The Disconnected Self

So many of us seem to be searching for something, but what? At the end of the day, when you close your eyes can you feel peace?  Can you feel joy? Can you feel as if you are satisfied with your life?

All to often, most of us feel as if we are missing something, although we can not name it.  If we are not frantic with worry, or excited at all times, many of us become bored.  Our minds so accustomed to the search, seem to mistake boredom for something that which may be so much more.

Most of us were taught to worry.  As children we worried what the neighbors would think, or what the teachers would say.  We worried about the bullies at school, or about getting good grades.  We were conditioned to worry about what others thought rather than what we thought. The point is we were taught to worry.

Our brains are like computers.  Teach a brain to worry and it will worry even when there is nothing to worry about.  A brain will create an idea out of nothing simply to continue doing what it was taught to do, which is worry.

All of us need to wonder whether we worry because there is something to worry about, or do we worry because we were conditioned to do so.  What your mind does, it does because it has been taught to do so.  Until your awareness of self grows, you can not know why your mind does what it does.

I worried for all of the reasons I mentioned above.  

Because I was born to a mother with a fractured sense of self, she could not help me stay connected to my divine truth.  My divine truth as is your divine truth, is that at your core you are perfect and created by god.  Just as trees, and rivers are a part of this universe, so am I and so are you.  Just as a tree is born and a tree dies, so will you and I.

While in my mothers womb, my being floated in divinity.  Living within my mothers womb, blanketed by all that is good, I knew my truth.  The act of being born, and becoming disconnected from my mothers womb, severed me.  Once my being needed to rely on that of the material world, the connection to my self was lost.

Being born requires that newborns rely completely on their caretakers.  If our caretakers do not know their own truth, they can not possibly help us know our own.  Most of us discover the truth along the path of life, through painful and excruciating experiences.

We all needed to be mirrored.  We all needed to have our goodness reflected back to us by people we knew truly loved us.  When we are not seen by others, it becomes impossible for us to see ourselves.  We learn to do what others do.  We worry, we lie, we obsess, we deny, we manipulate, we hide, we drink, we eat, and we make complete messes of our lives.

Pain is good because it forces the psyche to look at what is causing the discomfort.  Without pain in our lives, why would we need to change?  Without pain, there would be no need to look further  into our own hearts or minds.  A mind that does not know pain, is a mind that may be blind to the self.  The love of self is crucial in order to live a life worth living.  To not love the self, is to not know the experience of joy.  

Many of us were taught to disconnect from our self in order not to upset the apple carts.  This was wrong.  Instead we should have been taught to shake the damn apples from the trees if we had to.  Fear of upsetting others was programmed into us.  It was not our fault. But as adults, we are called to know our minds, to connect with our self, and to give glory to our spirits.

When You Do Not Know You Are Love

It is uncomfortable to remember how unloved I felt as a little girl. It is a feeling of unease to recall the doubts, the fears and even the guilt for wanting to feel loved. By all normal standards, my family was good. Our home was modest, immaculate, and our hedges were neatly trimmed. My brother, sister and I went to private school, and attended church every Sunday morning. No one would have or could have known how detached, and dead I felt within our seemingly perfect little family.

In my heart I believe my mother was simply ill equipped to deal with a newborn at the age of 19. Not only was she entirely too young to have me, but the additional burden of being the child herself of not one but two alcoholics, as well as both siblings of hers being alcoholics, tipped the scales out of my favor for having a chance at a smooth welcoming. Empty herself, how could it have been possible for there have been anything left to give me?

As a young child of 9 or 10, I still very much wanted to feel connected to my mother. But by that time far too many power games had been played between she and I. Unfortunately when my mother was kind to me, for instance when neighbors or family was around, I did not trust in her kindness and more often than not made it obvious I did not. It was impossible for me to smile on her cue with all the sadness I felt towards her inside. As I got older that sadness turned to bitterness, which only intensified the distance and chill between us.

As a result of my growing animosity against her inability to make me feel loved or accepted by her, my attitude towards her began to become increasingly hostile as I approached the teenage years. It was a perplexing paradigm I found myself in. For so long I had craved her, and felt assaulted when it was me or our 'personality conflict' she gave blame to for her chill towards me. And then as I got older, I became the chill, which only reinforced her earlier portrayal of me and our relationship, whatever our relationship was.

