Sit down for a minute, my friend.  What’s going on?

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I’m constantly unsettled, frustrated, tired, and alone.  That pit keeps coming back up.  A good day here and there, but the next day, it’s all gone.  Back to square one in a way that’s an uphill climb, and I’m running out of juice to keep doing it day after day.  Just fucking exhausted, and every plate in the air is on the verge of falling and shattering.  Waiting with agonizing certainty for the point where this juggling act turns to disaster.  The end of the act almost brings a sense of excitement and relief.  Please let it end.  A new beginning and the unknown feel easier than digging out of this hole.  Sabotage even becomes a strategy; stop trying so hard, shut down, and maintain some semblance of control in the moment, even if the potential consequences are brutal.  It’s all brutal, so future consequences be damned today.  I just have to deal with today.

​

My marriage is falling apart.  It’s eroded to the point where every conversation is a competition between who wronged whom.  Who isn’t participating?  Who isn’t fulfilled?  Who’s at fault?  Who’s suffered more?  Whose trauma is worse?  Who’s more damaged?  There’s still love, still loyalty, still something that brings us back.  But is it toxic codependence or a glimmer of hope?  I feel like a glutton for punishment most days, standing naked against the whipping post, but those moments of connection, vulnerability, and affection serve as a reminder that what’s lost still exists somewhere in there.  How do you sustain it, though?  The stress is unbearable.  The constant distress, spiritual restlessness, mental anguish, and internal instability are pushed down and compartmentalized.  And the compartment is a bucket filled with bile and rage, brimming and leaking out to shatter the passing moments of peace.  A pot that fluctuates between a simmer and an uncontrolled boil.  Together, it’s a home with no cohesion, no direction, just a place to exist.  Drink away the sadness, the anger, the longing.  Find the off button somewhere, anywhere.  Because I have no place of escape or refuge, and I can’t fix whatever this has become.  What do you do when you’ve lost your home, your marriage, and your family but find yourself sitting in the midst of all that’s lost day after day?  Cover the problem, feign fine.  Swallow the exasperated sigh. 

​

Every productive talk is cut short by the other plates in the air.  The kids have needs, and schedules of their own.  The hour after bedtime isn’t enough to even diagnose the problem, express an honest feeling, move past the façade, the copes, the pride, the pain, past offenses, or the day’s own difficulties.  Always in fight or flight, never in peace.  How do you reach the infection?  Tomorrow there are practices; the next day, one of the kids is sick; the next day, a work obligation; the next day, more practices; the next day, I just want to sit for one fucking moment and not have a serious talk while I’m completely depleted.

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Divorce?  Yes, we throw it at each other like a grenade in the heat of battle.  Because, of course, this is war, and if no one relents, no one loses, right?  So, at least a proper shelling is followed by shocked silence.  Enough time to restock the ammunition for the next battle.  The foundation is just gone.  What was once my peace and my love is now my enemy.  And I can’t bring myself to put down my weapon or take the kill shot.  I can’t go, and I can’t stay.  I can’t find peace and quiet within or without.  I can’t find the right words to break through the fortified barriers of the person I now mostly see through the crosshairs.

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And money?  It brings no peace, only consternation, new fights, and opportunities for deception and distraction.  We both make plenty, and it’s all gone.  They spend constantly, as if to patch a hole in themselves with a deluge of tiny bandages.  Fleeting moments of purchased happiness compound the problem and require lies, anger, and indignation to defend.  It’s all gone, maxed out, and we’re playing catch-up with every dollar that comes in.  Getting buried deeper with every hour worked: spiritually, relationally, and financially.  I’m not working to create anything; I’m just working not to lose everything.  And they’re working to pretend there’s not a problem.  To justify the status quo and have enough leverage to avoid accountability.  Adding temporary reinforcements beneath a sinking home.  The indignation is more harmful than the money is helpful.  The number of “I’s” in every conversation exceeds the “We’s” to the point where “We” barely exist.  Bankruptcy is quickly becoming the only viable option, but if nothing changes, the spending, the secret credit cards, the lies, the heartbreak, the anger, the defensiveness, the total lack of vision and cohesion, then it too will only be a temporary remedy rather than a fresh start.  Just the basics, like our home, transportation, gas, daycare, food, healthcare, clothes, and the never-ending litany of unexpected expenses, are enough to turn six figures into pennies.  It’s already a suffocating monthly cycle that steals every waking moment, planning, paying, and working to afford.  We can’t add shopping addictions and self-righteous indulgences, which mask unacknowledged internal distress, to the budget. 

