It's Not Him I Lost - It's Me I Lost When He Left

I never thought it would take me this long to get over the man whom I count as my first love.

The interesting fact about human beings is that we can be highly intelligent and even intellectually superior on so many levels about our personal lives. We try to use our rational logic as much as we can in order to survive in this world. After all, this is all I've been taught in the western educational and training system. Of course, I am now waking up to the fact that we are now making way for emotional andspiritual intelligence. We are recognising that our empathy and our creativity will probably allow us to survive somehow the catastrophic events that we are witnessing daily.

Yet, when it comes to the most soul baring, identity stripping experiences, where does the logic even decide to come in? It arrives and stands besides you, as you agonise and ooze out all sorts of illogical emotions and cuss at the object of your desire when he rejects you.

Yes, I never met the guy in the flesh. So what? I never thought this would happen, falling in love with typed words and photographs on a computer screen. I don't plan on writing an entire novel about it. It's a non-event.

"You fell in love with someone you never met. Ahhhhhh, yes."

I met him online in August 2010 and it only seems that now after writing him two final emails in the last few weeks and my receiving two back (it is a huge reality check for me as to how fundamentally he has changed inside of himself in the last year to be that quick and civil in responding to me). I have real closure. Trouble is, I still never find the inner courage to open up his emails as soon as I see them in my inbox. They always shimmer with his light, his love and his energy and it makes me weep. I still need to build up courage to open them up a few days later.

Once, I remember, it took me two weeks before I somehow was in a neutral space to read his message to me.

I get images flashing through my mind about all the fun he is having with his partner. They travel the world, you see. Business class, you see. Cycling in the lavender fields of Marseilles and snorkeling in the clear turquoise seas somewhere nameless in the world. I HAD asked him where the photos were taken, but he was being his usual secretive self and never answered me that. So I'm guessing the Bahamas or Dominican Republic. The ocean was so clear that his dark, silky hair had made a soft crown all around his head.

My heart softens whenever I think of him and then the grief pours out in tears. For six entire years I have cried over my loss: over what I see as a stolen opportunity, as my never been given a chance to show my light and love in a relationship with someone I actually connected with so deeply.

The tears never seem to want to dry up. Neutrality and even indifference I have prayed for, yet this gullible, softening heart just cannot seem to understand those different opposite states of being.

What really hit my ego, identity or pride was what he wrote in his final email to me last week, "I never thought I would find someone perfect for me, until I met my Mrs."

It really pained me, and I started getting the thoughts back in my head about how ridiculous I was being and about how I was never good enough. To him, he was just stating the facts. For me, it seemed to say a lot about me and my flaws than it did about him and his life.

After a week, I am slightly more settled in my being. Only slightly. I still am weeping massive tears during adho mukha svasana (downward dog pose) in my yoga. To the point, the mat becomes slippery because it's so wet.

What I have never, ever understood is HOW on EARTH did I fall for someone so hard and deeply, when even I was fully aware we were not at all compatible? He is handsome and has very beautiful, expressive dark brown eyes, but so do a lot of men! His lifestyle is what I label as active, rushed, swanky and luxurious. He wears tuxedos to formal events and when I saw that photo of him at a wedding, something inside of me shuddered. It spoke of conformity and I have been doing my best to break free of that level of artifice in my own self.

I am more of a hippie, constantly seeking inner and thereafter outer freedom. So I eat simply and mostly vegetarian food sitting on the floor. I am constantly seeking my purpose and a way to make my own mark upon the world. I love to travel, we do have that in common. I'd be happy in a Buddhist temple meditating and learning or on a yoga retreat on a delicous beach, he would be trekking or touring somewhere. I also have had certain health issues that have limited my activities and ambitions for the last few years.

He never understood that, and wasn't prepared to take it on as part of his day to day life. I entirely agreed with that, but I never realised it would take me 6 years to recover and even then, not entirely.

Memories we keep in a box

And I asked myself today, "Really, Sukaina, you knew then as you know now that you guys would never be able to be together as partners. All the intense emotions, the complete blankness and inner excavation of your heart and gut that overtook you from 2010 to 2013 - yes, they all happened. He was oblivious to all of it, and had gotten married to his girlfriend by then.

So what is the real issue here? Why are you still crying over a phantom?"

I had even hit myself on the head with a blunt object until I bled when I found out he had gotten married and never even thought it would be kind to let me know when he had proposed to her. So that this stubborn and ignorant heart would stop loving him and praying for him to come back to me, to give me a chance to at least speak to him and meet him.

But what we must always hold clear is that this human existence is one that can be extremely trying to us and very confusing. What people do in one frame of mind is possibly their only recourse at the time.

We must let people go to the extremes of what is considered appropriate behaviour at times. Even and especially ourselves, as judgement doesn't suit the expansion and growth of the soul. So what was needed at the time for my growth as a person is no longer required.

At the time, to me he was the perfect person for me. I had never met anyone like him, with whom I could have a proper intelligent conversation. When we spoke, the air sizzled. My heart would beat very quickly, to the point it would physically hurt and cause breathlessness.


But that was then, in 2014. If we put aside the fact that I am yet to find someone with whom I had such a close connection with and if we put aside my current living circumstances that seem to close down on my desire to experience life as I'd like to, what is really going on here?

Why do I feel so lost, as though a part of me will never be replaced unless he is in my life somehow, in any limited capacity?

And softly, my heart responded.

"You miss yourself, not him. You lost yourself when you met him."

Mosaic of my psyche

I cannot argue with that. I just cannot.

I remember clearly that after he wrote me a few abrupt texts and decided I wasn't worth any more investment of time and energy, that version of me began dying a slow painful death.

Time slowed down and my mental functions slowed down as well. My body began hurting. I couldn't sleep at night. I kept weeping and scenes of my being run over by cars played in my mind constantly, especially when I was walking down the street. I stopped reading the books I had been reading and I stopped drawing mandalas. I still haven't drawn a mandala in six years, whereas before meeting him I drew them very frequently to help me calm my manic mind and the anxieties.

Courtesy Emmanuel Dagher

The person I was when I first met him and interacted with him is not the person I am now. She was naive and gullible as hell, and very sweet and childish. Extremely introverted, she lived her entire life through her imagination, books and film. She had complicated emotional issues as well and was still very disassociated from her entire body and being.

She didn't know how to interact with a man in a romantic capacity, since he was the first person to ever show serious interest and she had had a very sheltered upbringing. She was so shy, she told him to wait for a month before they spoke on the phone. And when they spoke, she had become so angry at him because he wasn't replying to her texts as frequently as she would have liked that he hung up on her after five minutes.

The words wouldn't formulate in her mouth. She felt intimidated and scared by him as a result of the intensity of the attraction. It was an effort to pretend to be a regular human being in front of him, when her entire body and mind had fallen in upon themselves.

It was around the time she met him that her dark night of the soul began, and everything fell apart. I mean, everything. No interests, no life goals, little sleep, little confidence, and the two things she prided herself on: her intelligence and her writing, they all dwindled into nothingness.

She stopped writing, the words wouldn't formulate... and she stopped making sense.

