Necessary Heartbreak

God can do anything through us, if we allow Him.  The trick is to let go of what He chooses to do (or not do) through us.  We have to recognize that the “what” is not about us.  If we miss this lesson and become attached to the “what”, we are vulnerable to ego investing in what the “what” should be and when the “what” should occur.  This is where we encounter problems, and in the end, limit God’s ability to work through us.  That’s what happened to me when my ego became attached to a specific plan, regarding how God could use me.

For weeks, I could sense that this was occurring in me.  Fear of the future and a strong desire to know continued to sweep through my awareness, no matter how often I tried to neutralize these fears.  I was clinging to all manner of signs that could possibly indicate that I was moving towards the vision that my ego sought.  It was as if I was sitting in a pot of water that kept getting hotter and hotter until it finally boiled over.  The boiling point occurred when I realized that I didn’t make the final cut in latest writing contest that I had entered my manuscript in.  This time there was no grace in accepting the rejection.  I went through the full stages of being upset, angry, and frustrated before reaching a state of acceptance.  My response showed me what I had feared — complete ego investment in getting published.

In the weeks leading up to this, I tried to alleviate my fear of my growing attachment to getting published by reminding myself that my true stake in this process was about using the platform that being published provides to extend the reach of who I could help.  I tried to maintain my humility by keeping the process oriented on helping others, but it was masking an underlying truth that I was afraid to face (and was hoping would simply go away) — that I wanted to be published for what it could mean to me.  It wasn’t only about helping others; it was about how good it would feel to be published and where it could lead me.  It was about a true sense of accomplishment and recognition.  It was about validating how I’d chosen to spent the last year and a half.  It was about feeling that this should occur because of how special it was for God to work through me to co-create the book.  It was about joining the others who are my age and sharing similar stuff, but are actually being interviewed by Oprah on her Super Soul Sunday series.  I wanted the accolade of being published and the quick rise for what I thought it could do, both for extending the reach of my message and leading me to the life my ego had been envisioning.

I could feel the underpinning of these thoughts occurring in my awareness, but I kept hoping that they weren’t true — that I hadn’t slipped so far back into ego’s grip that I would lose my humility as well as my focus on serving others.  But I had and God knew that if I was to be used as a part of His will that I’d need to be broken of these desires.  What else could He do but break my heart?  It had to occur.  To continue to move forward would have had me building on ego and I can’t do any good if that’s the case.  I would have just fallen from further up.

I fully accept that I had to learn this lesson.  My thoughts, focus, and desires over the past month had gotten too far out of hand.  My perspective had slipped.  Ego had overtaken my awareness.

As much as I feared my need to face these truths, actually facing them was a welcome relief.  I hadn’t been completely myself for weeks.  I felt more fear than usual (see blog on Faith Is Moving Without Knowing).  I hadn’t been waking up joyful, which is so uncharacteristic of me it’s hard to believe that that was actually happening (see blog on The Funk).  In retrospect, I can see that I was experiencing a lot of inner conflict, but in trying to fix it without fully facing it I was repressing the root of the conflict.  I had been addressing various symptoms, but I had not addressed the root cause.  I couldn’t address my attachment until my hand was forced.  God knew this, which again, is why I believe this had to occur.  My hand had to be forced so that I could realign with spirit.

Since I had been sensing for weeks that this attachment was something I needed to face, when the rejection actually occurred, in the midst of my tears and anger, I asked God to please break me of those desires.  I had a lot of emotions swirling all at once.  I was angry at myself for having gotten so far “off track” from being centered in spirit, angry at the rejection, scared about what to do next, and at the same time, open to aligning with the lesson that was supposed to come from this experience.

In the days that followed, I prayed to God to bring me back under His guidance.  I knew that whatever was to come had to come from within, so I made more time for silence and prayer.  My attachment to getting published and the vision of my life that I associated with what could come of it scared me.  I didn’t know how to prevent ego from creating and attaching itself to another future vision.  I wanted to be driven by passion, but not blinded by ego.  I wasn’t sure how to accomplish this, since this is how I thought I had started out and ego had still found a way in.  I thought the only way to deal with this was to close myself off to what the future held by agreeing to live a simple life (one that didn’t include ego’s vision of the future).  In this way, I would be brought back to finding contentment in the present moment (versus living in anticipation of the future).  From a spiritual standpoint, I should be okay with a simple life.  But I must admit that this, too, gave me heartache.  I still desired to do more.  But why did I desire to do more?  I had to face the hard truth:  Was my ambition driven by my ego or my heart’s desires?  Was my ambition part of the recipe for how I was created to do what I was sent here to do or was it hindering God from using me to the greatest degree possible?

