I’ve often jokingly said to others that I’m the poster girl for ‘What not to do’ on the quest for Divine Love.
I certainly lived in rebellion for a long time after I met AJ again, and I’ve made more than my fair share of mistakes along the way. Most of these I’ve spoken about publicly, at seminars and on video recordings. I’ve never been proud of my troubles and unlovingness, but I’ve always felt passionately that, if my sharing could help someone else avoid the mistakes I’d made, then I wanted to speak up about it.
I’ve told most of you my deepest shames and biggest errors. It hasn’t always been easy but my feeling that it was important pulled me through.
That is why lately, I’ve felt strange and somewhat mystified as I’ve sat to write about my personal experiences with the Great Experiment. I find myself shaky, and emotional, and at a loss for words.
Its strange because this time – the news is all good.
God is showing me so many things through prayer.
…… I …..
There I go again, all teary and lost for adjectives to tell you how amazing this journey is turning out to be.
At first I thought my troubles with writing were because I don’t think its quite possible to put the power and beauty of God into words. Which is of course true.
But that didn’t really explain the difficulty, since the things I want to share are not so much about God but the personal changes I’ve experienced though engaging the Great Experiment in its simplicity and with sincerity.
So I’ve been praying about the problem and have come to the following, humbling recognitions:
– I’m embarrassed by my hope, my faith and my passion for God.
I’ve found a deep well of judgement bearing down on the childlike feelings in my heart for God and His Love. So much so that it seems to have the power to stop some words dead in my mouth, or on a keyboard.
Basically, I’m so passionate about the beauty and possibility that a relationship with God offers every single one of us that I’m afraid of being judged as childish and naive. So I skip ahead and judge myself.
– The thought of sounding all sweetness, light and no substance, also bothers me.
This realisation led me to immediately pray the fervent prayer:
‘Please never let me explain things in terms that people can’t understand, in airy fairy language or using vague sentiments. Let me always be real, and clear and practical.’
No sooner had I prayed my desperate prayer, than I remembered about a zillion times when, through a lack of confidence or in a state of nervousness (read: sheer terror) or simply because I just didn’t get the lesson at hand myself, I’ve done exactly that. That is, I’ve been vague, spoken in half sentences and danced around the truth with the wistful hope that people will read between the lines and miraculously extrapolate what I mean.
Not to mention the times when I’ve been all caught up in what I like to call my ‘poetry of pain’ injury. The poetry out of pain injury is somewhat embarrassing to me, and has its roots far, far back in my family line. It looks a lot like ‘valiantly suffering for a cause’ and/ or ‘living in the drama of the hardship’ rather than just having a good old-fashioned cry about it and moving on. It’s about romanticizing sadness and metaphorically making very bad Shakespearean ‘poetry’ out of the pain. At those times I’ve actually displayed the path and the truth about emotions just completely wrong.
So bummer for me (and you who tried to understand what on earth I was on about at those times). I’m trying to mend my ways.
– But most of all I’ve found that I’m afraid of people trying to punish me for my joy.
Holy Toledo, did that one come out of left field. Definitely an emotion that deserves some more attention from me. As yet, its still very raw and mysterious.
I tell you – this Great Experiment is the gift that keeps on giving. Engaging it and then attempting to tell you about it, has opened me up to so many emotions.
I’m learning awesome things, and I’m receiving Divine Love.
For the first time in five years I feel at peace with my life.
(There you go – I got some of that out).
Anyway, the real reason I’m writing today is to introduce to you the next in our series of discussions of Padgett Messages that fits into our Great Experiment series.
The message we discuss is from Solomon, and its my favourite. In fact, I was so moved by this message and our discussion that we had to stop tape twice so that I could go and have a sob in Lena & Igor’s loo. Seriously.
However, since I seem to have prattled on so much about my own injured stuff in this post, and I don’t want to mar the beautiful tone of the actual message and video discussion, I’ve decided to post the video links in a separate post.
I know that might seem crazy but Solomon needs his own space.
Check out his simple yet awesome message, in full, in the next post.
Notes Along The Way 
wowee Mary, often when I read your blog posts, and sometimes I comment on it, it is like you write about the precise exact thing I am battling with at that point in time. Today I am struck again and it is like you have a direct line to my soul and are writing directly to me.
Just in the past few days I realised the honest truth about my priorities, and they ain’t what I want the world to believe. I have been sitting with them, and for once, not trying to think my way out of them, but just letting them be there – because I have learnt now, through experimenting, that when I sit with stuff and allow it to be there in all its muckiness, I come through it and get to where I want to be with it.
