I never ask for help. It’s a part of my trauma reaction to lie about how I’m really doing, to “suck it up buttercup” and to silently get on with things.
But when a life situation became so awful that I couldn’t deal with the truth of my situation psychologically or emotionally, this behaviour led me into active addiction and, at times, full blown psychosis.
They say “The Truth will set you free” or summink like that.
And it will, in my personal experience.
But the truth is not all about “love and light”.
The truth is about radical acceptance.
It’s about acknowledging ourselves and all of “it”.
As it is. The light. The dark. The beauty. The grittiness. The hope. The despair. The so-called good. The so-called bad. The chaos and pain. The love and the fear.
All of it.
All of me. All of you. All of us.
The freedom comes with the acceptance of our “Truth”.
The secret desires that are unacceptable. The shitty behaviour we pretend isn’t us. The creative brilliance that we are. The parts of our forgotten or avoided history we may rather forget. And the perfect beings that we are despite them.
Seeing our “truth” is finding a way to accept the ongoing dichotomy of the human experience. The trichotomy. The more than even this.
Of the complexities of existing. Of being only human and of being fully alive.
Instead of merely existing.
Seeing truth is the ability to see things in full so that we’ really we’re finally able to exercise our free will with clarity.
By integrating the truth of who we are. By letting go of what isn’t really us. Nor ever was. To change what may not be serving us. And to embrace what we may wish to become.
Anything else is only avoidance.
Anything else is only a dream.
Anything else is only addiction.
Or spiritual bypassing.
Radical authenticity is only possible with absolute “Truth”.
And authentic freedom is only possible with radical authenticity.
I learned, in recovery, to get honest.
And I learned, in recovery, to ask for help.
So I did.
Publicly.
At the suggestion of somebody I trusted because I didn’t trust myself enough yet to think more clearly. But I was also fucking terrified and extremely triggered when I chose to step up and share the truth of my situation. I wasn’t healed enough to do this, yet.
Not even close.
I overstepped the boundaries of polite society by sharing the things we don’t talk about ever. The thing is, unless we talk about them they are never going to change. But, looking back now, I did it badly.
Most people scrolled on by in awkward silence.
As we do when the unimaginable becomes all to real.
I’ll share more about that experience and why it was so important for my recovery in “the book that may never be written“. If I ever get around to writing the thing in full.
This post is more about the Law of Attraction and what could possibly go wrong. Because any avoidance of truth is only going to end in a not so good way, I reckon. From past experience.
For all of us, that is.
How can you say that?
1. The Law of Attraction is a privileged and ignorant practice
While I absolutely believe that a person’s own perception creates their reality and that choosing one’s story carefully is a prerequisite for finding lasting peace and joy, I also understand that there are human beings in the world who are NOT here to create peaceful and harmonious situations for other human beings…
simply because they’re corrupt, greedy and/or enjoy causing pain.
Knock knock.
To say that Joe and/or Jane Bloggs can simply attract positive things into their life when they’re being abused on a daily basis, are socially or economically at a massive disadvantage, are the victims of ongoing prejudice, are not afforded fair and equal anything or are, in any way, responsible for being born into such circumstances is ignorant and privileged.
Most human beings in these situations are trying to survive situations NOT of their own making and ENTIRELY out of their control.
Yes — they can alter how they choose to acknowledge and react to such situations, but they can’t “make” the abuse or the war and/or conflict stop by wishing it away.
Talking about us choosing our physical bodies and experience also pisses me off a bit, to be honest. How dare we suggest someone has “chosen” to be in a situation that is abusive and destructive. Karma makes some sense. But still. It’s also pretty judgemental…
I’m not going to talk about babies and children. Adding them here should be more than enough.
And if it isn’t Karma?
Is any god this cruel?
I also don’t see how this law of attraction thing “works” if we’re going to try and move towards any real unity and “consciousness”.
Honestly. It sounds like spiritual Capitalism, with all of the greed and selfishness the latter encourages. Boxed up and resold to those that can afford the book or DVD.
But perhaps someone can “enlighten” me.
2. The Law of Attraction is a “non-spiritual” practice
For those who are attempting to pursue a “spiritual” path — practicing the Law of Attraction is an “ungodly,” arrogant, and selfish thing to do.
ALL of the great spiritual practices speak of the need to take relevant action, but of the “letting go” of the outcome of said action.
We do not have the power to control the outcome of things.
ESPECIALLY if we aren’t ready to see, hear or participate in what the constructive action might be to actually “get” us where we are supposed to be, to learn the lessons that’ll further our journey as “spiritual practitioners”.
Or even to simply serve the greater good of the whole.
Yes — our thoughts affect our surroundings (now scientifically proven). Of course we want to manifest our desires and so avoid challenges. But our desires are usually selfish, materially driven, and based more on our fears than our gifts.
