In 1836 Michael Faraday realised that if you build a cage out of certain materials, it would stop most electrical fields from entering the cage. The electrical fields that hit the cage are dispersed and leave the space inside unaffected.
In life, we are not just bombarded by the man-made electrical fields, we are also bombarded by how people act and what they say. We can walk into a room and know there is tension between the people in the room. This is us being able to feel as much, if not more, than we can see and hear.
In fact, people are far more sensitive than we give them credit for. Said another way, we are far more sensitive to the world than we allow ourselves to admit… So how do we deal with that level of sensitivity? Most build a human Faraday cage.
The human Faraday cage is a shield that we build, not from wire, but through beliefs about ourselves and the world, like the hurts from our childhood that we use to justify the effort that goes into maintaining the cage intact and seemingly impenetrable.
These are the foundations of the cage.
However, for many they are not enough – the world still gets in. This means that most of us add layers of reinforcing elements; like eating foods that numb our senses, using stimulants that make us race faster than the tension we may be feeling, or exercising in a way that makes the body harder and less sensitive to its surroundings.
The foundations and reinforcements make the perfect pairing.
The foundations make us convinced this is the only way to live and the reinforcements allow us to change the thickness of the shield so we can feel more (let our guard down) or less (protect ourselves) in different situations.
Voila! We now have the perfect way to get through life and be less affected by the world around us… with three key problems.
(1) The first problem with life in the cage is that this becomes our reality
We become so familiar with its wall that, when we reduce the thickness of the shield, it gives us a sense that we have connected deeply with someone. However, we are still living in the cage – it is thinner, but it is still there.
(2) The second is that we can never stop feeling, we can only become less aware of what we are feeling
Lay a piece of cloth over your arm and then ask someone to touch your arm. You can still feel something but your sensitivity to the touch is reduced. Add more layers of cloth and eventually you will say you can’t feel anything AND you will be right, except for the fact that something is still happening, you are just unaware that it is happening. This is like saying someone was not raped because they were unconscious. Just because we are not aware something is going on, it doesn’t mean we don’t feel it on some deeper level.
This is the lie we live from inside the cage; the fact that on a very deep level, we still feel it all, but we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues.
In fact, at times we defend our own lack of awareness. Not because we are lying to ourselves, but because the layers of the cage are so thick it comes as a shock that someone else might be feeling something different to us.
(3) What we block from the world, we block from within ourselves first
When the foundations and reinforcements block our senses, it becomes harder to determine if what we are feeling is coming from the outside or the inside. Yet if we don’t know the difference between what is coming from around or from within, how can we get a true sense of ourselves?
Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength. Life without the cage starts with being honest about the layers we have constructed so that we can start unlocking the foundations.
With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.
In appreciation of Serge Benhayon, the man who knows life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person.
By Joel Levin, Western Australia
Further Reading:
Living from the Inside Out
But are they Really ‘Skeptics’?
The Man is Not A Machine – Changing The Building Industry One Brick At A Time
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
It is time to start being honest, to allow the truth to be felt, ‘With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.’
‘This is the lie we live from inside the cage; the fact that on a very deep level, we still feel it all, but we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues.’ What you share with us all is huge Joel because we actually lie to ourselves all the time, we lie to hide the truth that we feel so much we actually don’t want to feel how much we can feel so we numb ourselves with food, drink anything to distract us away from the fact that we do feel everything and actually cannot stop feeling as we a receptors of energy first.
Once our essences are revealed as you have shared Joel, we can then start to appreciate that most divine connection.
Thanks for your blog Joel, I finally understood that my sensitivity is still fully there, yet I’m cutting myself off to it and the wisdom on offer if I were to receive life in full. Essentially to have that full sensitivity is by allowing myself to be my full self. I feel the problem is in the pictures of life and how I want life to be, it does hurt to see and feel how life actually is, yet to cut myself off is not the answer either.
We are all incredibly sensitive, maybe it is time to honour our sensitivity, ‘ we are far more sensitive to the world than we allow ourselves to admit’.
Our sensitivity has a way of dealing with what comes at us in a way that it ceases to affect us. It can only affect us when we don’t see where it’s coming from. But in the cage, there’s no chance of seeing anything.
Your explanation Joel of the human Faraday cage is a very practical analogy of what we do to in our day to day lives to try and block out the over-stimulation and ceaseless challenges that the world around us imposes upon us. But all the while we layer ourselves up and block what’s coming in, we are also blocking the love and wisdom that we can express to others and the world around us.
We never do stop feeling regardless of how much effort we put into trying to not feel. Our sensitivity is in fact our greatest strength and is what allows us to know what is true and what is not, so we can live guided by our connection to the sacredness of who we are, and as such live with true power.
Carola interesting that you use the phrase, ‘connection to the sacredness of who we are, and as such live with true power.’ I was with a group of people recently and I could feel I was being tested to stay in my sacredness or leave it and enjoin the lack of sacredness that I could feel by going into comparison that most women do when they are in each others company. I felt the delicateness of the sacredness I have connected to in my body and stayed with that feeling; nothing is worth leaving this connection. I have spent years in disconnection to my sacredness and having reconnected there is nothing out in the world that can tempt me to leave it again. Sacredness is within us all it is just a matter of reconnecting to the power and yet delicacy of sacredness once again.
When we step out from our self-imposed cage we become more aware of the truth of all that we are feeling.
Truth that we are feeling all of the time, something we cannot escape but only ignore, close our eyes, shut our ears and numb our feel. That is the only way to avoid what we are feeling and pretend like it doesn’t exist. I am constantly astounded by seeing how much other people can read energy, it’s an everyday thing, the conversations we have, born out of “something doesn’t feel quite right here” or the look in someone’s eyes when they clock something. We are all capable of it and more and more of us are surrendering to this innate way of life.
In short, the human Faraday cage keeps us ‘protected’ from the awareness that otherwise would make us taking responsibility to be who we are and bring to the world what is needed for all to live as the sensitive loving beings we are.
Very true Alexander. It is a grand illusion to think and believe that we are protecting ourselves by dulling our awareness, as in-truth we are opening ourselves up more to be governed by lies and falsities that is resulting in us accepting abuse to be a normality in our lives and society.
Carola as someone who built a wall to keep me in and people out, I can say from experience the wall of protection doesn’t work. It is a lie that we are fed that we can hide from life. We are receptors of energy and so therefore feel everything.
We feel everything despite our many tactics to try and numb ourselves, ‘most of us add layers of reinforcing elements; like eating foods that numb our senses, using stimulants that make us race faster than the tension we may be feeling’.
It is a work in progress from very young to build and keep reinforcing a human faraday cage that will stop us from feeling just how sensitive we are. But the harm gets in whether we are aware of it or not. If we have been given such sensitivity, doesn’t it make sense to honour it and use it as a guide in life, rather than crush it so we can fit in with all the other crushed human beings?
Even when we think we have let go of the protection, there may still be more layers held in place, ‘The first problem with life in the cage is that this becomes our reality. We become so familiar with its wall that, when we reduce the thickness of the shield, it gives us a sense that we have connected deeply with someone. However, we are still living in the cage – it is thinner, but it is still there.’ Wow, that has me reflecting on how I am in life, could I still have some protection in place that I am unaware of?
As layer upon layer of the protection, hurts, ideals, and beliefs that have become our cage are slowly removed, a sense of freedom begins to be felt and with that, an understanding that we have a choice to heal and to learn to love again who we truly are.
Realising that the ‘cage’ is not real, so we can remove it, ‘The first problem with life in the cage is that this becomes our reality’.
And what I feel is that we also feel others’ cage and the falseness that is being communicated and we don’t like that, and this sometimes then becomes a justification for us reinforcing our own cage.
We might justify our own reinforcements but connecting to the body will highlight that it’s not worth it. Sometimes being aware of another’s reinforcements helps to see that we have the same thing going on.
It can feel very raw or fragile at first when we let go of our layers of protection but I noticed always after a day of opening up more I feel so much more vital, open and loving because of it.
‘we can never stop feeling, we can only become less aware of what we are feeling’ WE tend to forget this and/or deny our feelings which can get us into oodles of trouble . How wonderful to know that we are always feeling but have gotten ourselves into believing we can’t. By uncovering one by one those impediments we have allowed to get in the way and giving ourselves permission to feel again we become more aware and potentially more honest.
We are deeply polluted by images, in particular of survival. We all know ways to defend ourselves against life and others by means of hardening (shielding). We also know how to shield the shield. The shield helps us surviving (coping). Yet, surviving is not a sign of strength. It is simply coping. Learning to stop balls from entering the goalkeeper is just that. Strength is to look at another right into their eyes one with an open heart, grab him/her by the hand and walk together, gracefully.
So many gems here, but the one jumping out tonight is that in our protection we can’t tell what is coming from without and what is coming from within, so yes we’ve protected ourselves from the world, but we stop being aware of how we truly feel too, we live a lesser version of ourselves.
When we live with the cage, we get pummeled by everything around us yet we can not feel because of the layers where it is coming from, how we are getting affected and what is going on- we end up then acting out behaviours that come from being affected and we don’t see what is at play.
MW what you are saying is that we react and when we react then we are affected by the outplay of the reaction. When we start to read life then there is no reaction because you can read what is happening before its actually happened.
I much prefer to live a life that is ‘cage-less’ than a life that is caged around man made conceptions.
And Joel ‘life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person’ is spot on, it is our birthright.
I love this blog, we cannot deny what we feel but we are that conditioned to listen to our minds, that we over ride what our body’s feel – a sad state of affairs around the world.
I prefer to dismantle my cage and really be who I truly am then walk around with this heavy cage that doesn’t belong to me and isn’t me.
The cage is false and an impediment to us, so it makes so much sense to fully discard it.
“it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.” The bars of our cage are no barrier to the light that shines out from our inner-heart.
The cages we build to keep out the world are locking up what makes the world… what is inside of every one of us. We become a planet full of snow globes!
I have lived my life in a box much like the cage you describe Joel, my box was ideals of good, right and wrong, I had no sense of my self nor did I want one for this would get in the was of my doing good. It is a slow process in learning to lovingly claim myself and honour what I feel, thanks to Serge and what he presents my box is gradually falling apart. “With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.” gorgeous words thank you.
If we have been living in a cage, at some level we have still been aware of what is going on, ‘Just because we are not aware something is going on, it doesn’t mean we don’t feel it on some deeper level.’
” the man who knows life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person. ”
This is very true and a simple example of free will , thank you for sharing Joel.
Joel, the analogy of someone touching us through increasing layers of clothing until we can’t feel it anymore and yet it is still happening is so powerful. It really brings home the fact that even though we don’t feel things (not because we can’t but because we choose to dull our awareness) they are happening any way and affecting us whether we feel them or not.
Many families ‘don’t do feelings’ Parents don’t speak to each other or their children about their lives, consequently feelings are left unspoken and unexplored. I’m constantly surprised by the number of children bullied at school, abused at home, or feel insecure but keep all these feelings and experiences to themselves, rather than share with another. We can do much more as families, teachers, youth workers to build communities that enable children to speak openly about what is going on in their outer and inner worlds Silence can be a deadly choice, confirmed by the startling rise in young male suicides.
‘Life without the cage starts with being honest about the layers we have constructed so that we can start unlocking the foundations’. When we deny our sensitivity and feelings with justification (protection), we lose ourselves and cannot truly connect with self and others.
When I left a company after nine years and ‘ready ‘to go’, I drew an image of a caged bird flying out of an open door. It symbolised my perception that leaving the job equated to freedom. But from what?. When I left, the cage came with me along with all my ideals and beliefs about life, nothing had changed in essence. It took years to become aware of inner and self-imposed constraints and lovingly dismantle them. Only then could I taste true freedom.
A person incarcerated in jail knows they’re in a physical prison, it is clear and tangible. We on the outside can often look at prisoners with judgement and arrogance unaware of our own caged existence.
You have a beautiful way of expressing Joel. When I have found it difficult to drop my protection, what I discovered is to be honest about where I’m at, and to simply surrender to my sensitivity and tenderness.
Surrendering to our sensitivity is a strength in itself, ‘Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.’
It is a paradox that the more we protect ourselves from outside influences, we simultaneously become more and more numb and therefore are more and more at the mercy of what is outside of us.
A paradox indeed Christoph, and one we can all feel if we get honest with ourselves.
One of the greatest myths is that we can protect ourselves from the outside world, lock ourselves away and harden our bodies. I was with someone yesterday who was sobbing for the time I was there and they kept saying “I told myself I was going to be strong”. It doesn’t work. We keep feeling everything no matter what walls we construct.
Could it be that this cage also reduces our level of vitality and overal joy and zest for life to most lack? It is no wonder exhaustion and depression among many other ill conditions are on the rise. After all it is lonely behind the bars of the self created cage that takes effort to keep up.
Yes building a shield for ourselves is a bit of a one size fits all. As in, we shut down our awareness of the things we don’t like about life e.g. anger from others however also and equally shut down all the things we do like about love e.g. expressing joy, receiving love etc.
Cages of our own making such a sad state of affair for all of us.
What an amazing blog. To consider that what we block from outside we block in ourselves first is huge … it blows away any idea that protection works, it comes with a big price tag … we miss out on the world and on ourselves so we then live a reduced version of us in a reduced world. So life is about unlocking our cages and allowing the light in us to be seen and felt in the world.
Beautifully shared Monica. It is such a reduced experience of life.
Today I got to feel how life would be without a cage, protection, a shield…. To surrender into the unconditional love within and be open to all without holding back for fear of being hurt. This doesn’t mean we won’t be hurt but why live life as a mere shadow of our true glory just because we might feel hurt. In being open to Love we feel our sensitivity and vulnerability which brings with it our power.
Yes, it is an intense but sustainable experience once we get used to it.
I am always inspired by your parables Joel and the reflection they offer us. Living in the cage takes a lot of effort and is very exhausting, learning to let go of these protective layers we have built up is life changing and we get to feel and embrace life in a whole new and very true way.
The truth is that when we enclose ourselves in protection so that we ‘seemingly’ feel less or safe, we are not living who we really are as we are masked by layers that avoid or dull our awareness, which we come to falsely believe is what identifies who we are. our relationship then a based on this false superficiality, lacking really connection. I agree that honesty is key in order for us to realise that our connection to who we are in essence and expressing what we feel is where true strength, power, freedom and real connection is experienced.
We create our own reality and we make sure that this is what stands out for us. The point is that what we create sits always on top of what is there anyway and the key is how we relate to it. Do we try to block it? Do we feel it and override it? Do we allow ourselves to feel it? When we have to take antibiotics, it kills everything good or bad. When we try to block or override, we are saying no to bad and good and in this case living under the illusion of protection which in truth is just a confirmation of not really wishing to feel anything that disturb how we want reality to be for us (a very controlling way of movement).
That lessening and thickening mechanics of the cage wall is so deceiving. It makes us go after the ‘better’ rather than the ‘true’.
So true Fumiyo – well said. Settling for a better life does not allow us to explore the immeasurable potential of living a true life, one that represents who we really are in essence.
The explanation of how layers of protection ie: the pieces of fabric, reduce our sensitivty is so wonderfully simple and clear. This visual makes perfect sense as to how we numb ourselves.
The more I deconstruct my own cage the more sensitive I am to the inner turmoil that occurs when standing on a foundation of hurt or actively reinforcing the walls around me. The relief of numbness doesn’t compare to the settlement of being out of the cage.
It is incredible the amount of effort that we put into maintaining our personal cage and great to understand that we are our own jailors and we have the key to unlock the cage at any time.
Cage-less, sounds like a good movie title actually. Imagine an action movie hero that was special and brave because he was willing to be vulnerable? Now that would be something for the boys to look up to but unfortunately its about supply and demand and I don’t think we are asking for those kind of movies yet. In saying that though, the ground swell has to start somewhere and these style of blogs to me are making a huge impact. They speak to all ages and they say, philosophy can be fun, they say evolving is not weird, its a science and its fascinating. Each time I read your blogs I am reminded of the fact that you are one of my biggest role models, with great love and appreciation for you, thank you.
I love this Joel, learning to live without the cage is our greatest protection as then we are able to feel all that is going on yet when things happen in life it is so easy for us to revert back to our patterns of protection.
I agree in full – Serge Benhayon leads the way in this. In what it is to live with ‘no cage’, as a man not only in touch with his essence, but in the full Glory of the embodiment of his soul.
We are all deeply served by such a reflection, particularly in a world where the cages and walls of division, born of yet harboured hurts and pain, are not only condoned but actively passed on from generation to generation… (until there is one that breaks the chain, that is…)
Deftly described Joel Levin. I very much appreciate your writing. These words are particularly heartening for us all: “it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength”.
What if we were to be so open as to have no walls to others whatsoever, and actually to know that in such mastery of life, we are not harmed, but rather, deeply empowered by the level of awareness that is possible for us to live, breathe and express from in this world.
‘Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength’. We have an incredible amount of strength within, we guard it, cover it, ignore it, protect it, pretend it’s not there, all to not live the powerhouses we are. Crazy when this truth is felt.
I know what you write here Joel to be true, as my Faraday Cage has been lessening its walls and as I lose the tougher/hard levels, I discover the more subtle ones that I would have sworn black and blue were not there, but they are. It is a loving work in progress to keep being open to me and to the world.
I love how clearly you expose the choice of not being aware, and the fact that no matter what we choose, we are always aware of everything.
Joel, I absolutely love your analogy of layering cloth to such a degree that you can no longer feel when you are being touched for this exact same principle can be applied to the way we layer hardness over ourselves to protect ourselves from hurt.
Yes the best of protections if we want to use that word is to be completely unprotected because there is nothing we need to protect ourselves from when we are in full bloom.
‘We become so familiar with its wall that, when we reduce the thickness of the shield, it gives us a sense that we have connected deeply with someone. However, we are still living in the cage – it is thinner, but it is still there.’ – this is such an important point that we use comparison to make what is not true seems acceptable.
Thank you Joel for so beautifully and graphically painting the fact and the impact of our choices to dull and disconnect from our awareness.
It is very true that as I begin to break down the foundation of the cage with honesty I get to feel more and what I’m finding is that it’s not the feeling more that is the most uncomfortable but the expressing and living the feeling that is true that I protected for so long, essentially living from my essence that is the most challenging but it is beginning to make sense to me that the more awareness I have the more I am to deepen the love for myself and in the way I choose to live my life.
My understanding is that we are all equally sensitive and aware. For many the only difference is how thick we have chosen to build our cage to block out our sensitivity and awareness to not feel what is going on around us. Some might consider this a great way to not get hurt but I realised it stops us feeling the love as well. Dismantling the cage and letting go of this need for protection is actually the best way to support us through life. Living more honestly, open, loving and without fear is our natural way.
It is through our sensitivity that we are able to discern energy, what it true and what is not. Through our sensitivity we know the quality of our essence, we can explore this richness and as such live in connection to our sacredness. The more we embrace our sensitivity the more we live our true selves, engaging life and with all others with the richness and power of our presence in full. As such, our greatest freedom is living all that we are from an unshakable foundation that is at hand through our connection to our Soul.
‘…we can never stop feeling, we can only become less aware of what we are feeling’ – Reading this just confirms how much we feel all of the time, and yet so much goes unspoken. We put up with things but don’t express in full – the feeling is always going to be there, but how we take things on and talk about things is up to us all of the time.
It’s actually exhausting living with this cage – but we don’t have to and it’s much more simple than we think, there doesn’t need to be any big dramas or woes.
So true Gyl, it is exhausting because it is going against our natural expression and way of life.
There are so many great analogies here, in many ways we build our bodies to be our cages, we make them hard from our reactions and shutting down, and we numb them and mis-shape them with food and our lack of care and exercise of them, we actually create a physical cage that we walk around in every single day.
Life without a cage is pretty scary for many people, their trust issues can be so deep and can take awhile to rebuild. It is life changing when we begin to let go of this protection and discover life beyond the cage is not so scary and we feel empowered to embrace all our unique qualities and to feel open and accepting of ourselves and others – a powerful reflection that inspires others to equally question the cage that they tightly hold onto.
I found this quite uncomfortable to read today Joel, knowing that there is much that I choose to stay unaware of but which by way of this blog have let myself feel the lack of acceptance of what there is there to be felt.
When we begin to uncover the layers of protection we have built over time, we can start to feel and observe so much more around us. Surrendering to our sensitivity offers so much wisdom and opens up our hearts for so much more in the process too. Thank you Joel, I love returning to this blog.
No matter how many times I read things from Joel Levin I never tire from appreciating something it brings. Today this blog in the, “This is us being able to feel as much, if not more, than we can see and hear” way I see how we have and continue to create and build a world based on 5 senses but negate another very real sense, feeling or our 6th sense. We all know that we feel more then we care to see but somehow still weave a world of avoidance of this very simple and plain fact. No doubt it will go down in history in “the world is flat” type argument until we come across again or return to the truth of this ‘other’ sense. Look at children and how they go about things, still very much activated to feeling energy as their only means of communication when very young and yet as we get older this is pushed aside, covered and denied. As this blog is highlighting, just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean you don’t feel it. We live in an ocean of energy, have you heard of that being said? Well I have seen this written many times but it’s like we have these windows but have yet to fully open them up. Blogs like this are bringing us back, or opening us up, thank you.
In reading your article, Joel, I now have a greater understanding of others and their behaviours. There is a sense of compassion as I understand why some people behave the way they do, based on the fact that they don’t want to feel or don’t know that they can. Very helpful, thank you for your insight.
Thank you Joel for another great blog clearly showing how we set our lives up to protect ourselves from the pain and loss of our own love, not realising that we also shut ourselves away from a connection to who we truly are. Life is a continual unwrapping of layer upon layer of who we are not to find who we truly are.
What an incredible way to explain life, incredibly supportive in allowing the veil we live under to be lifted, gently offering the possibility that we are far more then we choose to perceive.
This is such a great analogy of how we live and the fact that we are convinced our cage is it, and indeed when we reduce the reinforcements we’ve built we consider that connecting more deeply to another which it is, but we miss the point that we’re both still in our own versions of a cage and that we can both step out at anytime. And as you say how is being honest that we’re in there and beginning to feel the layers and let each one go, for the truth is we’ve only been fooling ourselves all along, we do feel everything, so it’s actually about learning to be aware of what we feel.
It is fascinating how we can have people in our lives who just do not want to know about anything bad that is happening in the world, and we judge them for it, and then if we dig a little deeper with ourselves we find our own set of things we refuse to feel.
Beautiful Joel. The key to knowing and feeling who we truly are is to unlock our self-imposed cage thus “revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.”
Such a clear and understandable description of the choices we make to not feel the tension of the world around us “most of us add layers of reinforcing elements; like eating foods that numb our senses, using stimulants that make us race faster than the tension we may be feeling, or exercising in a way that makes the body harder and less sensitive to its surroundings.” Having this understanding has made it possible to call these reactions out – only then was I able to begin to look at what was going on; the what and the why that lead to that point, bringing some clarity from which to make changes.
The cage you are describing feels like a black squared solid block that is very hard and has lost itself, like it has forgotten who it truly is, and abandoned the eternal warm glow that’s within. Allowing that warm glow once again is the perfect way to melt the block into its natural shape again. A shape that is people friendly and open hearted.
Gosh, I love this, when we start to let the layers down it can be a little overwhelming as we start to feel all that we have tried to de-sensitise ourselves too. I am in this process and can feel at times a going back and forth as I allow more sensitivity then react to what I feel.
Coming back to this blog I wonder what would happen if I explored what certain areas feel like… like why do I get sleepy on the train? Why after work are my shoulders more tense than before work? Theres a conversation my sensitivity is having that I am missing out on, what if I chose to explore these feelings? Thank you Joel, your writing always inspires me to explore the depths of life.
When I first started reading this and read the description of what a Faraday cage it, I thought “Wow, imagine being able to walk in the world and not be affected by what I see, feel and by what comes at me”. And then I realised that perhaps a similar “cage” is possible when we walk in the steadiness of our truth, take steps of love and walk in our joy. Is it possible I would then see and feel everything yet I would not react to it nor would it affect me in the way that I fear so much. Perhaps my love is the power I have been searching for all along.
The shields we build are not to shield as away from hurts that may come our way, but to shield away the hurts we carry and so to guarantee that they remain alive and well. .
‘Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.’ Beautifully said Joel and very true our sensitivity is not a weakness but rather a strength for us all to embrace and enjoy.
“In fact, people are far more sensitive than we give them credit for. Said another way, we are far more sensitive to the world than we allow ourselves to admit… So how do we deal with that level of sensitivity? Most build a human Faraday cage.”
Joel you are spot on – we tend to shield ourselves from the world in an attempt to protect our sensitivity. However, this does not really work. And hence the sooner that we realise this, then the sooner do we offer ourselves the opportunity to let this go and truly embrace life and all it has on offer.
Thank you Joel for another great blog, one very relevant to the way most of us live behind our ideals and beliefs thinking we are protected, and this is who we think we are, Once we realise our life is being lived within a cage we then start the process of healing the many layers we have built up over our life time and many lifetimes, gradually allowing the light of our essence our true self to emerge and shine through.
Another great analogy Joel, how we all live in our own protective cage, and accepting that this is life. The more aware we become the more connected we are with ourselves and to each other and the cage begins to dissolve itself.
We are professionals in building the cages but need a lot of work and at times help to undo them or actually to realize that they only exist as long as we hold on to them. Receiving the reflection of another person who has released themselves from the cage is most important to even become aware that the cage is not normal and or the only way to live life.
We think when we open up that we are free and to an extent that is true, but as Joel reveals here, if we’ve been in a cage, and the walls are thinner we’re still in the cage. It’s about letting go and being willing to feel and see all that is there, to embrace the sensitivity we all have and live honouring it.
Another great analogy Joel. The funny thing is that we can only really choose not to take things on and be hurt if we are not in the cage, for as you say no matter how numb we have made ourselves we are still affected and still hurting. When we are aware of what is around us we are in a much better position to face it in the strength of our sensitivity and this allows us an opportunity to step back and observe it rather than being involved and numbing ourselves to the fact that we are involved.
The shield we build is the most elaborate work of engineering we ever go through. It is built in such a way that most of its components work together smoothly to stop us evolving. It is an anti-evolutionary symphony.
Coming back to this blog today felt very timely as I look more closely at my ‘work cage’ – the face and persona I put on to not feel the world around me. At this point it feels like I still have a cage but I am feeling more than ever how much of a lie this cage is. Like the story of the princess and the pea and as you’ve shared Joel – no amount of layers can stop our sensitivity. Honouring this sensitivity is the way to support us when we feel disturbed or hurt. Building the cage is not designed to protect us but protect the part that made a mistake and chose to not be the love that we are first and foremost.
Life without a cage? Its a foreign concept to most of us.
Its like living on a planet that you are told has no oxygen, a planet where everyone else is wearing breathing apparatuses on their faces, everywhere you travel, you do so in a little space ship because if you are to step out into the atmosphere you will perish or at least that is what you have been told. Then one day, you see someone walking round outside of a ship, with no suit or mask and they are fine, in fact they are in excellent health out there. At this point you have two choices, either you ask what they might be doing that enables them to do the impossible or you throw mud at them and accuse them of being a phony. If you choose choice two, these are the justifications you might use:- he must have tubes that are hidden that are giving him oxygen – maybe there is a bubble that we can’t see that is super expensive that allows him to breathe – where did he get the money for this extremely expensive invisible bubble? Must be tax evasion – I am not sure that I believe what I see anyway? – maybe he just said he walked out there but was lying- it has to be a lie, because if it isn’t a lie, what does that mean for me? What lie have I been sold, what have I been living for all this time, with my big investments in space suits, masks and space ships?
I can tell you now, Serge Benhayon is out there, walking around doing all the same daily tasks, jobs, chores as everyone else but he is without a suit, mask, spaceship, bubble or cage. If he can do this, then it’s doable and I have seen many more recently that are free of these protective measures and have joined him, it’s inspiring when you appreciate it, and it is totally possible for us all, we just have to be brave and vulnerable enough to step out.
Ahhh Sarah, a parable within a parable…love it. Indeed we are sold a lie about an atmosphere that will detsotry the unprotected but it is not true at all.
So many of us walk around with a guard or a shield without even realising it. In my own experience, I have found this to be a gradual process of shedding my guard or shield – it seems to be a process that happens in cycles or in layers. And the more layers of guard I drop then the more open I feel, but what keeps surprising me is how there are always more layers or guards that come up to be discovered once the most superficial one gets shed. And hence I have come to realise that opening up is a gradual process – little by little there is a dropping away of all those things that I use to ‘protect myself’, yet the protection is actually false as all it does is harden me and make me feel things less. And so this gradual process is a gift that I can take on board at my own pace – but saying it like this makes me realise how silly it is to go slow with something that is a blessing in our lives! Yet at the same time it is not silly, for to drop a guard means exploring a hurt, and this takes courage to face. The benefits are tremendous and so I can say that dropping my guard more and more is an amazing process that I will keep working on!
