I just watched "The Shift" by Wayne Dyer ... wow crazy, I cried almost all the time and even afterwards I could not stop... I really felt how I am not, I don’t want to be a teacher of God, I have nothing to teach... I know nothing more than every other person because we all have access to the same truth. Life is not about teaching but living ...
I saw myself at Mingan, with Carole on the beach, collecting all my wood to make sculptures and there was nothing I didn’t dare do for fear of failing ... of being judged ... I felt profound happiness, great joy to be there, to feel so good, inspired ...
I saw myself quit the piano because I was afraid of not being good enough, because I was not good at the time (I was learning), because I was afraid of not being perfect, I didn’t dare to take singing lessons because I was afraid of not being able to sing in tune and making a fool of myself was a childhood dream ... I stopped taking pictures because I wanted to be a photographer and I was afraid of not being good enough, because I didn’t know a lot of theory nor Photoshop so I found myself nowhere ... when all I wanted was to share love, the essence of things through my photos... I didn’t follow through with my book because I was afraid it wasn’t good, feared being judged, of failing ... I saw the cottage near a lake, that I dreamed of in Quebec, with all those children that I could gather, with a garden, horses, piano playing and singing together, paintings, games .. that's what grabs me in the guts, that's exactly it ...
I am nothing more than that either ... all I can do is to share the experiences that brought me where I am today, but I know nothing more than that .... all I know is that when I practice it all, I am inspired, there is nothing more than that, nothing .... there is nothing else ... I reviewed my guidance for our world tour... it was about meeting people, about this picture book "Face of Love", going to orphanages to share the love everywhere ... it was never about travelling where we were invited to give lectures or workshops ... He talked about possibly going to Course groups, but nothing else ... Then what happens?
Today, my lesson is "Only God's plan for salvation will work” and three questions are posed... What do you want me to do? Where would you like me go? What would you like me to say and to whom? I have the impression that God just replied to me ...
With Erik, we also made a list of what was keeping us from accepting the atonement, from experiencing awakening now and consistently ... and I gave it all to the HS, and I gave everything to him, absolutely everything, even my relationship with Erik. Because I do not want to be tied to anything that keeps me from living the essence of who I am ... ever, I won’t pass by what my heart says ... Life is not about being spiritual, it is not about being or trying to be spiritual, but about Life .... I shared all this with Erik, and I could see that I expected a reaction from him, as a response ...
I also told him that I felt like going into the mountains with Bonnie if it was still on. I understood that I had previously not wanted to because I wanted to be spiritual; I thought I was above that. And what I felt during this film was that I denied what was there ... I always felt a deep sense of total harmony with everything around me when I was in nature, I have had profound experiences of unity, where I'm just One with everything, and that was part of what I wanted to let people experience where I created a nine day retreat on the islands ... to return to your Essence, break habits, create free time to just live in the now, without control, where everything could be let go to explore that .... I remembered all that and I felt strongly to just stop lying to myself. Finally to be in nature and appreciate it, nothing different from being with people ... There is no difference between a tree and a person, in reality, so why should I deny it, avoid nature on the principle that it doesn’t exist, that it’s illusion .... no more than all the people I meet every day but I interact with them, and learn and grow through it ...
I feared Erik judged me for that, and I think I was in my ego because I was speaking of nature like that.
When I went to bed tonight, I meditated for a long time on today's lesson. And I asked God to guide me very clearly on his plan for salvation for me... I asked three questions: What do you want me to do? Where would you like me to go? What do you want me to say and to whom? First I began by telling myself the idea of the day "Only God's plan for my salvation will work" in which it was important that I see that God's plan will work and others will not work. So I concentrated on it for a long time, I repeated these ideas many times, more and more slowly. I then saw that a lot of thoughts were passing by, but I didn’t hang on, and I felt that behind it, I was profoundly present. I reread all of that required long practice for this lesson and therefore the three issues as well.
I then received a tremendous guidance, super inspiring, but huge. It brought me back to something that completely inspired me and moved me almost two years ago, I was sharing with a friend but at the end of it I had never dared to go as I felt so worthless and that it was not worth the trouble to try. Wow, it was so clear. I finished by falling asleep.
Then, during the night, I kept coming back again and again, I could not keep up, I saw that there was a healing that was about to be made about my belief that I was unworthy. There was like a movie being played, a story that was written. I fought really hard, and yet I felt I was pushed out of my bed, to get up and write. I finally snapped, so I felt it very powerfully, as if someone had spirited me out of bed! It felt like hours had passed, yet ... it had been just over three ... It was the middle of the night. All images, voices and stories that were created had vanished ... leaving me, with myself awake at night, my head full of it all, yet at the moment unable to put them on paper ... It was so huge. I felt I was resisting getting up because I was afraid ... oh deeply afraid of waking, of my salvation. It was really that. I felt that it was towards that I was going and I was frightened, and that's why I did not get up. I half consciously saw in this dream that I was really prepared to follow this guidance, this vision that came to me, these feelings of happiness, of excitement in participating in this, of going beyond my fears, the memories of my springtime enthusiasm two years ago when I shared this excitement with Bob and that I was going to do it and he pushed me to go after that, I felt inspired. And I saw the whole way I had come since and that all that was there to give me the tools to go after it ...
