Judging Devastation

We are going through it again.  My husband's 5th layoff since 2008.  And it sucks.

The first layoff, the phone never stopped ringing.  Agencies couldn't get him to enough interviews.  He was placed in a position within 2.5 months.  We had a small severance to help us out. Still scary, but not such a horrible experience.

The 2nd layoff at the end of 2009 was not too bad, just a bit more painful.  He was down for a little over 3 months but we used some of our savings and credit cards to get us by.  Opportunities had thinned out quite a bit as we were in the throws of the recession.

The 3rd layoff was really starting to hurt. A small severance and, thank goodness for changes in the unemployment system, we were holding on, but barely. More savings depleted, and more credit card debt ensued.

In 2010, we had moved to Florida.  We were certain of brighter pastures.  We moved as a family so out daughter could go to college allowing us to keep our family together.

By the 4th layoff we were completely depleted.  Our savings was gone, no 401K, and now deeply in debt.  Unemployment regulations had changed.  The small 2 week severance my husband had received was used to offset his unemployment.  According to their calculations, we should have been able to survive off of $250 per month for 6 months before unemployment would begin.  Things had definitely changed.  The country was at the peak of the worst part of the "recession".

I wasn't working at this time.  We were on food stamps and had applied for public assistance.  We had to go to the food bank just in order to help ends meet.  We were bankrupt.  It is hard to put into words the utter shame and embarrassment you feel when you have no choice but to rely on whatever means are available to get by.  We fought with everything we had to save our house and to make it our of that nightmare.  We sold whatever we could sell.  We cashed in every scrap of gold or silver we could dig from the bottom of the jewelry box.  We cashed in the coins we had inherited from our parents that had been handed down through the generations. An object of last resort we had only intended to use to help with the college years for our children or for our retirement.  Bi-weekly yard sales gave us money to supplement what we couldn't cover through food stamps.  By the time my husband began working again, we were down to our last $20.  Literally.  I will never forget the day he got that first paycheck.  I had no idea what we were going to do next.  There had been some mix-ups with the company that hired him and we had not concrete assurances that paycheck was going to be issued when they had promised.  All of it sounding a bit shady.  When I checked the bank account, and the money was there, I flung open the door to my bedroom that goes to the outside.  I will never forget the smell of blooming jasmine that flooded my senses between the shaking sobs. Jasmine and tears.

My husband was out of work from that 4th layoff for 5 months and had to take a job back in Pennsylvania living apart from us for 15 months.  We struggled constantly trying to afford to "pay" to have him work so far away from home.  Visits home were only every 3 months or so, accomplished through the grace of a neighbor who is a pilot and had some air travel passes.  My husband nearly missed our daughter's college graduation because we didn't even have the money to get him home.  My brother had provided us with airfare through his frequent flyer points.  He arrived home less than 30 minutes before we were supposed to be at graduation, but we were elated.

My husband had finally found a good position back in Florida in early 2013.  I remember literally falling to my knees when he walked through the door 10 hours ahead of schedule. He had driven through the night to make it home to us.  I wept uncontrollably as the weight of the prior 15 months began to unravel from my heart.

This job looked so promising.  An original contract for a 6 month gig turned into a year with sincere promises he would be brought on full time.

Things were starting to go well again. I began working after being out of the job force for 14 years.  I started that job with only one dress suitable for business attire.  My wardrobe was supplemented by purchases from eBay where I would only allow myself to spend no more than $10-15 for used clothing and shoes.  

Since we were both working, I made an effort to save money for our boys for college and some money for a rainy day. It wasn't much, but it was a start. We began contributing to our 401Ks again.  I was determined what happened before would never happen to us again.  After a few months, I was able to let go of the survivor's guilt of still seeing so many people suffering.   Who was I to have gotten out of that nightmare with our home still intact?  I allowed myself to enjoy small indulgences.  Nothing too grand.  Just a monthly mani-pedi, a monthly night out with our boys at a moderately priced restaurant, dinner with friends.  We weren't exactly "Living the Dream" but it felt wonderful and the constant companion of my fight or flight response was beginning to diminish.

