Mute

By Lian Brook-Tyler

You absolutely can gag yourself for fear of the ones who are compelled by fear to judge and criticise.

Maybe you’ve experienced being shamed in recent years or maybe you’re imagining it based on long ago experiences.

Either way, I understand.

It’s a choice not to express yourself, it’s a valid one, and at points in our life, it’s the right one.

I’ve been there.

In the past 11 years alone, I’ve lost both parents in sudden and shocking events, I had a spontaneous awakening which created huge changes (including being miraculously cured of 15 years of chronic pain and suddenly leaving my corporate career) which meant adjustments for my whole family, I’ve journeyed with going increasingly deaf to the point I could barely hear even with hearing aids (until an operation in 2018), I’ve had hallucinations and other bizarre visual disturbances that made me think I was losing my sight and/or mind, and I’ve experienced all kinds of difficulties which I didn’t understand until two years ago when I was finally diagnosed with autism. And that is just a taste of the things that are mine alone to share.

There have been times when I was already journeying with so much Material for Liberation from those experiences, I held back from sharing details that I knew would be of service to others experiencing similar things because I feared what certain people might think and say. I was already going through so much that I chose not to say things that might trigger judgement too.

I know I’m not alone in this, many of our students with incredible, beautiful, healing stories have stopped themselves sharing those stories for fear of what people will say.

Yet there’s a point on the path of the Great Work where we have alchemised so much that we realise and accept, as one of my dear, wise friend William Apple says “I am whatever you say I am.” (rather fabulously, Eminem said it too.)

Even as I write this, I know there’s people who will read it and will be thinking and saying all kinds of things about me.

Maybe you think I’m weak, inauthentic, delusional, controlling, self-obsessed, and manipulative, or maybe that I’m inspiring, magical, loving, honest, and wise… Whatever am I to you, I accept it.

I suspect a projection of the former kind occurred this week; I saw a post which appeared to be a damning response to something I shared a few days ago.

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t… either way, little Li-Li immediately cringed, feeling the pain of all the times she was hurt or shamed for getting something wrong or being judged as different and unacceptable in the past, I spent some time tending her, and then when she felt safe, I began writing this.

If I don’t speak, if you don’t speak, who’s left speaking? The ones who are compelled by fear to judge and criticise.

I have a vision of a world in which we are moved by love, one in which we care about the children, - including the ones who are compelled by fear, one in which we want happiness and peace for all beings.

And we begin, as ever, with ourselves.

All my love,
Li