I Can Barely Stand Up Straight
By: Timothy O'Neill
Tags: Life Lessons, Spirituallity, Mental Health, Self, This Happened To Me

The growth of life is not a straight line, it is a spiral that eventually leads you back to Source. You may pass your past and future selves along the way, but the person to whom you are responsible is the one who is reading these words. The speculation on these implications can be endless. Once I had a dream that was not a dream in which I was helping my younger self write one of his stories, a story no elementary school child should ever have been able to write. And now I am being influenced by my future selves who have ventured into the past to keep me alive, exorcise a demon or two, and show me what it means to be a man in these tumultuous times when kind, intelligent, empathetic men are in seemingly in short supply. I commune with myself up and down timelines, across densities and dimensions. I am but a humble receiver of their knowledge and wisdom, and I have to figure out how I can become a better one without letting these spiritual struggles spill over into my family life. But maybe I have to make peace with the fact that is out of my control. My younger sister and my parents have already been grievously wounded by my mistakes and it is only through the considerate intervention of the future that I am not currently homeless. For now.

The spiral. It takes you past the lessons you learned to make sure they really sunk in. It takes you past people, places and things that used to annoy you, frustrate you, anger you and cause you immense grief so you can finally reckon with your suffering and leave your earthly baggage behind. The spiral means you keep hoping the next step is your last and at the final moment you pivot and only find a new hallway to traverse, one filled with the pain and emptiness of a poorly-lived life.

But all of this is leading us something. I usually hear ‘spiral’ and I think of alcoholics or the mentally ill spiraling out of control. I’ve been there and done that plenty of times as a mentally ill addict. It’s possible to let your anxiety spiral to the point where you are locking yourself in your closet, and spiraling with substances until the light goes dim in your eyes. But those are downward spirals. What I’m speaking of today is the upward spiral. It may seem like a trap at times, it may seem like you are falling apart, but every step you take is bringing you closer to a reunion with to the divine.

I’ve had a string of sleepless nights. My spiritual guides are trying to wear down my resistance to their loving ministrations with a combination of sleep deprivation and the application of extreme stress. It’s also a test. These things are always tests. They want to break my animal self, the lone wolf, the rabid, chattering monkey, so my true self may emerge. Easter said than done. My ego is a Sisyphean boulder in the way of progress and I love animals more than anything else in the world, even the group consciousness I’m linked into.

But for some reason it’s unnatural for us to act like animals. We used to have more sharply defined barriers that separated humans from beasts. Then we were tampered with and conditioned to believe that we were merely intelligent primates. It’s not so. Though we still deserve respect and dignity and are far beyond the casual, cavalier treatment of those in the spirit realm. We are beyond it. We don’t need to suffer it. We don’t deserve to be treated like misbehaving children when you created a game in which the powerful dominate and eat the weak, who might only be weak because they choose to honor the values you yourselves instilled in them. What will children think of next? I don’t know. You could ask them.

My aim is not blame, for this is a world of many wonders, many mysteries, much opportunity for spiritual growth. It is a world where spiritual infants can mature into adulthood and look back to hoist up the person on the rung beneath them. Its benefit to entities looking to learn and to serve and to honor the many faces of The One Infinite Creator cannot be overstated. But this world is still not our world. There is a reason the angels are trying to rescue as many souls as they can before this timeline unravels. The dark gods of fear and blood are in an unholy rage and if they can’t take that rage out on their celestial opponents they’ll take it out on us.

It’s slightly annoying to have to grab onto the railing while I’m walking up the steps, to constantly stumble into walls, to fall to my knees, to fall flat on my face, to be told I need to admit defeat before this kills me. Because I’m being tortured right now and we’re about to see which goes first, my mind or my body. The thing is, fortunate or not, that my guides can repair my body, reenergize my spirit, but only so much. Just barely enough to keep me functioning so I can put on my brave face in front of my family.

I wish they could just tell me what not to write. I wish they didn’t have to go all passive-aggressive on me and find ways to censor and silence me. This act is getting old. I’m putting it all on display. I am putting my body, mind and soul on the line for you, the least you could do is communicate your wants and needs clearly with me. I would say come in a dream where there is less interference, but I don’t dream these days because I don’t sleep. I can barely stand up.

This new year is almost upon us and if I had one take away it would be this: People can endure the unimaginable without losing the spark that makes them uniquely human. You can torture and degrade and taunt and threaten them, you can force them to keep secrets from those they love the most, you can make them work till they collapse in a heap, and people will keep going. They will keep going not because of some evolutionary survival instinct, but because they believe they are worthy of life and that their family is worthy to have them in their lives. I used to always utter the phrase ‘Ugh, I hate people. People are the worst.’ But I don’t think we are. I think we’re up against it. I think we entered a slaughter house and we only have each other for comfort.

Not only is this world hard at times, really hard, it is also governed by forces that actively seek to destroy those who would speak out against them. People, taken as a whole, are kind, caring, and compassionate because they can readily empathize with another’s suffering. We didn’t choose to come together as societies solely for the sake of convenience. We needed and wanted each other. We recognized ourselves in each other. Contrary to popular belief, people are not stupid creatures. We possess minds more advanced than any artificial intelligence and though we think through them everyday, we have only begun to plumb their depths. People are capable of greatness. People are capable of sweeping change. What motivates us to tackle the most serious issues of the day? Is it self-interest? It can’t be. I posit that it comes from faith in the human family, faith in our own inherent goodness, and a deep, abiding love for the generations of little ones who will be following in our stead.

I said it before, you knock me down and I will get back up. You want me to stop getting up you better hit me harder than silly insults and a few sleepless nights and a relapse or two. You’re going to have to sic the demon on me until I bleed out. Even then, it probably wouldn’t be enough. I was sent from the future to aid humanity in their struggles against the blackest tyranny. Did I end up getting turned and doing horrible things? Yes, and I will atone for every single life that felt the impact of me. But now I’m aligning with my original mission and I am going to make sure people hear as much truth as my friends see fit to confide in me.

Who will be left standing when this war is over? I hope against hope that free people will be left standing. But this is the past and we all know how the past went, don’t we? Nevertheless, we have the opportunity to be a catalyst for the greatest human growth spurt in history. If that doesn’t excite you, nothing will. We have the opportunity to implement, through civil, legal, institutional, and political channels the values that we are striving for in the realms of racial and economic equality, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, climate change, the opioid epidemic and so much more. And we have a chance to bring matters of the spirit out of the darkened pews and into the mainstream as the groundswell of stories of awakenings spread across the planet. They times they are a-changing.

I should end this piece, but I always have this fear that what I’ve written it so off the mark that they’ll poke me for it beyond the veil. That would not be a good day. This is why fiction is safer, because I don’t need to put myself on the line. Ah, well. You can’t win them all. I speak my truth, as I know it, and I have to be content with that.

Blessings to you on this New Year!

Be well,

Timothy