You Are Born To Be Free (2/18/15)

“Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces …”
-May Sarton

Image may be NSFW.
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Yesterday, I was reading a book that so touched me, I could feel the shift within me as my body was remembering the therapy work, the “mat trips” at Shalom Mountain Retreat and Study Center, and the necessary deep inner work on my journey to healing and wholeness which for me started when I was 39 years old and the process continues to unfold. For me, this has been one of the great truths in my life:

“Until you learn to die and be born again, you are but a dull guest on a dark planet.”
-Goethe

I was reading Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and PsycheImage may be NSFW.
Clik here to view. by Bill Plotkin which is about learning to say good-bye to the old constricting patterns, preparing ourselves to welcome the freedom and new life that is seeking to emerge within us, if only we will choose it. He writes about how many of our patterns of unconscious inauthentic behaviors, and addictions, are anchored early in our childhood. I invite you to read slowly, prayerfully, and aloud to yourself:

“All children and adolescents fashion personalities that fit with the native culture. In the West, that means a society largely materialistic, synthetic, technological, anthropocentric, ethnocentric, and egocentric. Fitting in with such a culture is difficult to accomplish without losing contact our souls and with nature, the web of life. Western lifestyles that revolve around a constant barrage of anemic distractions may be, in part, ways of self-numbing so as to minimize the pain of that loss. Many people have succumbed to daily routines of soul-starving entertainment, superficial fashion, and mind-numbing jobs.”

A life style such as the above is only possible by the splitting off and the denying of much of our human potential, much of our magnificence as daughters and sons, created in the image and likeness of God. Our soul can be wounded – our soul can even be murdered. One can be hollow and empty inside, only going through the motions of being alive. Childhood can be hell for all of us, especially if we have been good and nice and obedient and have conformed to all the expectations of parental, educational, cultural, and religious authority figures. For some where there has been alcoholism, violence, inappropriate sexual behavior, narcissistic parents, the pain can be unbearable, worse than hell.

Alice Miller wrote about children in The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self, Revised EditionImage may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.. The book was given to me by my therapist. All of the above is unconscious adaptive behavior coming from patterns that we developed between the ages of 3 and 12 – just to conform. As children, it was the only way to live – or so it seemed.

I sent this Soul Nugget to a therapist friend of mind who commented on “the deep unlearning work we must do as we awaken at mid-life.”

Often, there is so much for each one of us to unlearn.

Thank God there is a road to freedom. One can breakthrough and out of such “unfreedom.” One can become conscious and find one’s path to freedom, to healing and wholeness. Psychologist Jean Huston says this is an “invitation to our renaissance” – a call to rebirthing and to freedom.

You begin to wake up and choose authenticity instead of conforming to the old well learned social expectations of others. Shedding patterns of social conditioning, unlearning constant conformity to others, can lead to an inner jolt of freedom and new life. Jesus, our brother and friend, is right. Yes, you must be born again! Your true self, not your fearful adaptive and conforming self. This leads to what Bill Plotkin calls the “Death Lodge,” where the old patterns of belonging to the world and to external authority figures are broken, set aside to die as they no longer are needed. The goal here is not to discover who you used to be, but rather who you really are. This is new creation, new being. This is freedom road! This is a breakthrough to naked authenticity.

Until you learn to die and be born again, you are but a dull guest on a dark planet.

Music for your prayer and reflection – allow the music to flow through you opening inner spaces, releasing you to become you, letting you unlearn some of the scripts that have inhibited you, that have not been life giving for you. These words come to mind: “For freedom, God has set you free! Do not submit again to the yoke of slavery!”

I welcome your thoughtful responses to this post.