She cried a lot, and sought solace in New Age spirituality. She went to healing workshops which focussed on clearing past life contracts and relationships and learned that 80% of the energy, beliefs and thoughts in her energy field and pores were not even hers. She learned about epigenetic research, spiritual cords and how when you are obsessed by someone, it is because of the unhealthy cording in your solar plexus and that the cording is hooked into a core belief that needs healing.

She became even more of an alien to herself.

Her parents couldn't make sense of the new version of her she was becoming and attacked through their words and actions. He friends stayed as long as they could until something about her heaviness put them off so much, they left as well.

The funny thing is, she could see all of this as clear as day. And just couldn't shift it.

Black dog, Winston Churchill used to call it. I called mine Barney, so as to make him ridiculous. I couldn't laugh at it much. Still can't, to be honest.

That was then. She survived the cold, empty, loud nights by buying a battery operated Alan Titchmarsh second hand radio from a local knick knack shop and listening to the inane conversations on Absolute Radio. The crazy radio presenters really saved her life some nights. They would say something so obscure and ridiculous that she would chuckle into her tear soaked pillow and then be able to sleep.

She would look in the mirror as she forced herself to brush her teeth and just didn't know who was looking back at her.

Was it him?

Was it her?

His voice reverberated in her head, the phrases, the fonts, the laughter... there had been one good conversation. A few very fun and loving online conversations on social media.
 
His eyes blazed into hers when she closed them at night and she felt her heart sinking and leaking all over again.

She began overeating and developed a sugar addiction that only recently was diagnosed.

On the bright side, she came across dozens of very creative and healing sad Bollywood and Pakistani Coke Studio songs such as Chayi Hai Tanhai, Paimana Bideh and Neun La Leya to reflect the pain and disintegration of her being. More recently, the first Alan Walker song, Faded and Umer Farooq's haunting Keh Na were discovered and soothed her aching soul.

This was all then.

"So, my question again, Sukaina, is why are the tears leaking now, just as forcefully and passionately as they did then? 

Have the wounds not yet healed? 
Did you re-attach a negative cord back to him out of habit? 
Do you have toxic, nuclear levels of karma that just won't be cleared through your prayers and acts of service?

What is it? God, why does the pain not stop? He is just a MAN!

You know he is not a twin flame. We changed the fabric of the universe and entered a parallel universe whereby he is a soul like all the others you have no link with, to the point you will become indifferent to him. Forget him entirely.

We entered a universe whereby you are back on form with all the advocacy and changes you are to bring to people's lives, in the form that is best for everyone involved. Maybe kids, maybe refugees, and all to do with mental health and consciousness and clearing obstacles to expression. Definitely to do with art, music, writing and creativity to a level you've never experienced before.

So, what's up? Why the tears and the devastation in the heart? Why recreate the exact same feelings and regrets you had six years ago? You have all the pink, green and black crystals you possibly could to heal the heart and clear the cords! You even have the flower remedies to ensure you never repeat the same mistakes! You even became a bona fide SHAMAN to ensure you could walk your own sacred feminine path to God, and let go of the attachments to this world.

You prayed for relief at the sacred tomb of Jelaluddin Rumi in Konya, Turkey. And in the Valley of Kings in Luxor, Egypt. (Okay, well I prayed in the swanky hotel I was staying at the spiritual retreat at - we did past clearings then - well, so we said!)

Surely your ego isn't still so massive that you would even entertain the thought that he loved you at some point? Or that you guys had a chance and were somehow sabotaged? Or that him being with the woman of his dreams is somehow an insult to you, since you have had less than ideal experiences with men since him?"

The answer is always so simple.

We have the layers of karmic explanations, and the karmic debt 16/7 explanations and the Atlantis and Lemuria explanations... and then there is the practical explanation.


I lost myself when he left. Not BECAUSE he left.

I had lost perhaps 50% of myself before I had met him, then lost another 30% after meeting him and him leaving.... and my connection with my Creator became fragmented.

It still is, which is why he has such an impact upon me. When you make an intimate connection with a person or circumstance that interferes with your God connection, drama ensues.

I still don't read any fiction, which I used to devour with a passion. I don't read any of the New Age books either, unless it is really important, such as looking for an affirmation. I'm reading Matt Kahn's new book Whatever Arises, Love That: A Love Revolution That Begins With You because I have to write the review of it for this blog and another online magazine, but it's taking me an absurdly long time. I just can't focus too much.

I used to play tennis at university, and stopped since then and even though I have the opportunity to play here, I don't. I go to a few musical and healing or spiritual meditation events here and there, but nothing major. I have stopped running as well!

My flame keeps petering out.... I can't really persuade myself to become passionate about anything in my personal life. In my career and professional life, I have a clearer idea about what I wish to do. I am passionate about helping people, through writing and other means. To enhance lives. To bring about peace and joy and forward progress.

My yoga practice is my mainstay, and even that I have had to cajole myself into keeping up the classes because I know how it is benefiting me on all levels.I also know what happens when I stop going for classes: the cycle repeats itself.

That is basically it.

I do not miss him any longer, there is nothing to miss. We miss memories, we regret actions - and we are in the now. After six years, even someone as nostalgic and romantic as I am has come to terms with the real world.

Maybe I was under some sort of spell I wove expertly for myself. My soul always knew that I had to encounter many illusions and that the pain in their removal will bring about my refreshed and humbled soul.

It is just the realisation that, after reclaiming all my energy back from him, I am still somewhat adrift. I still don't feel whole, that fragments of my soul and self are somewhere other than inside of me. I still don't have any real plans, any real goals, any real interests that I used to have once, or that other people have.

And it has finally dawned on me that it had nothing to do with him, after all! It really could just have been anyone. The soul lessons are learned through any person fit for the role. It's never really personal in the end.

And so my soul cries and the tears drop onto the blue yoga mat during downward dog for the years wasted in illusions so thick and strong, they felt so very real to me.

I was expecting some sort of happy ending, in the form of friendship at the very least. Instead, he makes a lame joke about us being together next lifetime, and the headache he would experience in having two wives. When I read that, I knew that he was doing his best to be kind and friendly. Yet, there was no depth of connection and no flower of acknowledgement.

I did not appreciate his sense of humour. Two wives. Yes, quite an idea, just what I had been hinting at. Not!Almost as funny as his assumption I had intended to move to Turkey for reasons more insidious than to teach TEFL.

Connection, empathy and acknowledgement: those are the things I have to make available to myself from myself.

I am getting there.

Shamanic tools for healing

There is a theory in shamanic circles that we make ourselves go through trauma, then heal it but not entirely, as within the little scar lays the core of our supreme healing powers. I prefer that perspective to the one I have been telling myself: you're weird and emotionally naive.

I pray the empathy that I have realised through this experience will emanate to everyone who is also dealing with their trauma and wounds. As of now, it hasn't quite been the case as I am the one in need of my own understanding.

I became a character in a Jane Austen novel. The most poorly written one, with social media, emotional health issues, silence, passive aggression and ghosting taking centre stage.

What now?
Who am I without this obsession that took over six years of my life?
How do I redeem myself?

I am who I am. And I most certainly am where I am.

