Unexpected Freedom

When We Fall in Lovecompulsion to be divided. Accordingly, as we are freed fromthe compulsion to be divided in our lives, we begin to realisethe heart’s capacity to live free from fear. Slowly but surelywe once again uncover the natural ability to be loving, and indoing so we emerge from reactivity into responsible living.The Wound of SeparatenessTo say that we uncover a natural ability might make it soundlike being divided is all wrong. It was not all wrong. Inchildhood we grew gradually from a state of undifferentiatedidentification with our parents and the sensual world into aperception of separateness, or relative selfhood. The childdevelopment theorists describe how an individuated sense ofbeing a separate somebody is constellated by about the age ofseven. By that stage a personality of sorts, an ego, hasbecome established together with the perception of ‘me’ and‘you’ and ‘the world out there’. Along with these perceptionscome all ‘my’ desires; from the age of seven onwards there’sa lot more substance to the demanding of a child.Accompanying this developing ego, there’s ‘my’ ability to say‘no’ to ‘you’ when you want something from ‘me’; there’smore solidity, and the ideas of ‘my rights’ and ‘myboundaries’ develop.This development of ‘my way’ is natural and necessaryfor us as humans. But it is very useful to understand how, asthis momentum increases, there’s a diminishing capacity forabiding in the happiness of the undifferentiated state – thestate of simply being at one with what is happening. Thepleasure and freedom of ‘at-one-ment’ that we knew aschildren become less and less accessible to us as we grow up.Then as we approach early adolescence we start to lookfor ways to escape the discomfort of this perceived55