A Logical Case For Throwing the Fear Out
Courage is something we are born with, the trick is to find it and use it
This story is an impromtu morning thought. I was thinking more about the indigenous concept of destiny that exists in many cultures around the world, and how it helps to leave behind the fear. To remind you, the idea is that before we decide to come to Earth, we choose a destiny (a “task list” of sorts, a general circumstance and a list of things we promise to do), get it approved by the Creator, and then go get born.
According to the myth, we still remember our home in the spirit world while we are in the womb but then we get so traumatized and shocked by birth that we forget where we came from and end up learning about life from scratch, as if we were just people on Earth. In older cultures, they practiced methods that would help one eventually (usually during puberty) remember their purpose and their home in the spirit world. The idea was to remember, get one’s bearings, and then spend the rest of one’s life living as happily and harmoniously as possible, while doing the work.
To me, this is beautiful. Think about it. If you chose to be here, what does it mean? It means that you are not an accident, and not a victim of anyone. It means that you are here with an ability to overcome whatever challenges may face you, to deal with any potential abuse, with any potential betrayal—and come out victorious and satisfied. It means that you arrived here not to suffer but to be fully able to get through any unavoidable suffering on your path, heal, connect to your soul and the whole infinity of loving spiritual forces, remember to walk relaxed and tall, and, before you go back, be able to create the change to this world that you were so passionate about creating when you were just planning your trip.
You came here not to suffer but to make the world more beautiful—and when that means that you need to get off your knees after being hurt, you get off your knees after being hurt because you have the strength, the love, the self-respect, and the motivation to do so!!
The contrast with the modern institutional views
That, now, makes me wonder about the juxtaposition of that empowering feeling with the tricky institutional feeling of being born bad. Let’s ponder calmly about the emotional consequences of framing human potential for mistakes as “sin.” (We don’t have to agree on this, by the way, there are people who have my giant love and respect for whom this notion is sacred and probably means something elevating, and I respect the sovereignty of their loving souls! That is the beauty of human condition, we can have different emotional emphases, agree or disagree on things à la carte, bring our respective messages to the table, and treat each other with love. On my end, I have strong feelings and believe that the concept of “being born bad” was coined a long time ago by the people with not-so-good intentions, to weaken most people’s direct connection to their Creator-given spiritual powers. This way, the people with not-so-good intentions could eat people up with more ease. But at the end of the day, our soul’s language is unique to us, and we all create our own unique versions of any faith. What ultimately matters is not imposing our internal definitions on others but doing our job on this Earth with love. And as long as there is love, we are good.)
A rant about the notion of being born bad
I am not a big fan of the situation that happened when I was a kid when my parents, out of their best intentions, bravely on their part, got me secretly baptized (it was still the USSR, hence the secret). During the procedure, the priest, also bravely but very misguidedly, “injected” me with the notion of sin, being born bad, and so on. I mean, what the hell? Who does that do to the psychology of a small child? That is like cutting the wings off a young soul, deflating the wind from the sail, depriving the child of psychological self-defense, setting the child for the notion that the power is strictly on the outside and based on obedience and compliance, on being a good slave, God’s slave in this case but a slave. Oh, he told me about God’s slaves, too. This kind of programming is so traumatizing that when any sort of abuse happens later, the soul accepts it because, doh, of course, you were born bad, and you, a slave and a sinner, deserve the pain. This is very wrong.
That is like really bad magic done on people, from generation to generation, and yes, one may argue about the semantics (and I am going to go through this argument in a second, and do it with honesty and love) but whatever the semantic debate, it still mimics the effect of spiritual weaponry that undermines the soul!
Maybe adults have the ability to do the intellectual digging (and sometimes juggling) and come up with an internal psychological definition of the word “sin” that is less wounding—but a child? What a misguided thing to do to a child!
Yes, people are born with a potential to choose good or bad, right or wrong. That is called “free will,” and that is a special and beautiful thing about our world, there is nothing at all about doom or guilt, it’s just the honor of being able to make a choice. Yes, some people choose wrong, and then life (which is a synonym for the loving spiritual forces, however you think about them in your spiritual tradition) find ways to reroute everything in the direction of growing love. Yes, people are born with a potential to make mistakes. I’d say, it’s impossible to live a life without making mistakes. I have made plenty, and it made me calmer and stronger.
And yes, the hope is that when we make mistakes, we eventually learn the lesson and move forward better, stronger, with more clarity about how things work, and more grounded in our entirely valid love. The hope is also that once we screw up enough, we come out kinder, more patient toward the people who are slower to understand important things—or who are in the middle of making their mistakes.
Turning pain into love
It seems like life has a way of “serving” us pain in a particular place to show us the hiding place of our gift, a gift in need of being unwrapped and used to make the world a more beautiful place.
What I leaned in my own life is that the point is not “learning to live with pain,” and that “being strong” means not a perpetual tooth squeeze in response to wrong actions by good people but figuring out what I am not seeing on the inside that I need to see.
By the way, zero about this is intellectual. It is all a process of remembering love, remembering your spiritual validity, remembering to completely respect the beauty of your very worthy soul.
And when that happens, when you remember that you are here to do an important and spiritually authorized job, there seems to be less ground for fear.
Kicking fear’s butt
Sometimes, you walk in circles for a very long time before remembering your worth. And then it dawns on you. You are not an accident, not a victim of anyone, and you have the full ability to overcome whatever challenges may face you, to deal with any potential abuse, with any potential betrayal—and come out victorious and satisfied. You are here not to suffer but to get through any unavoidable suffering on your path as quickly as possible, and then heal. You are here to connect to your soul and the whole beautiful infinity of loving spiritual forces, and—before you go back—create the change to this world that is uniquely yours to create.
Cry if you need to, and then do your job. It’s a sacred job. There is no room for fear.
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Thank you for the beautiful reminder of WHO we are. I believe we come into the world as creative beings meant to express ourselves. We were created in God’s likeness and are more powerful than we can imagine.
Somehow we forget this and life happens. People start telling us we are not enough, can’t do this or that, and afraid to stick ourselves out and be seen. We start to conform so we are liked.
I believe it’s our soul journey to find our way back to realize WHO we really are. We are spiritual beings. We are not broken. Powerless. We are light.
I have had to do my deep transformation work after the sudden death of my husband due to Big Pharma. Everything I believed or was told to believe was not true. I had to learn to trust the person looking back in the mirror. I had to find her again. Two decades later and I am grateful, albeit a super painful way, to come back to myself.
Sometimes I wonder if my soul and my late husband chose to do this work together. Through his death, I found life and my “accidental advocacy” to help push for FDA blackbox suicide warnings added to antidepressants in 2004/2006. Was this his purpose? I don’t know, but I can without doubt say he was one of my greatest teachers. I learned to choose faith and courage (even if afraid) over fear and never forget who I am. A child of God.
I always appreciate your way of thinking and gift of writing.
IMO the concept of original sin is a perversion of a cautionary tale. the cabal of 3000+ years ago took the garden of eden metaphor, "be careful who you consort with," and twisted it into "if god can throw you out of the garden for misbehaving, so can i!"