Facing the Dark...Liberating Soul...

Life is beautiful isn't it? Everything, all of Life and God’s Holy Creation is conspiring to bring me (and you too) to truth...to set me free from the prisons of the past.

My belly is burning and I am breathing into the pain that has been buried there. Surfacing now.

So much of my life has been sourced in lies. Lies about who I am, lies about what I want, lies...lies...lies...lies...lies. I've lied to myself, I've lied to others...I've lied to God. And all of this started...all of this fabrication started by ingesting someone else's lies.

Last night I was invited to look at the power I have over men and how I have manipulated my responses and relationships with them.

Yes, I can look at this now. I have the Power and the Presence within me…I have the Love in myself, for myself to look at this now. Andrew Harvey (my spiritual director) called it being a “Geisha to the Oppressor.” I quickly learned the art of the Geisha at a very young age frantic to please my oppressor, to cater to his needs, to give him what he wanted…at all costs. I paid a high price…my survival depended on it, my life depended on it. He was my stepfather…he threatened to kill my mother if I spoke up, if I took a stand, if I said no. So it went on and on for years…my silence, my turning tricks and twisting myself into all sorts of contortions to keep myself and my family safe…to receive what love I could from an abusive and anorexic environment.

It is no wonder that I became anorexic. It is no wonder that I have tried to keep myself safe and loved through the illusory promise of fulfilled desire. How has this looked? I have spent a good part of my life avoiding authentic relationships with men in one way or another. I have entered into silent contracts with men…I will love you, I will be here to meet your needs and I will stay silent about mine. I have replayed this crazy dance that I experienced with my stepfather and my father…one abandoned and the other abused. I lived with the abuser, playing the Geisha to his emotional and sexual needs. I was abandoned by my father, and for years painted pictures of success and competency to gain his love. Geisha to one, Actress to the other.

What is the point? I am taking my power back. I am taking my truth back. I am taking full responsibility for my life and my relationships and my career and my finances. I am taking my life and my living back.

When I sense that you (a man) have something you want from me, a desire, a need…I find a way to meet it…not the real need or desire, but I’ll give you something to appease your appetite. I don’t believe that you could want to be with me unless I could meet your need…spoken or unspoken…so I’ll anticipate…and I am so good at this…knowing what you need and giving it to you…but not sex…you can’t have that…unless I am really backed up against the wall…unless my survival is threatened…when push comes to shove…I’ll brace myself and you can have some semblance of my body…but I won’t be there. What do you need from me? I’ll try my best to give it to you.

This is gross. And beautiful. I can have great compassion for the little girl, the young teen, the young woman and now me at age 40…seeing how I had this pattern programmed in somatically and neurologically at such a young age. I see how it has held me back…how it holds me back from freedom…from true love and liberation. I see how it has harmed others, held them back. I hope this helps someone because this is hard to write about.

I have lied about my yes and my no. I have said yes, when I was dying to say no. I have slept with people I didn’t want to sleep with. I have suppressed my voice and my true desires. I have hidden relationships from people out of fear that if they knew they would leave me.

I have at some deeply unconscious and semi-conscious level lived a life that was in collusion with the belief that there is a scarcity of love and support in this world. This fear has had its hand on my throat…it’s fist in my belly…threatening my life…pushing me to death. I choose life. I choose life. I choose a true and authentic life. I choose to live the truth of the abundance of love and support that is oooozing from the Universe…and rushing to fulfill my…our…every need. This is the Truth…everything else is a bad dream.

The game is done. New relationships with men and women are taking root and growing…relationships based in love, reciprocity, truth and creativity. Old relationships are transforming, truths being told, old patterns breaking up. This way of relating from fear is dissolving. Going, going, going, GONE!

The price I have paid has been my life and the true abundance of love and support that is here for me if I would only stop playing the game. I didn’t know I was. I didn’t know that this had been my life strategy…until now. Out of denial…into recovery...one interaction, one moment at a time.

Andrew Harvey says to train the light and love of God…of Christ Yeshua on the wound. We can’t live in the light and deny the dark, that only brings a life of illusion…we bring the light to the dark and in this place wholeness is born. See what happens to those monsters when the light of day hits them. They scream, twist, contort and melt into a puddle. They can’t withstand this radical love and compassion. They will dissolve. They are dissolved.

Yes, I have been a geisha to the oppressor and now I am a Geisha to Love. I will serve the power of love and that only. I will serve the power of truth and that only. I will serve that which gives Life and that only. I will stand alone. I will stand with others. I will stand in and for this radical love and loving.

And today as I take off the shades of denial, I see how the old is dying and the new is taking root.
Yep, that’s my shit…it doesn’t get any darker than that. You want to know my game? You’ve got it now. And as I write this I hear my mind in fear…who is going to run away now…what might you think? And then I laugh…because this is probably so obvious to some of you…those that have been in the game with me.

Now I am ready to face this truth…and after years of therapy and with degrees trailing my name…now is the time for me to be truly loved and truly free.

And I am.

And the Truth Shall Set You Free!

Thank you Yeshua for your relentless love and presence in my life…for leading me into the ecstatic union within the 40 days, for plunging me into darkness, for fortifying my path of living embodied and now for sustaining me in loving the darkest of my dark and bringing me into a new place of wholeness so that I can be free, completely free, to be an instrument of your Peace and of your Love…truly…for real now. For real now. Let’s make it real now. Amen.