Judgements may flow all though my veins about where I ought to be, and yet, perhaps every single part of this roller-coaster video game is pre-planned before incarnation. My free will lays in my response.

And a response of absolute devotion and gratitude to the divine is needed.

And the response seems to always be love and forgiveness, for self and others.

My ability to be authentic about my weaknesses and flaws and mistakes is a good way to break through my self-made obstacles, in a way. One cannot be a writer if one cannot be willing to expose themselves through the words on the page.

For me, it mainly is to do with feeling all emotions as equally valid, and giving myself the love I have avoided giving to myself for years.

You see, God is waiting for me to call Him my Beloved.

In the end, God has been the Patient One (as-Sabur), waiting in the wings for me to accept and acknowledge the love between the exalted Creator and His wonderful creation.

The mystics and dervishes don't go mad for no reason, they have tasted the sublimity of Divine love and nothing else can compare after that.

Be noble, for you are made of stardust...

Come, come, again,
Whoever you are, Come!
Heathen, Fire worshipper or idolatrous,
Come! Come even
If you have broken
Your penitence a hundred times,
Ours is the portal of hope
Come as you are...
Ours is not a caravan of despair

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

Let us hope for that for Sukaina. I feel she has taken powerful steps towards the esteemed honour of becoming entirely annihilated and thereafter to be solely in the world and definitely not of it.

In society, but not meant to be like anyone else. In pure service to His creation.

It has been a while since I went to a temple, synagogue or church to devote to the silence. I suppose my soul would like that sort of ritual again.

Maureen Moss | It's time to take Destiny into your own hands

Maureen Moss

4 hrs · 

 

I began to simply post a portion of my latest newsletter: "The Bells of Destiny," (see below) when I heard about the latest massive attack killing 75+ people in France.

We are a world divided and and a people in massive pain.

We are witnessing death, division, racism, terrorism, incoherence and destruction quicker than the mind can comprehend...though comprehend we must. And, it must start with us.

We have a connection to make.

Not for one more minute can we terrorize ourselves by one unkind word spoken to ourselves. Not for one more minute can we divide our consciousness by pitting ourselves against ourselves...about anything. Truth and lies do not co-exist peacefully.

Not for one more minute can we offer droplets of compassion to ourselves and in the next minute accept, consent and believe the mind when it belittles us. We are sacred gifts upon this earth. When will we believe it?

Not for one more minute can we look into the eyes of any other and decide we know who they are and then judge them by our perceptions. We are all encoded with the Light of God. Everyone is having their own journey. Who are we to judge? We have our own Lights to switch on.

And, not for one more minute can we toy around with affirmations about loving ourselves. We either do...or we Must Find The Way to.

We can't afford to break our own hearts any longer. We can't afford to hang on to our pain, divides and grievances. That's what began the worlds crippling disregard for Life, for Love, for All lives matter... at the core.

It's time to take Destiny into your own hands.

NEWSLETTER: THE BELLS OF DESTINY
Click on www.maureenmoss.com/newsletter-page

Matt Kahn | Commmunity

Matt Kahn & Julie Dittmar

Yesterday at 14:24 ·

Community can be an ironic place to meet with those of like mind. In the beginning, you are coming together, either for a common purpose, or through a common interest in a subject, as a vast array of unique individuals unite in a field of resonance. Everyone deserves a support group or others to turn toward for additional companionship. Especially when it comes to spiritual community, one deserves any degree of nurturing support, as they maneuver through the vast and often uncompromising landscapes of their inner journey. In the beginning, a spiritual community is typically at its strongest potency, often embodying the teachings that brought everyone together to explore the deeper mysteries of existence.

Gradually, a support group of heart-centered fellowship becomes a spiritually-themed rumor mill. When this occurs, complaining and blaming seems to be a more habit-forming tendency. There are those in community, who recognize the blaming and complaints of others as the unraveling of unconsciousness. To the best of their ability, they try holding space for someone else’s experience, but soon the gift of active listening pulls the listener into the heat of the conflict to choose sides and join a social battle.

Whether you have been ostracized by the unconscious actions of a spiritual group, or you can recognize the negative tendencies you may be contributing in group settings, I offer these following insights to offer more heart-centered care for every healing heart. As you read this, please do not assume every detail must apply to you. Instead, allow your intuition to reveal the most important key points for you to embrace.

As empaths, we are so in-tune with the feelings of others and so sensitive to the precious nature of each experience that we cannot allow anyone to feel left out or remain excluded. It’s our spiritual form of Kryptonite. In attempt to make everyone feel included, the unconscious characters who blame and complain on a regular basis, claiming they just want to be heard and have a chance to “speak their truth” inevitably pull empaths into their whirlwind of blame, complaints, judgments, assumptions, accusations, and finger-pointing.

All too often, an empath loses their ground and winds up becoming a foot soldier for the agenda of unconsciousness, taking someone’s side in an argument without proof or evidence, just so the one who suffers doesn’t feel alone.

The question remains, how do you support someone engulfed in negativity, without blindly validating a standpoint that at its fundamental core, cannot be rooted in truth whenever blame, accusations, or gossip are involved?

In the evolution of consciousness, we open our eyes to truth by surrendering the need to point our fingers in any direction. If not, you’re likely to create a community like any other interest group with the only difference being an affinity for spiritual subject matters. Throughout the course of our journey, we have come way too far in our growth and expansion to lose sight of where we are headed. We literally rest on the brink of life’s deepest discovery that either unites us together as greater embodiments of our highest divine wisdom, or we become spiritual versions of victimhood in action.
Holding space for someone’s plight requires patience and focus. For many beings, they either listen to an endless array of complaints, where they eventually validate someone’s opinion, as more innocent hearts get coerced into agreeing with assumptions and projections that are presented as fact, or they attempt to coach someone out of their darkness, which often leads to greater personal conflict. Despite its deepest plea, unconsciousness doesn’t want to be rescued from the dark -- it just wants to be right.

Every heart always deserves opportunities to grow and be heard, but when someone is releasing patterns of unconsciousness, while playing it out externally, they are not in a position for greater perspective. They merely need space away from engagement to be with themselves as the healing unfolds, while they reach out for anyone to grip and convince of their viewpoint.

Unconsciousness hates being in its own space. If it spent a few moments alone, it would begin to fall apart and integrate. This is the best case scenario on a soul level and public enemy number one for the unconsciousness that attempts to stay in-tact.

Even when a heart-centered being attempts to remind the one engulfed in their own unconsciousness of their tendency to blame, assume, accuse, gossip, and judge, it is often met with a response of victimhood or martyrdom, accusing the conscious one of not giving them the freedom to speak their mind. They’ll even overly dramatize it to the point of accusing the group to be cult-like, if negativity isn’t given a constant forum to spew its venom without looking at its behavior or the effect it has on others.

As soon as empaths hear someone is left out, the tendency is to match the other person’s unconsciousness and join their side as way of helping them to feel included, accepted, and whole.
Of course, not every spiritual community is cult-like. It’s often the best excuse negativity has when not the center of everyone’s attention. A cult is defined as a group that has forgone its individuality, in favor of giving their power to a self-professed leader. While many have survived these damaging environments that first appeared spiritual in nature, a modern day spiritual teacher simply leads by example.

