Why would you choose to limit yourself? To limit your reality?

All reality is yours! It is yours to give.

In giving and sharing, your Joy increases, expanding Love, expanding your experience of LIFE!

 

 

This was a very appropriate thought for me today. I have been feeling limited emotionally, physically, spiritually. It was one of those days when curling up in a ball and tucking myself away felt like a realistic option.

“But”, I think, “I didn’t choose this.” Or did I?

I had to start analyzing how I chose it, if I, in fact, did. After the analysis, I was no closer to knowing. Sometimes this stuff gets way too heavy—trying to look at the interplay of One-many, of Infinite-limited; expansive-bound. These so-called opposites that, in Divine mind are irrelevant get really overwhelming.

That’s a good word for how I feel about the guiding thought and the Journey itself today. I just don’t feel like my mind can see both sides clearly, much less reconcile them in expanding Love.

My smallness surrounded me; how much I don’t know has been glaring at me; my failures-of-follow-through mock me, tell me I deserve what I get (or what I don’t get).

How can I see reality beyond this? How can I give what I don’t have, what I don’t feel?

Here’s the crux of the “overwhelm”: I do have it; I just may not feel it. This is the paradox, the mystery, the fog, the battle that so many spiritual seekers experience (and I note that it’s only a battle because I am participating. Truth does not fight, has nothing to fight against. If I were “in Truth” there would be no conflict what so ever).

Truth is love. Yes. Got it. Blah, blah, blah. I don’t feel it. How can I be worthy if I don’t feel it? How do I reconcile these within myself?

I assert the Truth, because I won’t let my little mind “win”. My little mind doubts, heckles, mocks, tries to get the upper hand. I assert Truth again. My little mind comes back again. And on and on…

Need I point out that I am encountering resistance?

I do find some humor in this. After all, if I weren’t on this Journey, I wouldn’t be pushing my mind to expand. This resistance would never even come up. It has only come up, because I have reached a point in my mind’s own limitations, a point that I need to break past and expand beyond in order to realize the Truth of Being.

The resistance is telling me there is work to do!

There are several ways that I have learned to approach resistance in situations like this.

I’ve chosen: Expressing, listening, forgiveness. That is: express my resistance, listen to it, forgive it. Repeat as necessary.

Here we go:

Me: “In giving and sharing YOUR JOY INCREASES!” (Yes, I do start a bit emphatically; I need to rile it up a bit)

My Resistance (M.R.): “I have no Joy :(”

Me: “Really? Why is that?”

M.R.: “I’m tired of this. Why do you make me do this? I can’t do it! I can’t. You want me to do this and I can’t!”

Me: “Ok. That’s fine. I understand. I don’t want to make you do it. I want to do it with you. I want us to cooperate. I didn’t realize you thought I was making you.”

M.R.: “Yeah. It’s too much. I can’t do it.”

Me: “What about it is too much?”

M.R.: “All that Joy stuff. I am not always happy. Why do you want me to be happy all the time? I can’t be happy all the time! I can’t be that BIG. You want me to grow and be “expansive” and shit. I can’t do that all the time. It’s exhausting. Would you just take a break? “

Me: [I had to think about this, because… it’s true. I hardly ever cut myself a break]. “Hmmmmm… Ok. Thanks for telling me. So, it’s not that you are actually resistant; it’s that I never let up, is that right?”

M.R.: “Yeah. You’re so hard on me, yourself. Would you just relax? I can’t keep up. Every day. Every minute. Every activity. Constant. JUST RELAX.”

Me: “Sooo… you actually are cooperating really well with me, working with me, and it’s me who is pushing too hard?”

M.R.: “TOO DAMN HARD. I can’t keep up. Relax.”

Me: [in an ironic twist, I realize that I need to ask forgiveness of my resistance, or at least…just relax] “How do I do that?”

M.R.: “Duh. ‘Be.’ ‘Be Love.’  ‘Be your Self.’ Isn’t that what you always say?”

Me: “I thought I was doing that.”

M.R.: “You also don’t know how much you don’t know—so here’s just something MORE you don’t know.”

Me: [I can tell My Resistance is getting cocky with me] “Ouch. But you are right. OK. There’s just so much to do!”

M.R.: “And I want you to do it. I’m with you. I don’t resist often, but you’ve been really rough on yourself lately. You don’t have to do it all now. It’s happening. You are doing it. Relax.”

Me: “Ok. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll relax, as much as I can.”

M.R.: “Thanks for listening. You can do it.”

There are a few things interesting about this. Other than that my resistance is right. My resistance is actually trying to help me. At first, I wondered if it was a ploy—you know, my resistance throwing me off, in order to remain stuck in my limitations. After some consideration, I decided that my resistance was sincere, and genuinely trying to help me. By having me feel like I wanted to crawl into a ball and tuck myself away, it was telling me to relax. Feeling overwhelmed about all those paradoxes was helping by having me stop thinking about them.

The obvious main point that my resistance wanted to communicate is that I need to relax. But that doesn’t mean stop. It does mean to let go, go with the flow, trust, do what I can do and not worry about what I can’t do. I think it also means to accept help, to listen, to know that I am supported and cared for. I “do have it” and maybe relaxing is the way to realize it. It’s almost like “me thinks thou dost protest too much”—the more I try to “get it” the further I am from just being it. So my resistance is right. I just need to do what I say… clearly not always so easy.