Everything that you could possibly need for your full realisation is already within and around you. Everything you need is at hand. The problem is: it’s not always what you want. In fact, it rarely is. We see you resisting so many opportunities to face your pain. Yet, it’s common for humankind to bury their heads in the sand, doing their best to avoid the unpleasantness of true realisation.
In order to be free, you must first be willing to see where you have chained yourself up. To flow, you must notice where there is resistance. It’s as though you are in the river, trying to swim, without realising that your leg is chained to a rock. So, you keep your head above water for brief periods of time, until the weight of your resistance pulls you under. Can you feel how much life is like that? This brief sense of joy punctuated by longer periods of overwhelm?
The only way forward is to turn and notice that chain. Strangely, you won’t immediately want to free yourself from it, because there will be both fear and excitement about where the river might take you. You’ve been stuck for so long in that particular spot that you’re familiar with the landscape and the weather. You know who your companions are who are stuck alongside you. Though you now realise you are stuck, there is a certain comfort in understanding your current situation.
So, what if you were to free yourself? It won’t be easy, because each link of the chain was forged by a belief you encountered early in your life, as a child, when you accept and absorb everything with little discernment. Those beliefs about ‘can’ and ‘can’t’, ‘I deserve’ and ‘I don’t deserve’ are deeply imprinted on your psyche. It will take time and help to understand each link and open it up.
Eventually, you will free yourself and swim to new horizons. Your world will expand. However, the work to free yourself takes place in dark and murky waters. This is where the work with the shadow begins. This is where you face your fears. It’s not easy to find all of the links, and there will be some negotiation with some aspects who do not want to be free before you can loosen the chain.
So, patience. Know that in every moment, you are getting exactly what you need. Look to see inside the limitation presented to you the freedom that it promises if you do the work. Acknowledge your resistance, allow yourself time to feel and express it, but do not get enamoured of your victimhood. Move on and take the next step. If it gets to be gritty work, embrace it. Develop the muscle to work with whatever is thrown at you, and whatever arises from within. All of it — and we mean ALL of it — is trying to free you.