From That State Of Being, All Else Will Come

For much of my life, I have been too easily influenced by the words of other people. By words, I mean opinions. I felt, in order to belong to a group, to my family, to a circle of friends, I had to assimilate their opinions and make them my own. In that often unconscious assimilation, I was accepted. In agreeing and going along with voices louder and more stern than my own, I was granted safety and hopefully, love. There were times the assimilation, the agreement, the capitulation almost killed me. Literally. That's when I awoke. That's when resistance to opinions began.

It has been a slow resistance. But it has been steady. I have walked away,  I have learned to shut doors, I have even refused to open some doors while others, with loud opinions, yanked and rattled the handles. There has been deep emotional pain with the walking and the shutting and the guard of my own sanctity. I have stepped outside the bounds of acceptance, seeming to risk my own safety and secure place in the world. But that place has been small and my soul has cried out to be big. Or at least to be free.

After much inner work and self doubt, after years of practiced self referral, I arrived at today. While driving route 5 under grey skies, returning home from mundane errands, a feeling and a thought rose up from my gut. I belong to myself. Finally. I have no need of groups of any kind to confirm my status and deservability. I need not belong anywhere, or with anyone to be loved. To be safe, to be grounded, to be privy to the limitless well of Universal love, I need only belong to me. I need only to trust, to know and to act. On behalf of myself. From that state of being, all else will come. The family, the groups and the freedom.