The Wounds of the Past

Every now and then, we may be reminded of a painful event that happened a long time ago.  It may have been when we were two, or ten, or twenty five  or forty. Emotional wounds are the ones no one can see.

If you believed everyone thought you were perfect, then the emotional high you were receiving truly came from the thought, that then relayed the message to you that you were in fact perfect.  Your security would come from believing the outside world as you knew it, believed you were perfect.  So in fact, your high comes from believing truly you are perfect.

Take that thought and build on it.  Don't give up.  Think higher.  Think bigger.  Think universally now.  Don't stay limited.  Think outside the box.

What is reality?  Is what you perceive true?  Is what other people think real?  What do you base your self worth upon?  Do you base your relationship with your self, on what may not be real?  Do you label your self, based on what you perceive as truth when in fact it is more likely not?

Emotional wounds hurt.  They hurt us in places no one can see.  Psychic wounds are more severe than physical ones, because when we are hurt, no one knows that.  Our environment cannot support what they can't see.  So I ask you, if the people in your life cannot see your wounds, does that mean they do not exist?  Does that mean you are not wounded?

The fact is, all humans suffer emotional wounds.  Being human is to know pain.  None of us escape this physical planet without our fair share of bumps and bruises.  

What truly matters is what we think about ourselves. Even if no one in our world acknowledges our truth--the truth is at our core--we are perfect. The same intelligence that created flowers, the stars and the moon--created you.

In this life, all too many people do not know or appreciate that truth.  Instead they lash out and fail to  choose peace.  They simply believe in the lies society consistently reinforces.  Society teaches us to value money, youth, tight bodies, beauty, and even craziness.  Our eyes tell us the world is a bad place.  But it is not.  The ego of man is what creates the lies, and it is the ego in all of us that believes them.

Letting go of the ego, involves surrendering.  As a child I was severely teased and bullied by classmates.  I was by far the typical ugly duckling.  Because I did not fit my peers ideas of what beauty was, based on societal lies, I was bullied.  I was pushed, shoved, spat upon, and teased day in and day out.  When I was twelve I contemplated shooting myself with my fathers hand pistol.  Fortunately for me, a divine intervention took place.  I believe I was touched by a spirit I never knew, and was urged to put the gun down.

When my father was 4, his mother committed suicide.  I believe my grandmother came to me, and helped me surrender to my pain.  The thought came to me to let go, and to live in spite of the pain, because one day these days would be behind me.  If I had killed my self, I would never have known the day when all the teasing would be gone.  Because I did not kill my self, I am here today, living out my passions, which is helping people know their true selves.

You my friend, in spite of all the lies you have ever told, or believed in are perfect.  You are part of something much larger than your bank account, your home or your car.  You are tied to this universe whether you believe in or not.  You get to decide to live in the light of that and be enlightened, or in the dark with the lies.

I hope you choose the path less traveled.  Its not a busy place, but it is so full of joy.

The Wounded Self

To be human, is to be wounded.  Each of us was born into a world contaminated by falsehoods.  Society at large believes in lies.  Look around you.  How much of what you see is truly authentic? How much of what you touch is real? How much of what you think about, and believe in, is actually true at all?

In private moments, what do your thoughts say to you?  Do you think well of your Self? Do you think ill of your Self? Do you tell your Self you are stupid, or ugly or fat? Do you sense in you a feeling of worthlessness? Do you believe others are out to get you? Do you believe you are destined to be poor?  

When you catch a thought, when you truly hear your thoughts, that is your awareness. Awareness is what allows you to police your own mind.  The greater your awareness, the greater your ability to think and become objective.  Without awareness, one is a slave to the endless thoughts that scream across the mind daily.  Without even realizing it, we react to haphazard thoughts as if they were true.  We are caught within an unconscious loop trapped inside.

If you do not think well of your Self, then you believe in falsehoods.  If you believe you are not great, then you believe in lies.  Because our society is fueled by money, lies are everywhere.  They have to be.  Sadly our society is fueled by lies.  Everywhere we look, somewhere someone is telling us we are not enough.  Advertising companies are rooted in lies.  Advertisers tell us in various ways that without what they are selling, we simply  can not be happy.  By subliminally telling us we are not enough, advertisers create a want in our psyche that helps us believe in the lies they are marketing.

Every make up company intends to feed off the insecurities of their markets, or worse, create them.  Designers cloth dangerously thin models.  Thus the message received is that as women we need to be that thin.  Analyze any market, and you will find the lies. The good news is, they are just lies.

