...we see life as happening to us and believe we can't have an impact. We are completely unaware of ourselves as influencers and creators and therefore feel a strong sense of fatalism and resignation. We believe we are unable to do what we want because of opposing outside forces that seem to be beyond our control. ...We may simply be going through the motions, believing this is what we have to do, because this is the way life is.
Dr. Sue Morter, The Energy Codes, page 28
A pretty gloomy way to start an entry? Maybe...but it is this passage from the book that opened me up. I read it and instantaneously I was shouting out to my cats, (who at this point are very worried about my mental health and therefore my ability to continue to provide them their back scratches, meals and snacks at the times they have me scheduled to do so), "Yes! Yes! Thank you! Thank you!".
You see, there was one word in there that made all the difference...that showed me where I really was on this waking up journey.
Let me explain ...
Do you remember what it was like to stumble over a very long and complicated math equation...never quite being able to get the answer and not sure what you were doing wrong (well...that was the story of my life when it came to math but..). You thought you were following all the steps correctly but you just couldn't arrive at the right answer. Someone comes along and erases all the stuff down to the first or second part of the equation. They show you where you were making your mistake and tell you to start from there...and there is this sense of "aha! I see now." Well, it was like Dr. Sue Morter erased this equation I was working on for years down to where I was making the mistake and I can now see a way to the correct answer. How did she do that? She used the word...one word... that pened up the equation for me. What was that word? Resignation. I read that word and I could suddenly see that I was mixing up "acceptance" with "resignation". That was the one thing that was not letting me move forward.
Acceptance is not Fatalistic Resignation
I do believe in the need for acceptance of Life as She is. I believe we need to open and allow what unfolds in front of us to pass through. I see so clearly how resistance to what is, is the biggest problem in a human's Life. We need to learn to let go and accept! That acceptance, that allowing, that embracing Life without resistance is not, however, the same as fatalistic resignation. I was confusing the two. I was thinking I was advancing quite far in this living equation because I seemed to be resigning to whatever Life threw my way but no matter how hard I worked at this equation doing it this way, there was never any proverbial check marks or gold stars...just a lot of "Try again". I couldn't get past the sense of "suffering".
Why? Because I was resigning to this tagline:
"Life is happening to me, and I have no control over it. This is just the way life is." page 28
I became aware that was confusing the beautiful power of acceptance with victimhood and giving up. That meant realizing that I was not as advanced on this journey as I thought I was. I thought I was especially advanced because I had recognized my attempts at redeeming the "little me/ ego/ or what Sue Morter calls, "The Protective Personality" as being fruitless and counterproductive to my mission. So, I gave that up. I didn't, however, give up my sense of helplessness. I was not going to arrive at the correct answer the way I was going. I see how necessary it is to come back to this point before I can go farther.
Three Stages: Victimhood, Self- Help, and Creatorship.
You see, Sue Morter explains that there are three stages to waking up (to answering this big life equation) . Two stages are on the back side of a coin and one is on the front side. The first stage, on the back side, is called "Victimhood" and is centered around this fatalistic resignation and what I see as "learned helplessness". It is a stage of languishing and "stuckness" where I am realizing I still am. Sigh.
The second stage, on the back side of the coin, is the "Self-help" stage. This is a stage where I spent most of my life trying to redeem my little self ...
"Instead of being resigned victims we get the idea that something could change; we could be happier or healthier or more respected and honored. "...if we do this or that and keep working hard.
Sure, Life is still happening to us in this stage ...but we convince ourselves if we work really hard we can fix it and us. We feed and build the ego here. I see this as the stage where "Redeemer Ego" flourishes and we have a psuedo sense of approaching success (which is peace, freedom, happiness)...never quite get it and if we do it is conditional and short lived...but hope pulls us along. It is a very problem centered stage. It is also a stage of resisting what is.
So, I realized somewhere along the line that stage two is not the stage to be in. I realized I didn't want to feed an ego. I also realized that resistance was not the way to go. I knew acceptance of what is was the true way to go. I didn't, however, recognize this truth as a powerful high energy human. I still don't completely. My mind keeps telling me that Life is still happening to me and I believe it. So instead of moving into acceptance of what is in a state of free flowing shakti recognizing its power (which is stage 3 of the coin on the front side), I slipped back into stage one mistakenly thinking I was moving on because I was accepting Life. I was settling into a limited experience of helplessness again. Peace...in the form of a certain freedom from at least some of the suffering... was my polestar. I was not accepting Life as it is from a state of realizing who I truly was. I was slipping back into a state of resignation as a powerless victim and using some of those tools I learned in stage 2 to "make the best of it". Sure, there is less angst here, less resistance and struggle than there was the first time I was here, or than there was in stage 2...but there is still a sense of suffering and a "life struggle". I am not touching shakti. I haven't solved the equation. And I won't here.
Not Yet There
Sigh. That was a big realization for me. There are times I conceptually and intellectually step into the third stage. I see a melting away of my 'Protective Personality', albeit slowly. I do accept the circumstances of my life and find myself less and less labelling them as "good/bad; right/wrong/ or should/ should not be." I do often find myself in profound gratitude for life and all its mysteries. I know that I am not my mind or body....but...
I lack the trust and faith that Life has my back. I don't embody or holistically ascribe to the tagline:
"Everything that happens in my life is always in my favor, and I created it on some higher level of my own consciousness for the purpose of discovering my own magnificence." page 32
I have yet to get to this point:
...we must go beyond knowing intellectually that we are energy or spirit, and actually embody our energetic or spiritual nature. We must literally bring our energy to life in the physical body and identify as that energy. page 32
My life doesn't yet reflect this knowing. There is some stuck and twisted up energy reflecting itself in my circumsatnces. I need to switch out the resignation for a higher energy form of acceptance. I see that now.
I am grateful to have the top part of my equation erased so I can see where I have erred. It is good to be honest with ourselves and to recognize and know where we are at, so we can take the next best step on to the right path to where we want to be.
All is well.
Dr. Sue Morter ( 2019) The Energy Codes. New York: Astria.