 

So that’s where I’m at—trying to decipher the difference between empowerment and self-destruction.  Do I dig in or let go?  Because I’m torn internally in every possible way.  Keeping a lid on everything I can.  Trying to control and manage the chaos while losing the grip on my sanity, my hope, and my capacity to keep caring.  Every utterance feels like the beginning of an argument.  Every feeling is stuffed back down because my duty is to absorb and not express.  Absorb the emotions, problems, and grievances of everyone around me and take it quietly.  Absorb the moments of love, passion, and joy, and remember it’s still possible even as they grow fewer and farther between.  Absorb the harsh words, the criticisms, the anger, and let the callouses harden.  Absorb their feelings and try to do better.  Always trying to do better.  They don’t see it, or at least don’t mention it for fear of yielding a small victory to an already-beaten enemy.  Maybe a couple of notes on a birthday or anniversary, saying thank you or giving credit for some personal growth or public accomplishment, but it never leads to true grace or the unconditional love they say they have.  The truce never lasts long enough to find our way back or to forge our way forward towards something new and better.  Just a constant cycle of charge and retreat, harm and apology, unite and divide, communication and silence.  I’m so tired and restless and in need of something I can’t find the words to describe.  I’m searching, but behind every door is a new danger, and under every rock is a new problem.  Like the universe is putting me through a never-ending tribulation I didn’t ask for and don’t deserve. 

​

    I love my spouse, but I can’t continue swallowing every word and feeling while yielding to every demand to appease them.  And when I do express even a modicum of what I’m feeling, I’m beyond fed up with it being taken as a personal attack and described as mean, hurtful, stupid, or factually incorrect.  I can’t be dismissed and heard in the same breath.  And I can’t speak honestly and be accountable for their emotions at the same time.  And now I’m at the point where my heart says “leave” as loudly as it says “speak.”  A fresh start here seems more daunting than a fresh start almost anywhere else.  At least anywhere else, I can take the lessons I’ve learned without the baggage of who I learned them with.

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I love my children more than anything, yet at the same time, they are the first “but” when I gather the courage to even consider acting upon that deep spiritual yearning to change.  I don’t want to destabilize, harm, or cause them to feel anything other than love and safety.  Yes, I want them to be brave and find who they are, but for me, I prefer the platitude over the practice.  It is better and more honorable to sacrifice my life at the altar of “what could have been” than to bring them on some irresponsible journey towards meaning and joy in my life.  There’s school pick-up, soccer games, bedtimes…need after need after need that I must be there to meet or else they’ll be as fucked up as I am.  I must be the best parent and compensate for the mistakes of my parents while simultaneously treating the hurt child within me the exact way my parents did.  So, I must be here, constantly and always, with a mix of duty and love, without regard for the feelings within me.  I know what must be done.  I understand what a tiny speck I am.  I must obey the order of things to attain any semblance of joy or success.  I must be patient and trust that things will work out.  And I must be compassionate towards everyone except myself.  Put on the brave face, wear the façade like a second skin, and find an outlet or a medication to bring the internal boil back to a simmer.  Maybe the answer is to find a hobby to fit somewhere between work, caretaking, arguing, tuning out, and daily bouts of disassociating. 

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I can’t keep doing this, but I’m stuck.  I’m stuck in this house that I can’t keep clean.  I’m stuck in this job that barely pays the bills and only keeps total financial calamity temporarily at bay.  I’m stuck spiritually between the version of me I portray and the version of me that I know is in there.  I’m stuck with these obligations and expenses that grow every year.  I’m stuck in this marriage where the ruts only become deeper.  I’m so stuck I can’t even imagine “different” and attaining it feels even more impossible.  I’m so stuck I don’t even trust myself to do “different” in a way that wouldn’t end up looking like a newer version of the same bullshit.  I can’t start over.  I can’t fix the mess I’m in.  I can’t catch my breath.  And I can’t give up.  So here I sit.

