Do you put on a 'happy face'?

When I left the church, it was because what I’d seen, heard and experienced bumped up against my internal knowing of what was truth, and what was love.

Knowledge of the divine that I was taught at church did not include the goddess, trusting your intuition or opening to where love took you.

Looking back, having now worked through a lot of conditioned beliefs; investing thousands of pounds and spending many many hours looking, exploring and questioning myself, my thoughts, beliefs and choices, at the very basic level it came down to this: I did not want to be there because it did not feel right.

I did not want to learn more of what I had been taught, because for me, it didn’t feel good. And it created pain.

And at the same time, it has taken me this long to distill everything into that kind of simple self truth, because: according to what the church (generally) says, that was not ok.

There’s value in structure, in rules, in community, in certain tenets of church teaching and set up. But not at the expense of listening to your own self.

I became a doormat.

I hid my real self.

I feared to speak the truth because of the consequences.

I told people I was happy when really I was afraid.

I covered things up, for the sake of the church’s reputation. I don’t think this was wrong, but it didn’t feel like the best choice for me.

I forced my feelings down deep inside (we don’t appreciate how much this costs, please know, it’s easier to deal with them at the time or soon after, rather than years later, when it becomes a physical illness or pain).

I learned how to ‘put on a happy face’ to avoid what was really going on.

This did not make me free.

Most of us want to feel free.

Many of us make choices with that goal in mind.

Yet things don’t always work the way we think we want it to.

We’re always able to choose freedom, but sometimes it takes seeing the deep pattern, the cycle, the repetitive behaviour - with relationship, food, friendships, work situations, clients, money - whatever your ‘thing’ is, before you can break it and let it go.

If you feel as though you have been trying to create freedom and just keep getting stuck, please know you are absolutely able to make it work, keep choosing yourself.

Keep looking at your choices.

Keep opening up to what’s there, for you to do differently.

Keep at it, you’re always supported by life.