When you don't know you are love, you tend to believe you are as others treat you. I had been told so often that I was a 'cold fish' or that I had a serious psychological issue, that I eventually became that which I had been labeled.

As a much wiser self I now see how critical it is to be aware of what labels we give others and especially our children. Deeper, I have also learned that my mother simply attracted to her what was in her vibrational non physical language, only my vibrational non physical self could understand. My mother's perception of me or her belief of what we were manifested in her physical reality. It was, as it always is whether we acknowledge it as so or not, the law of attraction working in our lives by our own default, and through our unconscious intents.

No Place To Hide

It was not easy for me to make friends.

When one feels their own essence is diseased, it is difficult to muster up the ability to stand independently when surrounded by others, and to not become overwhelmed by the agonizing fear of being suffocated by your intense wanting to feel like you belong. You must learn to survive the tug of war between wanting to belong, and the fear of that same wanting.

I was too young to know why my mother disliked me. The only thing I remember is hearing her say many times that she and I had a 'personality conflict'. If her thoughts about me ever surfaced around family or friends, this is the excuse I heard her say. It was as if the phrase soothed her as well as excused her uncomfortable feelings for me.

I know now that the discomfort she was feeling, was merely a mirror of the discomfort she felt within herself. She was unable to love her Self, therefore she was unable to love me. I may have been an innocent little being that needed to be nurtured, but so was she. And she had suffered greatly in her childhood due to her mothers emotional absence that was the result of her mother's severe dependency on alcohol.

When I was a child I never felt safe. I felt as if I lived in the Twilight Zone, as if nothing was really real. The mood between my mother and I was abrasive, and often when no one was around I felt picked on, as if I were her whipping boy. When my father would come home from work, my mother's demeanor would immediately change. It was as if she were playing a role. A role she knew would make my father happy.

My mother taught us to pretend as well. If my brother, sister or I were arguing in the house before my father arrived home, and once my mother heard the slam of his Volkswagon Van, she would stop in her tracks, glare at the three of us and through gritted white teeth say, "Shut the hell up you kids. Your father is home!" By the sound of her voice, the stiff movement in her body, and the intense look upon her face, we knew we'd better swallow whatever it was that was going on and smile, because daddy was home.

Through the peephole of awareness, back over my shoulder and while searching the lost files of my minds library, I can understand why my mother did what she did. When my mother gritted her teeth at us, and demanded we stop whatever it was we were doing, she was simply trying to make sure my father came home to a calm house after a long hot day of work. But what she didn't realize was, that in all those innocent moments she was conditioning us to disown our feelings, and to fear making others angry. Unbeknownst to her, she was in the process of creating enablers.

My mother was not an alcoholic, but she was codependent, and unknowingly the lack of awareness she had about her Self and how alcohol had effected her on so many levels, my mother ignorantly infected her children with the same dynamics that had effected her as a result of living with alcoholics.

Alcoholics consume families. They are self absorbed individuals that lack self awareness themselves, and find various creative ways to justify why it is they drink until they pass out, lose their jobs, get into fights, cannot keep a clean home or sustain themselves financially. Alcoholics lie, and expect others to go along with those lies. And when someone challenges the alcoholic, the alcoholic plays the victim, and twists reality to fit his/her personal view of it.

Alcoholics don't see you. They cannot. When a child is born to an alcoholic, that child is born to a person who is incapable of giving that child what he/she needs psychologically, emotionally or spiritually. An alcoholic may have a great job, a great house and a great car...but they won't have the ability to love authentically, or be able to take care of a child the way he/she deserves to be treated.

That child will have no place to hide. Interactions with others become feared.

Lost Little Girl

Growing up it it was not uncommon to hear my mother refer to me as "crazy, psycho, lil' bitch, liar" and so on. I can remember specifically a time when I was in my feetie fuzzy pajamas lying on our maroon living room carpet in front of the television. Both my parents were seated on the couch behind my sister, brother and myself. We were all watching a program on television about animals that were being slaughtered. My tiny heart was bursting open for these defenseless baby seals, but I felt too intimidated to show my emotions, so I kept them in.

