Going Home After Fifteen Years
Volver a Casa Después de Quince Años
A student preparing to visit her parents for the first time in fifteen years describes meeting her fear, and the teacher examines a hidden belief underneath it.
Going Home After Fifteen Years
A student preparing to visit her parents for the first time in fifteen years describes meeting her fear, and the teacher examines a hidden belief underneath it.
I just want to say I feel happy that I'm able to meet my fear. I can see a lot of commentary thoughts coming up, related to the story of my parents, how they are, and judgments about them. But they are thoughts, and I'm just happy to see them coming up.
That's really beautiful, to be happy to experience your own fear. What I understand by meeting it is that you're not in a fight with it or struggling with it. It's just appearing, and you're happy to have the experience of knowing it without fighting it, to be free from the struggle with fear. In a sense, that is the beginning of the end of fear. When it no longer dictates, it can be there and have little power. In fact, it can be very powerful, because it's an energy that then feeds the aliveness. This is what has been called transmutation: something that was avoided in thought can now become the current that is at your service, at the service of alignment, aliveness, and truth.
Judgments are just thoughts
You're going to visit your parents after many years, and now there's freedom from the fear of this, and the seeing that everything the fear is about, and the defending of that fear, are just thoughts. The judgments were ways in which you protected yourself from that fear, from getting close to that which was scary. And now they're just thoughts. They always were just thoughts, but now they're seen to be just thoughts, and so they're not made real. They are no longer creating action, no longer favoring decisions defined by fear and judgment, and therefore not loving, not free. So I'm celebrating.
Yeah, I think that could be the thing that's been tying me to this image.
Exactly: it's an image. Before seeing, before truth, before recognition, there is what appears to be reality. And then it is known that it was not reality. It's an image.
I feel like it's still ongoing, still in process.
Yes, it is. But the important shifts are often unnoticed, and this is why I highlight it. There's a before and after. When you see something and recognize it to be a thought or an image, that is 98 percent of what's needed. The other two percent feels like a really big deal. It feels like the problem is still there and things aren't resolved. But that two percent, just to pick a number, resolves on its own. The hard part is the seeing.
Right now, talking with you, immediately all sorts of thoughts come up about what it's going to be like. But I know.
The thing is, you know they're thoughts. That's all that matters. Don't expect the thoughts to stop. Expect them to come up like that, actually. But also, don't be surprised if at some point you realize there are barely any thoughts about this anymore. Don't be surprised if they do stop to a great degree. What I'm saying is: don't wait for them to stop in order to celebrate the problem being resolved. You can celebrate right now. Right now there is freedom, when you see fear and don't need to avoid it, when you see judgments and recognize them as thoughts.
You're sitting here able to see all the thoughts coming up around a really big trip. It is a really big trip, to go see your parents after many, many years. How long has it been?
Fifteen years.
Fifteen years is huge. And the fact that you are seeing through this to the degree that you are is huge. So right now is a celebration. Yes, there's going to be a never-ending process, a never-ending shifting, clearing, learning. But don't miss out on the opportunity to celebrate.
"I didn't choose these parents"
Yeah, it's like a gate for me to walk through. And I feel lucky, in a way. It's just that I didn't choose these parents.
Well, do you know that for sure?
I don't know.
Don't be so sure. Be open-minded, because you don't really know that. What if you did choose them and you forgot?
I just cannot believe such things.
No, you are believing such things. You're believing you didn't choose them. But how do you know for a fact that they were imposed on you without your choosing? You don't have that memory either. If you told me, "I remember before coming to this earth, I spoke with the mentor who sent me, and these parents were assigned to me without my wanting them, and I had to take them anyway, so I did not choose these parents; they were chosen for me." Do you have some form of this knowing, this experience?
No. When I say I don't know, I mean I don't have evidence of knowing.
Right, no evidence. But when you say "I didn't choose these parents," that's an assumption. It's a belief. You could say, "I don't see how I would have chosen them. It doesn't feel like I would have wanted these parents." But you don't really know. Maybe you chose them and they were perfect for you. And maybe you intentionally went through the process of forgetting that you chose them, so that you could live this experience exactly as you did. I'm not saying that's the truth. I'm offering some alternative to the certainty of "I didn't choose them."
Yeah, it is a belief. I can taste the certainty. It's an assumption I don't question. It's just taken.
That quality is what the buying-in is. Your experience is valid in that it's rooted in your true experience: these were very difficult parents, and you don't see why you would have chosen that. But the truth is, you don't know, specifically because you don't remember either way. And you don't know how it came to be. Even if you remembered, you couldn't trust that memory fully, because it's just more thoughts and interpretations. Memories cannot be trusted fully. They can be informative, but no more.
No belief is harmless
Why am I drilling on this? Because you might think it's a very harmless belief, but it's not. It will become a foundation for how you interpret and perceive reality with your parents. At the foundation there will be an oppositional nature, an oppositional energy, which would be different if you didn't have that foundational belief. What if you held something like the opposite? What if I did choose them, and what if that was perfect? Even just contemplating the possibility: what if I did choose them, and what if this was divine wisdom, and they are perfect for me? What would truth be? What would reality be, if this was perfect?
I can see that. Going from a different angle, looking at the same thing, is just changing the perspective. But I think we don't need a perspective at all.
A different perspective is useful to uproot a belief, a stuck perspective. If you don't have beliefs, the mind has multiple perspectives; you can see things from multiple directions. That's the openness of mind. But what that allows is for the heart to be present, for the heart to be at the center of movement. When there are belief systems, the mind cannot act outside the trail of the belief. If you believe you explicitly did not choose these parents, and that means they weren't right for you, that they were the wrong parents, not good in many ways, then the way you behave, the possibility of movement, is limited to that reality. But if the reality is "I don't know, maybe they're perfect," then there's the possibility of a beautiful, deep acceptance and love for them, in the relationship, in the reality of being you with those parents while you're with them.
Yeah. Immediately something comes up: they allowed me to stay away as much as I wanted, and they never complained. They really don't complain. Other parents keep their children at hand and don't allow them to explore much, but I was allowed. So now I can taste that the thoughts coming up from fear are distinct from that belief that I didn't choose my parents. I can taste the different thoughts, and they are all thoughts.
Yes. And then just let thought make room for the love that is here. When you're with them, make room. Make room for you to be surprised.
Seeing more
I can see more now, being less tied into all this thought. And there's something coming up in me. I feel this warm sensation.
Yeah, that's the love coming through.
All these thoughts are bubbling, and I don't have problems with them. It's really very transforming. All these thoughts from fear and belief, they're just beliefs.
And also contemplate, playfully, how what is transforming anew in your life is also transforming their life, and is also affecting, let's say, the human fabric, in ways that you can't know or understand.
I think the most subtle thing I want to describe is that once I'm not so tight with all these thoughts, there's more I can see. I can just see more.
Exactly. And seeing more feels like: oh, that's not what the thoughts were suggesting.
The thought is the past, the stories, what happened, all memories, and assumptions like "I didn't choose my parents." All of these can still happen, but they don't stop me from seeing more.
Yeah. That's what I'm referring to as freedom.
And once that is seen, that there's more to it than just those thoughts, it feels totally effortless. Even when there are fearful thoughts coming up, I don't feel fear.
That's what I mean by the end of fear. There are thoughts and energetics appearing, but it's not fear, and it's not "I am afraid."
Yeah. The key is they don't block the field. They really don't block the seeing.
It's beautiful. I really am celebrating for you.
I'm just happy. You've been a really great help. My flight will be on Monday.
It's a great adventure. I look forward to hearing how it goes.