Wow it was enormous. I really felt the power of it. I was afraid and wanting it at the same time. I wanted to cry, as if I were saying goodbye to someone, as if I was leaving, leaving something known for forever and at the same time I felt such a deep inspiration, something very quiet, very powerful. As an assurance that everything is perfectly in order, on the road. A joyful peace, not an excitement that seems to fall after a few moments or even days ... something quite different. I'm not even sure I experienced it. It looked like what I experienced once I had shared with Erik the guidance that we would get married ... everything flowed along, it was normal, things followed their path.. In writing, I see myself reading a book, writing it all. In my resistance to getting up, it was like I was afraid of meeting Jesus. I felt it then, so present. I felt as if carried. And I fully realized that as long as I didn’t get up not to write everything that was there, I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I felt really driven to get up and write.
Then I also saw that all I had felt earlier in touch with my essence was also a way of not facing things that still make me so scared and so I really wanted to be very small, doing tricks and that is what is not envisioned for me now. In writing this, I am swept into something that completely overwhelms me, and I feel fear. Afraid it won’t happen, and fear of not being little, as if I was even afraid of the word ... I dare not write it! Fear of being great, powerful ...
Yes I had to go through all this just to finally live, to know a profound humility and stop doing things to be recognized, seen, loved, but just because that's what I was guided to do and be aware of how the ego tries to turn the guidance to his advantage. I feel the same fear that it won’t happen, that I felt with Erik, with regard to our marriage. It is as if it was offered as something I always dreamed of and so much that it wasn’t happening, I could not believe it. And if that didn’t happen? I had just communicated with Jesus and in the end he told me to close my eyes, then I saw the guidance anew. My single motivation today to do things is guidance. Because if I am not inspired it is in any case doomed to failure. Moreover, I no longer need to be recognized. I recognize myself for who I am, indeed, the Son. I feel so humble, if not that, then as sad as I have the impression that it comes from letting go of my identity, the past, the 'self' an illusion with which I had identified. I also have the impression I’m far from Erik ... This may be the end of the special relationship, as in the dream I had yesterday morning ... I was there just to learn to love him unconditionally, and set him free ... and I love him like I never loved ...
March 13
I got up tired and mostly confused by the guidance I’d received very clearly on several occasions last night and tonight. It really made no sense. I didn’t understand. And anyway all this seemed completely beyond me. I shared with Erik; it was talking nonsense and yet it was so inspiring at the same time, that I felt that the guidance completely took me.
He shared that he didn’t really know what to think because it had no meaning or value at all for him, but he also felt that there was something really inspiring and healing for me and also that he was afraid of losing me. He thought that, as this project would take me a long time while we weren’t together, that we'd become distanced. It’s funny because I felt that too, but not at a physical level. I felt that following this guidance would take me beyond the personality of the special relationship and that, indeed, there would be detachment, but this would be simply the letting go of the special relationship, and that this was surely what he was really afraid of. For me, when I say that I'm afraid of losing it, I’m actually really scared of losing my "self."
A little later, I felt that we were really separate. Erik told me that it might just be because I was confused about this and that he was also confused, so we felt separated. I suggested we look at it more closely to get back to clarity. He asked me a single question, he asked me what my next step was, what was I guided to do now; I thought, and I burst into tears. I felt like I’d done something terribly wrong. Everything seemed so abstract and nonsensical. I also wrote to David and Jason to share what I’d been going through and get their advice. My biggest fear is letting go of my guidance in order to still be loved by Erik, for fear of losing him.
I then read my lesson, which seemed to take me some time, it was so hard to think! I did my meditation for my daily lesson and the question "What is salvation, Father? I do not know, tell me, so I understand" came up...
"Salvation is when Spirit takes charge of everything, when there is only Him, and the world is no more than a playground for you to extend love and who you really are."
It's crazy, that’s really what I’d felt since yesterday, that Spirit had taken the lead, that He was in command, and there was just this profound presence. I spent a lot of time in silence, meditating. I fed on this presence. I wasn’t hungry, but Erik asked me to eat and I joined him.
I feel that I was redoing what I often do. It's so hard for me, it seems, to stay where I am without feeling guilty and then rejoin others where I think they are, really believing that there are others, and that if I'm on my path, I’m separated from them.
It was time for Paltalk. I felt guided once again to make a point about the special relationship. I spoke of the impossibility of loss and of the completeness of God, that we just have to accept it, instead of belief in loss. Because if we are all One, we can’t lose anything, nor ever be separated from anything. I also talked about the nonsense of the special relationship, it actually has nothing to do with the other person, it's all about me. (I see once again in the instant I’m writing these lines, that the way Erik takes care of me, that I reassure him that we will not be separated, that I reassure myself, I doubt; I became very small and I cried. I cried because I was so afraid of being great. I'm so afraid of shining and doing it without him. It’s as if I feel so guilty that I sabotage myself. I destroy myself. I kill myself, so that the relationship can still exist. In fact, I kill the Son so the ego can still exist...). I proposed a guided meditation incorporating the theme of the lessons of yesterday and today. It was super powerful, I felt full of love ...
