by Joel Levin, Western Australia
It has taken me some time to track these guys down, but I can now put a name on some characters who do everything in their power to stop The Way of the Livingness becoming my way.
What is The Way of the Livingness? It is simply a way of living that is in deep connection and respect of yourself – so that you bring that same depth of connection and respect to others and everything you do.
The first character that tries to get in my way of living is not very nice and not very easy to get along with. ‘Tiny’ is his name. Tiny just wants me to fit in, to not make waves, to not feel wonderful and to not enjoy the simplicity of life. Tiny is great at using fear and comparison. He baits me with simple questions like ‘what if ‘x’ happens?’, ‘why aren’t you ‘there’ yet?’, ‘you’re not as good as x’…. I’m getting much better at not getting hooked into answering Tiny’s questions. I’ve noticed that if I start answering these questions, it doesn’t take long before it feels like he has put one hand on my head and one on the base of my spine and squeezed me tightly. Tiny is good at making me feel tiny.
I can sidestep his games by appreciating myself more and noticing a similar appreciation of others. Tiny feels tiny… when I let myself feel how huge people can truly be.
This is when Tiny brings in his backup partner. Let’s call him ‘Bruiser’. Bruiser is bit of a bully and likes to push me around, call me names, and make sure I focus on every fault I have. He also likes to remind me of all those things I ‘need to get done’ or haven’t done yet. It can be a real drain to live with him and it can feel like walking through mud on the day I decide to march to his tune, rather than my own.
Strangely, getting around Bruiser can be easier than Tiny because his approach is so forceful. On the days I remember to move at a pace that works for me, it’s easy to see him coming. It doesn’t stop him from trying, but by moving at my pace, and not his, it seems to create a wake around me that Bruiser just can’t cross.
On the days that neither Tiny or Bruiser have any effect on me, they call on their boss, ‘Neville’ (I have just decided to call him Neville to make him sound less sinister). Neville has a lot of pride, and plays every and any game in the book – the ‘wise’ sage, the helpless child, the repentant son and even the willing student.
Neville is tricky and will tell me whatever I want or need to hear, so that I back-off feeling myself, thinking for myself, or enjoying myself. My success in getting around Neville is fleeting, but becomes more of a reality each day I remember to feel myself first.
The moment I feel first (both me and the rest of the world), I know what is true and what is part of his game.
From time to time, these characters and their games still catch me out. After all, they are aspects of me that I created and have chosen to live with – in the strange belief they were somehow there to help me. The cleverest trick of these internal bullies is their ability to make it seem that they are more powerful than me – but all they ever had over me is my own choice to play the game they were offering. All they have had over me is a mis-held belief that life is better when you’re locked in some kind of internal struggle.
Everything I have ever needed to set myself free from this struggle has always been inside of me. It is the deepest truth I have ever felt – my own love – and my own willingness to live that love, and the joy that comes with it in a world where people are battling their own versions of Tiny, Bruiser and Neville.
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
The Way of the Livingness, is a simple loving and responsible way of living, ‘It is simply a way of living that is in deep connection and respect of yourself – so that you bring that same depth of connection and respect to others and everything you do.’
99.9% of the world’s population are not who they think they are, which makes it really hard for most people to know who they truly are, but there is a small movement of people who are coming to realise the truth of who we all are. Although those of us involved with the teachings of The Ageless Wisdom are minuscule in number, the reach that we have is worldwide. And ‘our’ reach is worldwide because it’s not ‘our’ reach, it is the reach of Heaven that comes through our bodies, which are acting as vessels. There is nothing more that I want to be, other than a vessel for God. Through my body His work will be done, what more could I possibly want?
“life is better when you’re locked in some kind of internal struggle.” It sounds mad when put like this and yet it does happen. Because there is a period of feeling like the unpopular kid when those games are no longer played. However I’d rather be unpopular and content than popular and discontented.
Thank you Joel. Putting a name to our dancing devils exposes them as not being the truth of who we are.
This is a fantastic way of isolating our so-called patterns of behaviour. It’s very easy to be identified with them and be the characters themselves, but here you are clearly saying ‘This is not who I am’, and I love that.
What I am finding is that it is the familiarity of these characters that enables them to slip under the radar. Most of us have been having a dalliance with these guys since we were very young and therefore most of us just see them as integral parts of ‘us’ but they’re not, they’re interchangeable false aspects of our human nature that can be replaced or added to at the drop of a hat. True freedom comes from seeing (as Joel has) that when we engage in the behaviour of these characters we are aligning to an energy that is not the true ‘us’ and when we take a stand and say ‘no’ to these manipulative guys then we are aligning to an energy that is truly ‘us’.
It is important to call out these characters that try to take us away from living The Way of the Livingness.
Once we re-connect to our innermost heart and feel our essence and all the beautiful qualities we hold as soulful beings, these characters are revealed as intruders, and never a true part of who we are.
It seems like these guys have got egg on there collective faces when we decide to focus on our essences. As they try to hide behind the insecurity mask but when we are connected this falsity is shown for the lies they are.
We have to want to discard these characters from our lives in order for it to happen. It’s not worth saying I want to be a better person if on day to day basis we get a high on the arrogance, on playing small or on beating ourselves up. Until these behaviours stop giving us the addictive hit of whatever it is they’re giving us we will continue to crawl back to them. I know i dip into all three of these at different times, but what I am realising is that the love within my body is much grander and I enjoy feeling that a lot more than the arrogance or recognition I get when I fall for one of these characters. I have never been able to give up something until I have no longer sought after it. Be it food, cigarettes or alcohol, behaviours or tendencies until the moment I no longer want the energetic vibration of it, nothing in the world can change my mind or my behaviours.
