Over the course of my lifetime, I have always run from reality, hard. As an empath, I want peace, love, and harmony. When discomfort, rejection, and pain come into my mind they conflict with my inner belief that everything can be harmonious. I wanted the positive emotions in my being for myself, others, and the world. Pushing the pain aside and not walking through it created realities around me that were damaging to me and my children.
Before I learned the value of walking through pain to find peace I fought hard. Whenever anything came to me that I felt was a conflict I ran toward it saying, “no, no, no,” choose a different way. There is a better way; stop the madness. But because I was running through the pain, with fear driving the car (remember she’s a terrible driver), I was running into all of it without a battle plan. I was running with a fairy wand. As cool as fairy wands may appear sometimes you just need a sword. Wishing something to be different does not protect you. Facing true reality and what is damaging to you protects you. This is what love can do when we pass the decision-making process over from fear to love.
Confronting Your Fears
I believe that each of us has our own demons keeping us from living our best lives. Some of us have it pretty figured out and are content with life. To those people: rock on, and guide us all! But many of us allow ourselves to remain in cognitive dissonance when fear and love remain in conflict with each other. This can look different for all of us and cause a disconnect in our spirit. For some, it could be a little too much wine at night. For others, it could be a full addiction. It could be a feeling of discomfort when your jeans don’t zip, all the way to anorexia. It could be scrolling on your phone throughout the day or only living inside the cyber world. Small arguments in a marriage or living with domestic violence. It’s a huge spectrum but it’s there within us; a disconnect from the life we deserve to live.
I’d like to share a piece of my own dissonance. As an empath wanting harmony for the world, I have exposed myself to really damaging people with the belief everyone has love at their core and wants to get home to it. Even in writing this last sentence, my heart says, “this has to be true, it has to be!” But it’s not. The reality is that while love lives inside of each of us, worth as our birthright, not everyone wants to go home to love, and hate will win. It’s cliche I know, but it’s the battle of the world. Love versus hate.
The reason I’m so passionate about this is I know that love is stronger than hate and I know the peace the world could feel in the connectivity of it. I believe that love and our Gods/Goddesses live within us, not above us (please see patriarchy). That in brotherhood and sisterhood the world can heal. While this is true, it’s also true each person is given the opportunity to live their own life and choose this or deny it.
Choosing Love Over Hate
I want every creature from the dolphins in the sea to each baby born to live a fulfilling life full of joy, love, and belonging, with all their basic needs met. Unfortunately, I cannot wave a wand and have all of humanity join me. What I can do is boldly walk away from anything that damages my own spirit and help where I am called. We all can.
So what about you? What is your dissonance? Are you lost or at home in your own body, heart, and mind? How will you know?
Stop for a second. Close your eyes. Breathe, baby, breathe. What is in your body? Is your heart fast or slow? Is your mind buzzing or quiet? Listen to your breathing. Is it deep or shallow? If, upon closing your eyes, anxiety begins with a racing heart, buzzing mind, and shallow breaths, your body is telling you fear is driving. So stay sweetheart. Stay. Stay until the mind goes quiet, stay until your heart slows down, stay until you take a breath that fills your lungs. Now do it a dozen times. Stay there. Now ask; how do I get back home to love? Love that is within me, not out there. Begin to unpack hate.
In the battle of love versus hate, hate within each of us takes over love when it is untamed. It tells us we are not enough to fight the hate coming toward us or from within us. We get distracted and fight hate, hard. We fight hate in our own minds for ourselves as the interactions and realities of the world bring battle after battle. This distraction is what causes our inner conflicts and distracts us from the voice of love. It distracts us from our worth because if we were at peace in our hearts, hate would have no chance. Not in our own minds and not in our world.
Seizing the Future with Love
This is how I will always live today and evermore. When I am not awake, hate is battling my mind as a distraction from what is actually happening in my world. The truth is there are bad people in the world. These people won’t hesitate to hurt you or me. It is not my job or yours to heal people who are not willing to do the hard work of offering themselves compassion with accountability. I’m not interested. Period. But it is our job to keep ourselves and others safe.
I haven’t always been enlightened. But today I am, and grow more so every day. I know that when hate comes for me I have the choice to let it overtake my mind or to give it to love. If I can give it to love, love will tell me if it’s a danger I need to consider or not. It will also tell me when I need to hold myself or others accountable.
Harnessing hate, and bringing it to love is where my, where our, freedom lies.
Xoxo,
Jessie