A true teacher acts out the very wisdom they offer – in every situation and under any circumstance. This is what allows them to be a source of inspiration for so many beings. They offer pure insight, intuitive guidance, and heart-centered support, while giving you back the power of your individuality to think and act for yourself. While you are free to be whatever individual that you choose, your journey evolves as you decide how honorable of an individual you wish to be. This cannot occur by trying to prove anything to someone embroiled in negativity, or by losing sight of your journey in attempt to rescue another.

From the standpoint of negativity, it cannot feel accepted unless others listen, agree, and join their fight. Even then, acceptance isn’t felt at all. It’s just negativity slowing its own unraveling as it is fed with more validation.

When someone is on a negative downward spiral, they are willing to misread, misperceive, and twist things around to keep them feeling justified in their argument through the activity of blame. Whether played out by an individual or a community, negativity signifies a deeper healing taking place. As it occurs, the only direction for negative energy to travel is to end up in some form of disappointment.
Judgment is the evidence of healing in progress. Disappointment represents the unraveling of unconsciousness, where the one being purged often feels deflated, as their ego is stripped of its insatiable hunger for control or more things to seek. When this occurs, it’s easy for the one who blames, accuses, stirs the pot of controversy, and makes the most noise to feel disappointed in a group or individual who didn’t agree or join them in opposition. All too often, the unconsciousness that was so desperate for the approval of others, while working to suck them into their vortex of blame, now goes to the opposite side of polarity to withdraw and shutdown.

For an empath, it can seem like a no-win situation, where if you listen long enough to someone’s complaints, you’re likely to join their side, if not totally rooted in the autonomy of your own consciousness. If you don’t agree with them, they accuse you of judgment, hoping to lure you in with feedback of feeling left out. Even when attempting to show them their own patterns at play, they often feel unheard, unrecognized, and become the most wounded victim to pull at your empathic heartstrings. Of course, never once has their unconsciousness taken inventory of their behavior or given themselves enough space to see the chaos they are stirring up.

Unconsciousness doesn’t know how to be aware, self-reflective, or even listen. It simply justifies, accuses, and fights.

Whether you find yourself in community with friends, family, or even with those of spiritual like mind, here are a few simple ways to hold space without adding to a controversy that may only exist in the mind of someone who heals unconscious patterns while identifying with it.

Tip #1: Listening is an effective tool of holding space as long as you are choosing to listen. The moment you no longer desire listening to their negativity, it is not a judgment, but your intuition saying: “You’ve given the gift of listening, but now you are beginning to match their vibration. You are no longer helpful for their healing. Instead, they are beginning to have an adverse effect on your energetic field.”

What if you said: “Thank you for sharing your point of view. I honor your passion, but I cannot listen any longer. At this moment, I am no longer helpful for your healing and I must hold space for myself. I wish you the best of luck in your journey ahead.”

You might think: “If I said that, they would be disappointed.”

You are correct. That would most likely disappoint them, but you aren’t the one disappointing them at all. Disappointment is the next stage of healing that unfolds as patterns of judgment are unraveled, which occurs when the one seeking attention or validation for their blame is no longer fed by others.
It is inevitable that unconsciousness transitions from the compulsive and aggressive darkness of judgment into the obsessive and wounded terrain of disappointment. While everyone deserves more love not less, even if a group of angelic beings were to surround a negative person with healing light, it couldn’t prevent the disappointment that is paramount to the ego’s surrender.

Without fail or effort, you are bound to disappoint someone who is just looking for more things to pick apart. The key is making sure you are choosing to listen, while being present with listening, as an evolving skill for your journey, without being so invested in their healing that you forget to hold space for yourself. The appearance of other people exist in your field of reality to offer you the chance to practice being consciousness in action. One of the prime skills empaths are learning is how to be honest and heart-centered at the same time. Many empaths would believe that if someone felt unheard or left out, they must not have done their job as an ambassador of love.

In reality, a venomous character is here to help give an empath back their power. This occurs by offering you a chance to choose from a space of freedom and speak as openly and honestly as you would like to be addressed, while not allowing their unconscious stand point to pull you into chaos.
Negative people are bound to be disappointed. They are spiritual target practice for those who are learning to be as honest as they are loving, without the fear of someone’s disappointment or self-imposed exclusion pulling you away from seeing the opportunity they are offering you.

Only listen when you choose to listen. If you cannot be what someone needs from you, the moment you say no with honor and humility and walk away, the Universe creates a new character or situation to be for that person whatever they need most. Ultimately, they are the listener they are searching for, but until that realization dawns, you most likely won’t be the first or even the last person to not give them what they want. Your choice may not be what the character desires, but it will always be the perfect catalyst they need for their journey ahead.

Tip #2: Align with the truth of your own direct experience. Just because someone else cries foul play doesn’t mean it actually happened. If you are not having the same experience as others, investigate their claims for yourself. Other people may act as animated yelp reviews, but it is important to not just adopt someone else’s experience without having your own experience to go by. Dare to be your own investigative reporter by going directly to the source in question for information, instead of gathering ideas and beliefs from the perceptions of others. Sometimes, people act as whistle blowers for the unsavory or devious activities that others cannot see. Meanwhile, the majority of complaints are merely someone’s misperception of reality they insist to be fact as a way of justifying their tendency to fight, judge, gossip, or oppose.

Tip #3: Even though you can feel the insufferable experience of another, you cannot control their reality or do any of their inner work for them. In community, we are here to support, encourage, honor, and love as an externalized practice of saying to others the words we’ve waited our entire lives to hear. This does not require you to become an accomplice in someone’s agenda. A character can appear to be interested in spiritual growth, but where are they making time to become the highest version of their Soul’s potential when engulfed in negativity, judgment, accusation, gossip, and blame?

You cannot make anyone see what they refuse to see. All you can do is see the opportunity they are giving you, which is to only act from a space of choice and speak as honestly as you are loving, without blaming yourself for someone’s disappointment, feelings of abandonment, or experience of exclusion.

Tip#4: Do not obligate yourself to give advice to someone who is lost in negativity. Judgment and criticism lets you know on a soul level that they are currently unable to take in anything insightful. Instead of trying to be their rescuer, merely be a supporter, who responds to their negativity with an honest compliment for their innocence to receive. As people feel a greater sense of self-worth, negativity dissolves.

Even if you said: “I don’t have a solution for you and it ok that we see things differently. Thank you for letting me know how you feel. I send blessings your way and rest in knowing that you will come out of this better than ever before.”

In essence, the best advice that most negative people actually need is just a moment of positive encouragement. While everyone has the right to feel however they feel, you don’t have to validate their behavior as being rational, no matter how quickly they accuse you of judging them.

Tip #5: For heart-centered beings, other people’s criticism is not a reflection of anything you did wrong or something unresolved in you. This gets tricky because the people who are most negative have such an inflated and obscured view of themselves that they believe they are the heart-centered ones being persecuted by others who simply won’t join their fight.

Negative people know their potential as heart-centered beings, while refusing to demonstrate it publicly. Equally so, empaths can feel the Divinity in negative people, while misunderstanding their intuition as judgments. It’s not a judgment to acknowledge where someone is in their journey, no matter how much potential or Divinity you can feel within them.

