My Badge of Honor

At the doctor

Next day

Breaking through into the Light

I am compelled to share this particular journey with you in case it will be inspirational to you.  We are all in this amazing, bizarre, wonderful, terrible, joyous, confusing, enlightening journey in third dimension together! This profound experience for me I feel many are experiencing maybe in different ways, but feels universal in its meaning.  I discovered such a deep truth about my inner journey through this experience … it has changed my life in a huge way already!

Three days ago I had surgery on my face for basel skin cancer.  I have had many small surgeries like this …. but none right on my FACE!  The doctor removed the cancer in two “cuts” and it turned out to be much larger than I thought it would be.  Doug, my loving husband, took a photo of the wound before the nurse dressed it.  Oh my … it was just shocking and very devastating for me to see this gaping hole that was about half inch by quarter inch staring out at me!  That day I was just devastated, fell into a slump of no energy and just wanted to cry.

The next day the plastic surgeon closed the wound and to me it was even worse than the day before!  I had a huge slash next to my mouth that was not small at all, as I had hoped (see photos).  Why did this affect me so very much?  Was it my vanity?  Was my vanity so enormous as to cause me to fall into depression?  Was this a punishment from my Higher Self because I love to dress up, adorn my body with beautiful things, and was just too focused on the material?  All these thoughts rolled around in my head. The next day I discovered it was not at all what these thoughts were pointing to … it was actually a shocking revelation.

Since I was a little girl, clothes, jewelry and adornments have been one of my greatest passions.  I would go up into our attic and play around trying on my mother’s and grandmother’s gorgeous dresses, hats and all.  I could spend hours at this delightful pastime!

As I grew up, I realized that this passion is really my art form.  Today I have great joy in finding beautiful clothes and jewelry at enormous discounts, coming home and spending time seeing how my new purchases can be creatively put together with what I already have so that I create many outfits that just bring me so much joy!  It feels like I am creating a painting but with fabric.

Years ago, when Doug and I were in a meditation group, one day I did something that took great courage for little old me!  I asked our spiritual teacher, David, if my love and passion for adorning my body and looking beautiful (in my eyes anyway) was NOT spiritual and if I should give it all up (including makeup too!)  Eeeeeek ….. I was sincerely ready to do just that, but secretly hoped he would say it was OK.  To my great delight and surprise, David sat back in his chair, smiled and said to me, “You have no idea what a gift and service you do for people by looking as good and beautiful as you can and adorning yourself with beauty.”

WHAT???  Did I really hear correctly?  You mean it was not only OK for me to indulge my passion for beauty, but it was good to do it too???  Wow, that was so wonderful for me to hear.  To this day, I love love love my passion … until the fateful day of my facial surgery brought up my doubts.

The morning after the final surgical repair, I decided to put on all my makeup (mascara, lipstick and all) so that I would not feel too bad about it all.  Then I gazed into the mirror to see the full impact of the huge scar and to try to love and accept it.  What happened next just shocked me and astounded me!  All of a sudden I saw, in my mind’s eye, the aspect of myself (I call the Big Black Nun … Catholic schools for 14 years??) symbolically and energetically had slashed my cheek with her big stick!!  That is what that wound was about!

It was as though my judgmental self that had been lurking within me all my life and had shown its ugly presence many times came back with vengeance to say to me ….”No, you will NOT go into the Light!!”

Let me explain … just two weeks before this happened, I told Doug that I felt like I was just under the surface of the Old Matrix (which feels to me like an ocean of density that humanity has lived within for thousands of years), that I could see the Light of All Possibility above the surface, but I just could not pass through that barrier to the other side.  Something was holding me back!  I just could not figure out what?

Well, when the Big Black Nun slashed me with that stick energetically, instead of making me shrink back into self hatred and self judgement and believing that I was not good enough to break through, it sparked my inner power!  I could see that my aspect of self hatred I had named BBN had the gaul to hit me right where it would hurt the most … on my FACE which was central to my art form!!  How dare she!  To me if was as if one of the great artists watched someone slash their priceless art piece! She used this method to make sure that I would submit once again to her power and just slip back down into the muck never to be freed again.

But, that action actually was the last straw for me … my inner Light force welled up within my whole being and I said to her …. “NO! I will not allow you to hold me back one more second!”  And I then energetically took my magic wand (or scepter with a star at the end), raised my arm on high and slashed right through the barrier between the Old Matrix and the Light of All Possibility!

As soon as I did that, the Light from above came pouring down over me and I surrendered as it drew me into that powerful centerpoint, up and out of the Old Matrix and into the Light!  I broke through!  No longer will I ever allow the Big Black Nun to tell me untruths.  No longer will I judge myself.  No longer will I submit to the abuse of that aspect of myself!  I felt like a woman who has been in a very abusive relationship finally finding her courage to take flight into her own power!

I could so clearly see the “dark” and “light” aspects of myself coming into the center point when the Light came in … the dark being that Big Black Nun and the light being the aspect of myself that represents the goddess within, a Queen of Light that showed up in one of my first meditations many years ago.

Basking in the expansion of the Light I asked my Higher Self if I should do some sort of ritual to forgive that BBN or express love for it.   HS said that, since I had the courage to defy that aspect and believe the truth that I have the power to expand without allowing myself to fall into the self doubt, that allowance merged the two aspects into the centerpoint where lies only oneness, trust and love … no ritual necessary.

When I was fully into the Light of All Possibility, I could see that the centerpoint expands into the full Light and that there we just can then choose what we wish to create.  It was like a seed that held our most wondrous dreams … we just need to surrender to it and allow the divinity within to express in the fulfillment of all of our dreams.

How many of you also experience that aspect of self that judges you, that tells you you are not enough, that attempts to keep you small?  What I learned is that we DO have the power to move out of its grasp and just make the decision to surrender to our innermost power to move into the Light.  If you want it … just do it!  Decide! Take action!  This is the way to joy.

The doctor told me not to put a bandage on the wound so that it will heal properly (except to shield it from the sun at certain times).  In the doctor’s office that day that was like placing insult to injury for me!  But now that I understand the purpose for this wound, I now wear it proudly as my Badge of Honor …. yayyyyy for me!  In the bottom photo above, I am wearing the gorgeous crystal and pearl crown that Doug and Julie (daughter) gave to me a few months ago … it felt like the perfect way to express my awakening.