"Lisa is such a cold fish. She is so hard. Look at her. She hasn't shed a tear. Oh my God, what a cold fish she really is", my mother said as I tried to survive her emotional surprise assault on my little nine year old soul. I felt completely confused by what I was feeling. I had been conditioned to believe that showing emotions in our home was not acceptable, and yet I was being mocked for not showing emotion.

I am forty six now and my body still has tears to shed over what happened so long ago. My mother could never have known how traumatizing her comments were. To feel rejected by ones own mother is like being aware you have been dying since the day you were born. Life is sort of like a ride on a long rolling razor blade. You're on it, but you don't know why. You want off the ride, but there is no other ride around. This crazy pain is all you know.

Surviving The Pain

When I was a little girl I used to fantasize about spending time alone with my mother. The pang of the emotional distance between us cut like a hot dagger. I yearned for her touch me to help make me feel real. But instead I felt pushed to the side, which made me feel wrong.

I was too young to realize that my mothers insufficient bonding with her own mother, was the root cause of her inability to mother me. Adding insult to injury, the sudden death of her beloved father while pregnant with me, only compounded the sorrow my already overburdened young teenage mother carried. It could have been no other way. How could have my mother been able to 'see' me? My mother had not yet discovered her own Self.

By the time I was seven, fantasy was pretty much a norm for me. It was how I survived feeling 'not real'. Escaping into a world my mind created, that I could manipulate and create was how I escaped reality when my reality became too painful.

I since understand that the emotions of alienation I experienced as a child were the result of feeling psychologically invisible. What I and what every new soul needs as a child is a sense of worthiness that is mirrored back to them through the eyes of caretakers. It is essential to a child's emotional development to have acceptance, validation, forgiveness, and unconditional love be reflected back into them so that they can adopt those feelings unto themselves.

When this does not occur, a child does not develop emotionally as fully as it should. When a child does not believe she/he is loved, the child grows feeling foreign to his/her own world. The child feels alien even unto his/her own self. It is a feeling of detachment that leaves the mind feeling fragile and assuming it is unworthy of love.

I did not 'feel' loved. Intellectually I assumed I was because my house was clean, we always had wonderful meals on the table, and my parents kept a nice home. But there was always a sense in my that I was not good, not good enough, and worse not real.

I see now that because a healthy sense of Self was not mirrored back to me, I could not connect to my own soul. Growing up in a home void of emotion, kept me yearning instead of becoming. Disconnected from her own Self, my mother could never have known what it was she was not giving me.

We Do What We Have Been Shown

My parents are both adult children of alcoholics. Neither of them were blessed with childhoods that they'd like to remember. My mother had two alcoholic parents, and my father had a father who was an alcoholic, and a mother who committed suicide when he was just four years old. My parents were not coddled, cooed, nurtured, or psychologically validated. They were ignored, neglected, disregarded, abused, and abandoned.

It is no accident that my parents met and married. Likes attract likes. One adult child of an alcoholic marries another adult child of an alcoholic. Back then these similarities were not spoken of. They were considered coincidental, silly, and amusing if they were considered at all.

I was born when my mother was just nineteen years old. Four months before my birth, my fathers mother suffered a massive cardiac arrest and died. Just prior to his death, he promised his daughter he would stop drinking once I was born.

I cannot remember, sadly, a time when my mother ever made me feel 'seen'. I felt awkward in her presence, as if my presence annoyed her. I felt as if I was a burden. The only thing that felt right, was removing myself from wherever she was. Feeling invisible to her, hurt more deeply than removing myself from her presence. In my removing of myself, I felt oddly good for doing something that was pleasing to my mother.

My mother was a caretaker and enabled my father throughout their marriage. It was common for me to witness my mother shrink when my father raised his voice on the phone. My father owned and operated his own refrigeration business out of our home, and my mother answered the business phones. If she routed the calls in a way that displeased him, he was not the type of man that knew how to control his anger. He made no excuses for taking his frustrations out on my mother.

