Higher Power – Wendy Rae

Who Is Your Contract With?

April 28, 2019

After a long and difficult winter, I am sitting by the river basking in the sun. I managed to come through it. Not the winter, which was harsh, but the dark hour of my soul that had moved in on me. That’s a pretty big statement isn’t it? I thought I had lived that years ago, but now I know different. And I feel different.

It was this past Easter weekend that I was reminded of that Sinead O’conner song “I Feel so different”. I absolutely do! And I think different. Change is hard. Transformation can be terrifying. What did not start out as a choice, has now become the passion upon which I live my life.

I had been Walking downtown looking for a place to buy a coffee. It was my annual “It’s Good Friday, I should go to church”. As I turned a corner I happened upon a community of people taking part in the walk of the Cross. Both church and the Cross make me uncomfortable. Not when I am alone, it’s so easy to be who you are when you are alone. No, the discomfort is acknowledging my truth in front of a society that dismisses or mocks these things. Seeing as how I was now in the midst of it, I had to join in. How could I turn my back on what has saved me? Not the church, but the Cross.

I respect and admire all of the kindness and charity of the church community. The wrong doings and mistakes of some leaders and followers are no different than society as a whole. Church is where people go for inspiration with their faith. Their own free will as with any other member of the human race is where they rise up or fall down. As for me? I have reserved church for Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The rest of the time I worship in nature and in solitude. I seek the answers to the mystery of life. I search for connection with a loving God. I continue to try and comprehend the lessons from the story of Jesus. A man whose strength, love and kindness are beyond my reach.

Which brings me back to the dark hour of my soul. You would think that was what I would use to describe the broken me of yesteryear. The one who was losing everything she held dearly and then more. No, that was the awakening. That was the beginning of my transformation from anger and resentments to learning to love life as it exists and in the moment. No, the dark hour is a battle with fear. It’s the most significant fork in the road you will ever encounter. Struggling to keep the faith when every door you knock on remains closed and has been locked. When your dreams are taking forever but your life is disappearing at the speed of light. When every idea is answered by doubt and every life boat is out of service. The dark hour where the Holy Spirit seems silent whilst the devil within tempts you to return to the insanity of the great I am. The world of self will and working fearfully for your daily bread.

When your ego is begging you to put the mask back on but your soul is shouting don’t pierce me again. That is the dark hour or the dark weeks as the case happened to be. The moments of truth where I had to decide who I was. Who was my contract with and on what belief system do I move forward.

The fear that grabbed a hold of me in February and March was like no other monster I had ever encountered. No matter how positive I tried to be, how strong and spiritually fit I thought I was. I was grossly unprepared for the ensuing battle. I was saying gratitude but not hearing it. Writing lists of gratitude but not feeling it. I was saying I was surrendering while digging my nails into what I refused to let go of. I was professing to believe and have faith while preparing my heart for defeat. The truth was, I was standing on the edge of no return. My faith was in jeopardy. The most dangerous words I have ever known were surfacing from within. The two words that I know would be my undoing. F#$@- It.

I never imagined I would be in this place. 5 years ago I was walking on a cloud promising myself I would hang onto that joy and love for the rest of my days. I worked it and fought to remain connected to it. Every tiny moment of doubt was met with a journal filled with the miracles and revelations I had witnessed. Yet here I was, ready to consider throwing in the towel and running back to the arms of my favourite vices. The pity party of all pity parties was being prepared in the back of my mind. Forget the multitude of blessings, miracles and revelations. Life was hard and I was struggling to find relief.

I stood on that ledge and stared into the abyss. I could no longer distinguish between truth and illusion. What was intuition and what was ego. If I had set my sights too high, could I recalibrate and find joy in anything less? I doubted it. I was so heavily invested in my dreams and they were not materializing as I had willed them to. I was not looking for instant gratification. I had been patient. It now appeared to me, that all was lost. That I had been chasing after an illusive life. Perhaps it was just not meant to be. Perhaps I was just a fool. And in that dark hour, I questioned how I ever let myself become so open and vulnerable. How did I end up in this place and who was I to want so much? My pride, my coolness, my drive. They all lay motionless in a heap. I stood naked on the ledge and thought now what?