At your core, there are no wounds.  At your core there is only divinity.  At your core, what ties you to this universe and all its splendor is perfect.  As time unfolds humankind moves slowly towards greater universal awareness.  Although at times our world seems to be insane, the truth is, humankind is evolving.  The minds of men are growing.  History assures us this is so. There was a time when slavery was legal.  At one time women could not vote.  Not so long ago, most parents believed children should be seen and not heard. From the length of a very long arm and through the eyes of objectivity, the truth is human consciousness is expanding.

The wounded Self, is the part of us that still sadly does not recognize the truth.  Any wounded Self is one that still believes in lies.  It is the responsibility of us all to help others know their true Self.  For those of us who have gained a greater awareness of our Selves, it is up to us to help others get in touch with their true nature.  All humanity shares the same core divine true nature.  To be human is to be divine.  That is our truth.

Knowing The Self

To know ones self, one must learn to be the master of ones own mind.  One must learn to discipline ones self to the point, where he or she can hear their own thoughts.  With the tens of thousands of thoughts that run through the human brain each day, it is required to be conscious of those thoughts, if one is to master the mind.

People assume they are conscious because they can make a pot of coffee or perform a task. Repeating tasks we have done hundreds of time before does not require total consciousness.  For many of us, we can do what we normally do without thinking at all.  To be truly conscious requires enlightenment, that has been born through awareness. The awareness of which I am speaking is the awareness of Self.

It is not enough to just react to circumstances and situations.  It is not enough to do today exactly what you did yesterday.  It is not enough to allow thousands of images and thoughts to run through your mind. To live, is to think.  To think is to be enlightened.  To be enlightened is to be aware.

Knowing the self requires that each of us learn to hear our own thoughts, contemplate our own emotions, consider our reactions and to think. There is a vast difference between an emotion and a considered thought through the eyes of Self.

If you are not conscious or aware yet of your magnificent Self, then you react more by way of your emotions, rather than through your divine consciousness. Humans are either building lives through Self consciousness, or through the lack of it, by way of emotions.

Hearing The Self

When we were children, many of us were taught to disown our 'self'.  As innocent souls drawn into this world, we entered this place with only our senses as guides.  Only through our ability to feel, to see, to hear, to touch to smell and to taste, could we know whether or not we were surrounded by things that kept us peaceful and in alignment with that which allowed joy to grow within.  If mom looked into our eyes warmly, and cradled us gently, we perceived peace.  If we were placed in soothing environments, harmony was ours.

If however, we were born to hostile, agitated souls, chances are peace escaped us, and as a result joy was not nurtured within us.

Being born to souls who have yet to find peace in their own hearts and minds, makes it virtually impossible to grow in strength in regards to self esteem.  Parents who are negatively self absorbed can not 'see' their children in a psychological sense.  Parents who are more concerned with their own habits like, gambling, drinking, money, food, beauty, diets, or adultery are disconnected from their own love of self, and so too are disconnected from their children, and thus reinforce the disconnection between self and love they should be nurturing in their children.

One of the many barriers between self and love is called the ego. The ego is that part of our very young, instinctual self that clamors to us the sense that we need to somehow ensure our survival. The ego lives in fear as if it is going to be engulfed, controlled or destroyed by others. It fears rejection, abandonment, and a loss of control of things and others in its environment. Its origin is fear based and so its urging within us is to make others believe it is much bigger and more powerful than others are.

When parents are unaware of how grandiose or fragile their egos may be, they raise their children with the need to control them rather than out of a nurturing that is rooted in the ability to see ones child as separate and non threatening to ones individualized experience. A parent who has had a difficult childhood may be unaware that his/her unrealistic expectations of ones own child may come from a time in his/her own childhood that left the parent feeling powerless. Unrealistic expectations allow the parents ego to stay ahead of and above the child he/she is trying to control in order to soothe his/her own wounds of powerlessness of the past.

The more powerless an ego felt as a child, the more powerful it needs to feel over others as adults.

The ego is physically based, meaning it seeks worldly things as evidence that it is powerful. An ego maniac is one who seeks constant validation from others, who often uses things such as sexual prowess, or extravagance as a tool to gain some sense of power over another. Male ego maniacs are often fast, smooth talkers, who are well equipped at manipulating others feelings in hopes of getting others to do what it is they want them to do.

Fragile female ego's are similar in that they often use sex as a tool to get what they want. It is also not uncommon for fragile female ego's to behave as if they are helpless in order to manipulate others into doing for them what they are completely capable of doing themselves.

