Today, a Reader asks a question about breaking negative patterns of behavior and resistance to the journey, etc.

Jeanne,
I have, in the past several years, embarked upon a healing journey deeper than ever before and am striving to heal my body, mind, and spirit, and to hold them in congruence with my deepest purpose on heaven and earth. My progress is in fits and starts and I find that the closer I am to a negative pattern breaking, the more it almost strengthens its hold and I “act out” in my life with “symptoms” of resistance toward the growth and healing. Primarily my struggles right now are in trusting the universe that I am divinely protected and secure, and do not need external reassurance or safety to feel whole. This struggle shows up most in my intimate and work relationships where I experience much insecurity, jealousy, envy, and fear regarding my position, importance, role, etc. I sense that my healing work is in my grief, in facing my fear of my deepest loneliness, and I feel stuck. Any advice or direction would be much appreciated.
Thank you,
Nancy

My Dearest Nancy, your dilemma is not one of inconsistency or resistance per se, but is, in fact, one of breakthrough. You get to the point of breakthrough, yet do you not have the strength or the guts to climb over the wall before you. But you do not, in fact, always need to climb over the wall. Often is there a better way, and that is what I will address today, at least in part. For your conflict is most greatly within, and the walls, though looming strong and potent, do not in fact exist.

So, that is where we will begin. Your walls do not exist. Your blockages and your places of misstep do not exist, but are placed there for your growth anyway. So, they do not exist, yet they do exist! See? What a conundrum we have here!

Your growth is based on your intent to evolve. Your inner you is tired of confronting the old issues and is tired of finding that the same patterns of behavior are often repeated. So the inner you shows them to you over and over again, until you no longer need them or find them attractive. But mostly, the inner you will show you these things until you no longer notice them, and that will be the point of clarity. When your walls no longer exist, then will you be able to move on.

Take now another scenario. You speak of negative patterns of behavior, of reverting to sadness, loneliness, and incarceration of spirit in those old patterns. But what are they really except energetic patterns, and in fact do not either exist, except for as long as you need them.

Your spirit does want growth and evolution. Your spirit does seek reconciliation with your past, with your outer self, and with your reactions to what life presents you with. But your inner spirit also knows that you must confront your dilemmas for as long as your need to, and that means until they no longer hold any enticement, power, or cures for you.

Your inner spirit knows that these stumbling blocks, pits, walls, and encasements that you find nearby to wrap your self in are necessary, until they no longer work for you. I think that, energetically speaking, are you at a breaking away point, and this is also a breakthrough point. Just as you are about to release your self from your old behaviors they return to confront you again and again, saying, “Of course you need us. We are your best friends. We are your comforts, and your oblivion. We are your way of dealing with your problems, and we work so well together!” They entice you to them, and you go, not because you are weak, or needy, or obsessive and soft, but because you are a warrior who must cut through the tangled web of conflict with self in order to grow.

Your first new sword must be a new view, and that is what I seek to offer you today. Do not look upon your struggles in the same way now, but visualize them as but energetic guidance that seeks to point out to you your most vulnerable aspects of self. Once you know, for sure, that these aspects of self are real, and very necessary to address, so can you learn to accept them. Of course you are vulnerable and afraid. Of course you wish to be more than those aspects of self that you keep so deeply buried inside, pushing them down as far as possible so that you can appear to be in control, confident, smart, and totally in command of your self, your life, your work, your relationships, and your inner and outer selves. But underneath do we know that you struggle greatly, and this is good!

Now, at these times of breakthrough, which you experience as break downs in your progress, so are you being asked to acknowledge not only that this vulnerable self is real, but also that the outer self has too much control. You have allowed your outer self to have too much power and your little inner self must come to the rescue, and drag you back into feelings of familiarity by presenting you with your old comforts.

So look upon your battlegrounds, upon the weapons you have chosen in the past, upon the armor you have chosen to wear, and upon the stances you have taken. Are any of those things truly you? Or are they just readily available and naturally easy to take on, simply because they are accessible and fit you so well? I think you are finding that they do not in fact fit you so well any more, and that is wonderful. Your own swords are prodding you to grow. They are sticking their points into your old body protections and saying to you, “Look we aren’t able to do the job any more.”

So, do you see what I am pointing out to you, My Dear Nancy, fighting warrior woman? You are fighting a losing battle if you continue to reach for the same old swords and the same old facades of presentation of self.

It is time to go to your vulnerable one and accept her. It is time to put down your fighting weapons and put your arms around your inner self and accept your vulnerabilities, which you seem to refer to as faults, but are in fact more real and truthful than the weapons you have chosen to break through life with. Now is it time to break inward, to slice through your armor, your self, from the outside in. Find the little girl who resides behind the masks and allow her to be seen, to be accepted, and to be invited out into the air.

You do not need your weapons and your armor, your facemasks, and your attitudes of the old warrior self. Now it is time to acknowledge that beautifully real inner self who suggests that your spirit potential lies in the truths spoken from within. It is time to be real.

When you now feel your self beginning to react in your old fashion, when you feel your outer self reach for an old idea, an old tactic, an old word, an old activity, or old comforts, go instead to your little girl self and say, “Yes, I know. It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to be angry, frustrated, lost, confused. And it’s okay to cry. It’s okay to be lost for a while in those vulnerable feelings. But it is not okay to stay there.” Just as it is not okay for you to stay in your old places either.

Now must you restore your balance too. As you comfort your inner child self and acknowledge and accept her truths, so must your real adult self be the comforter, but also the listener, priestly and safe, godly and right knowing, objective, and utterly present at all times in order to grow. This balance of innocence and grace must now become your inner truth and your outer truth. For you are, in fact, an adult. You are, in fact, quite worldly, capable, intelligent, and worthy of living this life you have worked so hard to achieve. You must acknowledge and accept this outer self too. You must promote your qualities of good, of power, of strength, and of prosperity. But you must do so only in relationship to your inner truths and not some outer untruths that constantly present themselves to you in order to prod you along on your journey.

So you see My Dear One, your journey does not entail a simple answer, as you well know, to your question of getting caught. Your journey has led you, thus far, to your patterns of behavior in order to point out to you that it is time to reject them, to turn inward and acknowledge why you have had to repeatedly confront the same dilemmas, and to ask you to acknowledge that they have stood you well for so long, but that you are ready to acquiesce now, to your inner child self and your adult knowing self, in truthful balance.

That is where your struggle will now shift to as you take your next steps. You will now be confronted with keeping your child self truthfully speaking truths and your adult self also truthfully speaking truths. You will be confronted with the two of you learning how to have a better relationship as you soften and accept that you are a human being, but that you are also an energy being who can take steps of reconciliation, confrontation, and growth in a different manner now.

Find your security in this new balance of self. Your energetic self is ready to flow in the energy of life. Your inner self is asking you to accept the vulnerable truths of the self as accurate assessments of who you truly are, but they are also just new starting points to finding your inner/outer balance as you learn to truly love your self. Only then will you be able to heal, to love your place in the world, and to be able to acquiesce to what your journey has in store for you, as you continue to grow, evolve, and become whole.