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By Raphael Awen
Every relationship that we enter, that we chose to remain inside of or that we choose to leave, has powerful effects on our souls healing journey.
Yesterday, I met with my sister, Brenda, after not having almost any contact for the past ten years. It was meaningful for a part of me to receive a mini update on my mother, two other siblings, my former wife, two daughters, nieces and nephews and even my own grandchildren whom I haven’t met, as well as more distant family.
In 2009, I chose to largely break off contact with family. I always felt and still do feel that what I was saying no to, was to meet inside of family gatherings where my own changing views of life, and particularly my leaving of Christianity were not welcome as part of the conversation. I also couldn’t expect any of them to be okay with any kind of demand on my part for them to be curious and genuinely interested. What moved for me recently was a desire to be accountable for any hurt I caused in my abrupt departure from family.
I came away from our coffee shop reunion feeling quite a bit of mixed emotions. I had an expanded sense of how all of us in this human experience gravitate to or away from relationships has so much to do with a deep wound we carry inside, mostly subconsciously of our feelings of having lost connection with the Divine, how we were birthed out of a bliss oneness place into individuated consciousness that leaves us with a deep residual separation inside and outside that we are left to integrate. This feels to me like the true hero’s journey, coming back into remembrance of our true essence, that we never actually left or lost any of our divine essence, but rather were given the perception of loss, as a deep wound, that when and as we heal from that wound, we grow into even more than we were in our original state of bliss and oneness.
On a more human level, I felt how ten years had gone by with my family, and how it was hard to see from my perspective where much in terms of growth had changed emotionally or spiritually. I know that’s a judgment on my part, but one I can’t deny. While in connection with family, I was constantly tugging on them to see beyond what I felt were limitations on growth. Even while inside of Christianity, I was constantly jumping camps and switching loyalties all in an effort to break out of something and to break into something more that my soul knew was there. I grew tired of that tugging and so did they, understandably. I get how each of us has a different clock speed setting for our growth, but yet, I believe that this too is something we can consciously shift if we desire to. We awaken to how much parts of us are allowing or disallowing in terms of our growth. We are not victims of fate, or of the Divine, but rather, parts of use the perceptions of victimhood, to govern the pace of our growth.
It was difficult to chose to leave the family circle, to face some of their angsts, to engage or not to engage in communication. I knew I needed and deeply wanted community in my life and I still know that. Community, at heart, I’ve been learning has to do with our kindness, acknowledging that despite our very real differences, that we are still of the same kind. Both are true. We are one, yet we are individual. We have resonance and we have dissonance in relationships. We came here to have that juice.
I am left with a deeper digestion that the relationships we keep and how we keep them is something profoundly sacred for each individual. Some relationships are given to us for the growth we will encounter in leaving them. Ultimately, every relationship we enter, we will leave on this earthly plane. Knowing and feeling that, we are invited to be present in the present with the present of what we have now – to hold it with reverence for the Divine in all of us. This is why we have funerals, a place to return to feeling for the reverence of all of life. We enter the feeling of death to more fully enter the feeling of life.
Deep profound deaths and rebirths are something that we can enter here in the course of our lives, without needing to wait for us to leave the body. I recently went through the most heart rending completion of my relationship with Jelelle, where we ‘broke up’ and have since magically found our way back to the deepest of reopenings, where the magnitude of the pain of loss only compares to the magnitude of joy on the other side. Losing my relationship with Jelelle also seemed inextricably intertwined with the losing of my beloved SoulFullHeart community that has been my family for the past ten years. It felt like history repeating itself all over again. I could also feel Metasoul aspects of mine who know the pattern of excommunication and we’re still stuck in their suffering loops and reactions around those dramas. Feeling these Metasoul aspects and helping them shift felt like it gave me a big gift in this dimension to go to my next places of growth.
I feel how we are all being invited, when we find our heart breaking, to let it break open, to parts of ourselves, to the Divine, and to one another – not with duty and obligation to old caretaking ways of being, but with love, transparency and our deepest desires leading the way.
This is the journey we signed up for; gain and loss; joy and sorrow, even the inevitable of hurting others and being hurt.
We return to our divinity as we return to our humanity only to find there is no difference.
I also see how we, at a deep soul level, don’t actually leave any relationship even if we break off contact or interaction. Our souls are so much bigger than what is or isn’t currently happening on the earth plane, conducting business for our growth regardless of how much of it we can see or feel, or from what paradigm we are consciously coming from.
Much love to each of you in the one family that we all are!
Raphael Awen
Soulfullheartwayoflife.Com/bridging-session
I am so delighted to be very recently returned, retooled and recertified back to SoulFullHeart facilitation for any individual who’d like to explore their next pieces and place of growth through the SoulFullHeart paradigm of life and love with myself in session space together. Check out the link above for more info.
Raphael Awen is co-creator, teacher, and facilitator of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Visit soulfullheartwayoflife.com for more information about sessions, events, videos, etc. Visit our donations page to offer a monthly or one time money donation to support our offerings.
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