Ego's are not loving. They are impulsive, compulsive, controlling, whining, lying, denying and manipulative. Until one travels deep within and finds the courage to ask, "Who am I?", with sincerity and conviction, love of self is not possible. For in order to love ones own self, the ego must diminish and eventually die. The irony is, that just as one begins to ask such thought provoking, love seeking questions about ones own existence, the ego acts up sensing its essence is being threatened. As you choose to begin looking within rather than outside of your self for the acceptance you seek, the ego finds itself confused by the sudden shift from the material to the non physical, and throws temper tantrums on the playing field of the mind.

When a parents ego is not in check, they very often miss the opportunities to nurture the love of self in their children. When parents are fear based, and thus find themselves worrying far too much about what the neighbors think, or how beautiful, or how thin they are, or what kind of car Mr. Jones is driving, they not only teach their children to care more about what is going on outside of them than what is going on inside of them, they also reinforce disconnectedness within the child by continually not seeing and or appreciating the uniqueness of their little one.

Whatever a parent talks about most, or pays attention to the most, is what the child will learn to believe is important. And if what the child believes is important is NOT what the child, thinks, needs or feels, that child will grow disconnected from its own self.

In my case, I believed that a clean house was more important than my fears.  I believed that money was more significant than what I was feeling.  I was taught that what others thought of me, was more important than what I thought of my self.  Two very decent people, taught me to disown my birthright to a self.

They at the time went about their life unaware that what I needed most was to have pure unconditional love reflected back into my soul, through the eyes of theirs. What I needed most was a peaceful parent. What I needed most were soft whispers. What I needed most was to be soothed lovingly when I cried, and to be cradled after I fell. What I needed most were parents who were so in love and accepting of one another, that that peace and harmony infused my tiny being through the power of vibrations, and enveloped me with a feeling of contentment.

When parents love themselves, and then love one another, they insure their children a channel that is free and clear that is open to their child's essence. The feeling of love is the path that leads to that source, and without a clear lesson of what love truly is, children may need to search for love in all the places where it is not, until they finally happen upon it later in life after much suffering, if they find it at all.

The Disease of Invisibility

In order for a child to grow into a healthy self actualized adult, a number of emotional stages of development must have been accomplished.

Perhaps there is no greater need for a child but to feel 'seen' psychologically.

As a child growing up in the care of two adult children of alcoholics, I felt very detached from those who raised me. I felt invisible both physically as well as psychologically. When I fell, I was told my bleeding knees did not hurt, and often my cries for attention went ignored. When I danced wildly at the age of three in the hopes of feeling seen, and perhaps paid attention to, my parents ignored me, or shamed me into believing that craving attention was 'bad'.

What then does a child of 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 do, when their little hearts are starving for human affection? Where do all those feelings of wanting love go?

My mother was one who busied herself constantly with cleaning our home. Her disposition was anxious and her aura was cold. My mother was not warm or inviting and in fact, I often felt I was an intruder when in her presence. My father was a workaholic, whose obsession with money often made me fear our family was poor and near destitute. My parents relationship was one that felt more obligatory than loving. Often when my father upset my mother during a phone conversation, she would refuse to defend herself, and instead did her best to keep my father calm. In so doing, she taught me that her feelings were irrelevant in relation to his, and so it was that the enabling mindset in me was created.

Blind to her own self, my mother too smiled when she felt like crying, and silenced her self when she felt like screaming. Her tendency to enable my father, gave birth to the sense that other people's feelings were more important than my own. In the presence of my father especially, my mother consistently tended to his emotional whims as if a puppet on a string. The denying she did of her own self, rooted in me very much the same sense of invisibility.

My mother could never have known she was infecting me with the same disease she had been infected with as a child.

The Disease of Invisibility had been born in her many years before the disease had been passed along to me in my own life.

My mother, so blind to her right to own who she was, to hear her own voice, to expect to be respected by the others in her life, to love her self from the inside out, could never have known that through the disowning of her own right to know her true self, she guaranteed I remained a stranger to my own unique self. She could never have known that through the care-taking of others and the abandoning of her own needs, she inadvertently severed the lifeline that was my birthright that connected me directly to my own source.

Why The Self Hides/My Story

Rare human beings ask, "Who am I?".

Until my life began to spin wildly out of control, I thought I knew the answer to that question.