So I sit with my realisation that God is pretty far down on my list currently (and has been for most of my life, actually), not being ashamed of that (even though I can feel pulls towards shame and how bad I am), and I have been exploring the why of that, and they are so much the same as your road to Rome and the list you write here that I feel you must be writing to me!
More impetus to watch the Solomon message discussion – it was recommended to me the other day, and it was on my list anyway, so after I finish the one I am on now (The discussion on the Padgett message from Jesus), I shall listen to that one.
By the way, I really loved the two from Salyards lately too, they have been helpful to me too.
Thank you, to you and Yeshua both.
love,
Teresa
Wow!!!! Mary thank you so much for your beautiful amazing writings. What you wrote this time touched me deeply. I too am embarrassed about my passion for God. I dont know truly where it comes from but all I know is that if the world stopped tomorrow and I was the only person left on this planet i would keep going towards God no matter what. I feel judgement sometimes for having such a passion and i keep quiet sometimes. When i was in your opening to God workshop as you know my soul opened up to God and i cried about that for 2 days that I had in my childhood walked away from God and realised that i missed that relationship so much and so deeply. I also am very afraid of being shutdown and punished for feeling my joy and happiness when i feel God close and so i switch off my feelings of joy. A good one for me to work on now. So Mary thank you so much for your openess, truth and sharing it really helps me and i know helps.so many others.
My love and blessings
Max
Thank-you Max.
Yes, i also share this feeling of i am not allowed to have good things happen to me.
I recently shared in a group how amidst my silvery hair grew a black strand ,just out of the blue and when a sister commented how good this was and how i was working to get closer to God ,I immediately responded of how far I feel from God partly because it’s true but mostly out of fear of even believing myself that I am actually doing the experiment. Than I am actually working on my humility. I had a feeling with in me of how bad I was to have such miracles happen to me and much worse to share them and expose the fact God is working with me on my errors.
Like Teresa said i feel every time i read and follow your posts and or see Jesus’ talk,interview or presentation ,I feel as if the message is for my soul.
Thank you. In fact I don’t think I can ever thank yo enough.
Aloha Mary.. Your honesty and humility continually touch my heart, causing tears to rise & flow from the ‘windows to my soul’.. Mahalo for serving us all as an example of how true commitment to this ‘narrow way’ feels.. Rainbow Hugs, Carol Marie
Hey Mary,
I was blessed to be shown, in a really profound and maybe not-so-gracious way how much I like to victimize and share my ‘sob story’ with others, seeking love, approval, acknowledgment. That my life was so sad and my ‘lonliness’ feelings prevented me from feeling true joy in my life, even when having a good time. The man whom I feel is my soulmate told me in a direct way that I’ve basically walked around with a ‘woe is me’ attitude, and just recently I saw how much of a drag that really is!
Instead of owning my own, personal feelings….I want them justified, noticed, felt for. By others.
I wanna be loved, caressed, hugged. All the time.
I made a (firstly) intellectual decision to ‘cut that shit out’ 🙂 and embrace and imagine that it’s really not so bad. To think about gifts I’ve missed, and still missing.
We’re talking like 3 days ago.
It has made a difference, not only in my projections, but now I have to deal with my own feelings…alone. It’s still the beginning…much until I soften it into my soul. Still a lot of anger around that.
I also realized that one of the reasons I hold this facade is in sheer avoidance that I do NOT want to talk about Love, Faith, and God. ‘Cause I’m so scared (too) that people will think I’m weird for following a path to an intangible ‘thing’…while we live in a world with bills, assholes, and working crappy jobs but the money is good. How I sit in a subway, looking around at people, wishing that I could tell them in words, precisely, clearly, about God, our other halves, and our passions that help make this world so beautiful. Then I think, ‘do I truly feel that God, our halves, and passions are beautiful?’
I feel a lot of sadness as I write this, as I notice my own lack of ‘paying it foward’. How passive and arrogant I am and have been in my own progression.
I will say, though, that those around me have been influenced, indirectly, by your and AJ’s teachings. Even those that do not believe in the Divine Love Path.
Please know that I have felt your prayers regarding soulmate emotions, and have attracted and am feeling through much over here. There is a culmination of so many feelings. I am still really afraid of a lot of this, and including my sexual terror. A hard realization is my feelings of wanting God for the desire of purely wanting to know Him, as opposed to wanting to grow a relationship with God because I need to believe in something good in this world. To have something to believe in.
A million thank you-s. Always!
This blog rocks. ❤
Marina
P.S. – I feel often that if I attract good things, and have a good time, my dad will get jealous. Which he does!