Then “what”happened. My own words from 4 years ago when I did a crazy happiness experiment on Facebook kept showing up in my newsfeed memories. My own words from when I was living in joy. When I was still connected in a very powerful way to the source of my faith. In those words I saw where I had fallen. I saw how ever so slowly I had been allowing fear back inside my heart. That awkward Facebook experiment had come back to save me from myself. The revelations and I do mean revelations started to happen. My thoughts on the ledge took a 180 turn and the desire to run became a vision of freedom.

All that I had been clinging to was a made up version of how my life should unfold. Has it ever, does it ever unfold exactly as planned under our own direction? I had traded in the joy of the mystery and Aha moments. I was being guided by fear in search of guarantees. I was giving up the ecstasy of a life of passion in exchange for a life of safety in presumed certainty. I had forgotten how to enjoy the journey in light hearted wonder.

On that ledge I no longer saw the abyss. I saw my opportunity to take that leap of faith. And leap I did. I opened my heart in an act of vulnerability. I faced my biggest fear and I did not run and cower in shame. From that intimate act I found a strength and freedom the likes of which I have never known. I had dreamed of living my life like a wild horse. No longer saddled with society’s judgments. No longer bridled with unwarranted guilt. Guilt that held me down. Whispering in the back of my mind that I was not good enough for my dreams.

As that Sinead O’Conner song winds down she states “All that I ever needed was inside me” Her voice is passionate and haunting, her message is clear. She lost so much. So many friends yet she cannot go back. “I feel so different”. That was such a big part of the fear. I cannot go back. I cannot pretend that I do not know what I now know. Our fear of judgment is the greatest block to our freedom, to our healing. Anxiety, depression, addiction. Pharmaceuticals will not fix those things. Faith will. Without it, we remain hopeless for there is nothing to light the way. The illusion that we have control. The illusion that we are great on our own. The illusion that it is their fault. There is no them, it is us. We are great, we are miraculous when we connect to the source of our love. Every self help book. Every healing textbook. Every story of the journey to being saved. The words are different but the messages are the same as the ones we were given over 2000 years ago. The man on the Cross said to love and have faith. To believe. The law of attraction may be the rage, but it is not new.

This Easter I was reminded of the little girl in me that could not understand how we nailed such a good and kind man to the Cross. She carried that question in the back of her mind, somewhere strapped to her soul. She walked through the material world and felt the highs and the lows. When she awoke that question came back. How could we? Why did we? What is this life, this journey all about?

And in the dark hour when the choice comes, do I follow that kind man, or do I turn my back on him? Do I embrace the story or pretend it never happened? That road to Damascus life changing moment I had. If I dismiss that, then without doubt I dismiss my own soul. Call it what you want, the universe, a higher power, your higher self. It all comes down to that man on the Cross. Love, forgiveness, hope. Believing, faith, kindness. Not judging, not hating not clinging to fear. If the truth is not through Him, then one day, I die and it never mattered. If however the message of love continues on and life is eternal. Then I fear not death nor anything else.

I did not learn this in church or in school. I learned this on the road to Damascus. I learned this through experiencing all of life’s ailments and trying to understand why. Through reading and interpreting through my own eyes, ears and heart. I learned this from the voice that was speaking softly inside me. Yes, all I ever need is inside me.

This Spirit enjoying this life in this body need only embrace each moment as an opportunity to love and forgive. That God of fear and sin? I don’t think he has been around since that nice man died on the Cross for us. Was that not the point of it all? That he would teach us so we could learn to walk one day, like him, in our own free will? We are evolving. The speed at which we continue to evolve will be determined by our willingness. Our willingness to explore the truth within our hearts. To speak our truth without the fear of societies judgments. I can’t control society, but with faith, I can control the fear.

Faith, Featured, Higher Power, Hope, Love, Uncategorised

Outing myself

December 20, 2018

I am struggling with this piece. In my heart the story is poignant and beautiful. Moving it to words it becomes cumbersome and fearful. It is of course my lifetime of fear over the subject that makes this so difficult.

I am finally coming to terms with being gay. I find it incredibly awkward stepping out of a closet I have never set foot in. Perhaps I will borrow a term from the younger crowd and call this the “pre “. I don’t like labels and I never understood the need to announce it. Yet here I am announcing that I am looking into and stepping out of the proverbial closet.

