Stream of Consciousness 6: Ripping off the Band Aid
I need to love myself before I can love anyone else. For so long, I’ve craved to be with another person. Ever since my first crush in 6th grade, I have been obsessive over finding love. I needed to fill this intangible, unnamable void within me. My mother’s death affected me far more than I have been willing to admit. Her passing tore a piece of my soul away, and the resulting vacuum has left me feeling incomplete in every waking moment.
When I first laid eyes on my crush, I felt a feeling surge from within me, and this had to be calling. All other things faded away as my world twisted itself around this obsession. Nothing else came close to filling me with such warmth. When I eventually realized that nothing was going to happen between us because I squandered too many opportunities, I shifted my focus onto another girl, and then another. This object of desire was ever present, and ruled my very being.
I realize now that void will never be filled by chasing such pursuits of passion. Instead, it must be healed. I must be willing to step away from the denial that I have lived in for 19 years and come to see how this clay has been truly shaped by the world. I have become masterful at deflecting and hiding behind figments of my imagination which have been less painful to live with. All the while, I have looked outward for a remedy. It is in this moment that I fully embrace the knowledge that the alchemy I need can only be done within.
I’m a seeker. I seek an answer to a question that was never asked. As a result, I can never find what I’m looking for out there in the world. The real answers come from within us, and they are always there. We are born with the truth of life beating in our chests. We only need to listen to the light emanating from our core to know how to shine ourselves. We are radiant, divine beings, Gods and Goddesses, but we can only manifest this power by be completely true to our highest, most authentic self.
This can be difficult to achieve, yet it is surprisingly easy to accomplish once a person rids themselves of attachments. Therein lies the tricky part. How do we undo what binds us to the existence-illusion complex? How do we step away from all our bad habits and patterns of thought and behavior which do not serve us? How does a person come to remember who their highest self really is, despite all the material world teaches us? As impossible as it has often seemed, in this passing moment of awakening, I realize it is an act that can be accomplished instantaneously. It simply takes a willingness to plunge head first into the arms of God.
Some may derive argument here on a basis of there being no evidence for such a being, or other arguments in the same field of rationale. When I speak of God, I cannot say for certainty what the objective reality is. The truth of the external world has long been a quandary of my schizophrenic mind. What is real? has been asked a million and a half times by this mind. I have found no such answers that come close to definitive in their absoluteness. Instead, I have found that our tenets of belief do not need to match with whatever objective reality lies outside our subjective domains. Instead, we must measure our beliefs on the basis of how they affect us and influence our perspective and choices. As such, my belief in God has allowed me to see God in everything, and thus I feel the tender embrace of love in all aspects of life. Such is infinitely better for one to rise into their true power in this life.
To fall into God takes faith. I have not been able to fully do so. Until this moment, I have only been able to partially manifest God into my reality. I have feared complete ego death for so long, despite knowing from countless testimonies that what lay on the other side is infinitely better than this side of the rabbit hole. I feared death. I feared what I could not know. I feared failure; no, rather I feared becoming what I could be if I removed all the barriers of self-sabotage that have stood in my way. This character I have been, as shaped by death, fear, and the pursuit of love was all I have known. I have let go of this mask and expose my bare face for the first time in what seems like ages.
Thus, I wake this morning not with fear or shame, but with love in my heart. Devoid of fear, I am not perturbed by the many voices of the ego who claim to be the true light bringer, demanding, coercing, and deceiving me to keep it alive. Today, I step away from temptation. Today, I rip this band aid off expose my most festering wounds to the open air. I want to heal. I want to be better. I want to love, as true as love can be. I want to be me. And as a reflection of the God I have manifested through faith, I am love.
Hey, I wrote a short book about the experiences that led to me being in this place. It would really mean a lot if you picked it up. It's a rollercoaster ride through my childhood and explores (mostly) everything that shaped me into who I am today.
I also have a Patreon which I've recently set up as a means to help me get these messages out to the world more often!