About Stories... Part VIII

For a long time, perhaps my whole life, I've had this feeling of a question in my mind. It was never so much a question about the world. For the most part I've enjoyed the world—at least the little part that I have been exposed to so far. It was more of a question about how I fit into it. This mostly came out as a feeling of not fitting and not understanding and not being understood.

When I first embarked on my adventure after leaving David Hoffmeister's spiritual community, one symbol that kept coming my way over and over were fish. I wasn't terribly surprised by this since Pisces is my zodiac sign. There were fish benches at my first stopover at the Portland airport, there was a fish art piece on the wall of the first restaurant I ate at on my first day in Ashland, Oregon, there were fish symbols all over the house I first stayed at. So, in hindsight it was almost like the Spirit was saying, "Yes, you still have a question about why you are the way you are. We don't need to deny that. Let's look into it." So I did. Perhaps my zodiac sign was going to tell me something. I looked more into the Pisces sign and I ended up looking at my whole birth chart. I think it was a first step into accepting myself more the way I am. All the things that I thought were difficult about my personality or weird or just somehow "not normal"—they were actually fine. Somehow, seeing it all written out made me more accepting of them. They weren't flaws, they just came with this current incarnation.

And just to clarify: I don't feel that Zodiac signs and our birth have an ultimate effect on us. Meaning, they don't change the truth of who we are, since that has nothing to do with this realm, its stars, and bodies at all. However, the more I've been on this journey with A Course in Miracles, the more my mind has allowed itself to drop into non-judgment and just take signs and clues as they come and just explore. And if there are still curiosities and interests or topics that, when explored, bring your mind more relaxation than fear, I feel like they are helpful—while not being the ultimate truth. And if they help bring more love into my mind, I'm going to say "yes" any day!

So, anyway, reading about my zodiac and birth chart did answer some questions or explained certain social situations; it also helped me claim some strength rather than just looking at all my weaknesses and caving in. Then, as I traveled a bit more, the thoughts about astrology kind of went away and other symbols came along.

Mostly it was movies and music. But honestly, talking with people has been such a huge revelation too. There were a couple specific conversations with friends that made me realize how different we all think. It seems we all do different things in our minds with difficult situations, trauma, criticism, and even love. I thought, "Huh, so, there is kind of a specific way my mind works versus how it works for someone else." Not special; just different. And I think that too felt empowering; it meant that what might seem obvious to someone else doesn't necessarily have to be obvious to me. I need to just come to terms with exactly how I experience something—regardless of how someone else would experience or has experienced a similar situation. This was soooo helpful! And looking at personality types has done the same helpful thing for my mind. It seems I'm an INFP-T—the "T" stands for "turbulent." This makes me laugh out loud. But reading the characteristics of this specific personality type was great! It was like, "Oh, yeah. I am totally introverted when it comes to showing certain aspects of myself, and yeah, I do have unattainable standards when it comes to romantic relationships, and yeah, I do totally take criticism super personally!" These are really superficial examples. My point is, it's been helpful for me to explore and see things written down. It means they're not so personal to me and even if they apply to me, they're not so special to me that I can't overcome them!

This topic makes me want to track back a bit too, to finally explain why finding out the whole World War II past life thing and so forth really supported my mind when the psychic mentioned it to me during my reading. I had mentioned before the feeling like, even though I was moving along the spiritual path with the A Course in Miracles and was healing so many past memories and forgiving present upsets, there was always some kind of undercurrent. Like an untouchable darkness that had no origin story. And so it was really difficult, impossible really, for me to approach it. It just felt like I was going to drown in it and be consumed to the point of no return; it would be the end of my awakening.