The most honorable choice is relating and responding to who people are in their actions right now, instead of making excuses for their behavior, while blinded by the possibility of who they could become. The key is to always speak to others with the words, tone, and candor that you would like someone to offer you. As long as that occurs, you are acting from a space of personal integrity.
If you aren’t able to do so, then your inability to speak honestly, openly, and thoughtfully indicates that you held space too long, bypassing your ability to choose, and then responded from an unconscious space of matching their vibration.

Tip #6 – As soon as you are done listening, engaging, or indulging someone’s negativity, remove yourself from their presence and embrace your heart. Taking time to love your own heart not only offers distance healing on an energetic level to any degree of negativity, but it also cleanses your field of anything you helped them release. When negative people are ruthless, repetitive, and close-minded in public, we assist in their healing by embracing our own hearts in private.

Again, they are on their own unique journey, so they are not reflecting anything negative in you. They are reflecting an opportunity for you to strengthen the muscles of your most conscious conduct by being patient, thoughtful, honest, and caring, as long it feels like choice versus an obligation. The moment you do something out of obligation, nothing you do will have permanent or long-lasting effect in their journey. Especially since, obligation is an extension of conformity, which is a tenant of fear. In most cases, we obligate ourselves to do for others to avoid the fear of being rejected, ridiculed, or excluded. Instead of acting in avoidance of fear, choose to see it as an opportunity to love the one who is afraid to speak or stand in their highest truth.


On an energetic level, you may sense having endured punishment or even death for speaking or standing for your truth in past incarnations, but this lifetime proves that you have survived those chapters of persecution. You are here, in a paradigm of evolving consciousness, where it is safe to stand in your truth, as long as you are not relying on the unconscious of others to feed you with approval.

Through these insights and with practice engaging with souls at various levels of maturity, you can learn to hone your empathic abilities, and strengthen the power of your intuitive discernment, while discovering the courage to demonstrate your highest wisdom in action, no matter how misguided others around you seem to be. When judgment, criticism, condemnation, or gossip is active, there is no truth being spoken or considered. It is merely the activity of unconsciousness unraveling in those who act out the very patterns they blame in others.

Hold space if you wish, only listen for as long as you desire, while always remembering your willingness to love yourself more often as the greatest assistance you may offer to any healing heart. May we come together in community to practice the very teachings that unite us, instead of turning our sacred space into a toxic environment, despite our interest in something more meaningful, authentic, and fulfilling.

If you are interested in spiritual exploration, then you are open to acting out the wisdom that you receive to the best of your ability and eager to practice what you learn for the evolution of the whole without being too hard on yourself. In a modern day spiritual journey, we don’t blame, we simply deepen our practices of self-love, no matter the risk or consequence.

This is what it means to return to the light. As always, you must step into the light, in order for others to find their way home. You are not abandoning complainers or closing your heart in any way. While it may seem as if you are turning away from someone in need, you are simply facing the direction of your highest destiny and leading the way for the wellbeing of all.

Matt Kahn
www.TrueDivineNature.com

The insanely simple idea of having your needs met

THE BIG REALISATION 

I finally began private psychotherapy three months ago. This was the result of my having exhausted the creativity of the local NHS mental health services, who had sent me for three different types of therapy over the previous two years.

The sessions have only recently started to positively impact my life and my making actual progress. The first few sessions were more about my venting about everything that was going on in my life that seemed chaotic and uncontrollable. In addition, I have a tendency to only have very few friends at any one time, so I needed the regularity of a weekly meeting with someone.

Slowly, with the help of reflecting back to me what I say and putting it in an overview position, I finally feel I have gotten somewhere. In the last two sessions, my therapist made me realise I was giving control away to him rather than owning my session and my time for healing. I began noticing all the thoughts that told me I needed to be the “perfect” client, a somewhat glamourised version of myself fit for one of those self deprecating, flippant films film makers make about psychotherapy.

I was playing a role. There was a part of me that had taken on the role of an intellectual discussing ideas and theories of personality in the room, that somehow I made myself not even good enough to receive proper counselling, whereby my true emotional needs (irrespective of how childish or outrageous) were explored and my deep need to be seen and heard was met fully.

Three sessions ago, I came into the session with four bags. One handbag, one fabric bag bought in Turkey last year, one carrier bag with food in it and a fourth with my laptop. I always carry at least one bag with me, and this time my therapist raised an eyebrow. For the first fifteen minutes of the session, he began to explore the meaning of carrying so many bags around with me.

It embarrassed me to have to explore all of this in minute detail. In all honesty, I had made peace with being the eccentric bag lady a long time ago. And, more importantly, I had had one of the most shocking interactions with my mother in quite a while and needed clarity and a safe space to vent.

Bags? What have bags got to do with real life? Bags carry items, they are self explanatory.

I let him continue with the analysis, until there came a point where the discussion ended. I then mentioned my mother and what had occurred. And we switched tracks and I was able to explore my deep hurt and anger. The session finished shortly after.

I mentioned this to him the following week, about how it didn’t even occur to me to interrupt and change the topic. I had really wanted to talk about what was important to me, yet I felt he had led the session elsewhere. He asked me how it made me feel. I said I just assumed he knew what he was doing and that there was some reason behind it.

My therapist became very flustered. I wouldn’t credit myself with a high sense of empathy these days, but I could see he was taken aback and even a bit remorseful. I know that feeling all too well. I briefly imagined a huge thought bubble above his head with the words, “I’ve screwed up!” written inside it. He then said, “Well, from what you’re saying, your needs weren’t met. You sensed somehow you were deficient, which allowed your needs to not be met.”

Now, me being fortunate enough to have spare time to explore various knowledge and pathways, I have come across the psychological theories about human needs. Abraham Maslow and the hierarchy of needs pyramid is most famous. Sadly, because I have relied a lot more upon my mental faculties and somehow distanced my real life from anything remotely human or social, it never occurs to me to realise I have a right to have my needs met.

This realisation hit me in such a way, it took my breath away. Literally, I couldn’t breathe for a few seconds.

In my most recent therapy session, I went prepared to explore this further.

He reiterated himself, “You didn’t have your needs met. I am sure you were able to cope afterwards by talking to a friend and by writing in your journal – yet the fact remains your needs weren’t met in the actual session.”

And then I confessed: “Yes, I have become so used to my needs not being met when I had begged and fought for them that I now just assume that’s all I deserve, in a very fatalistic sort of way. In all honesty, it hasn’t even occurred to me THAT my needs are valid or that they ought to be met. I still haven’t taken actions to ask people or organisations for the support I need. I’m expecting a rejection every time.”

Yet, that is not the case with others. My fellow colleagues, my current or former friends, certain gurus I’ve had contact with, regular people I observe in customer queues, on television or randomly on social media. They know what their needs are, feel very sure about having those needs met and endure they make it happen.

So what happens when you have to re-educate yourself about a theory that was not very well embedded in the first instant?

Exploring this simple idea about various human needs, whether they are met or not and I had the stark realisation that when these needs are not met, they can be the root cause of most of our deep rooted issues.

Here are a few cursory questions I came up with to start us off:

1) What does it mean to have our needs met?