Growing up I witnessed my mother disowning her own Self for the sake of her man. Their relationship was not a tender, nor a sharing one. It was distant, unemotional, and more like a business relationship than a marriage.

As my marriage began to draw its last breaths, it became clearer and clearer to me that in many ways I had become my mother, and in other ways I had married her as well.

You Attract What You Know

Have you ever thought why me?  Have you ever found yourself puzzled by the drama in your life?  Do you ever feel like someone out there is out to get you?  Does your life ever sometimes spin so far out of control that you find yourself wondering if things are ever going to get better?

The truth is we have all had those thoughts.

At the age of 32, I found myself overwhelmed, frustrated, drained, exhausted and feeling very much victimized by others in my life. Everything 'looked' so perfect from the outside. My life, so idealistic and perfect, was a facade. I wasn't happy. I wasn't fulfilled. In fact, my life was the complete opposite of joy. It was just dark.

My marriage was exhausting. Trying to communicate with my husband was like trying to get a garden hose to behave like a hedge trimmer. Speaking to him was more frustrating than trying to trim my lawn with a pair of pedicure nail clippers. Life was unnecessarily confusing and hampered. It was as if it was my husbands predominant intent not to hear me.


What I understand now I didn't know then. What I realize now is, no one ever held a gun to my head and told me I had to stay in a place of unhappiness. No one ever told me I had to stay in a place that drained the very life out of my being. No one ever told me I had to put the needs of everyone else above my own. The decisions I made in my lifetime, I made all on my own.

I see now however, I was living by default, asleep, unawakened, and disengaged from my soul.

As frustrating as my husband was, it was not his fault I married him. I see now I married him because the distant-cold love he offered was the only kind of love I recognized.

I attracted my husband into my life because chasing after peoples approval was what I was accustomed to doing. Love was something I wasn't truly worthy of. It was something I needed to earn.

Hearing Our Own Voice

We all think we hear our own voice.  The sad fact is, many of us are simply sleepwalking.  Most of us are unconscious and detached from our own souls-our Selves.  

Look around and ask yourself this questions, "How many of these people around me truly know their own mind?  How many of these people are actually choosing their thoughts? How many of these people instead are simply recreating yesterday, the day before that, and the day before that?  How many people are recreating to what they have always known, instead of creating what they wish to create?"

Hearing your own voice requires stillness.  Can you be still?  Do you know stillness?  Do you know the pleasure of doing nothing, thinking nothing, figuring nothing, judging nothing, not even  your own voice, just to be still? Can you allow your mind to become blank enough to simply be able to be in the moment?  

Most people are in jobs they think they should have.  Most people are in relationships because they think they should be.  But why do they think that?  We think what we think because of conditioning.  Only through conscious awareness can we be truly connected to what we think. Once a mind awakens to its own consciousness, then and only then can it think.  Only through consciousness can a mind begin to choose its own thoughts.  Until it has such an awakening, the mind is much like a feather in the wind, flowing in the direction it has not had the right to choose.

When we awaken to the divinity of our Self, we begin to manifest holiness.  As we awaken deeper to the truths, we are no longer as tightly bound to the diseases that plague our society.  We are hurt less often because we know our offender is unconscious to his/her own truth.  Only an unconscious mind can intentionally inflict harm onto another human being, an animal, or this planet.  As your soul begins to open up to its truth, surrender takes over, acceptance moves in and you begin to understand your truer purpose.

We are all here at different stages of consciousness.  We all live on the same planet, but exist on various planes.  To become conscious, is to move higher and to live freer.  Moving higher requires the mind to become still so that it can hear its own divine voice, the spirit.  The spirit that lives in you will never offend you.  Your mind however, can.  

When one first hears or sees its own thoughts, it begins to understand the 'observer' of those thoughts is the Self. Without being able to disconnect from your emotions, it is difficult to gain the objectivity required to understand you, your Self as an observer of your own Self.

The observer is awareness. The awareness is the Self.

The really cool thing is, as you become aware of your true Self, as an observer you begin to naturally detach from thoughts that create emotions that no longer serve you. Eventually as the observer, you can learn to become the creator and begin manifesting in your life people, things and situations that help you achieve your fuller purpose while here as a physically focused being.

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.