Challenging The Dogma
Posted on 22. Oct, 2011 by matthew in Blog
The meaning we give any experience in our life will affect our future until that moment we choose to let go of any meaning that does not serve our highest good.
As a young teenager I had a shocking wake-up call in the form of a near death experience. Despite how wonderful some of it was, there were parts that I could not get my head around. Aspects that I have been gradually letting go of as I become aware of the suffering underneath.
When I came around, and had much time lying in a hospital bed, I contemplated two things:
1) I have been given a second chance.
2) What did I do wrong?
The first thought has lead to me stretching myself out through life to make a difference in the lives of others. The second thought became the reason I sabotaged myself. At that time I was still struggling with going to catholic church each week. I believed in a higher power and I still call it God to this day. I was afraid though. I lived in fear of punishment. I was a sinner and God was angry! So my young mind equated my accident with being punished. My daily thought while watching new blood being transfused into me was that I must have goofed up pretty bad to deserve something like that happening to me.
Asking “what is wrong with me?” causes the subconscious mind to go searching for all the
reasons as to what it thinks is wrong with us.
It has taken me many long years to shake this thought. It has taken hours of affirmations, prayer, and meditation to renew my concept of God. My fickle mind wants to hold on to the old, but my heart calls for an ever new awareness. My body and my health have all responded in kind to this effort.
Through the conditioning about God I learned to take on a lot of guilt in my life. That guilt caused me to make poor choices that sabotaged business, relationships, health, the whole shebang. There has been much pain to let go of. Many days of feeling the sadness and letting it pass. And many hours of affirming that “I am a divine child of God”.
You see, if we believe that we are bad, or that we have done bad things, we carry that thought with us and create more incidences where we prove ourselves right. We think that we are making bad food choices, we are bad because we did not exercise, we treat others poorly. When we recognise the divinity within ourselves and everyone else, it leads to a completely different experience of life.
I am going through major life changes right now, and I am letting go of guilt, and forgiving myself for the past. I am eliminating the rigid thought patterns that I absorbed like a sponge in my pre-adolescent years, and day by day I am moving from an intellectual concept of a loving God, to heartfelt resonance with that belief.
Things happen to us for a reason. For 6 years I have been asking a new question “What is the gift out of that experience?” And there are many new answers every day. I am not sure where I would be in life if I had not nearly lost it. It has helped me find greater peace with the concept of death. It has caused me to question the dogmatic principles that I heard each Sunday in church, and has been an initiation into the path to freedom that my soul seeks.
I know that there are lots of challenges that people are going through at this time. Many of us are challenging the dogmatic principles that were guilt and shame based in our younger years. There are many concepts from upbringining that have set me up with great values in life so I am not knocking it all. It is the controlling aspects that I have chosen to turn my back on as they do not reflect that path that I am following.
Change can happen quickly, or gradually, but with determination it will happen. Remember that you are divine child of God and that there is help and support for you. Instead of asking “What is wrong with me?”, ask yourself “What is the gift in this situation?”
One of the greatest assets that has helped me in recent months amid the changes has been the practice of yoga and self-healing techniques. These simple techniques can be learned in a skype video session with me, and I would be happy to introduce you to them for the reasonable fee of $50. Contact me at matthewmashdown@gmail.com to book your session.
