In 2000, I went through what I consider to be the biggest failure of my life. The effect of this failure lasted for 11 very painful years. During this time I suffered from extreme depression, anxiety and not wanting to live. There is so much to this story, but here is the abbreviated version. I was in my senior year of college with the intention to go to seminary to become a pastor. While studying, I dedicated myself to intense study and prayer, all with the deep desire to connect as deeply as possible to the Source of life. One day, a very real felt sense of God’s presence disappeared from my awareness, leaving me feel incredibly abandoned and alone. I asked, pleaded, begged and eventually screamed and yelled at God wondering why he “abandoned” me. Days turned to weeks and weeks turned to years, and I still felt this emptiness and abandonment with no sense of divine presence in my life.
God had abandoned me. This kind of abandonment, of course, cannot occur in reality, but it became my perspective or lens through which to see life from that moment forward. I felt a constant fear of being abandoned, anger that God didn’t help, a constant lust for answers and eventual sadness and hopelessness because things were not changing. This went on for 11 long, painful years. This tends to be the cycle of depression – a core fear -> desire -> anger -> sadness -> hopelessness (apathy). In 2012-2013, I was able to heal from this depression through the use of emotional releasing tools like Tapping (#ad) and The Sedona Method (#ad). What a massive relief that was! Now, I feel more connected to God than I ever have.
This event was not the first time that feelings of abandonment had shown up for me. It just happened to be the memory in which the pain was the most intense. These were ultra familiar feelings that have seemed to loom over me like dark clouds for most of my life. I can recall dozens of memories from the past when these same feelings were present. The failures we endure mark us in ways that can affect much of our life moving forward, often in many unobserved and unconscious ways. With awareness, exploration and courage we can begin to understanding the profound effects that failures and past trauma leave us with.
In 2018, I attended the advanced course of Landmark Worldwide, which is a personal growth and development organization. During this course one of the things we learned about is something called our ACT. An ACT is a response we have to failure or a threat to our survival. Our ACT is a spoken command that internalizes (or projects) the meaning of the failure that has occurred. It is what we tell ourselves about ourselves or life as a result of having going through the failure.
Our ACT is not something that we have to remember either. Our ACT shows up everywhere in life and we all have one. The worst thing is that our ACT is not something that we are conscious of when it occurs. At the moment when I remembered being abandoned by God, I commanded something to myself that I never had realized before until that moment. Before this time in my life, I had experienced the sting of abandonment many times. But, this time it was by God, the one who is never supposed to abandon anyone. When God was the one to do this to me, the command became quite obvious. What I shouted at myself as a response to deal with this failure and the threat to my survival was this:
“YOU’RE GOING TO BE ALONE FOREVER!”
The chill of this command was shocking, yet ultra familiar. It is something that I have been saying to myself subconsciously throughout my entire life, starting from my earliest memories at the age of 4. This was not a surprise to me but I finally had an awareness about how I view life WHEN I am living unconsciously. To say it a different way, I will see my life through this command and all the emotions and pain surrounding it when I am not consciously creating my life. It is just what tends to show up automatically. I have felt alone in certain sense for most of my life. Even though I am surrounded by people, have the most amazing friends and very supportive parents, I have always felt relatively alone. Sounds fun, right?
Here is the thing though; we ALL have an ACT or a way that we show up to life. Think of your greatest failure. Your ACT can be found in that failure. We have a lens that we see life through especially in times of stress and turmoil. Everyone’s ACT is different. But, it is called an ACT for a reason because it is like you are the main character in your own play and you tend to behave in ways that are familiar and that have been cemented over the years.
When I was younger and my ACT surfaced, it was a very demanding and selfish expression of life. I craved connection and love, but these are the very things that my ACT prevents me from having. Our ACT always prevents us from having what we deeply want the most in life. It was the craving and desiring for connection that always caused the problem, not connection itself. I yearned to be with people, but people didn’t seem to want to be with me. The reason for this was the intense demand that desire (not love) puts on people. Desire isn’t love, it is lust or craving. Desire gets us to believe the lie that something outside of ourselves is going to fill the lack of connection we feel internally. I was antagonistic with others, and generally moved between two polar extremes when people didn’t give me what I wanted. I would either push in and became clingy, desperately wanting connection with others, or, when this didn’t occur, I would swing to the other side and became distant and isolated. I didn’t want to be this way, but I didn’t know how else to be as a child.
This also created problems for me in romantic relationships. Coupled with feelings of not mattering and not feeling good enough along with the fear of being abandoned, having a romantic relationship was not a possibility until the later in life. I was awkward and didn’t know how to actually be me around women. I really grew up thinking I was very ugly and that no one wanted to be with me, even though this wasn’t the truth. I didn’t really know how to connect with others specifically because I didn’t know how to connect with who I was deep inside. Thankfully, this has totally transformed for me.
