***
I drove 1700 miles over the four-day weekend.
I grounded myself in my roots near the ocean-side of the Monterey California Peninsula.
I spent the weekend with my dear aunt, a devout and very loving Catholic.
I slept in my nana’s and nano’s room that has been untouched by the years, with aged prints of Mother Mary and Jesus set about me.
I slept in their bed, where they’d slept so many years together, long ago, before they passed on to another place.
And I felt remarkable healing.
I drove alone, and had in total, through several trips, over a day’s traveling time, some twenty-six hours alone on the road.
I prayed a lot. I laughed and I cried.
I sang to music.
I found myself again.
I didn’t let the invisible fear slip in.
Each time I felt a pain in my body or mind, I released the fear to God, and watched as thoughts evaporated and lightness entered me.
I didn’t hurt, despite my muscle condition; I was able to sit for an extended time and remained energetic and able to function at a high-level.
I was happy.
I was me and loved my company.
I was nurtured by loved ones and by myself, well-fed to the point of my chubby cheeks and lovely soul growing a few inches.
I nurtured every part of me. I walked and slept deeply.
Each night, in my grandparents’ room, I was blanketed in the deepest warmth and adoration. I have never felt such love.
I awoke refreshed and renewed.
The visions still came and are still coming, and so is the sadness, sorrow, and suffering. But there remains so much hope and thoughts of goodness to come. And I recognize the goodness is already here. Right here in me.
I am realizing with this traveling of body and spirit that I was happiest when I was teaching. I was happiest when I had a reason to get up and get out of the house, a responsibility beyond appointments and housecleaning and driving.
I am searching now, inside, wondering where I will go next, what my soul longs for, and whom she longs to be with. I miss the company of others, and realize that although my recent social isolation felt necessary that I now wish to return to a semblance of the life I had before, when I moved in the world more frequently with others and when I was confident in my work.
I have hidden a lot in the past twelve years, since I left the public schools, hidden at home and in my own thoughts. I have too much time to think, too much time to process and worry, and too much opportunity to over-weigh my choices and decisions repeatedly.
I need to be, and in my being, I need to be with other people more. I need to create friendships and connections here, in this place I have lived for almost three years. It’s time to stop searching for me and just be.
I have set some “goals” for myself, loose ones with no restrictions or necessity, no demands or “musts” attached, just ideas that I am releasing to my higher power, creations of whom I’d like to be again. Not just the part of me I released over a decade ago, but the part of me that had so much joy and eagerness for life.
I am slowly finding her, rekindling her flame.
I had to let myself burn in the fire awhile, slowly cinder there in deep reflection of self and my travels.
But I think I’m done with that now, the analysis and ins and outs of who this person that is me be.
I know I am love and light.
I know I am beautiful.
I know I am worthy of love and adoration.
I know I have an abundance of love and service to give.
And now I release this part of me, this “pain body,” this searcher, this wanderer continually searching for that which is nowhere to be found.
For I am here. I always have been, as has my God.
And so I am trusting in my next steps, not so much blindly, but with the legion of selves I have created at my side, cheering me on;
and I am releasing, with every part of my self, all pain to the higher realm.
I am releasing. I am letting go. And in so doing, I am free.
Blessings and love, Sam
I find his music to be very healing. I memorized this song. It’s gorgeous, as is his spirit.
Someone once told me that there are three doors to self:
One door you willingly open and show the world. A second door you open to some. And a third door that usually remains closed, a place where you hold the deepest hurts, secrets that if exposed might make you crumble.
In February of 2012, I opened the third door.
Through a series of events, including the discovering of my Asperger’s Syndrome, my necessary exiting from a university counseling program, and my beloved dog’s death, I spiraled into a place of deep depression.
Having been told by a licensed mental health practitioner that indeed she had no doubts I had Aspergers, a massive vault of inner self was opened. It was as if I’d been carrying around a phantom secret my entire life, teetering on a finite point of self-knowledge, but never quite touching down to the answers.
And now I stood, feet firmly planted in the muck and guck of all the places I’d traveled, both externally and internally, faced with all the years of wondering and searching, from priest to psychiatrist, mountain after mountain climbed, in hopes of figuring out essentially “what was wrong with me.”
I knew from a young age that I viewed the world differently. I am an observer of sorts, always an observer, analyzing and picking apart the pieces that intermingle about me, in the spaces between thought and reason, in the middle point where the black and white merge to form something beyond grey.