Erik told me he was going out with Bonnie to run errands. I went to take a shower. Meanwhile, I felt like I was dying, as if he was abandoning me again. He seemed detached from me, to have a life apart. When I went outside, he was still there. My stomach hurt, I didn’t feel well. He took me in his arms. I told him I didn’t feel well. He told me to rest, and to rest my mind too. I sat on the couch and I began to write whatever came. At one point, I begin to doubt what I’d written; I told myself that it really had no meaning with regard to the Course. I felt bad, I wondered what was happening, that I would think all of that? What if the ego was really well disguised in the Holy Spirit? And if I put everything on that? And if I simply could not trust at all what I felt? I finally stopped writing; I felt too lost in all of it.
I read my emails and I saw that Don had written to tell us that, with the cancellation of the conference by Bonnie, Geoff and Rocio, he could not pay for Erik’s airfare, because he had been counting on that money. I got really angry. I calmed myself, thinking that anyway he's stronger than me, I replied. I thought this whole charade had gone far enough and that it was high time he took his responsibilities. Somehow, I wanted to give him a lesson! I also felt that we were being punished, that he was punishing us because we were living at Bonnie’s. It was full of injustice and I told him I thought it was time for him to fulfill his part of the contract.
Later I watched "Proposal" with Sandra Bullock, and I cried again, seeing how she was protecting herself from being loved by destroying, by spoiling any chance to experience love, by fleeing to "protect" herself by hiding her feelings, by being strong and tough. I saw so much of myself in there. I saw myself with Erik’s parents, having so much fear of all that love, I created a situation where I only had four days to spend with them, to be sure not to get too much love, to be sure of not flipping out, I destroyed myself. And I separated myself, and I went away and found myself far off, alone. It's been that way every time, everywhere. I don’t know how to really let myself be loved. I don’t know how to be loved without fear of being suffocated. I also saw that with my parents, I think, I feel that I don’t know how to let myself be loved.
I left the room once the movie ended, without saying a word. Don had responded to my email and added a copy of all those who would be attending. I felt really humbled and I just wanted to kill him. Once in my room, I cried, again with all my tears for destroying myself so much, that I couldn’t be loved, for having so much fear... how could I get out of here, of that? I felt that the mail from Don killed me again, I felt that I’d cancel, I’d repay him his money and not go there. Anyway, nobody is irreplaceable, eh? I’d really had enough of all those stupid tricks, this bullshit of a world tour, which resembled nothing at all, to have to be invited to give lectures or workshops to go somewhere, to not follow my heart, my intuition and trust that something would fall into place. I still held it against myself for not going to Bali, then Australia, I felt it so much. I was so angry that I never listen to myself. Again, I felt like going to Canada. When my father told me that I would finally find myself at the Olympic Games in Vancouver, I felt something right about it, then David also told me that I could go through Vancouver to go to Montreal, and that was my first intuition. But I didn’t want to trust myself, given what had just happened, so I wanted to listen to others. As if they knew better than me.
I was so angry with myself that I again want to die. I know I closed the door on that, and yet I felt how it drew me so strongly. I was sick of this life, it didn’t resemble anything and I was really unhappy. I’d so much prefer to just play the piano, paint, write, create, in a house by the sea... I don’t want to run after something my whole life. Everything is here now. We are fortunate, Erik and I, to be married and love each other deeply. Why aren’t we content with that and with experiencing what our hearts guide us to? For me, it doesn’t guide me to do what we are doin ... I even feel like I’m being sacrificed!
I couldn’t stop crying, and it was hot, I went to lie beside the pool. I couldn’t stay in one place, I felt so bad. I went back in and saw that Geoff was in the kitchen. I feel like going there rather than near Erik. He saw that I was crying. We talked for a long time. When I shared that I just wanted a simple life, ordinary, he said that it was the ego who said that. I said to myself that this was possible because I had felt that too with the guidance that night; that in this simple life hid the fear of being great and that was certainly what I was destined for. As Geoff had also told me. We talked about the conference and I said I didn’t know if I'd go. He said that he, without going, without having read the Course, merely by our presence, by the many inspiring things I had said or had achieved, or felt that I shared, he had already received a lot. Indeed, it’s a question of being.
I then went to Erik; I told him that Don had replied to me and basically what he’d said, and that I thought I wasn’t going to the conference, that I didn’t feel very present in these conditions and that I would refund him for the ticket. Erik said he also was feeling very deep emotions, a really intense terror. And he didn’t yet know what he would do. So I wrote to Don and copied everyone, I wanted everyone to know about his lack of honesty and integrity. I don’t think it came from good sense and I realized once again that perhaps I was punishing myself. But I’d had enough of all that. I preferred to withdraw.