It is amazing what lengths we will go to to protect ourselves and from what? Our ideals and beliefs are carefully constucted, formed by our experiences in life, both good and ‘bad’, but they seldom reveal the truth of the matter. In my experience they have taken me on long detours, locked up in my ‘Faraday Cage’. Serge Benhayon gets us peeling away those insulating, protective layers from the inside out. It gets lighter and lighter and eventually there is transparency, we can see each other and feel the truth that we are no different in essence and therefore a cage is nothing but an impediment to basic human connection.
I am learning day by day how much it is important to choose to feel all there is to feel rather than hide because what is there to be felt is overwhelming or unpleasant. The more I have made this choice the more I know how to be and what, if anything, needs to be done.
Agree Lucy and clearly an invaluable asset and ability to have.
I was someone who was always overweight and I lost a lot of that weight but kept some on, a practitioner once said to me, you have more of an issue with not having the weight than having it. I got to feel how I was scared to let it all go as I felt vulnerable and I was holding onto the last excess as a form of protection- my cage.
Is there a piece of writing Joel that you do not nail? The answer is no! Your analogies are always so perfect. The way you describe our layers of protection against our own sensitivity is beautiful and so easy to connect to.
The common way of thinking is that everyone has a different opinion, but what if this opinion was made to contrast some else because of the layers we put over ourselves, rather than we have different opinions naturally.
What if having a different option to another or aligning with certain options and societal normals was a layer we adopt and put onto ourselves?
It is so true that people believe that living life with an adjustable shield is the best coping strategy to deal with being hurt by people…. As if determining and managing the level of how much of ourselves were are prepared to have seen or how much we are willing to let people in, is going to protect us… all the while ignoring the fact that to do so we have to live in a cage. It is absolutely worth addressing and letting go of every layer and to live the raw, unmasked beauty and power of what lies within.
Yes, from personal experience, I fully agree with you Joel. The layers that we add over and over on top of ‘the human faraday cage’ that we formed as our foundation from outdated beliefs and past hurts, serves only to consolidate our feelings of separation and our connection with God. Thus, we continue to live with deep inner anxiousness, tension and disharmony in our body until we choose to bring a stop to this and begin the healing through facing the hurts and discarding that which is not true.
However, for many they are not enough – the world still gets in. This means that most of us add layers of reinforcing elements; like eating foods that numb our senses, using stimulants that make us race faster than the tension we may be feeling, or exercising in a way that makes the body harder and less sensitive to its surroundings.
Great analogy Joel to understand how it is we get through life feeling everything at some level, but ensuring it never reaches our conscious awareness. There is no end to the depth of our irresponsibility to not call out what we can feel so clearly is not true.
We fight awareness through all means. What we use in this fight becomes our most familiar best friend. That is why we make it part of who we call us,
Avoid feeling is everything for human beings. It is our main addiction, even if the least known of them.
It is odd that what we are ready to defend to our last breath is not even us but something we have decided to make part of us to justify everything we are not standing as tall as we truly are.
I love what you’re saying that even though we have created a life where we are seemingly not aware of what is going on all around us everything still happens to us and affects us. That in itself should be enough to make us more responsible of looking at how aware we allow ourselves to be.
Joel I love this example of the cage – and how as you say we can make it our reality but the truth is we never stop feeling we can only numb what we feel. Wow we seem to be so good at this and so advanced at not being sensitive because we think this means we are strong – but really there is strength in sensitivity and it takes a lot to let our guards down and be open with others.
So true – it’s both the foundation and the reinforcement, and just thinning the wall doesn’t mean that the cage has been dismantled – that is genius, Joel. Changing the thickness and texture of the wall has deceived so many into thinking that they are without a cage.
We live in our self-made prison hold in the deep belief that we need to protect ourselves from others meanwhile we are all craving the same true love that we have chosen to lock out.
Likening the human Faraday cage to a self-imposed prison is a great analogy to illustrate how we layer and protect ourselves from the imposition of the outside world – but as you shared Rachel this also simultaneously locks us out to receiving the love from others that we so crave.
If we all knew just how sensitive we were, and that that was a good thing, life would be very different. The metaphor of a faraday cage is gold, and demonstrates very well the challenge we all have before us, to remove the cage, and feel all that is there to be felt.
Our cage is meant to turn down the volume on life which is ironic, because by turning up the volume on our always present mobile device with headphones archives the same effect. How many homeless people do we choose not to look at so we do not see them. Hence, they don’t exist. The foundations and reinforcements are just different names for the bricks and mortar in our walls. Life without walls becomes something that can never be contained again once it is set free.
The protection we use is build on old rubble that hurt us once, which comes from not truly observing what is being done to us, but reacting which is what we continue to do with our shields up. I feel it is about allowing ourself to see the old foundations and break them down by observing what they are really teaching us, because that is what life is about, we are here to learn to return to our inner knowing, and true source which is God and the universe.
We recently explored our protections at a universal medicine retreat it was very revealing how much most of us are living protected and measured in how much love we will let out depending on whom and where we are. Exhausting was the conclusion! Rather than simply being ourselves and expressing from this knowing we try and protect and control ourselves to not disturb anyone or thing, a false sense of peace being sort rather than harmony and love. There are many many layers of protection I love how you describe that as pieces of clothing getting thicker and thicker.
Joel your writing is exquisite in how it brings to life and clarity the games we play to avoid being hurt. It hurts us so much to live not expressing the love we are and how you share that we love with a shield that is still up,but just thinner.
I have come to realize and embrace that being sensitive, aware, feeling everything, and with no protection is the only true way to live, ‘With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.’
It is pretty horrific how we treat ourselves and choose to try and close down some of our most valuable tools, I now celebrate the more aware and sensitive I allow myself to be, ‘we can never stop feeling, we can only become less aware of what we are feeling’ and, ‘Just because we are not aware something is going on, it doesn’t mean we don’t feel it on some deeper level.’
‘This is the lie we live from inside the cage; the fact that on a very deep level, we still feel it all, but we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues.’ How crazy are we, to lie to ourselves to the point that we forget what is really true.
I do love your blogs Joel, and how you write in such a fun way. I can relate to having built up layers and layers of protection and still having to numb myself with things like food, I am now embracing my sensitivity, my awareness, and my tenderness and this helps with letting go of the illusion I was creating. ‘The human Faraday cage is a shield that we build, not from wire, but through beliefs about ourselves and the world, like the hurts from our childhood that we use to justify the effort that goes into maintaining the cage intact and seemingly impenetrable.’
I know this is a large chunk of inspiration to pull out but I love this paragraph
“Lay a piece of cloth over your arm and then ask someone to touch your arm. You can still feel something but your sensitivity to the touch is reduced. Add more layers of cloth and eventually you will say you can’t feel anything AND you will be right, except for the fact that something is still happening, you are just unaware that it is happening. This is like saying someone was not raped because they were unconscious. Just because we are not aware something is going on, it doesn’t mean we don’t feel it on some deeper level.”
A couple of my work colleges were inspired to quit coffee after spending a bit of time with me, previous to this they both drank strong coffee everyday. They both quit for a week and then had one and were shocked by how shaky, affected their nervous system was, they explained that they didn’t realise how full on coffee was in the body and how sensitive they were to it until having that short brake. I said that even the tiniest sip of coffee sends me bouncing of the walls but it wasn’t always like this, if you take any drug long enough your body stops sending the messages that its not coping and begins to be numb or seem immune to the drug.
One might trick themselves into thinking that they love caffeine or that it doesn’t affect them.
When a speed addict take heaps of speed and needs more and more because they no longer feel the affects, that does not mean the body can handle more, it just means the body has stopped wasting energy sending the same messages and has conserved its energy to just survive. If we have brave enough to start removing layers on the cage or even remove the cage we are able to be in touch with the most reliable and trustworthy instrument, the body, it never lies when you connect to it like this, it hold the key and the answers.
love the re-life examples Sarah. Spot on the things we do to cover a hurt, deal with our exhaustion with cover up soloution that never ‘quench the thirst’.
Wonderful wisdom in your sharing Joel. I can so relate to your Cage analogy and building a wall of protection. From this protection spot we can only react with life. It has a restricting hold laced with fear and judgement. It is when we are free of the cage that we get a glimpse of something expansive and devoid of drama/emotion and investment in the outcome. We are free to respond to life.
A timely re-read of this blog this morning as there was a sense of a placing an old cage over myself with falling into the trap of an old food habit, which definitely does not serve my body (it is letting me know very clearly!) . This cage used to be my reality and it is amazing to be so aware of it now and how it feels distinctly out of place and very uncomfortable now.
The shield takes many forms, this is brilliantly described Joel, I would say that before Universal Medicine I would have been unaware that I was choosing certain behaviours to create my shield, and I would never see my sensitivity as anything other than a weakness, an inability to cope with cruelty and unkindness. When we embrace our sensitivity then the ability to cope is greater as it is no longer seen as a weakness but an understanding and appreciation of a much deeper strength.
And I love what you say about the fact that being sensitive to this stuff is actually the source of great strength. So powerful this. Sensitive and strong being in the same sentence. A total reversal of the commonly held belief. Toughen up. Be brave. Man up. Stiff upper lip. Soldier on. Etc.. All the while, the man or woman inside is in agony, panicking, running away from themselves, freaking out, checking out, numbing themselves, abusing, indulging….how is that strength??!! We need to start being honest about this stuff, talking about it, sharing…if a few of us pull our heads out of the great sands of illusion, many, many more will quickly follow.
It’s wonderful the way you express Joel Levin. Thank you. I completely concur with your ‘laying cloth over the skin’ analogy. What I am finding so amazing is that, as each layer of cloth comes off, it is shocking to feel the impact of certain actions or choices. And that has been happening to me all along! No wonder humanity is exhausted. No wonder illness and dis-ease rates are heading out of the stratosphere.
I find the same otto, the layers covering up not only something I was not wanting to look at but also a whole heap of energy that I use to keep the layer in place.
We are indeed far more sensitive than we give ourselves credit for. We feel, we know yet we doubt our sensitivity. Embracing my sensitivity is key as it is through my appreciation and acceptance of it, I evolve.
Wow Joel I love what you have shared in your awesome blog: “Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.” That is such a good reminder for me to allow myself to live my sensitivity in full and not only fractional.
it is strange isn’t it esteraltmiks, that we would be more prepared to live in a cage of our own making rather than learn that beyond the sensitivity is the power and strength of who we are in truth.
I love this sentence Joel “With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.” It inspires.
Thank you Joel, and the unfortunate thing is that most of us don’t realize that we are in this cage that really does stop us feeling, truly communicating , and living life to its full. Thank goodness for those who can help us shed the shed ( or the cage !)
Joel I love how you write it makes so much sense and your practical examples help to really understand what is happening. I loved your description of putting a cloth over an arm and someone touching the arm, and the more layers you put on the arm the less we are able to feel….yet all the time someone is still touching us…it is just that our sensitivity and awareness is impaired. This makes so much sense to how we live life, numb and unaware of everything around us. Looking back I can pin point many times when I added another layer to numb me from feeling what I was really feeling as a child. “This is the lie we live from inside the cage; the fact that on a very deep level, we still feel it all, but we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues.” This is so true this line really brings home to me that we use lack of awareness as being a lack of issues, a clever trick that stops us opening up and looking deeper into our lives.
Thanks Alisonmoir, reading you comment also made me realise that not only do we use the lack of awareness as a proof that there are no issues, we then use it as proof that we don’t have the awareness we need to deal with any issues we might become aware of. So super disempowering on all fronts.
Great point Joel, no wonder we keep going round in circles and changing nothing, no awareness, no issues, no awareness, and so we continue the merry cycle choosing not to see past this.
Reflecting on what you have shared Joel – brings up a greater awareness of what is happening for Humanity when we choose to add the layers of protection, avoiding feeling the truth and living in reaction to or defending the choices we are making, choices that are not based on truth. I loved your comment – ‘With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others’. There is another way Humanity can live and it is up to each of us to choose to discard the layers we have added and to allow ourselves to re-connect to what we are feeling all of the time and to be more honest in our interactions with others. Sensitivity can be a strength and love can be our way – the choice is ours.
Sensitivity is nearly always said in the context of being a negative attribute or being something that we do not want too much of. When in fact all that it means is to feel more. Feeling more is not a weakness. It is not weak to know our body, or to be able to tell what is going on with ourselves or another because we are feeling more. As it has been so perfectly said, “sensitivity is our greatest strength”, and it will serve us far better to embrace sensitivity than numb ourselves to the awareness that feeling more brings us.
Absolutely Naren. Sensitivity is our greatest strength, and when we honour this we are much less likely to make disregarding or irresponsible choices, knowing full well how they will affect us and how we will then be less able to feel and observe what is going on around us – a key skill in making sure we don’t get affected by them.
Very true, Susie. Sensitivity gives us an awareness not only of what is being felt, but also awareness of what is going on beneath just the physical sensations we are feeling.
I agree Naren, there is such a strength in knowing what is really going on in and around us.
Yes, Joel. I would say that being aware of ourselves and what is going on within us is where we truly know strength.
Agree..that old saying, that you don’t really know what you are made of until you’re tested, yet each time I chosen deeper awareness in life, I have found an inner resilience equal to if not stronger than anything I feel is happening around me.
Absolutely, and for me that strength has been something that I had no idea of just how deep it was and different to anything that I have experienced strength to be previously.
I am with you on that…hard to put into words the fact that feeling so delicate can be coupled with a strength.
Indeed, Joel. It goes beyond what our minds limit ourselves to understand.
What WE limits ourselves to understand 🙂
Our sensitivity can indeed be our strength! The more aware we are of what we are feeling the more opportunity we have to respond with love, to chose it rather than go into a default reaction and get emotional.
Sensitivity and strength, sound like they are opposite but as you say Fiona, it allows us to feel more of what is really going on.
What you have expressed here Joel is simple, beautiful, wise and true;
“With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others”, just gorgeous.
I can feel how my layers of protection that are still getting in the way of surrender into the unfathomable potential of what is, and the conditions that I have attached to each layer. It is really incredible I have put so much energy in constructing my own cocoon to shield myself and creating my own battles and struggles only to be defeated.
It feels so important to be aware of the layers to the walls we have created around ourselves for when we feel we have made it we may simply have just let go of another condition we hold against people or life.
“Just because we are not aware something is going on, it doesn’t mean we don’t feel it on some deeper level.” This is so revealing Joel. We can numb ourselves to the point of unconsciousness or hide away from the world, however this does not stop what is happening from happening. It just means we don’t feel it. This can be seen as the ultimate dishonesty with self. Only when we are open to feeling what is happening can we address it.
Straight from heavan these words are – “revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.”
“…people are far more sensitive than we give them credit for. Said another way, we are far more sensitive to the world than we allow ourselves to admit…” This is such an important realization Joel and the way you have presented it brings it back to us as individuals. We are more sensitive than we allow.
Well said Joel – ‘Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.
“The electrical fields that hit the cage are dispersed and leave the space inside unaffected.” As I read this line at the start of your blog Joel, I got a very real sense of how we protect ourselves from getting hurt yet the protection simply (and devastatingly) leaves us feeling very alone and disconnected from one another.
The thing with protection is, is that we can always feel everything untoward that comes our way no matter how hard we try not to feel it, at best we can distract ourselves or disassociate ourselves from feeling the reality of certain situations.
I agree Abby, we are always aware of what is going on, but the ultimate lie we tell ourselves is that we are not
Yes Rosanna I agree, our protection becomes a cage that keeps the world at bay but in the process we become very lonely and disconnected. Dismantling the cage can feel like an overwhelming prospect but I know that the more I have concentrated on re-building my inner connection and returning to my innate tenderness, the more my cage has naturally fallen away.
That’s gorgeous Rowena; that nurturing and bringing out your own tenderness to the surface, softens the cage as your delicacy is lived.
Yes Rowena, and appreciation. Truly appreciating our selves and others expands the love.
Yes Rowena I feel the same. There are often moments of potential anxiousness but by continually returning to this connection and feeling that tenderness supports us hugely in saying centred within ourselves.
“Serge Benhayon, the man who knows life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person.” The fact that it is a choice says it all for me, we can come up with so many stories, reasons and excuses as to why we live this way, but really it all comes down to our lack of responsibility. We can and do make a choice in every single moment how we live and want to be. It’s the energy we choose first, fire or prana, that will determine whether we observe or absorb life, and whether we choose to keep building the cage or let it go.
For more on energy check out here – http://www.unimedliving.com/unimedpedia/word-index/unimedpedia-spirit.html
” Serge Benhayon, the man who knows life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person.” this is one of the most true and profound absolute facts, I have ever read.
This has really made me stop and think about all the people I see, have seen, all the people in the world really. I would say that 99.9% of us are walking around not being ourselves. Imagine if we all gave ourselves permission to let out the joy and playfulness and love we all felt as a child.
Well, what a world that would be and for sure not the chaos we are in right now.
It’s crazy that we abuse ourselves so much, in whatever shape and form that may be, they are all the same when it comes down to it, maybe just a different colour is chosen so to speak – to take us away from the thing we all want, and deep down know innately – love.
“The electrical fields that hit the cage are dispersed and leave the space inside unaffected.” this line is true of ourselves, when we allow ourselves to feel everything there is to be felt, to choose to not harden, or try to protect ourselves against it. But to simply clock it, observe it, learn from it and know it is not ours to fix. When this is chosen all that stuff out there that we may not like to feel, isn’t such a big deal if a deal at all, it’s much easier to see and feel why it’s been chosen. I can have the same day twice where one day I react to what I feel and see and I feel like crap, because I have chosen to absorb it all – same day, same thing, much more steady within my self, I step back, observe the same situation and see it for what it is, I feel amazing because I am myself, I haven’t reacted and thus taken on all this energy that is not mine.
I have had similar experiences gyllianrae. It is all about observing and not absorbing. We need to be open to feeling what is going on without taking it on. No need for protection.
“It is our sensitivity that give us out strength” how true this is and of course no how we are taught to view this quality. “Your too sensitive” being a common phrase that gets bandied about. Today and everyday is an opportunity to allow that sensitivity to guide me, to let the feelings be foremost and to not look for ways to bury this quality but instead embrace it. Thank you Joel, great writing.
“Today and everyday is an opportunity to allow that sensitivity to guide me, to let the feelings be foremost and to not look for ways to bury this quality but instead embrace it.” This is the key to recognising and embracing who we naturally are Stephen, beautifully said. Society teaches us to deny and reject our innate sensitivity, but it is our greatest gift and learning to cherish it is an essential part of re-connecting to who we truly are.
“..Our sensitivity is our greatest strength” this is imortant to understand Joel. When we protect ourselves which layers and layers we are not able to perceive what is going on and we are simply puppets trying best to manage our lives. When we drop our guards we are able to feel and are prepared for what ever comes our way. And this is a process of allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and to feel equally the power in that.
Absolutely Janina. It seems kind of contradictory that being open, vulnerable and without protection is our greatest strength. Yet this is the exact approach taken in the healthcare industry these days – previously hospitals would attempt to cover up any mistakes and put forward an air of perfection and infallibility, but this is both untrue and does not work. The approach taken these days is one of open disclosure and truth – so much better. We as individuals can learn from this – there is great strength when we drop the protection.
I love this line -“we are simply puppets trying best to manage our lives”- you see it everywhere, I do it as well… get convinced that managing, if not mastering function is what life is all about…often to our own expense.
Learning to not fall (back) into function and managing mode is something we all can learn as it is a familiar strategy but very harming equally.
Indeed, the impact of thinking that life getting better is an improvement only to realise that better was compared to a previous bad state and nothing close to a vital, joyful state that we could be living.
The whole world is based on protection and shields, and if you buy into them you can lose yourself inside the shield. There is always something reflecting that we don’t come from this though, it may be somebody, the Sun, the stars, a headache or body pain. Something is always there reminding us the the huge amount of tension that is felt when one is not being their glorious unprotected selves.
This is a lovely point harryjwhite. Even though we may bury ourselves in protection there is always something to remind us that we are more than our hurts, more than what we just see.
Really well put, harryjwhite. The tension you speak of, the pull between being all that we are and the resistance that we have to that pull, is ever present in our lives. We can either explore it and learn to work with what it is telling us, or resist further and compound the issues we are experiencing.
“We can never stop feeling ..,” so true Joel. I used to use all forms of distraction and stimulation to avoid feeling my feelings; in the form of sugary substances, alcohol and TV. What I now realize is that I’m a sensitive woman and didn’t want to feel. Allowing this sensitivity to now be felt and learning how not to take on other people’s problems, absorbing, but instead observing has resulted in huge changes. Thank you Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Joel, what you write here about life without the cage is truly precious. Obviously you are a man who is unlocking your own foundation and this is beautiful inspiration for all to see, read and feel.
I love the analogy Joel of the cloth on the arm and the layers. You are right. There is not a single person that can stop feeling, for we are innately sensitive beings, but the harm we do in allowing so many cloths runs deep to our core.
Indeed Joel, it is our birthright to live free of a cage but we have also free will from which we constantly choose to build that cage instead. It is out of free will that we have chosen to make ourselves less aware of the energies that are all around us. Could it be that by doing that we try to ignore that we are multidimensional beings and part of a greater whole and that our only way here on earth is to evolve back to that state of being and that by ignoring that fact by making ourselves less aware we are only delaying our return, the way we eventually all have to go?
“our sensitivity gives us strength”
I love how you have described the ways we block our sensitivities, Joel, and half the time we are not even aware we are doing this as we see these ways as being a normal part of our living. When we allow ourselves to feel our sensitivities we are connecting to our essence and the walls of the cage we are living in can start to be eroded. A profound sharing- thank you.
Hi Anne, indeed “our sensitivity gives us strength”. While exploring this aspect of my life, that I am a very sensitive man, I can feel that that is true and that only thru this sensitivity I am able to live my life in full as I now am able to feel the love I have, not only for myself, but for all of humanity equally so. And this fact I was never aware of when I lived in my self build faraday cage as it did not allowed me to feel this.
As you state in point (3) Joel “What we block from the world, we block from within ourselves first.” In this state we neither feel the world nor ourselves…..it simply doesn’t work on any level.
By continuing to protect ourselves from the world and what goes on around us is just another way to stay in comfort and hide from reality. As you said Joel, “it is that sensitivity that gives us our strength”. Serge Benhayon is indeed our finest example of the Livingness of this.
Serge Benhayon has been a true inspiration for all of what is to live you without any ideals or beliefs and the reflection of his every movement confirms the divinity in us all.
I absolutely agree with what you have expressed Francisco, Serge Benhayon is a true inspiration, a man who knows life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person, and lovingly supports us all to know and live this ourselves.
It’s such an important reminder Joel that just because we choose not to notice something, of chose to be unaware that we feel everything and are affected by everything, just because we have put a wall up (or live in a cage) does not mean that that something is not happening. The wall or cage may give us temporary relief, but will bring ourselves much more harm in the long run.
Hi Jennifer, that is exactly the problem, that when we make ourselves unaware of feeling energies does not mean that it is not there, that it is not happening and that we are not affected by it. We are affected by everting and especially if we have chosen to not be aware of this fact makes us even more vulnerable to the effect that these energies have on our bodies. Opposed to when we would allow ourselves to feel everything we would be aware of the energies that want to enter and are we able to stop them and keep our bodies free of the energies that do not belong to us and in a way are poisoning to our systems.
Thank you Joel for a stunning article that is so on point. Beginning to dismantle the bars of the cage we have created for ourselves is pretty confronting at first, dealing with a greater sensitivity can be quite unsettling and take a little time before we can reconcile the fact that our vulnerability is indeed our greatest strength. The following quote is so supportive to continue with the process, “With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.”.
Life inside the cage is so numb that it’s possible to convince ourselves that we are not in the cage and easily mastering or managing life. The truth is that living in the cage like this results in intense anxiety and tension in the body, that we cannot help but be aware of. Bringing down the walls and surrendering is the only way to begin to deal with the tension and anxiety.
I like how you have pointed out the anxiety and tension that comes from living in the cage, even though we hope it would relieve some of the tension, it doesn’t.
Yes Joel, but ironically often our response to the anxiety and tension is to try to build a more robust cage, rather than step back and see that it simply isn’t working.
So try, and it truly isn’t working in so many ways.
This is so true Joel and so ridiculous when we look at it like this. It comes down to a stubbornness and arrogance to admit that maybe the cage we have build isn’t actually working, and instead going into making the cage stronger or thicker so we can’t feel the responsibility of our choices and that all of our wows are a result of all of our own choices.
Yup, it’s the proverbial digging ourselves into a deep hole but in this instance we are covering ourselves with more and more layers of protection, that don’t actually protect at all.
So true, a hole that get’s so deep we end up stuck and alone at the bottom, until we take responsibility for digging ourselves out of there.
How perfect is that once we realise we are in the hole, we still have to climb our way out. Such a perfect chance to understand our choices
That’s it Joel, there is no escaping our choices, whether it’s a wall we build or a hole we did we have to be the one to pull it down and climb out. The beautiful part is that we don’t have to literally walk back through every step and every choice and it’s as simple as deeply surrendering and letting ourselves out and people in and admitting we got it wrong.
This is a nice clarification, the fact that we don’t have to feel overwhelmed by our responsibility, that we can live with purpose and joy and clean up the mess at the same time.
The beauty and the gift of our soul and heaven, nobody get’s punished in a way that we cannot reconnect and live it instantly.
It is amazing how many religious/spiritual paths have responsibility as part of it but also the requirement for guilt, suffering and a willingness to wear the crown of thorns.
This is so true and it’s a way to guarantee that there is no responsibility what so ever and that the person cannot reach the divinity that we actually already are, because there can be no punishment in soul or in heaven so it’s the perfect way to stay out. The tricks of our spirit.
Absolutely, we are confirmed in the struggle, satisfied we are trying our hardest, while we wait for ‘salvation’ from another, higher power. But in reality, we are not satisfied, nor are we any closer to salvation, because the light that saves lives within, forever waiting for us to understand this simple fact.
I can kill, so to speak, thousands of days by just hovering on the surface of my faraday cage. It’s very entertaining, too, to scratch a bit here and scratch a bit there and buy into the illusion I’d get deeper. What struck me when I came to know Universal Medicine was that I had really shut down my awareness to the fact that I was locked up so so deep into my cage.
Your comment Felix struck a chord within me as – I was literally scratching around in my cage and running for my life around and around on that wheel of illusion. Then Universal Medicine came along and I was offered the ‘key’ to open the door of opportunities (my self built cage) and realised that it was of my own choosing to be there in the first place. As Joel so beautifully shares “life without the cage starts with being honest about the layers we have constructed so that we can start unlocking the foundations”.
“Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength. ” I love this line Joel, it gives permission to tenderly explore the sensitivity that can become our strength.
I can so relate to what you share here Joel, and have perfected my own version of a faraday cage too, although the layers are slowing falling away. It makes me question though…why are we so scared of being sensitive and vulnerable?
Thank you Joel – I have just re-read this blog and even though there was the ‘wow’ factor of truth recognized the first time I read it, the second time around assisted me to recognize more deeply how this insidiously affected and unwittingly chosen way of being is rife, and if I am reflecting the energy of living in my own Faraday cage, then that very reflection may be exacerbating and magnifiying the experiences of all whom I pass by on any one day who are in their own prison like cages of past hurts.
“With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.” It is worth the choices to peel back the layers of protection, re-connecting with these very beautiful qualities. Which are so much more supportive than the cage and come with the added qualities of immense love and joy.
Thank you Joel – as I read your blog yet again I can feel the levels of understanding and sensitivity are changing and allowing more honesty in my relationships. Allowing myself to fully feel what is going on and being willing to change the way I live can feel very challenging but what I am given is a greater understanding of myself and others and a feeling of living life in a way that is full and integrated. We learn to trust ourselves – and others and are more fully present and open hearted in the moment.
Awesome blog Joel. We can’t escape what’s around us but we can be open, loving and honest. From experience I have learnt no matter what is going on it is far far easier and feels so much better being open, loving and honest than hard, shut down, contracted, check out or numbed. Universal Medicine gives the tools to truly dismantle the human Faraday cage we build around us.
Joel we spend our whole life trying to pick the lock of our cage never knowing that we are already free.
It is true Alexis, stepping outside the cage is but a choice, the door is always open, and honouring our sensitivities which initially can be a little painful, is the key to not retreating back into the cage
Yes Alexis, and that is the illusion we get caught in that we need something very technical and precise/ unique to get out of it when in fact there is nothing there it is just the momentum of our own choices that keep us there and the way out is just a simple choice to be who we truly are.
It was only through the love and support of Serge Benhayon that I came to know that I was actually free to step outside the cage, previously I hid myself behind thick walls of protection…… only when lovingly shown that I had in fact created these very walls could I step out and start to set myself free.
“lt is our sensitivity that gives us our strength ”
These are wise wprds to ponder as l have been taught the opposite all my life. l have been taught to harden up in order to be stronger.
Yes Irena me too. The power that our vulnerability offers are hugely healing and deeply expanding for all.