I see in pictures, vivid images. As I write now, the words are first filtered, almost simultaneously with first thought, into a stream of expression, each word carrying its own color, rhythm and vibration. And the world, my world, is like this too: everything, everywhere, something moving and carrying its own awareness, as if screaming to be seen.
My world is a constant mystery, a present to be opened time and time again, each new day a new beginning. I cannot help this. This is who I am and whom I have always been.
I don’t understand rules and customs, not because I lack the ability to see what is happening, or to read between the lines, but because I see the infinite possibilities of other choices and options, of other paths, so to speak.
I don’t understand dogma and criticism and rights and wrongs, as it seems there is always another side, another way, and in this way, somewhere a victim struggling to be heard.
A passion so deep, runs through me, a river of sorts, that twists and turns and carries a truth I understand, even if no one else does. In a sense I need no confirmation or validation, it is as it is, and just who I be.
Yet, to live in this world, to walk where I walk, there is this way about me, this way I am supposed to be—some societal-imposed rules of conduct and expected behavior that confuses me; for since a child, I was left to wonder, who are the inventors of these rules, and why do they invent?
I was left to wonder why the others, who weren’t me, but seemed an extension of me, behaved in predictable patterns determined by some unknown structure, endowed with the gifts of evidentally knowing when there is nothing to be known, at least nothing to be feasibly discovered in the infiniteness of variables of truth.
I discovered early on that my only solace was in my faith, that being, by my choosing, and my choosing alone, a universal maker that I call God. In here, inside my faith, and only here, I found answers. I began to see the scope of the world as so narrow, at least when viewed through the eyes of so many lost travelers. I began to see that I too was lost with them, in this collective of nonsense recreating games in an attempt be seen.
I stepped out. I removed myself from the game, and was immediately ostracized and shunned, repeatedly corrected for not being as everyone else; even as I watched and knew that all about me was imaginary, people filling in the holes with their ways, when they weren’t really their ways at all.
For to be inside me, is to be inside complexity. Everything mixed and unmuted, painted and swirled with endless possibilities. But it appeared that to be inside of another, at least most of another, was limiting and restricted, honed in by self-inflicted leashes.
I was isolation.
I was what the experience of isolation encompasses: the observer knowing she is different, not knowing why, and forced without reason or cause to walk outside of the line.
I was a loner; though I stood alongside my peers, I was always alone.
I was alone in my creation of different selves in an attempt to move through a world that made no sense. I was alone in my attempt after attempt to be like that which I did not understand. I was alone in my compassion to want to touch another at a level they were uncomfortable touching. I was a traveler who knew not where she touched down and knew not with whom she was supposed to meet.
I was alone.
I was alone until I reached out, not to another, but into the deepest corridors of self. I was alone until I sat within the inner makings of what rested behind my door number three. Until I purged out all of the demons and hauntings and broken pieces of self, and set about to reform the being I truly was.
And then, as I began to see me, unleashed from the fear that had once buried me, others began to see me too; for it was in my true self that they recognized a part of their own true selves. It was in the opening of my third door that others were freed to open theirs.
Together, myself intertwined with others who knew of me and who understood the axe of isolation and disconnection, we began to emerge—one door upon the next, opening and reopening.
And with this opening, we began to see we were no longer alone.
We began to see beauty.
We began to heal.
For finally someone could see us.
Finally we were no longer invisible.
Finally we were understood.
And this is my door number three, these words I have shared, above and below, and out there, in the circling space of energy; not because I needed to find another, but because I needed to be free.
I was standing in front of a variety of buckets of paint. I dipped myself in paint after paint.
I was in search of answers.
Soon I was multi-colored and dripping in knowledge.
I dipped and dipped more and a brilliant rainbow blossomed.
I dipped and dipped, covering every inch of me, until the colors all merged.
Then, and only then, I was the color of black.
But it did not bother me, this guise, this dark, this black.
For I knew all the other colors were still there, still with me, and now in me.
But then the “experts” and “professionals” entered the room, where I stood dripping black. And they observed. Their clipboards and furrowed brows moving in an unwanted rhythm. The dance of them entering my mind and hurting my being.
And they looked and looked where I stood—noting this black shroud upon me.
And I knew then that they were blind, that they could not see all the colors.
They only saw black.
They were quick to form theories about this black. And they were quick to find words, and labels, and meaning.
They assumed since I was garbed in black that I liked black, and only black. They assumed what they saw was the truth.
They couldn’t see.
They couldn’t see that just as black was my companion, so was every other color. Colors they had never imagined.
I couldn’t explain the colors to them. I couldn’t go back and show them where I’d been. I didn’t know how.
I didn’t know the words.
I was blind to their words, as they were blind to my colors.
To them I needed black.
To them I was black.
To them this end product of black was their everything.
They didn’t know that black was merely the mixing of everywhere I’d searched and everything I’d questioned.
They didn’t know that black was not the end product. There were still more colors to find. Still more colors to be.
But when they looked, they saw black.
They gathered their boxes next.
They needed boxes like I needed colors.
I understood that we both craved things that the other did not see or comprehend.
But somehow I was supposed to accept and understand their boxes. Even though they do not attempt to see my colors.
This made me cry inside. This disconnection. And the black grew darker, thick and coated. A darkness that stopped the colors from seeping through. And stopped me from dipping and dripping. Stopped me from being.
And as I was black to them, I was placed in their box of black.
And from there, in the box, I watched them write the words of who I am.
I could not tell them how these words made me feel. I was too busy crying for the lost colors.
How I longed for them to see my colors. To see me in completion. How I longed for them to dip.
For then I knew they would see.
They would see what I see.
And through their dipping and dripping
They would soon discover
That their boxes never existed.
I process in many ways. One of the ways is through playing songs over and over, and feeling a full bowl of emotions. Sometimes a toilet bowl full of emotions. This morning I played this song over and over and had a good cry.
I am realizing I don’t know what it is to feel love from someone. I cannot feel a compliment. I cannot feel positive words. I have realized this recently because of all the beautiful words people have written about me. I have tried to go back to this link of a lovely lady’s blog and reread what she wrote about me in order to feel her words. I cannot feel her words for me. Though I believe she speaks from spirit and truth, I cannot feel her words.
However, I can feel when others have non-beneficial thoughts about me. For some reason, those type of thoughts stick to me like Velcro, and I carry the echo for years. But when it comes to love, I cannot feel it from most people. I cannot feel it from my children, from my husband, from most of my dear, dear friends that I adore.
A commenter can write I am the light, and I do not feel it. I’ve tried to process this logically. Perhaps it was from some of the abuse/neglect of my earlier years, but that doesn’t seem to be it. I am grown now, inside and out. I do love and adore myself; I am even starting to see how kind and lovely I am on the outside. I’m actually quite smitten with my beauty and how I project goodness.
So maybe I am taking in the words, only at a deep, deep level, like at the center of an onion or of a miniature earth. And then the words of love are pushing outward from the deep insides towards the outer layers. That makes sense. Like I energetically store the love at the core of me and then the power of love is projected outward; only the emotion of love when entering bypasses my mind and my conscious awareness.
I am liken to a vessel, a collector of love. Only the “negative” thoughts somehow get stuck in my filtering system and sit there in stagnant water for years until I push them out. I don’t know why the beneficial thoughts don’t stick there. It is as if I lack pride. It is as if I lack the ability genetically or at a soul-level to take in what others’ perceive me as, unless the perception is perceived to be hurtful.
I am realizing that I change in appearance based on my mood. I can see this in my photos. As if the inside of me changes the outside of me. I am realizing that certain people bring out the angelic part of me—the part of me I consider pure, untouched, and flowing with unconditional love. I feel I change internally and externally based on whom I am with. When a person brings out the parts of me that are more of my shadow side, such as anger, frustration, and apathy, I don’t want to be around them. But I now understand these people are here to show me my shadow side and work through this. And in actuality, it is my perception about them that makes me choose to feel the way I do.
I am realizing that there are certain people who bring out what might be considered the very best of me. I can see myself in them, and them in me. With them I shine so brightly I feel I am drunk with happiness.
I would like to find balance. I would like to feel the same joyous light within my heart with everyone, and realize at a spirit level that they do not control or modify my inner light; I do.
When I think: “I do not want to be with him or her because he/she brings out the worst in me,” I want to replace that with: “I am allowing this person to bring out the worst part of me. For now I choose the light of me. I reflect only goodness. I am a mirror to their beautiful soul. All that I judge unjust or wrong about them is merely an illusion. I am no longer a victim to illusion. I am light. They are light. And we are one.”
This is what I want to say. This is what I choose to believe.
I want to be a person who can sit with anyone and be at peace. I want to use the gift God has given me of feeling others’ energy, and instead of evaluating and judging that energy, I would like to recognize the energy and continue to vibrate at a high-level of love.
Instead of wanting to fix or change said person, or run away, I want to be untouched, unchanged.
In truth all people who bring energy to me in form of thoughts, words, and actions are only a mirror to me.
I am recognizing that it is not me looking at them and evaluating what they need to change in order to heal and be a beneficial light. It is them, coming to me, to reflect back what is still in need of change and growth within me. Not that I am flawed or unworthy, only that I have sections of my soul that are in need of reflection and further healing.
When a person writes words that make me feel something at a physical level that is unpleasant, perhaps a slight punch to the stomach or a rerun of a negative vibration knocking on my mind’s door, I can choose to stand back as an observer and feel that feeling in the whole of me. I can question without questioning, and listen without listening, and establish a knowing of what this person is teaching me.
If I label one “narcissistic” or “self-centered” based on the energy he or she is projecting, I can release this judgment without judging myself, and recognize if one is this way, then thusly am I.
I can then recognize what is inside myself that I believe to be narcissistic or self-centered; I can recognize that as my perception of self is incorrect, thusly is my perception of the outer reflection in form of human facing me.
In truth, I can hold us both in light, and understand that as I see another, is actually how I still see myself.
Once I recognize I am total beauty, then I shall recognize the other is total beauty, as well. And the reverse is true, and endless cycle, like a ripple made upon a lake, we dance. Thusly, what I still see in another is what I still choose to see within myself.
Therefore, if a person says to me words that cause me to feel that she is self-centered, I can immediately and with freedom, without self-punishment, say onto myself: “What is inside of me that I still choose to believe is self-centered?” I can then replace the judgment with a few words, such as: “I am beauty. I am light.” And thusly make it so.
I can choose not to collect the energy-pieces of judgment placed upon me.
In choosing to accept this illusion of judgment as part of my reality, when someone judges me, I can bring up the same high vibration of love and recognize that that person chooses to see in me what still needs to be healed within his or her own being, be this physical, emotional, logical, or spiritual.
Therefore, when I recognize someone is placing the label of prideful upon my soul’s energy field, I may pull up the same few words: I am beauty. I am light. And thusly make it so.
One does not work without the other. I cannot choose to think that because someone is judging me then that someone has a fractured part he or she needs to recognize and heal, unless I do the exact same to my own being, when I choose to judge another.
This is where some souls go off-balance, where the energy is not evenly exchanged.
Where there is not yin and yang, equal giving and taking, then the energy level remains off balanced.
I have before said to myself that I do not accept someone’s judgment of me as truth, but then I went on to criticize them, or reason why they were wrong and how I was right. This method is logical and from a low-vibrational place and shall never work.
What needs to be done, if one is to reach a state of peace, something in which each human aspires, whether he or she recognizes this or not, is to maintain a balance in release. Thusly, recognize what is in one is in another. In so doing, in so reflecting the truth upon one another, the earth is healed.
This came to me quickly, as I was concluding this post:
“It is the misers who keep the truth of the world into themselves, believing they are the righteous and all else need to be as them to be in light who are the falsest ones of the light. It is the righteous that need to fall down on bended knee and forgive themselves, and take heed in the word of the light. It is the righteous who shall fall and tumble and scrape the knee of inner spirit time and time again in an endless cycle of turmoil, ricocheting back and forth between two walls of good enough, perhaps superior, and wretchedly ugly. The meek shall inherit the earth with their self-proclaimed goodness, as they shall recognize the beauty within, the beauty without and shine this light bright upon the world. It is no sin, if sin is the word used to describe misery, to proclaim you are beauty as you see the beauty of you reflected in another. It is sin to withhold this thought and beat upon the wall of your spirit with hammer and nail of spite and not enough. To be truly joyous announce to the world your beauty, your love, your joy, and stop choosing to hide behind falsehoods of gratitude. When all about you there are answers; seek now what you believe to be true; seek what you know to be true. That you are everlasting grace, truth, and beauty.”
Everyday Asperger's 