The Light Within

I’m coming to a place of learning to forgive and let go of the past, to open myself up to a new reality and way of life. Through my spiritual and psychological work, I knew reality is largely based on our beliefs and how we perceive the world, how we are shaped not just by our experiences themselves but by how we experience and identify with them. Even though we cannot control everything that happens, we do have power in how we experience life, largely by how we see ourselves and the world. We can begin to manifest our reality by changing our perceptions. We are not held down by the past, we can let go of hardships we are no longer facing, and whatever perceptions and ideas that no longer need to be part of our reality. What was true in the past may no longer be true. We can explore why we see things the way we do, and where we can let go of certain limiting ideas and beliefs. I realized some of my darker perceptions did not match my wisdom of a loving, abundant universe full of God’s creations, in which we are all perfect divine beings here on Earth to experience, to learn and grow.

Personally, I found that I have been holding onto certain perceptions due to fears that formed during my active addiction, when I felt out of control. I am still coming to peace with the negative judgements about myself, the feelings unworthiness and painful self-perceptions that I had during active addiction, from the experiences that I have not yet fully forgiven myself for. My experiences as an addict created fears of a world that was out of my control, I felt doomed, like no one could understand what I was going through or help me. I had a pretty dark perception of reality, and it perpetuated the cycle of the need to use more substances to escape it. The more I felt this way, the more I created it for me as I cut myself off from people. Some of these memories and sensations came back to me this morning on my bus ride and it created a lot of anxiety, it brought me back to a past state of being that I had experienced during active addiction. At first, I fear I am going backwards into the past, but I remind myself that I am experiencing this for a reason, it is helping me realize that which I am still holding onto, that which I can let of, and see it as leaving. I had to ground myself to remember I am no longer in that place, even though the experiences of that dark reality felt real to me at points in the past, they no longer need to be part of my reality. I know the true nature of the universe is loving and caring, I have experienced it for myself, and I am always brought back to it after exploring past experiences as I mentally try to sort out the meanings and lessons behind them. I always find meaning that is positive, out of love. These difficult experiences taught me lessons that strengthened me and brought me closer to the truth, to God, and I remind myself of this as I mindfully return myself to a peaceful state of being. I had to reconnect with these spiritual experiences that led me this understanding to shift myself out of reliving those past negative perceptions, letting go of the past fears and into a new reality of acceptance and love. I could let go of limiting beliefs and factors (one factor is holding myself back from experience this loving divine universe by my judgements of myself and self-defeating ideas). Let go of judgement, including the pre-conceived ideas I was taught from others of what it means to be an addict, because it’s not true to who I really am. I accept that these experiences were once part of my reality, but I can connect to a new or different truth that works better for me and allows joy in my life, and move forward experiencing this as part of my reality. It opens me up to receiving and experiencing a fuller potential of the love for myself and from God.

 “Although we live in the present, our attachment makes us dream of a past that no longer exists, a past that is full of regret and drama. Our attachments also take us to an uncertain future full of fears that do not yet exist, making us feel unsafe.”

 Don Miguel Ruiz, The Five Levels of Attachment

One reason we come into life is to experience in order to learn and grow, and I wanted to explore the meaning for experiences of my past. Especially those recurring ones that brought suffering, such as addiction. What was it that I needed to learn? I wanted it to be straightforward, to figure it all out so I could let it go and move onto new experiences, but there is more to life than just experience, learn, let go, move on. It’s a continual process and so much involved, but I could enjoy this process by staying in the light and close to God, to that which I know intuitively is true and not let myself be taken over by past fears and negative ideas that came from these difficult experiences I was exploring. The serenity prayer reminds me to accept all that has come and will come to be, that it’s all part of my life but does not need to define it. I can find acceptance with what I have been through instead of fearing or fighting it, it is just part of the totality of the universe but only a small part, and I can let it remain part of the past as I let it go. I can stay in the loving, peaceful reality of the universe that I also experienced and learned, and continue to learn through my explorations. I decided to stay in this reality of the world for myself, and manifest the positivity and love I deserve to experience.

I dove into exploring the hardships in my life; my trauma, mistakes, the darker side of my self-perception that we often call our “shadow self.” I could explore how parts of my perception of self and the universe were shaped by these experiences and understand how these parts of myself were formed, to find meaning but also to have find some compassion for myself for what I have been through. We can, in fact, learn to accept and embrace all aspects of ourselves. by finding compassion for ourselves. Everything that happened was meant to happen as part of our experience in the world, we literally came to have these experiences. I explored the meanings for these experiences for myself, and how I could take the lessons from them, to use in a positive way. There really are no mistakes, everything happens exactly as it was meant to, and we are meant to be the person we are. Knowing God loves us unconditionally and infinitely, we are the only ones who hold ourselves back from experiencing or accepting this love for ourselves.

There is a learning and expansion of our consciousness that comes from the actual experiences on Earth that we came for. We can explore this to learn from it and to build more for ourselves. We do not need to blame ourselves or others when we know all of our experiences were meant to be, that we came here out of love, to experience this life and learn together, no matter how hard at times. We can let go of hatred and resentment, and learn to love and embrace each other and ourselves for what we came here to do. We came to experience and grow, and ultimately support and love one another. A recent dream I had I was exploring the Bible and in the contents came the message, “we were restored by one another.”

An important piece to this is forgiveness. Once we understand we came to experience for a reason, that no one is at fault, we each played our parts in the lesson that we came to experience and learn. We can forgive and let go of the negative or self-defeating perceptions of ourselves and others, and thus the world. The Ho’Oponopono Prayer helps to meditate upon with the intent of forgiving and loving ourselves, others, and the experience itself.

Personally, I like to expand the last phrase to “Thank you for the lesson,” as it directs your intention to what you are thankful for.

Becoming aware of the origin of my own perceptions and learning to accept and love myself, I began by changing my negative view of myself and the world into a positive one, to bring light to my true sense of self and the universe. I can let go of ideas of the universe as a dark or dangerous place as I reconcile past experiences and make peace with them and myself, and can begin to see and stay in the light. Thus, my reality begins to change to become lighter in itself, and how I could continue to experience the world to see the beauty and love in everything that happens.