...but for who?

It's never for ourselves. 

It's always for the benefit of others. Be good so that we can be palatable, comfortable or easy for someone else. Behave in a way that is not disruptive or difficult for someone else. Curb your own desires and inclinations and natural exuberance to keep others comfortable. 

I assume this was the ground for most of our childhoods. Well, it was the ground of mine. I guess that's all I really know for sure.

The punishment for 'not behaving' was criticism, judgement and a withdrawal of love. If I acted up in public I could expect covert physical abuse or the threat of physical abuse.

Being good was directly related to my experience of safety and acceptance in the world. Being good was directly related to my having the right to exist and take up space. My right to exist was dependent on how other people felt when they were around me. 

Well, that's not going to work.

In "Living a Life that Matters" (surprise), I finally came into contact with a place of safety in myself and in the world. A safe place where making mistakes doesn't mean that I am unworthy of love and care or that I need to be punished. 

For the first time in my life I felt the joy and freedom of living in a space where making moral mistakes was okay. I didn't have to keep trying to be Saint Lezley anymore - I wasn't going to be rejected and unalived for making a mistake in how I thought about or acted or spoke to others. 

This is an entirely different world from the one I've been living in up until now. The stakes aren't so high and there's not just one chance to get it right. I can breath easier in this world. 

I don't have to be so afraid all the time. 

(or cover up that fear with anger)

It also shifted my awareness of what direction my love and adoration has been pointed for most of my life. It was always up and out - parents, authorities, celebrities, cosmos, divinity... My love and care has been directed outwards to others and to 'bigness'. 

Love in and down

I've made a shift to direct that love and adoration back in and down - take that exact love and adoration for the cosmos and Beloved Presence and spirit and direct it to my self - my little baby girl self in this dirt body - and marvel at how truly spectacular and wondrous she is.  

She's starting poking her head out of the hole that I buried her in when I was a child. She's started to think that maybe it's safe to live in this world with me, exactly as she is - and I'm doing my best to make it a place where she can thrive. 

Thanks for listening and being here.

Lezley

xox

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