~

The big feelings that have built up are causing you to overlook the simple solutions.  Big changes that are meaningful and sustainable do not begin with grand proclamations and hollow gestures.  Change begins by being consistent in the things you’ve been too overwhelmed to start.  You will not fix a decade of slow and steady erosion by erratically changing course and expecting everyone around you to follow.  First, be solid for yourself.  The small choices you make within will slowly restore your joy, your confidence, your sense of direction, and your clarity.  Be practical and consistent.  Clean your house.  Not manically to feel control over your environment, but slowly and thoroughly to give yourself peace through order and constructive discipline.  If you cannot follow through in your kitchen, how will you follow through on any of the big changes you described?  The condition of your home reflects the condition of your life, so start making new choices with the small but very important things that are in your control to change today.  Do not expect help, reciprocation, gratitude, or immediate change within others because you are starting with you, not them.  You have contributed to the mess, literally and metaphorically, just as much as anybody else, so practice unconditional change first.  Choose to do rather than fight over what needs to be done.   

 

Change how you speak.  Tone and context are just as important as the words themselves.  You don’t need to be defensive if you’re not preparing for battle.  You don’t need to react to their body language and internalize their emotions.  You don’t need to seek disingenuous peace with your spouse when you have yet to address the hurt feelings and anger within you.  No decisions are made in chaos that feel the same in calm.  Trying to reorient yourself is not a group effort nor their responsibility, just as their internal stability is going to be derived independently of you.  The difference between codependence and healthy boundaries is a fine line that becomes blurred in the midst of frantic and rushed reconciliation.  You choose your words, so take ownership of those.  Do not provoke nor be provoked.  You are resetting the buttons within yourself that they press as an emergency exit from difficult conversations.  You also have the power to choose whether to press their buttons to gain some control over their emotional and mental capacity to hold you accountable.  Let it go.  Practice the type of conversation you’ve yearned for.  Be kind, be loving, be honest, be vulnerable, and stop mistaking your raw and unprocessed reactions as sincerity.  If you want love, kindness, honesty, and vulnerability, then build the bridge between you and your spouse using the tone and words that communicate that desire.  And the same goes for your children, in different but equal measures, using the same foundational intent.  At first, your tone and words will ring hollow, even induce conflict, to ears that are prepared to hear anger, frustration, resentment, apologies, and orders.  And you will feel many of those emotions as your effort goes unrewarded, questioned, tested, and unappreciated.  But it’s not for them; it’s for you.  You are not waiting; you are doing, you are choosing, and you are manifesting outside how you say you truly feel and how you want to feel inside.  So, even if your sincerity is questioned, you can lean on the spiritual assurance that your words are aligned with your intent.  Lead your family; be persistent and consistent in the change, and allow that new foundation to slowly stabilize the entire home.

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Properly prioritize your work.  There is no need to distract yourself with a form of escape you indulge in to feel some measure of success in the midst of perceived personal failures. You’re exhausted by the lack of purpose beyond fulfilling your obligation to keep the lights on and the fridge full, so put the job in the context it belongs.  It is a choice you make to incorporate into your day that has nothing to do with your identity or value as a human being.  It is not a tool to fix your family.  It is not a tool to compensate for past mistakes.  It is not a tool to mask your inner struggles by curating a public perception.  You are not going to work your way into balance.  You are not going to work your way into peace.  You are not going to work your way into meaning.  And you are not going to work your way into contentment.  Ten years ago, if I told you your salary today, you would have told me you would want for nothing.  Yet here you sit in a constant state of fear and deficit, foolishly believing another hundred thousand dollars is the solution to the problem.  And you dedicate yourself to your work, as if peace and prosperity are included in your Christmas bonus.  You’re physically, mentally, and spiritually distraught, and yet you have everything you were told to pursue because it would bring you happiness.  So, for now, do what is absolutely required of your job and nothing more.  Yes, that means saying no when it impedes one of your higher priorities that you have decided is more worthy of your time and attention.  Yes, that means less recognition of your “work ethic” and “irreplaceable contributions” that were always just used to manipulate you into accepting grossly inappropriate demands on your effort and energy beyond the scope and compensation of your position.  So-fucking-what?  You are becoming who you truly are, so put aside who you’ve been told to be.  Do only what is absolutely required and choose to put your effort into what actually matters while you put yourself back together.  Because when you let go of all the things you have told yourself you “must do,” you grant yourself the freedom to explore and realize what you want to do.  You’ve smothered your spirit in obligations, and now is the time to let it breathe. 