The answer lie in whether or not I was coming from a place of humility.  It lie in whether I wanted to reach more people as an indicator of success or a desire to help them.  In realizing that I was being driven by both, I thought I should figure out a way to divorce myself of that which is of ego — my desire for success.  I thought in agreeing to live a simple life that my desire for success would be tempered, such that my desires would then be fully based in spirit.  I wasn’t trying to shut myself off from great things happening; I was trying to shut them off from stemming from ego.  This would allow my belief in possibility to work from the standpoint of spirit (versus ego).

It is upsetting to see how easily I was (and quite likely still am) motivated by ego.  I’m not sure why I wasn’t able to come from a place of compassion and humility more naturally.  It is still quite frustrating because even as I think of “next steps” regarding the book, my mind races to potentiality of what could happen versus simply allowing it to unfold and being grateful as it does.  Months ago, a friend sent me a photocopy from her daily devotional, Jesus Calling, where it says “our mind is the last bastion of rebellion”.  I am definitely experiencing this rebellion!  Mind, would you please cooperate?!?  I choose humility!

The thing about our mindset or our perspective is that it is the thing, in this journey, that we are meant to control.  When I think back to what this journey has taught me thus far, I know that consciously choosing our perspective is where our focus should lie.  My way back to being centered in spirit is through the perspective that I choose.  I lost my way when attaining the outcome became motivated by ego.  I shifted from seeing each day as an opportunity to serve to seeing each day as the distance between where I was and where I wanted to be.  I shifted from finding purpose in the present (how I could use each day to help others) to only seeing it in the future, when I arrived at destination being published and interviewed on Oprah’s Super Sunday Soul series.  When reaching more people became a factor of success instead of compassion, I set myself up to live in anticipation of the future instead of the present.  I got caught in trap of being focused on myself instead of others, which is always of ego.  Fortunately, we can change this; it is within our control.  We can choose spirit over ego.

My way back to spirit is through compassion and humility, which begins with forgiving myself for this misstep.  It’s not going to do me or anyone else any good to further berate myself.  I accept what has occurred and choose to move forward in spirit (as I would encourage all of us to do when infractions of ego occur).  As the dust continues to settle, new ideas are bubbling forth in terms of “next steps”.  What I know for sure is that God is guiding me in a new direction; one that is of Him.  I’m excited about what is to come and will share more as it is revealed to me.

We have to learn to break ourselves from attaching to how God could or should use us.  In attaching to a specific plan, we risk closing ourselves to the one He has planned for us.  When we fight where He has us or where He is leading us, we also set ourselves up for prolonged periods of frustration and discontent.  It places us in a state of non-acceptance of what is; a place where peace and contentment cannot exist.  When we are open to all, and thus attached to nothing, we are set up for God to fully work through us.  Becoming attached to a specific plan or outcome of ego is a surefire way to create static in our communication channel between ourselves and God.  Ego’s desire to have our life go a specific way overrides our ability to intuitively feel if we are being led in another direction.  We have to loosen up our attachments, such that we are open to things not occurring in the way that we may have originally envisioned.  It doesn’t mean that we give up on our dreams, but rather that we surrender to a Higher Intelligence, trusting that It knows where and what we should or should not be doing as a part of a greater plan for the good of all concerned.  This is how we allow the mystery of God’s plan to unfold in our lives.

Before I lost my way, I focused on the following passage from A Course In Miracles and in working my way back to spirit, I reacquainted myself with it:

A healed mind does not plan.  It carries out the plans that it receives from listening to the Wisdom that is not its own.  It does not depend on itself for anything except its adequacy to fulfill plans assigned to it.  It is secure in its certainty that obstacles cannot impede its progress to the accomplishment of any goal that serves the greater plan established for the good of everyone.

As always, the journey continues…

Much love to all,

Shanna

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