Take Back Your Life!

Posted on by Blossom Benedict

“Take back your life!”

It’s easy to see a phrase like that and feel like you are meant to do something. That you must be gallant. That by someone else’s rallying cry (or program or bestselling how to) you should leave that marriage, set better boundaries, make that big leap.

But here’s the thing. You will or you wont. You will. When the time is right for you. Or you won’t. And that will be perfect.

Perhaps you don’t have to worry so much.

Life is happening. It is pushing us and showing us things. Life may bring you success in one chapter, only to knock you down and show you that was never what you thought it was in the next. Well, isn’t that wild?!

I worried for years about how to leave Access. But then life made it happen. I can look back and judge that I should have left sooner. But I couldn’t. I was not the person who could leave. Life had not given me the ingredients, in this case, the pain threshold, I needed to do that. I needed to watch myself being the person who did not speak her truth. I needed to feel how it felt in my body to be resentful and angry and frustrated and sneaky, even in the midst of a swirly, magical looking life. I needed to watch what occurs in this form when my thoughts veer towards money and attention and proving that I am of value in this world.

Why? There is no why. It is my life, that is why. My life. I am simply a creature, a unique combination of who I came into the world as, mixed with my very singular experience of being on the planet (my mentors, my trauma, my culture, the beliefs and values of the people around me in the place I was born), for whom that was the only possible path.

Where you are right now is the only possible place you can be. Because it is where you are.

For some people, part of that unfolding life story at some point includes awareness dawning; that who you are and how you are operating in the world does not feel good. You are frustrated. Or bitter. Or not at peace. Perhaps there comes a time where it is simply not satisfying to make choices from the beliefs of the people who raised you. Maybe you notice it makes you filled with rage to play by certain rules set out by others. Or you become aware of how a certain mindset is deeply destructive, and keeps you isolated or afraid.

Well, remarkable!

What if you don’t have to do anything about that either?

You don’t.

A different current is now flowing through you. As awareness dawns, you will be different. Not because you tried, but because it is now a seed planted. New branches of the river, new possible future choices are being created up ahead. This is not a new idea that simply watching your life unfold, objectively, without attachment, is so powerful. But it is.

Others may never have this awareness dawn. And that is not their fault. That is not what they or their lives have made available to them. Or at least not now. Let it be.

For a long time after I left Access I wanted others to leave as well. I felt angry, betrayed even, by anyone who stayed. I no longer feel that way.

“Let everything be exactly as it is.” This phrase returns, and saves me once again.

If I do not know where my own story is going, I most certainly do not know about yours! Something intense had to happen for me to leave. And you? Well, it may be exactly what you need. Now. For a little bit. Forever. Maybe you feel empowered by where you are? Maybe you need that social network? Maybe you too, need to give yourself away, before being smashed wide awake? I literally don’t know. Something quite grand is at play as all our lives swirl together. It’s beautiful!

I have finally realized that everyone else’s life is not my rodeo. This is your movie. You will watch this scene as long as life has you watching it. And then, something will come next.

No one wants to be patient. But as a brilliant friend of mine put it, “you can’t binge watch this movie”. So sit tight. Things are happening. You will find out your next move soon enough.

I have come to believe that our life experiences are truly treasures.

Treasure them. Or rage against them. Feel whatever you feel.

But life builds on itself.

If you surrender to whatever is present for you right now… You will get the astonishing gift of whatever comes next.

Self Love… And The Science Of Differentiation

Posted on by Blossom Benedict

Ra suggested that the great disease of the world is self-hatred. Self-hatred is not always obvious to us but can be there at the root of all kinds of surface behaviors and attitudes. It is often engendered by the conditioning we encounter early in life that contradicts what is naturally felt and expressed in us.

When we are going about our lives, especially as children, and what is natural to us is contradicted by what we are told is right, good, allowable or acceptable, it informs how we make sense of our experience. If there is not a recognition that allows for difference and varied behavior, the natural conclusion is that there is something wrong with me or there is something wrong with them. And here begins our investment in the not-self and the use of the mind to attempt to control thought, feeling and behavior to match the conditioning forces around us.

Whether we adopt one or both sides of this belief, it often becomes a core motivation for our choices and behavior in life. One side is: I will work hard to act against my nature (what I love, like, naturally express, respond to) in order to become good or at least “not bad”. The other side is: I will oppose, resist, criticize, blame the other (family member, spouse, friend) or the world/society because clearly somebody or something else is messed up if it’s so wrong to be me.