Me too… every time I read one of these awesome parables I feel how gorgeous they would be as bedtime stories to children. Imagine having these gems of wisdom read to you as a child — wow!
When i was a child and attended church services the one thing I enjoyed and remembered were parables. Creating visual links makes it easier to relate to the meaning and the analogy of the cage is powerful. Who hasn’t at one time or other felt imprisoned by a limited world view, ideals and beliefs that kept us repeating patterns, going round and round the ferris wheel.
So beautiful to re-read this, exquisite universal wisdom in every line expressed.
Joel, your blogs always bring us to other levels of understanding and questioning…I love it!
So do I Michelle, with each re-reading something else is revealed – another point to question or a line which brings a deeper understanding of my relationship with myself and with the world.
This is an amazing blog Joel offering us the choice to see what is really going on outside the cage we live in and reflect the reality of the cage itself as something we create as a society and all our beliefs and ideals that shape us to only know what is in the cage. Serge Benhayon is the man who has called the world to attention by offering us this wisdom to see more by his very livingness, presence and integrity as have his family absolutely. The truth is here for us all to see amazingly.
Very well said, it is the right of every person to know life without a cage – and with life as it is, with everyone living in a cage and not realising, it is people like Serge who can show us another way.
lt is a great exercise to ponder what makes up each bar of our cage.
Exactly Irena – I often remind myself when I feel like I don’t know, that if I built the cage, I can just as easily take it down again. And in doing so face every reason I built it in the first place.
This is such a beautiful and profound blog Joel, the awareness of what we have created to protect our self from feeling truth and our connection to everything around us is actually very shocking. And at the same time you show how we can dissolve the cage by stripping of the layers we created and live our true sensitivity that gives us our strength.
It is shocking Diana, to really consider how far we’ve stayed as a human race from our natural sensitivity ad relate to each other from these self-imposed cages. One cage speaking to the other… And yet, I am certainly experiencing for myself how amazing it is to let the cage fall away and to walk amongst my fellow brothers with my heart open, and my sensitivity up high. It’s when I let fear come in based on a past hurt I haven’t yet resolved that what I can feel may appear overwhelming, but that’s not my openness or sensitivity, but the hurt itself and the predisposition to shut down and put up the cage again. Taking responsibility for this, and healing our pockets of hurts is key, and realising that the only true protection we have in life is our sensitivity, it is our own love.
Yes Katerina, it is amazing to let the cage fall away, and discovering that we only put it up because of ourselves and not what we like to think, other people.
How interesting about the Faraday Cage… that there is a space inside the cage left unaffected by the bombardment of energy hitting the cage that is constructed out of a certain material… This clearly demonstrates how in life, everything is about energy. I really enjoy the way you have related this to the human body, as a way of understanding human behaviour.
It comes back to us making the choice I feel of throwing away the key to our cage and maintaining a life of so called comfort and stagnating in old patterns/ideal/beliefs or open the door of opportunity and feeling the truth of what is really being offered to us. Another way of living.
Joel,the word honesty stayed with me. Even when we feel we’re open and being honest with ourselves we’re not! With so many layers of protection to contend with, our unfolding rests on being open to peel away each one and never ever feeling we have arrived.
When we start to be honest with ourselves and everything around us, it is the first step to going deeper and finding the truth.
So true kehinde2012, we feel we are being honest but then need to be honest, if we where being honest or simply sharing from a slightly lower layer of protection 🙂
Life without the cage is a scary place for many for they know no other way and would rather stay securely imprisoned within their familiar – even if their familiar contains much suffering. Without Universal Medicine I too would have remained in my cage of pain, I would not have known that “… life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person”, nor how to free myself form my ideals and beliefs and choose a more loving way of being. Universal Medicine has been a life saver for me, not because they waved a magic wand and took away my ills, but because they have shown me another way of living, a life outside the cage, and supported me to choose it.
I have to say it was the same for me. I spent years thinking I was living cage free, only to find I was building a cage within a cage!
Living within “a cage within a cage” is pretty much how most of the world is living and the really awful thing is that we deny the fact that this is what we are doing. To get out of that cage requires an ability to be honest about our lives and how we are living. This is a necessary first step. We will never change if we keep insisting on holding onto the arrogant view that all is okay even when it isn’t.
The cages are energetic, they cannot be seen but they can be felt. So is shifting the energetic quality we live in is the key to freedom? Definitely.
Is shifting the energetic quality we live in is the key to freedom? – absolutely
The cage ( shield ) becomes our reality. So true. Your parable reminds me of the story of the elephant which was initially tied up so it couldn’t stray. After many years the tie was no longer needed, but because it had become so used to being constrained, it never even tried to move to freedom. Yet we all have a choice in every moment. What do we really choose? To stay confined ( within old ideals and beliefs) or to liberate ourselves and live a true life?
Love this parable Sue. Yes most constraints are ones we’ve created. When we go within and connect to our divine expansive self, rather than the rope that binds us (ideals and beliefs), everything becomes possible. Each one of us has the potential to walk away from all that restricts and binds us, and as you say ‘live a true life’.
Can only agree Kehinde2012……. the only life to live is a true life.
Wow sueq2012 thank you so much for this simple but very profound parable. It showed so clearly how we alone chose to stay trapped in our old ideals and beliefs and how easy it actually is to let them go.
Yes sueq2012, we let images we have been holding forever shape our lives never truly seeing the beauty and simplicity of life only until we discard the ideals and beliefs that we have said yes to and align to our light within.
As you have said Joel, we are living in a man made microwave oven. We have had radio and TV for 50 plus years but today we have our own WIFI, Bluetooth and a mobile transmitter pressed to our heads daily. Everyday it becomes harder to find our Faraday Cage, to not be affected by all that is freely flowing through us, and harder still to not be affected by it. But that is the illusion, that we need the cage when we just need to feel ourselves.
“Life without the cage starts with being honest about the layers we have constructed so that we can start unlocking the foundations.” This is a key point Joel…without the honesty we will never see and feel the roots that founded the protection in the first place. Once we expose these roots they can no longer control us, and we can begin to build new foundations based on Love and Truth.
Absolutely Paula. Unless we are honest and look at the roots of our protection and issues then the weeds will continue to grow like heads of the hydra beast! For example when we crave food, sometimes we make the ‘right’ decision and clear that certain food out of our cupboard, but often end up craving and gorging on a different food! If we were to look at the underlying cause of the craving then things might be a little different…
Agreed Paula, honesty is the key in order to discard the limitations and the levels of protection we have subscribed to, by being honest we create more space in which we can accept more of the essence of who we are only to realise there is no need to live life within a cage to feel safe as the best safety is to live life with an open heart.
When I read again “The human Faraday cage is a shield that we build, not from wire, but through beliefs about ourselves and the world ….. maintaining the cage intact and seemingly impenetrable….. However, for many they are not enough – the world still gets in” I had to laugh. It reminded me of the attempts by people to keep paving stones clean of plants & vegetation by weeding, digging, spraying and all sorts, yet the beauty of nature is that it will still find a way to sprout and do its thing. We keep having a go at controlling everything in life because “we have decided that it should be something other than it is” and instead of surrendering to the flow and unfolding that is before us we try to bend it to our will. And again and again we get the gentle reminder that we are part of a bigger whole and there is a flow rhythm and order at play.
Worse than keeping people out is the fact that these layers of protection act as cushions preventing our awareness of our soul, our love inside. The perfect set up for not feeling the truth of who we are is to put up protective layers.
Without awareness we don’t even know that we are putting up the layers of protection. However, it is awareness that opens the lock of the cage. Therefore choosing to be aware is the way out of the cage.
Awareness is literally the key to it all
“What we block from the world, we block from within ourselves first”. We all crave love yet it is us that block ourselves from having it because of our hurts.
So true Elizabeth, “we all crave love,” and yet when we hear the truth about love we still resist the love we know is true ” because of our hurts”!
http://www.unimedliving.com/voice/whats-on-in-the-world/when-you-say-i-love-you-does-it-come-with-love.html
We block ourselves from ever feeling the Divine love and beauty we are within when we create our own cages of protection. In thinking we are keeping the pain and hurt at bay we are actually deepening and compounding the separation and lovelessness.
“Life without the cage starts with being honest about the layers we have constructed so that we can start unlocking the foundations.” When we do start being honest about the layers we have created, we are able to let go of them one by one, and we begin to connect to our true feelings, our sensitivity goes up as we no longer have the layers covering what we feel. This sensitivity is not a weakness, it is very empowering. As I have let go of the layers, my awareness and sensitivity has deepened and I have been able to work on my foundation.
A great blog to re-read, as there are many one liners that make you stop and consider over…like this one, that we “accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues…” and …”it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength…” A very thought provoking read Joel, thank you
I agree Johanne…I keep coming back to this blog too as this faraday cage is something I am gradually shedding layer by layer. It is great to see the reality of our beliefs and ideals, how we can believe them to be us when in fact they are an imposition on us – something we have imposed on ourselves and or taken on from others. What I have also come to feel is the simplicity of the choice we have…when we know this hardness is not us we have a choice to choose something different. There have been times when I surrender to letting myself simply feel all of my body rather than focus on holding the hardness, and in those moments I feel the absolute delicateness of simply being me – a feeling so exquisite it inspires me to continue dropping away the layers. “A very thought provoking read” indeed and very inspiring – thank you Joel.
Love this Joel, so well said – ‘Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.’
Many therapies nowadays are geared to numb the awareness and make us think we have dealt with the issue. I myself used to work as a body-therapist for more than 10 years only to realize after attending Universal Medicine courses, that I had learned to numb my body – and not healed my issues. My body was showing several chronic diseases, which finally and slowly ceased when I only focussed on Universal Medicine therapies.
Yes, very much so, we learn to distract and or numb ourselves in unpleasant moments and or hurtful situations. We even encourage each other to think of something pleasant when we feel down or try to bring their focus to something else. So we don’t learn to deal with what is there to be looked at but simply learn to look the other way.
Yes, we have learnt ways to cope by numbing and distracting ourselves from our perceived hurts, but by not addressing these hurts we just become a storage body for them.
Beautiful Joel and so true and a great reflection. The way we live on this earth could be so much more living from who we truly are if we saw what is really going on and listened to those messengers showing us the way. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine are the inspiration and role models as we can be too.
The foundations we have built come from all the ideals and beliefs we have taken on board and also from the environments we have lived as children as this is where we first started laying down the foundations as protection from the world. For many of us the world was not a safe place to express and live who we naturally were. Serge Benhayon is offering us tools to help us feel that these foundations are not us and that it is possible to lay down true and loving foundations that support a truer way of living in the world.
The more the protective layers come down the more unstable the foundations are exposed as being I am finding. My childhood situations are no longer in my life as energy is constantly changing and evolving whether we are choosing to be aware of this or not. I am not the child I was back then and the choices I made previously to end up in that situation where hurt was experienced – many of them have now gone and are still being chipped away at. That situation is simply non existent now yet the shadow remains in the foundations of the cage. It all comes down to our choices, to live in the old cage that supported us back then when the world was not set up to support us to feel and move on or we can say ‘I can change in every moment and I can let go of the layers, I can expose the foundations and feel their quality. I can reflect on what my life is standing on and I do have the power within me to change what doesn’t feel supportive’
‘I can reflect on what my life is standing on and I do have the power within me to change what doesn’t feel supportive’ – That’s such a powerful statement, Leigh. We like to justify our unsupportive choices with excuses such as, ‘I had to stay up late to get this piece of work done’, ‘I had such a huge day and it’s not like I eat cake everyday’ and ‘I’m just so tired, I’m sure he’ll understand in the morning that I didn’t mean to yell’. These excuses put us constantly in the Victim chair, but what you’ve shared is that these unsupportive choices are actually making life a whole lot more of a struggle than it needs to be, and we do have the choice to stop these behaviours and change the game.
Or the ‘I am tired/exhuasted/flat so to hell with it I am going to have that sweet treat!’ Just because our choices get us into situations where we are run down doesn’t mean that going into victim-mode or blaming ourselves, others, the world, the sky, anything is the only outlet. We can say ‘I chose that’ which opens up ‘why? would I choose that? What if I didn’t choose to go down that road again?’
Well said Leigh – We have an opportunity to look at the ‘Why’, and develop an understanding of the situation that means we can learn from it and never go down that road again. Mistakes are not the end of the world if we use them as markers to learn and evolve from.
Yes Susie, well said! Choosing to take responsibility for our choices instead of justifying them is an absolute game-changer.
This is bringing in responsibility which is so needed, ‘I can reflect on what my life is standing on and I do have the power within me to change what doesn’t feel supportive’. It is also empowering, rather than keeping us locked down in victim mode.
When you say “we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues”, it really struck a chord – how easily do we switch off or numb ourselves away from feeling something and then pretend that everything is okay when deep down it is not? It feels like we accept as ‘normal’ what should not ever be normal leave alone our everyday way of life.
Absolutely Gabriele – often the first thing we do when we feel something isn’t right, is bury the feeling or justify why it’s actually all okay… There are so many different ways of excusing what we observe, when actually in my experience our initial feeling tends to be the truth of the situation.
So true Susie…there is a phrase ‘trust first thought’ and its like that first ‘thought’ comes from our bodies which registers something, and then our minds kick in with all the so called logic, practicalities and justifications, when in fact “our initial feeling tends to be the truth of the situation.”
I agree Susie, this is what I’ve noticed too, ‘in my experience our initial feeling tends to be the truth of the situation.’
Yes and no matter how much we have numbed ourselves to our awareness our bodies will show the truth of how we have been living, or events or people will reflect what we refuse to see.
…’our bodies will show the truth of how we have been living, or events or people will reflect what we refuse to see.’ This to me shows the enormous support that we are surrounded by, and how it is waiting patiently for us all to see and accept this.
I agree Gabriele, when we live in a way where we choose not to feel what is there, it begin to effect other areas, and we begin to thing that there are no issue because we are simple choosing not to feel them, and at the same time are missing out on feeling all the amazing things too.
Agreed Rebecca. In order to not register what we feel we have to shut down our awareness and then we can miss the part of ourselves we have shut down instead of dealing with what it is we are choosing not to see.
Well said Abby, when a machine is missing parts, and if not complete, it may function but what level of function will it have. We have accepted this life as normal, a life that is missing important parts – without our awareness and a connection to who we are, where we can function, but how well? From this life many many problems have developed, just like if you tried to run a machine for a long time without those parts. We attempt to fix the parts by adjusting the things already in place, improving them, replacing them, changing them, without ever considering that there could be something missing. And when someone looks and suggests this, showing a way of living that is complete, some people lash out and tell them they are wrong, crazy and segregate them as different, because we have lived so long without our awareness that we can only believe in what we can see, even if it is so obviously not working.
Amazing observation Rebecca and expressed with such clarity that it is hard to avoid how we have allowed ourselves to struggle though life on vain hopes that something outside will change when we are avoiding going within to the ‘heart of the matter’. Is this just because we are too proud to see that we have been living life in a way that is wayward and only serving self?
Possibly – there is certainly still a huge arrogance in society as o how far we have come and the intelligence we possess, even in the face of sky rocketing illness and disease, human trafficking, sexual assault, terrorism etc etc. But it is also that we have lived so long, that its all to easy to think we have forgotten that there is something else. But if we raise our children to support and nurture who they are and their innate awareness we will see it is only forgot while trying to fit yourself into the square shaped hole that is society. And many are beginning to wake up and realise that there must be more.
It is sobering and important to note that developing protective beliefs and habits do not stop our bodies from being affected by those influences in life we are seeking to protect ourselves from. They only numb our awareness to them. Understanding this is to understand why illness and disease is increasing in our world.
Interesting addition Simon, that the load on our bodies for everything we are feeling but working so hard NOT to notice could be part of what is draining us and leading to illness and disease
We work so hard to sustain our ‘layers’, to keep tight and bound to them, because we fear what we will find underneath. And yet when we do finally let go, unwrap ourselves from our hurts and protection, there is only love and tenderness underneath.
“we do finally let go, unwrap ourselves from our hurts and protection, there is only love and tenderness underneath.” – so true and the miraculous thing is that it doesn’t ask other to be different but people change!
So why do we struggle so much to fully let go of our layers? ‘And yet when we do finally let go, unwrap ourselves from our hurts and protection, there is only love and tenderness underneath.’
My experience has been, because I am too invested in the false protection they offer…it’s a pain I know or know how to dull!
That is a sobering revelation Simon V, we deny the realities that life and our bodies are exposing by keeping ourselves supposedly protected, but in truth we are the creators of our ills. That’s one we are not willing to see at this stage, a bit like an ostrich with its head in the sand.
So true Merrilee. l know this ostrich so well and another way it manifests for me is waking up in the morning with anxiousness in my belly. That is when l know l am trying to hide something from myself and that l am living a lie.
The reality that what we use to protect ourselves does “not stop our bodies from being affected by those influences in life we are seeking to protect ourselves from”, is one big wake up call. We can protect ourselves over and over again by various numbing techniques, but each time we do we are simply inflicting more hurt on an already hurting body.
To work backwards from the exposing truth of admitting that “l am already hurting”, is a wonderful step forward and out of our cages.
Prior to Universal Medicine I was unaware that I was protecting myself from my hurts and yet I was still being affected by them, no matter what I was doing to not feel the effects of them. Expressing how I feel rather than ‘shutting up shop’ has been very important to undoing all of these beliefs that I have had.
This is very true Ingrid, ‘We can protect ourselves over and over again by various numbing techniques, but each time we do we are simply inflicting more hurt on an already hurting body.’
“inflicting more hurt on an already hurting body.” – this is such a telling statement. it helps us to make sense of all that has been chosen in the past. If I am already hurting, it justifies in some strange way continuing to hurt ourselves.
I agree Simon, to really grasp this is very sobering. It shines light onto so many thing in life and makes it so very clear that, all we do, with all our learned behaviours to cope with and live in this world, is in reality just another heavy burden we put onto ourselves that does not protect us but simply makes us less aware and thus also less aware and sensitive to what is truly good for us.
Simon you are so incredibly wise. We cloak ourselves in the armor, it weights us down, we think it protects us but its just a cover up.
Nothing within has been addressed or transmuted. However, to get really honest with our behaviours and motivations for our actions will enable the first step to our emancipation.
As you express here Simon, we can pretend or avoid being aware of what we are doing to our bodies, but what we are doing has an impact, regardless, and whether or not we choose to be aware. It makes sense then that the harder or more protective our bodies become, the more intense the symptoms of the body eventually have to increase to, for us to take notice.
Beautiful Joel, you have exposed the layers of protection we create in our lives and which prevent us from being the essnece of love that we all are
ln exposing the layers of protection l find it is most important to be gentle on yourself. As the sadness surfaces around the illusion we have lived under in relation to the cage that encloses us in our thoughts and behaviour.
Undressing the life we often find ourselves living. A big thanks also to those beings of light that choose to shine that light for others to see and know there is another way.
Joel this is an amazing line: “With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.” Perfectly expressed, you have a beautiful way with words. I have also felt this to be true of my own essence.
l agree Melinda that Joel’s words sum it up beautifully. Joel is able to reignite the magic about our bodies in this blog.
Joel a great experience coming back for a second read. I was also aware this time that the human body itself can feel like the cage if it’s holding enough painful experiences, so the method for coping with that is not connecting to the body at all. Some people may not even be in their body so to speak. However it’s still possible to heal what’s in the body by Sacred Esoteric Healing, which can support people to reconnect to themselves and live again from that connection.
Melinda I feel this temporal world is a cage, until we see through the illusion that this is it and choose to live in connection to everything, not bound to the physical but in connection to the Divine spark we are all from.
Yes merrileepettinato cages within cages is what we seem to have built for ourselves here.
Melinda we definitely have created a cage with layers of illusions in the temporal world, which keeps us away from our true connection the divineness that we are all from. Letting go of the cage gives us a choice to connect to the true divinity we all from.
Yes shelleyjones44 the ‘cages within cages’ is what have built for ourselves.
I wonder about the so called new revolution that people say is set to take over – virtual reality on a large scale. Many years ago I remember a surf instructor being taken aback at a young boy’s insistence that he’d been surfing for real when his father explained he’d done it on a computer game. I get a certain feeling when considering this and the films that allude to people being trapped in realities that are not real but they think they are. It is the opposite feeling to connecting with nature and my body. It is no different to planning the future and what it will look like- even with my day ahead takes me away from me.
I really get how much I am held captive by the belief that being in my head makes me safe whereas being in my body makes me vulnerable – and how nonsensical that is as I am always in my body. But it is through feeling and being in my body that I’ll deconstruct the many cages I have built.
“The temporal world is a cage, until we see through the illusion” – So beautifully read. And if we connect to the Divine spark, we can make a vessel for God what was formerly designed to be a prison. Isn’t that showing how powerful God is?
So true Melinda, I had a session this morning and had become unaware that I was holding my back as tight as I was…a little micro cage sitting on my shoulders!!
My maxi cage is me beating myself up for any judged ‘out-of-line’ step l take.
Yes Melinda, I agree with you that pain is a very powerful filtre that keeps us imprisoned in our body rather than perceiving and experiencing our true magnificence. The pain is so real it becomes our primary focus and our reality.
I agree Melinda. ln my reconnection to me all is revealed and true magic can be experienced again.
l have found Chakra Puncture is an incredible modality that allows me to feel the illusion l have been living in my body. A true eye opener and soul connector.
I loved reading your blog again Joel, and these words “With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.”
“…we can never stop feeling, we can only become less aware of what we are feeling.” – Too true – dulling our awareness of something doesn’t negate the fact that it still exists! And surely we are better equipped to truly deal with something and respond to life in a way that is beneficial for all when we let ourselves feel all of it…
I find that a huge cage of my own making in how I choose to express myself.
We put the cage up to protect ourselves but it sabotages us because as you say Joel, ‘What we block from the world, we block from within ourselves first’. Removing the layers from the cage makes us think we’d be more vulnerable but we can find huge strength in our sensitivity as we grow.
Nearly all men carry a shield of sorts, as a protection to their acute sensitivity to the world around them. It need not be that way, however, for by carrying such a shield we equally limit our capacity to feel the glory of our own being.
As a result of our dulled sensitivity there exists an insatiable need for external stimuli and control to cover the fact that our own sensitivity and connection to our soulfulness is numbed but what we are truly looking for.
I have felt this within myself and in relationship with my partner.
When I am aware of feeling dulled due to unloving choices and protection , the need to talk more, eat more and generally seek more is evident but never satisfies and leaves me feeling empty.
This need to seek greater stimuli is the result of disconnection.
When in connection with who I am I feel a delicateness and sensitivity that allows me to feel and receive much feedback within my body and heart. I feel a stillness and strength that allows me to feel a wholeness within that needs nothing from the another, but naturally gives from the overflow, it feels abundant.
In this state of sensitivity and connection the door to my prison has opened and in surrender and true freedom can I feel who I am.
This is Gold Joel,
Wisdom felt and shared for all to easy grasp…..Love it!
“The human Faraday cage is a shield that we build, not from wire, but through beliefs about ourselves and the world, like the hurts from our childhood that we use to justify the effort that goes into maintaining the cage intact and seemingly impenetrable.” This sentence really stood out for me today – I have read this blog several times without really comprehending it but today I feel I have an understanding of what it conveys. I hadn’t quite realised that I use my beliefs and hurts to justify my choice to harden against others and it is very clear that I reinforce these beliefs with poor choices that dull my awareness.Thank you for giving me the opportunity to feel this Joel.
it’s an intricate web that we weave Leonne, each layers is not thick of its own accord but the sheer volume of layers can be staggering
“Said another way, we are far more sensitive to the world than we allow ourselves to admit…” It is this sensitivity that makes us so beautiful. At times the sensitivity is hard to have but it also brings a beauty and dept to life that I would not want to miss in any way.
When we can appreciate our sensitivity as strength and not as a weakness and appreciate the beauty of this, life’s view can take a very different angle.
Yes absolutely Rachel. Our sensitivity is a huge strength as it is the part of us that allows us to feel and sense beyond what the physical eye can see and this is where true intelligence comes from.
I like it very much what you have shared Lieke as I could feel that living this sensitivity is something you are already doing even if it is hard. That is wonderful as so you are a role model (for me you are) to show the world that sensitivity is really something we have to embrace more
thank you for sharing this Wisdom Joel. It is an illusion we are living in, a wall that is surrounding us to not feel the all but choose to ignore most. In the illusion of that being sensitive is a weak quality, while when we truly come to know that we are love, we can come from that love and observe all that can be felt, not taken on, that is what weakens us.
Awesome Benkt. We use so many illusions to keep things as they are and the affects of these choices are being seen far and wide. Thank God for the wisdom and honesty of the body as it allows the truth of our choices to be seen every moment of every day.
And the more of our true selves we become the more there is to be revealed. This is the exquisite spaciousness and forever unfolding that evolution is.
‘Life without a cage is more sensitive’ and it is has been this sensitivity that I have artfully avoided, thinking it was a weakness, for most of my life. As the layers peel away and more of this sensitivity (awareness) is allowed, I see its immense strength – the restorer of balance, the key to understanding everything, the gateway to love…
My responsibility simply is to commit to surrendering all the layers of the cage. Everything else is ready and waiting.
Love the analogy Joel. It does feel so freeing to let those layers of protection go and be honest and vulnerable. Like an unbinding of my heart and allowing myself to really connect with people.
I love the truth expressed that our sensitivity gives us strength. This is not a commonly held belief or feeling as being sensitive is often seen as a weakness. Allowing ourselves to feel our own sensitivity is a major step in removing the “cage” that is hiding us from ourselves and the world.
I love the visual of the layers of cloth on our arm variously impacting our awareness of what is going on. The going on is always going on – our choices impact our awareness of it and therefore our acceptance of it. The number of layers of cloth are entirely our choice and responsibility.
There are days, these days, that my skin feels a bit raw, one or two layers less maybe – but the overall feeling is of being more alive and awake and I am up for that!
Yes Matilda us covering our arm with layers of cloth, feeling less with each layer, and the fact that we can choose to keep piling the layers until we can barely feel – this is a great analogy. And a perfect example with which to realise that by using the various behaviours to “protect” ourself, we don’t actually change anything, except our awareness of what is going on! We are in effect opting to be blind to what is going on. Looking at it this way it does not seem very wise.
‘Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.’ When we reflect on this revelation Joel, it is easy to observe societies over the thousands of years have set up to live the absolute opposite. Look at our reality shows and how people are persecuted with words – society is making absolutely sure that being sensitive, open and honest is not an option. By being open and honest in the world starts to give others permission to do the same and you can see it in their bodies expand in the joy and relief that they too can be like that – totally NATURAL and themselves.
I’m not sure whether my perception is coloured by my own choices, but it feels to me that more and more people ARE now choosing to speak out. We are prepared to stand up and say when things are not OK, we’re not afraid to voice how we feel, encouraged by the knowledge that we’re not alone and the more we speak up, others will join us and slowly slowly things will change and we will once again return to our natural way of being.
Great point Alison. I feel you’re observation is right – there is far more questioning. My parent’s generation would really just put up with how things were – more people are questioning – but it is turning that questioning into proactive change and not just complaining around the kitchen table.
I agree Alison that more and more people are waking up to the fact that something is not right about what we have considered ‘normal’ and are wanting to do something about it.
And life without a cage is a choice, birthright and now a responsibility.
Yes Gina. A responsibility to ourselves and others.
Absolutely, Gina, once we understand that everything is energy and everything is because of energy, we can’t ignore the fact that EVERYTHING we do, say, even feel without expressing it, is affecting those around us all the time. Our energetic emanation is contributing to the energy around us all. Therefore, it’s enormously irresponsible not to take responsibility for how we are living and the choices we are making. We can’t pretend that it doesn’t matter as it absolutely does.
A beautiful understand Joel of how we live in separation – our innate yearning – and how this causes us even more hurts on top of the hurts.
Blocking out the world with our constructed cage can only last so long. At one point or another our cage will be rocked, and the way we have constructed it will be called into question. This can expose the lack of support we have in fact built, and the vulnerability that was there all along. It is important that we build lives based on true support for ourselves, and this starts first with family. Without truly supporting home environments it is difficult for us to venture in the world without creating walls. There is no perfection with this of course, but highlights how important it is to change in our approach to parenting on a global scale, if we are to avoid the calamity that creating these cages results in.
As Joel said somewhere above we got hurt because we put more importance on what was happening outside than connecting to our innermost, trusting in that and putting it first and foremost. Rediscovering our strength in this connection, allows the bars of the cage to gradually melt away.
Love that Doug, I agree. We don’t really change when we evolve, we are just more of our true selves.
‘Just because we are not aware something is going on, it doesn’t mean we don’t feel it on some deeper level.’
This is profound Joel. Our bodies are super sensitive and experience everything we put them through. I felt this recently at the dentist – in order to get a crown I had to get one of my front teeth drilled down to a child’s size. On one level the experience was pain free as my mouth had been numbed, however when I stood up after the drilling I was super sensitive and shakes in my body. It was at this point I realised even though I had not felt paid, my body had just experienced an intensity and was calling for me to be very delicate and to nurture it. This is how our bodies process life and is a significant understanding to hold as we approach healing as we may think we have not been affected by something that has deeply impacted our body and the way we hold ourselves and move in the world.
