A year ago, I considered myself – and my life – to be a dismally failed experiment. It’s really, really hard to get to the ripe old age of 72 and then to realize that your whole life has been a total waste of time! And it certainly didn’t make it any easier that no one else seemed to agree with me, cheerfully citing my successes and adventures. Definitely, there was no lack of love or appreciation in my life and I was treasured and pampered by family and friends. But my deep sense of unworthiness didn’t stem from anyone else’s opinion. So stressful. So bitter!
That is how my excruciatingly exhausted/burned out 2/4 Projector Bitterness felt a year ago. Then on the 20th of April 2012 I had my foundational reading with Becky Markley – and yes, she was marvelous and she expertly launched me into a whole new way of being. For the very first time in my whole life, someone really recognized the true me, and, maybe more important, I recognized the truth in her words. And that was an unmitigated WOW!
My seven year deconditioning process had begun!
The first 9 months were gentle and oh so hopeful and exciting. I read/ listened/ watched everything in the Jovian Archive. The free easy stuff mainly! And I pondered it quietly all by myself, not talking much about it. Just me, myself and I. In November, my husband and I had an eye opening couples reading with Cathy Kinnaird, which miraculously wiped out so much of the blame, shame and guilt that had saddened our marriage over recent years. That was a relief, I can tell you. And over the months I felt my sense of self gradually lighten and loosen, nothing dramatic or even something that could be described, but it showed up as a sort of effortless kindness towards myself and all of life.
Then in January 2013 we – my husband and I – joined Mary Ann Winiger’s “ Week out of Time” in Sedona. And I find myself hard pressed to describe that week. Nothing much happened. Not much information at all. No exercises or planned experiential revelations. It was totally different from any of the myriad classes/courses/workshops etc that I had immersed myself in over the years ever hopeful of becoming a better me. But ‘something’ did happen.
The most amazing realization for me in January was the absolute relaxation into “nothing to prove”, that came as the answer to everything that I had spent a lifetime searching for. (Open G center!). And the relief and experience of letting all that anxiety and eagerness to do (and do it right, of course), to learn, to love, to be, to have, MORE in order to BE Someone, opened up a whole new vista. For the first time I started to appreciate and accept myself in a way that all my psychological, emotional, spiritual, consciousness raising adventures never had. So the first month or so after our return home was pretty much a wonderful, wonderful high! I was wonderful. Bert, my husband, was wonderful. Life was wonderful. And that was February!
Then I started to grasp just how much of my thinking and doing was based on ‘trying to do it right’ (and of course that varies depending on what the ‘it’ happened to be). The whole structure of my belief system revolved around my need to prove self-worth, and, oh my goodness, what a convoluted and intricate system that was! So everything that I had learned and all the smart tricks that had enabled me to survive for my 73 years came up for review! The skills and ‘wisdom’ that I thought was what I offered to others no longer made any sense to me, and I became more and more silent. (Rather nice, in fact!)
That was March! And the dawning realization that Human Design is NOT for sissies!!! At the beginning of April, my husband went to South Africa for 3 weeks (and that, of course is another story, indeed, but we’ll leave that one for another time for him to tell!). But what it meant for me was 3 weeks of utter aloneness. Of having the house absolutely to myself with no one in my aura – our closest neighbor is about a quarter mile away. No one invading my privacy. No one wanting anything of me. No expectations to fulfill! Utter bliss! Amazing! And I had the time and peace to explore the spaciousness within me. I sat in the in the garden and just allowed it ALL to be. I went for long walks with the dogs. And I had tea with my beloved daughter every other day or so, just to reassure me that I wasn’t totally alone in the world.
And, in that emptiness, I discovered that I wasn’t the person that I thought I was – or the person that I wanted others to see me as. I was a ‘pretend’ me. I was a fraud – and I had believed so deeply in authenticity and truth and goodness. But truly, I was a ‘made up’ version of me! Now that comes as quite a shock – one could call it an ‘identity crisis’. However, this experience was totally different from anything that I had experienced in all my dedicated years of ‘trying so hard’, and attempts at self-discovery.
I literally ‘met’ my illusionary ‘non self’, and with it came a huge wonder and appreciation of the intricacy and possibilities built in to our systems. It felt sacred and impossible to describe, totally shattering and integrating at the same time. And once one has ‘met’ that other self, there is no going back and I am drawn ever more deeply into new discoveries about myself and about the nature of life (that sounds really grandiose, but actually isn’t!!!!) And the remarkable thing about all this – for me – is that the people around me who have always loved me could actually see through all my pretenses and posturings. Isn’t that amazing? A mystery, indeed!
And now my husband is back from South Africa and life has its challenges and activities again! I am a different person, and I am gradually integrating my new awareness’s – “trying not to throw the baby out with the bath water” metaphorically speaking. Not easy. In fact, the commitment to live my strategy and authority is probably the most difficult and scary decision that I have made in this life time.
And what now? I have absolutely no idea……….but I do sense that there can be nothing more important than living as myself. Whatever that might mean! And I willingly dedicate the rest of my life to find out that……..
Source: http://www.jovianarchive.com by Jenny Swanepoel