Then, after so many promises, my husband was dropped as part of the last round of lay offs. The managers felt so badly for him.  They were sure there was a position available to bring him on full time. When I got the news, again, I fell to my knees.  This time, past experience came flooding back. The nightmare was happening again.

Please don't misunderstand.  We are so grateful that I'm working.  We are so grateful for the kind souls who came to buy things at our latest round of yard sales. We are very grateful we still have some possessions left to sell.  Had it not been for selling anything that wasn't nailed down, yet again, we wouldn't have been able to afford getting our air compressor fixed when our air conditioner so inconveniently decided to die.  A wonderfully kind neighbor provided us with a window air conditioner to help us sleep.  Blessings again.  Ironically, we had just sold our portable air conditioner during one of our yard sales so we could get my husband's brakes fixed.  We are listing his truck for sale in order to pay the mortgage.

Life is feeling like a cruel joke.  Did we have to get kicked while we were down?  Brakes failing, air conditioner broken, no job, and not enough money to cover the mortgage.  Was life sending us a message we have to give up everything?  When would the beast be satisfied?

We are on the precipice of my husband being out of work for 6 months.  He is taking a position in Miami where we will once again have to "pay" for him to work.  He won't even get his first paycheck until early December - 7 months down.  Rents in the area cost about $1800 a month for a single bedroom apartment or extended stay hotel.  His living expenses, plus trying to catch up on the mortgage?  The math doesn't work.  We will still be struggling.  

Looking from the outside in, I hear musings from the well intentioned: "Why aren't you grateful?", "Why aren't you happy he's working again?"  Or, admonitions: "You aren't poor!", "You should be glad he has a job!", "You really need to start thinking positively or you will attract more negative outcomes.".

Do we need to be beaten up further still?  It chafes at my heart that somehow I'm not allowed to feel what I'm feeling haven been through this experience before.  I'm not just speculating how hard it's going to be, I know it from a very recent painful past experience.  People have somehow gotten the idea that it is OK to judge the degree of someone's personal devastation.  We are experiencing our own version of the Great Depression.  Yes, we are far better off than our predecessors.  Am I not allowed to grieve for all that will be lost?  We had created a good life, a life where I had envisioned lovely dinner parties with friends an family that never has come to fruition.  As ordinary as our reality truly is, it is still a life where we should have the permission to grieve the loss of everything we've worked hard to build. We will not be homeless, but we are so close.

Our circumstance is going to require that we relinquish everything.  And I mean everything so that we can move into a more secure future for us and our children.  We are so beaten down by the battle, there is nothing that can remotely hold any sentimental value.  We are forced to view our belongings as mere acquisitions to be exchanged for cash.  We have been worn away by time and circumstance into complete detachment from any semblance of a life we had once cherished.

I sit on my lanai, recognizing how truly fortunate I am to have a roof still over my head and preparing my heart to let go of what once was.  It causes me to wonder if I will ever have dreams again that I might actually believe could come true.  It is hard to admit to that sad part of my current truth.  I am not confident as yet that life will begin to play fair.

When You Know Better, You Do Better...But Do You Tell?

Have you ever had one of those situations where you are really perplexed whether or not you should tell the truth? I think everyone has those times when you want to tell someone the truth and wonder if it is the best course of action. Especially when there is no real payoff or if the consequences of telling the truth can alter a relationship inexorably.

