Soul Rage: Wrestling the Ego's Idea of Love

Looking inward to see with raw honesty and to feel Love - woman contemplating with eyes closed

Through my self-reflections of late, I have become awake to that fact that, as a pattern inside me, I often feel like I am an add-on or an afterthought in relationships with people who I consider close. I recognize that I set myself up to feel this way because I give the initiative for expression over to whoever I’m with. I let them choose the restaurant, or whatever leisure activity we will do and where, for instance. I feel too paralyzed inside to bring my own ideas and feelings to the table. It seems that I somehow go into orbit around other people, and I feel really off balance inside myself. So, to try to stretch into something more healthy, I am trying on “being the center of my own life.” I’m trying to be the center of my own solar system so I can try to connect to my authentic feelings even while in someone else’s company.

I have been attending a weekly spiritual fellowship for years. It’s a commitment that has become integral to my personal spiritual practice, and is part of my support system and education in matters of mind and self-awareness. I have truly benefitted amazingly from being part of this fellowship all this time. But even so, practicing being the center of my own life has seemed to put me at odds with this weekly commitment. At present, when I think of the fellowship, I feel angrily that I intend to not go. I see myself passively acquiescing to fit someone else’s idea of what should happen and what I should do. I do not see the hosts of the fellowship as hosting the group simply because that is what is in their hearts to offer. I do not see each attendee as attending because that is simply the joyful choice for them in a context of total freedom. I see the whole thing through a filter of “should,” and regard it as a bother. And I feel angry about being presented with this bother.

In my new commitment to be the center of my own life, I would simply not attend the fellowship. But… I see that I am not actually successfully practicing being the center of my own life in the way I am seeing the fellowship right now… And so, acting from this perspective would not build any equity in my goal to relate to myself in a healthier way. I know that I am in my head looking at an image of this fellowship and rules around the fellowship that exist only in my mind. I am reacting to how I feel about being ruled by an image or set of ideas. I am actually angry about being stuffed down, suppressed, and controlled by my own head. I am tempted to act out and take it out on the things around me that I view through my usual mental program and treat as an image or set of rules with which to “should” on myself. But that will only wreak destruction and chaos that is off-point and an act of treading water within a state of confusion. And it may hurt relationships with those who are trusting me to engage them from a deeper, more honest place.

To fellowship or not to fellowship on any given week is a question for my heart, not my head… for my authentic feeling from a place of freedom and peace, not for my subconscious programming. I endeavor to adjust the natural backlash I feel inside, and use it for what it is truly relevant to… To forcefully reject any notion of “should”… to righteously banish imaging from the inner landscape of my mind. I will NOT be controlled by my head anymore!

 

One of the things that has kept me tied to my head is my ideas of being a nice person… my concerns about coming across to other people as the persona I want to be (in my mind and theirs), and my concerns about whether other people are feeling cared for in their relationship with me.

Too much manipulation and lack of trust.
Too much crafting.
Too much making how I THINK other people feel, the center of my universe.

No wonder the television set attached to my anger says to me over and over again that everyone else gets the life I want while I patiently exist as an overlooked add-on, fitting myself into the cubbies, closets, and guest bedrooms offered me as my contract for love.

Such horsesh*t and I’m doing it to myself!
I am overlooking myself, forfeiting the freedom of feeling, trusting, and expressing whatever I feel in my center… forfeiting that for a suitcase of fears about what I think I have to do to keep my friends comfortable so they will keep me comfortable. But I am NOT COMFORTABLE!! I am angry! Because I keep overlooking myself and then feeling like God overlooks me.

And this bondage to fear I imagine I give as a gift to other people.
I perform to protect them. To make sure they get everything they want as best as I can satisfy.

I give it to them because I want it for myself. But taking and manipulating to get something, looks bad to me, and giving looks good. It’s part of what I want for myself… a world that runs on giving. So I give my generous performance of control and manipulation to others to make comfort for them as best I can, as though I am God. I want to be their source of comfort because if they come to depend on me… to need me for comfort, then I can secure their need as a sense that I am loved. I lose sight of any ability to point them to the true Source of comfort. I feel weak, powerless, and shallow. I think I like myself and my world better for the sacrifices I make. Except that I am angry that I have to be sacrificed to have the world I think I want. And I am angry when my efforts of sacrificial giving are not reciprocated freely.

I’m pretty sure that everything I go through in my own head… my worries about how other people feel and the actions I take out of bondage to those fears… I’m 100% certain, in fact, that they affect other people pretty minimally actually. If I were to stop doing anything at all, I think most of my friends’ lives would still continue the exact same course. Because their lives are made from how they think and what they do, not from an idea they have that I’m nice. Meanwhile, I’m suffering 100% from my own bondage to fear and a false idea of love. My friends can afford the change I want to make for myself. They may not even notice a loss of whatever niceties I dispense with. They might even feel touched by me being truly me.

And if they don’t like it, *&%# ‘em. I deserve to be truly and naturally me from my heart. I deserve to stop overlooking myself. I deserve to make the whole world wait while I stop to listen inside for what feels right within my core.

Of course, the world itself will never wait. Each person will be as still or will run as fast as however they are using their mind. But in my mind, the whole world will wait. Because nothing in this world is more important to me now than knowing my own center. And so no image in my head has my permission to intrude on my sensitivity to my own heart. I will to be steady in my depth and worthy of my own trust.

 

Sequel: Turning Point: Waking Up from the Ego's Idea of Love

 

Spiritual Science Active in this Experience: 

This passage of self-reflection contains some very candid articulations of co-dependent control dynamics that naturally play out as an integral part of many if not all egos’ ideas of love. Much value for personal transcendence comes from seeing these dynamics plainly. But more importantly, this sharing deals with one of the most challenging areas of self-experience to heal: how we see love and ourselves in relationship to love. The deepest and most fundamental wounds in a person’s psyche hinge upon this issue. A person’s individual story of experience will spin a personalized angle on how this type of wound appears within their psyche. But certain fundamentals will always be true, and herein lies the science. In our wounded state of mind, we look for situational confirmation... Login as member to read the whole explication

Spiritual Science Explications on Aspiring Mystic experiences are a supportive benefit for members.

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