It has been a rather busy couple of weeks particularly with the spiritual direction courses. Our course on mysticism required reading a very academic, intellectual series of 20 lectures from 1901/02. I’ve been working on it for a couple of months, and I have to say it was not easy. The author’s efforts to intellectualize and systematize material that is deeply experiential and often ineffable were laudable and quite informative but really mind bending for me and many of my fellow students. I made it through however and I feel like I can breathe again.
In the midst of all that I’ve also been having some really wonderful experiences through centering prayer and morning pages and the contemplative practices class I led on Saturday. One healing experience has been around defendedness which I have struggled with for so very long.
Since realizing several years ago just how defended I was and how much of a barrier to deeper connection it presented I’ve been working on understanding it and moving beyond it. Earlier this week it came up for me again and as I journaled about it and contemplated what it was all about, I once again came to the point where I had no idea what to do with it. I could see how it was about not feeling safe in the world as a child and how that has carried forward, albeit unconsciously, and how the defenses are all about trying to create safety and that they’ve outlived their real usefulness to put it succinctly.
So, at that point I just stopped; I knew I needed to ask for help because I could not penetrate the wall on my own, so I did, I prayed for help and it wasn’t 5 seconds later that I heard very distinctly in my mind, ‘accept it’. It was clear as a bell and so obvious, but I had actually been doing everything but accepting that I did not feel safe in the world at a very deep level. The energy shifted in a profound way as I welcomed those feelings and let them be.
There was really nothing else that needed to be done, I just needed to let go of the resistance. So simple and I’ve had this kind of experience numerous times before but that part of me that thinks it can figure it all out and be in control still likes to take over now and then.
That’s ok, I’m onto you my dear.
Namaste