One of the absolute best discussions, and greatest insights into the price you pay both physically and spiritually, for not telling the truth was shown in the October 13, 2011 episode of Oprah's Lifeclass where her guest speaker was Martha Beck. The discussion was titled: The Truth Will Set You Free. I've provided the link below if you would like to watch the show; well worth your time.

http://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Oprahs-Lifeclass-Complete-Webcast-with-Martha-Beck-Video

In that Lifeclass, Martha Beck describes a near death experience she had while under anesthesia for an operation. The after effects of which opened her awareness to the toll it takes on your happiness and well-being to withhold the truth. The enormous love and bliss she felt during her near death experience impacted her so deeply that when she "came back", she wanted to do everything possible to live her life recreating that feeling. She quickly realized whenever she wasn't completely honest, whenever she told even the smallest white lie, it totally depleted the blissful feeling she had carried with her from the experience. She made a pledge. "For a whole year, I'm not going to tell a single lie of any kind." Martha said. As you might imagine, her whole world changed. She lost a great number of people who she thought were friends, her family disassociated themselves from her, she quit her job and totally quit her profession. A total, blissfully life-shattering transformational overhaul of her entire life ensued. Martha illustrated during the show just how your body hates telling a lie by doing kinesiology test on Oprah and asking her questions about a recent statement she had made about hating exercise. She was able to prove that Oprah did not really feel that way about all forms of exercise, just the ones she was doing. Martha also spoke about the physical effects that take place in the brain and in our body chemistry when we try to tell a lie, or withhold the truth. All of which, made me think about what kind of bad body chemistry have I been brewing and what types of ill-formed neural pathways am I creating when I try to tell any type of lie. I began making it a point to begin being more truthful. As Maya Angelou puts it: "Once we know better, we do better." A wonderfully insightful statement, but the bigger question is: When we know better, we do better...but do we tell?

Once I started to examine my own life though the lens of Martha's near-death experience, I also started to notice the discomfort and the physical sensations in my body when I wasn't being completely truthful. Now please bear in mind, I went through eight years of Catholic School, I'm not so good at telling lies, even little white ones. So, this discussion is more about self-editing, inauthenticity, withholding and the telling of little white lies. To me, these types of non-truths are what most people practice in their daily lives without a second thought. Withholding or telling a little white lie is supposed to be one of the social graces. But is it really? And then there's the whoppers. The really, really big lies that hide our true identity or preferences, or past actions. We'll leave a discussion around the really big lies for another post. As Martha says: "Your soul will tell you when it's time to tell a bigger truth and take the jump." For now, let's begin with changing the baby steps. Once done, we build up much more courage to handle the bigger stuff.

I began a similar path of more authentic truth telling because I am horrible at telling lies. I stutter and stammer and exude falseness. I am much more in touch with all kinds of physical sensations that bubble up when I am inauthentic. It is indeed becoming a much greater strain to withhold the truth, or to censor what I need to say to some one. Distressfully at times, it has led to verbal diarrhea when sharing the truth with my loved ones; it can be much more honesty than they can handle. God Bless my husband because he endures the deepest darkest truths of my soul and holds them in his tender care with chivalry and honor. I have indeed lost some friendships by telling the truth. I have discontinued relationships intentionally because I could no longer bear to feign affection. I've even had to distance myself from some family members. And I most certainly will subconsciously or consciously self-sabotage my way out of doing work that I hate - especially cleaning out my garage.

What was illustrated so brilliantly by Martha Beck's experience is that when we are inauthentic, when we withhold the truth, or when we are not fully expressing who we are, we aren't really having a relationship with anyone because no one is being shown the truest version of ourselves. We are presenting in those situations a false identity, the counterfeit character we've created of who we really are. My determination to be more authentic is what started my blog. I was feeling very hurt, confused and angry at some of the inauthenticity I was viewing from the people who claim to be the Lightworker set. I simply couldn't handle drinking the KoolAid and pretending that life was all love, light, rainbows and unicorns. Sounds more like that maxi-pad commercial than reality. I don't think there is any shame or dishonor in openly admitting that we may not have all the answers and may not always be following the guru laden path.

