Our internal systems watch us. Yes, that sounds like something right out of a Stephen King novel but it's true. The parts our mind created long ago to manage the life we lived at that time still exist within us. That inner critic, abandoned baby, abused child, hopeless teen, and lonely adult all live within our internal system.

Self acceptance is the Holy Grail to personal growth. For when I accept myself as I am....then I'm able to change. On the surface this seems like a contradiction. If you accept yourself why do you need to change? I believe it all has to do with Validation. When our inner system feels heard and understood by our Core Self (that space in us that lives between stimulus and response) it can relax because it has been seen and acknowledged. Being seen/acknowledged is the core of relationship.

Went quadding up a mountain today. I conquered Valhalla PowderCats. Hardest ride ever. Several times I though I was gonna eat dirt through my face. The views were absolutely incredible.

How we show up matters. I want to talk about passivity and pursuit. One is a stance of fear and the other courage. Both leave reverberations in relationships. I've always been a person who knows how to put people at ease and make them feel included...wanted....valuable. I am an enneagram 2 after all. It's my superpower. Part of my process is showing up as myself. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Most Christians have a codependent relationship with God. I believe it is the number one reason many Christians, especially fundagelicals, cannot grow beyond their beliefs of "us vs them." The ability to incorporate healthy perspectives of another is co-opted by a singular perspective of what they are taught "God wants."

Purity culture....seeking purity means there will ALWAYS be something that is excluded. I no longer believe we are to strive for perfection save for one thing.....the perfection of Love.

This was me around age 7. When I saw this pic what stunned me was at this age I was constantly teased and ridiculed for being fat. Fat!!! Do I even remotely look overweight here? No! And yet I always faced the harshest criticism about how i looked from my other classmates. This got me thinking. Humans, especially kids, without proper guidance, are like chickens. When a chicken is injured or something's wrong the rest of the flock will pick at it till it dies. Literally. It's their way of preserving themselves somehow....disposing of the sick one.

Love is the scent of imperfection. We have this idea that Love only loves perfect things. Yet Love reaches beyond barriers that we humans erect and transforms the darkest corners of humanity. That transformation is unquantifiable. Love loves the imperfect. This is the nature of Love. It does not Love to transform but it is through its unconditional form that transformation occurs. It has no need to control that transformation either.

Parenting is such a huge learning curve. We parent our kids to freedom. When they are young they are fully dependant but as they grow independence is what we hope for. We want them to learn to become separate beings from us. With Love of course but never control. Why then would we become dependant on a God who constantly needs to advise us, needs our attention, and keep us tethered? This is the opposite of healthy growth.

We are energetic beings. All information is energy that holds symbolic value. We each speak different languages but can recognize the energy behind actions like Love and Hatred. Spiritual spaces are supposed to be safe havens where every part of us feels that safe energy. A space we enter into where our wounded parts can feel heard, cared for, and healed.

Many Christians bring their profound ignorance to the discussion of humanity and Love. Their system of belief as "the only truth" shackles them to a structure that consumes them and uses them as tools of reproduction. To be powerful in relationships you must accept influence from another. To accept influence is to acknowledge the life experience another holds.

I wrote this back in January and tweeted it on my old account. Was just rereading some of my writings this morning and this one stood out.

I've learned and am continuing to learn to embrace my shadow parts. They are a wonderful side of me full of wisdom and power. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending areas of breakage with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. It treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

The relationship with God people have in evangelical systems can be equated to a term often used in therapy: Trauma Bonding. Wikipedia's simple definition for trauma bonding is "strong emotional attachment between an abused person and his or her abuser, formed as a result of the cycle of violence."  Now when we think of this cycle of violence hell comes to mind.

Humans used to mainly fight over religion but now it is all about information. Who has the right "facts" or best sources. We live in the information age. The time in human history where we have the most information at our fingertips tips but because of fear and a desire for domination and control (often based on religious ideals) we are rendering the most crucial information useless.