~

Beyond the practical steps are the existential considerations.  Use your intuition as fuel to grow your inner light, and let humility allow you to find clarity through honest introspection.  If everything you know feels wrong, then what do you know?  If you understand that you’re just a speck in the universe, then why does your spirit possess such magnitude?  If obedience is required for success, then why does compliance draw you further from purpose?  If patience is a virtue, then why do you feel compelled by your mind, body, and spirit to act?  If compassion negates harm, then why do they both grow together?  How are you supposed to make sense of what you’re feeling and what to do about it if your foundation is comprised of suppositions intended to undermine the exploration and discovery of who you are?  Who told you that you know anything?  Who told you that you understand anything?  Who told you to obey?  Who told you that you were insignificant and a mere speck of biological material when you are made in the very image of the Creator?  Who told you to have a thought and a prayer and a few dollars at the ready and sit idly by and watch harm and suffering infect humanity like a virus that spreads through our indifference?  Who told you that it will all work out if you just keep going in the wrong direction for long enough?  Who told you the soul is timeless, but the mind and body are temporary, and therefore you must seek safety and comfort in conformity?  Who told you consensus and tradition are equal to truth? Who told you that you owe everything you have and everything you are to everyone and everything but yourself?  Within is not where you go to find the resolve to accept; it is where you find the courage to change.  Without regard for the expectations and boundaries that confine your choices and transfer your sovereignty to a force outside of yourself. 

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You’re stuck because you see so few alternatives and they all have a striking similarity to your current circumstance.  They do not quell the disquieted spirit because they all seem to be leading towards the same end.  Find a new job.  Find a new spouse.  Find a new friend.  Find a new activity.  Find a new distraction.  Find a new religion.  Find a new ideology.  Look for a new version of the same things.  Always a treatment for the symptoms and never a cure for the disease.  The disease that none of this feels like the purpose or potential of existence.  The disease that feels like it's caused by the treatment itself, always looking for external validation and immediate relief.  You accept as true the division of humanity according to arbitrary beliefs, vocations, traditions, roles, and rituals, and see transformation only in the context assigned to you.  Maybe if we are all feeling the same thing-alienated from our nature, separated from each other, stripped of our free will, and unable to discern truth from fiction-then perhaps this darkness is individually overcome when it is collectively acknowledged.  How many of us have the will to fight alone what has been characterized as a mental or spiritual deficiency within a person or particular culture, rather than a common experience that unites all people?  If it’s just me or just you experiencing this internal struggle, then I guess we can dismiss its significance and hide it, but if it’s all of us, then we’re simply performing in a play about the silent subjugation and destruction of the human spirit.  Are we so dedicated to appearances that we will accept a role in the codification of contrived divisions that minimize the power of honesty and openness in fellowship?  Or will we find truth in authenticity?

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Stop trying to convince yourself that what you experience externally is more real than what you feel internally.  Your choices are not limited to the binary that is presented, nor are they subject to the false constraints made to keep you in a cycle of anguish and self-sacrifice.  You can choose to see reality through the spiritual lens that allows us to see beyond the prevailing narratives.  You can choose to keep your anger, or you can choose to let it go.  You can choose to keep shame and regret, or you can choose to let it go.  You can choose to give away your energy and effort, or you can choose to use it towards empowerment and discovery.  You can choose to sit in your self-loathing and take out your frustrations on those closest to you, or you can choose to change your circumstances.  You can choose to ignore your intuition and instincts, or you can choose to follow them.  You can choose to be trapped, or you can choose to be free.  It is a lie that the limitations are real, and you choose to believe it.  That all the things and people you described as a hindrance are also not a source of strength and motivation.  You choose to beg forgiveness for every ‘sin’ instead of giving thanks for every lesson.  You choose to keep people in a stagnant role, as friend or adversary or opportunity or obstacle, so you can maintain the illusion that the forces around you are the reason you can’t access the force within you.  Seek nothing from others that you have not found in yourself.  Find courage within, and you’ll see it everywhere.  Find peace within, and you’ll see it everywhere.  Find love within, and you’ll see it everywhere.  Find hope within, and you’ll see it everywhere.  Find faith within, and you’ll see it everywhere.  Find grace within, and you’ll see it everywhere.  Find balance within, and you’ll see it everywhere.  The illusion falls away when you stop sifting through external distractions looking for the things you already possess.  You don’t have to disprove the illusion, just choose not to indulge it, and withdraw your consent to be limited by it.  If you’re going to sit, sit in prayer.  Sit in meditation.  Sit in thought.  Sit in reflection.  Sit in quiet.  Sit in fellowship.  Let the Creator within you think.  Let Christ within you feel.  Let the Holy Spirit within you speak. 