2) What are the different arenas of need?

3) What can we do to take care of ourselves (just as a lioness would her cubs) to ensure that we’ve done everything possible as a person to take care of our own needs?

This last question is, of course, after taking into account that the world is not set up in a way to ensure any one person has all their needs met. We will be regularly disappointed and even screwed over a few times. Yet, the idea is that we need to cultivate a base-line acknowledgement that we all have various needs that ideally can be met. 

We all are sentient beings having real needs.

1) WHAT ARE YOUR NEEDS?

The first step is to put down in clear large writing all of your needs as a human and spiritual being.

I made a mind map of all my needs, so I could have a holistic view (and it was meeting my needs for creativity and order).

The categories are many:

physical, sexual, health, mental, exercise,
learning, monetary, career, volunteering,
friendship, romance, travel, living space,
nature, leisure, social networking, inner peace,
fun, family, environment, communication,
real intelligent and healing conversations,
support, spiritual, healing, interests,
creativity, me-time, writing and publishing,
recognition, kindness and friendliness,
respect, graceful living, safety, anonymity, 
lots of physical space, authentic self expression,
silliness, solitude

As you can imagine, this is hardly an exhaustive list. Your list will also have similar and also more detailed needs.

Putting all of your needs in graphic form really hits home and makes it easier to see the connections. You really acknowledge how many needs you have and how many you know aren't being met.

I then asked myself what had happened for me to make a few crippling decisions that are currently running the way my life is being played out. How could I not realise what my needs were and even when I was acutely aware of what my needs were, why did I somehow feel that I didn’t deserve to have them met?

The reasons for my way of thinking have been primarily due to the way I have been brought up and the beliefs I made about myself and life as a result of my experiences. I feel a lot of my needs as a child were neglected, either out of choice or due to emotional upheaval in the family due to deaths and mishaps.

My family have a unique take on life, not shared by most people I know from the same faith and culture. It is a fatalistic point of view, seeded in their traditional views about Islamic religion, the Quran and the associated legal laws created.

In addition to this, because they haven’t yet figured out the divine laws of manifestation, intention and grace (amongst the others), they seem to continually deal with drama in their daily lives. Things breaking down, traders behaving rudely with them and, most recently, my mother got mugged outside the house and the monies allocated for the charity school she runs were taken along with her own money.

With every event, and most days it seemed we were in a film whereby there was always drama and despair up until I left Pakistan, the underlying assumption was “we are bad, we are cursed, that’s life, give more money to charity and to widows, get rid of all of our cursed jewellery, you don’t deserve a happy life, this is what we’re good for, you don’t understand our life, how can you expect anything other than what we know, everyone has problems...” ad infinitum.

As an example, there was a point in my life when would have to put up with badly stitched clothes because the seamstress was poor and needed to earn money, even though I looked very shabby and could afford better stitching.

I attempted suicide at age 10 when I was studying at primary school in Karachi. I was only stopped by a teacher at the very last moment. Normally, once informed, any concerned parent would ensure I had some psychotherapy or  counselling to help me cope with the despair that urged me to want to jump out of a window.

However, the head teacher of the school at the time effectively told my mother that I was young and impulsive, "kids do these things" and that I didn't need counselling. What is interesting to note is, my mother agreed and this was never spoken of again. The event and the circumstances that led to it were ignored and all I felt was embarrassment and shame.

What really stands out with this memory is that there was one extended family member who taught in the same school that I studied. She couldn't ignore it as she was more interested in how my actions would impact her reputation as a teacher in the school. With the best of intentions, I am sure, she made sure she vocalised her disappointment and even her condemnation that I was so melodramatic and attention seeking, that I didn't think of how my actions would affect her and the rest of the family.

"Make sure you don't pull a stunt like this ever again."

In addition, I saw that my needs for a social life between ages 11 - 15 were curtailed because my mother was going through an intensely volatile period in her life due to a second marriage and divorce. Because she was unable to face meeting people, she also wished to "protect" or "hide" me in the house, so I had to decline birthday party invites, tea invites, hang-out invites, even weddings, and stay almost entirely away from all classmates except when at school.

The invitations soon trickled out, I was forgotten and didn't have any friends to go back to after my mother lifted my "social ban" at age 16. By then, I had learned so well the art of not asking or not expecting my social needs to be met, that the roles reversed. My mother would encourage me to go to a school event, or to a friends house and I was the one who felt dull inside and refused.The dysthymia had set in very deeply by then.

My schooling, although of a very excellent standard as I was able to go to private school, again had a lot of lacks and us students had to make do with appalling, cramped classroom conditions without adequate windows, three or four maths teachers in three years and regular strikes that affected our schooling progress.

Also, in my case, I have such empathy with people, that when growing up in a developing country whereby the children and grown men are begging on the streets with various body parts missing and dirty clothing, I perhaps felt an intense guilt for my good fortune. I couldn't (and still can not) accept the drastic inequality prevalent in almost every country, but very visible in a place like Karachi.

I took all this inside me to such a degree that everything beyond that has been coloured with this belief of minimising my needs and not even expecting those minimum needs to be met.

The extent of the impact of these limiting beliefs have been that up until a few months ago, I was entirely impressed by a person who claimed to be a spiritual teacher, awakening us all to the truth of who we were. Yet, under all the hyperbole and "I love yous", she had clearly begun to enjoy the glory of having devoted followers, charging and being paid a lot of money for services (that other healers would have a reasonable charge for) in order to travel business class “because we can”. She also began aggressively marketing spirituality and graceful living as a commodity and had very recently begun to behave rudely to people on-stage in public.

In essence, she had begun creating a cult and my entire system was rejecting it, to the point of falling physically ill and paranoid. Yet, due to my faulty reasoning system, I still held on because I had known her for so long as a friend. And, at the time, I was quite vulnerable and felt I had no other options on the pathway to salvation.

There were many signs that this was not the right environment for me to flourish, yet I continued and I trusted that, again, she knew something I didn’t and that if I was feeling uncomfortable, physically ill and drained, it was more my deficiency and lack of spiritual insight than it was her modus operandi.

It had to take the accounts of eleven other individuals about this person for me to finally realise that I was excusing behaviour that would never be tolerated had it been someone I didn't love so much.

I feel I had to experience this great betrayal of trust to slowly come to the point of understanding my needs.

Yet, this again, was highlighted to me in the last week.

And so, after my counsellor's guidance as to what one of my major blind spots has been, I have taken a decision to truly take . As much as I would like, I don’t get my six years back, the last thirty-two years back whereby I allowed people to walk over me, or to speak to me in a tone that I felt was disrespectful, and to make me feel that somehow not getting my needs met was a good thing.

I just can’t. I can’t delete the pain. I can't undo the mistakes, the fear and the hesitation.

But I can do something now and my hope is that as a result of this blog post, you're inspired to think about how the experience of your life can be improved by taking stock of your needs and whether they are being met.

2) HAVING YOUR NEEDS MET

Seeing if your needs are being met is a simple exercise, in theory at least.

Once you have defined and identified all of your needs as a human being, you then go through the list or diagramme and ask yourself the following:

“Are my health needs being met?"
"Are my monetary needs being met?"
"Are my basic food and water needs being met?"
"Are my self expression needs being met?" and so on.

