I am connected: Stage 8 of our Journey
The dawn has settled in and we are now resting in the light of the day. “I am connected” becomes more of the norm. Were we not connected before? Yes, of course, but the connection was not felt most of the time because we were asleep. Our ego (smaller self) kept us from being awake. When one moves into Stage Eight, you are now awake and able to see. We are home and our home resides in us! We can see out of the “third eye” as some would say. It is a new way of viewing and living in the world. We can trust that we are living fully in ourSelf. Therefore, we no longer seek many answers outside us because the answer is in us. The thing, person, possession we have been looking for is Us! We are now connected to ourself, to others, to partner, and to God. We come to realize that we have always had this Knowing and Connectedness but just didn’t know to trust it because our smaller self kept getting in the way. But now, it is different. This does not mean we no longer need others wisdom. We continue to share our shortcomings and struggles. The purpose has changed and it is to not be fixed. Rather it is to be known and to have a shared experience with another. It is no longer about ourself. We are able to love fully because we have the ability to look and see and be. Our will doesn’t keep us separate from our community of others. The autonomous “smaller self” does not keep us fractured from the environment, culture, community, and family. We have and are living out the capacity of love because we are no longer a slave to our self, our work, our high paying profession, our ego!
It is at this place that we are able to share troubling aspects of ourSelf and see these aspects as a part of us but not all of ourSelf. We are now able to say “yep, that’s a part of me” with truth and honesty yet without the shame and guilt that plagued us so much in our earlier years of life.
In this stage, we have entered the ultimate boon as Joseph Campbell calls it. The ultimately boon is often realized when the major conflict of our story is resolved. We have made atonement (at-one-ment) with ourSelf. We are able to do this because our hearts are completely open for loving out of our True Self. We are no longer plagued by our limitations of our first half of life. Though we certainly still make mistakes. But life feels more like the state of flow as athletes describe it. We are able accept life as it is and realize that everything is as it should be. It is accepting the impermanence (every changing aspects) of life. Can we do it all the time? No, but we can begin living in such a way that the things that are not right in our (smaller) world become ok because it is just not ours to fight anymore. We are now living with eyes for a (Larger) world. We become more and more able to live out that beautiful serenity prayer… “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference”. - Richard Niebuhr.
In our journey, what we come to learn and trust is our experience and that experience comes from within. God is no longer out there but within us. Our experience has taught us to trust that everything we need is within us. Our outside attachments no longer hinder us from sitting with ourSelf. We experience it in relationships and love. This connection cannot be fully explained nor is it ever meant to be explained. This connection can only be pointed to and described as peace. Rilke in the Book of Hours says it this way,
“I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it."
Side note, our whole idea of God has shifted and changed. It is not the same god we believed in from our childhood. This doesn’t mean we reject our faith of old. It just means our connectedness has expanded to something much bigger than what we learned. This God can’t be confined to some denomination, sect, religion, or theology. In fact, we have realized we can’t really put to words or describe what God “is”. The moment we try to talk “about god” we have already limited and made certain constructs and limited this Higher Power.
The rest of our life is about giving of ourSelf now that we are fully Connected. The watermark is that we have ourSelf to give. We are no longer giving out of nothing. In the first half of life, we were trying to give and die to ourSelf but we were giving out of our(smaller)self. Therefore, we felt more empty and despair than life. Now, things are no longer black and while, gain and loss. “Everything belongs” as Rohr says.
We are moving into the last Stage which is rest and being exactly the way we were originally intended to be…”I am Me”. We are fully living out of our essence. It becomes our life’s mission, but without the ego in charge. Therefore, power and control are not our driving subconscious forces. We are living fully as a vessel.