Why? What insanity has caused me to do this? Aside from the fact many knew before I did. It’s so I can finally live. So I stop trying to manufacture romances that will never work. So I can finally just breathe and laugh and say “Yup, it’s true, It only took me 4 decades to figure it out.” I admit, I am very much afraid of all of this. I keep wanting to add a “but”or a “maybe”. Of course I can change my mind, but it’s exhausting to keep trying to create substance from illusions. I need to know that whenever true love calls (You will note I am saying when and not if) I won’t miss it because it doesn’t fit my vision of what I think it should look like. I also need to stop going out to parties and dances pretending I am someone else (Insert funny night cap joke here.)

As a child, it was the words of hate shouted on the playground and reiterated through the mouthes of adults that helped mold my view of myself. Maybe not who I was, but certainly I heard and understood who I did not want to be.

I used to believe it was a choice. As a teenager and then young woman I chose not to be. Why choose to be something the world did not embrace. Something awkward. That was not the type of attention that was going to give me the feeling of belonging that I longed for.

Holding me back even more was the question of sin. I could never resolve what this God in my heart willed for me. As I look back I can honestly say this was my biggest hurdle. The God in my youth had loved me and held me through some troubling times. As a child there was no doubt in my mind of his existence. That relationship began to change in my mid to late teens. It was the beginning of my hidden walk of shame. I buried my uncomfortable secret deep within me. I began building the walls and donning the armour. I would not be this terrible thing and I would not let God down. Of course it did not work. I could never completely escape my truth. I had to let God go, which in turn meant turning my back on love and God.

After decades of living my life like it was a choice, I can finally say without question it is not a choice. This is who I am. I tried, and believe me when I say “Lord” knows I tried. I lived obliviously from 15 – 55 trying to find myself in everything but love. Fiercely competitive I loved winning, mastering sports made me feel good about me. Driven in business, promotions made me feel good. Building a business, that made me feel ever so good. I am self sufficient, I can help others, I am in control. Self will and strength. I was giving. Always trying to give joy and comfort and money. Passion to fill that hole inside me was incessant, except I never knew what to fill that hole with. Never knowing or understanding love beyond friends and family. Motherly and brotherly. I never saw the power and the beauty that were to be found in the highest loves and the most vulnerable loves. Life was ever so big to me, but romantic love seemed like a little side dish for the weak if so desired. I never saw my refusal to receive as an indicator of how unworthy I truly felt. I was running from the immense pain of my inner turmoil. No Eros and no Agape.

I was 50 the first time as an adult I realized I was attracted to a woman. It was not physical but rather a very deep connection on a soul level. I believed it was Divinely inspired and it was the impetus for massive wholesale changes in my life. First and foremost was reconnecting with the God In my heart. Second was the beginning of a journey to learn to love and honour myself. The healing that took place in my heart and soul manifested in my physical and mental health. Shockingly so. The speed in which the changes came was unfathomable. Friends and family alike were staring in disbelief. It was nothing short of a miracle and I will never forget or turn my back on those truths again. I was being given a second chance and I was not going to let it go to waste.

: My surprise 50th Sept 2013

: Finished writing my book Oct. 2015

We are all made of energy. Everything changed when I saw the connection and followed the source of joy. The bulk of the visual changes took 5 months. I was not focused on my looks, I was being carried in Divine love.

Inspired by all of these changes I wrote a book about my life and spoke about this event in a chapter titled “The Intervention”. When I launched the book in 2016 I was still pretty sure that I was not gay and my feelings for that woman were solely for the purpose of learning to love myself. My feelings subsided as I knew they would. Needing to protect the anonymity of the woman who was an innocent bystander in my book I knew I had to talk to her about it. Whether or not she ever spoke of it made no difference. What mattered is I could now honestly say to those asking – She knows and that’s all that matters.

I began applying the principles of living from love and searching for my higher self in every situation. I desired truth and connection, yes I use that crazy term “what would love do”? What I often shunned as a weakness I learned to embrace as the worlds most powerful force. Love was winning the battle with my ego, fear was beginning to fade.