I have serious doubts that a god/goddess/universe is going to respond to any selfish desires regarding unnecessary bells and whistles that don’t actually serve our spiritual development or the greater good.
True spirituality is also about connection.
Connection to “presence”.
Connection to the “divine.”
An authentic connection can only happen with the awareness of some kind of “truth” and, following this, radical acceptance and/or acceptance of “what is,” and, conversely, “what is not” is the only way to practice any authtentic kind of spirituality. Surely?
But perhaps I’m missing something. I’m still learning and I’ve only been trying to figure this out for over thirty years. And I still have no idea of how this all “works”, really.
No “truths” so absolute that I would go to war over them, anyway…
3. The Law of attraction is basically “spiritual bypassing” and will halt or prevent real growth and progress
By only focusing on the “positive” we bypass very real and, often, very necessary painful situations and feelings and in doing so, may avoid personal accountability or necessary action to change our circumstances (without controlling the outcome, of course).
We may, then, end up keeping ourselves in denial.
Real growth begins with absolute honesty. This means accepting the good and the ugly both. About ourselves. About situations. About the world. One step further is to simply stop labelling things as “good,” or “bad,” / “positive” or “negative.”
I’ve had “terrible” experiences, that were indescribably painful, that imparted many important lessons and taught me many valuable tools and skills, simply because I walked through them instead of around them.
Sometimes, it is the “negative” that we need to embrace the most, to become uncomfortable enough to change.
I embrace the “negative” now.
I’m no longer afraid of the ugly, the gritty, the dark. These human constructs are as valid, as necessary, as valuable, and as important as the “positive.” More so, in fact, because I’m often too fucking stubborn to take more subtle hints to change the things that no longer serve me.
Focus only on the “positive” at your own, possible, detriment. I urge you to let go of the fear and embrace every aspect of your experience in full.
4. The Law of Attraction is kinda sociopathic
It is all about me. I am “God, Allah, Jehova, Krishna, replace with whatever deity you choose”. I have the power. I am in control. I want. I need. I desire. Enough said.
How about “praying” or “setting intentions” for the greater whole and let’s see how that works out for the planet for a change. In the words of someone great…”you can’t always get what we want, but you just might get what you need”. [The Rolling Stones]
Capitalism and consumerism are dying a slow death. So are many of our egos and public personas — simply due to COVID and circumstances beyond our control.
Want to Law of Attraction this?
Be my guest.
People spend years trying to achieve the “death” of the ego to attain “enlightenment” and “presence.” Well, here we are… together — which makes it a far less humiliating, embarrassing, and traumatic experience.
In the words of another great — “You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world.” [Charles Michael “Chuck” Palahniuk]
You are not what other people think of you. Let it go already. Nothing defines you but your own feelings about who you think you are.
The rest is glitter, rainbows, and a play that you had little participation in the writing of the script for. You can choose to walk away any time you want to. You can choose to stop hiding and to really connect. You don’t need to change anything to do this. Just to accept what is and who you are in full.
But this requires radical acceptance — again — not avoiding pain and focusing on the “positive.”
5. Trying to be constantly “happy” is a form of “addiction.”
Life is not all sunshine and lollipops. Seeking eternal sunshine is as much a form of addiction as is using behaviours and substances to avoid tough feelings and situations.
Expecting to be “happy” all of the time in a complex world, riddled with duality, is both neurotically naive and confusingly unrealistic. It is not “presence.” It is avoidance. Again.
There is also a distinct difference between Happiness and true Joy.
Happiness comes from the external and is transient in nature. Fun and cool. It will lift you up but when the situation or the external stimulus is removed or changes, you may have the “come down” or the dissipation of “happiness.”
Joy is internal, in my experience. It is immutable. It is ever-present. It is something that, for me, only became clearly apparent (in its distinction) after certain experiences, learning, and practices. It is there, even when things are shit. Bittersweet. It remains untouchable even when “times are dark and friends are few.” It is as constant as the unfolding of time. Never-ending and never-changing.
It does not need to be sought. It simply is. Anyone can tap into it, at any time, because it is in all of us and around all of us as well. It continues to be, despite us, and all we have to do to receive it is to simply “let go.” This realisation has been gifted to me via learning to embrace the fullness of both the “good” and the “bad” and the discovery that there is nothing, after all, to fear.
We are now at a point where we are going to have to reconsider what is important to us.
We have the space and time, to reconsider what has not been working for us as a whole. We will find out who our “friends” are and who was only along for the “good” bits. We will find out who calls to check how well we are surviving the zombie apocalypse, or who was only there for the fun and games.
We will lose a lot of shit, that we never even needed, and we may learn to do without a ton more that we don’t need either. Or anymore. These are gifts. The lessons are fucking tough. But. On the other side is more clarity, greater freedom and a lighter backpack to travel with after the shedding is done.
Don’t try to bypass it.
Walk straight on through it.
Newly edited post from early 2021.
A wandering and wondering around the {meta} Verse project
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