What struck me so strongly when watching the Lifeclass was what viewers were posting on the Facebook and Twitter feeds: that most people are pretending to be happy. Isn't that sad? Most people are just putting on a false face so that no one knows just how unhappy, hurt, struggling, frustrated, bereft, and bankrupt they truly are. When my husband was laid off due to the economy for the third time since 2008, holding it all in became unbearable. I wanted to scream and stomp my feet and fully express just how rotten the deck had been dealt. What a revelation it was to witness the reactions from friends true and not when I opened the raincoat and flashed even the smallest vulnerability. Our authentic and honest discomfort makes others withdraw because the realness and rawness of it scares them to death. Some people will jump in with both feet and shoulder some of that pain along with you and make beautiful efforts on your behalf to help you through. However, as lay-offs have the tendency to go on and on nowadays, never allow the pain to be protracted for too long because only very few can handle the burden; at that point it's better to pay someone to dry your tears. Given our financial circumstances, I've had no where to go with these continued emotions, therapy is simply unaffordable. So I've taken fingers to keyboard and let it all spill out ugly and raw and diseased as it is. The result is that I feel relieved. I have no idea if anyone reads what I write or even cares. But it's out now. I'm no longer swallowing down the vomit of inauthenticity and trying to pretend to be someone I'm not. It is absolutely liberating! It's my very own personal version of bra burning for the psyche. Not fully engaging in who I am creates a choice to be less than who I am and if that threatens anyone or makes them uncomfortable, "c'est la vie". Which reminds me of a quote by Ghandi: "Many people, especially ignorant people want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct or for being years ahead of your time. If you're right, and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth."

So that leads to a discussion about how to tell the truth to someone else. It is quite simple, you do it with as much love and integrity as possible. There are quotes that say "It's better to be kind than to be right." Why is it assumed these ideologies are mutually exclusive? Or, that being "right" is an affront to the essence of truth? And once you share that truth with another, you cannot control anything beyond that; you have to give it away and hope that the wisdom of it will seep into some small crack and allow for that person's self-realization to develop into awareness and then eventually admitting the truth to themselves. That's the thing about truth, it will follow you everywhere and it will catch up with you no matter how fast you try to run away or how defiantly you try to turn away from truth's reflection. It will be hard to live out the ramifications of telling the truth, but ultimately, the reaction of the recipient is their responsibility. You can only do your part in trying to bring the dark to light and to be of service.

The Walk

I went for a walk this morning. Along my route I passed a shaded glade. The scent carried me away to a time when I was young. When there was nothing but play:

To the glory of this moment I am in memory found. Becoming light and shade and the air of dew and leaves, the damp deep Earth. Time travels, the wispy mist of youth, of flying against the wind. Becoming those moments of never ending joy. The perfumed love of God.

Please Excuse My Language!!!!

I periodically go back and re-read my posts so that I can tweak things that aren't expressed clearly or need some other alteration. My posts are reflecting a lot of my distractions. Frequent interruptions and lightning fingers make poor editors. Please excuse my typos, misspellings and sometimes non-sensical or poor grammar. This is not my normal way of doing things. I am much more of a perfectionist.

However, re-reading my posts I can see where I was interrupted by daily life. In verbal form, it is a path reflecting many twists and turns as daily life will throw you. Inevitably, I am interrupted far too frequently to ensure 100% Catholic School approved writing prose. For that, mea culpa! Please forgive the obvious reflection of a scattered thought here and there that goes unfinished or unpolished. I will try to do better before I hit "publish".

Relief, Unraveling then Reality

After 5 months of absolutely no income other than proceeds from selling our personal belongings or borrowing from our daughter, my husband finally got a paycheck! He has been working about 1000 miles North of us since mid February. This paycheck came just in the nick of time. We were down to our very last $20, overdrawn at the bank account, ebay Sales were abysmal and we have no friends or family that could have stepped in to help us. Everyone is struggling. Or so most people want to believe. And yet, most folks will happily post on their Facebeook page all the latest parties, movies, celebrations, exercise classes or purchases they just made; life for them is still moving joyously even though they claim otherwise. Viewing these images is like the twist of a knife in my gut because we simply can't rejoice like that just yet. We're not there yet. We are really not there yet.

