Who Needs To Stand Guard?

Who says no? Who says, we have to be careful here. Who says let’s not go too far. Who has to be vigilant?

Who won’t let you go, naked, innocent, without armor, without fear, without guile, without a shell? Who won’t let you go naked into the stream of life?

What is the armor?

Memory of hurt.
Memory of life, scraping against your new and tender self.
Memory and memory and memory.

A little bit of molten pain, fear, disappointment – cooled into tiny metal seashells. Each frozen in the shape of the original shock. Keep them all around you, until you’re covered in thick layers, scales, hard shell, armor, prison.

In your shell — a beautiful shell. Of sophistication. Of intellect. Of strength. Built from fear. Of being judged. Of not being good enough, of being hurt or taken advantage of or left behind or embarrassed or unwanted or overlooked.

What would you be without it?

Imagine peeling away all the layers, the scars dents and imperfectly healed wounds that cover you, as a consequence of living, as a consequence of all the moments you collided with the too hard reality of life.

So much of you has fallen away, peeled off in great thick grey sheets. Until finally, there is nothing old left, nothing dead, nothing dry, no more evidence of your struggle with life. Just the you of this moment, new, untouched, innocent.

Your strength was never in the armor.

Innocent

What is your first reaction, your instinctive reaction, to the word? When you imagine being, living, returning to innocence — what does that evoke for you? Investigate this. Don’t do this with your intellect, do it with raw feeling — follow the raw, instant, unmanicured feeling and instinct — not the synthetic weaving of the intellect. 

Meeting the Future Self

Enter the Sanctuary — a space free from external influence. Let your nervous system return to equilibrium. Remove yourself into a hermetically sealed energetic space where you can find your center, your inner compass. Free from the distractions and distortions of other people, other beings, external grids of influence — including spiritual and religious ideation and indoctrination. Enter a clear space of lucidity, of grounded sanity.

Release Your Armor.  Inquire who creates and maintains this armor? What is the nature of the armor and the one who creates it, the one who is vigilant, the one who convinces you to remain within it. 

The armor is powered through your consent and assent. It is powered using your life force. Removing your consent and assent will cause it to dry up and become brittle. There is an outer armor and an inner armor. The outer is removed first. Then feel around until you notice the inner or under armor. 

This will also dry up without your consent and assent, without your life force.