When You’re Squeezed, What Comes Out…Fear or Love?

One of the more difficult parts of our spiritual journey is staying aligned with love when we’re under pressure. This is where the rubber really meets the road, because it causes us to face a level of ego-energy that remains dormant when said pressure is not there.

However, if you’re willing to open to the growth opportunities that stressful situations provide, they can serve as a catalyst for major spiritual growth…the more intense the polarity between the choice for fear and love is, the greater the reward (in terms of spiritual growth) when love is chosen.

Unfortunately, these challenges are no walk in the park. How could they be when they test the depths of your ego?

When the pressure’s on, everything tends to collapse…all of the wisdom that you worked so hard to absorb from reading self-help and spiritual books quickly fades to the background as your old conditioning comes flooding to the surface…

Fear swoops in and destroys your faith in any intention you may have set that morning.

You may feel inclined to lash out in anger. Maybe you do; maybe you don’t, but, regardless, it’s a mounting energy that’s growing inside of you, waiting to be expressed.

Your faith in yourself…the Universe…and whether or not this “spiritual stuff” works is likely tested.

You may snap at an innocent bystander (maybe your mom, your significant other, your co-worker or a stranger who happens to cross your path)…all because they inadvertently entered fear’s path.

Maybe you break down and cry. Maybe you bury it deep inside and push on.

When the pressure is on, ego tends to leverage any advantage that it can take.

The trickiest part of this whole spiritual endeavor may lie in the fact that ego ramps up its game while love waits patiently in the shadows for you to recognize it.

While ego loudly vies for your attention, love quietly waits for you to penetrate these layers of ego-energy until you finally touch the part of your being that is love.

However, facing this pressure is what makes anchoring in love possible.

To truly anchor in love, only love can ooze from us when we’re squeezed. Therefore, we must be willing to face and work through these layers of energy until no outside pressure can produce a response based in fear.

I’ve been squeezed lately, and, unfortunately, love is not what came out. Fear got the best of me. I did all of the above…

Fear destroyed my faith in my personal intentions.

I (mentally) lashed out at myself, the Universe and this “spiritual stuff”.

I snapped at my mom (my poor mom has the displeasure of seeing my ugly side).

I broke down. I buried it inside.

And then…

I felt guilty for doing all of the above when my intention is actually to align with love…which set off another mental tirade, regarding what the hell I thought I was doing sharing these spiritual teachings with others if I was still reacting with this much fear.

And finally, after doing mental battle with all of the above inner chaos, I started facing the challenge that had been put in my path much more constructively.

I accepted that fear (instead of love) was oozing out of me when I was under pressure…something that I wasn’t readily willing to admit, since it stood counter to where I hoped to be in my journey.

As I always say (and sometimes forget), we cannot transform what we first do not accept, since acceptance breaks the cycle of resistance that ego uses to keep a foothold in our awareness.

In not accepting where I was in my journey (still consumed with a fair amount of fear), I was resisting doing the necessary work to break through these deeper layers of ego-based energy. In finally accepting that there was work to be done, I was free to begin doing the necessary inner work.

I started to look at and observe the pressure ego was threatening me with, instead feeling like I was a victim to the pressure itself. This is a key shift that occurs through a commitment to our inner work…moving from full identification with the situation ego is creating to observing the situation as a creation of our ego’s making.

It’s the difference between feeling like we are the storm to observing the storm from the perspective of a third-party bystander. It’s the shift in perspective from ego to spirit. As spirit, we are the third-party bystander.

Ego’s goal and role is to keep us from knowing this truth. Our job is to consciously realize this shift in perspective.

We have to find ways to step outside of the momentum of energy that ego constantly uses to hold us in a deep sleep against this truth, such as prayer, silence and meditation. The more often we’re able to do this, the better equipped we are at handling ego’s attempts at luring us back into a deep sleep.

This is how we strengthen our ability to permanently anchor in love.

Know that it’s a process. There will be stumbles. But as the saying goes, “anything yields to practice”, including choosing love. So just be willing to practice doing what it takes to align with love. Know and accept that buckling under pressure is simply part of the process of strengthening your “love muscles”.

If you’re willing to stay committed to this process, there will come a time when, no matter how much outside pressure you face…only love emanates from you.

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To anchoring in love,

Shanna

“A Call to the Heart is a compelling book that demonstrates we are not separate from God, but where the only thing that keeps us from that realization is our thinking.  A Call to the Heart allowed me reflect on my life and gave me the context from which to understand my own personal experiences as it relates to finding my true essence.  Shanna Covey easily cuts through the chasm of religious doctrine, and synthesizes the real essences of these teachings into a powerful, breathtakingly well-written book of the true meaning of spiritual enlightenment.” Reuben C. Tamez, Houston, TX

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