Abandon Yourself to Win Your Freedom
[Part 1/2] Your selfish loved ones are afraid to let you grow
I am not used to opening up, being vulnerable, or asking for help, so this is difficult for me. I’m a Libra, an INTP personality, a loner, and an introvert good at passing as an extrovert. I also cry at witnessing majesty.
What I’m about to cover is something that my family and I have already been through. If they see this, I want them to know there’s a reason why I am going through old wounds. Up front, none of my loved ones ever held me back.
I need to understand why I came to Earth, what circumstances I arranged in my life plan to get me on the right path, and how to move forward from here. I need to know what my next step is.
The spiritual you step in after you leave the earthly you.
Causation
My friends, my family, and my own fears of losing them held me back in my spiritual and personal growth.
For the majority of my late teens to early 20s, I was afraid of showing my real self. I had a reputation for playing the class clown or village idiot. I pretended to be less intelligent because I felt that I would get more laughs and attention. I viewed that as an improvement on my overall serious personality. I let the people-pleasing Libra side of me win.
My friends and I were rather frequent churchgoers. On Wednesday nights, we went to youth services. At first, it was a place to hang out, but the big questions of life pressed me to search in earnest. We went to Sunday services morning and night. We also went to yearly summer camps at Falls Creek, Oklahoma.
These camp trips were where I played it up the most. Even though getting attention motivated me, I didn’t actually want it. I never dreamt I would experience being around people in a village-like community. I liked it, but it was electrifying and sad at the same time. I thought that I couldn’t be myself.
The depression I felt at that time began from feelings of abandonment I had. My parents announced their divorce when I was probably 12 years old. I didn’t understand divorce or how the world worked. Why did someone suddenly thrust existential turmoil upon a joyous child? At that young age, I didn’t know what to do.
So I called 911, got scared, and hung up.
I knew it was wrong to call emergency services, which is why I hung up. I was searching for an authority figure to step in and stop the pain. The police dispatch called us back, and my mom asked me if I called 911. I thought I would be in trouble, so I lied to her.
The police came to my house and started asking questions of my parents. I’m sure that caused some embarrassment for them, but I hope nothing punitive from the city came of that.
The End is Near
The sense of abandonment compounded after my dad lessened contact with us. He moved to a city 4 hours away from us and relented with his phone calls, birthday cards, and visits. He had a new wife with two kids of her own. He was someone else’s stepdad.
My mom got remarried to a person who was an alcoholic and a borderline physical abuser. Long story short, both of my parents divorced my “stepparents” and remarried each other. All’s well that ends well. I forgave my dad, but I haven’t forgotten.
I grew up with a depression that resulted from three abandonments.
My dad abandoned me, though he came back. My spiritual world and gifts abandoned me. By “spiritual world,” I mean what I was before I was human. Worst of all, I abandoned myself.
Reading back what I wrote above seems to be an obvious diagnosis of my life after 45 years of living it. It’s the “you can’t see the forest for the trees” adage. You can’t see beyond the experimenters when you are the experiment.
One day, I realized being sad all the time was exhausting.
I had had enough wallowing in self-pity, sitting in the dark, listening to depressive music, and crying. At the time, I didn’t know why I was so sad. I told myself, “That’s enough.” I chose to stop feeling morose, and I became the real me.
In the face of my real self, I started losing my friends after high school, including my best friend. They didn’t want me to change, but I knew I had to move on. It wasn’t the same anymore. I wasn’t the same. Because of the strength my mom had shown us, I started to realize I could only depend on her and myself.
A New Border 12.6K KM (6.8K mi.) Away
But then, I have abandoned my family and everything I had ever known in my pursuit of happiness and my life purpose. I moved to another country on the other side of the Earth because I never felt at home in my country. My family, though they meant well, didn’t want me to leave because they were selfish. They love me and want me near. I love them too, and I am connected with them. The fact is, the gravity of my life purpose drags me across the ocean.
When I stepped foot on new ground, there was a shift in my energy.
My heart told me this is the place I should be. I am almost alone here. There’s only one other person I contact daily. I isolated myself from the world like a hermit on a mountain. Despite reaching out for some kind of friend, it remains this way.
I wanted to heal, understand myself, and understand life and death. As a habit, I see myself in other people. I try to find what joins in similarity rather than what drives us apart through difference.
I have no regrets. I am spiritually sound and silently confident, even if I spend more time daydreaming than working. I am as comfortable standing amid a sea of strangers as I am with no one around me, though I know it’s impossible to be alone. I am in contact with my inner child, and I know what will happen after I die. In humility, I am prepared, and I am at peace.
I only hope my family can understand. I choose the set of consequences I am willing to accept.
May It Be
The moral of my story is that it was only after I abandoned the fake me that I found the real me. When I say abandon, I don’t mean walk away and ignore it.
You have to accept what is true, learn from mistakes, forgive yourself, let go of resentments, let go of expectations, and remember your lessons.
This is the medicine for every pain in life. I found this to be the most profound lesson I have learned, even as I sit here less than a week from my 45th birthday.
The One-Finned Fish Parable
I wrote a parable that summarizes my lesson, which you can read here.
The One-Finned Fish story illustrates how selfish people in your life can hold you back. I hope that exposing my story here for you has done something to motivate your own power.
I cosplay Darth Vader, and I am a fan of the original Star Wars trilogy. I will close up here with one of Yoda’s best lines:
“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”
Do this, and you will be confident and free, even if you prefer to keep those things near. The Force is with you, always.
© Brandon Kelly
