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A friend recently asked me what I’m wanting in life, and my response was:
Freedom from my stories.
Freedom from the stories that play out in my mind and cause me to live in fear.
Why?
Because when my stories aren’t present, I am present.
When my stories disappear, love reappears.
In the absence of fear stories endlessly running through my mind, endless life scenarios that play out these stories may no longer be called into being.
I’ve noticed resistance to bidding these stories farewell. In addition to the many attachments I may have to these stories, I’ve imagined them as children wanting my love and attention, and I’ve wanted to be a source of compassion for them. It hasn’t felt quite right for me to simply ignore them. But I just had the image of a vampire arise as I reflected on my fear stories, and it inspired me to reflect on my “policy” in regards to engaging with them.
I decided to sit down and explore this vampire analogy to see if I might, ironically, create a new story. Perhaps a more empowering and compassionate one.
My fear stories often seem vampiric in nature. They drain my life force and leave me with little awareness of love. The energy they require and direction they lead me in don’t seem to serve me in experiencing myself as love. (I imagine these stories have ultimately served me, but perhaps it is time for a change.)
Perhaps my stories – the little children tugging at my leg for attention – are vampire children. Innocent in nature, but still draining me of precious energy.
But what to do? If I don’t allow them to feed off of me, surely they will die. And this would be highly uncompassionate, wouldn’t it?
Unless…
They are ready to die.
Perhaps the winds of change are upon us and it is no longer relevant for them to play the roles they’ve been playing.
Perhaps the time has come for these vampiric stories to return to the light.
We imagine death as a tragedy, but perhaps it is only experienced as a tragedy by those that are left behind. By those that feel the deep pain of loss and loneliness, and have limited, conditioned perspectives about death.
Death may simply be a process of returning home. It may be a radiant relief. An incredible joy. A glorious reunion with the love that we are.
Death may not be the tragic fear story many of our minds have created it to be.
What gave me the idea for the vampire analogy was an image that came to me during meditation this morning. The image was of a fear story – a child impatiently requesting my attention – burning in the light, as vampires do.
The child did not seem afraid. I imagined that perhaps this was what the child wanted: To burn in a glorious fire that returned its body to the dust from which it came, and it’s soul to the light of love.
Perhaps some of our inner characters request our attention because they ultimately wish to return home. Perhaps they wish to be exposed to the light of our awareness so they may be set ablaze and re-integrated into the Oneness of our being.
Alchemically returned to gold.
And perhaps, through this radiant final act, they are providing us with an opportunity to empower ourselves by creating a boundary that serves us in living as love.
Compassion may not always be what it seems. The most compassionate act for some may be assisted suicide.
I had a dream the other night in which I beat an old co-worker to death. He was so hateful and judgmental in the dream, an energy I felt from him and others at my work as I was leaving the job, and as he came at me with this energy, I responded violently.
I was a bit shaken by the dream and shared it with a friend, and she saw it as a potential sign that I was killing off the part of me that continued to judge and condemn me for my choice to leave the job. (And I wonder if perhaps this dealt a fierce blow to the part of me that places incredible value on others’ opinions of me.)
Perhaps this part of me was ready to die, so it violently approached me in my dream.
Perhaps it was inviting me to respond by setting a boundary with violent compassion.
And perhaps, in death, this vampire and I gave one another the greatest gift either one of us could ask for…
Freedom.
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A version of this post was originally posted on TroyCohen.Wordpress.com and is republished here with permission from the author.
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