The absolute relief and joy I felt when the money actually showed up in our bank account was like unraveling 6 months of binding wrapped around my heart. Here's a little background on just what a relief it was. The company my husband signed with has not exactly behaved respectably. They gave him a contract to sign that stated his first paycheck would not arrive until March 30th even though he would start working February 13th. He left to drive up north on February 9, giving himself enough time to get there safely and make arrangements for train tickets that would take him from where he is staying to his building in Philadelphia. Where he is staying is the furthest stop south on the SEPTA line. THEN, they told him there was a "paperwork glitch" and he wouldn't start work until February 15th. As "glitches" go, this one was so oddly persistent. My husband actually didn't start working until February 20th! We were supporting all of his living expenses for over a week before the first day of work even happened. THEN, when my husband submitted two separate worksheets documenting his billable hours, this company once again claimed a "paperwork glitch". "Oh, we didn't receive those emails." They claimed. (Even after my husband verified verbally that the email address he used was correct.) I was scared out of my mind believing they were trying to pull a fast one and not pay him until the end of March which is what they originally had tried to get him to agree to based on the wording of his contract. However, since my husband followed up with them personally, and they had a contract stating his first paycheck would be March 9th, they actually stepped up and did the right thing. To say that it was a relief was an understatement.

I didn't sleep the night before his paycheck was to arrive. I kept checking our bank balance via the internet every few hours during the night. Once the proof appeared that he had actually gotten paid - I felt like I was hyperventilating! I flung open my Master Bedroom door and took repeated long breaths inhaling the scent of Jasmine that was like breathing the exhalations of angels. The bands of bondage around my heart and chest kept popping with each draw of air deeply into my lungs and abdomen. The feeling of relief was profound, it was like I had started to remember how to breathe after holding my breath for so long. But, as lovely dreams are just dreams, the alarm went off and I had to begin my day.

I had to get up and attend to my boys to get them off to school, come back home and strategize what could get paid and what could not. Then it sinks in again. The sadness that won't be shaken - the bitter swallow of the tonic of my current reality. I know things are getting better, but why is it never quick enough? Why can't the sheer rejoicing of a positive change for the better rest peacefully in my heart, keeping me in a delirious state and allowing me to float along the feelings of uplifting joy? I wanted to bathe in the happiness of relief, but too many pressing issues lap at my feet like hungry babies begging my attention.

I have stated before that I am no Spiritual master. I fall down...frequently. Yet here again is a situation which observers would call ingratitude. I can read between the lines when they post platitudes that basically tow the company line: "remember, there is always enough", "you are always cared for". On some level it feels like an "I told you so" simply because my husband finally got a paycheck after 6 months! And here I am again, trying to be more of a master and wondering why I should still have worries. So I hit the books and pick a lesson. The lessons help by re-reading and immersing myself in them, but they don't solve anything that still remains as a struggle. I would much rather play in the petticoats of Scarlett O'Hara and worry about my reality another day; fail to pay any bills because I simply don't want reality to seep into this one small delicious, delusional moment. I want to dream and see the future as lovely. How in the world do I maintain the bliss of relief while attending to the demands of 3D?

My tears are threatening me, trying to seep out without my permission, these buggars have a will of their own. It's the gravity of just how far under we continue to be. Two mortgage payments behind and now we are behind on all of our utility bills, we owe our daughter money from her childhood college savings. What bills we will end up paying only keeps the light on and the water running momentarily until the next bill shows up in a fight to the finish of who wins: either one overdue mortgage payment or running water.

I'm so ready to live again - to completely and totally THRIVE. To be one of the people who posts on Facebook all the happy photos of the fun things I'm doing with my family. Instead, I forge ahead once again cleaning out our garage trying to find more things to sell so we can get rid of the financial bleeding of our separate storage facility. I'm exhausted. I want more help than from just by daughter who is an unbelievable angel. I keep wishing for friends that would reach out to me to lend a helping hand that isn't just a kind offer. I don't want to be alone anymore, feeling as if no on really cares. Why isn't anyone there? Are people so unaware of another person's suffering? Is anyone paying attention? This is the tug of war with reality that threatens to steal every ounce of joy I might celebrate.