I love the analogy of the Faraday cage Joel, and can relate to the layers upon layers of protection we build up over time, not realising the extent to which we are imprisoning ourselves.
Self-imprisonment – the madness of this. I have run around for so long reinforcing the bars of my cage, keeping the door locked and the keys out of reach of anyone who dared to suggest there was a door…
In a simple choice (ongoing) to be open to the world and my own sensitivity, the cage becomes obsolete and dissolves; any efforts to ‘restore’ it, exhausting, futile and even more bonkers! I stand taller than ever and am with humanity and life.
Matilda, I initially laughed at your vivid description of your desperate attempts to not only protect your cage but your “self imprisonment” as well, but then the truth hit me with the realisation that I had done exactly the same. Oh to now have claimed the reality of the cage and the damage it caused, and to finally be free of those self imposed confines that had me believing that I was “smaller” than I truly am. And like you, now out of the cage and able to stretch to my true height “I stand taller than ever and am with humanity and life” – and I am loving it!
What we block from the world, we block from within ourselves. It feels that we block a lot of love, as there is a lot of love available, but we don’t seem to embrace it and realize, that we are this love ourselves, everybody equally so.
‘With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.’ …. as I read these words I had an image of us all being enclosed in our cages, unable to truly ‘see’ each other, we decide what we think we see, as we are all hiding, then we discard our cages we reveal our true selves, the most divinely beautiful flowers, different scents, shapes and colours, same same but different.
‘we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues.’ …. how very convenient. It made me feel a bit annoyed, at myself, reading this, because it’s so true and it shows how we just want our lives to be comfortable, we don’t want to feel the truth of what’s going on, but, we’re also choosing to miss out on the most divinely gorgeous connection with ourselves and with others. Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, all the terrible things that are currently occurring every minute of every day are still happening and, in fact, it’s only through us choosing to be aware of them that we can hope to bring about much needed change, allowing us to return to our natural harmonious life, in brotherhood.
Awesome comment Alison, the most absurd part is that we remain aware of the tension of not living true to ourselves no matter how hard we work to shut down our awareness as every dulling choice brings more disharmony (and more discomfort) to the body.
I used to think life without some sort of protection would just be too hard and hurtful, and by admitting how truly sensitive we all are would be weak. I remember as a kid being told to harden up and being told that I was too sensitive, as though that was a really bad disease or something. We don’t stand a chance really with that sort of bombardment.
Except that all the while and what endures forever is this spark of knowing that the way life is at the moment is not it. So we are inspired to ask the questions, explore around the corners, reveal that which is just out of sight. Universal Medicine (simply meaning a relationship with the big picture and responsibility) is the key.
Love this Kevmchardy, life with out protection is sold as unbearable and at times it certainly feels that way, until the moment you realize the protection is what makes life unbearable!!
What is crucial to understand here is the fact that the cage represents a picture that we want the world to see – yes pressure from the outside has asked us to build this cage but it is the confirmation by ourselves that gives it permission to layer upon layer shut the world out. The shutting down of ones light is not done by any other means – we say yes to Love or Yes to that which is not Love, by action and movement.
This is spot on Joel “In life, we are not just bombarded by the man-made electrical fields, we are also bombarded by how people act and what they say. We can walk into a room and know there is tension between the people in the room. This is us being able to feel as much, if not more, than we can see and hear.”
We are indeed deeply sensitive and feel everything. I have found that the more I am allowing myself to open up and admit to feeling that there is so much to be felt, I am not as afraid of feeling all that there is and no need to put up protection or build a cage, I simply read the energy of what is going on without judgement and allow for the knowing in my body.
The more we allow ourselves to feel, we are not only more aware of what’s going on around us, we are also more able to feel the deliciousness from within, the divine love that we are all from and this love gives us the strength to withstand anything, we do not need to protect ourselves, rather let our love shine out.
I have never heard of Michael Faraday or the cage he built but really appreciate your analogy of humans unwittingly creating self-made cages based on ideal and beliefs that they are protecting themselves but never for a moment stopping to realize they have actually imprisoned themselves.
I agree Irena, when we seek ourselves, or freedom, to we stop to consider the way we live and if perhaps Well said Tamara – we lock ourselves in a cage believing ourselves safe, but in truth we are only limiting our experience of life
By hardening and numbing our awareness of that which we do not want to feel (but never truly stop feeling), do we not also disable our ability to feel that which is true and loving in ourselves and others? We cannot pick and choose, or have one without the other. Once we have felt the essence that lives within, everything else is just a story or hurt that wants protecting but not who we are.
The word ‘disabled’ jumped out at me in your comment Rachael. We use this word in such a limited way to describe a minority group in society, but the truth is that the vast majority of us are actually disabled while we choose to live from within a protective cage / layers, that we alone have manufactured. Our ability to feel our truth, our joy, our inner loveliness, is dis-abled. Ouch.
Very true, Stevie, yet, this ‘dis-ablement’ is of our own making, through our own choices and while we choose to live in this way, we are also dis-abling the whole that we are a part of, equally.
Thank you Alison, such an important point; when we choose to dis-able ourselves, we are also choosing to dis-able all others. I’m starting to understand what true responsibility means.
I’m finding how very beautiful it is when I allow myself to live with more ‘true responsibility’, it takes the focus away from ME, instead, it becomes about the WHOLE, that we are a part of and somehow it’s so much easier to make loving choices, it just feels like the natural way to go.
Stevie I love what you exposed about the word “disabled”! That is so true as I can admit that I do feel sometimes disabled to not feel what other can feel so easily.
Joel, you certainly have your finger on the pulse! A presentation from Serge Benhayon today was about exactly what you’ve presented here – (in my words) the layers we have put in the way to smother what our way is – the way of our essence, our true gorgeousness that is unique in it’s quality while being connected to the one which we are all from… Love.
“What we block from the world, we block from within ourselves first.” This is a sobering truth, when we pretend to love one, however we choose to hate another. It makes is so clear that we cannot do both and the level of hate becomes our lowest common denominator across all relationships. Ouch!
lve never heard of that cage but what it symbolises is greatly exposing for us all. How many times do we put ourselves in one of these during our day, without even realising?
How many of us live within one throughout our daily life? A great blog to ponder.
A great reflection of truth Joel and the cage of illusion we all imprison ourselves in.The realisation of the cage through being completely honest with everything is our first step and way out to be who we really are and show this to the world for all to see and this is our greatest purpose for humanity.
I agree Tricia – by being more honest and open in how we live, with ourselves and with each other, starts to break the idea of caging ourselves. The fact is we are responsible for how we are living, and rather than being a victim, we have an opportunity to be a much needed reflection. It is easy to be dishonest about how we live, to put things off, say we are not worth it, say it doesn’t matter – but it does – and it affects us.
I have never heard of the ‘Faraday cage’ but your analogy to it is perfect. We build our own fortresses of protection and try to shut so much of life out even though this is impossible. I am appreciating my sensitivity more and more and am inspired by those that live without their cage! Mine is in the process of being dismantled.
As men we proudly and painstakingly build a life and life style around us, that acts the same as an electric fence that very effectively keeps everyone out, and away from the innate, tender, super sensitive, deeply caring men we all are. We spend a huge effort maintaining, polishing and defending this life-style or protective competitive protection around us, we meet with other men and talk, and relate from our life style, but never do we let the guard down. We even have marriages or relationships and family’s keeping this protection or life style in tact.
“The foundations make us convinced this is the only way to live and the reinforcements allow us to change the thickness of the shield so we can feel more (let our guard down) or less (protect ourselves) in different situations.” Great that you are exposing this Joel, we kid ourselves that when we let our guard down a little but still have the cage or protection there solid and intact we are being close or intimate with another, as it feels different to the full armored protection we usually walk around with.
“ Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.”
This is very true Joel, the more I allow myself to open my heart and let other people in the more I feel, and the more awareness I have to what is going on with other people,
Sometimes before I even get to the meeting. This is very powerful as I come prepared to what I’m going to walk into, its like an in-built radar and clarity that looks after me by seeing and feeling situations, so I’m not taken by surprise.
‘It’s like an in-built radar and clarity that looks after me by seeing and feeling situations, so I’m not taken by surprise’ – this is an incredible point Thomas, that love is actually a much more effective filter than protection or hardness – a.k.a. our cage. Having the clarity to read the things and people around you is a truly powerful skill to have, and this can assist us – as you say – to be able to observe the outside world without becoming immersed in it. There is no need for a cage when it is love that surrounds us and is expressed.
“When the foundations and reinforcements block our senses, it becomes harder to determine if what we are feeling is coming from the outside or the inside. Yet if we don’t know the difference between what is coming from around or from within, how can we get a true sense of ourselves?”
As a humanity we have strayed so far from our bodies and our connection to our innate knowing, that we rely on the outer for our answers in life, we go to other people or look at how others are doing things and copy them, but sometimes these people are doing the same thing, looking to others to gain answers, rather than connecting to their there own innate wisdom that lies deep within us all.
“The human Faraday cage is a shield that we build, not from wire, but through beliefs about ourselves and the world, like the hurts from our childhood that we use to justify the effort that goes into maintaining the cage intact and seemingly impenetrable.”
These beliefs, childhood hurts and other past hurts if not honestly examined and thus healed and let go of, can rule us for the rest of our life’s.
Projecting out from our protected ‘cage’, we exist in, falsely seeing others as a threat and that we need to protect ourselves against them, we find situations that confirm our beliefs that we need to stay protected and that its not safe to let others in.
“…it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.” – the illusion exposed. One of the greatest lies we have ever been sold is that it is a sign of weakness to be sensitive. Under this belief we erroneously construct armour to ‘protect’ us from the perceived onslaught of the world (all that is not of the love we are fashioned from) and shield us from the fact that we are love and in this light our true might lies.
Yes and as a child, we are taught to layer up our sensitivity with protection and ‘be tough’ from an early age. Yet, it hurts us deeply to do this. Have you ever watched a child when they are told to ‘be tough’ and they are not honoured in their sensitivity? You can see them wrestling with the choice to honour their true selves or deny who they truly are in favour of what they are being told to be.
I agree Liane, we are always sold the lie that to be weak, to feel, to be sensitive is some how our greatest weakness. And yet, to live without it we are effectively blinding ourselves.
That ‘toughen up’ response that we use with each other is really saying ‘I don’t want to feel that you’ve been hurt, so stop showing us that you are. We don’t want to have to take responsibility for our behaviour we just want to pretend this never happened and carry on enjoying ourselves, with or without you.’
What a mess we have gotten ourselves into. And all to deny our responsibility that ‘we are love and in this light our true might lies’.
So true Liane, we have bought into this lie for a long time. Having a shield up does not protect us, in fact is makes us even more exposed to be hurt because the very fact of having a shield hurts us. We have gotten it all backwards. The more open we are the stronger we are and the more equipped we are to deal with whatever is before us.
Yes Liane I totally agree that the armour of protection begins when we start to believe that our sensitivity is our biggest weakness when in fact the opposite is true – our sensitivity allows us to read and feel everything in an instant, learning to trust and be this way again is very honouring.
‘we are the one’s that didn’t speak up when we knew something was untrue.’ …. we chose to stay in the comfort of the ‘familiar’ rather than listening to our bodies and allowing ourselves to feel the truth and question what was really going on.
Yes, we get hurt so we protect ourselves and in the process lose our sensitivity and then get hurt without noticing it. The only benefit of our protection is that we don’t have the awareness of what is happening. The pain and the consequences are the same or worse as we don’t know what happened to us.
Love this Liane….”we are love and in this light our true might lies” – the perfect balance of might, power, sensitivity and grace…it’s the complete package
“…we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues.” Much like the small child who holds their hands over their eyes in the mistaken belief that if ‘I can’t see you then you can’t see me’. What we choose to ignore is what gets magnified as the body will never stop sending us messages if how we are living is counter to the love we are.
This is so interesting Liane, that ‘what we choose to ignore is what gets magnified’ in our body’. From my experience, when I choose not to see, feel and accept the true beauty that I am, it creates an opening to be fed lies from external sources that are designed to have me believing the exact opposite about myself.
…and as if this wasn’t disturbing enough, these vial untruths stay trapped in our bodies, for they are just pockets of dense energy after all, until such time that someone like Serge Benhayon comes along and through his reflection enables us to see and feel the level of convenient dishonesty we have created in our bodies. The counter to this is honesty; self love and honesty.
Love the analogy of the child with their hands over their eyes. It is so apt for the approach we take to so many things in our life.
Great analogy Liane, and there are many adults who are still acting like this child, but instead of their hands over their eyes they are using a myriad of other techniques to deny not only what is right in front of them but also what is within them.
Another stunning delivery of truth Joel – your words make visible the illusion we have come to allow to mask our sight of the way things are.
In order to escape the cage, we need first admit we are standing in it. Honesty is the path back to God where the true nature of all is known.
Yes, and in being honest about the fact that we are in a cage, we also need to be honest about the fact that we are deeply tender, deeply sensitive and have been hurt by the world.
Yes, admitting that we ‘have been hurt by the world’ is crucial, katemaroney1, as it helps us to see the cage / layers of protection more clearly. To be able to be hurt in the first place we have to have attachments to the world and a picture of how we expect it to be.
With this, ideals and beliefs and expectations are able to be exposed (the protective layers).
and if we dare go there, the reason we have been hurt is because we placed more value in what we see around us than what we feel within.
‘and if we dare go there, the reason we have been hurt is because we placed more value in what we see around us than what we feel within.’ …. I’ve had to allow myself to sit with this for a couple of days to really allow myself to feel the truth in what you’re sharing, Joel. Thank you, I could feel my resistance initially as I rushed on to read the next comment below yours …. not wanting to really claim the truth that you’re exposing. Feels great to acknowledge that this is indeed exactly what we have done, placed more value in what we see around us than what we feel within.
Yes “the reason we have been hurt is because we placed more value in what we see around us than what we feel within.”.
Exactly Joel that was the downfall of our ancestors who built the pyramids and knew everything was energy we are returning to that energetic harmony – it’s a long way off but we waking up and seeing the cage we have chosen to incarcerate ourselves in. I know myself I will willingly believe what I see more readily than pay attention too and honour what I feel.
So true Liane – honesty holds the key to our self-made cages.
In admitting we’ve been hurt by the world, it’s also important to appreciate that we have all been hurt, we’re not the only one, we’re all in the same boat and we can help and support each other. This awareness makes it easier to drop the protection as we understand that everyone has their own hurts, it’s not ‘them’ against me. Most importantly, we focus on what we are, what we feel inside, what we know to be true, not on what we are not and we are all innately love.
Absolutely Liane – said with such gorgeous simplicity – for how are we to step out of what we are in if we cannot see we are in it?! It makes so much sense – we need to admit what we have is not working first to then feel the potential of what has always been there for us to live. Our essence, our Soul.
An from there, develop a relationship with our imperfections and the things that affect us, as – one that is honest without judgement. Our reactions are our sign posts, pointing the way for us to find what we are living that is not us.
Exactly, Liane … and this first step can be a hard pill to swallow. We do such a good job convincing ourselves that what we choose to see and feel, in the safety of our cage, is, in fact, reality …. to be faced with another reality, the truth, that in fact we’ve just been kidding ourselves all along and we are, in truth, missing out on what’s really going on around us is challenging …. however, once we allow ourselves to feel, even a taste, of the absolutely exquisite joy living without our cage can bring, there is no turning back.
Wow, I was struck by the simplicity and truth of these words Liane “In order to escape the cage, we need first admit we are standing in it. Honesty is the path back to God where the true nature of all is known.”
Yes Liane without the ability to own up to where we are standing and what we therefore have been choosing there is no way out as you are not truly wanting anything to change.
A Cage – this behaviour of hardening and living in defense, as well as on a constant look out for controlling everything instead of flowing and responding to the unfolding life around us is so well described by that word. It is a cage, because the only thing we change is our own movements – it is our own self that becomes more restricted and less able to feel and interact with the world. We still get affected but not only have we wasted all the time protecting ourself instead of learning the lessons that life is showing us, but we now have all the issues that cutting ourselves from the world has brought to deal with as well. It is a self created cage and like any other cage we are much better off outside.
Living in and from the immense love we have inside, means not only are we too powerful for those outer influences which can only affect us when we do not choose to live that way, but also that in that power, we feel everything. This allows us to be sensitive to, read and understand all that is going on in the small personal sphere of relationships around us as well as the world at large. All this is important, because from love, we can respond to all that is going on around without getting affected and without having to withdraw into a cocoon.
Very well said Simon. If we live this love and feel everything that’s going on around us then there is the possibility of becoming overwhelmed or going into judgement of other’s choices – this can hit us like a brick wall. If we allow it to affect us it picks apart our foundations of the love we have with ourselves, in relationships and in our rhythms, and thus understanding and a willingness to observe and not absorb are SO important.
Absolutely Susie and if we hold any investment in how people or things should be we are gone.
That is a great point about our foundations being picked apart when we stop observing and start reacting. It is the foundations that enable us to be in all situations be they loving or not.
Beautiful Susie. Understanding is what allows us to observe life without taking it on or becoming affected by it.
Well said Simon, the best protection of all is to live with a open heart.
The cage is also a construction of a false self, in it we don’t just block our sensitivity, we lack authenticity. For both of these reasons we cannot respond appropriately to the world.
What we are definitely blocking is our awareness, making us completely vulnerable to anything we don’t notice, a bit like turning our back to everything being aware of nothing.
ouch!
Yes, we laugh at the ostrich with its head in the sand believing it is safe from harm but we are effectively doing the same thing when we block our awareness believing that because we don’t feel it etc that it does no harm.
With such a lack of awareness we’re also missing out on so much beauty, the little things in life that can bring so much joy, noticing all the unspoken love that surrounds us each and every day, we just need to be open to it and without our Faraday Cage, love offered invites love to be expressed by another.
I agree Anne- too often many live like this.
That is right Alison like I read in another blog that we cannot stop seeing the colour green without stopping seeing all other colours. We can’t filter down our awareness and then have it on for the good things in life to feel! It just doesn’t work like that and I guess all we are being asked is what do we want for ourselves, how much do we care about ourselves to want more love for us.
l love this definition Melinda. We need to nominate the false self, as it follows us like a wak, shadow or a mask, depending on what we are choosing.
Our response is a false and yet that is exactly how the world wants us to be – only responding in a manner that will confirm the lack of sensitivity and authenticity.
I remember learning about the Faraday cage, and what a brilliant way to bring it up to modern times and linking the science to human life. It is really sad in a way, how much we miss out on in life, for we believe we have dropped our defences and let someone in, when really we have only thinned the walls. And so therefore no one, not even ourselves, knows who we really are and so everyone misses out on the unique sparkle and expression that everyone has.
I agree Rebecca. What I love about what has been offered by Joel in the parable and what Serge Benhayon has proven is the we all have the choice to remove the layers and live life outside the cage – it is as simple as that.
Well said – if you put yourself in the cage, you aloe can’t step out, but it also means you are entirely in control, and can choose at any moment how you wish to live.
I agree Rebecca and from what I have felt this week there are always so many many more subtle layers within for us to feel. We are ALL missing out big time on something that is already innately there!
I agree Vicky – perhaps that thing many humans seem to crave, that missing link that we can search our whole lives for, is on the other side of the cage we live in.
“we believe we have dropped our defences and let someone in, when really we have only thinned the walls.” Very exposing, Rebecca. There is a ‘settling for’ that we can accept when we have made progress, where we have allowed for a modicum of change in our lives, but have limited that change to a point where it is comfortable. That point is usually just at the edge of discomfort, where things start to get, shall we say ‘interesting’.
It is that point that creates the ‘rollercoaster’ or yo-yo effect that so many of us know so well. We allow change to a point, feel that we have made enough progress so that we do not have to make too much change and can continue our normal behaviour, go back to what we were doing, find ourselves in the same situation we were in before, and go through the cycle again.
Take down the walls, and allow another in fully. Be vulnerable and open and the bouncing back and forth has nothing to bounce off of. What we have then is the opportunity for expansion.
Very well said Naren, why do we have so many diets and health life styles and religions and quick fixes, if not simply to allow the constant back and forth – we try one thing, make enough change to feel we have changed, when really we are just redecorating our cage, or moving around at bit. So much ‘soul searching’ is done. but maybe the reason so few reach a place they finally feel what they have been searching for is because we don’t look beyond the cage, at the possibility of living with out it.
And maybe that is what the crux of it is, we do not actually want to be without the struggle, the drama, the cage that we have actually quite deliberately built around ourselves. We can redecorate, maybe even step outside of it for a minute or two, but to be without it all together, means not having the supposed protection of keeping life at a controlled distance, and not actually making any substantive changes. From there we can always say, “but I’m trying my best”, and continue treading the same path without criticism from others or ourselves, until the point of crisis comes. Then, the choices are laid bare and the cage is revealed as having had the door open the whole time.
we think the known – the cage, is more comfortable because we know every inch of it – we made it. The last of finding something is a never ending search that can give you purpose without ever really changing anything. And yet when we find we are in a life changing situation, a crisis that brings us to a halt, we are given the space to stop and feel that the games we can play are not helping us in any way.
There is an interesting aspect to the knowledge we possess about our self-made cage, we conveniently ignore the fact that it is in fact a cage. We can point to all the things that it offers us, mastery over a small portion of ourselves, protection, etc. etc. but not that it is a cage and as such it limits us from the true freedom to be and express ourselves that we so deeply crave.
It is the cage-rattling event, that shows the bars for what they are, and gives us a glimpse of the world beyond its limitations.
It sounds so simple doesn’t it yet it is something I struggle with to surrender that deeply and be that vulnerable, I know it is the only way forward and a committed to and willing but man oh man can I be stubborn, it is very easy to be invested in the cage and begin a master of the cage can create a horrible false comfort of knowing what is happening and how so you never feel vulnerable. It is only when the comfort no longer is bearable and you have experienced more times love and how that feels which I have in Esoteric healing courses that you realise you can’t continue to live such a dimmed down version of yourself.
In the naming of something it can sometimes seem like a picture is painted which makes it sound so easy to overcome. The truth is that it will be simple for some, not so much for others, and somewhere in between for everyone else. What you point out here, Vanessa, is a really important point: that feeling of “having everything figured out” is one that can fool us into complacency and not allowing ourselves to actually feel the vulnerability that comes with the stepping into the wider world of knowing just how huge we truly are.
Great point Rebecca, I can relate to what you have shared here, it’s only when you do go deeper that you realise that you hadn’t been going there.
I agree Kirsty – its only until i begin to express who i really am, or the love i really feel that i realise how much i held back from that
Well said, Rebecca and added to that, the ironic part is that loading ourselves up with protections, shields and cages actually only makes us more susceptible to being triggered and feeling hurt. The truest protection is to have no protection at all. Without protection, we feel everything, sometimes it hurts, but it is much easier to call out the hurt and let it go rather than holding onto it and continuing to be effected.
I agree – we like to believe that keeping people at bay will give us the protection we need, and yet more often than not many also need drama to give them something to be involved with, so inevitably we get hurt, and as you say with our protections in the way we are more likely to not let it go or be able to understand it.
That’s true Rebecca ” no one, not even ourselves, knows who we really are” we chose a cage to protect us from who we truly are so we don’t have to feel what we left behind.
The example of measuring the sensitivity of the body like there are layers of cloth is a beautiful example of what we do through the words we use and the actions we take. For a small child each time we ask them to achieve something or praise the doing then we are adding a layer of cloth to their body and dulling their awareness, we could say their natural lightness. Over time this cloth becomes a bit winter coat and our perception of the world becomes so skewed that we don’t even realise we have the coat on, and yet there is a view of the world we can all have if we decide to peel back the layers and see what our sensitivity can show us. I love the analogy Joel, there is so much to explore with this and so many practical ways we can peel those layers back again.
Joel Levin, thank you so much for writing about the cage (protection of hurts). I have been living in a cage , and it is since I had met Universal Medicine and have attended many courses of them, that I became aware that my own living was locking myself up’. I was feeling unwell and not at easy in my own body, and especially not in my mind. I would feel suspended from my own love and in separation of people. It is since my first Esoteric Healing session that I became aware that I got something more than this cage (which was and is still at times) limiting me from feeling all the love I am – and accepting that. But this is always my choices ever since (it is always our choice, but this time with conscious presence). Conscious presence is meant= being connected to once heart and movement when walking, talking, doing things – being with yourself in the moment. I am absolutely blessed to find out I was living in a cage – so I can now do everything about it to become free of it – and All by my own choice. I have been just offered the tools and have been super inspired by Serge Benhayon and Natalie Benhayon.
This cage is representative of a prison. We get incarcerated for doing wrong in life, placed behind bars and subject to a restriction in life. We are not free to be ourselves. How similar is this to what we inflict on ourselves with our own self made prison of ideals, beliefs, and ways of living that bind us to only experience a part of life and not being free to feel and see everything.
What really got me is your statement that “… we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues”; it describes so well a lot of what is going on for people today – the arsenal of numbing and distracting gadgetry is getting bigger by the day and cocooned in the midst of it it is easy to then purport that there is nothing wrong, that there are no issues. What a perfect setup if oblivion and stupor are the goal and lack of irresponsibility its willing handmaiden.
I feel that you are onto a very important subject here Joel; we cannot stop feeling but the shield of protection we have put up disconnects us from the understanding of our feelings.
The use of “stimulants that make us race faster than the tension we may be feeling” is a great example of how we can measure our cage according to what we don’t want to feel. I did this for many many years making my body racy with alcohol and sugar, stimulating music and small talk and calling it fun until I realized that I had subscribed to abuse and that I was living in a way that was less of who I am.
I love the example you shared about someone touching your arm Joel, I have been thinking about it ever since I read this blog a few days ago. You have a way of making huge concepts very tangible and accessible – thank you.
This is a great way to describe and understand how we numb ourselves and then deny the existence of anything being there to feel. Some continue to numb themselves and reinforce that cage long after they have forgotten what they put it up for, denying the existence of there being anything to feel and then being very unhappy with anyone that rocks the boat by dismantling their own cage. They say they are making it up or that they have gone airy fairy or that they are way too sensitive. It is great to realise that acknowledging what is there to be felt and being brave enough to feel it, is the opposite to weak and creates a resilient and vibrant person who engages with the world.
Great blog Joel, your analogy of the cage and also the layers of cloth, really great example too. It provides a very real and practical understanding of the fact we do feel everything, but it is our choices and awareness that determines what we feel. Really fabulous, loved it.
Another excellent sharing Joel, thanks for your lived wisdom. What you reveal here and what I like so much is the fact, that we actually choose, how much we want to be aware of something and no matter if we are aware of something or not, we feel it anyway. That is very huge. And all the time, we don’t want to be aware of something, we actually harm ourselves, so it is always coming back to what I choose. There is definitely no coincidence and it is always our choice.
Joel, love your comment that ‘we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues.’
A lack of awareness is simply that. What’s going on around us is still there and yes we can all feel it on some level.
Seems like it’s better to be aware and know what you’re feeling than to pretend you feel nothing, as the latter helps no one.
“With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.” Love, love, love. And just so happens to be the truth too 🙂
‘With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.’ This is so beautiful and a great reminder that removing layers is the way to go, not putting more on.
“The first problem with life in the cage is that this becomes our reality”. This is the most crucial Truth of it all. Without discerning if what you’re living is True or not, there’s no True basis to have an honest dialogue with ourselves or anyone around us. There’s much parts in our lifes that are True, but in many lifes also a lot that are not True. Without wanting to investigate this Truth, we’re lost in the cage, assuming that this is what life is – where in fact it is the total opposite. Which we can only experience in a consistent way if we choose to be honest and starting to self-care and self-love. What is the foundation we stand on if we don’t know when we are with ourselves and when we’re not?
Just imagine being a small child and suddenly your parents inviting you to put a cage on your body telling you with a smiling face: at the beginning it might be a bit uncomfortable but then you get used to it. Look at us, how happy we are with our boxes and how graceful they look on us.
Well said Eduardo. How sad is it that we as adults act like we know it all and prepare our children for a caged life, rather than a life full of love, joy and forever learning. The reason we do it is because it doesn’t expose our own (childhood) hurts. But if we want this cycle to come to an end, there has to be a generation that puts a stop on it. Are we that generation? How much do we actually Truly love our children when we don’t act lovingly…
This is powerful to consider and more powerful to feel Eduardo. It makes no sense but it is the truth of what we have done to ourselves.
Not only have I subconsciously build a cage with my hurts etc, as a young adult I purposely imagined a impenetrable bubble around myself when in any difficult situation. I held my sensitivity as an inconvenient weakness that needed to be extinguished.
As a student of Universal Medicine I have come to understand that it is not my sensitivity that is a problem – as you share Joel, this is actually a strength – and choosing not to feel does not offer protect from hurt, but rather uncertainty and anxiousness.
