When the Price is Too High - II

In my last article, I began to talk about compromise and what happens to us when we embark upon that long road that has no real ending, only beginnings.  My own particular journey in this regard has been long and painful.  I chose for my soul core makeup in this reality to express the ego persona of a female with a masculine gender vibration.  This has created quite an interesting complexity for my psyche reconciliation.  Having this innate understanding that subservience was not a comfortable position for me, and yet choosing various employment and relationship scenarios where I was expected (both covertly and overtly) to adhere to some semblance of subservience created some very interesting people and relationship interactions for me to be sure.  Let me just say here that wonderful opportunities for soul growth await when we choose interesting and apparent conflicting soul composites, and I have had no shortage of these wonderful opportunities.

For example, I love to dance.  Nothing gives me more pleasure than to twirl about the dance floor and I love all manner of dance.  However, it is always traditional for the woman to follow so she leads with her left while the man leads with the right.  I am always trying to lead!  I get so crossed up in my steps sometimes I have to stop and just laugh at myself.  And, I always want to lead – I am not a good follower.  I have all of the absolute directness that accompanies masculine energy and yet I spent a great deal of my life trying to be soft.  It was exhausting, let me tell you.

Rather than being honest with myself and my apparent challenges, I elected instead to compromise who I was in order to get some of what I needed.  I learned to be silent to the point of becoming ill just to hide the real me of me.  And although this is the behavior of most of us on the planet, it is by far the number one cause of the various dis-eases and maladies that have plagued mankind for millennia.  There is no separation between mind, body, and soul – they are interwoven and what effects one will affect the other.  We must learn to become honest with ourselves, but gently and lovingly lest our built-in protective devices step in and hide what should be revealed and reconciled.

So, let’s move a little bit more along the road of compromise and some of the layers that we discover on this most-often traveled avenue.

As I became more and more accomplished in the art of compromise, I failed to realize that I was creating a layer of self-doubt that appears as part of our Shadow Self.  The very act of compromise (especially when we are giving up and giving in reluctantly) implies that we somehow do not know everything we need to know, so we acquiesce to what someone else wants/knows.  The need for approval really kicks in here.  Being unsure and uncomfortable in recognizing and then asserting my power and thus affirming what I really wanted (or needed) made me susceptible to an accomplished emotional blackmailer.  I knew all too well the punishment that awaited me if I did not give in.  This punishment would range from the withholding of affection or recognition to being severely chastised – with the end result being the same — I was left feeling emotionally defeated and internally resentful.

Once we begin to travel this path of self-doubt we categorically no longer trust our own instincts and thoughts.  We begin to look outside ourselves for the answers to the most mundane of life-decisions (depending upon the level and intensity of our self-doubt). 

All of our answers are within.  There is never a need to look “out there” for an answer to our life challenges.  It has been said that no problem can withstand sustained thinking.  I have found this to be true 100% of the time.  We do not need to ask “someone else” what is in our own highest and best good.  But long ago, and quite innocently, our trust in ourselves and our decision making process was taken away to a greater or lesser degree and it is hard to admit that we no longer trust ourselves to do what is right for us and of no intrinsic harm to others.  We no longer have a barometer by which to navigate.  We long ago quieted the voice in our heart until it became that still small voice that we have heard so much about.  I, however, am convinced that once upon a time, this still small voice was quite loud.

Again, once we have our self-doubt going full throttle, it is easy for us to be emotionally blackmailed.  Self-doubt gathers momentum until the simplest decision can cause sleepless nights and endless telephone conversations to well-intentioned family and confidants.  We need the good opinion of the parent(s), significant others, co-workers, siblings, or even our employer in some instances.  Our self-esteem is so tied up in the opinions of others that we go to great lengths not to tarnish their image of us because of our own emotional dependency.  As for the power brokers, they are on such a “high” for having such control over us that they wield their power at every given opportunity.  It more often than not bolsters their own insecurities and makes them feel temporarily — better about themselves – until the remorse of their actions comes into play.  And it always does in various disguises.  We are multi-dimensional spiritual beings and when we mistreat others we will always – on some level (if we are psychologically sentient) - experience remorse for our actions.  Always!