Interesting, our ACT shows up often as the expression of our career in life. Our careers are often the outward physical expression of what our soul most longs for. Or it offers us an expression of what we need to see most deeply about ourselves. Our careers and relationships may occur because we are trying to unconsciously resolve our own ACT, which simply is just projecting itself out into the world. Our ACT can show up powerfully if we are not conscious, mindful and aware. This is why I am now a physician, because for much of my life I wanted to HEAL what was unhealed or broken inside of me. I wanted connection, which means that I needed to connect deeply with the pain and darkness inside of me first. About 7 years ago, I began that journey of healing and connection, and it was the hardest but most rewarding thing I have ever done.
It is no wonder that my work now is about facilitating deep connection with people in order to help them heal physically and emotionally. This doesn’t happen because I need connection, but occurs because connection has already happened within. Now, out of love, I simply get to share that with others. It is an outpouring of my deep desire for what my soul not only desires, but longs to give others. When I am consciously creating, my life is now largely about genuinely, deep and heartfelt loving connection. It is something I actively create in my relationships, starting with vulnerability and courage.
Our ACT always solves a problem for us. One might ask, “How does being alone forever solve any kind of problem?!” Believe it or not, it does solve a problem. The problem my ACT solves is that it ensures that I will never be abandoned ever again. Being alone forever guarantees that I will never ever be abandoned again. If I am truly alone, I can never be abandoned. Your ACT also solves a problem for you. If it didn’t solve a problem, we would stop showing up in our life as our ACT.
Our ACT ultimately covers up or hides something. When we show up as our ACT, it prevents us from having what is ultimately most important to us. My ACT covers up, hides or prevents me from having two states of being – connection and love. Connection is everything to me even if I don’t show up that way at times in my life. Before discovering my ACT, the way connection occurred to me as something that others gave or provided to me and I reciprocated. When people give me connection, then I will connect in return and love can be experienced between us both. Yet, this never results in true lasting connection because it is based upon others having to give it to me first. After discovering this, it dawned on me that in order to have connection, I must BE embodied connection first as an expression to others. I CREATE connection first and declare it to be so internally. I must BE connection. Then, connection can be created. It doesn’t mean it always happens, but at least, I can hold an intention to be that for others. Because, let’s be frank, all of us want deep, meaningful, unconditional connection.
When I AM connection, I get to experience creating it deeply with others. When I am connection, it doesn’t create the certainty of connection, just the possibility. Others may not want to deeply connect and that is 100% ok. All I can do is open up and create the possibility of it. Whether another chooses to create this with me and reciprocate my expression of being is entirely up to them. It is simply up to me to put this on the menu as a possibility.
The result of putting this on the table intentionally helps open people open up far more powerfully not only with me but, most importantly, with themselves. It has resulted in the discovery and creation of not only deep and rich connection but helping others to see what ACT arose out their deepest failures. When we both connect on such a deep level, a more rich and full responsibility for life emerges. Often times, in less than 30 minutes I get the honor of discovering what makes life move for another and what their ACT is.
Earlier this week, in less than 30 seconds, I shared something in less than 30 seconds with a woman sitting next to me about something that had profoundly touched me earlier in the week. Her response in the 2 minute conversation we had was, “Thank you for sharing that, I have never thought about life that way!” Connection can happen in seconds, minutes, hours or an entire lifetime with someone. It just needs to be chosen and created, consciously.
When I am conversation with anyone, I can consciously choose and create connection. When one chooses being connection, it gives way to the possibility of that very thing. The most fascinating thing is that when one is truly being connection, it is totally unforced and happens organically. Sometimes connection is experienced as an intense listening that can occur without saying one word in a conversation. At other times, it occurs as a hug that lands with another as intense connective love. In other circumstances, it is sharing the deepest wounds that I have experienced with another. It is so amazing how other people want to experience connection deeply too. Often times all it takes is for another to be so intensely connected with Source internally that it arises naturally as a pure expression of being. Both experience connection because both are connected to the same Source. Everything flows. Life emerges. When creating connection, it allows for others to come to life as well.
So often, even now, my entire day could have gone by and I have an awareness that I didn’t consciously choose to create connection during my day. When this occurs, I am quick to remind myself that this is not right/wrong or bad/good, it is just simply how things are. I give myself grace in those moments. However, when I do step into the awareness of creation, I get a say. The me that is truly me, which is the same me that is expressing itself divinely into all things, gets a say. Conscious creation of being is being who you really are. And being who you really are is what makes life full and rich.
We all have an ACT, a command that arises from within our deepest failures. There is a whole world that shows up for us when we are being our ACT. Our ACT solves a problem for us and hides or covers up who we really are. If we don’t know what our ACT is, then it will show up automatically (and frequently) and we don’t get choice. One of my favorite authors, Dr. David Hawkins said, “To be free, means to be at the level of choice.” Most people think they have choice, but unless you are consciously creating something, you are not at choice. Most people don’t consciously create any part of their day. They just show up, REACT and stuff happens, but they don’t consciously create. Reaction is not creation. And it’s ok, because I still struggle with this too.
Carl Jung once said, “Until we make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” Most people ACTs are totally unconscious. And when you don’t know something, you cannot do anything about it. You cannot consciously create your life. Discovering what your ACT is can make a profound difference for you. Choice and creation become available. If you want to discover yours, call me at 407-255-0314 to make an appointment today.