I agree Carmin it is incredible how we have it backwards. We imagine that protection brings strength and sensitivity is a weakness. Yet by protection we close ourselves off to being able to feel and read what is going on around us, so we end up not being able to respond appropriately or flow as harmoniously with life. How different would it be if we all understood that it is far wiser and more powerful to stay open and use our sensitivity.
Yes, sensitivity has not always be seen as the strength that it is. It allows us to feel everything and then we can choose to react to all we feel and go into protection, or stay open, connect more deeply and feel how to respond.
It true Carmin, there are even books that teach you to wrap yourself in a white light..which is code for a protective bubble, feeling it is only way forward.
It is no wonder so many people are wondering around, feeling like something is missing in their lives and lacking true purpose, when, because of the cage we have created “…we don’t know the difference between what is coming from around or from within”…so we have no “true sense of ourselves.” Thank God for Serge Benhayon “who knows life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person” and through his reflection many are choosing to let go of their cages, and show others there is another far more joy-full and loving way of living.
We can walk around in our cages, blaming the world for what happens in our lives, but it is us who have isolated ourselves in our cage, and separated from ourselves. Once we become aware of the cage, we can berate ourselves for living this way, or we can choose to drop away its layers, let people in and feel who we naturally are…”sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all… an essence that is equal to all others.”
Love this Paula, the way we create the cage, hate how it restricts what we feel and do and then blame the work for treating us in a harsh or guarded way….
So true Paula Steffensen: We can walk around in our cages, blaming the world for what happens in our lives, but it is us who have isolated ourselves in our cage, and separated from ourselves”. I feel that this is what we have been doing and how we have been living for decades, hundreds and thousands of years.. And the more lack of awareness we had chosen the more we loose sight of the truth of our choices. Yet the truth had always remained. This is why we can come back to feeling truth again – and this is why we can dismantle ourselves from living in a cage and stop the illusion & lies we have created. Time to be aware of what our choices are really doing with us and how it is always the energy we choose before practically doing something, and that the act that follows will be in determined by our quality of energy that we have allowed our body to enter through us and so make us move, talk, walk or be silent.
So true Susan…once we feel we are all the same equally so, then there is no longer any need to defend the cage and so it ceases to exist.
What I am realising with reading your comment Paula is that life is as simple as we make it and all we need to do is let go…….and surrender and yet while we continually hang on to the cage we have built we will stay inside it’s confining and contracting ways. We can let go of our perceptions of life at any time we choose……..and live a life of empowerment and purpose.
The lie lived within the cage is that “we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues” and then consider this way of living ‘normal,’ and so the dishonesty continues, until there is a cardiovascular message from our body telling us clearly that things are not right, that the disharmony of living this way has an impact on the body and it is time to be honest about the way we are living, and take responsibility for the consequences of our choices.
The beauty of the body is it keeps us very honest.
I love that about my body: no lying possible, it communicates 24/7 the consequences of my choices.
Yes, one of the greatest ways we can support ourselves is by listening to the body. This I find is an ever-refining process.
“Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength. “ I agree we do miss the point. We are born sensitive and I feel it is one of the divine gifts we have been given to support us to navigate through life. Dismissing it and covering up leaves us with-out our innate radar, hence the need for more protection as we stumble around blindly.
True Sandra – and most of us are nurtured when we are babies, and celebrated for the sensitivity of who we are. And wow we change a lot as we grow and learn that we need to build our cage. We forget how we started off – but this is who we truly are.
The irony of this cage is that “the hurts from our childhood that we use to justify the effort that goes into maintaining the cage intact and seemingly impenetrable” hurt us so much more than the original hurt. The original hurt was perhaps a few minutes at most whereas we hold that emotion in our bodies for decades, if not a whole lifetime!
This whole concept can come as a shock as when you are living in a cage you really have no idea. Well actually you do deep down, but part of the role of the cage is to be so normal that you really don’t know it exists.
If we stop being aware we do not only shut out that which we find hard or uncomfortable to feel but as we cannot discriminate we shut out the love as well.
The ‘faraday cage’ is a great analogy Joel. We think it keeps us safe but how can you be safe if you are not aware of what is truly going on.
It is an illusion to think that one person is more sensitive then another, we are all equally sensitive and feeling everything at every moment. The only difference lies in how much we allow ourselves to be aware of it.
Often sensitivity is misread as being emotional or reactive but true sensitivity is our ability to be open to seeing and feeling it all from an observational place, where we don’t ‘take on’ what is felt. To truly feel allows a deeper understanding of life and what we are all choosing. With clarity we can know what the next step is.
An important point to make Victoria for as you say we have changed the meaning of sensitivity. True sensitivity is what we feel energetically and not the fact that we can get easily emotional. I used to be called ‘highly sensitive’ as I picked up energies left and right and there are more and more people in this world that are identifying themselves with this and the fact of being too sensitive to be in this world. The truth is I was picking up all the energies because I was not in my body.
When I am fully present, in my body and with myself I can observe and feel all there is without it coming into my own energy.
on that note I shared something with a girlfirend this morning which was great reminder for myself too: wherever I am fully present there is no room for anything else.
This is a key support you offer here Carolien, when we stay fully present in our bodies we do not ‘take on’ or become affected by what we feel; we can remain steady and observe it.
Another awesome blog Joel, we can never not feel but we have many ways of being that stop us from being aware that have become our normal way of life. Making life about bringing awareness back is the best choice I have ever made.
Agree Carolien and its the most endless and joyful path I have ever chosen to walk. Embracing energetic responsibility and making it the way forth has brought true joy to my life.
The second is that we can never stop feeling, we can only become less aware of what we are feeling – this is the greatest tragedy for humanity, we can never stop feeling we just become experts at burying it deeper and deeper.
Absolutely Elizabeth, I remember a conversation I had once with a counsellor about this same thing. It was along the lines of, we have put ourselves in the cage and locked the door and we are the only ones that hold the key to unlocking it. And as you have said Elizabeth, our honesty is the key.
Joel, this is one of those ouch blogs where the truth is presented in such a way that one has nowhere to run but straight into it. I absolutely loved it. This is pure alchemy with words. You seem to have an incredible ability to pin the evil down leaving no spawns for it to reestablish it’s dampness.
Sacred Esoteric Healing and the modalities and teachings brought through by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine are the ONLY things I have ever experienced that truly help to pull back and lift off all the layers, ideals and beliefs that are not really us .. and I have tried many things. Before looking at anything we need to truly understand energy first and this is the gift (one of many) that Serge and Universal Medicine bring.
“We become so familiar with its wall that, when we reduce the thickness of the shield, it gives us a sense that we have connected deeply with someone. However, we are still living in the cage – it is thinner, but it is still there.” So many of the lines in this article resonate strongly but this one really blew me away tonight. I get a sense that I have mistaken thinner wall for true freedom many times.
I can also feel that I have lessened my shield but it is still there.
“We can walk into a room and know there is tension between the people in the room. This is us being able to feel as much, if not more, than we can see and hear…” This is one fine example of the fact that we all do feel and have an awareness that there is more going on than we care to admit to or be honest about. Just like we can’t physically see wind (air) blowing but we know it is by the feel on our skin, the movement of tree branches, clouds, leaves and the sound. We are like multi sensory radars, just that do we choose to raise our antennae to pick up all thats going on around us.
Full of insight and understanding Joel. “The human Faraday cage is a shield that we build, not from wire, but through beliefs about ourselves and the world, like the hurts from our childhood that we use to justify the effort that goes into maintaining the cage intact and seemingly impenetrable.” It shows that we are very adept at keeping our hurts alive because they provide us with a means to keep ourselves less – and unrealising of our true selves.
True Elizabeth, and though for me its sometimes been a hard pill to swallow, from the honesty I have started to make more loving choices. Ultimately the honesty leads to us realising we have the power to change our behaviours and so change our lives.
Those cages (our choices) that bring about a false sense of ‘comfort’ as in point 3 of your powerful sharing with us Joel rings loud and clear. “What we block from the world, we block from within ourselves first”. To take those tentative steps outside our cages is the beginning of our journey to our true home.
I understand and in a sense can ‘read’ what is happening in life, in situations because of the sensitivity I am rebuilding, as a child I had sensitivity but I layered it with hurts and a shield to try and protect myself from a world I ‘thought’ did not appreciate me “Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.” That was my choice and now I make other choices. I chose to feel once more, I am finding strength in it, to feel is to know, is to understand and observe and through this clarity, deeper wisdom and love is available to express and feel.
Awesome example concerning the cloth over the arm, so simple and clear “The second is that we can never stop feeling, we can only become less aware of what we are feeling…” I talk about how we feel not just what we say with my children. We are learning to express what is not said, so if we feel something in a group we say how it felt and we talk about, where it came from and why it came up. No words are spoken but the way one of comes in the room, puts down a cup, or walks past us can disturb us. It disturbs us when we do not ‘clock it’ or be honest or aware that we felt it, when we deny it, it disturbs and can cause a hurt. It is great to share this with my children, we all feel empowered and confirmed in our knowing and acceptance that we feel a lot more than is seen with our eyes. Honouring that they feel, honouring, has really supported us to be aware of what we are choosing to put out in the world, and accept into our bodies and as you say it honours that whether we try to deny it or not we do feel deeply. Being open to this and learning to live with it is healing and empowering.
This is something that I have experienced, “The first problem with life in the cage is that this becomes our reality…” I know I have lived behind a shield, attempting not to be hurt or feel, and I have expressed from this shield. Leaning to let love in and express love, is ongoing and I feel that as I let go of each layer of hurt, I feel more and express more.
Great point Elizabeth – a cage is a barrier that once put up to keep others out, also becomes a cold dark prison that keeps us locked away inside and unable to see the light of day.
I know for me dealing with my hurts and really building a self-loving relationship with myself has been a crucial step to starting to dismantle my Farady cage. Because unless you build a foundation of love and connection with your own essence or soul first, then you really cannot open up to others. There is no point dropping our guard and just letting all the unloving energy in the world come in and knock us about. We need to be able to observe it and read it and respond to it in a way that does not affect us. This also has the added bonus of when there is love about (and there is plenty of that energy too) we do not miss it or gloss over it but get to feel, enjoy, appreciate and experience it in full.
Ah yes, very good point. We need to be solid enough within ourselves before we can open the door. To be starting to feel and emanate the love that we are.
So I guess what we are saying here is that the human faraday cage, unlike Michael Farady’s metal cage does not actually work. The energy that we fear so much from others still gets in and affects us, we just dull or numb ourselves to the fact. I bit like putting our fingers in our ears pretending that sound does not exist. Surely it is better to be fully aware of what is occurring around us and coming towards us energetically?
To be aware and feel what is coming towards us or happening around us far outweighs any cages, these prison cells of our own making.
It’s a bit of a conundrum, isn’t it? Not wanting to be fully aware, but getting it all anyway. Needing to be fully aware in order to dismantle what we’ve created, but living in a way that denies that awareness. Thank goodness for Universal Medicine. If I hadn’t met Serge Benhayon, a man who has dismantled his own cage well and truly, I would have never had the tools to start to crack my own.
The Faraday cage is a great analogy of not letting people in nor going out to people, Joel. The lie is that there is coming energy in us anyway. We are not able to create a Faraday cage, because our deep nature is love. When we are in resistance to this love everything else will be able to enter us, like anger, rage, sadness from others. But if we connect to the love inside of us and fill the space with this love in us these emotions from others cannot enter us, but we are able to observe them and see them for what they are, emotions which do nort belong to us.
That’s insightful. As with egg shells, designed to let air in and out, the cage is not completely impermeable. Emotions can enter and run through us (and run us). If we know ourselves as love and emanate that, emotions and other forces cannot enter.
So many of us spend lifetimes working really hard to keep the world out (because this goes against our very nature) and then wonder why we feel miserable and lonely.
Connecting to our own sensitivity is the most beautiful way that we can engage with the world. We allow ourselves the freedom of living life in a way that is true as we let go of living within our own self created Faraday Cage. We connect with other people in a way that allows us to express the essence of ourselves and explore the tender and innately loving selves that resides within when we connect to the truth of who we are. Thank you Joel for your commitment and dedication to writing such insightful and evolving blogs that allow us to explore our path through life.
Joel this is a fascinating blog, not knowing about a faraday cage either. I love your words revealing what removing this cage exposes. “With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday magical yet practical and most of all it is an essence that is equal to all others”
Joel this line is pure magic ‘revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others’, I feel that an entire book could easily be written on this sentence alone.
Absolutely agree Alexis, such a beautiful confirming of the truth of us. Thank you Joel.
Sensitivity is an asset, not a hindrance.
Well said Matthew we have come to a false understanding of sensitivity and with this are robbing ourselves of our true strength and our true power. Through sensitivity we build awareness and through awareness we live true responsibility.
Well written, practical and easy to understand. Thanks Joel
Joel – your analogy to the cage makes so much sense, and is indeed common in many of us to put up a defence against the world, but as you share here, bring on sensitivity. I would not have said that a few years ago, because sensitivity has been given a bad rap so I didn’t know or want to know the true meaning of the word, but in its truth, sensitivity is awareness – and to be aware of everything that goes on around us is to take responsibility. To let down our guard is to trust that awareness. And as I do this more and more, I receive it from others. We are walking around as a big reflection, so what do we choose to present; a cage, or openness? Being trapped or being free?
Beautiful Elizabeth – an outside force that smashes the cage is not the answer. Who better to unpick the intricately woven prison than the architect that built it!
I genuinely stopped when reading Point 1… how when we reduce the thickness of our cage (but not remove it) we feel like we are deeply connected. It reminded me that our experience of ‘no cage’ is so far removed from our current way of living, that it is easy to fall for the trap of doing ‘better’ and think that is the end goal. This would be to fall a long way short of the true glory and sensitivity that is every persons birthright.
Yup, I agree Simon, it makes me wonder how many more layers there are, because years ago I was oblivious to the fact that I can feel like I do now.
Yes, which indicates years from now, we might be feeling the same again. I have the sense our awareness only continues to expand – that’s how God is able to be God. We are all on the same path of infinite expansion, just at different points and at different densities.
I did too – stopped that is. I felt how in the past I had fooled myself into thinking all those relationships I thought were genuinely deep were not. There was no true letting of another in. The image I have now is of people in their reinforced, all-encapsulating egg-cages bumping up against each other, each thinking those bump moments were moments of connection. Well, they were of a sort, but not of the sort that are available without the cage.
Another image that comes to me is that not only does this cage keep things out, but also once you realise its constructed, you feel trapped in a prison of your making. That is where we need support, and that is what Serge and Universal Medicine have been offering all these years.
When we are searching for the truth in the wrong place it’s amazing how much we can fool ourselves into thinking that we are living truly. Like you say Victoria I have fooled myself many times into feeling I had close relationships with people, although I now realise that I had yet to build an intimate and close relationship with myself that was based on honesty and not on need. It is beautiful to at last begin to build friendships and relationships that are real and where I can express myself without any fear of the response.
While reading the blog, the image that kept coming up was of a toddler looking around at ways to protect themselves from being hurt… they see quite clearly the cages we adults have built and so they start to inexpertly build their own. That is sad. What is worse is that we as adults come along, and through our own beliefs, help them to learn to build a more and more sophisticated cage until like us, they are locked in a gossamer thin cage of incredible strength that is so well crafted you would hardly know it was there.
Good point about the toddler. It’s scary to consider what we absorb as we grow – what we then believe is normal, or the way to do life. Imagine growing up around adults who have deconstructed their cage. Children would then be free to be as they are; to remain the clairsentient beings they naturally are. We would all know and feel our connection to ourselves, others and God without impediment.
It is strange that we build something to keep the world at bay… when we are all the same… like a drop of water.
Another fantastic blog Joel.
For years I lived within a cage, deciding when felt safe to let my walls down. These often subconscious thoughts and decisions were deeply manipulative and affected not only myself but others around me too.
What I love about this blog is the simplicity you bring…”life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person.” This is all we need to know, for the choice is then ours to make.
I agree jenny – the blog is super simple and very relatable – we often take about our walls we live behind, but we often don’t consider that not only do we not let anyone in, but we receive a lesser experience of life
I still don’t fully understand why feeling energy is not the main thing we learn to carry on mastering from a child. For as children we understand what is going on around us without knowing how to speak or understand language but only a few of us manage to hold on to it without numbing and dulling it out. We wouldn’t poke our eyes out or cut our ears off so why do we sabotage our sixth sense so much?
A great analogy Joel. heaping more and more layers of energetic armour around ourselves does not protect us from feeling, it only stops the love we naturally are to come from within out, it also stops us from letting people in. and from there the ills and woes of the world arise.
“We accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues.” This is a very important aspect as we are measuring life by the comfort we achieve and not by the level of awareness we hold. The focus is on the outcome and not on the quality we live with. Building our awareness is our main responsibility as this leads to living who we truly are.
My cage is coming down. Bar by bar, wire by wire, stone by stone. With each one that is removed I feel a greater rawness. Sometimes I want to run and bury myself deep into the parts that I have not taken apart yet. But with each bar that comes down I see a little clearer, hear a little sharper. My skin has come a little more to life – more sensitive than ever before. The insides of me have come to life, communicate to be with discomforts and tensions. I sense what is not lovely in life more than ever before.
Why?!! you might ask, would you ever leave a cage if all you feel is more raw, and see how little love there is in this world?
Well here is the beautiful prize. I see the vast beauty of this planet in away that I never could. I see the light in people’s eyes, the grace in their movements. I am able to discern the voice of God as never before, ever-present behind the cacophony of human life.
That is a prize beyond words, beyond value. So I go on, deconstructing my self made prison….
Yes, it requires far more energy to construct and uphold the cage, than it does to pull it apart and return to our natural state.
Another awesome blog Joel, it is clearly spelt out that we have a choice to be aware or not be aware of what we are feeling in any given moment. Responsibility is the name of the game.
What’s astounds me now that i have begun dismantling my cage is how much i am able to feel. I can feel so much and also in so much detail. It makes me wonder if it was not so much a cage that i was in before but a concrete box!
Joel what’s fascinating to realise is that even though we have each constructed a cage around ourselves very few of us know that we are lugging this self imposed structure around with us. It’s as if we are peering through the bars with no awareness of the bars either side of our face.
love the empowerment in your comment… it is so true that if we approach it with honesty, a deep honesty, we can dismantle what we have created
The cage is just an illusion we have created for ourselves because we feel everything all of the time anyway. Time to stop living like we do not and just be who we are – amazing divine beings.
Love the analogy of Faraday’s Cage Joel. It is only once we can accept that we are in a cage, a cage we have chosen for ourselves that we mayn’t be able to see or touch, but is affecting our everyday lives that we can begin to release the layers that have kept us imprisoned for aeons.
Reading today your words Joel I saw us as humanity waddling around with these heavy cast iron cages stuck to our bodies, bumping and bashing into each other. Wow, no wonder we are exhausted from life. With this understanding of the cage I can see a way where we can all actually live from a shared place of connection, free from these artificial borders and boundaries we lay on top of life.
Yes Joseph, I saw that image too. It also reminds me of the saying ‘who has rattled your cage?’ Our language expresses that we already know deep down that we are caged, and when we react our cage has been rattled meaning we have connected with a feeling we would rather not.
It’s bizarre to think that we are all in cages trying to avoid our sensitivity. If we accept that we are all the same and can feel so much more surely that would mean acting more responsibly and one reason for the cages being in existence diminishing.
I agree Michael, it is bizarre and crazy! However, when 1 person shows their sensitivity it has ripples effects and gives permission somehow to others to also do it as they can see it is ok, normal and not weak or pathetic to be sensitive and that is actually a strength. The more we see our sensitivity as a strength the more we will embrace our feelings rather than trying to shy away from them.
The truth of the fact that we cannot feel something from someone else which we have blocked in ourselves, as you put it “what we block from the world, we block from within ourselves first”, is such an important revelation.
For so much of my life I could not figure out what was going on, in that I knew how important love is, but was feeling very unloved. I wanted to be loved, I thought I knew how to love people, but the missing piece to it all was the fact that I was not making the choice to love myself. Once that penny dropped, the world opened up in a whole new way, and I was able to not only truly feel love as it came from within me, but I did not feel that it was something that I needed anymore. It simply was already there.
You know Joel if someone said to me you are living in a cage, my response would be “NO WAY” and yet this is just it. We are walking around to protect ourselves from ourselves.
I can’t help thinking for cage, read prison – and that many prefer a self-constructed prison from which to experience life rather than from the position of freedom through feeling and sensitivity that is both our choice and our birthright.
I celebrate the truth so beautifully expressed here Joel. “With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.” We unfold very naturally the qualities of our divinity.
Joel to read your blog is mind blowing, especially when dealing with sensitivity that is within us all. For me the dis-assembling of the cage is the way to go, step by step as I break away the cage that surrounds me.
I love this line “the man who knows life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person.”
There is something about you pointing out that it is a choice and a birth right that feels right and true, we have to choose but it is also very natural. Thanks for more gold Joel.
Good point Marika! Sometimes when you have strayed coming back to what’s natural can feel like a struggle and living naturally is exhausting!
I had never heard about the ‘faraday cage’ but I certainly know about the the cage I had created around myself. Taking off the layers has been very revealing and although not always easy to let go of has allowed me to connect back to knowing and understanding myself on a deeper level and also this has also allowed me to connect and understand other people more. I love the true freedom this has allowed me to feel in my body once again and I really appreciate I’m not governed by the cage my mind had created.
I have found that slowly removing the layers and beginning to feel more and more what is actually going on around me and in me has also been challenging for me but undeniably worth it and extremely rewarding.
Awesome blog ,Joel. I was feeling into all the layers I had constructed over the years to not feel the ugliness of world and its unloving ways of conduct, but this hardening and numbing didn’t keep me safe, just lesser and dulled version of my true self, my birthright in fact. I feel that’s why people always love children and their innocence, as what they represent or reflect to us is less layers of hardness or numbness, and more purity of true self. Unless they are of course carrying a Kalashnikov in a war zone somewhere 🙂
Thank you Joel for this insightful blog. I had never heard of the Faraday cage but love the analogy. How true, we are registering the energetic communication all of the time even if we may not have been consciously aware or acknowledged to the level we can feel. Our body feels it all but we become dull to it, like your example of feeling through the cloth over the arm. What are we missing out on when we do not allow ourselves to be open to truly feeling?
The beauty of all of this (and of life) is that no matter what we do, how strong we make our cage or how many layers of cloth we place over the arm, what is underneath does not change. All it takes is the decision to remove the cage – it’s really not as strong as we may think it is. It may take commitment and consistency, but really the cage is rather flimsy.
Yes agree nikkimekee, and the cage is actually very transparent also, and can easily dissolve completely when it is met with our loving commitment and consistency to be our natural selves.
‘Yet if we don’t know the difference between what is coming from around or from within, how can we get a true sense of ourselves?’ This is such a fundamental reason to actually let go of all these protective layers. They inhibit our awareness to know who we are and knowing who we all are is how we can truly be and live – not just muddle through existing.
…and in my experience, there is nothing worse that not knowing who you are, let alone not living it.
Yes I agree Karin, building confidence in what we are actually feeling is really key to understanding ourselves and the world around us. With this confidence comes a sense of joy, purpose, wellbeing and ease that is very fulfilling and infectious to all those around us.
” With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.” Thankyou Joel, yet again you’ve provided a beautifully written and relevant exposé, not only revealing how we erect our cages but why. And as the paragraph above reveals, the amazingness of what’s there to be found as the cage begins to dissolve and the essence that we are becomes what we share with the world.
A very revealing expose Joel of the protective shields we adopt to block our awareness to our sensitivity. Yes indeed the cage we create around ourselves may seem to be an attractive option to begin with, offering a false sense of protection however this only leads us ending up not only blocking our awareness to our sensitivity in one area of our lives but as a result we block our awareness to ourselves and so to everyone. We end up existing trapped in a cage unable to let ourselves or let people in. In letting go of our cages we will discover that we are all equally sensitive, a quality that is in fact our strength and living with this awareness is what will allow us to live together in appreciation of our true and natural qualities.
Beautifully said Carola – the cage is a faux friend. We are all equally sensitive in our essence and that sensitivity supports us to understand life and all that is going on.
Well said Fiona and a great point. As it is through honoring our sensitivity that we are then guided in truth to live our lives with the fullness of who we are.
I love this blog because it is so relateable and explains a lot about why we behave the way that we do. How many of us use the reinforcing elements of eating, stimulants and hard exercise to get through life and use them our whole life so as not to feel and admit our sensitivities and hurts? Sharing this really allows us to really contemplate why we do whatever we do.
Shevon, I agree, ‘Sharing this really allows us to really contemplate why we do whatever we do.’ Reading this blog allows me to understand how I have lived in the past, I chose to do extreme sports so that i could not feel what was going on around me, and ate copious amounts of sugar, I no longer do this and as a result my body is no longer hard like it was, i have come back to my naturally gentle way and this feel very lovely.
Thank you Joel for delivering to us your gems of wisdom and truth in such a clear relatable way. The words that stood out for me today are ” What we block from the world, we block from within ourselves first” Powerful words for me today.
I love this too Jill, very powerful indeed.
What an amazing metaphor Joel, the way you explain it makes so much sense – just because we can feel it doesn’t mean its not happening.
…and how exhausting to put our efforts into not feeling everything we have already felt.
I agree Kylie, it really makes no sense when it’s said like that – we have felt it, we know and yet we chose to stick our heads in the sand and try to block it out
What stands out the most when I read your blog Joel, is the dishonesty of life lived in the cage. We live in an illusion but believe it to be reality…choosing to not see the truth of our choices – a rather sad existence when a life full of joy could be chosen.
The lies that are built up on lies that are built up on lies work like reflectors that throw back and forth their false light. That’s reflected in our current busyness in day-to-day life. We choose to be too occupied with “things” that we miss the simple way, God is communicating to us. What a trick! What a cage.
This sentence stood our for me: “we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues.” We really think that we are ok, just because we don’t feel, because of our protection layers, what is actually going on.
I love this line too…its something I still fall for and have to watch.
I agree, this comes up a lot, life is ‘ok’ because we don’t have a serious illness, we have a job, house, a family etc, all tick boxes have been ticked on the list that we make in life, but dig deeper and ask ourselves can we sit and be still and enjoy it, what is the quality of the thoughts that run around our heads, do we love ourselves…and perhaps the cracks begin to show. We may numb ourselves to what we feel but underneath these layers there is something deeper letting us know that this life is not ‘it’ and things could be felt and lived in a different way. The layers of this deceit are many but they are small in comparison to well of love, expression and joy that dwells within.
Great way of putting it: “To be aware or not to be aware – that is the question!” And to take responsibility if we choose not to be aware, for this has consequences for the choices we make and therefore on our precious bodies.
We often think that sensitivity is our weakness and yet the opposite is true: “it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.”
Agree Monika, we build the cage to not feel our sensitivity and harden to get on with life although “it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.” Sensitivity guides us and living by what we feel we understand life and don’t have to protect ourselves from life.
To be able to remain open and tender when we come across an old hurt, or a new and difficult situation is so powerful. At first glance it seems to be an oxymoron, yet it requires a deep level of commitment, of trust that everything we are is already enough, and that we do not need to defend or protect. When we stay open in this way then we can feel what is really going on, we can learn the truth of what is happening with no filters, and we stay open to God, and to Love.
Agree, Simon, the “trust that everything we are is already enough, and that we do not need to defend or protect” is needed in this proces of staying open to what our soul offers us on our path of return to God and divinity.
Serge Benhayon knows life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person and shares and supports to make the choice and claim back our divinity and sacredness.
I’m finding the more I see through the layers of the cage the more this way of living exposes the illusion of holding onto hurts. We stubbornly hold onto these hurts expecting the world to recompense us in some way for being hurt, without expressing what the hurts are because we’ve locked them away in the cage, and so we stay stuck in the hurt going nowhere, muddling around in our own muck which drains us! Its certainly not a healthy, vital, free, loving, harmonious nor joyfull life, and yet we justify living in the muck because we have been hurt…really it makes no sense at all! What is it about us that would choose hurts rather than living a joy-filled life?
That’s so true Elizabeth, only we know how to deconstruct our own cage, hence we can support others during their deconstruction but we cannot help them.
Joel, once again you have found a practical way to illustrate clearly how we avoid feeling and the consequences of that. As you say, this human Faraday cage is only ‘seemingly impenetrable’ because we actually still feel everything but we have dulled down our awareness to it so that we can keep on functioning without being upset by ‘issues’. Though we may seem to be fine on the surface, any denial or burying of our hurts is very destructive to the body for they fester away inside and may erupt as sudden outbursts of emotion or manifest in the form of a disease or illness. Life inside the cage may seem safe but it is a stifling and deadening mediocrity. Stepping out from the cage is often not easy but there is great support available from people like Serge Benhayon who are an example of what life outside the cage looks like. Knowing that we do have the choice to free ourselves empowers us to take that step.