I think others are afraid of engaging with me simply because of what I symbolize - that their reality could change at any moment. It makes them uncomfortable to be around someone who can't pay the bills, whose lawn is overgrowing with weeds, who feels so sad to be around. Why is it that people run away from this when, if the tables were turned, they wouldn't want to be alone either? Reality bites and bites hard.

Real Housewives of the New Age

I have been greatly perplexed lately at what I am observing within many of the websites, NING groups, message boards, etc. of the New Age/Lightworker/Eco-Conscious groups. There seems to be escalating dissension, dissatisfaction and in-fighting between members. This inner revolt recently came into glaring light with the dissolution of a website to which I paid a lifetime membership fee. Within two weeks, the site dissolved for multiple reasons. Unbelievable drama followed with mass email distributions to the members stating what was going on and why certain actions were taken to shut down the message boards, remove certain members as well as accusations of hacking and all sorts of upheaval. Bad behavior ensued from some of the frustrated members who were removed with language that would horrify the most hardened of truck drivers.

I am observing increasingly that there is almost a sense of desperation surfacing. People who have chosen a more personal, non-denominational, non-dogmatic approach to spirituality are actually beginning to appear a bit frightened. Yup, here I go again, I'm going to piss people off, but I think some Lightworkers are beginning to wonder if we have gotten something wrong. None of them would ever admit to this of course. To admit to self-doubt is to admit to fear (one of the only two emotions). It is like admitting to believing that no one has personal responsibility for their own lives and everything is just occurring randomly as happenstance of fate...total Lightworker treason! However, what else would explain why anyone within the Lightworker community would feel it is necessary to attack another person's beliefs, especially if they are riding the same spiritual rainbow? Why am I seeing all this clamoring for who has gotten it right? Who is bringing the most light? Which "channel" is the most pure? Whose model of consciousness and the invisible structure of the dimensions is correct?

It is becoming more apparent that people who claim to be of the light are not exactly acting that way. There appears to be a lot of clawing to the top to be the latest, greatest and most pure of light energies. However, in reality, there is just as much intolerance, criticism, elitism and self-righteousness within the Lightworker community as there is in any other. Similarly, there are equal amounts of brotherly love, charity, activism and support as you would see within any other religious group or affiliation, which few Lightworkers would want to admit. This has caused me to wonder why there are so many things happening within the Lightworker community that stand in direct opposition to what we all stand for. Didn't we embrace this path because we felt it was a higher calling, a better way to be in the world, a more accepting, fulfilling and altruistic means of spiritual expression? Somehow, our dear community is starting to devolve into a bizarre episode of Real Housewives or the Jersey Shore with back-biting, in-fighting, name calling and internet based bullying amongst various "camps".

This not only affects the big ideas, but the way in which we publicly represent the "self" within the framework of the Lightworker's belief set. I see so many Lightworkers trying so hard to never show vulnerability or admit that they didn't control, orchestrate and manifest every single vibrating molecule and emotion within their lives. I see over and over again people quoting themselves and staking claims that they have somehow acquired mastery over every aspect of their existence. Why is there so much fear in admitting we're not perfect, we're not always deliriously happy and that indeed discomforts don't roll off of us like water off a duck's ass? I see Lightworkers in group settings editing themselves and what they say so they never appear as if they don't "get it". Isn't this equally buying into a form of self-created delusion? The delusion being that we are indeed vulnerable and still subject to getting pissed off when someone plucks your last nerve, or that we actually do have "problems" in our lives and it isn't all rosy and cheeky and squishy with happiness. If I see one more person on the "path" make a broad stroke declaration of their mastery, when I know that they are equally struggling with remaining happy all the time (yes, it is an effort sometimes), I'm going to hurl hypocrisy filled puke all over their affirmations! Or, better yet, I'm gonna go all Jersey Shore on them!