There is something that you have said here Joel that I very much appreciate. That you have created these personalities. We all have them as you have said, and we often think that they are part of who we are, rather than something we have created to seemingly protect us from life. It’s not only important to know that none of these creations are true, but its also important to get to know the truth of who we are, that way these imposters can be seen for the imposters that they are much more clearly.
The more we know who we are in truth, the more these characters can be exposed.
The internal struggle that goes on fuelled by our pictures and images which only keep us further away from our joyful essence, the more we choose to connect to the love that we are the simpler life becomes and the struggle subsides.
Being Loving in all we do sets a standard that when we feel the drop and the opportunity to put on a different Hat we respond with deepening our Love so we do not get caught out in pigeon-holing our-self by a different handle!
I would have to say tiny has played a big part in my life along with the other ones, their sway is so much less these days as I listen to my body with much more loving care, knowing the truth of who I am and the love I hold within.
These characters, or donations are keeping us from living our truth, the sooner we say ‘no’ to them the less impact they have.
Tiny, Bruiser and Neville can easily go unnoticed if we do not pay attention to the way we are with ourselves and our thoughts.
Great way to describe how we fight ourselves, how we’ve created it and when we remember to come back and feel ourselves, our bodies, that life can be simple and joyful.
So true Monica, and there is an angelic play-full-ness that can be aligned to also.
It’s amazing how many tricks we have up our sleeves to not be the true version of who we are.
Funny how we think life has to be a struggle, we create issues that are totally unnecessary but they are successful in keeping us small, not expressing and now being who we truly are. When we allow all that mud to drop away life becomes so much simpler and more joyful.
We can let go of the struggle, we can make new choices, ‘Everything I have ever needed to set myself free from this struggle has always been inside of me. It is the deepest truth I have ever felt – my own love – and my own willingness to live that love, and the joy that comes with it’.
Putting names and ‘faces’ to what stops us evolving helps us all enormously because it helps us to realize that these are characters living inside us who try to take us over and to own us.
It’s such a great reminder that you say people are also battling with their own versions of Tiny, Bruiser and Neville.
The entrapment of living in struggle- I am coming to observe how when there is no struggle in my life I will create it and bring it in for there to be a greater tension in my life. It is like I can not be at ease in life and so I will draw on things to bring me down or make life hard or create issues in relationships.
If I allow Bruiser to have his way I can get exhausted! Bruiser crushes, caps and can me feel overwhelmed in life but hey I am getting to know him! 😉 I am getting to know him well. I can spot his presence almost immediately and boy this awareness is having an impact on my wellbeing and commitment to life. Sometimes he catches me out when I have been a little hard on myself and although he may try, he doesn’t succeed in having his way in building anxiousness, overwhelm and distraction in life. Getting to know and make friends with him has been a blessing as I continue to expand our friendship and build on the relationship I have with myself developing my awareness of getting to know him more deeply.
An internal bully I’ve been putting the spot light on lately is the ‘caring parent’….this one, to anyone looking on would be justified but in truth it’s not and leaves me on a roller coaster of ups and downs. It likes to feed me lines like ‘you’re doing it for their own good’ and ‘you have every right to do/say that’. It’s days are numbered, as I’m calling it out as best I can each time.
The power of love supersedes any force that is imposed by any self-created character or otherwise. As it is love that defines who we innately are, and living in connection to our love the truth is known, as such our power is naturally lived. When we live our love, who we are is naturally lived and all that is not of love is rendered powerless.
I am back here again to remind myself that if I feel myself first, feel the love I am then nothing can truly distract me from living that love I am.
It is always great to feel ourselves first, to feel the love we are.
To feel ourselves first is it, and allows us to address any patterns or characters we’ve previously chosen to be. For they would not exist without our say so, and to know that means we can choose differently.
The trouble is who we feel is ‘us’ generally isn’t us. In my experience it has taken a while for me to be able to feel what is truly me and what is not. The trickiest part was when I was doing lots of ‘spiritual’ work on myself and would have sworn blind that who I was being was the ‘real’ me, yet in truth I was a total mess and none of my movements were truthful. The discarding of who I am not has been a gradual process as has the revealing of the real me under the myriad of characters that I have pretended to be. I still feel the pull to be certain characters but I’m learning that when a character has a ‘familiar’ flavour to it, especially from yesteryear that always means that it’s not true. Who we truly are is constantly getting renewed, so there’s a freshness and a vitality to the ‘us’ that we know ourselves to be.
Joel this is a very powerful piece of writing, thank you. Perhaps the hardest thing to admit is that our power is greater than any perceived adversity, including that which is within us. A great line here is “all they ever had over me is my own choice to play the game they were offering.” We are so very powerful, and it all comes down to what we choose and align to.
We can be but pawns on a chess-board, or divine by essence so we nurture our innate being-ness game-over.
The line you quoted here Melinda is so pertinent, “all they ever had over me is my own choice to play the game they were offering.” So very true.
Is this a form of Schizophrenia I wonder!?! The way you have written this Joel highlights the characters/thoughts we let in that try to thwart our natural expression.