As my journey extends through Ecuador, I continue to participate with three other friends in a project – a project of answering weekly questions to each other – a project that I have also been sharing (my writings) here in my blog.
I just finished another of those writings. I have done several others in the last month, and will post them soon, but this one is calling out for me to publish it separately.
In the remainder of this post, I share tidbits of my life story, along with details of how my belief systems have evolved and unraveled over sixty years of living.
Following is word-for-word what I just finished emailing to my friends:
Shifting Beliefs
This morning, I had every intention of jumping right into my writing, but this time, I felt very distracted and unmotivated. Finally, I followed a little inner nudge and stepped out into the beautiful city of Cuenca, Ecuador … first buying an inexpensive watch that I desperately needed (my last one has been falling apart and disintegrating for more than a month).
Then, as I walked through the main town plaza of Cuenca, I surrendered to a synchronous journey that perfectly fits into my writing assignment. I will share that story later.
So, here I am at 2:15 p.m., finally sitting at my computer while feeling the inspiration to write. I just chewed and swallowed a full dose of Peruvian cacao to help the energies flow and inspire. Without further delay, I now dive into answering my own question ….
(I just now finished writing, and I apologize in advance for how long this turned out to be. It seems that this is all preparing me for material that will be in future books, and I simply have to put it all into words.)
How have your belief systems evolved and shifted during your journey of life? … and what are some of the more powerful ways in which your life changed as a result?
Throughout most of my first 28 years, my beliefs were quite fixed and unbendable. Even with all of my gender struggles, I strongly identified with the religious and cultural teachings of my childhood. I desperately wanted to be loved and validated by family and church, and had no intention of ever stepping out of that well-defined box.
Were it not for my undeniable gender struggles, I would never have questioned any of those beliefs, and would likely have lived my entire life clinging to that version of “truth” as was taught to me.
I now overflow with deep gratitude, because those gender struggles turned out to be my ticket to an agonizing-but-magical journey of transformation. Once I climbed aboard that train, there was no stopping the journey.
Late in my thirty-first year, the foundation of my religious beliefs crumbled into a pile of rubble. During a soul-searching journey in Zion National Park in southern Utah – a solo quest involving a desperate attempt to figure out my gender confusion – intuitive guidance strongly guided me that it was time to pursue my gender transition. The inner message was subtle, but strong and quite undeniable.
“No God would ever guide me to do such a thing,” I pondered in stunned anger and rebellion. The guidance I received went against everything I believed at the time.
In a matter of hours, I lost all faith in a Higher Power, and became a self-proclaimed atheist. I knew I was a good person … but I knew that my religion could never accept that fact, and would instead label me as a perverted sinner.
In an attempt to resolve this “cognitive dissonance” that was destroying me, I obliterated all belief in God. It seemed to be the only way I could follow my heart-guidance without further burying myself under mountains of additional self-hatred and self-loathing.
A few weeks later, I was no longer a member of my childhood religion, but I somehow found the courage to stay married – to openly discuss my struggles with the mother of my children – searching for a compromise where I could explore “Brenda” within the confines of our marriage.
Ten years later, as it became increasingly obvious that I would be emotionally (and likely physically) dead if I tried to live the remainder of my life in a continued lie, I faced the agonizing choice to live – a decision that involved placing my entire life “all in” on the poker table, betting it all on one hand, knowing that I would likely lose everything that I loved and held dear.
Imagine my surprise when at age forty-two, just months after completing a round of difficult surgeries to complete my transformation, I began to feel whisperings of spiritual connection that did not make sense to the mind. Somehow, amidst the peace of finally having a body that matched my heart, I began to relax, and Higher Energies made it obvious that I did believe in some type of God out there, somewhere in the unknown heavens.
And since the only “God” I had experience with in my life was that of my childhood religion, I immediately began to pursue getting re-baptized in that religion. The quest made no sense to me logically, but my heart demanded that I begin this journey, once again shifting my belief systems based on the undeniable whims of inner guidance.
Five years later, I was devastated when a local leader in that religion made it painfully clear that, under his leadership, I would never be allowed in full fellowship back into that church. I felt so confused and betrayed. I sobbed and sobbed, collapsing into a ball of confusion and self-pity. Over the next couple of years, my entire life began to crumble around me, in many agonizing ways, in nearly all arenas of daily life.
A few years later, following my magical-but-still-broken heart, I began to get massages once a week. I soon became close friends with my massage therapist, Alisa, as we engaged in magical weekly discussions that literally consumed our entire sessions together. Alisa started feeding me books that began to gradually open my mind as far as the spiritual possibilities of an ever-expanding Universe.
And it was in early September, 2003, at age forty-eight, that I participated in my first ‘Journey Seminars’ workshop. I entered that weekend desperately trying to be strong, but underneath I continued to struggle from a crumbling life. At the end of that magical three-day weekend, I emerged with a whole new inspired and hopeful outlook on my existence. I shifted so many beliefs in such a short amount of time – and I once again overflowed with unconditional love and excitement for living.
