I wrote a blog about being stripped of identity and it’s been occupying time and space inside of me these last several days. Not because I think there was anything wrong about what I wrote but, because there was a missing piece in that writing, a part 2 if you will. Something that, during these last several days of being able to completely slow down to a halt here in tropical paradise has made me contemplate even more. It’s amazing what complete stillness can do.
What if everything that happens is perfect? What if that being left hanging at the ferry terminal with no communication from the lodge was meant to happen and perfect for me? What if this experience here in Cambodia is unfolding so perfectly. Ugh… how I’ve resisted that sentiment so many times because of negative emotions that I think I have been able to let go of and then they resurface again. After some time, I continue to come back to the concept of “What if everything that happens is perfect?”, as being completely for my benefit. And then I can eventually see it is totally true.
Why does it take time to come around to being at peace and with accepting what is while I hold on to some of these negative feelings for a while?
Fear Attracts Fear
Why? Because I’m scared, angry, tired, upset or a combination thereof… Why? Because I’m allowing my own fear to get the best of me. I’m scared of being abandoned by the people that said they would be there for me. I spoke about that wound in my other writing stripped of identity. When I get a taste, or even a mere scent of that happening, I get scared and think the world is against me and I feel like I have to fight for the sake of my own survival. As much as I work so hard and want that fear to go away, it actually reveals an underlying belief that nobody will be there for me. Even though I know deep down it is totally not true. I get caught in a vicious circle of my own self-created misery. I realize this is part of being human and everybody that’s willing to admit their humanity has a wound that sometimes has them temporarily stuck.
I’m attracting what I fear.
I fear the energy of abandonment; therefore, I’m attracting it in my life? YES! That which I fear strongly I will be looking out for and find and experience. Like energy attracts like energy—forming “clumps” of energy of like kind. When enough similar “clumps” crisscross each other—run into each other—they “stick to” each other and when that happens enough times it forms “matter”. This built up “matter” creates a belief that fears are true and I should be looking out for it to happen once again. Once energy becomes matter, it becomes “sticky” and remains for a very long time—unless it is disrupted by an opposing, or dissimilar, form of energy. This dissimilar energy, acting upon matter, actually dismembers the matter, releasing the raw energy of which it was composed.
So how do I dismantle this negative and unnerving energy that does not serve me? Or any other adverse fearful energy? How am I going to “create” a reality that is more in tune with who I am? Because, I am not my story, or my history or my fear!
I need to remember that I can be the person I am meant to be and keep on creating the person that I want to be. I can perform the actions and behave like the person I am meant to be. I can have whatever I can possibly imagine for myself in my life. I can be the person who makes connections and doesn’t let my fear drive the bus. Why is it so hard to take my own medicine sometimes? We teach what we need to learn… so I write about it. ????
The Grand Polarity of Love and Fear
Can you feel the opposing forces of polarity that I’m writing about? The negative emotions where I feel my own self collapsing, while at the same time, the realization that life is unfolding completely for my benefit? This is the duality inside of the human condition, as I like to call it. Fear being at the polar opposite end of love. These are the only two places of being on the physical plane: fear and love.
Thoughts rooted in fear will produce one kind of manifestation and thoughts rooted in love will produce another. Fear is the energy which contracts, closes down, draws in, runs, hides, hoards, harms. Love is the energy which expands, extends, opens up, sends out, stays, reveals, shares, heals. Fear wraps our bodies in armor, love allows us to stand naked, vulnerable.
I’m reminded of the spiritual masters who have walked the planet (Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Moses, Muhammad, and others) are those who have chosen only love. In every instance. In every moment. In every circumstance. Even as they were being killed, they loved their murderers. Even as they were being persecuted, they loved their oppressors. This is what every Master has done. It doesn’t matter what the religion, it doesn’t matter what the faith or tradition. And I’m bitching about not being picked up at the ferry terminal, getting counterfeit money our of the ATM, and being asked not to enter into the kitchen?
How could I have possibly forgotten what that voice of love sounds like? Here’s a reminder just in case. The highest voice inside is always the thought which contains joy. The clearest choice of words are those words which contain truth. The most glorious feeling is the one that is called love. Joy, truth, love. These three are interchangeable and interconnected, and one always leads to the other. It matters not in which order they are placed. The make the circle of life feel complete.
Creating vs. Discovering
I (we) have been put here on this earth to “create” my own reality and not believe I am a product of my family or my history. I am here to experience and discover all that the world and life has to offer, which is one reason I went on this sabbatical. Many people have told me that this sabbatical-travel is to help me realize my own becoming or for discovering more of who Maurice actually is. Uhhh, No. I’m here to create the self I want to be in this world by experiencing all that the world and life has to offer.
I want to be a creator of who I am in my life, not a discoverer of myself. I am here, we are all here, to experience in our lives the highest feeling of love that we can possibly imagine and extend it back out to everyone and the world. This doesn’t mean diminishing or discarding the negative feelings or emotions (hatred, anger, lust, jealousy), but to feel and experience ALL OF IT. All of the polar opposites. The everything that life has to offer. How can I choose love if I have not experienced the absence of love? How can I learn how to forgive until I know what it’s like to be merciless? How would I know what success is unless I’ve been unsuccessful?
Who am I if I am not the things that I may have identified myself as on this physical plane? The same as who you are too. I am goodness and mercy and compassion and understanding. I am peace and joy and light. I am forgiveness and patience, strength bravery and courage, a helper in time of need, a comforter in time of sorrow, a healer in time of injury, a teacher in times of confusion. I am the deepest wisdom and the highest truth; the greatest peace and the grandest love. I have had moments of my life where I have known myself to be these things. I am continually given more and more opportunities to choose to know myself as these things.
It’s my job to make the choice. To choose love like the spiritual masters have done in every situation… to choose the best of who I am, the truth of who I am… without condemning or doing harm to myself for not choosing “right”, or thinking I need to attack someone, or reject somebody else’s perspective, or making a religion or teaching “wrong”. I do not want to do harm to the things I have not chosen in favor of my own perspective. By doing that, I am selfishly making my half… the entire whole. How can I possibly understand my half when I’ve just rejected the other half?
Make the choice.
now!
Now!
NOW!
… and choose love once again!
We have shown that hearts can change and a different future is possible when we refuse to be prisoners of the past.
– President Obama 2018 – Hanoi, Vietnam
Side Note about Cambodia and Vietnam…
| Cambodia
Cambodia was a French protectorate beginning in 1863 before it gained independence in 1953. The Vietnam War extended into the country with the US bombing of Cambodia from 1969 until 1973. Following the Cambodian coup of 1970 which installed the right-wing pro-US Khmer Republic, the deposed king gave his support to his former enemies, the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge emerged as a major power, taking Phnom Penh in 1975 and later carrying out the Cambodian genocide from 1975 until 1979, when they were ousted by Vietnam and the Vietnamese-backed People’s Republic of Kampuchea, supported by the Soviet Union in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War (1979–91). Following the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, Cambodia was governed briefly by a United Nations mission (1992–93). The UN withdrew after holding elections in which around 90 percent of the registered voters cast ballots. The 1997 factional fighting resulted in the ousting of the government by Prime Minister Hun Sen and the Cambodian People’s Party, who remain in power as of 2018.
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Vietnam
During the 3rd century BC, ancient Vietnamese people inhabited modern-day northern Vietnam. In 179 BC. Vietnam became part of Imperial China for over a millennium from 111 BC to 939 AD. An independent Vietnamese state emerged in 939 following Vietnamese victory in a battle against the Southern Han. Successive Vietnamese imperial dynasties flourished as the nation expanded geographically and politically into Southeast Asia, until the Indochina Peninsula was colonized by the French in the mid-19th century. French Indochina saw the Japanese occupation in 1940 amidst the escalation of World War II. Following Japanese defeat in 1945, the Vietnamese fought French rule in the First Indochina War. On 2 September 1945, Vietnamese revolutionary leader Hồ Chí Minh declared Vietnam’s independence from France and therefrom established a provisional communist state. After nine years of war, the Vietnamese declared victory. The nation was thereafter divided into two rival states, communist North—the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and anti-communist South—the Republic of Vietnam. Conflicts intensified in the Vietnam War with extensive US intervention in support of South Vietnam from 1965 to 1973. The war ended with North Vietnamese victory in 1975.
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I was wondering why abandonment might have surfaced so strongly while I am here in Cambodia and transitioning to Vietnam while I’m in the middle of watching Ken Burns Vietnam War TV Series. Then as I did a little research about the history of these countries, pieces began to fall into place. These countries have experienced many wars and occupations by foreign countries, only to be “abandoned” by these countries and left to their own devices to develop once again. That’s what happened in Vietnam by the USA and what happened in Cambodia by the French.
It’s never too late to keep on choosing love over fear.
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