I turned off the light a little later and told Jesus that he could wake me anytime if he wanted me to write. I felt like I couldn’t sleep and that I had things coming full blown into my head like last night and then felt called to get up now. I therefore find myself in the living room writing what I receive from Jesus.
March 14
I felt completely lost this morning, tense. I wasn’t sure that my decision to not attend the conference was right. I was in hell ... with great pressure on me. I felt I was just punishing myself again, I felt so unworthy, unworthy of even being there, present at the conference, being among all those people who were full of value.
I stayed lying on the couch most of the morning, eyes closed, without a word, questioning again and again this worthlessness, relentlessly, re-entering it so it would reveal itself to me, show me the truth. It had been hidden long enough, I could no longer let it determine my reactions.
Late in the morning, I read my lesson "I will there be light,” it was timely. While reading, a click occurred and I felt like sharing everything I had experienced and had felt with the other presenters to whom I had sent the e-mail yesterday. So I told them everything.
I shared fully with them how I felt when I received the email from Don, how I felt ashamed and humiliated, and I wanted him to feel as ashamed as I was, that I really wanted to kill him for doing that to me.. and that I fully realized that all of that was just because I felt really unworthy to be there, unworthy of participating in the conference; I was very afraid and Don had just given me an excuse, whatever it was, to be able to go back out of it ... and that my decision didn’t come from a good spirit! And I finished this email with "I'm sorry, forgive me, I love you and thank you," Hoponopono. This came without my reflection. Once sent, I felt a lot better, so light for having taken my responsibilities, and for being honest...
I felt guided to go find more information about "hoponopono" and to practice it intensively for the rest of the day fairly on this situation, the people, everything that I perceive in others ... powerful, really!
Then I read my mail and saw one from Cricri who spoke of what she was experiencing and I felt that all the responses she received were addressed to me, crazy. I, who usually read very little, read them all. Caroline and Sylvain after that, were guided to lead a Paltalk session just before mine ... Mmmh, I was guided by that .... great!
I was listening to them, it was wonderful, so many answers. It was so full of sweetness and practicality ... I wanted to stay with it ... I feel it bringing me back to calmness, to the simplicity of the Truth. I was guided to not read the text of the Course today. So I wrote a message to share that, and I wrote that I felt like staying with what is here and let it steep, and that it’s really happening on another level. Once they had finished, Caro said she had read what I wrote and it just meant that there are no levels, that everything is always perfect.
I then felt I was guided to speak, to do a Paltalk, no text, but sharing what I experienced, to open myself, to dare ... wow, very big. So I took the microphone, and I began by thanking Caro because her sharing again brought me to the fact that I do not feel I’m higher or lower than others, like at the conference, and that I felt really unworthy to give Paltalk. Then I started to cry.
I ended up telling everything I had been through the last three days and all the awareness that I had. Even if I cried for an hour, and at the end, I felt very light, true, no longer hiding ... Sylvain said that I showed my innocence, Caroline told me I represented strength for her, that’s what she felt, what she saw ..., I felt that Paltalk was very powerful ...
I wanted to relax and read for the rest of the afternoon, then Geoff said he had watched two episodes of "touched by an angel” last night and that he thought they were talking to me. At the end of day, Erik and I watched them together again, I couldn’t stop crying, Erik was also moved. In fact, we watched three, there was a second DVD! And the third was the strongest for me... from the beginning, I felt it. The girl was doing gym, and her mother was behind her. I felt it was my life unfolding on the screen.
I saw myself working, again and again, for hours to be the best, it was something easy for me ... from 7 to 13 years, up to 14 hours of training per week in the last years, it was the only thing that mattered to me, I've lived for this ... to win, to be the best. I saw that I even saw my friends as enemies because I must, I wanted to be the best. Yeah, that was that my life, I learned to win,
I learned to be the best at any cost, who cared, all that mattered was to win. I thought that was how I would be loved ... I had to win. Then I won everything, all the competitions. That’s all I did, gym, I even stopped the piano (I couldn’t win there, I learned, and I felt so nothing, I was not good enough, not perfect ...).
In the garden I practiced all the time. When my cousins came over, I dragged my little cousin off, I taught her and she learned really well, super fast. So she went into a club near her home and after a short time, she was taken into another elite club, she went on to contribute to the Belgian championship. I was not there. But although I dreamed of being champion of Belgium, I knew it was too late and I was already too big and too old. Despite all that, my mother wanted me to train there and to try. I went there for a week without saying anything to my coach, like a traitor, ready to go, but keeping a spare tire ... In conclusion, I was too tall, it was too late ....