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You are not required to accept a premise created to subvert, diminish, and control your humanity.  We have strayed so far from the spirit of the Golden Rule that we have turned it into an exchange rate in an increasingly transactional world, rather than using it as the foundation of true fellowship. A clear mandate to protect our sacred bond through genuine care and unconditional consideration, eroded by a litany of exclusions and exceptions, making a basic truth malleable and better suited to accentuate resentment and conflict.  Freedom is not how you respond or react to people and circumstances; it is what you choose to give regardless of what you receive.  Because “unconditional” is not subject to the distractions and narratives that are designed to destroy the human bond.  No one must earn my unconditional love; I choose to give it as freely and plentifully as I wish to receive it and as I already do receive it from the Creator.  No one must earn my forgiveness; I choose to give it as freely and plentifully as I wish to receive it and as I already have from the Creator.  No one must earn my kindness; I choose to give it as freely and plentifully as I wish to receive it, and as I already do receive it from the Creator.  No one must earn my mercy, my time, my respect, my humanity; I choose to give it as freely and plentifully as I wish to receive it and as I already do receive it from the Creator.  By giving unconditionally what God has given me unconditionally, I find His peace, His balance, and His power within myself.   And when I find those things, the force that held me against my will is now subject to my will.

~

So, if you want to be divorced.  If you want to start over.  If you want to be free.  Then, be divorced from the real source of your enmity.  Divorce yourself from resentment.  Divorce yourself from expectations.  Divorce yourself from assumptions based on what you think you know and understand.  Divorce yourself from shallow conversations and ideological rigidities where you try to save something that needs to be lost and hold on to something that you must let go.  Divorce yourself from the role you play, the mask you wear, and the lies you hold as truth.  Divorce yourself from the constraints you have chosen to accept and the idea that obtaining enough of what has left you empty will somehow make you full.  Loose yourself from the mental, physical, and spiritual shackles, both real and imagined, that exist only through your obedience, and take hold of the free will granted to every man, woman, and child in equal measure by the Creator.  Choice is not just our gift; it is our power.  Relinquishing choice is the source of the infection.  Using it is the cure.  Choose first to reject the premise, then divorce yourself from the mirage, and use your humanity to find what is real.

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Be divorced from your spouse, and all the false notions and pretenses that comprise the box in which you find yourself.  See the person, not the job, duty, opponent, or impediment.  There is no limitation nor set of requirements that are inherent to the human bond.  Any box that subverts the beauty of connection and the autonomous individual experience with an inauthentic code of conduct and an endless list of expectations is born not of God, but of deception for the purpose of creating disunity.  Put down your weapon and pick up your free will.  No need to inflict harm if your intent is to love, show kindness, uplift, inspire, support, and share your life.  Giving up your purpose and autonomy has never been a prerequisite for treating another human being with the dignity, love, and grace that we all deserve.  What a horrific affront to the intent of existence and the reality of human potential to teach sacrifice as a virtue and free will as a selfish inclination that threatens the marriage bond.  The only threat we face is continuing to believe that a religious, economic, and governmental arrangement intended to control and stifle fellowship is there to enhance it.  Know the tree by its fruits.  The conditions and constraints of the marriage contract are not only corrosive to the supposed purpose of honest, open support and unity, but it is also why you feel stuck.  It is why you feel enclosed in a structure foreign to your spirit.  It is why your body must be subdued and your mind distracted.  Because two souls never become one, and two people never share a singular path.  Becoming one flesh is not the denial of self and rejection of autonomy; it is the practice of undistilled communication leading to a spiritual depth and mutual respect founded in truth.  Trying to march in unison when your pace and direction are unique only to you, creates an untenable strain that leads to resentment, anger, callousness, and spiritual resignation.  To enhance and encourage, not consolidate and constrain, is the nature of the sacred bond between individuals.  Do not let the ring bind you as it is intended; instead, let it be a reminder of your freedom and the power of choice.  It is the real human bond that keeps you choosing to come back.  It is the real human bond that causes you to choose love through pain.  It is the real human bond that causes you to choose kindness when it is not reciprocated.  And it is the real human bond that will inspire you to pursue, with a renewed fervor and spirit of possibility, the purpose you have sacrificed at the altar of false unity and disingenuous appeasement.  Who has asked you to put down your potential and pick up this overwhelming anger and resentment?  Who has asked you to swallow your hope and pick up the resignation eroding the spirit of your household?  Certainly not your spouse, who suffers in your misery and wants nothing more than to be inspired by you and with you.  Not your spouse, who chose you because they connected to the fire in your spirit and wanted to bask in the glow of your purpose and potential.  So, divorce yourself from the marriage contract and pick back up the human bond that brought you together in the first place to share a life, not an obligation, because that human bond is boundless, energizing, empowering, and founded upon the unconditional love of and from the Creator.  Let the peace of self-determination and renewed authority over the choices before you create the balance that has evaded your relationship. 

