What I'm Reading

My Thursday night class recently did a book study on The Trance of Scarcity by Victoria Castle. 

Consider this:  "imagine that when you moved into your first apartment, you inherited a rug that had been in your family for years.  Since that day, you have brought it with you to every place you've lived for the last 20 years....One day you move into a house filled with light, and you see that the rug is really worn out and doesn't look so great anymore...You roll up the old rug and put it out for recycling.  You search until you find a rug that is a real upgrade, that makes you feel good when you stand on it...When we upgrade, we are trading rug for rug, Story for Story...As long as we hold that something is the truth, it is unchangeable.  As soon as we recognize it for what it is--just a story--the story buffet line is open and we can help ourselves to a better one."

I love this quote from the book, because it reminds me of the experience that many of us have with shame surrounding coming out.  The rug that we've carried with us is everything that people have told us.  What is shame, after all, but believing what other people have told us?  So many people (including pastors, parents and popes) have an opinion they are happy to share with us about our sexual orientation.  And we might have heard their opinions from a very early age, and assumed they knew what they were talking about.

But it was just their opinion--their truth, not our truth.  No one has any more of a pipeline to the Universe (God, Spirit, your Higher Power) than you do.  You know in your heart what is right for you.

That "rug" of old beliefs, shames and assumptions might have kept you making bad choices, "looking for love in all the wrong places," or just feeling down.

There is no better day than today to upgrade to a new rug--acknowledging, accepting and then embracing who we are!