I began to realize that I am a beautiful person, that I have so much to celebrate, and that I do not need the validation of others to define me, and that the rejection by my religion was actually a huge gift – one for which I was actually quite grateful.
In the midst of feeling those renewed spiritual feelings at age forty-two, I had tried to put myself back into my childhood religious box, trying to conform and look a certain way in order to find love and acceptance. When that box kept shrinking to the point of finally collapsing, I had felt deeply betrayed by the very spiritual feelings that were awakening within me.
But, after that September 2003 weekend of intense-but-profound emotional processing (in Journey Seminars), I came to embody the metaphorical realization that I had been like a baby bird clinging to a tiny branch at the top of a very tall tree – and that what my local church leader had done was to whack me from behind, blindsiding me, pushing me off that branch, forcing me to spread my wings and to fly on my own unique journey – forcing me to once-and-for-all let go of those old beliefs that kept me anchored to that childhood religious box.
Over the next two years, my entire world began to open up. I volunteered to assist in as many of those ‘Journey Seminars’ workshops as I could, sharing my healing love with others as I continued to raise my own vibration of self-love. I began to feel a deep longing to write a book about my life. And in 2005, I was shocked by a literal voice in my head that told me “You are going back to school to get a master’s degree in counseling.”
I was alive – more alive than I ever imagined feeling – connecting with profound levels of intuitive guidance that I never imagined possible. Yet, in retrospect, I see that I was still clinging to many old beliefs, still trying to fit into the old world, afraid to leave my old boxes behind. And yes, I continued to harbor a huge reservoir of hidden, self-sabotaging emotional agony that caused me ongoing grief as I continued to heal.
Between 2005 and 2009 (when I graduated with that master’s degree), my life completely shifted from left-brain logic-based to one of learning to increasingly trust my heart and intuitive side. In 2007, I was laid off from my computer career of twenty-nine years, and I never looked back. On a very frequent basis, synchronous events blew me away with their unexpected guidance – guidance that culminated in April 2009 with an undeniable knowing that I needed to uproot my entire life and begin to travel and write.
But still, many of my deepest beliefs remained unquestioned. I fully embraced many quasi-new-age teachings, especially identifying with “A Course In Miracles” – but I was still locked into a confusing mental version of those beliefs, not really understanding the deeper meaning of what I was searching for.
It was in March of 2010, late in the first year of my travels. I had just finished a month in Belize with an amazing ten-day adventure of living in a tiny Mayan village in the mountains of southern Belize. I was in my first weeks in Guatemala as I finished up writing a series of five blogs that flowed seamlessly, documenting my magical time in that Mayan village. After finishing that inspired story, I woke up early the very next morning, having had an incredibly vivid dream.
In the first part of that dream I had been kidnapped and taken to a beautiful Caribbean island. As I meditated about the amazing symbolism of that dream, I knew that I was being shown the future unraveling of ego and the beginning of a new magical adventure in my life. Somewhere in the midst of this pondering I unexpectedly fell back to sleep.
In the second part of the dream, I awoke with a start. I had been standing in a dark room. Directly in front of me was a tall, beautiful woman, dressed in a glowing, radiant, white dress. We had been having a long and deep conversation. As I jolted back to consciousness, two phrases that the woman spoke remained with me in vivid detail.
Those two phrases were: “Forget everything you know … and lower your defenses.”
In the unbelievable five years since that profound dream – a dream that I still see as if it happened just an hour ago – my entire journey has been about dropping my conditioned resistance – my trying to control things – and gradually unraveling everything I thought I knew.
During my three-and-half years in Guatemala, layer after layer of old beliefs and conditioning peeled away, falling by the wayside. I was shocked by how many layers of “what I thought I knew” just simply dissolved into the imaginary waste basket of “no longer useful to me”.
During my last year in Peru – while living in nine months of near isolation – I immersed myself in around eighty-five solo ceremonies with a plant medicine called Huachuma (San Pedro cactus). This beautiful medicine took me to a place of connecting to my Higher Guides in ways where I was directly channeling their guidance (to myself) for the benefit of my own unfolding process. I experienced a magical and blissful mixture of unfolding self-love while going through occasional agonizing emotional release that stood in the way of that love.
During the fall of 2014, much of that channeled guidance was about my belief systems. I was clearly shown how my belief systems literally create the reality that I perceive – how what I believe to be true is what will be mirrored back to me as the world that I experience.
Many teachers (including A Course In Miracles) teach that our journey to awakening is about unraveling our limiting beliefs. I had understood this concept at a mental level for many years, but my extensive journey with Huachuma took me into an experiential world of healing and channeled guidance that expanded my life experience in ways that were light-years beyond a simple understanding of the mind.
