DEAR Self from 365 days ago,
You don’t know it yet, but you need this lockdown.
You have been spending your days, deepening this groove in the ground of your life, your patterns: bring the kids to school, escape to a café to have your coffee, write, do your work, get your “me time”. Then fetch the kids from school, do some errands, do more work. Cook dinner. After putting the kids to bed, escape into a series or a book. Ignore the problems in your self and your marriage.
You were teaching others to face the truth about themselves, completely oblivious to the fact that you were ignoring these truths in your own life.
What you are about to experience is what St. John on the Cross called “the dark night of the Soul.”
The pandemic is just the outer circumstance that forces you to face your Self, finally.
And at first, it’s not going to be pretty. In fact, it’s agonizing. Sometimes you will not just be in emotional pain, but in physical pain as well. But this is what finally gets you, the pain that you cause your self, because your world is suddenly devoid of distractions, keeping you confined at home with everything that is truly real in your life. The pain gets magnified as it bounces off the walls. Yes, it truly is feedback. And you need that, because you haven’t been listening.
This is what the philosopher Gabriel Marcel calls that moment of pure hope, when life has you on your knees, and you face your God without conditions and expectations. It is the purest cry of help.
But you won’t know that, yet, dear Self from 365 days ago.
All I can tell you is: the world is your mirror. Every experience, every relationship, every judgment you make, every thought you have—says something about your relationship with yourself.
So no matter how angry you are with the person or situation, remember, it’s not about them: it’s you.
But this is not about fault-finding. This is not about blame.
It is about finally figuring out what is truly going on in that subconscious of yours, and asking yourself: is that really mine? Is it still working out for me? And if not, are you willing to let it go? Are you willing to find something better to believe in?
Thankfully, the Universe is always looking out for you. Your cry of help will always be heeded, and God responds (creatively, funnily) by sending you clients who mirror back to you the issues you need to heal in yourself, or by sending you a book that has one sentence you really need to read. That happened when you got the audiobook of Meggan Watterson’s Mary Magdalene Revealed. I forget the exact words, but she said something like, “The goal of your soul is to be the vibration of love it truly is. But it is your own judgment that prevents you from transforming into the vibration of love that you know you truly are.”
That moment was huge for you. That’s when you realized, “The buck stops here. I am 100% responsible for my experience, good or bad.” And you consciously did your best to melt that crust of anger and resentment you had allowed to harden around your heart.
There is no magic wand. There is no replacement for the inner work you will have to do. In fact, it’s not done yet, 365 days later. And it never will be until your last breath. But it is so worth it.
Because of this pandemic…
You grew closer to your children (you were already close, but more love and understanding is always a blessing.),
You learned to nurture yourself, and not feel guilty about it. (In fact, nurturing yourself makes you a better resource for others.),
You took online courses that helped you grow (salamat, Internet, and those who gave both free and paid courses online!),
You learned that by following the path of your joys, you invite more abundance in your life (who knew you would have your first art exhibit in the middle of a pandemic and actually sell more than half your works?),
Your energy healing practice took off,
You took the online Marriage Encounter weekend, which helped you return to Love. (We remembered why we fell in love in the first place, and that we still want the same things.)
So hang in there, because the agonizing moments will force you to face the truth and help you grow. And when you do the work of clearing your vibration, of raising your frequency, of becoming the love that you truly are—life becomes magical. You will experience life as an endless flow of grace.
The journey of becoming the love that you are is never truly finished. You’re still on it. As long as Soul exists, you are on it. There is always another Heaven to discover.