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Find what you seek by creating it within and sharing it with others without constraint or reservation.  We are not empty vessels waiting to be filled by some external force that claims sacred knowledge or divine power.  The God that made us in Their image, equal and good, is within each one of us.  All the love, power, knowledge, and wisdom of the Creator are imbued within, not without.  So, turn inward and connect with the source of existence.  Turn towards nature and find the balance and beauty of Creation, and be reminded that you are an integral part of it and just as in need of care as all the things you care for.  Restore your humanity by slowing down and remembering the fundamentals that were lost in the chaos.  Love unconditionally, forgive unceasingly, show mercy immeasurably, and be kind always.  Leave judgment, anger, and inadequacy at the steps of the church from which they are derived, and pick up the mantle of fearless sovereignty, honest introspection, and unwavering fellowship.  Explore what’s inside you and stop mistaking the estrangement between your inner and outer self for a chasm between you and the people you love.  You can choose to continue characterizing your spiritual intuition as an impossible charge in your current circumstance…Or you can transcend the conventions designed to erode your humanity, let go of everything you think you know and understand, refuse to participate in the cycle of trauma that leaves us all feeling empty and lost, and let the Spirit finally speak to a listening ear. 

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How would we treat each other and respect ourselves if the human being were the embodiment of the real Trinity?  If the trinity were not some fixture of false doctrine, where we must obey and accept it to the detriment of our true nature.  The mind is God, the body is Christ, and the spirit is the Holy Spirit that guides us toward truth even when our reality is shaped by lies constructed to contain, control, and traumatize.  What a cruel inversion of truth we have been subjected to, to be convinced that we are sinful, unworthy, and weak rather than the physical manifestation of the sacred.  Would you harm the sacred?  Would you speak cruelly to the sacred?  Would you seek control over the sacred?  Would you judge the sacred?  Would you condemn the sacred?  Would you destroy the sacred?  Freedom is not found in denying what we feel so deeply in our souls.  It is found in the balance between the elements of this internal holy trinity.  Love it; embrace the power and beauty within yourself, and choose to see it in others.  The battle we face is not amongst each other, but rather in overcoming conventions and seeing the reality beyond the rituals of institutionalized disempowerment.  Divorce yourself from the impediments to fellowship and see your only responsibility as expressing the love, grace, peace, and hope that are inherent in your mind, body, and spirit.

~

Be divorced from parenthood.  What guidance do you offer in your dispirited condition?  What peace do you offer while overwhelmed and filled with chaos?  What wisdom do you offer in the midst of misunderstanding?  What balance do you offer when your mind, body, and spirit are at odds rather than in harmony?  You know what you have been told is a lie, and what you do every day is a distortion of possibility.  You lie restless in a puddle of emotions, a soulless performance of life meant to drain you of the energy to change and the mental capacity to think beyond the forces that compel you to obey and abide.  Your children exhaust you because they are fighting tooth and nail against the force you are dragging them towards.  The force that feeds off your continued consent and cooperation to exist in direct conflict with the Creator’s design. 

