Chapter4 The Mirror
I felt I had made so many mistakes in my life, I couldn’t love myself. I felt like a human doormat, always helping the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, and I found it difficult to say no. I had compassion in my heart, but it had no boundaries. I did not think before I jumped in; as long as I thought I was helping a person, I went in boots and all, without thinking who I was helping at the expense of my own needs.
With Joyce I was in no position to help anyone. My health was failing. I was on the verge of an autoimmune disease. All my savings had been gobbled up by company crooks, and my mother was very ill. A voice told me I had to let go of everything. As I looked into the mirror one evening before bed, I felt compelled just to keep looking at myself. After pulling a few silly faces, I really looked at my physical appearance. What I saw could have been anyone. I looked pretty ordinary and somewhat drained.
I continued to peer at my reflection. I began seeing myself as others would see me, and I felt a stranger looking back at me. Where in my body am I? A strange wave came over me that I couldn’t explain. I kept staring at this person who had become a stranger. I didn’t recognise myself. It felt really weird, but I kept on looking. I felt a shift inside me, and I felt I had no body; the one in the mirror was not mine. As I continued to look, I slowly went inward, becoming aware of my inner core. I could feel everything this person felt and thought. It was like a whole universe. In that short time, I had become separated from my body while still fully conscious.
The compassion I felt for this person looking back at me was overwhelming. I felt sorry for her, seeing her tired face and tragic eyes. I wanted to hug, respect, and love her and give her the best life I possibly could. I apologised for neglecting her needs and beating her up because I was angry. She was me. For the first time in my entire life, I saw me as I truly was—as a person of worth, dignity, and compassion for all except myself. I knew I was looking at the one and only person who could change my life.
I encourage other people to do this exercise and take their time with it. It helped me see clearly who I was and where I would take myself from there. The connection you can make with yourself is truly amazing. If this does not work for you the first time, repeat the exercise until you begin to feel a shift happen.
My entire life took a trip down a different road from where I had been before I had made the connection to myself. The first thing I noticed almost right away was the lightness of being. I was soaring inside. The layers of debris had begun melting away, and I felt my power returning. I felt free as I had done once so long ago. I had created this glass prison around me, which I could have smashed my way out of at any given moment; all I’d needed was the knowledge of self-love instead of loathing who I was, and I would have gained the courage to stop being a doormat.
From that day forward I began mining my own deep nature attempting to understand my existence as a consciouses being on a much deeper level. I stopped paddling around on the surface of it all and began to see that throughout our lives we unconsciously download all sorts of rubbish from our “conditioning” over the years. For example. Suppose a ball of energy like the sun which is a whole, then something comes along and takes pieces from that whole and the pieces then become solidified into separate physical bodies of human flesh and we are born. We enter a material world which has been in existence for many thousands of years.
Religion which has governed the earth for centuries, and as a result, a system has formed around it - designed to control the masses. This is a huge part of the conditioning process throughout all societies down through the ages worldwide. It controls who and what we think we are as individuals, by grouping people into categories, thus taking away their birthrights for example…In the 1960’s a person was once ostracised for being left handed and like myself was forced to write with their right hand, it was seen as a disgrace, and a sign of a person who had not been properly educated. The horror of having my right hand tied behind my back is today seen as a despicable way to treat a child of five, yet the stigma of being left handed still sticks, you only need to attend a sports day to hear the derogatory names such as “goofy footed, southpaw, cack handed,” just to name a few still being thrown around in various aspects of sports. The world is definitely an unfair playing field, due to conditioning of young minds, and governments keeping their people in third world conditions. There is enough food and money for every single individual in the world. Beliefs stemming from religion is key to our conditioning whether good or not, and it results in how we see and judge others. In my quest to seek the truth, I have found that religion sparks fear into those who take it up and it has nothing to do with God, who does not sit on a golden throne awaiting to throw us into fire and brimstone. God and religion are separate entities.
“The kingdom of Heaven is within you.” We are all God, the life force within, knowing and believing that we are powerful beyond belief. Life is not separate from us, it is who we are. Once I had understood this on a much deeper level, doors within me began opening. I thought I knew myself yet I didn’t. We can go for decades never opening the door in the basement downstairs, thinking there is only junk and rubbish down there. Its much like the person who will eventually search for the key to that basement room, goes in and begins poking around amongst all the discarded old bits and pieces and comes across something very valuable that changes his life. He comes away not only with a knowledge of whats down there but the bonus of finding something that he never knew was there simply because he had not bothered searching deep enough. It is the same with ourselves, we do not know who we are until we have opened every door within our inner spectrums. I never knew I was an artist until I opened that door within. Our answers lay with God, that life force of who and what we truly are at essence. “Search and you will find.” This is what it really means to search for God - within the depths of your true soul. Search and you find the Kingdom of Heaven