The longer that I am on a conscious path of spiritual awakening and devotion the more I long for the full range of the human experience.
I long to fully belong.
I am acutely aware of the fact that we as humans are hardwired for both connection and protection. We are called at this point in our evolution to transcend the reactivity and recoil of the reptilian brain so that we may open our hearts to the Universal Love that is the foundation and core of our True identity. This is easy to articulate yet painfully difficult to embody.
We are called to face what I believe is our greatest fear of all: the fear to consistently open up to Love.
Though the intellect will refute this statement, twenty three years of counseling and twenty years of active ministry have taught me that this is indeed the greatest fear of the human condition. Our emotional wounding occurs at a time when we are precognitive and at our most vulnerable. The particulars of this are beyond the scope of this writing. Suffice it to say that we each have a “love equation” that is literally equal to the way in which we were received when we were the most open and undefended. Modes of parenting, even in the most conscious of people, inadvertently impart a message that the way we authentically are is somehow unacceptable, undesirable, and unlovable. We begin to carefully sculpt a persona that compensates for this wounding. We will do almost anything to not re-experience this early form of rejection. Mask in place, we become both internally divided and relationally defended. There is a mostly unconscious sense of disconnection that pervades our experiences and interactions.
And yet our Souls beseech us and our hurting hearts compel us to drop these defenses and remove the masks that keep us locked in a jail of our own isolation. Oh, we have small conclaves and circles where we believe we fit in. Yet most often there are unspoken parameters and guidelines that we must maintain in order to remain in the graces of the tribe. If we are too real and too authentic we just may be shown the door. Authenticity too often results in exile. And so we armor up and suck it in.
And still we long to fully belong.
I truly believe that at the core of much of our collective conflict and even physical violence is an unconscious longing to touch and to be touched. It is at its root a pathetically unskillful attempt to connect with another member of the human race, even if that touching is painful and sometimes even fatal. We know at some level that we are indeed one and we too often chose to hammer and furiously claw and strike out to somehow move past the fictional barriers to get to a place where we can experience an experience of the shared experience. We will go to any lengths to get back to a place of belonging and connection, even if a battlefield is the only place we can find to share.
We so fear facing the pain of our early rejections that we live largely in the pullback of our own projections. It takes courage to own that what feels to be a belittling encounter from without is actually a healing opportunity for the within. While disconnection is a path of seeming safety it is also the realm of deep suffering. My heart is not complete without the inclusion of all other hearts. Though vulnerability is terrifying to the wounded child within it is also the way of liberation. To stay defended locks my love in. It blocks off the belonging that we are all born for. It cuts off the potential for connection. This is pain at its deepest level.
I am here to be wholehearted. I am opening to the full range of the human experience; the happy and joyful, and the dire and sorrowful. I am here for a felt-sense experience of connection and belonging. Spiritual concept isn’t enough for me. I want to be open enough to feel your heart, your pain, your authenticity. The only way to do that is to be open enough to feel my own. I am going right into the flinch. I am moving toward the pullback. I am courageously challenging the habitual withhold. I will attend to my hurting heart and in doing so, open to the experience of yours. For this is what it means to have the full range of the human experience, and to fully and really belong.
I long to fully belong. In here, and in my world. I will face the fear of loving and of being loved. For in opening to the longing I allow myself to feel I open to the place where unconditional love rules and we are, beyond concept, indeed one.