Not long after the birth of my third child, I asked my husband for a divorce. He did not take me seriously, and like many times before suggested I was crazy for ever considering such a thing. He told me he was happy, and that if I wasn't there must be something wrong with me.

Thinking perhaps maybe my husband was right, as well as wanting to still seek his approval, I entered therapy expecting to be told I was in fact crazy. Sadly a part of me wished this was so, for deep within me laid an intense desire to finally feel validated by my husband. Somewhere on some chaotic plane of my existence breathed the sick sense that whispered, "Maybe if I am told I am crazy, this will make my husband happy". This dysfunctional thought actually brought me some relief on some twisted emotional level.

During my first session my therapist Ed asked me, "So, who are you? Who is Lisa?".

I quickly responded, "I am a wife. I am a mother. I own and help operate a business with my husband. I am the head of security at my children's school, and I am a member of the PTA."

Thinking I had answered fully and intelligently, I felt satisfied with my response, until Ed came back with, "I didn't ask you what you did. I asked you 'who' you were. What makes Lisa Lisa?."

I remember feeling as if my brain short circuited for a moment or two as my mind scurried its corners for some clue as to how to answer this authority figure. But there was nothing.

In those moments that followed, I began to become slightly aware that for whatever reason I was truly messed up. Something within me began to become very much aware of how far off course my life was. I could feel a rush of wanting to know what that was that was wrong within me, for I knew not being able to answer such a simple question meant I had a lot of work to do.

"My husband thinks I am crazy for wanting a divorce, so that is why I called you", I said to Ed.

"Do you think you are crazy?", replied Ed.

"I am not sure anymore. I don't know what I feel anymore. I just know I don't have any more strength in me to deal with him. I feel like I am just done. I am dead to him. I am numb."

"Well you're not crazy, but you are codependent, and you need to learn how to stop enmeshing your self with his wanting, and his needs. You probably anticipate the needs of others quite well, and yet cannot hear the calling of your own voice. You probably care more what others think about you than what you think about you. You probably judge your self quite harshly, and yet allow others to take full advantage of you. You probably seek validation from the outside, rather than the inside. And if I had to guess, you probably have alcoholism in your family", Ed said to me, as I sat still hinging on every word that fell from his pale pink lips.

Ed would be right on all counts.

From that day on, I not only listened to every word Ed spoke, but I heard them as well. At his urging I purchased and engulfed the book "Codependent No More" by Melody Beattie. In this book, I found a home. I found a friend. I found my self, the old and the new improved self that is me.

The journey I began that day has not been an easy one. But it has been the greatest adventure of my life.

Up until those moments, if you had asked me who I thought I was, and if I believed that I had self esteem, I would have answered in confidence, believing that I knew who I was, and that yes indeed I had self esteem. Based on the level of self awareness that I had at the time, I would not have been lying. Many years later however, through the jagged peephole that is memory, I now know that at the time I knew very little of what it was that was this thing called 'my self'.

It could not have been any other way for me, for I had been taught throughout my life to deny, ignore, disown and distrust this thing called 'my self'. Born to two adult children of alcoholics, who had been taught to deny, ignore, disown and distrust their own 'selves', it could not have been possible, unless through the miracle of awakening, that my parents could have taught me to honor that which they did not know to honor within themselves.

One cannot teach a child to love that which the one has no knowing of. Alcoholism had robbed my parents of the joy of discovering and loving their true selves. Their lives were lives that were built on survival. My mother was a child who worried where she and her siblings next meal was going to come from, and how it was they were to be able to get their drunken mother off a bar stool and up to her bed. My father was one who was verbally, physically and emotionally abused by his alcoholic father and who in addition was abandoned by his mother when he was four as the result of her suicide.

My mother was only nineteen, and my father twenty when I was born. Children themselves, without an understanding of their own uniqueness, could never have known how it was they were to nourish in me an appreciation of the unique being that I was. Instead, I was taught to smile when I felt like crying, and to be quiet when I felt like screaming. In essence, I was taught that not rocking the boat was far more acceptable than telling the truth. I was taught to fear what the neighbors thought and to conform to what it was, that was impressed upon me as to what was acceptable. Although every cell in my body begged me to break out in individualism, every being in my environment did what they could to shame me into obedience and conformity.

A love for my self could not have been, for without its reflection in the eyes of those who raised me, its soul could not have been born. Self, must be mirrored back to the innocent as they grow, for if the self is denied, life for the innocent child becomes a maze of misguided internal communication, which results in a life that is very much lived in search of love and acceptance from the outside, when in reality, love must always first come from within ones own being.

