Let's Talk About Toxic

This blog comes with a disclaimer: ORM does not support or encourage victim acceptance, passive or otherwise. No one should experience their life in perpetual fear, but most of us do, at certain times/moments in our lives, all over our world. This perspective might feel uncomfortable in some way. This is simply because we seek to challenge our own (as well as our collective) thoughts and beliefs about everything. We stipulate here that the true essence of the word toxic is clear and present danger; so if that is where you’re actually living, we encourage you to please reach out for support until you find it. Believe that you are worth your best experiences and your most impossible dreams. Know that every part of your journey has roots, reason and purpose beyond the immediate and obvious. If you can know this to be true, mind and body, your boundaries will naturally occur in a way that lets you relax and feel yourself in Wholeness. It might be the last thing you want to hear, but it remains true.

So let’s talk about Toxic. What does the current definition of ‘toxic relationships’ encompass, and why do we think that removing the most challenging people from our lives should somehow solve the issue? Do we actually believe that we can keep ourselves from experiencing harm within our personal spaces by setting ‘I will not tolerate…’-style boundaries? – Or are we just sick of dealing with disappointment, and don’t know what else to do?

These boundaries we all create aren’t pulled from thin air. We will all impose limits in response to the things that have already hurt us in some way, and/or the things we fear may hurt us in the future. Seems reasonable–even helpful, right? In actual practice, these precautions can just as easily act as energetic barriers that serve to cover up/protect us from our unacknowledged and/or unprocessed feelings about the things. In most cases, the things we try hardest to keep at bay root directly to the emotions that caused us to begin to create ‘protections’ in the first place!

This evolving connotation of toxic companies, things, behaviors and people has everyone’s judgment on high alert, so abandoning certain relationships can begin to seem reasonable, even necessary, without complete consideration. In reality, this practice will eventually drive us further apart from everyone, as it becomes easier to effect. Conflict is a vital part of our existence that offers ongoing opportunities for us to participate in tolerance and compromise. It is the only way for us to truly care for ourselves, as a human race, because it forces a bigger perspective. It’s not often that we stop to see ourselves from that outside view, but when we do, we are able to see things that look toxic up close with a lot more understanding and acceptance. In the depths of our own ignorance lies a tremendous well of unacknowledged truth. There is something valuable to gain from our uncomfortable and/or unsettling situations, and simply cutting ties with them fails to acknowledge the root causes and effects of our own underlying triggers. Organically, a need to protect ourselves grows from our uneasy feelings, prompting us to act in some form of self-defense –emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and/or our most popular human method - physically. It has become tacitly agreed that removing the offender from our personal energy space gives us the room we need to think clearly, but underneath it all, what we really seek is the ability to breathe more clearly in our physical environments, internal and external.

Unequivocally, there are many types of behaviors we don’t want near us, and shouldn’t have to tolerate in the land of fairness…but of course we live here on earth. Negative people, behaviors and words exist all around us, making us feel some kind of way, on any given day. For some of us, it’s every single day. In reaction to those feelings, many of us have become deeply conditioned to obtain and secure comfortable environments and conditions, all but ensuring that we are shielded from experiencing a lack of basic needs.

The rest of us continue to seek these things, unless or until the will to do so stalls somewhere in our development. I know we can largely agree that “WE WOULD REALLY LIKE FOR IT TO ALL STOP— RIGHT NOW!”, and I can definitely identify with the strong desire to give up caring, especially when it seems to not make a difference. My Ego Voice will always make a strong case in favor of doing just that. I am a Libra, after all, and fairness is the backbone of my hard-wired style of reasoning. My first instinct is likely to be reactive and protective because I have some deep-rooted abandonment issues. Knowing this helps me remember to breathe, nudging me towards a more soulful way to look at things, where I can let my guard down and see more clearly.

In 55 years on the planet, I’ve learned that our ideas/opinions about fairness are as varied as our reasons for justifying the things that we want. And also, that

those two things become entangled and compromised again and again, as we repeat the pattern of redefining our belief systems to accommodate new allowances and/or judgments. No matter how loud or long my Ego spends justifying its reasoning, my Soul Voice maintains a constant presence in the quiet background, reminding me of my connection to all that is, and gently encouraging me to engage with my uncomfortable spaces; aware of my emotions and letting them lead me through conflict with genuine healing.

My plea, if I may insert one here, is that we make it a practice to revisit our personal definition of toxic, and be willing to flesh it out a little. If a situation is not causing us actual harm, perhaps we can find more tolerance than we were originally willing to offer? It might not work out as a possibility, but it is worth some additional consideration, especially if we use the Our Raw Material structure to help support us through the really sticky stuff, so that we can feel our own personal Wholeness, even when we feel fear.

Consider for a moment that each of our feelings, even the most uncomfortable and negative among them, means something to our Soul. The way our Souls look at humanity, we aren’t divided at all. We simply exist in a profoundly ingrained set of matter and patterns that have, over time, ‘forgotten’ their connections to each other. I believe this is why our human existence is unable to sustain what we have come to view as eternal life. I know that’s a lot to imagine all at once, but stay with me…

I know that is a lot to take in all at once. I have been trying to wrap my own head around these concepts since I was very young, and all I can really come up with as proof are the thousands of ‘coincidences’ that have occurred in my life, and the ramped up progression of them that has been the direct result of practicing Our Raw Material as we have tested it time and again to see if it really works the way my guides have led me to believe it would. In four years of testing, our belief in the power of this simple structure has grown exponentially, and we believe it gives each of us the power to appreciate the circumstances of our lives with renewed interest and curiosity. It’s fascinating to watch us all work to heal ourselves in the best ways we know, internally striving for something that feels wholly integrated, mind and body, ego and soul. Mental Peace.