Your answer will usually be a simple yes or no. If yes, then you go further into details such as

- somewhat
- mostly
- rarely

And if there are areas in which they aren't being met, you note down the missing pieces as to how could they be met.

Continue with this exercise until all the areas of your life have been answered.

It is key at this time to be very kind to yourself during this exercise. I will make the bold claim that because you are living on this chaotic planet, when there are seven billion individuals with their unique agendas, although you may have really done well in ensuring your life works well, there may be one or two areas that you will find that your needs are not being met. This is the gift of being human.

We can go back to the idea of neutrality and of acceptance that we will not have all of our needs met immediately. It may take some changes or some actions steps.

If we had immediate gratification for all of our needs, I doubt our personalities, characters and souls would grow into more and expand into more wisdom and patience. In fact, it is a well known Irish curse when someone says: May you get exactly what you wish!

And so, when answering these questions, go in with the curiosity and indifference a social scientist is expected to go into any research.

You are your test subject. It is a social experiment.

3) ACCEPTANCE OF THAT WHICH IS OUT OF YOUR CONTROL

The next thing to accept is that some of these needs cannot be met now. On a very real, literal and physical level, they just cannot be met. Ideally, they will be met as soon as it's possible and the Universe brings you in tune with the results, but as of now they aren't being met. By accepting this, you have the blissful opportunity of going deep into a peaceful acceptance and not come up with decisions such as

a) that you shouldn’t have these needs at all and
b) that somehow you’re being unreasonable for feeling frustrated, dejected, stressed, irritated or upset that they aren’t being met

I'll share a very personal example with you to illustrate what I mean.

One of my core needs as a woman are my sexual and romantic needs. Now for me to admit this, to accept it and to write it publicly with my real name signed underneath is something I find very surprising that I am able to do so as a result of my traditional, conservative Muslim upbringing. For me, it is a risk that I am now willing to take.


However, what has been far more damaging to my psyche than the fear of my mother or aunt reading this post is the fact that I have denied this real acceptance to myself for a long time. I accepted it a while ago when I had fallen in love with someone and had all the urges. The relationship didn't work out, and any subsequent attempts with other men have also not worked out, to the point I have always been rejected or been forbidden to express my needs due to the situation I found myself in, the role of the "other woman" as such.

And then, I used to wonder why I felt unattractive, unlovable and depressed, why I felt irritable at family weddings and couldn’t keep any previous romantic interest out of mind for too long, hanging onto them for such long periods of time that it became insulting to my soul’s innate free nature and annoyed them to the point they had to become pointedly rude in order to get rid of me!

I have signed onto online dating/marriage websites specifically for Muslims, and after six years of doing this off and on and creating a whole lot of drama as well, I’ve decided this is really and truly not the route for me. I have accepted this. I will comment more about my experiences online in a separate article.

I have also accepted that because I am a unique sort of a Muslim woman, the sort who is also a shaman, who believes in star-seeds and alternate realities and in substance over form, and who is not meant to be birthing and raising children, I may have to wait a while until the time is right and I find a compatible person to have my first relationship with.

Yet, physically, and for the healthy balance of my mental health and emotional well-being, I need regular sex, kisses, cuddles and canoodling, just like most adults human beings do. 

I will be the first to acknowledge just how grateful I am that I have been safe from forced assault, rape or abuse and that I have also resisted temptation to sleep with a random handsome Turkish/Cypriot/Greek stranger I met on holiday just because he was able to quote Shams Tabrizi and had gleaming eyes and white glinting teeth!

Meeting my sexual needs through casually finding someone off the street (I don't do pubs or clubs) or any of those 21 or 25 year old desi boys looking for casual sex on a dating app will entirely ensure that my soul and emotional needs are not met. Any casual dating would, in fact, jeopardise a lot of my other core needs (and values). I couldn't survive a rushed, loveless liaison such as that.

So, in this case, having gone through all the stages of grief and frustration, my really liberating option is to accept the circumstances just as they currently are.

There are other areas whereby your needs may not be met in the immediate future. This could include your financial security after the EU referendum result, your needs for solitude when living in a busy urban city, or your need for a holiday when the earliest available days to book off from work are three months from now.

In these cases, you train yourself to become innovative with whichever needs you can meet by yourself as best as you can. This might mean a shorter holiday, locally. You then have the option to move onto those aspects of your list whereby the needs are much easier to meet.

4) HOW TO MEET YOUR NEEDS

The next step is to discover discover how you will meet your needs.

For example, when looking at your need for fun and leisure, you can become very expansive in what you define as fun and see how those fun needs can be met.

For me, it’s fun to go to the park and say hello to the ducks. It’s also fun for me to listen to music, write rants on my blog, read, dance, speak to friends on the phone, drinking a well made cup of earl grey tea, learn about spiritual ideas, attend courses, and even go out for a hot chocolate every once in a while.

Most of these above fun needs are easily met and the how is quite accessible too.

I find that having a simple list of how to meet the needs allows for them to be met regularly, and the list can include more complex things such as a holiday or a retirement plan all sorted out. You will be able to meet those needs too, but they require more planning and serendipity.

Ideally, you would make a separate list on a clean page detailing how you would ideally have all of your needs met.

5) WHO GETS TO MEET YOUR NEEDS?

This one is more of a personal inventory of your life. For the most part, most of your needs are effectively met by yourself. You are the centre and the key to your own happiness.

Even when at times you may feel someone else, such as a parent, romantic partner, employer, client, government body, electricity company, plumber, masseuse, alternate practitioner, social media or other person is fulfilling your need – it is you who is ensuring that you make your needs understood and take the steps to ensure they are met.

Now, look at your lists and see the needs that can be met and ask yourself how many are you able to make happen for yourself.

For the ones that others will have to fill a need, you can ask: are they meeting my needs?

In certain areas, there will be a yes, such as in the case of your doctor, for example. If the answer is a no, you may consider taking steps to either ensure the doctor or GP surgery is made aware how to meet your needs, or you might have to change your GP practice to see if the new place can meet your needs.

In my personal experiment, when I asked about people who were my friends perhaps a year ago, six months ago, three months ago and even a month ago, and asked: are they fulfilling my needs for friendship? – most of the time, the answer from my heart was a blunt “No”.

I then did all of those souls justice and asked the opposite: am I meeting their needs? The answer was again a very, very blunt “No!”.

I asked the question with respect to ex friends, certain cousins and other relatives, people I had been in love with - including someone I have been unable to let go of for six long arduous years. “Am I filling any needs of theirs by communicating with them, attempting reconciliation and remaining in touch?”

Again, the answer from my heart was a No.

It can be a demanding exercise. It feels as though you strip yourself of a lot of defenses, excuses and justifications. You suddenly really simplify your life. It can’t happen when your emotions are still deeply intertwined with the people or situations in question. People may tell you, and your logical mind may also tell you time and again, however this is when the emotional attachments can confused and complicate matters.

That’s when no logic in the world can extricate you form the attachment you have formed, from the expectations, from the inordinate desires and hopes that somehow things will change.

