What is the work?
Well, let's start here. Are you ok inside? How do you feel deep within? Have you checked into that part of yourself lately? Have you entered your innermost chambers, seen, felt, and known what it's like in there?
For most people the answer is unequivocally no. They don't REALLY know who they are. They haven't gone deep within. They haven't explored themselves. They haven't investigated the fundamental aspects of who and what they are.
That means that they are missing out on the treasure trove that is available if they do that! But it takes work. You have to actively decide that you're going to look at yourself, be with what you find, honor it fully and completely, and then witness it turn into love and freedom.
So, the work is about becoming real. Really acquainted with who and what you are. It's about investigation into the fundamental essence of yourself. How much time have you spent within the walls of your own self-home but have never inspected what it's actually made of?
I have found myself so frustrated by the state of many humans that I encounter. I'm tired of experiencing their consciousness. I want to do something about it. I recognize I only have so much (really very limited) power in this regard, but I'm not completely powerless. All humans are the heirs of their own karma, as I am mine. Yet our paths intertwine and there is a flow of knowledge and learning that occurs. This is where the deep potential for the reflections of relationships come to fruition.
See, it's easy for me to be frustrated with the development of the men I encounter, especially the ones who talk about doing the work but aren't actually doing it. That is a special kind of weakness. What's more challenging for me is to recognize that they are where they are in their path! I can serve that as it is to help it grow. That's it. Judgement doesn't cultivate liberation. Unbridled truth balanced with compassion does.
It's easy for me to judge. It's harder for me to realize that these individuals are ripe for growth and change. They simply have blindspots and shadows that are near-to-ready for illumination. What's beautiful about this work and this path, is the vulnerability of relationships.
I received harsh reflections from an ex-girlfriend. Reflections that were mixed with projection, judgement, truth, and blame. These reflections were coming at a time in my life where I had abandoned myself for what I thought I wanted. A "loving" relationship with a beautiful, conscious, and powerful woman. What it turned out to be was an initiation into manhood. She showed me so many ways where I was full of shit, out of alignment, and dishonest. She had an awakened discernment unlike anything I had previously experienced. I was extremely impressed by it. But, I was also insecure as fuck; so I had her on a pedestal. Which means I wasn't seeing clearly. I was deluded. I was taking the things she said into myself as the truth of me. Things that were definitely were not the truth. This took so much time to sort through. So not only did I have to become awake to what was unconscious within my own self, I had to become discerning to the blame, shame, and abuse that she was vomiting upon me, which only ever happened because of my lack of maturity, spiritual discernment, and primal masculinity; + a total lack of boundaries. Suffice it to say it was an extremely difficult time, yet it has yielded massive results in my growth. I wouldn't take it back.
As a man, I've become someone that it is very difficult to manipulate. I needed that pressure and fire in order awaken my instincts and forge myself into this new man. It didn't happen easily, happily, and with pure joy and really, I would say that I didn't really do it. I simply became aware that it was being done to me. Therefore I could continue to resist the process and increase my suffering, or I could surrender and become a willing agent of the transformational initiation process.
And when I look at the results on the other side, it's fucking crystal clear that it was good for me.
As I have made abundantly clear, relationships and the reflections that occur within them are immensely valuable. It's extremely easy to delude yourself when you're isolated. Exposing yourself to others that are genuinely walking this path destroys these delusions. There are some things that we just can't see and do on our own. That is the definition of vulnerability.
How does this tie in with the people that frustrate me? Well, I know what it's like to be unconscious to something. To have such a strong avoidance strategy in place that I literally CANNOT look at something because it is believed (falsely and unconsciously) that I will not survive (will lose love, belonging, worth) if I look at it. I have compassion for that man. I have compassion for those versions of myself. I have compassion for all who are blind. I know too that I may still blind in certain areas and that I could have a glaring blind spot (though I don't think so). I give these people back to life, back to themselves. If they aren't meant to work with me; our paths shall cross. I let go. Jesus take the wheel and hopefully we don't end up in the ditch.
So, what is the work in this instance?
It's taking the experiences of life full head-heart on. Engaging with them completely, and letting them touch every part of ourselves, all the while leading with intelligence, love, and strength. It's recognizing that it's not always what we want or think we want, but it's always whats happening. And what's happening is real; and what's real is good. Because it's all that there is.
Embrace reality, brother. Grow with it, let it grow through you, let it change you. This is how you become the man, at a cellular level, that you know deep down, you always have been. Surrender to your life.
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