I am so glad you brought up feeling embarrassed about being passionate so I could feel into that more myself. I am afraid of looking like a fool and being totally wrong about what i feel so strongly as truth-well more strongly than i have felt about anything before. I feel a strong desire to continue on with the experiment inspired by the little results I am having. Just a few days ago I received a tiny glimpse of feeling very free and very happy just after having a more earnest desire than usual to feel all my feelings – this time it wasn’t all negative! I am eager to feel that again and even becoming eager to feel the negative emotions too. Thank you, Mary, for sharing yourself so openly.
I love it so much the way you write Mary. In fact, I had such a good cry and connexion to God and my guides in reading you halve way at “Please never let me explain things in terms that people can’t understand, in airy fairy language or using vague sentiments. Let me always be real, and clear and practical.”, then I came back reading a bit further and started laughing at your ‘shakespearian poetry” part. This is so funny how you write it and beautiful how you express it and at the same time it connects me to the same emotion inside me. By the Way, the talk about the Salomon message is as great as the message. Thank you both and Igor/Lena. You know, when I feel blocked to God/me and the great experiment is not working (of course), there are only a few things working well to open my heart again: reading Padgett, reading RJ Lee, reading Jesus/your posts or listening to Jesus/you. So, your discussions about Padgett Messages are on the top list for this reason, so were the book classes. I just want to let you know what you do is precious. Thank you to be here Mary.
thank you for posting this..I can SO relate ❤ 😉
Hi Mary, it is just wonderful to hear that you are at peace with your life. There may have been times when you were vague through terror, but for me the way you put something often just made me get it or at least steered me in the right direction. In Albury the way you described the quality of love when you exercise your will in that direction always rings in my ears when I’m battling with God, responsibility and free will. I have made mistake after mistake after mistake, in this process; seeing you get it wrong, continue and progress has encouraged me to keep going. I think maybe sometimes you trigger people in ways you might not have thought of when you are writing. Your writing about your childlike feelings has triggered me in a different way, I’m scared to have childlike feeling towards God (or anything or anyone), I don’t know how to do it, it feels too vulnerable.
Hello Mary, I am feeling compelled to add my present state as I read this and recognize the feelings that are arising. I am feeling the fact that, in my terror of being misunderstood and the repercussions of that, I stop myself from saying much of anything. It feels so much safer to listen and turn the attention toward another. I do trust, however, the words that just seem to fall from my mouth: that cannot be stopped from being spoken. More and more now, I am finding that these are words concerning my longing for my relationship with God and my own Soul. This is a surprise to me and I do trust it and will take the risk. Thank you for being the model of taking the risk to speak.
Am singing the same tune…working through the same fears that come with allowing myself to stay tuned in and deeply feel pleasurable sensations. The false beliefs say, “You’ll have to pay back and do things you don’t want to if you receive and allow yourself to feel good and enjoy…” For me, this has come from the barter systems I have lived out with those close to me. Taking the leap, staying true to whatever needs to come up as I now choose to allow myself to feel pleasure…and finding I can work through every fear along the way. Thanks for bringing this part of learning Love to the forefront…much appreciation for your openness and sharing,
Your sister,
Kate
Hi Mary, I can relate to what you say here, have been going through similar-ish things. Feeling Joy outwardly has been a struggle for me, luckily (in some ways) I live with my mum so I get to see where these things for me come from. I had a beautiful experience last night where I desired to love myself how god loves me and I still get emotional about it, i had a big grief before the desire awoke within me after i felt a little of gods love. I have felt embarrassment about God and sharing love (I feel others see it as hippy sh*t and I feel judged etc if I express it. I still rarely express it, rather hold it back). I felt so full I couldn’t help live it today a little and I just went about feeling Joy in some things I was doing and then my mum appeared and I realised what happened for me. I felt my mum took my joy away. I was making a meal and the joy disappeared as she appeared commenting on what i was doing and turning it into something negative for me. That was my feeling. I also can relate to romancing the drama. Though it has been the most beautiful to start to desire to love myself how god loves me, it has created a strength in my connection to god and is opening up my ears to listen to god and to listen to love, I want to hear god not the negative around me. If this makes sense. Thank you as always for sharing your heart.
Laura x
Mary
I know we have no conception of what you must feel about the loss of connection with God but Ive been listening to The Promise by Tracey Chapman and I thought of you both and of course my own feelings of having once felt close to God and then having that turned upside down and feeling desperately alone and abandoned by God. Your writing helps me to feel that I have had and am rediscovering a deep love of God which got lost as I discovered my anger, my shame, my inadequacy and unworthiness and fear of ridicule. I’m starting to feel I prefer the broken and bruised me rather than the false me.
Amanda
Thank you so much Mary for sharing your journey with us and the beautiful way you express yourself. You have been such a help to me. I deeply appreciate the gift of your friendship.