In one particularly profound journey, I was shown that my belief systems are literally like restrictive boxes – like self-imposed prisons that limit my ability to expand and to perceive the possibilities of a much larger Universe that has always been all around me – like mental prisons that limit my capacity to love without conditions.
From that time forward, my medicine journeys became a quest to unravel one limiting belief after another – and I was not even aware that most of those beliefs were still inside of me. I became painfully aware that I have lived my life in auto-pilot mode, rarely questioning why I do most things – I just do them.
Often the unraveling of beliefs required deep emotional pain to be felt and released. It was hidden pain – emotional pain that I once unknowingly cherished as my justification for ‘playing small’.
The process of unraveling beliefs continues to be an ongoing one in my life. But now, I am excited to question everything that I think I know – to question why I think it is true – to question how my life would be different if I let that belief dissolve away.
And each time I do this, my heart expands a little more and my excitement and zest for a loving life just get more energized with joy.
The more my beliefs disintegrate, the more I learn to trust and surrender to the present moment – the more I learn to simply live my life with a knowing that my Higher Self is always guiding me from a level beyond mental awareness – the more I simply trust and surrender to this moment. It is actually fun to no longer care about being right, or about knowing something clever.
What totally surprised me in this journey was the number of cherished spiritual beliefs that have fallen by the wayside. I learned that even spiritual beliefs – thinking I know and understand how the Universe works – caused me to limit the possibilities of experience.
After years of learning to “Forget everything I know”, my heart is finally opening, and life is increasingly filling with joy and love. I cannot wait for more of those limiting beliefs to reveal themselves, so that I can continue the magical expansion.
So this brings me back to today – to this morning as I wandered around the historic central plaza of Cuenca, Ecuador. While experiencing a little writer’s block, I had set out to take care of errands and to see what might synchronously cross my path.
As I approached the plaza, I noticed eight young women, dressed in beautiful red costumes, decorated with elaborate multi-colored embroidery. They seemed to be preparing to perform a dance – but they mostly stood around waiting, and so did I.
As I observed and remained present, I overheard that they were going to dance in preparation for a mass that would take place in the cathedral, directly across the street, at 11:30 a.m. – a forty minute delay for me. Finally at about 11:15 a.m., their dance began. It was beautiful and heartfelt – leaving me peaceful and enthralled with their beauty. Meanwhile, the road was closed and a decorated pickup truck had pulled up. On top, in a homemade float style, was a canopy sheltering what looked like a large golden bible, propped open in the middle.
When the young women finished dancing, they crossed the street and entered the cathedral. I followed them, soon noticing a poster indicating that “the blood of Pope John Paul II” would be on display in Cuenca from June 17 – 20, 2015. I soon put two and two together, and realized that the open bible (which was now on a platform above the shoulders of four reverent men) was some kind of container carrying real (or symbolic) remains of the deceased pope, and that this mass was the celebration of its arrival.
I was not the least bit interested in celebrating a pope, nor in embracing the religious ritual that was unfolding before me, but something in my heart told me to stay and simply observe with an open heart. I have always been fascinated by the cultural aspect of things.
As the “golden-colored bible” was carried down the aisle and placed at the front of the cathedral, a huge crowd filled the entire building, and all radiated an energy of love, excitement, and pure adoration.
As I stood there in reverent silence, paying attention to the energy running through me, I was so overwhelmed by the high-vibration of love radiating through my energy channels that I found myself on the verge of tears – tears of deep loving joy. Intuition told me that what I was feeling was pure unconditional love – love radiating throughout the cathedral – love that had nothing to do with the religion or its beliefs – love that had nothing to do with past abuses of children or religious wars and inquisitions – it was pure unconditional love radiating from the hearts of these devoted people, period.
The guidance flowed freely, saturating my soul with joy that resonated for hours afterward. I was magically shown that unconditional divine love is at the core of everyone and everything. It can be found in every religion, business, or organization of any type. Yes, there are people who are lost, and who act unlovingly from their place of “lost-ness” – but underneath it all, beneath the mask of every wounded ego, is the same, pure divine love that I was feeling in that moment.
In the process of this magical experience I released another layer of beliefs that caused me to subtly judge many religious organizations – causing me to recognize that the pure love of the divine includes everything, whether it is recognized by me or not.
So, in closing, I would like to summarize.
My belief systems have undergone massive refurbishing throughout my ever-shifting journey, and the further I spiral down the rabbit hole of undoing, the more I find myself releasing concepts of any ‘absolute truth’, or judgment of ‘right and wrong’, or ‘good and evil’.
In the place of those beliefs, I find myself increasingly embracing the divine perfection of what is – seeing it all as a divine playground, as my personal holodeck, where my job is to learn to simply love without conditions – to see the divine in all things and in all people. And as I practice this ongoing and evolving process, I am amazed by how increasingly loving my world seems to become.
It is so amazing to watch the restrictive boxes – those mental prisons – opening one by one and dissolving into nothingness.
Copyright © 2015 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved