Family - Part One

Growing up I had the type of family who would hold grudges towards each other for years or decades at a time and sometimes for life. This behavior was rampant throughout not only my immediate family but also all the extended family. We were the type of family that didn't talk about how we felt, we didn't apologize, and we suppressed the majority of our thoughts and feelings. Family dynamics were very confusing since it was hard to remember who didn't like who and what they didn't like them for and who did what to who. It seemed there was always someone mad at someone. Many family members would "cut off" other family members also. There was rampant abuse throughout the entire family involving any and every type of abuse you can imagine.

My personal experience of being cut off from family members was my normal, I thought that was how the world worked. I remember the first time I was cut off by a family member I was just a young child (under 10). I was at my grandmother's house, and we got into an argument about something, I honestly don't even remember what it was about or what was even said. I do recall saying hurtful things to my grandmothers because I was upset and as we all know, we say things we don't mean when we are upset. I know that we both said mean things in anger to each other. That was the first time I was cut off. 

My grandmother wouldn't speak to me or even acknowledge my existence. I was left to believe that I had done some terrible thing in order for my very own grandmother to not speak to me. After some time (don't remember how long) I apologized to her and then she cried and apologized also, and we made up. Over the next twenty-five years or so, I would continually be cut off from my grandmother for one thing or another. Usually for years at a time. The reasons for being cut off would be due to the fact that sometimes I was mean to her, sometimes it was a misunderstanding or miscommunication, and sometimes it was due to something on her part. It never really mattered what the reason was as to why she cut off all communication with me, it was my fault 100% of the time. I was always the one to apologize, in which case she would cry and also offer her complimentary apology.

Most of my childhood our extended family had to have multiple Christmas gatherings in order to include everyone who wasn't speaking to whoever else at the time. I would envy the other families who wouldn't have to have multiple holiday gatherings. We couldn't have one Christmas gathering since there were those who refused to come if other the others were there. One year as an adult, I had an uncle attack me over the fact the I wasn't living my life in a way he agreed with and when I stood up for myself, he forced the family to once again split Christmas so he wouldn't have to be near me.

This same uncle would berate and belittle everyone in the family. He would criticize, critique, mock, and openly insult everyone. The fact that he did this was ok with everyone because that was just "who he was", "the fun-loving funny uncle who talks shit." The only people in the family who were free from this uncle's oppressive slew of insults were coincidentally enough the "wealthy" family members. The "wealthy" family members could do no wrong in his mind. Most of the family live in self-loathing poverty and the "wealthy" family members were treated as royalty by the whole family.

I was often witness and sometimes a party to family members discussing other family members when they weren't present. Family members who openly hated other family members around everyone except the person they hated. They were very kind to the persons face who they hated so the person they hated wouldn't even know they hated them or wouldn't have a chance to defend themselves or even apologize. There were no opportunities for apologies and any apology given was simply to get something in return. There was physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, and emotional abuse. Gaslighting and scapegoating was an expert level skill most of the family possessed. Self-awareness and self-reflection were non-existent within the family. The biggest rule within our family was no one ever admitted when they had made a mistake.

Writing this out, it is pretty clear that I never deserved to be treated that way, in fact no one does. This dysfunctional family dynamic has caused me issues with insecurity, low self-esteem, anxiety, fear of abandonment, isolation, depression, and people pleasing to the point of completely ignoring myself and my own needs. I happened to be born into a family where both of my grandmothers were narcissists. Everything revolved around my grandmothers all the time. The family was simply there in order to give the grandmothers everything they wanted and when they didn't get their way, we all got punished in one way or another so we all just stopped fighting it and went along with it. Call it nurture or nature, but other family members are also narcissists or have traits. I myself found that I too mimicked narcissistic traits as a means of adapting to my environment.

We all adapted the best we could and did what we could do survive, as for me, I had to leave. I tried to stay around for as long as I could but eventually, I realized that my family was drowning, and I couldn't swim so me sticking around to help them would just mean we all drown. I had to leave in order to learn how to swim. By learning how to swim I am able to help others who are drowning. I forgive the family that I grew up with, but it was my time to move on. I pray they find peace; I pray they find joy, and I pray for them freedom from suffering. When we are in a dysfunctional family, we can't see it for ourselves. In order to adapt to our environments, we can convince ourselves of anything. If we are able to move past all of the "rules" about always putting "family" first and leave our dysfunctional family, we may just find our true family who will show us just what a healthy family dynamic looks like, or we can discover it on our own. Living in the past that cannot be changed and dwelling on all the disfunction does no good for anyone. We can forgive the past and change the future by changing our perspective and discovering what a healthy relationship looks like versus an unhealthy one.

This is part one of a three-part discussion. This first post is about my personal life and my personal experience. I do not write these things about the family I grew up with in order for anyone to "take my side" or to damn them for their behavior. I have forgiven them and there is no reason for anyone else to hold any bitterness over them. I genuinely wish them peace, but their presence is no longer needed in my life. They are in pain and how can we condemn those of us who are in pain? By leaving the family that I was drowning with I was able to find people who are swimming alongside me. The family that was and will be given to me by God helps me stay afloat when I feel like I am starting to drown. Since I have support when I start to feel like I am drowning, I am able to give that support right back when they feel like they are drowning. Family is not always the family that we are born into, sometimes our family is outside of our birth family. Love and Peace!

Religious Trauma

The illusion of the appearance of fear has infiltrated religions. Religions by design are guides for peace. Peace is at the center of all religions. Peace comes by grace from God in the Abrahamic western religions, and peace can be found within in the eastern religions. Christianity has Jesus Christ who was God incarnate, a bringer of peace. Buddha was enlightened with inner peace. There have been others who have discovered the peace from within. Both western and eastern religions are correct in their own way, peace can appear to come from without through the grace of God or it can be discovered within ourselves. We are all beings from the same source and that source is eternal peace, we are all born with peace, if you've ever been around a newborn, you know this to be true, we seem to "lose" our peace as we grow and evolve within this world, in truth we can only attempt to ignore the peace that is always within leading to the illusion of pain and suffering.

What is the seemingly opposite of peace? Conflict. What appears to cause conflict? The illusion of fear. Where does the illusion of fear originate? From the false belief that we can "sin" or do wrong and therefor our punishment is death, thereby attempting to disassociate ourselves from the whole of reality which seems to cause conflict and confusion. For how can we be anything other than what we are? Since we come from peace and are born with peace, that peace is always with us, never fading, never disappearing, never leaving. We simply place other idols before our very own being which is eternal peace.

Fear being woven into religion causes religious suppression and abusive behavior. Religions have taught us to be afraid of everything in this world instead of showing us an example of what God's never-ending grace and Love are really like. We are preached at, talked down to from a pulpit as if we are less than, lower than. There are often times a hierarchy within religion where "normal" people are under an entire line of people between us and God. An example of this we can clearly see within the Christian religion. At the bottom is "normal" people in need of God and above them are the deacons and elders and above them the associate pastor and above them the head pastor and above them the church board within whatever specific denomination of that particular church and above them is Jesus and finally we are able to maybe find Jesus's father God someday. That is if we are able to work ourselves along the ranking system with enough moral perfection and superiority to someday come face to face with God.

Religions teach suffering, condemnation, and eternal punishment unless we are perfect and never "sin" and if we do "sin" we need to make sure we apologize to God immediately just in case we are to perish before we are able to confess our "sins", but the apology has to be sincere otherwise it doesn't count. That fear of God that religion instills in us runs deep to our core and is the cause of all of the other fears that appear. Once religion instills the fear of God's awful wrath into us, we are already in hell. Hell is the imagined fear of God, hell is thinking God could be anything other than what God is. God is Love, God is grace, God is forgiving, God is merciful, and God is patient.

In God there is absolutely no hierarchy. Jesus and his father God are one, Jesus tells us this himself. Jesus shares his sonship with all of creation, therefore we are all God's children equally alongside Jesus, no hierarchy. We are ALL siblings in Christ. Jesus died so we don't have to, he shared eternal life with us. Jesus took our "sins" away and blessed us with the ceaseless atonement of God. The Holy Spirit is the third part of the trinity that is taught within Christianity. The Holy Spirit is who shares communication with God and us since we believe that we are separate from God and are in need of God's salvation from ourselves. The holy spirit is also equal to God and Jesus. 

We find it confusing how God and Jesus can be one, yet we don't think twice about a child being a spitting image of their parent in every way possible. We are unable to tell the child apart from the parent aside from the size of their body, one being a lot smaller as it is a child. God the father and Jesus the Son are one in a similar way. Too many of us put way too much emphasis of the requirement to understand the trinity. The trinity exists whether we understand it or not. I spent way too many years trying to figure out the trinity until I saw the wisdom that I didn't need to understand it, I would understand the concept when I was ready to. To put this in a way we can all understand, we all are part of God's family, we are all equal with God, the reason this terrifies so many of us is because the "families" we know here on earth are dysfunctional as hell. God's family is not a dysfunctional family but a functional one. I will discuss family dynamics is a three-part discussion following this post. Love and Peace!

Black

Pain, severe, excruciating, unfathomable, endless pain. Misery, sorrow, grief, depression. Desire for death, desire to stop existence, and desire to never have existed. Fear, judgement, and punishment. Darkness, emptiness, and nothingness. These are our nightmares in which we attempt to create a false reality. When we live within this false reality that we have created in which we appear separate from you, as if it were possible, all the apparent darkness comes along with this false reality.

When we are children and are awaken by a nightmare, we are assured by our Loving parents that it was just an illusion, same as the troll hiding under our bed to turn us to stone as soon as we are left alone is an illusion within our mind. We as children believe the nightmares to be real and need a Loving parent to assure us otherwise. We transform into adult sized bodies but still hold onto the nightmare from childhood and create new nightmares. We become trapped within our own nightmare and believe ourselves to be apart from you or we worship one aspect of you and idolize that one aspect and call that one aspect of you God and claim we know all of you.

Having never left you, for that would be impossible, you remain patient and assure us that we are safe, and no harm may fall upon us. We get so lost in our nightmares that we find it hard to hear you or feel you or to know that you are there. We get so lost in our nightmares that we start to believe that our pain and suffering are real and are actually happening to us, instead of seeing our "pain" for what it is, which is just a nightmare and when we awake, all pain and suffering will be shown to us for what it is, which is just an illusion of our own making within our mind.

In our stubbornness we refuse to listen to reason and logic which tell us that we are safe and that we are not alone and that we are Loved. Within our nightmare we use logic and reason that aligns with our nightmare, and we refuse to look at any other reason or logic that would contradict our reason and logic remaining trapped within our own nightmare created by the self that we are dreaming is separate from you.

In your infinite patience, you allow us to remain in our nightmare as long as we please all the while holding us and reassuring us that all is ok. Because we are so determined to live within our nightmare and not wake up to you, we force ourselves to dive deeper and deeper into the nightmare until we inevitably end up right back where we started having never gone anywhere.

As we dive deeper into the pain and terror within our nightmare, we are shown the pain and terror for what they are which are part of our nightmare. The more pain and terror we face the more we start to doubt our own nightmares reality. We chase pain, we chase death, and we chase terror. None of which we can ever seem to find no matter how hard we try. Those around us within this nightmare appear to die and we use their apparent death as proof that we too shall die and therefore are most definitely abandoned by you.

We condemn you, we damn you, we hate you, we worship you, we preach about you, we plead with others to believe in you or not to believe in you depending on our own personal belief about you, as if believing in you or not would change your existence or anything about you in anyway whatsoever. Just as a child may not dream of their parents while asleep and therefore may not be aware of their parents' existence while in the dream, which doesn't make their parents vanish into thin air. The child simply isn't dreaming of their parents but when the child awakes, they will still see their parents and know them for who they are. We sin, we make mistakes, and we fall from grace. We fight we each other, we fight with nature, and we fight our universe all in our attempts to make our nightmare real.

Despite our greatest efforts to prove our nightmare real, you remain with us at all times reassuring us forevermore that all is ok and there is nothing to fear. Just as a parent will hold their child during their nightmares, you hold us during ours. In all your Loving grace for us, you will turn our nightmares into peaceful dreams. No nightmare shall remain, and only peaceful dreams shall remain. When we awake to see your face in all its stunning majesty and Love, we will know within that Holy Instant that you never left us and that we were never in any danger. For we were always with you and you with is. We Love you, you are perfect, you are Holy, you are the one and only. We are nothing without you and everything with you. You are the light to our darkness, and you are the darkness leading us back to the light. 

