Leaving is Hard to Do

It’s definitely a good question; how could we possibly have complained to Moshe, that we should return to the “good old” days in Egypt?

We were slaves for generations. Children were killed. We almost totally lost our essential selves. We worked to death, and we come out with … Why did you take us out? We should have stayed. Better to die there. Did you bring us up from Egypt to kill us?

After experiencing all the suffering and witnessing all the miracles; unimaginable, right?

At this point I have seen many individuals distinguish between their higher consciousness and their old enslaving patterns of thinking. Not only did they distinguish them, but they deeply felt the impact of the pain of generating their lives from constricting “stories” as opposed to the joy of generating their lives from freedom.

I see people “get it”. Slavery sucks. Not being free to be myself is painful. Thinking that I need to be someone else in order to have love in my life feels bad. After experiencing wellbeing, why would I ever go back there?

I can absolutely speak for myself and almost assuredly speak for others; we do go back. We start second guessing, and then, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe the me in Egypt was the real me. Is fighting for my free self really so important? I got use to it.

I think, besides the difficulty we have of breaking old habits, the fear of the unknown often drives us back to the known, even if we know the known is a bummer.

For some of us it’s simply an unknown, but for some of us, showing up powerfully and freely as ourselves has scary memories. The looks of disappointment when we didn’t know something, the pain of distracted parents when we thought we were all that mattered, etc… And often that’s why we went into exile to begin with. There was some sort of famine that did not nurture our essential selves, that drove us from our “homes” and into the constricted consciousness of Mitzrayim.

People have different relationships to fear. Mine was embarrassment. Big guys shouldn’t be afraid. I was more afraid of showing my fear than I was of what I was afraid of to begin with. But fear is a feeling. Sometimes fear makes sense in relationship to reality. For instance, this is a really steep hill I’m about to go down.

And sometimes fear makes sense in the context of some internal “story”; such as, I’m scared that I’m going to be rejected if I don’t give the right answer. But that feeling is real too. (within the context of the story line that’s going on in my head and that I’m projecting out into the world)

With fear that is in relationship to reality; I can take the challenge, I can gradually wade into it, or I can get support. These are choices.

With fears that are based on old patterns of thinking, once we consciously see ourselves (freedom) as players in our own story (Mitzrayim), we might make similar choices; Take the challenge and walk through the sea from slavery to freedom, gradually venture into a mysterious unknown desert, or be compassionately embraced by a loving relationship/Presence who desires our return “home”.

From a place of wellbeing in ourselves no one really wants to go back to Mitzrayim, but it can be scary to walk out of our “stories”. We can beat ourselves up for being scared, or we can cave in and return.

Or, we can honorably challenge and support ourselves as we bravely leave Egypt, venture into the desert, to be in intimate relationship with Reality.

Have a great Shabbos,

Simcha