This kind of polarity and motivation can be subtle or blatant. Either way, it becomes an underlying belief or attitude that does not allow for our presence and awareness to guide how we live our lives.

Following Strategy and Authority is a way to dismantle core conditioning beliefs like this, so that we can align with our natural, present, awake way of being, interacting with the world as we encounter it now through the intelligence of the body. The deconditioning process puts the mind in its proper place as a witness and eventually an outer authority for others.

There are many typing systems out there and some may say at the surface that Human Design is one of them. But where many others systems begin and end with describing types as a way of understanding who you are, Human Design offers its Types so that we understand the function of the body and the mind’s relationship to it. The aura functioning is limited to just a few variations.

It’s not uncommon to have a conversation begin and end with, “because I am a Manifestor, a Projector..” or whatever. Sometimes that may be all there is to say about it. But if we go deeper and see what happens when we experiment with what it means to function according to Type, it is actually the very beginning of discovering, uncovering and recovering what has always been there and can never be destroyed: this particular set of characteristics and expressions of what we are in a very unique synthesis. And even all of the details of those characteristics that go several levels beyond gates and channels, say nothing about who we really are.

Type is not the point. It is an essential practice and process through which we get to the experience of being and expressing who we are, which moves us closer to correct environment, role and life expressing itself through us as purpose.

Human Design has been called the Science of Differentiation, as an extremely detailed map of our uniqueness, where Type, Authority and the Bodygraph are at the very surface. And yet they are primary in that if we are behaving from the mind, as a contradiction to or imitation of the conditioning around us, we don’t even get to the starting line of perceiving how unique we actually are.

A seemingly simple but astonishing benefit of letting go of conditioned core beliefs and opening up to the exploration of our nature is that we begin to allow ourselves our own differentiation process, our own liberation from the pursuit of perfecting the not-self. If we begin to appreciate that, it can be quite a wonder and the birthplace of love of the self.

Relationships in this differentiated context can become quite impersonal in this way. The differences we experience in each other stop needing to be evaluated as right or wrong, as who’s behaving the right way or not. They stop being evidence of whether or not I’m worthy because this person pays attention to me or not, agrees with me or not, invests their energy in me or not. They can become an exploration of how each person behaves correctly as themselves. From that starting place, we can begin to see whether or not the relationship is correct for us or worth pursuing or continuing.

Many spiritual teachers involved in any kind of awakening process point to the letting go of morality. This has always seemed exceedingly optimistic to me and demonstrative of faith in the basic value of each person’s true nature. It assumes that in most cases, our natural presence will make far better choices for ourselves and others than an imposed morality.

The more I study the depth of differentiation in each person, the more love and respect I feel for humanity in general. I may still feel hurt when someone rejects or criticizes me, I may still get discouraged if I don’t keep up with what some others are able to do. But I can also remember that no one is correct for everyone. And we have all had those moments when the naturalness of what we are is perfect for the person we are with, whether that’s true for a moment or a lifetime.

If self-love is challenging for you right now and you are experimenting with design, I invite you to take a closer look at your own chart and recognize what part of your nature is expressing itself or seeking to. Look at your definition. Look at what you have going for you through your defined centers. We tend to take what is natural to us so much for granted that we can’t begin to imagine what it’s like for others not to have what we do (what is wrong with them?). Look at the openness and admire the flexibility of it, the spaciousness and beauty that’s possible when we stop trying to fix it and make it stable (What is wrong with me?).

Design is not to be used as evidence for why any person or relationship is right or wrong or good or bad; Strategy and Authority can be much more helpful in determining what is correct for us. Rather, being open to the study of nature in ourselves and others can be a way of simply seeing the difference. When we can manage to do that with curiosity, without agenda or judgment, the incredible uniqueness of each person becomes undeniable and ultimately lovable.

The whole challenge for you in your process, the only way in which you can leave or transcend the Bodygraph and approach your purpose correctly, is you have to deal with the characteristics. The whole theme of, and the teaching of, Human Design is that we teach strategy and authority in order for a being to come to grips with the power of the characteristics in their life, and to ultimately be able to transcend them by operating correctly as themselves.
-Ra Uru Hu

* Guest post by Amy Lee