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How dangerous and destructive to believe we know so much yet know so little.  To see ourselves as instructors passing down the keys that have failed to unlock a single door for us, rather than students.  To believe we are “tied down” rather than “tied to” our children in a shared adventure.  Are they a blank slate bent on ignorance and disobedience in need of our misplaced correction and blind guidance?  No, they are a soul sent in human form to teach, learn, and experience.  How dare we strive so fervently to give them limitations and tether them to false doctrines, while they desperately try to pull us back towards the spiritual simplicity and freedom that we abandoned in search of material success and the emptiness of public regard.  Their first lesson, in fact, is to let us feel their perfection at birth, when we look down upon a flawless creation in our arms, so that we may be reminded that our nature is not sinful, it is glorious.  How adversarial have we become with our children?  Big spirits in small bodies to be locked in a battle of truth with little spirits in big bodies.  Your complete disaffection with this false reality is just you relearning what they already know.  So, instead of erasing who and what they are, glorify it, see it, and reinforce the truth within them by acknowledging the truth within you.  Give them a head start by refusing to lead them to the web of deception.  Imagine the progress and power that a generation unencumbered by indoctrination can experience and create.

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So, stop with the fake smiles, the tales of success and failure, the contrived expectations, the myth of edification through harm, and the environment you create in your own home that reflects exactly what you’re trying to break free from in your life today.  Stop leading them to the dead end where you find yourself.  Include them in your adventure, and let them include you in theirs.  Let their courage to try and passion for new experiences inspire you to follow their example.  Tell them the truth, not as you think you know it, but as you feel it and rediscover it as you move forward.  Show them they can listen to their spirit as you do so yourself.  Do not fill their mind and stifle their creativity; tell them to use it, and leave that harmful notion of intellectual superiority at the feet of genuine humility and openness.  Tell them this is not real, so they can use their unaltered and untethered intuition to find what is.  Tell them your mistakes, not so they can navigate the system better, but so they can see beyond it.  Tell them about that pit in your stomach and what it means.  Let them tell you about peace if you have not broken theirs in the name of authority, and if you have, find it together.  Let them tell you about God and the meaning of existence if you have not obstructed their pure connection to the Creator in the name of false salvation through religious adherence, and if you have, re-establish that direct connection within each of you together.  They just arrived here from the source, and they have much to teach if you look beyond age, language, and allow yourself to feel what they have to say.  They are soaked in the spirit, and we have been told they must be washed in conformity to become an acceptable sacrifice to the force of human subversion.  You are searching for spirit, and their cup runneth over. Stop pouring it out and instead soak it in.  The symmetry between child and parent is found in the exchange of information between old life and new life, not in the passing down of physical, mental, and spiritual chains.  Your exhaustion is not from your children; it is from what you hide from them, refusing the opportunity to learn and grow together, so you can hold onto the notion that you have authority over them.  You are not meant to be their first master; you are supposed to be their first friend, their first protector from all the arrows of physical, mental, and spiritual harm pointed in their direction from birth, and to be their first and most trusted source of truth in a world built upon lies and omissions.  They are the unblemished image of God, and have the Creator, Christ, and the Holy Spirit within them.  Yet you see a power struggle to be won through force, obedience, coercion, and indoctrination, rather than a partnership that will lead you to see the unblemished trinity that remains within yourself.  God gave you the opportunity to create life, to experience that awesome power, and to realize that all the power of the universal force is imbued in you as well.  Now you get to choose what to do with it.  Because with the power to create comes the power to destroy.  Will you ravage their spirit, infect their mind, and burden their body for the sake of maintaining norms and appearances?  Or will you choose to leave their free will intact, their resolve strengthened, their imagination untethered, and their mind clear, and in turn, do the same for yourself?

