Longing for Real on the Spiritual Path

I have spent most of my life in search of this "divinity" thing, whatever it is...a lifestyle, a sparkle in the eye, some ancient knowing that everyone else had received the memo on but me. I became a doctor of the psyche and lost connection to the wise innocence of myself seeking counsel of those who I thought had answers I did not have. They acted like they had answers I did not have. The world acts like it has answers we do not have. I believed them. Many of us do. I did all the things. At some point, I think I had constructed something that SEEMED like divinity, yet something felt obscured and there was this constant aching in my heart. No matter what I did, this gnawing edge of something palpably tender, painful and raw in the center of my chest. It didn't matter how many mantras I chanted, how much karma yoga I did, who I dated, what I dressed or how spiritual I had convinced myself I was. I felt obscured from myself.

Spirituality has nothing to do with knowing one's own divinity.

I longed to feel real.

This real me had slipped off somewhere in the night outside of my awareness. I was trying on all the things but none of it worked because none if it was real, yet I thought I was the problem. It's like this in life, things feel confusing outside of us and our little person brain protects us by thinking it is something in us, so that divine light is tucked away and we forget it was ever there.

That ache. That deep ache in the center of my chest. I could hear a faint whisper deep from within. "I am real." I am real. Tears. That quote from the Velveteen Rabbit...“Real isn't how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

There is an ache in each of our hearts to know divinity for real. That ache, the sacred soul wound, IS the teacher of self-love, compassion, kindness and understanding. Its where you find your light, the love warrior you are made of. It changes everything.

We are conditioned so deeply to not believe that our own light is real, especially if we are not manifesting things in a particular way. Your divinity, your light and your soul has nothing to do with manifesting. Its so easy to allow capitalism and the patriarchy to co-opt spirituality, to sell us costumes and lifestyles resembling this divinity, while yes...also pushing pills and bottles and binge watching fantasies down our throats.

You can love yourself back to real, just like the Velveteen Rabbit. It is a surrender into a holy trembling of becoming who you really are. There is nothing to be afraid of in the freedom of letting everything else go.

With love, from my real to yours.