I can remember as a child being quite clairvoyant.   During the ages between five and eight, I was chastised severely for my “perceptions” – repeatedly punished and in some cases spanked.  By the time I was 10, my clairvoyant gifts were completely submerged.  My caregiver had succeeded in her systemic dismantling and my Authentic Self expression was crushed for many years to come.  It has been a long journey back to trust in my perceptions and intuitive renderings, and a continual struggle to maintain this balance.   

Can you recall a decision that you may have just recently faced – one that you deemed important?  Can you recall when you became apprehensive and began to feel that you were incapable of making the right decision?  If you can follow the feeling back to its source you can hear who is speaking and begin to nail down where some of your trust issues began to solidify.  I did this and then slowly and deliberately moved into a place of observation and then non-judgment.  Once my psyche realized that I was not waiting with a large stick to crack over its head, the memories were allowed to surface and I began to see all of the past memory patterns that were still running, but had been ultimately buried deep within the sub-subconscious memory area.

I want to digress here, if I may, for just a moment.  There is nothing within us that is our enemy – not even our ego persona.  Knowing the real functions that various aspects of our psyche perform can move us from an adversarial position with ourselves to one of harmony and appreciation for our wonderful complexity.  We are nothing short of magnificent beings!  We are beautifully unique and exquisitely crafted.  It is time we began recognizing this. 

Take for example, the ego.  Its real divine function is primarily one of protection.  The ego will always step in and prevent you from reconciling and creating traumatic issues for yourself unless you learn to approach yourself lovingly and non-judgmentally.  This is an automatic response mechanism and one that you cannot circumvent.  The ego, by divine design, is on continuous record from conception to around 21 years of age and then pretty much on automatic recall for the duration of our life experience – recalling to memory what a color is and all of the many nuances and accumulated knowledge we have about life on this three dimensional plane: color, sight, taste, smell, sound.  Our ignorance of its true function and our refusal to take control at our Will Center is not the fault of the ego.  We have become absentee landlords and the ego has been forced to step in and perform in an arena it was never designed to navigate.  And, it does so poorly.  Continual compromise causes us to circumvent our own Will Center and it gradually gives up and retreats to quieter, less confrontational waters.

Let me also say briefly here, that our Shadow Self is not a negative aspect of our being either.  There are those who would say the ego persona and the Shadow Self are synonymous.   I do not hold this view.  As earlier stated, our ego persona is largely a reporter of our world as it exists in memory.  It is not by design the interpreter and should not be in charge of telling you how to feel about … only what is.  On the other hand, our Shadow Self is the repository of those aspects of ourselves that need to be reconciled.  Our Shadow Self is important to us and of immeasurable assistance when we begin to pull together our splintered psyche.  It holds all of our strong emotions – anger, hurt, fear, guilt, etc., until we are strong enough to handle the processing and reconciliation of these emotions.  As complex beings we have an emotional body.  It is an integral part of our being and we must learn how to keep it open and unblocked.  Until we are able to do that; however, the Shadow Self holds all of these unprocessed emotions in check so to speak in an effort to keep us from being overwhelmed by the sheer weight of carrying them around.

As we practice trust we will begin to move from the lower vibration of self-doubt into the higher vibration of self-assuredness.  We begin to recognize more fully what we need and want and when we can accommodate the wishes of others and when we cannot.  In other words, we can begin to learn to set boundaries.

All is energy and we are learning how to move from the lower vibrations into the higher vibrations.  Thus, we move from self-doubt to self-assuredness.  I prefer this to self-confidence.  The vibration of self-confidence still implies exterior definition for me.  I decided to set my intent at self-awareness and self-assuredness instead.  It does not imply an action but more of a state of being.