I know this cage. Mine was designed to keep people out and for me to live in society but not be seen by society. Now that I’m peeling the layers off my cage I’m feeling the loneliness and isolation I have created. I’m beginning to let people in to ‘see what happens’ and it’s been fantastic. I enjoy people and I can live with people and have them in my life. In fact I have discovered that I’ve actually been missing me and people in my life which has resulted in me carrying bucket loads of sadness in my body. The cage is losing it’s strength but I’m gaining mine back.
Brilliant Lindell very inspiring.
Very lovely, lindellparlour “The cage is losing it’s strength but I’m gaining mine back.” It is a revelation to understand that the cage we build around us denies our true strength and power. It is a pleasure to read and feel the power and love in your expression.
An awesome blog Joel…a great analogy and very thought provoking – there is a lot to consider here.
“Just because we are not aware something is going on, it doesn’t mean we don’t feel it on some deeper level.” This is a great reminder Joel. We are feeling everything and our greatest protection is to feel everything. And to start healing our hurts so they don’t stand in the way to be aware and observe.
Our awareness is our greatest asset, and yet we choose numbness to survive, manage and seemingly get through life. It is no different to entering a room – we can walk in with the light on or, we can turn it off. In either case, it doesn’t change what is in the room, just how much of it we see. I’d much rather see it all, than be in it and unaware.
Janina and here we hit a great point on the head. I noticed a craving to eat a particular food that was not what I would normally eat yesterday. After stopping I could feel clearly something going on that hurts on a deep level – I could have brushed it off saying I did not feel it but the fact is on a deep level I did, and i simply needed to allow myself that feeling. To me this shows that the cage and coverings can be made up of anything from food to drama.
Well said Elizabeth. The invisible cage we have created, we can also deconstruct.
Yes, Marika, once we allow ourselves to feel vulnerable and sensitive to what is going on around us the “walls of protection” just drops away.
Joel, what we block from outside we block in ourselves first, what a fantastic realisation, and it removes all elements of being a victim or blaming another or the world for anything, it puts us in the driving seat and we can then choose to look at where we are and feel and see what might be the ideals and beliefs we are using which has put the cage in place. It struck me today how powerful those ideals can be, they allow us to build an energetic block to keep others away and of course we disconnect from us too, so the unpicking is seeing and feeling what we may believe about ourselves, and looking at any hurts that led to taking on that belief as an armour in the first place. Everything is energy and it’s the starting point of it all, I see this so much more clearly when you describe the cage we build and can now more clearly understand that until that energy is addressed the cage remains, it might change colour or shape but it’s there. And when we do feel our hurts that thing we wanted to avoid at all costs they are less painful than the mechanisms we’ve put in place to stop us getting ‘hurt’ again – that’s the thing all the protections we put in place hurt us more than our original hurts.
Wow Joel. I love this story about the cage. Cage free living, now that’s a headline worth reading about. I can just imagine a cartoon with images of the level of sophistication that some of the cages are built with. Layers and layers of re-inforcements that have been stacked and packed on will never be a match for our essence. No cage or even steel reinforcements can ever take away or reduce the depth of wisdom and love we hold within us.
‘Cage free living’, yes love it. It’s crazy when you consider that the cage itself is only an illusion as the reality is, as you say ‘No cage or even steel reinforcements can ever take away or reduce the depth of wisdom and love we hold within us.’ – so true and there is great power in your words Vicky.
That is very true Vicky, as much as we may try to layer over what we are, we can never reduce the depth of wisdom and love we naturally hold within us. We are actually very transparent.
Great point Vicky. Some people become proud of their shiny, steel, thick-walled cages, as if their protection is a trophy of how hard they’ve become and how much effort they have put into keeping the world out. As you rightly say though, no cage can reduce the love deep down within us, and the cage is actually an illusion.
Adding to your cartoon, I have the image of how much work goes into maintaining this cave. Such a waste of time as the riches of life cannot be felt when we are spending so much time distracted on cage maintenance.
I so agree Ariana it is a horrifying image, yet it is something so many have chosen. It highlights how important it is for us to never hold back, play less or see ourselves as having to put armour on just to get through life. There is another way.
Thank you Joel, for exposing once more the truth of the way we live. We are each highly sensitive and it is this sensitivity we feel we need to protect, yet by removing these layers of protection we build ‘ more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others.’ So gorgeous!
This example I too found profound and yet so simple, it is on many levels just that ‘what we choose to not be aware of’, how empowering is it then to know that we have the choice to be aware of everything or not!
I find this piece describes some of the closer to home truths that are often difficult to explain and be heard because we don’t want to hear some things, and well, we are founded and reinforced within the cage. Joel you deliver understanding and wisdom in such a gentle and non-threatening way without reducing the significance and relevance of what it means to live like this.
Beautifully said Deanne. The way Joel has delivered this revelation is more like an invitation to re-claim who we actually are by activating our awareness without needing to diminish ourselves for the choices that we have made.
I agree Deanne, there is such a grace in the way Joel writes, and he holds everyone in love in the way he delivers truth. Thank you Joel.
I agree with all that is said about Joel’s delivery being very gentle, which is such a vital element when addressing the topic of our cages. The very structure that we have invested in so heavily is not going to come down overnight and indeed we are more likely to add more bars if we feel at all threatened.
Absolutely agree Deanne, Joel is an amazing writer who holds the reader in absolute love when delivering truth. Also his analogies are playful, filled with humor and wisdom and are offering evolution to the reader and not distraction or check out from reality. Joel’s writing connects and does not offer escape. Thats why we need his book on short stories out!!
True Deanne. The blog is an invitation to look at our cages without being judged for creating them. I have felt no reaction in myself to stay in my cage, but a willingness to look at how I can set myself free from it. Joel writes with love and understanding that ripples out from every word.
Fortunately if we make the choice to retain the natural birthright of our divine energetic nature we align ourselves to the true wonder and magic that we are and to all that we are a part of. I say ditch the contract!
I agree Monica, the contract has too many clauses and it’s not working in our favour. We need to void the contract and work altogether as one and co-create our own business and call it brotherhood.
We thought we signed on to be safe from the uncertainties of life. Then we discovered that we are not so much safe as dulled to experiencing it. That is not safe, its is just anaesthetised. Like the unconscious person who is raped, this level of abuse is no less horrific than to have faced the attack in absolute wakefulness. What have we signed on to? A way of living that hurts us, but we cannot feel what is doing the hurting and what it has done to us?
Not much of a contract really.
Yes, when we retain that natural birthright Marcia, we stop cutting ourselves off from the love that is around us. It is strange that the cage we create around us only cuts us off from love but not from what we perceive as attacks from others.
Yes, agree wholeheartedly Marcia.
From this blog I glean the fact that we all make a contract to not speak the obvious energetic language that we so naturally feel. We pretend the big pink elephant in the room is not really there and so we play dumb to the true nature of our amazingness. What a dumb contract!
Great point Marcia. It is clearly obvious that we all feel what is going on, otherwise we would have not put up our protective shields in the first place, and so we follow each other by playing dumb. When we speak up about what we feel we open the door of communication, for all to share what they too are feeling, through which we discover that our awareness of our sensitivity is an amazing quality that we all share.
Honouring one another’s sensitivity is a great way to build quality relationships.
Beautifully said Abby and so true.
Yeah that is so true Marcia it is a dumb contract! For when we feel our energetic body and connect deeply to the essence within — an energetic source — we do feel our amazingness and in the not wanting to feel everything that is around us we also miss out on our own gorgeous glory.
“We play dumb to the true nature of our amazingness” – I love that Marcia. We are masters at this.
Joel Levin – step right up…you have done it again!
A book of Joel analogies please.
Absolutely Marcia – I love Joel’s writings so simple, clear, playful and loving.
Yes Marcia – it is really time, that Joel is writing a book, he has so much wisdom to share – the world has to know about it.
Agree and it is the way in which Joel shares these everyday practicalities that it offers an invitation for us all to connect to a much deeper aspect of who we are and the magic outplay of life.
Thank you Joel, I love reading your deep insight into the human condition. This line stood out to me today – “just because we are not aware something is going on, it doesn’t mean we don’t feel it on some deeper level”. This is something that we would do well to take heed of.
Ha! Exactly! “just because we are not aware something is going on, it doesn’t mean we don’t feel it on some deeper level” In fact we feel and know everything what is going on – avoiding dealing with it does only delay our ‘taking responsibility’.
Yes Elizabeth we are very good at fooling ourselves, and can bury our heads in the sand for a very long time. Finally acknowledging what we are feeling, if only to ourselves can be very painful, especially if we have denied it for so long, but ultimately it is very freeing, and begins our own release from our self built cages.
The cage we create is numbness and, how you so profoundly describe Joel, the numbness does make us unaware of what happens, what it does not mean that it does not happen anymore, just that we give our power and responsibility away and then suffer under our choice. In fact ‘the human Faraday Cage’ does not really work – it does not make or leave us unharmed, the opposite is the case: it hurts even more, because we are cut off from our sensitivity which lead us the way to understanding and love.
Sandra this is so true. It’s ones sensitivity that allows us the awareness of the bigger picture to observe how our hurts are only a tiny, self-made creation in all that is amazing and beautiful. This then gives us the perspective to heal. Whereas being numb is like being stuck in the fog with only a limited, superficial understanding – giving ourselves over to knee jerk reactions to anything that suddenly comes our way.
What a brilliant image Karin. Our senses, feelings and sensitivity gives us the understanding which gives us a brighter view, gives us space. By numbing us we get a smaller view and can’t see anymore what is going around – so the anxiety rise. And from anxiety there is no free or wise reactions. I realize more and more how much to honor our sensitivity is key.
Very true Sandra. Building a cage of protection around us does hurt even more, as we then develop an insensitivity to what is really going on and so unable to discern the truth. We then find ourselves blaming and judging the world for the hurt we experience and as such harden the framework of our cage. When we disconnect from our sensitivity in this way we disconnect from our connection to not only ourselves but to all others, and this is what hurts us the most.
Our relationship/fear of being hurt is such an illusion but it is a powerful one, one I chose still, it makes my head shake in frustration – but I understand its source is something that I am invested in in someway as I can be free of it in an instant. I feel as I write this that it gives me a false sense of control of life and others, whilst I control the amount of love coming out of me so as to not get hurt by another I maintain the status quo. The irony is that the status quo is not worth maintaining and in this cage I choose to be. I feel a lobotomy may be the only answer!
And disconnected from me and others I can only speak my mind, not my heart.
The ultimate trick, in ‘protection’ we loose our connection to the one thing that can truly support us and remind us of who we are and that is LOVE.
…and in this caged existence we have the belief that we are separated from all others, when in fact we are never not connected to everyone and everything; we only avoid feeling it so.
Yes, we avoiding to feel our connection because it carries a lot of responsibility. And then we suffer under our disconnection and the question for every single one of us is: when becomes the longing for feeling our connection again stronger then the lack of willingness to take our responsibility.
I suspect that it is a design, destined to fail from the first time a human set out to make themselves this invisible shield. We are sealed into a cage that distorts as much as it seems to protect. We cannot get an accurate reading on what is happening in the world around us as its signals get muted, muddied, warped and twisted. People talk to us, but we cannot hear it accurately through the bars that add their own flavour to the messages we receive.
I am reminded of stone fortresses of the days of old. Surrounded by moats and guards armed with long pikes, and thick, grey stone walls, grown over with cold green moss – barriers against a fearful world that make every approach look like an attack.
That is how we live, and it seems to be normal until we see a man who is not cowering, who walks free, arms swinging in the golden sun and we know we can do the same.
Really! Time to realize and feel that such a thing as ‘protection’ is an illusion.
Beautifully expressed Rachel. The crazy thing is, we can be so identified with the invisible shield, that we defend our own cage, which is separating us from ourselves and from other people. The invisible shield is like an extra layer of skin and often we are not committed enough to go deeper and find out, what is actually beyond this layer.
When we go deeper we find our own beauty, the “material” we are made of – love.
What a trade off Alexander! A deal signed in blood…the loss of awareness of our love to feel safe. We can never sign away the love itself, what a trick we play with ourselves and our glory.
Thats right Sandra and also what we should be feeling ends up catching up with us anyway
And we are the ones who choose how it comes to us – to the open door, embraced as an offer to evolve, or to the back door, waking us up out of our avoiding-sleep.
This is a huge Sandra as this action gets in the way of many of us naturally communicating and just being ourselves. Taking responsibility for our choices and how we choose to act and live with ourselves first makes an enormous difference in how we are with others. Universal Medicine have been fundamental in bringing awareness to this area of my life.
So true Sandra, the attempt to cage ourselves from the world fails miserably as we isolate ourselves from our inner love and awesome sensitivity in the process. It is an incredible revelation to fully understand, feel and heal the deep pain we cause ourselves by creating this cage of numbness and abandoning the responsibility of our choices.
Living in the cage does hurt. The things we are scared of and that are the reasons for building and maintaining the cage do not hurt as much as the cage. Those things we fear are real and do happen but they don’t hurt as much as we anticipate. In fact, in my experience allowing them and feeling them, whilst they can hurt, is far more real and that feels so much better than living in protection.
I agree Susan, I love the simplicity of the examples and explanations that Joel uses. So clear and articulate. We do feel everything, we just may not choose to acknowledge it.
The 3rd point you raise in this blog can easily be overlooked Joel. Even if we realise that we have built this cage to protect ourselves we often don’t realise that we are also reducing our sensitivity to our own feelings. I have certainly found that as I work at dismantling my cage and accepting all that I feel from the world out there, I am also becoming more sensitive to the in here or what is going on within me.
Thank you Lee for highlighting point 3. The more we allow for our sensitivity and a deeper level of awareness we come to know what is the Universal truth.
I agree Donna, our sensitivity is more powerful then most our aware being someone who has used hardness to get through life I can see how I had created a brick wall to never know the actual truth. Amazing how can still be aware even when we are not.
It’s an important thing to highlight Lee. Because it becomes such a self perpetuating cycle, where we become more numb and the less able to deal with the world and so become more numb…the good news, as you point out, is that it also works in reverse.
Perhaps it is the same for you Lee, but I have found that increase in sensitivity and awareness to be confronting at times. The disassembly of the cage is a delicate process, to be handled with as much self awareness as possible for this reason. Once we know we are in a cage of our own making, and realise that it is a prison that muffles us more than it makes us safe, there can be a rush to tear it down as quickly as possible. This is not wise, because it does not allow us to develop the skill and adeptness we need to live in this world like fine barometers that read every change in the air.. One bar, one foundation stone at time, like Aesop’s tortoise knew. There is no race to free ourselves. Just steady progress marked in greater liberty and knowing.
I agree Lee, we feel good that we are protecting ourselves, but totally miss that in blocking what we think will harm us coming in, we also block our own sensitivity and feelings coming out.
Totally gorgeous blog Joel, thank you. You make an important point that is often forgotten – when we try to block and protect against the outside world, we are also blocking our own love from the inside reaching out. It’s as if we think we can ‘filter’ what comes through and out of the brick wall, but actually our relationships and everything else are severely affected when we build this barrier.
Yes, we do think we can choose what comes through our barrier and what not, but in reality it doesn’t work like that. Just as we can’t love person x more or less than person y, the love that comes out is there equally for all.
Well said Monika. How we are in a relationship with person x will not only affect them but it will affect us, and thus all of the other relationships in our life. For example in the past I’ve been called some horrible names, which has lead me to become frustrated and react, complaining to other friends about how the ‘bullying’ individual was selfish, being a ‘bitch’ etc., without any understanding for what they might be going through. This makes me harder, more ‘edgy’ and sharp, and affects everything in my day.
Yeah exactly we can’t let in what we won’t let out, one is directly related to the other. As much as we would like to protect ourselves it is the greatest harm that we do to ourselves.
Yes Susie, love that you are highlighting how much we miss out on if we choose this mode of ‘protection’, we can’t pick and choose what we let in and hold out, you miss out on so much more than you actually ‘save’ ourselves from.
Awesome point Susie, if we ‘filter’ one thing we actually, in truth, filter everything because we are not allowing ourselves to be honest and truly deeply feel.
Very true Vicky. The cage becomes the filter that everything is seen and experienced through. It may seem real but is not necessarily true.
Well said Susie, if we block we block both ways and with this we have committed to life being a lifelong construction place of the cage where we have placed the hope for protection, but never ever will feel true as it is an illusion that just drives us deeper and deeper into fighting our sensitivity, the key to awareness and with this energetic freedom.
There is only one freedom and that is energetic freedom and this not meaning being free of it, but being aware of it and choosing to live in the divine energy we all are. Freedom is a choice not something we are relieved of. To be relieved of something is a massive human illusion that comes from comfort, true freedom is responsibility.
‘…true freedom is responsibility’ – A very powerful and true statement Rachel.
This is a great point that you highlight Susie. It is an illusion that we think we can filter what we allow in to our bodies and what we don’t, but as you say by doing this we are already building a barrier that prevents us from being all of who we are to the world.
Thank you Susie. I have been experiencing this acutely this week in that if I get upset about something I can literally feel the area over my heart close down, become tense and a sense of withdrawal from others. In those moments I can feel that my natural expression of Love from that area is no longer flowing. I do wonder what this is like for others.
Very true Susie, either we allow ourselves everything to feel or we block out everything. There is no filter as you say.
We may convince ourselves that we are tough, that we cannot feel anything and we may even say that about another, but in truth we are incredibly sensitive beings and that sensitivity is an amazing instrument that provides an extraordinary amount of information that can guide us, tell us about the world and support our way of living. You can put an instrument in a Faraday cage and it may not measure so much of what is going on outside, but inside it is still working, sensing and available to do more as soon as the cage is removed.
Joel you have bolded a sentence that when I read it I felt that the letters were 10 foot tall: ‘we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues’, oh my goodness that sums up my life pre Universal Medicine days. I was so locked in my Faraday Cage and so anesthetized by whatever I was using at the time to numb myself out that I truly believed that I had worked through all of my issues. It was a belief that I held very strongly. Since coming to the work with Universal Medicine I have been supported to see in a very gentle way that this is in fact far from the truth and slowly, slowly I am de-constructing my Faraday Cage. Life without the cage bears little resemblance to life in the cage. A cage is a cage.
Voila, you have nailed life in one fell swoop Joel, how we can behave and how the knock on effect is our devastating loss, by blocking out ourselves, we block our own connection. A true reality check is to look at and deal with the cages we put around ourselves, not thicken them. We know the world is not working, and so many people are struggling inside their human shields. Your blogs are very enlightening for all to read Joel thank you.
I can really relate to living in a cage and feeling trapped in this and also knowing through my own healing that it was constructed by myself and that this is the only way to deconstruct it bit by bit with loving support and understanding.
Why is that we play a game to numb or pretend we don’t feel what we do in fact and can’t stop feeling? Does it mean we would then have to take far more responsibility in every aspect of how we chose to live? – Therefor we could not deny our truth – that we do not come from here, and have a far greater, all knowing intelligence that comes from our body and not our head.
“”The first problem with life in the cage is that this becomes our reality” At the same time, deep down we all know we are doing this, for that spark of God never leaves us, it’s always within – so how many choose this from a lack of responsibility. Is it easier to harden and create a cage that stands up and says in truth, I am responsible for creating the mess I am and live in.
“The first problem with life in the cage is that this becomes our reality” I believed who I used to be was me, I used to be hard and tough, it was all just a front to not feel how sad I was – that was until I met Serge Benhayon, I now know me and the truth of who I am, the most deeply sensitive, delicate, precious, innocent, light, caring and beautiful woman. And the joy that everyone is equal, we are all Sons of God, going through the same, albeit with slightly different learnings. Everyone feels everything, we are all on the path of return.
I can definitely relate to the analogy of the cage. I started constructing my cage as a very young child and as I grew I reinforced it with stronger and stronger materials such as self-loathing, manipulation, control, anger and rage. In my early years I wasn’t really aware of the cage I was constructing but by the time I was a teenager I had either killed off or numbed any feeling in my body. I thought I was invisible running my life from behind what I saw as the protection of my cage, although I could always feel what felt like a dark heavy cloud hanging over me. It wasn’t until I discovered the inspiring presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that I understood just how damaging it was to live my existence imprisoned by the cage and I was robbing myself of my true connection with my essence, the true me and I had been living a lie that was not only slowly killing me but my reflection was negative and imposing on others. Through learning to re-connect with my body and feel my hurts I am deconstructing the cage I created around my and allowing me to feel my sensitive, delicate, fragile, loving essence and feel the strength and safety with my naturally loving self.
“Said another way, we are far more sensitive to the world than we allow ourselves to admit” I often watch this in class, so many kids are super sensitive to what is going on, be it a tone of voice used, that they ‘don’t like the feeling of in their body’ – their words not mine- or how they react or respond when people are unloving or uncaring through actions, movements or words – or open and loving and meet them for who they are. Adults are exactly the same, though we often try to hide how sensitive we are. I would say because this, our sensitivity has been abused growing up, in the sense of being told to stop being so sensitive, or being told it’s a bad thing – it’s not been cherished and celebrated for the divine quality it is, and the fact that hounding our sensitivity more than likely brought up and brings up stuff for many people who have chosen to shut down to theirs. Is it that they don’t want to be reminded of the truth, that they are in fact a divine Son of God, and with that the sadness of choosing to walk away from God.
“Serge Benhayon, the man who knows life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person.” By sharing this knowing through his lived example of choosing to dismantle his cage he shows the way for us all to also to do so.
“change the thickness of the shield so we can feel more (let our guard down) or less (protect ourselves) in different situations.” the fact that we do this, and we all do is an confirmation that we do know and can feel energy and cannot ever stop feeling it, whether we want to admit it or not, for if we did it would open up a whole can and then some, of responsibility, for we could not continue nor would we want to, live and abuse ourselves, each other and the world in the way we do. It would be a very big stop moment, where the question ‘what’s really going on’ would be asked.
It is an amazing awareness to come to Marika, the amount of damage we do to others and ourselves but remaining resolutely inside our cage and refusing to let people in. What an immense grace it is to be supported to see, feel and begin to dismantle the cages we have built, so that we can re-claim the immense power of our super sensitivity.
And powerful and supportive indeed is our immense sensitivity, that never goes away but can be buried or dulled…It’s such illusion to think we are not affected if we have hardened so much that we don’t consciously feel.
Beautifully expressed Joel, presenting so much knowledge and wisdom. After acknowledging that we exist within a cage we can develop and deepen our awareness followed by being truly responsible for living without the constraints of a cage; simple yet powerful
Great blog Joel, one in which I will return to often.
I had definitely lived for so long in a cage of my own making that I came to know nothing different. And even now, I could not say that this cage is gone completely, there are still elements of it that I choose to keep for one reason or another – as I continue to learn to let go.
Cages within cages!! I am with you entirely on this Shami Duffy. The cage is an intricate web. BUT, the more we release ourselves from it, the more clearly we see whatever is left and thus the process can become easier. Also, and this is a huge element of it all, the more people we meet and connect to who also have ‘thinner’ cages, then the more we are inspired to release ours. This is the gold of meeting Serge Benhayon – a man with no cage whatsoever – it’s like we are suddenly given permission…it’s like the moment when the boy cried out that the Emperor was naked.
The trouble is that we are still effected by energy whether we choose to feel it or not and by not feeling it doesn’t stop it from entering and the hardening to prevent feeling is what is causing so much disease.
Very true kevmchardy we feel everything and everything we don’t express is contained in our body. It makes sense our rates of illness and disease continue to soar when so many choose to push through life rather than feeling what is truly going on.
I had built this wall of protection around myself too Marika, and not only has it stopped me from feeling it has kept people out and I blamed them because I thought I was unlovable. The more I let go of the layers the more I opened up to people, and this has been reflected back to me, and I must say it feels so lovely to realise that we can make changes to drop the layers and let people in if we choose.
This is a very descriptive and helpful explanation of the sensitivities we all feel and how we can use lifestyle choices to numb us to what we are all aware of. I have never seen it explained so clearly but it would make sense to me that we are building up layers of protection and that this is perhaps one reason why some feel more than others. I would use the example of feeling the cold, when I chose to stop eating food and alcohol that numbed my body and became more honouring of my sensitivity in this and many other regards I became much more sensitive to the cold. Might it be that we can all block or unblock this type of sensitivity with the choices we make everyday. I would argue yes.
Stephen, what you write here is really interesting, ‘I would use the example of feeling the cold, when I chose to stop eating food and alcohol that numbed my body and became more honouring of my sensitivity in this and many other regards I became much more sensitive to the cold’, I too have found that I am much more sensitive to the cold, I did not use to care if I got cold, now it feels very dishonouring and I love to wrap up warm and do not enjoy going outside if its really cold, windy and wet, it feels lovely to be honouring myself more in this way.
Imagine having the ability to physically see everyone walking around with a cage around the body (only the head, arms and feet are out). In that world we would realised that over time people have started decorating and personalising their cages with colours, etc, to make them more ‘cool’ and fun instead of saying, hey, wait a second, what are doing here? What is going on?
We do not have to imagine that – it is like that Eduardo! We see the cages in obesity, anorexia, hardness, tension, nervousness, not listening, arguing, arrogance, helplessness and so on, and it is colored in attributions like intelligence, illness, habits, culture, belief systems and so on. In fact we are all disguised all the time till we choose to become aware again of our sensitivity and feelings.
The decoration of our cages. This is massive Eduardo Feldman and so very, very true. The tricks and theatrics that we pull to try to make our cage not look like a cage. No matter how we dress it up, or no matter how many other people also have cages, it is still a cage.
Thank you for speaking for all of us when you say “…life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person”.
‘The cage’ is one among many aspects of our nano/micro-management we tend not to be aware of, which sets limits to the quality of bodily movement which, in turn, limits our access to the grandness we belong to.
Eduardo that’s an interesting point in that until we choose to become aware of the cage, we will defend there is no cage. The same is true of many things, yet when something happens or we start seeing the cage we are in its obvious we’ve always been in the cage. In some ways it’s similar to walking around with a blue spot on our face and we, and everyone else ignore it, even though everyone sees it.
Awesome Marika. Same here, I didn’t realise, and on some degree still don’t fully realise, the damage that having the cage or the wall truly does…So many miss out. Yourself and others included. It’s a whole different world without the coping mechanism.
I know this cage, it has been the bane of my life! As I have begun to really get honest about it and have been progressively letting it go, my life and particularly my relationships have changed exponentially. This cage really does become a prison that destroys any hope of true joy and intimacy in life.
Another amazing blog Joel, thank you. Life without the cage feels somewhat scary at times but so free.
“In appreciation of Serge Benhayon, the man who knows life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person.” Brilliant as always Joel.
By choosing to live within an invisible ‘cage’ we ultimately miss out on connecting to people and therefore to ourselves. It blocks love flowing in and out leaving the space within the cage to be pretty loveless and empty.
Brilliant, brilliant blog Joel. I love it. This reminds me of the cage I built too. It wasn’t very thick as I was able to still feel a lot of what was going on. Letting go of this cage and opening up is an incredible way to embrace ourselves and the world. By allowing our strength of sensitivity lovingly guide us.
Joel this is brilliant. I so love what you’ve written about lying a piece of cloth on ones body and still being able to feel touch but not as if there were no cloth. I can really relate this to myself – it’s like I’m a walking mummy all bandaged up like I’ve been super hurt and am refusing to take off the dressings, scared to feel again.
It’s like the difference between wearing a super thick winter wetsuit as opposed to being in the water and feeling how lovely the water is all around.
After reading this I really get to feel how attached I am to my protective layers – how I justify them – they keep me warm, they protect me. But to consider that they don’t at all. That my sensitivity is my greatest strength, that these layers act as kryptonite too. This is a great place to start unraveling these layers and no longer being bound as opposed to always keeping at least a thin veil between me and myself.
Awesome sharing Karin, I relate to the concept if walking around life, like a mummy…thinking I had it all worked out.
If you are a walking mummy, who can see your beauty? Isn’t this a way to communicate to the world, ‘hey, do not look in this direction, there is nothing for you here’?
I agree Karin, our sensitivity is our greatest strength, and building up the layers of protection just means we are only then pretending that we don’t feel, but of course we do otherwise why would we choose to numb or distract ourselves from feeling?! Doesn’t make sense does it. The more layers we shed the more sensitive we become and sometimes it can feel quite acute, but at the end of the day this is who we truly are and there is no such thing as “being too sensitive”… which is something someone said to me once 🙂
I loved the sentence about how we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues. Blocking out our awareness, like turning the radio dial off the station so you can barely make out what is being said is a great way to kid ourselves that all is fine. So long as we can keep functioning and doing all the things we ‘think’ are important to us or to those around us, we are ok. But I have found this is such a lesser way to live. It keeps me trapped in my own cage unable to feel other people or truly care about them. And the cage keeps me away from my sensitivity, which I am finding is one of my most cherished gifts.
Yes I too loved the sentence about how we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues- I have seen so many people living long term in their human faraday cage, and those same people being convinced that they don’t have any issues. The example of someone touching your arm when there is a piece of cloth covering it is a classic, the more layers of protection (cloth) we cover ourselves in, the harder it is to feel whats going on for sure. Yet the harm is still done.