And when I went back to working out the next week, I said nothing, but my teacher no longer paid any attention to me, at all, I was always put on the side, it was horrible . Especially as I had won all competitions the previous year, I had to move to a higher division, just before the national, and my first competition was coming; I trained myself alone, I said nothing, didn’t speak, I felt so bad, rejected, a traitor ... I screwed everything up at the competition. I was so ashamed that I never returned to my club, I've never done gym, I never talked to my teacher, we didn’t even say hello and I held an atrocious grudge against my mother.
I really felt that she pushed me to go there for her own good, so I'd be better than my cousin, for her to be more proud of me, to fill her own sense of unworthiness, to realize what she had perhaps never done... that’s what I experienced. (Maybe I just don’t want to take responsibility for having failed, it’s possible, but at least that’s my story, my interpretation!) and this episode told absolutely that, it was crazy, I cried from beginning to end, then I spoke with Erik, as I realized that my whole life had just been competition again and again without stopping and that's also what I shared on Paltalk ... I felt so worthless, that I should win everything ...
March 15
Standing at 5:30 today, I felt pulled out of my bed, I felt the call to write ... I am. How do I know where all this will eventually lead? I learn not to plan for the future, not to seek to understand, to follow what I feel and stay in the moment. Mmm ... a program to start the day.
I’m just coming out of three days of very intense emotions. What I have done most? Crying, crying and still more crying. My God, I’ve never cried like that. Why? Mmm, enormous realizations, unworthiness as never seen or felt before, and a major transformation process initiated too, I think. I feel good, I feel I was run over by a steamroller, and got up. Finally, I thought I was out of it...
I continued to practice hoponopono, I really felt the momentum coming from my depths and pushing me in that direction, all the faces that came to me, everything that I associated, everything that I sensed in myself ... again and again ...
Erik had a long conversation with Don on Skype, which brought a lot to both of them. Afterwards Erik asked me how I felt about what happened in relation to Don. I told him I'm ok, but at the same time Don never responded to my e-mail and has already talked to Erik several times on Skype and never asked to speak to me about whether things were clear, so it is obvious that there is still something there. And I know I haven’t taken a step to talk to him either, and that despite everything, he acts as if everything was back to normal, and anyway I'll be there.
Then Erik asked me what Don was referring to about what happened. Well, I think it almost puts in my face everything that I don’t want to see or not accept in myself, or that really bothers me. The first thing for me and the biggest is unworthiness, then irresponsibility, rebellion, wanting to do things by myself and not listen to others, letting myself be distracted by others, rather than following guidance, to please others rather than to feel what is really right for me, to be there so much for others as to forget myself, … and even more, but that's already not bad! So yes, it's clear we didn’t meet for nothing, I know that. And I also know that it is a blessing for me to see it all at once! We talked about all that. The conversation became deeper and deeper.
I really let go with confidence, I felt it was so right at this time. Erik seemed so guided, knowing where he was going ... I don’t remember too much of all that, because it was really very emotional and very far away. Well, I burst into tears again, further and further away.
We came to this: when I was a little girl around the age of 5, I decided that I didn’t deserve to be here, to be born, that I had nothing to do here, my mother had told me that I was an accident, I was not foreseen at the time, that it was faster than expected, but that was just fine. And that was an accident, but a very beautiful accident. I guess I must have interpreted that by the fact that that characterized me, I should be beautiful (which was my whole life ..) and especially since I was born in the bathroom, which can be very funny when it is well understood, but what I remember is that I asked questions for a long time trying to understand how I survived my birth, how could I be born in the bathroom and not die. And I therefore deduced that I was really just crap. That is the interpretation I made from my mother's words. Initially, she told me I was born when the car broke down, but I didn’t understand what it meant when she told me that people went to the toilet when they couldn’t stand up. It was therefore like a toilet.
So I made a decision, probably made sometime before, that seemed to be what was very conscious. I really did not deserve to live, I should not even be here; I’m an accident, and I'm shit.
That is what the last 32 years are based on. These are the foundations of my life so far. One great day, I will come at last, after years of research on myself, to understand, to find out why I screw up almost all my relationships, why I fall out of nearly all of them at one time or another, why I always seem to destroy everything, why I am so proud and so self-sufficient, I can even feel superior ... my life has been based on the fact that I am a shit that should not be here!
And if I didn’t beat myself to show I'm the best, if I wasn’t the first at school, if I didn’t succeed at what I did, I was a shit, and I couldn’t do this, because if I’m a shit, I'm only good to throw in the toilet and disappear ... and yet, I continued my own self-destruction, proving to myself again and again that this was really all I was, constantly repeating abandonment, rejection, of which I was so afraid that I often rejected or abandoned first .... or I became unlivable; I did everything to stick to the image I had of myself, what I thought of myself .... Especially since about age three, I would often poop in my pants because I preferred to play with my friends than to go back to the toilet, and one day my mother told me that if I did it again, she would rub my face with it. I didn’t believe her and the next day I came home all proud, having made poop in my pants, and she did it. She rubbed my pants full of shit on my face. That was therefore everything that I was, just like an animal, really of no worth, none.