Yes, ultimately what I was likely feeling is the sense that I caused the separation, but I didn't know what to do with that. I'm not into doing this awakening intellectually. I don't care if the Course explains it all—which it does. If I cannot practically experience what it's talking about, it means nothing. I was able to approach it only one time but it was still very vague—yet very helpful:

One day, while I was in David's community in Mexico, I woke up with this sense of dread and the thought of my parents getting old. It was all I could think of and I wasn't sure I could just work on my projects or do really anything. So I spoke to my room mate and I had some tears and emotion come up; just a feeling that, "Oh my God, my parents are getting old—my dad was going to be almost 70!!!—and what if they're not happy and they're going to die unhappy and what if I was the thing that would bring them happiness!" It felt like absolute panic in my mind. Along with it came all these memories of times I've spent with my dad and my mom and how lovely those times were. And perhaps a feeling of missing out on more of those times. I was so confused about why I had these thoughts; I didn't feel like my calling was to live with my parents so I really didn't know what the solution was going to be. My room mate ended up just telling me to take it easy and allow the feelings to come up and not worry about working on projects, so that's what I did.

I half-wrote a letter to my dad, but in the end it felt like it was more for me than him. I was guided to watch some episodes of Touched by an Angel; mostly father-daughter episodes, but things just didn't really move or get more clear. At the end of the day, the Spirit led me to the movie Seven Pounds, an intense and beautiful mind-watcher with Will Smith. I'm not going to give the whole plot away, in case you haven't seen it; he basically has this immeasurable guilt because of something he feels responsible for and sacrifices himself in order to atone for what he's done. The final scene of the movie just broke me; I was sobbing with a feeling of intense "What the fuck have I done?" It was the first time I had come in touch with the feeling that I was the cause of everything bad in the world. It was such an intense and visceral feeling, almost like I was watching the world flash before my eyes with all the suffering, wars, hunger... everything bad! And all of it was my fault on some level that I couldn't comprehend.

And now, years later, when the psychic told me about my past life connection with World War II and feeling I caused the destruction of civilization, I immediately remembered this day in Mexico and it started making sense, that feeling of being the cause of everything bad. Now, I have to emphasize, that day in Mexico was completely out of the ordinary for me in terms of my life at David Hoffmeister's community. I think I will probably remember that day for the rest of my life. I got in touch with something I didn't understand, even though I could put some words to it. After watching the movie and crying a lot and letting the emotion well and then subside, I went to bed, exhausted. The next day and all the weeks and months afterwards went back to "normal." And that sort of undercurrent of "something" returned and my fear of looking at it did as well. Obviously, there was going to be more healing to reveal what it was all about and I would get the opportunities when I was ready. When this happened in Mexico, I still didn't have any story to put with the feeling—to my knowledge, I hadn't caused any disasters or world hunger and so forth. I had lived a fairly normal life with my fair share of strange moments, heartbreak, anger, and happy moments. But nothing to warrant such a strong feeling of guilt. So, when I was told about a story to connect with this feeling, being involved with World War II and leaving that life with such confusion, pain, and guilt, it did feel like a key to a space in my mind that I was never able to access and explore before. It reminds me actually of what my friend said when it had gotten really difficult for me at the end of my stay in David's community: Not only did she say that I was to go on an adventure, but she also said that it would be a time to explore aspects of my mind that I hadn't explored before. So, I'm so grateful for all of these dots coming together. It's relaxed my mind and given me a symbol, a story, to start to forgive and start to see my innocence through it. The darkness, that demon I never wanted to see, is beginning not to be so dark and scary now. Thank God!

You bring the light with you

And... maybe this isn't the ultimate healing, I don't know. I can't really judge it. What I can say is that it's made a huge difference in how I see myself and with what energy I approach upsets when they come up now, or mistakes. I don't mind looking now. There's a curiosity that's come into my mind that overthrows any fear of what I might see. So, now I actually explore; "I'm not happy for some reason. Ok, well what seems to be the reason?" Rather than giving up at the point of seeing the unhappiness, just accepting it and moving on—this was my life before. I'm in no way done; I don't want to give the impression that now I know everything. One thing that's never changed, and I don't think it ever will because somehow it's actually helpful for me, is my personality trait of being mostly oblivious to everything! The only reason I can connect the dots somewhat at the moment is because everything I've written about is in the past. I think the next part will be the last one of my story. Thank you for coming on this ride with me. Love, Jutta