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Be divorced from your work.  The transaction will never be worth the distraction.  And as you ignore the sinking feeling and subdue the desire for something different, everything outside of work becomes a means to convince yourself to keep going.  The frustration builds and seeps into all that is good, eroding the joy you find beyond your job.  “This cannot be it” is right, but “it” takes all your time and energy, just as planned.  Drained of inspiration, of fight, of imagination, your circumstance becomes a life sentence in a prison of your own making.  We are not paid to work; we are paid to lay down our spirit and participate in a hollow substitute for the purpose of existence.  To never see, nor even glance beyond, the obligations and tasks of our day-to-day.  To believe the lie that on the other side of the prison fence is nothing but a void of weeping and gnashing teeth, while we face exactly that right now.  What could be a worse fate than what we face today if we were to choose differently?  More poverty, more sickness, more anxiety, more depression, more uncertainty, more strife?  So, you’ve sold your soul to achieve a manageable amount of dread, but you won’t reclaim your soul and listen to it because you’re more scared that hope won’t pay the light bill?  Where did your faith go?  Did you lose it in a church, give it to a government, or lend it to a career that plunders your energy?  All three are erected as an inversion of the trinity within you.  And all three are used to distract you with the idea that you are being “saved” while being exploited, that comparatively, you’re “fine” while your potential is stolen, and that total dedication will eventually quell your second thoughts.  The only goal is to deplete your mind, body, and spirit until your withered and broken shell can be safely discarded in an empty house with a set of golf clubs that you’ll mistake as a “legacy.”  In the best-case scenario, you’ll have a few dollars to leave your children that they’ll spend shockingly faster than it took you to earn it.  In the best-case scenario, you’ll have the money to afford the treatments and medications to extend your life so that longevity can at least serve as a consolation for all that you sacrificed and all the missed opportunities to experience unimaginable fullness and contentment that you pushed aside as unrealistic to comply with conventions.  And in the best-case scenario, you’ll sell your soul for a high enough price that the institutions that bought it will reward you with sufficient honors, titles, and flattery to buy your silence while they lure the next generation to the same fate using you as an idol.  You become the false hope, the prophet that beckons the innocent and unsuspecting to sacrifice contentment, sovereignty, and inner peace at the altar of public success.  And you won’t say a word of truth, only extoll the virtues of compliance and conformity, because when you subdue the spirit and put on the mask enough times, eventually you forget you’re wearing one.

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This is the best-case scenario, my friend.  A far cry from the desperation of the weekly fight for subsistence and survival you find yourself in.  Where, as designed, no matter how hard you work or how much inside of you is pushed down and ignored, the hole only seems to grow deeper.  You’re frantic and scared and exhausted on the inside, yet already practicing the silent, resolute, and strong façade as you tell your own spouse and children that your current path is one of purpose, prosperity, success, and wholeness.  On a good day, you convince yourself of your own lies, and the rest of the time, you feverishly search for a way out within the institutions that are built to provide no such exit.  Be divorced from your work and recognize the weeping and gnashing of teeth within and around you now.  And that it is not what lies on the other side of exercising your free will against the norms and expectations placed upon you.  If externally everything feels like a hollow substitute for what could be, believe it.  If internally everything feels wrong and chaotic, believe it.  If you do not consent to the conditions you find yourself in, choose to withdraw your consent.  If the voice within tells you to pause, then pause.  There is no need to indulge the inertia of past mistakes or choose among curated paths that are repugnant to your soul.  We are all created in the image of God: sacred and good.  The mind, body, and spirit know exactly what to do if we are still for long enough to tune back in, and we can choose to listen, or we can do ourselves the disservice of seeking avoidance and distraction.  You said, “So here I sit,” and what a perfect place that is to lay down your arms, let go of your plans, tune out the diversions, and reconnect to the universal force within you.  The balance you seek is inside.  The peace you seek is inside.  The wisdom you seek is inside.  The love you seek is inside.  The guidance you seek is inside.  The understanding you seek is inside.  The purpose you seek is inside.  The acceptance you seek is inside.  The courage you seek is inside.  The power you seek is inside.  The resolve to act upon your sacred intuition is inside.  There is but one church, and it is inside; the doors are always open, and the Creator is always there waiting to greet you.

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The free will of man knows no bounds when it is derived from the sovereign self rather than the institutions built to contain and control it.  Salvation is not found in obedience, nor in the acceptance of untenable circumstances, nor in believing the blasphemy of some sinful or deficient nature.  Salvation is found in the individual journey of manifesting the faith, love, grace, peace, and hope imbued in our mind, body, and spirit in all the ways we treat our fellow man.  Saved through fellowship, in the here and now, not a lifetime away after we have been used to perpetuate the innumerable harms that sever our sacred connection.  See through the doctrines to the opportunity.  What you seek, what I seek, and what we seek is brought to fruition through how we choose to speak, act, and think towards ourselves and to each other.  We are all equal and made magnificently in the image of the Creator.  Do not accept any premise that undermines that truth, and you will find the extent to which we have been deceived.