time. What is it to be in the world as it is without withdrawing into the defense of self-protection, the defense of closing down and pulling away? Or the defense of getting angry and lashing out and fighting back, blaming the world for making one "have to" shut down one's heart? What does it feel like to allow the frozen, rigid, calcified, traumatized aspects of ourselves be melted back into awareness and rejoin aliveness?
It requires a hell of a lot of courage. But each application of courage releases more awareness to be employed in loving. Rather than searching for light in the darkness, waiting until there is proof that it is worth risking, one opens up one's own heart to let the light of love shine into the world anyway. As one grows in trust and willingness to let love in and through one's own very tiny vulnerable little self, at the same time this love is melting that sense of separate selfhood back into the all. Far from shutting down and pulling away from life, it is a re-emersion back into all of life. A gradual loosening of the boundaries of "me" to include "the rest of the world." If there is the willingness to participate, if we surrender to that inner yearning that longs to love unconditionally, then in spite of previous "lessons" we remember that opening makes it easier, not harder, to live in this imperfect world.
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