I had never believed that those stories, which I’d laughed at all these years, had assumed this meaning for me. I had interpreted them as defining me, so I was nothing but a shit! Given which, everything that I succeeded at or as soon as I was happy, I blew it, I couldn’t make it ... I really couldn’t. Most of the time I put it on the other person and the more time passed and I advanced, the more I realized that I had a worry ... that I wouldn’t let myself be loved, that I couldn’t ... that I was afraid of commitment, etc. .... other stories came to explain what I experienced and never until now did all that come out, never ... it was so deep, I cried my guts out. It had perhaps come before and didn’t get that response to what was inside me, more than the separation from God, at a metaphysical level, but here in this moment, all that made sense. Finally, I understood, I had found everything that was keeping me away from happiness, why I was so afraid, why I always act like that.
I have created so many tragedies, I was the queen of drama, again and again. And really, I did so much harm, I was so angry ... It's really huge. I realize that these 32 years have been screwed up, over and over again because I interpreted the words of my mother in that way, and I kept having experiences that proved it to me again and again, not letting myself be loved or not too much and not too long, leaving it one way or another, being in any case unable to stay in it, whether in my relationships with friends, professionals, family or lovers, I acted like that everywhere ... full of shame, full of indignity, hidden under a huge layer of super self-confidence, even going so far as to take others for the shit and be really intolerant and judgmental. It could not be me, well no, it must be the other person. And all this led me into a game where I was always the poor victim of it all. This suited me well because at least I wasn’t responsible, I had nothing to do with it, it was not my fault after all, I was just a shit, so I shouldn’t even be here ..
And I haven’t stopped playing this game. I felt it so deeply. I saw my whole life unfolding in my head, reviewing all the situations, all that I missed, all people that I blew off, all that I tossed up in the air, every opportunity to be happy that I had destroyed, everything, I saw everything, it was so huge that I screamed... I always had to be the best, superior to win because if not I would obviously be abandoned, you don’t drag a shit around with you, eh! Of course I completely identified with the story of Armelle, I'm well aware of it ... Erik wanted to continue and help me out of it, out of the story, to let the history go and I couldn’t, and the more he insisted the worse it got because I didn’t feel capable of letting go of all that, even here I was nothing even here I still tossed it in the air. He said he was so excited because it was huge what I was experiencing, so much... he already saw how happy I would be, how all my relationships would change if I let go of it, if I let it all go.
But I didn’t get there ... it was too much; I really didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what I could do to do it differently, to no longer do that ... I was so lost. All I wanted to do was to cry over my past 32 years of shit! All I felt was that it was so huge, I just wanted to take the time to experience it, to be with it, to be super sad and conscious. I didn’t feel like doing anything, just to stay with it .... and I was sure that the Holy Spirit would take over now ... I therefore remained in it all, constantly reviewing images, everything again and again, regretting, blaming myself, and at the same time, a part of me was deeply happy to be there today, with Erik at my side, who never left, who is here and more than here, with me, accompanying me through all this I was going through. It's been years I dreamed of meeting someone like him, someone who would stay, beyond anything I could do or say to make him go.
The Holy Spirit had grasped the magnitude of fear in me, it was clear that to undo it all, I needed something solid so I wouldn’t leave again. A marriage and a tattooed alliance, yes ...
What I just experienced with Erik was what I dreamed of for years, to finally get all that out, and that he could go where I'd never gone myself, that he could dare, that he could speak, say everything that came to him, wow, it was crazy ...
I spent the rest of the day pretty quiet, always there, very sad and very lost.
That night, when I went to bed, I prayed and asked God to show me what was still blocking me, why I couldn’t let go of this unworthiness, what was it I still clung to. And then I saw lots of situations from when I was very small when I really felt, or I thought I had hurt someone and I was so angry with myself ... I had not forgiven myself and I really thought I was a bad person. I felt so ashamed ...
I also realized that I really never wanted to be responsible for anything, it was never me, it was always others ... I never wanted, never could be responsible for screwing up my life so much, it couldn’t be me, because then I could have done otherwise, and even here tonight, I can’t be responsible, it’s horribly painful to be responsible for one’s life, for all this destruction; God it hurts, I hurt so much...
Tuesday, March 16
I woke up still in the same story as yesterday ... always the victim, still unable to create anything other than drama. Even here, I felt as if Bonnie wanted us to leave, it had nothing to do with the fact that she moved out the next week, but because of me. Because I again screwed up everything! It was still my fault. I was unable to enjoy what was offered to me, not even able to just follow, to open myself to what was proposed to me. That's what I was thinking when I woke up. I flogged myself, I victimized myself. I should say "yes" more often to their proposals, even if I don’t feel like it, I should have been more cheerful about doing that. In other words, don’t listen to myself. If it is, I missed plenty of opportunities. That’s the story of my waking day.
Moreover, I felt so much fear, yes, really full of fear. I was afraid to go to the guesthouse with others, afraid to participate in the conference, afraid even to prove that I was just a shit, I felt so scared and so helpless ... I wasn’t even able to watch Erik, nor to say a word to him, I felt so ashamed, so nothing, just not capable. I felt so sad. I was not even able to get out of there, either, pfff really too nothing.
When I read my mail, I had received a very long one from my friend Christiane in Belgium, so full of sweetness and joy, I cried, I could not get back to myself. I felt loved from so far away. It was love, full of love.
I then read my lesson "The light has come." The more I read, and less sense it made! No light had come on me today, not really, I could say that. It was not there! That’s what was going on in my head. Nor did I do meditation, it didn’t make sense to me. Erik joined me, I was listening to the satsang that Sylvain did yesterday evening on PalTalk.
At one point he asked me to tell it. He shared how it felt to go over to the guesthouse on Thursday and report to the conference, I told him what I was thinking, to which he responded. And really, I didn’t feel in there at all, so I told him I couldn’t help but I was sure he would find the answer in himself. Then I continued listening to the satsang. At this time, Sylvain spoke of the anxiety that came from the deep desire of wanting to absolutely control events, rather than let them be what they are. I shared it with Erik, and it was like he needed to hear it. Hearing it all helped me a lot to go back there, now, as a first step, but the story, and profound despair of not knowing how to be otherwise, were always present. An enormous sadness, heavy, suffocating.
I went to have breakfast, Erik too. And while I ate, I still heard the story that was telling itself. Everything seemed to be a reflection of the story. Even when my knife slipped while I was putting almond butter on my bread, and some oil stains were deposited on my t-shirt, I told myself that I really was only shit and incompetent. Voila! Even that proved it to me. Yeah, I thought it so strongly, so deeply, I could see only that everywhere ... I ate super fast, I saw myself do it, I thought I felt sick, to see myself crazy, to have something to hide and filling myself with food helped me to hide what should be. My way of eating rushed me. As if we were leaving tomorrow (I was wrong in the days), and it was necessary to clear out what was in the fridge, to leave nothing... but something really pathological, I felt it. I saw it in my gestures.
A little later, I turned, I kept moving, I could not keep up, I felt stifled, that I was dying, I could hardly breathe, stay standing, to remain seated, lying, whatever, to be present with it .... it seemed to eat me, to chew me from the inside. It was like a monster. Erik saw that it wasn’t working, I still didn’t speak I didn’t dare, I couldn’t, there was so much shame ... He ended by asking me how I was, if I wanted to talk about what I was experiencing. I replied that I did not think so, no. Like there was a danger. I couldn’t share with him what I had in my mind and then with what had happened yesterday, even if very consciously, I knew very well that it had nothing to do with what I was experiencing, I was seeing this from the part of my mind which held him responsible for being where I was today and not having gotten me out, although I knew very well it was enough yesterday, I couldn’t do more ...
So I got up with my computer and went to my room. I was aware that I had to do something, but I didn’t know what, and I felt I was being kept prisoner of what I was experiencing and I simply could not do anything to get out of it and there was also no exit, so I choked, I could not even breathe, open a door, look out the window, there was nothing (wait a minute, when I write this, a thought came in relation to claustrophobia and I think, that's where it comes from, the fear of being locked in myself, to be facing myself without escape, the fear of facing my death ... because that was what I was experiencing, I saw myself die, unable to do anything ...) So I went to my room silently, thinking of calling Sarah. She had helped me so much already, I was sure that she had the words that I needed ... But while she was present when I left the living room, she was absent once I got in my room. I therefore sent her a message on Skype. And no answer... So I said I had no choice but to talk to Erik, because I felt that I was so caught in all this suffering in this story ...
I took a shower and then went to join him in the lounge. I have always had trouble breathing. I sat down and he asked me what was happening. And then I melted, I could not hold back; yet I felt something that held me, a terrible fear, a huge shame too. I told him I had been afraid since the morning, I was afraid of everything. He suggested I tell him what I was afraid of, to name them would help to deflate them. But I couldn’t, I didn’t know what it was, I just knew it was huge. I wept hot tears, because I didn’t know how to be happy. All I could do was cause dramas, because I didn’t know what to do to be happy, and I felt so lost. He said it was ok, I did not need to know, that everything would be OK ... Then I told him how I had really been so bad since I was very young, I had really screwed up almost all my relationships at one time or another, and I even thought about when I really wanted to hurt my friends, or buddies, or my relatives, I realized that I really wanted to hurt them. I was so self-destructive, I was always fucking everything up. I cried so much ... He said that it was fear, just fear.
I told him that normally, now would be the time I would shut down; it was always when I would leave. I've never stayed on when it came to that, ever. He told me it was ok, that I should not worry, everything would be fine.
I told him about Bertrand, because he was always in my mind, and that it was at this moment that I screwed up everything, I lied to him again, well yes, I lied so much, all the time, to protect myself from everything (to destroy myself really, to keep me away from everything, especially love), I told him that after our story got so borked, we had a great turn and he was so adorable, ready to really take things in hand on his side too. He left for a few days in Spain with his parents and family and before leaving he gave me a ring, and promised me that nothing would be as before, that he wanted me to be the mother of his children, that I be his wife. It was so wonderful. And I began to experience irrational fears when he left and again I screwed everything up, I told him that I’d call him one night, and I deliberately did not because I felt controlled and I could not control him there and I didn’t know what he was doing. So I cut my phone, and he called me all night, he was like a madman. I was so deliberate, I don’t know why I did it. Since then he never wanted to speak to me, he told me I was crazy and he hated me, I had caused him so much suffering. And I wanted so much for him to forgive me. Erik then told me "and if you began by forgiving yourself? God has forgiven you everything, absolutely everything you've done. I forgive you too... and you?” I wanted Bertrand to forgive me so that I could forgive myself.
I told him I was so scared, I never stayed, when it got to that point ... (I saw that there, I was really at the dawn of true happiness in all areas of my life ... and there is a "noooooooooooo" crying inside, like "you're not going to do this to me, eh?") He told me it's nothing, that I need not worry, everything would be fine. All this was just because I was so afraid to shine, to be who I am. All this was just the story, and it was because I was afraid, so afraid that I reacted like that. It's just fear, just fear, everything is ok. Gradually, as he repeated it, I felt that it subsided in me ...
Who was really afraid? Yeah, it was not really me, it was the ego. It was the ego that was afraid of death, of the light ...
I was back again in history, hop, one foot still inside. I did so much harm, I' was so horrible, so ... Erik took his computer and started writing! I told him “you see, I'm so nothing, that even you right now, you have nothing to do with me ... You don’t even listen to me!” He told me that yes he was doing both simultaneously. I saw that I was just replaying the victim and he wasn’t fitting into my game
I got angry and I got up saying "Yes, that's it, just like the others, really all the same, all hypocrites ..." as I went into my room. It's crazy because in speaking to this point, I realized the power that the ego can take. I've heard it. I mean at that moment I felt as if possessed. Fully aware of the words coming out of my mouth and not at all affected by them, as if a play was going on inside me. I found myself completely schizo and for the first time that didn’t frighten me.
I was lying on the bed, and I just watched it. I saw myself crazy, and I thought what could happen that would be worse would be to be in a psychiatric hospital, and then I would have plenty of people around me, plenty of opportunities to practice forgiveness, time to be creative, paint, write, play the piano .... I would be fed, housed, not in need of money ... Then I heard Erik’s words, it was just fear, you were just scared, it's okay, everything will be fine ... Then I thought of my grandmother and I thought she must have been so frightened, and even more to have never been heard, understood. I felt so blessed to have Erik at my side. I laughed at myself to see me talking like that.
It reminded me of a lady in Dinant, where I grew up, walking always talking to herself and I often laughed. And there I was, I laughed ... Then I fell asleep, I felt exhausted. During my sleep, I remember there were fears that rose, I felt that my heart quickened, and I heard a voice say "it's just fear ..." and then "irrational", and repeat it again and again whenever fear was rising. When I woke up almost two hours later I felt different. It wasn’t there anymore. None of all of that was there. I was a little perplexed, as if I had to be careful that it didn’t go away, and I felt quietly happy. And the more I woke up, the more I really felt joy, I felt that having dared to tell myself, dared to see myself crazy, had made it all disappear... There was no more fear! There was no voice either. I couldn’t feel the ego. There was just a simple joy.
I got up and went to join Erik. I felt some reservation at being overjoyed, considering how I had left. And there were no words, we began to play like children, with my book, as if hiding it, then seeing it. It was too funny. To feel that innocence, that laugh over nothing ... mmmh, it was so good ... later I told him what had happened to me, the shift.
And we did more laughing the rest of the day. Laughing for no reason, really laughing just for laughs, finally me mostly, and he following. I also felt super soft and tender the rest of the day (not that it never happened, certainly not, but I know, there really was something different ...) In the evening he suggested we watch a movie "K-Pax" wonderful, it took place in a psychiatric hospital!
I feel different, like another person... I see the ego, I see its judgments, its projections. I really see its game, it’s crazy. There is definitely something profound that has happened ... when the whole rest of the day I repeated to myself "The light has come. I have forgiven the world," the practice of the day's lesson ... I felt it deeply in me, it wasn’t just a phrase, not just words flowing along, not just something that I repeated to convince myself, no ... I lived it and I felt so happy ...
Wednesday, March 17
The same quietness, the same laughing for no reason, the same simple happiness… mmmmh. I felt like I was no longer seeing things, what was around me, not even the people, Erik similarly, I feel so much love.
Translated by Andy,
I don't know why but today, I wasn't feeling the same inspiration in sharing that story that I used to then. This last month, we didn't have any internet access, so I couldn't share it before, and I still went through a lot of those kind of deep beliefs, playing in other ways, hiding other deeps beliefs about who I thought I was. So maybe it's just that... This whole month has been so powerful in experiencing the depth of the ego and also the lightness of the Truth... What a Life!!
With Love Armelle
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