Jan 30, 2020 by Renee Linnell

I think it’s so important that we do not deny any single part of ourselves. I recently finished reading The Choice by Dr. Edith Eva Eger and was profoundly moved. I used to think, “Why not just deny you are Jewish?” in order to evade the prejudice, but now I realize how absurd that is. And how dangerous. When we deny even the tiniest part of ourselves, we are not whole. Our energy is split. And we feel fractured. Unbalanced. Powerless.
 
The fascinating thing, I have realized as I get older, is that most of us are a dichotomy. At minimum. I was just reading a blog by Bella LaVey, another She Writes Press author, and it struck me how so many of us (myself included) are straddling two worlds, not understanding that we will only truly step into our power when we combine them. Bestselling author and motivational speaker Jenn Sincero talks about how it was only when she combined her life as a punk-rock-guitar-playing-wild-child with her business coaching that she truly began to soar; before that she tried to hide the punk rock side from her coaching clients and she tried to hide her suit-wearing self-help-loving life-coach side from her rocker friends. Fractured. Hiding. Powerless.

As I mention in The Burn Zone, I also have two very diverse sides: a part of me loves staying at home, being in solitude, listening to Sanskrit devotional chanting music, reading, writing, meditating, going to bed at 9pm, and waking up at sunrise. Another part of me loves drinking tequila and dancing on bars, dressing in leather, spinning around a stripper pole, listening to gangster rap and misogynist hip hop, and traveling the world talking to strangers.
 
Without realizing it, we spend so much of our Life Force Energy trying to hide parts of ourselves. Denying them. Not-loving them. Without realizing it, we use this precious energy to fight what is every moment of every day. We are at war with parts of our body, we refuse to talk about trauma that happened in the past, we resist aging, we make excuses for not being good at something, we choose certain foods and then beat ourselves up for choosing them, we compartmentalize. . .

And, worst of all, we think something is wrong with us. We try to hold steady as one consistent persona that we present to the world and we become incredibly cruel to ourselves when the “frowned upon” part of ourself rises to the surface. Or we create manifestos (I will only eat plant-based foods from now on…) and then hate ourselves when we cannot hold true to the manifesto. Not realizing that rigid rules and structures simply do not work for multi-faceted, dynamic Beings of Light, which we are.
 
The older and wiser I get, the more I realize we are truly being animated by the Divine at all moments. Who we are and how we are is not really up to us. Yes, we can do the work of fine-tuning ourselves, mastering our thoughts and our actions so that we bring the best of ourselves into the world at all times, but the big personality traits are really not up to us. Which parts of us are called forth at which moments are not really up to us.
 
As Desmond Tutu told Father Richard Rohr, “We are the light bulbs and our job is to remain screwed in.” He was speaking as spiritual leader to spiritual leader, but I believe we are all meant to be light bulbs. When we stop fighting what is; when we go with the flow of our lives more; when we accept, love and appreciate every aspect of ourselves and all of our history, we free up so much energy. We stop the battle in our mind and drop more fully into our body, into present time. And then we can be the light bulbs. Then we are present for the Divine to work through us. We become channels.

We have all experienced this, when we are in flow and something wonderful comes through us: I was crossing a street in New York with a mob of other people and got squished directly behind a young couple talking. The woman said to the man, “. . . and then I started to doubt myself . . .” Out of my mouth just then came, “Never doubt yourself.” They both turned to look at me and the man said, “Wow, total affirmation from a random stranger . . .” But, I was not a random stranger. I was a channel at that moment. An instrument of the Divine.

Or by now we have all seen on YouTube examples of strangers jumping into danger, without even thinking, in order to help someone in trouble. Each one in that moment a Channel of the Divine.
 
St Francis of Assisi sang, "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.”

I dream of a day when we all let go, when we all “give up” and jump into the rushing Stream of Life, when we stop trying to be who we think we need to be and instead surrender to Who We Are. When we leave behind our rigid belief systems, beliefs that cause us so much pain, and instead open our minds to Magic and Miracles, to fun and joy. I dream of a day when we feel free to explore ourselves to the very depths, to mine from the “darkness” all we have endured, and to bring the results, the lessons learned, to the surface with pride, and with gratitude. I imagine each one of us going, "Wow, I’m really good at this and this and this, and not so good at this and this and this," each one of us exploring our gifts, discovering them, and offering them with pride and joy to the world. Each one of us unashamedly reaching for help and support from others in the areas where we are weak.

I believe we all fit together as puzzle pieces, part of a magnificent whole, and only together, working together, can we make Heaven on Earth. But, before this can happen, we have to turn to the parts of us that we see as wounded or flawed, too fat or too old, too weak or too damaged, and say, “I love you. I am grateful for you. You are a part of me and you matter. I need you if I am going to be whole.” I see those dark parts of us filling with light as we accept them and give them love. And then I see them letting go. 
 

Prev Next