This blog post is the last issue of The Healing Journey, the letter I send out to subscribers. You may subscribe here to receive the email.
Dearest Readers,
‘Love’ gets a lot of air time as the final solution to the world’s problems.
All you need is love. Make love not war. Whatever the question, love is the answer.
I do not disagree. In fact, I would march in any protest holding a One Love slogan high or chanting it loud and long for all to hear.
Why, then, when we are so good at touting this truth, do we still resist love? And not just on a global scale, as a peaceful solution to mass discord, but on a personal one as well?
How many people do you know who hurt themselves or reject goodness or resist love? A few? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Billions?
For your separation from God is the hardest work in this world.
This line from a poem by Hafez (or Hafiz) says it all. Why are we working so hard to separate ourselves from That Which We Already Are?
Lots of reasons. Trauma, addiction, mental illness, low self-esteem, self-loathing, desire for power and control, fear.
In short: because we’re human.
In evolutionary terms, it could be argued that we are still at the very beginning of our journey toward full, conscious awakening. There may be a few awakened beings walking around but most of us are still dragging our knuckles and clubbing each other.
Why?
Because we don’t realize Who We Really Are.
I think I’m Celia. And I am. I’m also the Evolving Manifestation of the Mysterious Energy Creating and Sustaining All Things at Every Conceivable Level of Physical and Non-Physical Reality.
(I know, it’s a lot easier to say ‘God’ but the word divides. You’ve heard me say it before, we need a new word. Or we at least need to come to some kind of agreement on what the word means. Until then, I’ll create variations.)
Being Celia, or human, means I am subject to human experience. Human experience includes wrestling with ‘the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.’ I am going to get hurt and rejected. I am going to suffer. Because I’ve suffered and been hurt and rejected, I’m going to identify with these experiences. Naturally. And this identification is going to lead me to believe that I am unworthy, unloved and unlovable. Hence, when love comes my way I’m going to resist it. Or even before it comes my way I’m going to make sure it doesn’t arrive. Cut it off at the pass.
This is the wound of separation, which leads to the hardest work in the world. So how do we heal?
First of all, there is no cure for being human. It is what I am. No matter how hard I try, I will not outrun my humanity and the fear that comes with it.
In the same way, I cannot outrun That Which Makes Me Human. I may be able to resist The Force Behind Human Existence but extricating myself from It? Not a chance.
This is why separation is ‘the hardest work in the world’. Because we literally cannot do it.
Resisting Love because we’re afraid of being hurt or vulnerable or rejected is the expected human reaction. Understanding that it is impossible to resist That Which We Already Are is the evolved and awakened response.
Still, resistance persists. I may know intellectually that I am the Cosmos Looking at Itself or a Child of God or Bliss Absolute or however you want to say it and yet there I go again, pressing the self-sabotage button, rejecting Love before it rejects me.
It’s okay.
We can’t annihilate our separation work any more than we can outrun our humanness. Because our separation work is our humanness. This is how we are made. If we didn’t have the veil of separation we’d be God. Or the Thing That Makes All Things Possible. That veil is what enables us to be here.
So, if you are in the resistance, if your separation work is generating or perpetuating the suffering, be gentle with yourself. We’re still evolving. We’re not getting it wrong.
I recently asked a 105 year-old woman what her secret was. “I just live,” she said.
May we all just live, as we are, trusting that Evolution or Divine Love or Cosmic Oneness is doing Its good work in all of us, even now, and even now, and now and now…
From the fires of love,
Celia