What Is The Self?

You are amongst a rare breed of human beings. Something within you has drawn you to these writings. My friend, that is a good thing. For in your wanting of knowing, or in the figuring out of why you are where you are, or how it might be that you have more, or perhaps there is something within you that simply wants to know how it is you are experiencing what you are. Whatever the reason you have found yourself here, allow in you a resting sense, a peaceful sense that you are where you are supposed to be.

Life for some is more of a struggle than it is for others. Some of us have been born to more enlightened caretakers than others. But all beings struggle eventually to gain control over their lives, hoping one day to finally find themselves upon the mouth of their dreams.

Our journeys are hilly. They teach us much through the scrapes, through the bumps and through the bruises. But if our heart is focused upon wanting to understand our truth, and in the figuring out of our purpose while here on earth, eventually our dreams open wide and life becomes delicious.

I have traveled through the treachery of what has been, and I have found my way out of that turmoil of what once was. It has not always been pretty my friends. There were many lies I needed to weed through. There were many tears I needed to allow to leave me. There were many ghosts I believed in, and needed to free. But I am here. My soul has recovered, and I am now a deliberate creator of my own reality, knowing and appreciating my life as all that I desire manifests here and in the now.

I have chronicled the journey I traveled from there to here, in a way that suited my own way of learning and processing, for my mind is one that needs to understand all things at its ground level.
In order for me to allow myself the joy of 'having', I needed to first uncover 'me', 'my self'. Further I needed not only to uncover my true self, but needed to learn to love my 'self', which was the most difficult part of my journey.

My belief is that I have much to share, and much to teach those who are in search of a healing.

I know without doubt, that if you are ready to learn, if you are ready to embrace the challenge of learning to love your self, here, through my words your cleansing shall arrive.

Let us begin with what it is you are in need of loving; The Self

We have all heard of the term the self, but what is the self?  Is the self your body?  Is it your mind?  Is the self your thoughts? Is it your soul?  

We are told these days that healthy people have high self esteem.  Esteem is defined as to revere, admire and honor.  But if one does not know ones own self, or if even that they possess this thing called a self, then how is it one can ever hope to achieve health through high self esteem?

If most of us don't even know we have a self, then how are we to ever have this self esteem so many say we need to have in order to live a healthy life?

To begin, it is sometimes easier to define what we are not.  We are not our bodies.  We are not our thoughts.

Our bodies are a physical container if you will, that the rest of us gets to walk around in. We need this physical suit, because our world is made of physical matter.  Having hands helps us manipulate other physical forms.  Our brain has the ability to carry thoughts.  We have an impulse to open a jar of peanut butter, and our physical body allows us to perform that task.

What then is the self?

If your 'self' is not your brain, or your looks, or even your thoughts, then what is it?

Scientist have yet to uncover the very thing that causes creation. The life force within an apple seed that enables that seed to grow into an apple orchard cannot be looked at under a microscopic slide. It is something no one has ever seen, heard or can touch, yet it is a life force nonetheless.

This life force that makes it possible for a male sperm and a female egg to come together and trigger cellular division is the same life force that causes rose seeds to bloom into strong, beautiful and fragrant gardens. It is the same life force that exists in creatures of the sea, and of the sky. This life force is not your 'self' yet it is very closely tied to that which makes up the unique being you are.

The reason I set forth such a clear description of what life force is, is because you must first understand that, that which created you created all that is...therefore you are tied to all that is, all that has ever been and all that will ever be. You are as glorious as the sun, the moon, the stars and the oceans. You have nothing to prove. Just as the sun does not need to prove it is the center of our solar system, nor do you need to prove to anyone or anything that what you are is simply enough. You are enough.

Your self is the culmination of all that which you are including your life force. Your existence here is nothing more than an opportunity to express your innerness. You have an opportunity to embrace all that you are, and all that you feel from within. Here, on this planet is your chance to learn to listen to the guidance you feel from within so to become one with that which makes you unlike any other being.

Your self is the part of you that gives you clues as to what direction you should be going in. When your feelings are negative, that is your 'self' alerting to you that you are going against what is right for you. You are falling out of alignment with that which is right for your unique self. When you experience positive emotion, that is your 'self' sending you guidance that signals you are moving towards what is in alignment with what makes you your unique self.

Life force is in us all. It is in all that is. A self however, is that which makes each being unique unto all other beings.

Each human being has a self, but not every human being is guaranteed a knowing, and or appreciating of his/her own unique self.