I love it! Thanks Joel.
Great blog Joel. “Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.” connecting to our sensitivity helps build our strength.
Beautifully said Amita “Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.” connecting to our sensitivity helps build our strength.” It is our true connection that brings us all of us and with your reflection we don’t need protection.
Joel I love the analogy – so perfectly describes how we tend to try to protect ourselves throughout life. Ironic that as your list of the downside shows although we think we are doing well by controlling life, we end up making ourselves a puppet, because things still happen in life and we still get affected by them but we just don’t feel them. So we are simply unaware of what is going on! So not in a position to observe, learn and make appropriate choices. That can’t be very wise.
We end up acting like puppets, priding ourselves on what we achieve, on our intellect, etc. Where in Truth it’s all a complete falsity which is clearly obvious if you look honestly to the state of the world with all the rising statistics of illness and disease, which all comes from living in our Faraday cage. This may sound rude or harsh, but it’s just asking us to start letting go of our pride and come back to our bodies and hearts. How different would the world then be. We’ll need each other, lovingly so, without being dependent on each other.
I find this deeply inspiring Joel and a perefctly timed, thank you
I agree Michael, there is so much here in this article to relate to and understand and while I feel I have unraveled much of what is presented I can feel that there is much more to go. This is great to ponder on further.
Numbing our awareness of what is going on is like metaphorically sticking our head in the sand! Shedding the numbness by being honest about and healing our hurts supports us to open up and truly be committed to life.
Very well said Fiona.
A super blog Joel, bringing to the world another way of understanding human behaviour and the obstacles we build that get in the way of us connecting with ourselves and each other.
Another brilliant exposing blog Joel, that makes you ponder on your own life and life in general. Life without a cage is definitely how we started as a baby, and then through our life choices and life experiences we created this so called protective cage.
Thank God for Serge Benhayon who has shown us all how to live life in our fullness without any need for a ‘human faraday cage.’
Problem 3, absolutely our cage blocks our knowing about life which is our greatest gift and strength.
Problem 2, yes we defend our own lack of awareness and the insights of others come as a shock. Because we don’t know any other way and anything else feels scary as it means letting go of the way we have constructed the way we operate.
Problem 1, agreed we don’t realize that we are not letting people in or letting ourselves out, because we become so used to living behind the shield.
I love your blog Joel because this is EXACTLY the process I am working through. An analogy always helps to get further clarity on a subject, especially when it involves developing self awareness.
It was not until recently that I really saw and felt what you present to be true, that I have built my ‘Faraday Cage’ and sustain it with behaviours, food and drink to avoid and dull what I feel.
What I didn’t realize is how much this impacts those around me. What they get is the wall, bashing up against the hardness of my expression, despite the fact that inside I am so far from hard and instead so super delicate that it felt like the only way was to protect this. Yet it never worked and still I would feel attacked by everything, nothing feeling safe, because I was left wide open without the strength of my awareness in tact.
Incredible to feel and to step into the abyss, for what feels like a death, of this way of being. I have come up against the edge many times but finally I have stepped off, to be caught by the love of my body, always there for me without all the stuff I have been using to run away from it.
Thank you Joel, another piece of pure gold in writing. This exposes beautifully how we can construct our world to protect our sensitivity, and defend our lack of awareness that comes as a result. Being open to unlocking each layer of this cage is key, and is a true process of surrendering to the stillness and sensitivity that lies within. Learning each step along the way that neither of these qualities need to be hidden, but embraced for the strength and quality in life they truly allow us.
We construct the cage first to override the painful feeling of our decision to shut down and to sustain that decision. That is why it is so difficult to get rid of it.
So true Amelia. Such a fallacy in attempting to protect ourselves when all we do is dull our awareness. Everything is still happening we are just less aware of it, it still affects us. Being open to living without this protection was a turning point for me and realizing that I don’t need to protect myself has been liberating.
I read this blog earlier this morning and have been pondering on it since. I have often heard people talk about not wanting to be trapped or in a cage in reference to work, relationships, with finances etc. It dawns on me that some of these feelings of being trapped relate to the human faraday cage that most have created yet we don’t really examine this self imposed cage. What you have presented here Joel is revealing and challenging and asks us to really examine these cages that we live in.
Reading this blog Joel brought to mind the analogy that us living in a protective cage is like a lion who has been born and lives in an open air zoo. The lion lives in an enclosed space not knowing that it is actually living in a cage. He adapts to his world in the cage and this is all he knows, this is his world. Once released from the cage into the wild and having no boundaries he has the freedom to express and be the glory of the lion that he really is rather than a limited version that is held behind bars.
Yes Donna, it may feel safe inside the cage but inside we are “a limited version” of ourselves “not knowing that [we are] actually living in a cage”. Once we step out we have “the freedom to express and be the glory” of who we are.
‘.. it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength’. I am finding this more true every day Joel. True and great power comes with embracing my sensitivity.
Very true Katinka, I find when I try to ignore or dull down my sensitivity, I feel less sure of myself and everything feels a little off-kilter.
Yes Hannah, allowing my sensitivity to be is the most supporting thing I can do for myself. I also feel how supporting it is to others, they feel they have my permission to allow their sensitivity too.
Absolutely agree Katinka, the benefit of “allowing our sensitivity” is two-fold as it is both so supportive for ourselves, but also supports others to choose the same for themselves.
A very apt analogy Joel, we as humans are also subjected to currents of energy, and these come from outside of us. If we take them into our body they can become familiar patterns that draw on, to make life a certain way. These are called emotions.
Life can not be seen clearly when we look at it through a ‘human faraday cage’ but only when we are far out in the open and exposed for all to see. If we look from within the cage, we see only what is inside it or what we allow in, but never the whole truth.
Yes Harry & Marika, our vision is blurred by the bars of the cage.
The more we connect to what is innately within us, the more we see the protective shield that we have built around us to stop us feeling one thing or another. The more we let out the sweet, gorgeous, spunky, sexy and joy-full people we are inside us the more the protective shield falls away.
That is a bitter pill to swallow when we finally are willing to accept that fact. From here we can really deconstruct the cage.
Agree Alex, yet such a life changing moment. The day I realised I was locking myself in the cage was both liberating and shocking. I lived in the belief that it was everyone else’s fault that I was locked in a cage only to be so deeply humbled by realising I had the key the whole time.
It is the accepting of what we have chosen for ourselves that is the beginning of a whole new way of being that is true and based on love.
Agreed Alex, it’s a bit hard hitting. It all comes back two fold and to realise the damage we choose to do to ourselves can be quite extreme.
Yes Alex, it takes the awareness and acceptance to be able to then deconstruct the cage.
The strange thing is that the ‘cage’ is actually a portal. The unhappiness or attacks of the other ONLY get in if we have a cage as the cage does only one thing: Strip us of our awareness making us completely vulnerable to everything. Awareness and nominating in each individual case what we don’t want to enter us are the only remedy.
The cage is a good metaphor for the body since we use it in two ways: we use it a shield in the illusion that nothing will come in and as a storage of everything that came in and we are not aware of.
An interesting twist Christoph, and yes our cage has many holes where ‘stuff’ does get in and in there it traps that feeling and amplifies it.
That is a great point Simon – it is a one-way cage. What we don’t want gets in but then doesn’t get out again. What a misunderstanding we have – our ‘protection’ does the opposite of what we intend and then cements the damage.
“In fact, people are far more sensitive than we give them credit for. Said another way, we are far more sensitive to the world than we allow ourselves to admit… So how do we deal with that level of sensitivity? ” The only true way to deal with that level of sensitivity that we all have if we have not built that human Faraday cage, is to allow ourselves to feel it, maybe come to understand it but not react to it. It is so important not to get caught up in the stuff that is going on around us, but to really feel into it and get to know what is going on in the world, but not take it on as our own, which it is not, if we are living true to ourselves. Another inspiring blog, so much to consider here, Joel, thank you.
Thank you Joel and how true to say; Life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person. And yes a deep appreciation for Serge Benhayon who lives in the openness, no need for any cage.
Without the space to fly, the caged bird soon forgets it even has wings.
The great irony is that unless we allow ourselves to feel the stuff that we built our cage with, and we cannot dismantle it without feeling it, we cannot feel love in its true fullness either. The more we allow ourselves to feel the more capacity there is to feel and express love.
Very true Jeanette, and another irony I have just noticed lately for myself, is that when I have begun to dismantle that ‘cage’ and have felt more sensitive and able to read situations and where people are at, I have tended to react more to when other people act mean, crude, or harsh. So it seems there is a little trap there in that we can tend to go back and rebuild the cage to protect ourselves from feeling the harshness of the world once we opened up to feeling more. I have found that merely observing these situations and feeling what my own investments have been about how the world should look have helped to keep me open in those situations.
I understand what you are saying here Michael having experienced the same, I have been a bit like a turtle withdrawing into its shell if there is any disturbance, or a hedgehog rolling up into a ball at the slightest sense of something wrong. In, out, open, shut. It can be a bit of a dance until the ability to observe, no matter what is going on, becomes a steady part of ones foundation. It is amazing what you start to see and feel in the way of ones investment in things being a certain way in such situations.
I love the words ‘great irony’, as the whole great scheme to harden, put up walls to protect ourselves, and add any numbing or distractions as required is something that ironically hurts more than anything we can feel from outside. By keeping the world out, we unfortunately exclude ourselves too. We don’t get to feel the precious being we are that we are desperately trying to protect.
Great spotting. The word irony itself, composed predominantly of ‘iron’ a great metal wall or in this case cage.
It’s true what you say here Fiona, that by keeping the world out we unfortunately exclude ourselves too and what that does to us.
Absolutely excellent Joel, so brilliant. We can use layers on our body to protect ourselves that doesn’t mean we aren’t exposed to all that is going on outside the cage. A great blog about our deep sensitivity and how we know life is more than physical, we obviously have emotions, but we also have who we truly are, which comes from deep within ourselves.
It is great that you have brought up the body in this discussion harryjwhite. One of the big downfalls with our ‘brilliant plan’ to not feel is the harm we do to our bodies. The harm is happening, (as the ever increasing rates of illness and disease are showing) whether we are aware of it or not. As Joel’s stark analogy suggests it is the rape that occurs whilst we are unconscious. We may not feel it at the time but our body and being are deeply affected. Being aware, at least you can recognise something is wrong and take steps to address it.
…yes, the body is very honest and can lovingly expose the minds ignorance.
Well said Fiona, being unconscious does not prevent us from the harm we experience and that is how we live. We choose to be unaware and accept being energetically raped 24/7 and only because it is something we have learned to ignore we pretend it is not there. Only when we accept that everything is energy and everything is because of energy we will understand life.
I love this blog Joel. You have such a way of taking what could be a complex concept and bringing simplicity and understanding. The human faraday cage is so real and I know I have constructed one. I am removing it piece by piece but it can be scary at times feeling all that there is to feel. But as you say, it is all happening whether we choose to feel it or not, I am now making the choice to feel it all.
It wasn’t until I found that I could no longer lie to myself about my life and the way I was living that a chink appeared in my Faraday cage and I saw and felt there was more to feel and see and so it began. The dismantling of the cage takes time but the ability to feel more and more, even the stuff that doesn’t feel so great is so worth it.
“but we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues”…a powerful line within a equally powerful piece of writing. That really hit home the extra layers of cloth means that we may not feel the finger on us but it does not mean the finger is not one us. When we have numbed ourselves so much, we think we are OK but in reality, that is not always the case.
I was really struck by this sentence too Sarah. I have found one of my most effective ways of not being able to feel properly, is to skip off into my thoughts. I have experimented with this many times. When I ‘in’ my body rather than my thoughts, I can feel so much. But when I get caught up in my head, I can’t feel very well at all. It is not until I come back into my body that I can feel the harm I have done whilst off in thoughts.
You make so many great points Joel but the one that stands out to me today is that “we can never stop feeling, we can only become less aware of what we are feeling”. It makes me question things like – if we do ignore our feelings then are we then living a lie that dishonours how we truly feel? And do we not even know how we truly feel most of the time? and if not then where does our behaviour come from and what is it doing to ourselves and others? You have opened yet another Pandora’s Box of things to deeply ponder. Great blog Joel.
Hello Joel and love the way you have pieced this together, not the cage the blog. I’d never heard of the ‘Human Faraday Cage’ but I get the message you are talking about loud and clear. I agree with this wholeheartedly, ” it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength”
I agree that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength Raymond. I have only just been discovering and allowing this lately. There is such a strong belief out there (and in me) that sensitivity makes us weak. It is like a fog that doesn’t allow us to even consider we could be strong in our sensitivity.
Yep that’s definately the thinking and it backs Joel’s blog up perfectly. We think one thing and walk around for years or longer living like we don’t know any different. My eyes have been opened a little further today and I knew sensitivity was a strength but yet I still walk away from this at times. Joel time to re read your blog.
I made up the bit about the human faraday cage, after seeing people working in a real faraday cage, feeling confident they were not being effected by electromagnetic energy…but the fact was it was still there, just hitting the cage.
Ah makes sense and nicely done. From my experience and as you say there are many layers to this ‘human faraday cage’ that you can’t see. You work through one part but only allow yourself to go a little bit further in and this feels better or looks better and then you settle. Without the support of Universal Medicine and in particular Michael Benhayon I would be unaware of what was going on because you think this ‘cage’ is you. It’s very humbling when you see the way you have been interacting in the world isn’t truly yourself and you can walk unaware for months, years or longer.
Beautiful Raymond. Thank you for highlighting that part. Our sensitivity is our strength.
Thank you Emily and most may turn off to this and brush over it but from all I have experienced in my life through growing up, the Police, in business and family sensitivity is an absolute strength. I watch my children use this all the time. When they are young they get hurt they cry and in the next minute look as free as a bird. As we grow we get hurt we put a weird smile on our faces and hold our breath. When we are adults we are almost numb to things that hurt us, we put on a brave face or as men we show how strong we are and carry the world around on our shoulders. This is all a few steps away from what worked for us as children. Sensitivity, not very manly? I would say actually truly manly.
Yes, truly manly indeed. a very much needed quality in the world, one too easily forgotten and pushed aside. “When they are young they get hurt they cry and in the next minute look as free as a bird.” I remember this and can see it also. There is no holding on, just nominating and releasing.
Agreed Emily and slowly this is on it’s way back. There are those that are too hard on themselves for getting things wrong and there are those that appear as they don’t care while in between there is a place where you merely bring a body awareness to what has just happened and then dedicate to the next step you take. In other words marking a feeling but not thinking about it for days, weeks or years and as soon as you can getting your feet back on the ground. If life is about connection, the sooner you ground back to that connection the better or the more responsible it is.
I Love this Analogy Joel “Lay a piece of cloth over your arm and then ask someone to touch your arm. You can still feel something but your sensitivity to the touch is reduced. Add more layers of cloth and eventually you will say you can’t feel anything AND you will be right, except for the fact that something is still happening, you are just unaware that it is happening.”. There’s great accuracy in this! We’re indeed choosing, (constant) denial or acceptance. What I’m experiencing right now that what I’m fighting are indeed my Power, Glory and Love – rather than me thinking that I’m fighting my hurts. We’re educated and fooled by the systems in life – upside down. We’re one by one Amazing, Precious, Sensitive and very Powerful people.
‘The first problem with life in the cage is that this becomes our reality’ – how to expose that the life we Iive is contained within the cage and of the cage? This is the magic of those like Serge Benhayon and the many others that have chosen to feel deeply within and re-connect to who they truly are, free of all the blockers available and the ‘Will’ to step out and reflect the truth to others. I too, feel deep appreciation for all that has come through Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine – showing us that there is another way to live. Thanks Joel.
“This is like saying someone was not raped because they were unconscious.” Absolutely, this is a really good explanation of what happens when we are not aware of the fact that everything is energy because we can not see or consciously feel energy but non the less we are affected by it all the time.
Keep these amazing articles flowing out to the world Joel – they are priceless, very accessible to all and totally inspiring to read.
“Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.” Who would have thought that by stopping and allowing yourself to feel vulnerable and sensitive that this could be healing for our bodies.
It feels like I had been looking in the wrong places all of my life, by looking outside to fix myself. When I have the key inside me to living and healthy, loving life.
Society’s opinion on sensitivity has been really challenged here! It IS our greatest strength yet we spend an enormous amount of time judging others because of it and labelling them as weak. Nothing stronger than a person knowing and appreciating themselves without a double brick wall as protection.
Annnnnndddd…another cracker of an article Joel. You paint a picture that is so clear and makes so much sense. I love the analogies – they go straight there.
A stupendous blog Joel Levin, your wisdom is OUT of this world and yet relates so much to the truth of what we experience as humans. I could and will read this blog again and again simply for its deeply profound wisdom. Thank you!
The more reliant we become on our shield the more the need to protect it as if it is our own skin, buffing and polishing what is in fact armour classed as our most cherished suit required both to get us from A to B or keep us safe when we stay put. As you so beautifully remind us Joel, the moment we start to take an honest look at what we in fact are choosing to adorn ourselves with, we can begin to peel off this armour and begin to walk free of such weight and restriction.
Thank you Joel ‘but we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues.’ so the more we begin to drop the layers and feel our own sensitivity the more issues seem to arise. It is then that we can begin to feel the beauty of being responsible and commit to the unfoldment knowing that it is our awareness that will support us to make more loving choices and evolve.
Brilliantly exposed deeper definition to the saying ‘ignorance is bliss’ Joel, thank you. To assume residency in such a cage can appear non sensical, yet evidently it is that which we choose time and time again. Thank God we have the living example in Serge Benhayon to know the possibility exists for us all to live without it.
Joel, love it. I could see clearly the cage that I created when I was younger as I read your blog and I can still see parts of it that I use as protection today but it is not protecting at all. Love your explanations here. Awesome.
Joel I love the way you offer claiming sensitivity as the power it is. In a world full of people with cages sensitivity would be seen as a weakness and something to thicken the walls for, and comments would come like ‘toughen up’.
So true Sandra, the false idea that by getting tough we are less affected when in reality we are just less aware of being affected.
Yes Sandra, it’s so awesome to read a confirmation that sensitivity is indeed a strength, not the weakness so many are afraid to feel or show.
Sensitivity is a beautiful and powerful strength where somebody presents their true essence without the need to cover it up or protect. Our essence does not need any protection as it cannot be touched.
Ahhh, so very true Mariette “Our essence does not need any protection as it cannot be touched.”
Taking down our cage is like taking off a coat that is too small. Our essence does not fit in a cage, nor in a coat, as our essence is without limits, without time and without boundaries.
Well said Mariette.
What an apt analogy Mariette!
Many years ago Joel, I saw the mime Marcel Marceau perform his solo piece called “The Cage”. He was mime walking along (on the spot) obviously thinking he was free and suddenly came across the bars of a cage. Exploring a square around himself he found himself trapped. From what I remember he got out of the cage by his strength, being able to bend the bars, I may be mis-remembering, but that is the impression I came away with and that it was a struggle. In the end, after finding himself trapped in another cage and yet another, he gives up in despair. This seems to me the way many of us approach the cage once we realise we are in it, we go at it with the same qualities that have put us there in the first place, defense/attack, strength and drive, analysis and mental working out, and determination to “get out”. And so we build another layer of protection; whereas if we choose a quality of energy that is gentle and loving, allowing and accepting, and recognise just where we are and work with it from within, (not trying to get out), the bars melt away as we find out who we truly are, Divine Essence, the fiery soul, always there in us awaiting to be discovered and felt and lived. The heaing is always in the home place within ourselves.
This stands out for me as well, it’s like when we block a person out of our lives, we just block a part within ourselves. That’s why it is impossible to truly block something, as everything is inside us.
Joel, great analogy that you have used – it seems to me that many of us in the world think we feel safer walking around with the cage around us. To leave it behind, is like being asked to walk around naked and vulnerable because of how long we have been using it unawares. Your blog brings attention to the fact that there is a cage, and that we have the choice to ‘drop it’, and so the choice becomes one of showing the world our sensitivity, our vulnerability and our beauty unhidden. Thank you for the powerful sharing!
And I will add too that you have used some strong and pertinent analogies in your writing. for example “like saying someone was not raped because they were unconscious.” This hits home! and it is so true that “Just because we are not aware something is going on, it doesn’t mean we don’t feel it on some deeper level.”…wise words Joel!
What a brilliant blog, Joel. Our birthright and our choice – The essence in such simple words.
Love it Felix… so powerfully true “Our birthright and our choice” to “claim or not to claim”.
I love the example you use of fabric on your skin, you still feel the touch but the awareness is less. The cage or layers fool us into thinking the tension is no longer there when all that has happened is that we have numbed it.
Wow, Joel — another amazing parable that would just be so beautiful as a bedtime story to children. This is what we need to have lovingly uttered to us before we gently go to sleep with the world before us as we grow up. To know that we have the choice not to build the cage, not to shut down. To know that sensitivity is our strength. Absolutely gorgeous Joel, thank you.
Agreed in full Katerina these are stories that support us all back to the beauty that we are and come from. No Cinderella bedtime story does that, instead it leaves us searching for more, looking outside of ourselves for internal happiness when try Joy lies within.
Katerina, I felt so moved reading your comment here, I could feel the sadness of feeling I had to shut myself down as a child, shut down all that was beautiful, free and whole. How incredibly loving it would have been to hear this story as a child, showing me that there was another way to be.
Yes Katerina, these parables are a gorgeous support at any age 🙂
Joel I just so appreciate your article (and articles !ie . previous ones I did not get the chance to comment ) – with imagery describing psychological processes and energetic processes in such an easy way .Thank you .
We have been exposed, Joel, as many of us are living in this way. The hardest thing is that we think we are not in the cage until something ‘rocks our boat” and then we can choose if we remove another layer or not. So much here to ponder.
Agreed Anne, the reflection we get from others is a helping hand to be rid of the cage. If we but choose to pay proper attention.
Joel, this is such a stunning blog, I love how you present so clearly how we live and how we’ve built cages for ourselves to stop ourselves feeling. And the biggest lie in all of this is that we do feel, we always feel, all we do is numb our awareness to what we feel, that’s all we can ever do, all the cage we build can ever do, and there is no protection in that, no matter what we tell ourselves. The other thing that shone big and bright for me today was by numbing my feelings I lessen my ability to feel me and what is not me, a double whammy, a great way to keep myself in the confusion of not knowing and to lessen my own awareness. How you’ve described it shows me so clearly that it doesn’t work, and I need to be willing to feel and allow my sensitivity, the first step is to be honest about the cage I’ve built and allow myself to deconstruct each layer. Thank you Joel, I love the way you write with metaphor and image, I find it really helpful in my day to day living, so now I will be looking at and feeling the cage I’ve built.
Looks like pretty much all of us have foundations to look at, heal and with this our reinforcements will fall away, then their is nothing left to hold up the cage. Love your writing Joel.
I loved the cloth on arm analogy – perfectly selected to share that it’s still happening and senses may simply be duller but only because the cloth is there not because we are incapable to feel.
I love this part too Johanna08smith, it exposes how essential it is to allow ourselves to feel, bring more awareness to our lives so we can feel everything that is happening to us and around us to enable us then choose to take responsibility and make changes that supports our evolution.
Brilliant Joel. Another brilliant blog that uses an amazing analogy to bring forth great truths. As I started reading – I said to myself hmmmm who has written this brilliant piece and then a second later it came to me that this is Joel’s flavour of writing. A flavour that takes the reader by the hand, keeps their interest with amazing story telling, bridges understanding with relateable examples and delivers truth throughout for all to feel. Thank you.
Gorgeous sharing Johanna, I too had the same realisation as I was reading, that this must be written by Joel, only to scroll down and be confirmed. Amazing just how much we feel when we open up the cage. A wonder of magic that we deny ourselves, thank you Serge Benhayon for opening up our worlds again.
A round of applause, cheering and a huge thank you to you for bringing this through Joel, I am so inspired by what you are able to share with us all. When I read your words it feels so easy to commit to feeling it all… and this is after I have spent the last 12 hours on one of my worst food binges in years. Thank you again – I will be coming back to this blog often, I can feel the truth of my choices so clearly without judgment when I read your words and it feels like a miracle.
Truth without judgement, wow what a healing!
This is so amazing Joel love how You express this and bring it to paper so clearly how and why we build the cage and what it means to be in the cage and what allows us to get out of the cage. Honesty the pathway out of the cage.
Thank you Joel, another masterpiece “…life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person”.
Beautiful line. We give ourselves the cage in the first place anyway.
Thank you Joel and Katie, I agree, whenever we choice not to feel and or blocking any thing, we “harden” so our feeling becomes even less!
“We can never stop feeling, we can only become less aware of what we are feeling” This is so important to understand, and something which I sometimes struggle to really get. But its true, when we don’t feel something it because of the choices we have made and the way we have lived up until that moment which has determined how much awareness we have allowed ourselves to have to actually clock what we are in fact feeling on some level.
you nailed it Joel
time to come out of the cave 🙂 (primitive war Behaviour) the door to our cage/prison is open it was never closed since we are free to choose . As Serge Benhayon said: ” The war ( need to protect) will only stop when we all return into our hearts (sensitivity).”
To address the issue of war in the world we must first address within ourselves.
“our sensitivity that gives us our strength.”
“revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful,”
When we realise that sensitivity is not something we become but something we naturally are then we can celebrate in the strength and power it brings.
I have often throughout my life felt like I was a bird in a cage with the door open and choosing to stay in the cage, I might make little forays out into the world but always coming back to the safety and comfort of the cage. I like your analogy Joel because it emphasizes the fact that we build our own cage ‘through beliefs about ourselves and the world, like the hurts from our childhood that we use to justify the effort that goes into maintaining the cage intact and seemingly impenetrable’, We create not just a safe haven but a fortress blocking out and/or obscuring our own sensitivity and feeling of what is actually happening.We then don’t live a true life and wonder why we feel frustrated and out of sorts a lot of the time.
All my life I have had a voice within that speaks to me when I make a choice, a pure voice untainted by hesitation, investment and complication – as a child this voice and I were one and the same yet wherever I looked this was not confirmed in the world around me, so in order to fit in I turned my back on this voice and bought myself a cage that was suitably unconventional – yet the voice never left – I simply chose not to listen or drown it out – until one day I met Serge Benhayon and I recognised something in him that I had known before – indeed there was no cage just the purity of a voice within.
This is great analogy Joel of the efforts we go to so not have the awareness of what we are already feeling. On some level we feel like our cages provide some kind of protection from what there is out there to be felt, but as you have said “Life without a cage is more sensitive but those with cages miss the point that it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength.” This is lesson that I am in the process of learning. Having seen my sensitivity as a burden most of my life, I am now starting to feel the strength there is having the awareness of what I am feeling as I become better at living in a way that is supportively loving.
Thanks for writing this Joel, it gives me the opportunity to become more aware of the layers of protection that I am surrounded with, whic sometimes are more sense than others but in truth nothing more than a creation based on our hurts. There is a freedom in knowing this, it gives the opportunity to work on it and allow our self to feel more and more.
Reading this I can still feel the “cage’ that I had built around me; a cage that for so much of my life became my reality except for brief moments when peeping out I would get a glimpse of a life that seemed way more real, but it wouldn’t take too long before I would be pulled back into my self imposed cage again. To have finally realised that life happens outside this cage, and to be sensitive and honest is a most essential part of this way of living, turned my life upside down, but I now know that I have ended up the right (true) way.
“we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues.” This is so poignant Joel, so to keep ourselves unaware serves us very well in believing that life is good, whilst all the while we are being affected by what we choose not to feel…is it no wonder then we are surprised when we think the illness, pain, dis-ease, breakup of a relationship, ‘just happen’?
I will come back to re read your sharing Joel and there is much to ponder on for now!
‘Being honest’ about the layers we have constructed our cage with can be a tricky thing as we’ve done so well in creating them, but without honesty there is no real way of getting past those layers. I sometimes find myself thinking I am being honest with myself, but then later on realise I had been conning myself again. But the more I do practise true honesty, the easier it gets, especially as the result of this is so fruitful in that it brings me closer to what the love I am in myself and the grace of everything around me.
The analogy of the ‘Faradays Cage’ feels very real and expresses so clearly the way we cut ourselves off from feeling. It’s amazing the perverse lengths we are prepared to go to dull down our senses which are an innate part of us and allow us to be more than robots. Why have we become so willing to submit ourselves to such extreme lengths to deny our sensitivity to the world that we all inhabit, when what we are being offered by the world and the Universe in every moment is the opportunity to expand our experience and to connect to all the wonders and beauty that is ours when we accept our true path.
I love it Joel, so very true. We are all deeply sensitive and so we use anything possible to not feel what is going on around and for us. However, the more we honour our sensitivity instead of trying to bury it the more aware we become and so the more understanding towards life and others we become. I used to see my sensitivity as a weakness whereas I know see it as a great strength especially the more I honour and nurture it.
“we accept a lack of awareness as being a lack of issues” This in itself is absolutely huge! Never mind the rest of this blog which is so revealing of how we approach life on a common basis. Thank you, Joel!
