There’s something about having an open heart, and open mind and wanting to be there for others that, in such times as this, becomes unhealthy for the individual. As this is my story, these are my feelings, then I speak from my heart about my life, for it is all I truly know, and yet I am only beginning to know self.
I received a message from the Spirit, imprinted in the soil of my heart, that keeps popping up these days, as a gentle reminder of two things: one, that I am not alone and that my quintessential self, my real Self is with me guiding me through this journey; and, two that I am in a process, a process of self-uncovery and healing. The message is simple, as were the teachings of my mentor, my role model, Yahshua. That message simply is, “Love hurts (and then) Love heals.”
In my pain I continue to resist and try to be rid of those things that are tumbling through me at break neck speed; that stop and clog me up, freezing me from being in anything other than the pain I feel, grasping so tightly that in those rare moments of recognition I realize that I am not even breathing.
Always a sensitive person, taking on the cares of the world, all of which began in my childhood, which, in reflection appears to have been the life of an adult in a child’s body. I seem to have spent most of what was termed childhood years, being a young adult, protective of my siblings, and yes even one parent, from the pain and suffering; attempting to shelter from harm. It’s like I decided I was the great protector and I could protect everyone from harm, hurt and disappointment; like it was my God given role (at the age of 10, 11 etc.) to be the one who nurtured and made everything okay for my family, and if I didn’t do it they would suffer greatly and I couldn’t have that, it wasn’t acceptable and I must fix it and everything else that I deemed to be wrong in my tiny world. I spent an adult childhood trying to make everything better, to fix things so there’d be no turmoil and so that life would indeed be, “a bed of roses.” Perhaps it was a, “bed of roses,” and continues to be, but I failed to see that those thorns were necessary; that life wasn’t and wasn’t intended to be all flowery and fragrant, that there were things well beyond any human’s control that I needed to recognize and to let go.
This blog came about as I opened up a book I was reading, to pages I’d previously read, and a section that was highlighted with a big fat asterisk beside it. This indicated to me that I’d read something that was one of those, “Ah ha!” moments. Sure enough, it was indeed such a moment, and my Spirit obviously wanted me to re-read what had spoken to me when I first read this (which, by the way was about two weeks ago, for I wrote the date beside it). When I get those moments, or when I get a message in meditation, it has always proven to be a lesson, a warning in advance, that I would find myself in a situation, in the not too distant future, where I would need to be conscious and aware of what I’d read or heard, and draw upon the strength that was provided. Well, again, I failed to do this, and instead of drawing upon these life lessons and pebbles of truth, true to historical form, I’ve been thrust into these situations and once again became a reactionary, responding in the same old self-defensive, self-justification way.
What I read, I share with you the reader, just in case, perhaps you too may be finding yourself in a situation that is similar; it may be similar but for each and every one of us it is different and unique because we are all different and unique.
The following is quoted from the book The Great Shift, Co-Creating a New World for 2012 and Beyond and is found at page 138. It speaks about this business of being an empathy, of feeling the pain and dis-ease of others, including the not too healthy environments we might, and we will, find ourselves in, especially in these days and the days to come. These, for me are lessons that I need to be awake and consciously aware of at all times, where I need an Open Heart, but need to know when to close the windows and shut the doors, to keep the negative, the unhealthy out, to keep it from infecting my essence and crippling and blinding me to life, and to truth and to what is important. May you read and hear what you need from this sharing. Please note that any bold or italic emphasis is mine, as are the comments found in brackets within this quote from page 138 of The Great Shift:
…this culture in which you now live is highly toxic, and it is not advisable to have all the doors and windows to the house of self (for me the heart is representative of my house) open to this world in this time.
So our first suggestion to such individuals is to know that you have the ability and the right, the sovereign right, to close the doors and windows of your self when needed. This is the quintessential paradox for highly developed empaths, because for such individuals it is difficult, and even painful, to close the openings to the world. It runs counter to their nature (for me it’s like denying self, the self that I’ve lived in and with all my life, and I’m no spring chicken as I write this blog). But they must find the way to recognize when they are in a toxic situation, meaning people or situations that are not in their best interest, because to take in the energies of such people or situations becomes a toxin, a negative energy in the body of the empathy.
So our suggestion is this. Close the windows; close the front door and the back door. Close the cellar door. And when someone knocks at the door, you take a look before you open. So that is the principle.
In closing let me say that for me the heart is the all and that mine has been opened even more, that is all the front doors and windows have been opened for healing, which has left me vulnerable, that is to say, wide open thus even more susceptible to allowing these negative things to enter and undo all the good that is being done in my current uncovery and healing process. There have been times I’ve felt like I was having a “heart attack;” literally and physically – the pain so excruciating it brought me to tears. And then within days I would find myself in a situation where I felt like the old heart was back, the old house polluted and full of toxin was back to its original condition.
I thank my Spirit for bringing this life lesson to me, and have no doubt that today or some time in the not too distant future I will find myself in a situation where I must, for sanity and health, recall these words, this lesson and thus go through (hopefully and prayerfully) unscathed and none the worse (or at least a little less damaged and polluted than previously experienced).
Lesson: It’s okay to close my doors and windows, to shut out situations that are not healthy. It’s okay to not be the open person, always ready to receive the worlds woes. It’s not my job to take this on, nor to fix the problems of people, places or things. My job is me. If I am healthy then I will contribute to the atmosphere healthy and positive energy; nothing more and nothing less – and this is the greatest good I can do for myself and the world around.
