When you share things that you’re not proud of, you say you’re afraid of losing friends or being laughed at. But you know what really happens when you share your innards with others is you’re actually in direst danger of being LOVED.
Loved because it makes us equal. Loved because if a person who looks and sounds respectable and even admirable admits to having failings or defects of character or to actually feeling emotions, even emotions generally considered to be undesirable, then it frees me to be able to admit that I also have emotions and failings.
And when a person admits to having done such and such a thing and having reacted in such and such a way, it sometimes resonates to something I’d forgotten I did or felt and it helps me to own up to who I am. If I then dare to share it it will probably resonate with somebody else, and so on and so on. We’ve started a chain reaction.
Sharing helps us to get to know the person we really are under our veneer of “acceptability” and just by knowing that we’re not the only ones who feel like that, we can accept ourselves, stop judging ourselves and love ourselves. And if I can manage all three for myself, it becomes possible to feel the same towards other people. I am thus on the road toward unconditional love for all.
I personally learned to share and what sharing does 30 years ago when I joined Emotions Anonymous, a 12-step program based on the same principles as Alcoholics anonymous. Their program is based on the principle of sharing as equals and their success is widely known. There are other very good and effective methods of personal growth but for me sharing did it and it has the advantage of being free.
Yes Steve, your sharing of what you were going through this past month has helped tremendously to trigger blocked emotions I was having. It led me to work on a few vasanas and hopefully, this time, I cleared the main one. I say this time because, yes, it takes a lifetime and more to get to love oneself unconditionally although lately, things seem to be accelerating.
It also seems as if the healing process is also accelerated compared to how long it took in the past years to return to inner peace after a round of “cleansing” ourselves of vasanas.
I’ll keep on sharing on this forum and hope it’ll trigger a chain reaction.
Love you all and keep up the good work. Marika.