Extremes Are Annoying, Entertaining, and Natural

I read this article by Aletheia Luna and after every sentence I said “Yes!” I was so happy that somebody finally said what I felt. I’ve encountered a great deal of rejection on my spiritual journey, and that rejection has given me a savior complex. I just want to help people become more balanced, but nobody seems to want my help. I should’ve gone to nursing school instead.

My friends hate me because I don’t fit into any of their boxes. When I play worship music, my new age friends roll their eyes; when I talk about Gaia, my Christian friends change the subject; and when I bring up astrology, my atheist friends wanna kill me. Sometimes I feel like everybody in my life is an extreme. But what did I expect? This is earth. Souls come here to experience extremes. That’s why my help is not wanted. 

I’ve explained before that those of us who came here to awaken are in the minority and always will be. We don’t need to wake everybody else up. If my alarm goes off because I need to go to work, that doesn’t mean I’m supposed to wake my sleeping spouse if he’s off. I just need to go to work. I remember I once woke Maurice up at 4 a.m. to watch William and Kate’s royal wedding. Let’s just say that that didn’t go too well.

Now that my alarm has gone off and I’m getting ready for work, I realize that my job is only one thing: to be true to myself. It doesn’t mean preaching and proselytizing.

It means having fun. And you have to admit that the way people behave due to extremes is pretty entertaining. Neurosis alone is a shit show; but I can’t take my eyes off of the screen… and it’s okay.

Have you noticed that people always become what they hate? When an individual cannot integrate the part of them that they don’t feel comfortable with, they will eventually embody the negative aspect of that quality. This happened to me when I became an atheist.

I de-converted from Christianity to get away from dogma and embrace critical thinking. I got tired of people making me feel dumb for wanting to explore another side of life. And I despised the way that conservative Christians judged everything that wasn’t holy.

What’s funny is that after a few months of immersing myself in atheistic philosophy, I began to be really mean to Christians: even my husband and my parents. Every time they said something spiritual I made it my business to point out that it was a fallacy.

I would tell them that they were too weak to think for themselves. I made them feel dumb. I was right and they were wrong and that was the end of it. I became the judgmental person that I once despised.

I saw this happen to somebody on YouTube too. A young man gave his testimony about how he used to be a new ager who looked at religious people as uneducated and deceived. After graduating college, he created a Facebook page and a website dedicated to promoting new age ideals.

Then he became a Christian, and now he devotes his channel and his website to debunking new age beliefs, because most new age teachings are in his words “straight up deception.” So he’s doing the same thing, he just changed genres.

I think that people like their extremes because needs do not change. We can change our beliefs to meet our needs, but we can’t change our needs to meet our beliefs. I tried that and it made me miserable.

I watched a “My Cat From Hell” episode that featured a Savannah that was only two generations from the wild. I chuckled to myself as I realized that that cat represented my shadow! I have a very aggressive and territorial side that likes to play. She will destroy you if you antagonize or ignore her.

I couldn’t keep antagonizing her by engaging in intellectual debates with people. And I couldn’t keep ignoring her for the sake of fitting in with my religiously conservative surroundings. So I learned what my needs were, changed my environment, and integrated my shadow into the light.

But that’s just me. Most people aren’t here for that. They’re here to experience the dichotomy between the light and the shadow. They’re here to reject what they don’t want in order to embrace what they do want. The separation that duality creates ripples through all areas of life… and it’s okay!

I wear a coat when it’s cold outside, not because it’s right or wrong, but because I like it. If others who are not wearing coats see me wearing one, they have a choice. They can ridicule me for wearing the coat, ignore the fact that I have on the coat, or think it’s a good idea to put on a coat. No matter what they choose to think or do, I don’t need to go out with a bullhorn to tell everyone that they need to put on a coat!

Wearing balance in a world of extremes is very strange; but we make it more painful when we criticize others for doing what comes naturally to them. Needs are natural. Extremes are natural. Externalizing power and shirking emotional responsibilities are natural.  If you’re living a life of equilibrium and peace, you’re the weird one… and it’s okay.

 

Author: Carla Calloway

Aries. Introvert. Creative writer. Food enthusiast.