However, if you thirst for truth, the lessons never stop coming. Just when I thought I had shed all of my heavy armour and was truly starting to feel whole and healed, it happened again. Another woman captured my heart sending me swirling into months of solitude and confusion. Leading up to that I had dated three different men, all of whom matched a different vision I had for what my soul mate might be like. None of whom were able to fill any sense of romance or excitement in my heart. How perfectly positioned it all was. Everything I thought I desired was placed before me. What sent butterflies from my soul was that which I still tried to deny.

I spent this past year soul searching. My biggest obstacle in being able to embrace being in love with a woman was not so much the opinion of society. It was and always would be, how could I resolve this with the God of my youth. I had to go back 40 years and understand the fear and the feelings or beliefs of right and wrong. I had to look at sin and my renewed faith and ask how do I resolve the conflict. Is this my ego or my soul? Is this real truth and knowledge or is it brainwashing and fear? I could not find comfort in asking others for there was only one place I would accept the answer from.

I sat in broken vulnerability for many months. Loves immense power was written all over my shattered heart. I had never felt so lost. I wanted to turn my back on it, so tempted was I to go back to my old ways. For all of its power and beauty, love hurt and I needed to make it go away. If I dismiss these feelings and make love irrelevant or this person a villain I don’t have to suffer this pain. I was acutely aware of the hole within me. Acknowledging I had to fill this on my own but to try and do it without the tools of the ego I had relied on my whole life. I had to learn to be whole completely on my own and allow myself to love. Numb would have been easier. Running, dismissing, ignoring and self medicating all offered themselves to me. I had come to far to give up and go back to my old ways. If I wanted a different result I had to do life different. Somehow, even in sorrow I managed to let love remain.

A lesson in love

In the midst of my months of soul searching I made a visit to my favourite spot at the lake. There on a boulder next to my bench lay a little rock with the words “Be filled” painted on it. I was so taken aback by the timeliness and perfection of the message, it made me cry. They were strong tears, tears of knowledge that the universe was sending me love. Sadly, my ego did not let me keep that rock. It instantly went to the thought that I should leave it for someone who really needs it. Like I did not? I took a picture and left the rock. My refusal to receive mirrored my greatest obstacle to love. Love makes me vulnerable and I didnt know how to live with that. This powerful piece in the puzzle that is life. This opened my eyes to just how much fear I had attached to love.

Being filled is a life long journey. I once heard somebody say they tried to fill this God sized hole with everything but God. I realized that my healing begins and ends with faith. Since I have now established deep in my heart that this is not a choice I can finally accept my Divine design. I was created this way. I thought about this God of my understanding. This mysterious loving power that had saved me and opened my eyes to love. I realized there is no way he would place me on earth and say…..Go live your life and love, but understand you will never be capable of knowing love without going against me. No God of love would do that. So I began to start trying to accept all of me without the guilt or shame.

Even though profoundly aware of my inability to choose who I fell in love with, I was still not able to let go and take this leap of faith. I had been asking and praying to God and my Mother in heaven for some type of sign to tell me it was okay. That I was on the right path as it related to love. That I may find love in this body in this lifetime. Dimes, feathers and eagle sightings were not enough. I needed more or I would never find peace.

In October I was at an event where a medium was sharing messages from spirit. Full disclosure, I do know her but she certainly had no knowledge about my prayers. As the event was winding down, and after watching her touch on so many uncanny truths with others. Out of the blue she said “Wendy, I have a message from your Mother. She says you are on the right path and Divine time is soon.” The earth moved. To receive the answer for the question I had been asking God in quiet prayer. To hear it worded in the words I used. The magnitude of that moment is still holding me off the ground. I finally found peace, permission to know and embrace whatever love held my heart.

The freedom, and the joy and the relief have been cathartic. How bright does the light shine when you have lived in the dark for 40 years. When you have been searching and finally see what it is you have been searching for.

When you learn to love and believe in yourself for who you are, and not who you think you should be- You will know joy. I spent many years unconsciously trying to trade myself for a better version of me. I may not have wanted to be anyone else, but I did try to be the version of me I thought the world would accept. Not today. Today I am happily making peace with my soul. I feel more powerful in my vulnerability then I ever did in my ego. Although I can’t say I embrace the lessons of unrequited love, especially when I have waited a lifetime to feel butterflies in my stomach. I can say that I believe in miracles, Divine time, and destiny. I found courage, hope and love growing from the wounds in my heart. My life has felt blessed and magical ever since I chose to accept, to receive, to be filled.

