Flicker dropped another pest in front of me and said,
“This is Over Attachment, the irritant that ensures fixation on an identity you’ve created. Within it holds an invitation to wholeness. The requirement? To examine and digest all that you’ve ignored in yourself.”
I recalled the cost of deepening and broadening. And if you choose to expand, you too will pay a price, including temporary loneliness.
Should you remain in the void long enough, your isolation will slowly evolve into intimacy with the Sacred. Oddly, this creates acceptance of ordinary everydayness, and also of humanness in both yourself and other people.
Here’s the problem: We will do most anything to accomplish our goals. Expend more energy, work longer hours, read books, attend seminars, earn degrees, add new practices, all to become better versions of our current selves. What most of us are unwilling to do, is voluntarily die to an identity we’ve built. Why? Because it means losing our well-earned place in community.
Loss is the way to transformation.
Nature continuously models it, as does the cross and resurrection in the Christian tradition. No one can transform for you. Over Attachment is Ego’s hold on its rights and the more spiritual your identity, the more sophisticated the ego and the more difficult it is to detect.
In earlier years, individuality is necessary. Later, however, parts of ego need to die. In short, there is no new life, without the old life dying and dying means loss. Becoming a unified whole is not about doing more, but accepting who you are, and responding to what is.
Wholeness requires accepting, letting go and allowing newness of life.
Before leaving, Flicker asked me a few questions that prompted me to observe Over Attachment, personally.
“How does binary thinking provide you with a false sense of belonging?
In what ways does focusing on transcendence keep you from including the parts of yourself, you’ve estranged?
How would integrating your inner demons assist you in responding to external ones?
What if those same demons hold a light that will show you the way forward?”
Making Spirit Flesh*
Imagine how embracing your humanity is preparing you for connections with people who are doing the same. What emotions does that possibility evoke in you?