Another awesome blog Joel Levin – the master of analogy…or is it metaphor?
Every time I read your blogs Joel they give me moments to pause and to really feel the depths I’m prepared to go too (or not!) of the journey being traveled through this life time. Today is no different as, with the understanding of the true power of sensitivity, vulnerability and being open to the world and not shut away in a ‘cage’ which previously I chose to restrict/limit and exist in for so many decades (actually life times). Honesty stands out for me today if this is the foundation then – no cage of limitation/separation required. Awesome/inspired blog Joel thank you. Would like to say one used cage up for sale – but due to its owners hesitation in some aspects of her life, but,this will be the case in the near future.
Thank you Joel for expressing so simply through your analogy and with great understanding how we think the layers we place over ourselves will protect us from hurt when in fact it’s the direct opposite of what we’re trying to achieve.
I love your analogy Joel – another fabulous blog that explains so much.
Wow Joel you illustrate so well that in our attempts to become less sensitive we lose our sense of ourselves and thus create a deeper level of hurt that needs more reinforcements in order to function in life. Uncovering our essence may seem scary but is oh so worth it, thank you for unpicking the layers of protection we choose to hide behind.
The analogy of the faraday cage is very apt Joel, i especially loved the part about how when we put one layer on we can still feel something, add more and more layers and we will say we feel nothing yet on a deep level we feel everything. To me this shows the pointless foray we make to create a cage of protection around us thinking it keeps us protected and safe when it does the complete opposite.
“it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength. ” this is a truth that everyone should know. The word sensitivity has been deliberately bastardised for years, to be seen as something weak and feeble and not the powerful true divine quality it is. And the fact that everyone is innately sensitive, no one more, no one less.
Is it that we choose a lack of responsibility and comfort by not feeling or building a wall, as in if we choose to not feel then we can play down or dumb to what we innately know and feel, and with that not have to honour the fact which we all know, what is truth and love – and what is not – and with this make choices to evolve.
This is a powerful read Joel and I love your description of thickening our shield when we choose to numb with food, use stimulants to race faster or exercise to harden and block out what is going on around us. I had not appreciated that every time I reach for a food that numbs me I am blocking my sensitivity which is my power. I am not honest with myself about my relationship with food, because it is reasonably healthy I give myself the excuse that it does not need looking at but I almost never allow myself to feel and see what is going on around me instead I repeat the same well rehearsed pattern of reaching for food.
“to justify the effort that goes into maintaining the cage intact and seemingly impenetrable.” It is an exhausting force we use to constantly maintain this wall, and a force that does not come from us. For we are in truth innately love.
Another nail hit firmly on the head Joel. We are all such sensitive, delicate beings and when we learn to fully appreciate, embrace and live from this sensitivity, we are able to deconstruct the cage and live in effect naked in the world. And when we do, we are informed about everything going on within and around us. It is very exposing, not even our thoughts are private and therefore it requires an enormous amount of responsibility and integrity on our part to ensure that what we generate from within us is fit to be seen by all. I know in the past that one purpose of my cage was to hide what I didn’t want seen by the world, as well as to keep out what I couldn’t handle. Worked to a degree but what a burden to carry around with us, it takes a lot of energy to keep the cage in place. How amazing to be shown how to admit, identify and dismantle this self made prison layer by layer so that in time, we can discover that walking energetically naked in the world is the most powerful thing to do.
It actually a sad state of affairs that we choose to live in this way, and it is a choice, when we all crave and want love and connection so much.
Brilliant Joel. Retreating into a cage of your own making and adding layer after layer and you slowly suffocate. Open the door of the cage and venture out into the light and you become aware of who you are and you inspire others to break down their self-imposed barriers and know that we each hold the key to our own cage.
When it comes to protecting ourselves from being hurt the whole concept of an emotional shield or guard symbolized here by a Faraday Cage is very misleading. The illusion of being protected makes us blind for what is really going on (i.e. we are still hurt but in denial and reaction and thus ignorance) and especially that we numb ourselves also for the things we like to feel and have in our lives like love, intimacy, depth etc
Yes well said Alex our protection is a bit like the ostrich who puts its head in the sand when in danger thinking that if it cannot see or hear what is going on around it will be ok! It is not protection at all. It is in fact just turning a blind eye, and in doing this as you say, we miss seeing the love and the intimacy also
“So how do we deal with that level of sensitivity? Most build a human Faraday cage.” Yep hands up, I can admit I have done this, p.s it doesn’t work by the way. Much more, even if uncomfortable at time, but also very awesome and great to be honest and admit everything we feel, and you’re also not walking about tensed up worrying about what’s out there. In fact you can be far more yourself, observe life, have understanding, love people, and be less reactionary.
Foundations and reinforcements. We build the foundations to avoid feeling and use the reinforcements to avoid feeling that we have decided to avoid feeling the pain that this represents for the body and your whole being.
Joel. I’m coming back again and again to this amazing blog and have loads to say about loads of it. But. To start with. Pure, unadulterated, hugest appreciation for your expression. Yet again, you have written absolute gold; visualising, describing, bringing to life, explaining things in the most accessible, understandable and acceptable way possible. An incredible combination of levity with zero compromise of power. You are a master.
Another great blog, Joel. What a superb analogy you have used this time to expose the paradox of the cage we build for ourselves, which we believe will protect and give us freedom but which in truth imprisons us in a very tiny part of what is available to us to explore in true freedom.
What I find interesting Joel is that we can have cages, force fields, barriers and all sorts of ways of keeping the world out, but it is never a true protection as the numbingness to what we are feeling stops us from also feeling those things in life that are just not true getting under our skin so to speak. When we are not numb we can be empowered to not react as we can feel what is going on around us. When we are we take life more on the surface level and hence react without any true understanding of what is really going on
Yes well said Joshua, our protection is a bit like putting our heads in the sand so we cannot see or hear what is going on around us. It is not protection at all. It is in fact just turning a blind eye but getting hit anyway.
It’s crazy when you think about it as we are still getting attacked anyway. In a more raw picture it is like being on a battle field, getting shot and pretending it did not happen!
Wow Joel, what an amazing description of how most of us are living, reading this I can feel how I would rather know what is happening instead of numbing myself, thank you for this article I will ponder on what you have written.
We are a bit like surfers, but really powerful ones. We see what is coming from afar. We manoeuvre silently, often time, to stay on top. Problem is that this way of being does not lead you anywhere, only to the coast so you go back and do it again and again and again. Until one day, you outgrow surfing and you open up to life and its wonders.
Thank you Joel for this simple description of how we learn to live in this world which however not at all encompasses the potential that lays within us by the simple matter of us being very sensitive beings.
What I have realised recently is that our nervous system is like a gatekeeper, a defensor of a given homeostatic state. It kicks in at some point when your body is really going into a deep surrendering. So, the cage has a guardian that lives inside us. We are stronger than the guardian and we can override its defensive action by simply keep surrendering and not allowing the process to be interrupted. But that is another story.
Absolutely brilliant Joel you capture in words so well what I know and feel. I love the fact that you show that the invisible cage we build around ourselves is not enough and so we create layers and layers with anything that can numb us from feeling our sensitivities…I will be back to read this again and again there is much here to ponder on
Without even knowing how to do it, we are masters in the construction of our own cages. As you say Joel it took the man who lives free of a cage to show us that our imprisonment is of our own doing and freedom is just a choice away.
It’s totally mad how we are able to build ourselves thicker and stronger cages when the real strength is in the letting go and truly feeling. My cage has been very thick and well constructed as if built to last a very long time, but slowly I’ll complete the deconstruction of it as time goes by.
I love your analogy with the cage, as that is exactly how it is we confine ourselves in a contracted state, thinking we are protecting ourselves. However as you are revealing the Faraday Cage analogy falls short as we can never shield ourselves in a way that keeps energy out, we can only expand our own energy field to such an extent that it is our energy that fills the space within and around us and there is no room left for another force to enter.
‘We can walk into a room and know there is tension between the people in the room. ‘ This we all know, even the most ardent sceptic could not disagree… so why then do we ignore, or say it doesn’t exist, our sixth sense, our ability to feel.
What an amazing description of what we all have built and live within.
Interest Joel and a blog I will continue to read and re-read. What struck me is how we don’t entirely know we have this protective shield till we choose to be honest and consider it is even a possibility that it is there. Already that is a layer of honesty that is, for some, a big ask. I found and continue to find, that as I unpeeled the layers of my box I was shocked at how many layers I had to this protective shell. It started with a willingness to contemplate that it might be true though…comes highly recommended.
I can relate well to what you have said here Lucy. I used to think that if I worked through a specific situation that that would be ‘it’ and everything would be sorted. I have since come to realise that there is no such thing as getting to the bottom of something because there is always another deeper next layer. My Faraday Cage certainly exists but the difference is that now I not only know it exists; I am also willing to honestly look at how I have built the walls of the cage in the first place.
Me neither Lucy, I had no idea just many layers of mesh were in my cage until I chose to start looking at them. Once I did and I felt the freedom and expansion that followed I could not stop peeling them back, albeit at first with enormous trepidation, fear and effort and after a while with an absolute willingness and joy.
Yes Lucy it is almost like we have built a cage within a cage within a cage. Once we have open one cage the next one exposes itself. When you think about it every time we individualise our self we are in fact building a cage.
Yes, it can be a little frustrating to keep finding another layer but if the layer isn’t indulged what comes is a freedom which means life is so much simpler.
So true Lucy and the fact that we get frustrated shows us that we are always looking for somewhere to rest our on our laurels when in fact there is more cages to discard as there is always the ones that are much subtler than those that are obvious.
Oh, Joel, yet another briliiant blog – lifting the lid of the cage so to speak. A metaphorical masterpiece.
Agree Adam – keep them coming Joel!
Love the metaphor that you present here Joel as it so clearly shows us what it really looks like to build a wall around our sensitivity and choose protection as our moat. Neither actually stops anything from happening but it does dull our awareness and distort our view, why would we not want to be aware and in full knowing of our own precious observational capabilities is my question? A life in a cage sounds very restrictive and lonely in comparison to one in full sensitivity and strength, brining truth and therefore much love and joy to our lives.
What I have observed is that when we live in a cage in the thought of protecting ourselves from the world we are actually burying our heads in the sand and saying as long as I am okay it doesn’t matter what is happening out there. This doesn’t work because then we don’t speak up when awful things happen in the world, everyone just goes, “I don’t want to get involved’. But we are all involved because we all get affected by the increasing abuse that is allowed to run in the world and then in this we justify having the cage in the first place, its a cycle that keeps us trapped on an every increasing road to further abuse.
Why do we need those cages as we are all from the same essence and equally interconnected through that in the first place? Are we avoiding an aspect of our life that in fact is unavoidable, the fact that we are divine and the sons of God? It all makes no sense to me, lets stop it and take down all these human faraday cages and start to live our lives in a way we are designed to be, as extremely sensitive beings, being interconnected and an integral part with everybody and everything in the universe.
When in the cage we are all robbed of the love we crave.
Indeed Kristy, it is a complete shut down of the delicacy and sensitivity in us as to not feel the grandness of the love that we belong to that is patiently waiting for our return, as eventually we all will do.
“The second is that we can never stop feeling, we can only become less aware of what we are feeling”. There are indeed a whole array of activities, substances and things we can do to try and stop ourselves from feeling in an attempt to protect ourselves. The irony is that none of this works, we are still feeling and being affected regardless if we choose to be aware or not. In truth there is no protection, the only way to not be affected by the world and others is to open up the cage and let ourselves truly shine and be free.
Very true, Donna. Unfortunately, so many people they think that they are successful in life because they are not affected by life and can ‘tough it out’ through difficult conditions or situations and not be affected. The truth is that they are affected, just like we all are, but as you have said, they have chosen to not acknowledge it.
Beautifully said Donna, how complicated and messy we can make it, when in fact the simple truth remains we are here to shine in the Love we are.
Yes Katie, and not only do we miss out on a big part of ourselves the world also misses out on us.
When we open ourselves up to the possibility that we can feel far more than we think we can, we become aware of so much more than what first meets the eye. Through choosing to feel and be aware of all that is going on around us we can then start to take responsibility for the fact that the way we live is like we are in an ocean of sea, where everything we do will always be affecting another. Therefore there is an importance in making self-honouring choices that support the Whole.
The comparison you make with rape Joel, may be strong to read but in my experience, this is the energetic reality when we live unconsciously. So the greatest prison is the idea that this cage we have made actually works. As you brilliantly illustrate it does not, in any sense. So why not stop and start to let that cage go.
Agree Joseph and it is important to say it for what it is. To choose not to be aware is to accept the abuse we live on a daily basis developing better and better ways to strengthen our cage to pretend not to feel it. Our strength lies in our sensitivity not in the thickness of our self-made prison bars.
To once again feel, with exquisite sensitivity even the lightest brush of a slight and gentle breeze rippling across a bare arm.
Beautiful Jeannette 🙂
Gorgeous Jeanette…. how sad it is is to deny ourselves that feeling deeply from within. We actually deny the joy of being fully alive.
Yes Katerina and Jeanette, allowing ourselves to feel means we feel both the deep,sadness which we do not want to feel and all that we do want to feel. ‘We actually deny the joy of being alive’ I agree life is so much more fulfilling when we are aware of all of our senses.
The armour we wear desensitises us from the outside world and from our inner world. This makes us loose our identity with who we truly are and seek it in the world – but because that sensitivity is already dulled, we get a distorted view of the world, of other people and therefore rarely have truth reflected back to ourselves. Those who have stood out of this confusion, such as Serge Benhayon, have immense courage to not be concerned about their image and offer a powerful, true reflection back to us.
I like your point that it desensitises us from our ‘inner world’. We think we are blocking out what we don’t like but we are bringing that in and blocking ourselves out from the world.
An awesome article exposing the reality of the cages we choose to live in whilst inspiring us to live cage free and let with what lies within out.
Cage free living is much more interesting option as it allows us to feel the vulnerabilities of each moment.
Yes Abby. Living free and connected to our hearts and letting go of our self made cages allows us greater opportunities for learning and living everyday.
I just wonder if we have all these false versions of freedom because of being in a cage we not really want to admit to, so we call and strive for a kind of freedom that avoids taking responsibility to deal with the stuff that keeps us imprisoned.
Hear, hear Joel. I get it! What stands out for me in what you’ve written is how people become so accustomed to their cage and self-imposed dulling of their sensitivity, that they can’t comprehend life outside one, that it is in fact possible to feel and be with everything (joyfully!) with your sensitivities intact. In fact if we choose to do away with the cage altogether, you may be considered weird and even ridiculous for actually feeling anything! I have been told, in a derogatory and exasperated way, “Oh, but you feel everything!” It makes me laugh sometimes but at the same time, I sense their jealousy and comparison and say to them that are capable of that, too. It’s only when we live outside the cage that we can truly appreciate that inherent equalness that lives inside all of us…and you’re right, it is magical!
The understanding that Joel brings of the people in their own cage also stood out as I read this. Simply that there were choices made in our lives that we then further chose to avoid dealing with, as such the cage walls come up. Those walls then would have us believe that life outside the cage is impossible but it is very possible as Serge Benhayon and many others can attest to.
What a beautiful blog here, Joel, I love how you explain the whole story of how we build cages using the analogy of the Faraday cage to that of a shield that we build around ourselves and then reinforce this with various numbing activities to stop ourselves from feeling what we don’t want to feel. What enormous efforts we make to not let anything get through to us. Over the past few years I have been gradually peeling back the layers of all this protection, and am coming to enjoy what I am revealing over time. Yes, there are hurts and issues to be dealt with, but I am feeling it to be so worthwhile and now actually enjoyable. Much that is beautiful is being discovered, just as you have described here “With each layer removed more of life is felt and more of what is inside comes out, revealing an essence that is sensitive yet powerful, sacred yet everyday, magical yet practical and, most of all, it is an essence that is equal to all others”. Thank you for another beautiful sharing.
I’m finding peeling off the layers of protection can be an enjoyable process as well Beverley. I feel the reason we find it uncomfortable when we first start doing this is we get to feel very strongly the pain of the realisation that we’ve been searching fruitlessly for something to fill us from the outside when what we’ve been looking for has been within us all along.
I agree Beverley, nothing compares to the liberation of freeing oneself from the ‘comfortable’ security of our Faraday cage. How one can choose the ‘bliss of ignorance’ when there is Joy of inner knowing to connect to, boggles my mind. Yet having known this residency first hand I can now appreciate the fact that in truth it need not be the way to live, or more correctly, exist.
It is deeply harming, but we have falsely called it enjoyment or happiness, when we have built our protection and reinforced it so much with food and other distractions, that we believe there are no issues because we have accepted our own lack of awareness. We reinforce this harming belief every new year and in major celebrations all over the world, we increase the external protection by eating more, buying more, even though we are exhausted we keep doing more, so that everything appears cheery but what we are truly accepting is comfort that buries the hurt even more. So what is the hurt that keeps us doing so much all our lives to run away from it? Could it be that we have a responsibility to live the divine light that we are, and we truly miss ourselves when we don’t?
We may believe a cage protects (another belief!), but a cage always imprison as it is built from hurts. Any foundation built from hurts which need to be protected is not free, we may temporarily think we are blocking what we don’t want to feel, but in the process of caging we are always hurting ourselves more by our own self-imprisonment. In our honesty and transparency there is no need to protect, yes it is raw and deeply sensitive, and there is a lot of shock to be felt from the world, but it is in our ability to feel that we would understand and it is in our deepening honesty to ourselves that we strengthen our own connection with God and with our bodies, unveiling the truth of who we are, which is equally the same with everyone else.
A cage may protect you indeed against certain things. Yet the cost of using it is way to high for you are inside the cage, totally isolated, selling you all the time the illusion that the cage is the perfect invention to go through life. Problem is that the cage is not just the cage. When you have one, your eyes have to be trained to avoid seeing beauty and accustomed to call beauty to what in truth is not. A cage is to preserve a hurt heart as much as to preserve a heart hurt. As such, it is a clear sign that we have given up on life.
Great point Adele Leung. When we build a cage to protect ourselves from hurts we are surely living in the constant shadow of the hurts we seek protection from. Well said.
Beautiful Adele! There is no freedom in the self inflicted imprisonment and we do not just hurt ourselves, we hurt others too.
Wow, Adele, I love that “a cage always imprison as it is built from hurts”. How true that is, and written like that, it says it just like it is. What an awful life I really live when I live from within that prison, totally self-inflicted too. The key is to deal with our hurts, the only way to truly live our lives and free ourselves from this self-inflicted prison that we build. Yes, then we may feel things more, but we have to know the truth, and deal with things. It is completely counterproductive to hide from the truth, we are not living life to the full then. Let’s face up to things, deal with them, and be FREE.
Beautifully said Adele. This has been my experience, realising the caging form of protection doesn’t actually protect but takes us further away from ourselves, from our sensitivity and therefore our strength, leading us further and further astray from our true path.
A great read Joel, thank you . If we choose to not be aware, it is very easy to become de-sentisized to what is in fact going on, whereas choosing to be aware, is all the protection needed, as you share “…it is our sensitivity that gives us our strength….”
The moment we are aware of what is going on in a situation and inside of us we can make appropriate choices how to deal best with the current issue. Without awareness and understanding we find ourselves in patterns of reaction and protection that don´t support true solutions but keep us caught in well known and repetitive dilemmas.
So true Alex, if we choose not to see the truth of a situation because we would prefer not to see the ugliness of what is being revealed we continue to react and take on issues. Whereas when we are honest and open with what we are seeing we can see the situation for what it is and easily have all the tools we need to deal with it.
Before we don´t experience for ourselves that we are indeed well equipped to deal with every situation this can appear to be a big claim as our hurts and reactions obviously don´t trust that possibility. So I choose a posture where I experience it every time as an experiment and adventure to explore what is going to happen and what I am capable of when letting go of my guard. That allows me to be open, willing to learn and actually be curious to make new experiences.
Well said Johanne, ‘choosing to be aware, is all the protection needed’. It is amazing though how much we can fool ourselves into thinking if we can’t feel something it is not going on even though we well know it is!
It is true Johanne we do indeed make a choice to be unaware so we much have been aware in the first place to choose to be unaware which is in fact a very unaware thing to do – so we are constantly setting ourselves up until such time that we stop this nonsense.
This cage comes in various shapes and degrees of comfort, and we dress it up to show it to the world in however the way we think is acceptable. And we look at each other’s cage and compare, criticise our own or the others’, we think the cage is us. And we crave to be loved while forgetting that we are hiding our own true self to be felt and appreciated in the first place. A funny game we play.
Oh the games we play Fumiyo, and most of them at our own expense. Hiding who we truly are, in whatever manner of cage we choose, is only serving to harm us and in turn all those around us who don’t get to know the wonderful being that we are.
I agree Fumiyo and even our language is very peculiar because we say it is a funny game when it is quite devastating so that is not funny at all. Equally we build our cages for comfort but they are excruciatingly uncomfortable if truth be told.
Great blog Joel, just because we aren’t aware of it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Awareness is our acceptance of what is happening, it isn’t a special gift but allowing what is there to be felt to be felt.
Love it Luke “awareness is our acceptance of what is happening”. We feel everything, but we may not be aware or choose to not be aware. When we surrender to life and accept what is happening we will live by our awareness without needing a cage.
Indeed a deep surrendering is needed.
How do we do that again?… haha
I love that Luke, awareness comes from our acceptance of what is happening – so true and so liberating. Because when I am aware of what is going on I can make choices that support me responding to what is happening.
Great point Luke, awareness is our acceptance. Yesterday I saw something that I didn’t like and found confronting, there was great tension in me observing this and I didn’t want to accept that someone was acting in the way they were, instead of observing this I ate to relieve the tension but it didn’t work as I felt doubly whacked afterwards, numb from the food and also from knowing there was more to see and be aware of.
Awesome pick up Kristy, because the momentary relief adds to the drawn out suffering that is self imposed.
Oh, yes Luke I can feel the truth of what you say – it feels like we are constantly avoiding what is before our eyes – and yet this does not truly stop us from seeing – only evolving.
Yes true Luke, it isn’t a special gift to be aware and to accept what is going on around us, everyone one of us is capable of that just as we are capable to shut down and be numb. It is a choice.
Hello Luke and we would like to believe that this is true, ‘out of mind out of sight’ comes to mind. It’s like we just want to keep moving on and get past things so the world gets faster and faster to keep it going. At some point things become too fast and we either break or collapse, it all sounds and looks exhausting. Time for us all to stop for a moment and bring awareness to what is truly going on around us, from what I see it’s not looking that great and so in another 5 years it’s going to look the same, only 5 years more on top of that. It starts with the simplest of conversations of which this is one, thanks Joel and Luke.
What great power there is should we choose to stop, to become aware of what is present, and from that point move with truth. Thank you Luke and Raymond for this reminder.
I agree Karin and we can choose what the stop looks like, it can be a moment or an accident, one is just a greater version of the other.
Wow, totally agree Ray. There is a belief that if we go faster and harder we will be able to beat time and grab life by the “(you know what)” . However this perception only speeds up our own perception of time and sets us up to fail…
Thanks Luke, it comes back to being responsible, responsible for what you are doing in every moment. If life goes faster and faster we can run around and pretend that we have no time for anything let alone a deep quality in every moment. This is the key, bringing a quality to every moment no matter if you are brushing your teeth or piloting a plane everything is important. We divide life up, say hello to our children and then a less of a hello to children that aren’t ours, look after our house and take less care of the neighbour’s house because that’s his job etc. Live life in moments, no matter what the heading or the outcome. Dedicate to bringing deep care to everything you touch and in every way you touch them and when you have nailed this, go deeper as there is no end. Life isn’t like a box of chocolates, we do know what we are going to get, so take the time and care to put in what you want to get out.
Ray, you and what you say is absolutely gorgeous.
Thank you Luke and it is lovely for a young man to see and say so much in this way. I re-read what I had written and there is so much in there and great to revisit it myself. As I said, “Dedicate to bringing deep care to everything you touch and in every way you touch them and when you have nailed this, go deeper as there is no end” and with your words it’s time for more depth.
Well it deeply helped me.
This is an amazing offering. Thank you, Joel. You have really exposed how we rob ourselves of our true potential by trying to kill off and numb our sense. Many of us forget that we are in a cage by our own choice. Even when we do realise we are in one, we often think that someone/something has put us in there and life is a struggle and we become a victim. And you have said so beautifully – “life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person” – it is not something we strive to achieve, but it is something we surrender into, we just fall back into arms of God.
Love how you have described life without a cage as ‘something we surrender into, we just fall back into arms of God.’ Takes away all the trying as it is an allowing of that which is to return.
Yes Helen, I love this line and it is something I need to remind myself of whenever I slip back into trying and doing. When we simply allow there is is an ease in the unfolding.
‘Life without a cage is both a choice and a birthright of every person’, and it’s something we surrender into, this is so profound Fumiyo, and completely breaks any ideas I have of having to struggle or work to let go my cage, it’s about understanding it’s there, feeling how I’ve built it and letting go or as you say ‘we just fall back into arms of God’ – exquisite.
Exactly Fumiyo, the familiarity of the cage has become such that we can fall for the belief that life without it does not exist, or if it does that it would surely not be as comfortable as is the security from within it. An absolute lie!
Well said, Fumiyo. We are not born in a cage, we choose to build one and enter it. Just as we can choose to knock down the walls and walk out.
This is absolutely 100% brilliant Joel! The analogy of the cage is something I can certainly relate to as I know many of us also will on the assumption we are willing to be honest. There was a time that I was not even aware of the cage and had in fact at times glorified the cage and at others thought the cage ‘was’ me and when I didn’t like the cage, I simply tried to change the cage without ever considering that what needed to change was me ‘in’ the cage. I too have been deeply inspired by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine to come to realise that the cage is ‘not’ me and have slowly been working on allowing my natural sensitivity and deconstructing the cage which is now allowing me to feel more and more of my sensitivity as well as the natural love I, and all others, are.
It is funny. In Spanish cage is ‘jaula’, but also ‘caja’. And ‘caja’ is family of ‘encajar’ (to fit). What amuses me is that we construct cages that have a peculiar shape and texture to try to fit in. Now, imagine life as a space where you, with your peculiarly shaped cage, try to fit in spaces that are not really fit for your shape. Yet, the fact that by using force allows you not to fall off, you say, it feels wonderful when in truth it does not. It never really did.
Serge Benhayon is the first man I ever met without a cage.
Yes Otto I agree, Serge Benhayon was the first man I ever met without a cage also.
At first I questioned what I saw and felt in Serge Benhayon as he is also the first man I have ever met without a cage and it felt so extraordinarily different. Now, I am learning to appreciate that we can all live without a cage if we choose to make loving choices and be open to letting go of the layers.
I really relate to what you are saying Fiona. We are so used to meeting through our cages that when there isn’t one in front of us it can feel very strange. It’s like getting the best ever invitation you ever had in your whole ever life and instead of accepting it with open arms, we start looking for the strings that MUST be attached. Surely, it can’t be that simple, beautiful, free and now??
Angela I love what you’ve added here, how when we get to feel that cage and don’t like it, we often just try and change the cage, but do not consider getting rid of it, so we just swap our protections but we still protect, and often when we do so, we think we are being more honest and allowing ourselves to feel more, when in fact we are just replacing one form of protection for another. This is so important to understand that as is shared here the cage doesn’t work, no matter it’s colour or shade, and when we learn to be honest about our cages we learn how we can dismantle them so we can live the sensitivity we naturally are.
I love your honesty here Angela and can relate to getting confused about which one am I … the version with the cage or not and even getting glorified about it. I was at one point in my life so far from who I am as I thought I was so tough, a strong tom boy but that is not me at all. That was the cage version.
The more and more sensitivity I allow myself to feel I realise just how sensitive I am and slowly but surely I am showing that to the world.
Yes Angela glorifying the cage is very common and yet we hold ourselves locked in this hardened and cold prison when beneath the cage we are warm, sensitive glorious beings. 🙂
Well put Angela, we have to be the change, then we can see all that makes up the imprisoning cage.
Wow Joel another ripper blog! Releasing ourselves from these cages and the added layers of reinforcement is something that takes time but it is the choice to unravel these so called structures around us that is truly a beautiful process of unfoldment and a return to what is true. That is the beauty of our essence. Thank you.
Yes Kelly, it is yet another ripper blog!! Realising that we have created a cage for ourselves is definitely an uncomfortable truth but the freedom that comes as we make choices to unravel it bit by bit is truly unrivaled.
Absolutely, Kelly, love how you express here, “it is a choice to unravel these so called structures around us that is truly a beautiful process of unfoldment and a return to what is true.” Something that eventually all of us will have to do, so we can all find the true ‘self’ within. I have made this choice and am loving the process, removing what is not love, and slowly revealing more and more of my true self.
Yes Beverly, the gradual unfolding and revealing of ourselves is not only something that everyone will eventually have to do but also a beautiful process as we return to the love that we are.