As an empath I find it challenging at times to not pay attention to what people are thinking around me. I can feel judgment and anger from others very quickly. Perhaps because of my professional singing skills, I’ve learned how to hide their impact. I seem to be able to maintain a state of grace under fire now. I suppose that is progress. But, on the other side of these kinds of interactions, I’m always tired.
I think about Jesus in these moments. What would he have done? What would he have said to me? Our Bible-based history speaks of him in extraordinary ways. I’m reminded of when he turned over the tables at the Temple. Clearly, he was making a strong statement. One that was seemingly backed in anger, or at the very least, indignation and righteousness. I wonder how the merchants or moneychangers felt? Did they feel guilt or remorse? Or did they just write it off as some crazy guy getting upset at the market? What about all the times that he only used words to convey his message?
Unity Church’s principles for positive living assert that words and how we use them will either lead us into a loving, expansive life or the exact opposite. My favorite example of that kind of immediate paradigm shift can be found in the Lord’s Prayer. Unity uses the original Aramaic text of the prayer Jesus left us. In Aramaic, the word for “sin” is defined as “error,” or “to miss the mark.” When error replaces the word evil in this prayer, the entire meaning changes from an external source pushing us to do wrong,
to our own misunderstanding causing us to fall astray. Misunderstandings can happen in the smallest of interactions, especially when emotional triggers run hot. But big shifts can happen when we move towards being responsible and accountable for how we see and interact with the world.
In LifeSpring, back in the 1980s, when I was first exposed to consciousness, there was a training exercise around the distinction between accountability and blame. We can be accountable without having to accept or feel like we are to blame. I’ve started looking at my circumstances– results if you will–and addressing them from my accountability.
For example, when I first came into the barbershop world, I felt a tremendous need to prove myself. It set up dynamics of me vs. them, especially when it came to walking into a room full of men. Yes, I was an expert in my specialized area of singing, but many of the men I coached had been singing for their whole lives. Here I was, a woman, showing up in their beloved world and asking them to consider another approach to getting higher-level results. Unfortunately, in order to accomplish that task, it would often appear that I was making someone else wrong.
The backlash from that approach should be apparent. I struggled to be accepted. But when I surrendered the position of self-righteousness, something magical happened. Suddenly, I was being invited to contribute. I was asked to present my work in high visibility places like the yearly international convention for the Barbershop Harmony Society. At the time it was an all-male competition. That has recently changed to be inclusive of women, too. But when I arrived on the scene, I was more an oddity than the norm. I had to learn how to be uncomfortable and not show it. Grace under pressure.
Now, as I make my way towards this visit with my parents, I realize that I was being prepared for a deeper level of surrender, of trust. I don’t have to fight my way into the room. I just have to stand in my own truth and allow others to have theirs as well. This is not always easy to do, especially when it feels like there is aggression coming your way.
But I am committed to this journey towards love. I can do this. I can face my deepest fears. I am not alone. A very special presence walks beside me, even now. He helps me understand. When I listen to my heart, I hear the voice of love. This is all the protection I need.
What I learn through this particular visit with my folks is that all of what I view as inherent to my childhood trauma they both have experienced within the context of their own. All of what I react to, they
are reacting to with regard to their own parents, and, what shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, to their parents before them. The cycles of abandonment, betrayal, abuse, trauma and distortion play on endlessly until we say, “Stop! Enough!”
I believe in my heart that these cycles can be broken and forever put to rest. This can happen when we turn and face into each issue of our lives with compassion and love. As we forgive the past and accept what is truth now, we heal ourselves. When we do that for us, we do it for all…