We need not pray for anything since all is provided with excess, for our will is one. You need not our gratitude since you give with or without. We need not pray for grace since your grace is always with us. We need not pray for forgiveness just as a child would have no need to apologize for a dream they had. We need not pray for peace and joy since that is our natural state. We need not pray for Love since Love is all there is. It is only due to our belief in our dreams and nightmares that we believe that we need anything for with you all is well. How much greater is the Love of the source and creator of all there is, than that of figure within a dream. Love and Peace!

Orange

I see you in the brightest pastel colors of the sunset as the world becomes engulfed in perfect alignment with our soul

I dream of you night after night, I long for you while I am awake, always with me, always in my mind, never ceasing, never relenting, never surrendering

When given the pleasure to indulge in your sweet aroma, I inhale every molecule of your scent as to merge our essence into one

Time and space have no significance to us, our Love flows beyond all that is and all that ever was

Our Love extends beyond these forms that we call home in to the marrow

None of the illusions that surround us can ever crack the foundation of our Love, for we see past all of them as our souls are one

The slightest glimpse of your lips turned towards the heavens from the joy that overflows your heart, is enough to stop mine forever more

One instant with you is an eternity of pure bliss, one instant without you is enough to drive one mad with utter insanity

Passion flows from the depths of my soul for you out of the well that your Love replenishes

I long for your embrace, I yearn for your presence, I am in awe of you

Take me, engulf me with your Love, I long for nothing else, I wish for nothing else than to be one with you forever, no more the two, just one

Thought no more, sorrow no more, pain no more. Nothing except for everlasting peace floating in a cloud of Love

Is Knowledge Reliable?

What if everything we think that we know is wrong? All of the information and knowledge that we have today is built up throughout the history of humans. Today we still don't have all the knowledge available to us. Humans living centuries in the future will know more than we know now but it will still be built from our knowledge which was built from the knowledge of the past. What if we got it wrong as a whole? Maybe that's why we can't all seem to agree on anything. It seems as if there were a truth to the universe, we would all know and agree, truth doesn't need to be questioned or defended or debated. Truth just is. So, what is the truth of the universe? Does the universe have a truth or is it all just random?

How does our knowledge get passed along and which knowledge is chosen to be passed along? Who gets to choose what knowledge gets passed on? Knowledge like everything else in this world is about the ego. History is written by the winners. What type of knowledge have we missed out on due to mass casualties or genocides? How much knowledge did we lose when civilizations just up and vanished throughout history?

Scientific theories are rejected due to being fringe science only to be accepted later into mainstream science. All of our religions are just separate variations of early humans' religion. New prophets or revelations come along, and new religions are formed. We humans think we know everything, and it is only when we start trying to collect knowledge that we learn we never had it and never will. We realize we know nothing. When we accept that we know nothing we see that we know everything. The kind of knowing we inherently have comes from wisdom instead of knowledge. Wisdom comes from within while knowledge appears to come from without. 

Wisdom is our inner knowing, our conscience, our gut, or our instincts. We know nothing and God knows everything. God shares his wisdom freely and willingly to any and all who will listen. God is always speaking to us, guiding us, teaching us, helping us, comforting us, comforting us, and supporting us. The Holy Spirit connects us to God so we can hear God. The Holy Spirit speaks to us in whichever means we will hear. We all hear God differently and have different beliefs. We spend so much time attempting to prove that we know more than God, or that we know ourselves better than the God who created us. We rebel against God.

If we truly believed God, we would believe God when God repeatedly tells that there is nothing to fear. We would believe God would never abandon us. We would believe that God not only Loves us but is in fact Love itself. We would believe his son who he sent to share the good news of Love and forgiveness and atonement. We don't believe God because we believe that we already know all that we need to know. We believe that we know more than God and we use everything in this world as proof to that "fact". 

God has never left us, not ever, not even for a second. God has never looked away; God has never left anyone. How can God, the creator of all, ever leave his own creation? How could that be possible? If even God could somehow leave God's own creation, God wouldn't want to. God's Love is endless and doesn't give a fuck about anything you have ever done or will do. We can't fathom a Love like God's because of the love that we made that worships forms instead of the source itself. Love and Peace!