If my needs aren’t being met, and neither are theirs, the relationship has entered a new phase and I can retrieve my energy and essence from them, send back their energy and soul fragments and let them go with love, praying that their needs are met by other people who are the perfect complement to them.

As you will begin to notice, even when it comes to the relationship needs, which are mostly reliant on another human or animal, you are always the centre-piece – you are always the one ensuring your needs are being met as much as possible.

6) FLEXIBILITY

Since the unfolding of this deep exploration into my needs, I feel very liberated. My life is pretty much the same, and I am aware of a lot of issues that may not be able to be resolved just by this exercise, but this shift in my perspective is guiding me to make changes that are making me feel more validated in my own life.

I am also becoming less apologetic, as in literally deleting text messages and email sentences which begin with "I’m sorry..." I walk confidently upon the street, and don't somehow fade into the background like I used to.

It feels my entire auric field is adjusting to the new shift: I have needs, and they are all valid. I am able to have these needs met, with divine and human help. I now own the needs. I no longer apologise for needing space to walk on the pavement, nor apologise for my need to move to a different city as soon as I am financially able to.

If I take today as an example, I had a list of needs that needed to be met.

Relaxation and exercise needs: yoga

Cleanliness needs: house cleaning and ironing

Income and money needs: paid job (look for one decent job to apply to)

Mental health needs: meditation, Emotional Freedom Technique, homeopathy remedies, prayer, walk in the park, cut out all news and social media today, avoid reading non essential emails

Fun needs: walk in the park, listening to music

Creativity and recognition needs: finish my blog post on “needs”

Nutritional needs: good home cooked food

I was half way through my yoga practice when my mobile phone rang. It was my nine year old niece, asking for me to meet her for a coffee as she was bored at her nanny’s house.

I changed my plans to fit her needs in, even though I really didn't want to. So I ended up observing my own habit of putting someone else's needs before mine, and justifying it.

In the end, it didn’t work out. She needed me to travel to her nanny’s house to pick her up since her uncle was unable to drop her and her mother also was delayed. As much as I wanted to become even more flexible and drop all my needs to meet hers, I firmly reminded myself that my own need was to come home as soon as possible to find a job to apply to.

What changed was that I kept asking myself, are my needs being met?

The answer was firstly yes for the first hour, as I was waiting beside the babbling river in the beautifully manicured park for her phone call to let me know when she was being dropped. As the day continued and my wait became two and a half hours, the answer then became a no.

I went back home and spoke to her on the phone, letting her know that we would have to postpone and I was sorry that she was disappointed.

So, instead of beating myself up, I met more of my needs as I came home to make up for the loss of a few hours.

And we let it go.... like a wisp of ancient air that was held in the chest for beyond the accepted times of attachment.

I believe when an opportunity is meant for you, and you’ve cleared the undeserving beliefs that stop you from experiencing them, they all come smoothly just like bees to a lilac bush.
 

***

We as human beings must allow for a great amount of flexibility inside our brains and energy fields in order to understand that whilst all our needs may not be met, most will be met and we can go around meeting them with enthusiasm, humility and hope.

For those of us beginning this new exciting way of being, we may witness ourselves fall back into fulfilling another’s needs when our own haven’t been met. In certain circles, these patterns are called martyrdom and victimhood patterns.

We also may find we are unable to fulfill another person’s needs, or somehow violate their need for privacy, to be heard, to be needed, to be served, to have emails or texts responded to appropriately, understanding, compassion, to have silence or to be entirely separated from your presence.

We must hold space in our loving hearts for that as well. Their lesson is to accept that you are still learning to be a free, liberated soul and that some of THEIR needs won’t always be met, yet they have the power to ensure they are moreso met by acknowledging what their needs are, and then taking action accordingly.

As the spiritual teachings state, being aware of who you are and what you do, as well as why you do what you do is very helpful. You can stand as a witness of the behaviours and set an intention to change them in a way that serves you and others. After that, the psychological and spiritual work has a more focus and a higher likelihood of bringing about what you truly desire.


INSANE SIMPLICITY

By accepting and being aware of the insanely simple idea of having your needs met, you set in motion a greater global movement than you would be able to imagine at first. How is this so?

You have. firstly, embraced the audacity of wanting your needs being met, and being very determined in allowing that to happen through the Universe and through your powerful intention. That conviction emanates from your field and, as you allow all your needs to be met in a divine way,  others who may also be new to this radical change in perception, may begin to appreciate the simplicity and the core essence of that way of being.

It is your way of BEING that shifts the rest of us, not your way of SAYING or INSTRUCTING. I have always been inspired and admired people who oozed confidence, success, kindness, vitality, integrity and humility rather than being lectured by a well-meaning person about how my life sucks and how I must do x, y and z in order to get what I want. usually, the people who have time to instruct or to point out how great their lives are, or how your life could be improved, have some more inner work to do to understand BEINGNESS that will happen when they are ready for it.

WHERE IS THE DIVINE IN ALL OF THIS?

On a final note, I wanted to add that currently I have a belief that we can only realistically turn to God for all our needs to be met. We are the Ones through whom God will help us, because we truly are that powerful as creatures of God (the Universe, All That IS...)

Every person is also a soul and vessel, the agent of God for their own and perhaps some of your needs to be met. I realised that quickly when I tried to heal myself of chest infections and sinus infections this year. You sometimes have to go to someone trained in holistic medicine for guidance. I ended up going to a homeopath after two years of not having much effect and antibiotics not working (which I knew they wouldn't anyway!).

But please, do not make people, experiences or events your Sources. It can be easy, from one perspective, to feel that because they seem to fulfill very deep core needs, that they are the ones with the power to give and withdraw. What will inevitably happen is that, as life goes, they will leave your orbit in some way, and then you may fall into confusion and grief.

I am witnessing many partnerships and marriages stopping after 11 years, even 16 years of partnership and usually with children and pets and mortgages involved. Everything and everyone will leave. Coutnries are literally breaking into fragments, including jolly olde United Kingdom.

Nothing remains forever, even though we wish it were so.

They will, as per the law of nature, be replaced by others at some point, but remember that your needs are always deserving of being met. The fact they haven’t been met in the past has no bearing on your deserving and inherent worth.

If you have had a similar journey as me and are just realising that you have a right to have needs and have them being met, then it is just that you were not AWARE of just how worthy you are to have the same needs as others; to have them fulfilled with the same exuberance that others who have known since childhood that this is what works and have made sure this was done ever since.

In my own life experience, I have made many mistakes. I have repeated mistakes five or six times, just to make sure. And I would therefore suggest that you become very discerning when you choose the people you receive support from, insist on transparency and integrity, as well as kindness and compassion. There are ways to ensure that there is a two-way flow of energy flowing.

It is also quite common that people serve your needs for a day, a week or few, and then no longer do.
I am becoming more aware of expiration dates, without meaning to sound too rational about things! So I have found taking things on a day to day basis, waking up with a blank slate can be very useful for the emotional body.

If this post has opened up a new way of being for you, or you wish to connect and add to even deeper exploration, please do comment below! I am really open to learning more about this revolutionary (for me, at least) way of being.

- Sukaina Juma

10/07/2016