Can't we all just admit it? We still have questions. We still wonder if there is something we're missing. We still want everyone to agree with our own opinions. We still want people to like us, and it does matter what others think and say because words can still hurt! We are still so very vested in this illusion that we have to make sweeping declarations of mastery to cover over our terror that people may actually view us as the same as anyone else - flawed, imperfect, struggling, challenged, frustrated, uninformed, wrong. We don't want to admit these things though, because the light-filled path was supposed to be the ultimate direct connection with God that would allow us to live in a state of bliss while still tethered to the physical plane. And if this doesn't work, where do we go from here? Where will we find the ultimate "right" answer?

Perhaps the first step in resolving these conflicts is to opening and honestly admit that we might just be wrong.

Is Suffering Really Necessary?

I think suffering has gotten a bad rap. Allow me to send out a warning once again. My blog posts might piss some people off by stating what I've observed and by stating my personal viewpoint. If you're brave enough, and can operate in a suspension of judgment, continue reading.

Please don't get me wrong, I do not wish suffering upon anyone. Suffering is a mirror of your experience and a reflection of conditions that feel way beyond your control. It can make your days feel intolerable and never ending. And yes, if you look to control the mind through your thoughts, there is no real need to suffer because it can be a choice. But would we say that to a mother who just lost her child? Would we chastise those who suffer as they go without food, clothing, shelter or safety? Would we tell someone who has seen the devastation of war that it is all in their head and to simply adopt another viewpoint? If you have compassion, I would hope not. I would hope that no Lightworker would be so cavalier as to suggest that the person who is suffering simply shouldn't because it is a choice.

I'd also like to meet any Lightworker who proclaims they have mastered suffering and have "simply chosen to suffer no more". I would make a bet this is a person who only experiences first world problems and has never really been given the opportunity to experience true suffering. Notice I say "opportunity". I have also observed frequently how many Lighworkers are either in denial and simply won't admit that they still suffer from time to time; always putting on the love, light, rainbows and unicorns face, especially when amongst other Lightworkers. To admit that you might still suffer would be admitting that you are not the Master you view yourself to be. I've been in many group discussions where I would openly admit that I experience suffering only to have an entire gang of Ligthworkers school me on why suffering is bad, unnecessary and wrong. Hey! At least I'm honest about it - I've never claimed to be a Master. We need to remind ourselves that to deny the darkness is equally to deny the light. One cannot exist without the other. Too many New Age Gurus espouse the end of suffering is simple and easy and can be done through "10 Easy Steps to End Suffering for $59.95!". I don't choose to view it that easily and, quite frankly, I feel that to over simplify the process of ending suffering with affirmations, a shift in perspective or that you can "think it away" is a little insulting.

Now let's get to the crux of the argument that suffering has gotten a bad rap. Suffering can be a very important and valuable tool, a catalyst for change. Suffering can cause an individual, a community, a society or humanity itself to make another choice with enormous conviction that moves mountains. Many times, suffering is the necessary impetus to cause an awakening, a higher calling, create a movement, reveal a greater truth or open someone to a solution that was previously unseen. While in the depths of suffering, it forces you to seek solutions more quickly and strengthens your resolve. We can forgive and bless ourselves for shaking our fist to the heavens proclaiming "Never again!" Greatness can be delivered through suffering. Moses delivered the Israelites in response to suffering, Ghandi freed his people in response to suffering, the Civil Rights Movement caused us to know the greatness of Martin Luther King who created greater freedoms out of the impetus of suffering.

We must equally allow that suffering is a process. If we stuff down our feelings and refuse to allow suffering to take it's course, it is equally harmful to the soul as the negative emotion itself. I am well aware of all the studies that say how negative emotions affect our health. However, if we are in denial, or trying so hard to be a good little New Age soldier and fail to acknowledge our suffering, denial is also a negative emotion. The best we can do is to suffer with grace, humility and purpose.

There is a quote from Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch that sums up beautifully:

"Therefore, be a light unto the darkness and curse it not. And forget not Who You Are in the moment of your encirclement by that which you are not. But do you praise to the creation, even as you seek to change it."