My next book still in the works is presently titled Birthing God

Agape- Love and light

Wendy

Faith, Featured, Higher Power, Hope, Uncategorised

Escaping my ego

December 4, 2018

Below is an excerpt from my latest book “Birthing God”. It is based on 4 years of what started as spiritual R&D and quickly turned into powerful lessons from faith.

In parts of the book I discuss different events and use the journaling/ poetry/ thoughts I wrote at the time to capture the fear as it existed in that moment. I show the actions of faith I blindly surrendered to and how the outcomes have brought me peace, joy and happiness where logic dictated there was none to be had.

Escaping my ego captures my vulnerability a couple of years ago when I was trying to decide between selling my struggling business to save myself, or going into a risky partnership that might save jobs if circumstances proved ideal. Conventional business wisdom said sell, my soul said different. I listened to my soul and chose the partnership which I initially thought ended ugly. As the dust begins to settle, a new truth is unfolding. The unexpected gifts and revelations will be in the book. Life truly is a journey in learning to love.

I stand here amidst the chaos of my thoughts, wondering which avenue do I choose . I feel the anger and the resentments rising in my throat, hurling words against the walls that are slowly caving in around me. No, I will not go there. But go there I must, for the lifelines have all been used -except the last two. They are tangled and knotted. I don’t have the strength or the desire to fix them, and once they are gone, there will be nothing. But alas there will be need again, it has been written, it has been promised. As I look toward the future as a woman of logic, I know only a warrior would remain in this place, and I am no longer willing to feed that beast.

The ego stirs the flames- are you a quitter? Are you a pacifist? What captain abandons the sinking ship, what woman of courage would walk away?I do not know the answer, but the anger and resentments are killing me. The demands were not invited, were never part of the original dream. But they exist, they are here and if fairness were was not such a laughable goal, I could holler it is not fair and expect the world to make it right.

So I sit and I stare at the mess before me. I am frozen and dare not move. No human would ever choose to stay in this moment, but looking left and looking right, the options are no better. Perhaps they are worse- and then what? Looking to the future, what a horrifying sight. Me, curled up in a ball while the world looks on in judgment. See what you did! To us, to them, to everyone. You did this, you had the control and you let this happen. No, I dare not look there. I have seen what people do who have looked upon that sight. It is not pretty and many are no longer with us. So where does my gaze go? There is only one place, one choice to make.

I look up. It is what we must do, we people who have lost everything. We lie on the ground in agony, and wonder why we are now filling our fingernails with dirt? Are we trying to find a deeper bottom. Are we striving to find a hotter hell? Is this why we set our sights on what lies beneath the dirt? Falling is all we have known of late. We are comfortable knowing we did not die yet, but we are terrified of looking up. Terrified to be made a fool and see the answer was and always will be what we have mocked and dismissed as poppycock!

So I look up defiantly. I say pacifist, quitter! I give up. The words come out of my mouth and I do not like the taste. But what else do I do? I am done digging in the dirt. I know what lies there. I know inside that anger and resentment, each filthy piece of soil inside my fingernails holds the makings of my grave. Pacifist, why does that word seem so ugly? It is the echo of my ego and I struggle to choke it down. These are not my words, this is not the way I have chosen to live. The light, the love and the kindness, this is where I have been living and I know it is my faith that is wavering. I am blind and I cannot see the outcome. It is fear that makes these hands reach towards the dirt. That is the direction I would choose for that is where the ego guides me.

Look up, look up to where the light is shining. It is not the direction you thought you were headed, but it is where freedom from all this pain will be. Trust it, believe it. For in that dirt where the ego guides you lies the bottle. Lies the pain and misery and suffering you once fought so hard to escape. Let it go. Do not say pacifist. Say grace and courage. Turn that cheek in the midst of battle and say now, forever and always, I am no longer afraid. Faith under every and all circumstances. Faith that can never be broken. It is of the mind that has conquered the ego. The ego! Our only true enemy. It is all we fear for it is the cause of all fear. Not our sisters and our brothers, but our own ego is the kryptonite that will bring us down.

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