An interview with Jim Morrison by Lizzie James

The end of 2015 is fast approaching and it brings with it an opportunity to reflect upon the year that was and set new direction and purpose for the year ahead.

As I was trolling through files today I came across this interview with Jim Morrison which is a perfect reflection of how I am now choosing to live my life by feeling my way through each day.  Some days I am successful, some days I allow the pressures of the fears of others and my own fears to overcome me and I dismiss opportunities to feel my true self.  this is something that I am working on every day. Every day I pray for the humility to be my real self - the me that God created.  In order to find this pristine self I must first wade through all the crap that has been dumped upon me as a child and added to by myself as an adult.  It is a slow and painful process but one which I believe is absolutely necessary if I am ever to reveal the real me that God created.

My prayer for 2016 is that I will have the courage to open more fully to humility and allow myself to feel more fully the broken and hidden parts of myself.

I hope you too can resonate with these very wise words from Jim Morrison.

Interview with Jim Morrison - http://www.cinetropic.com/morrison/james.html 

Lizzie James: I think fans of The Doors see you as a saviour, the leader who'll set them all free. How do you feel about that? It's kind of a heavy burden, isn't it?

Jim Morrison: It's absurd. How can I set free anyone who doesn't have the guts to stand up alone and declare his own freedom? I think it's a lie--people claim they want to be free--everybody insists that freedom is what they want the most, the most sacred and precious thing a man can possess. But that's bullshit! People are terrified to be set free-they hold on to their chains. They fight anyone who tries to break those chains. It's their security....How can they expect me or anyone to set them free if they don't really want to be free?

Lizzie: Why do you think people fear freedom?

Jim: I think people resist freedom because they're afraid of the unknown. But it's ironic ... That unknown was once very well known. It's where our souls belong ... The only solution is to confront them -- confront yourself -- with the greatest fear imaginable. Expose yourself to yourself to your deepest fear. After that, fear has no power, and fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.

Lizzie: What do mean when you say "freedom"?

Jim: There are different kinds of freedom -- there's a lot of misunderstanding ... The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your senses for an act. You give up your ability to feel and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.

You can take away a man's political freedom and you won't hurt him -- unless you take away his freedom to feel. That can destroy him.

Lizzie: But how can anyone else have the power to take away from your freedom to feel?

Jim: Some people surrender their freedom willingly--but others are forced to surrender it. Imprisonment begins with birth. Society, parents; they refuse to allow you to keep the freedom you are born with. There are subtle ways to punish a person for daring to feel. You see that everyone around you has destroyed his true feeling nature. You imitate what you see.

Lizzie: Are you saying that we are, in effect, brought up to defend and perpetuate a society that deprives people of the freedom to feel?

Jim: Sure ... teachers, religious leaders-even friends, or so-called friends -- take over where the parents leave off. They demand that we feel the only feelings they want and expect from us. They demand all the time that we preform feelings for them. We're like actors-turned loose in this world to wander in search of a phantom ... endlessly searching for a half-forgotten shadow of our lost reality. When others demand that we become the people they want us to be, they force us to destroy the person we really are. It's a subtle kind of murder ... the most loving parents and relatives commit this murder with smiles on their faces.

Lizzie: Do you think it's possible for an individual to free himself from these repressive forces on his own -- all alone?

Jim: That kind of freedom can't be granted. Nobody can win it for you. You have to do it on your own. If you look to somebody else to do it for you -- somebody outside yourself -- you're still depending on others. You're still vulnerable to those repressive, evil outside forces, too.

Lizzie: But isn't it possible for people who want that freedom to unite -- to combine their strength, maybe just to strengthen each other? It must be possible.

Jim: Friends can help each other. A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself-and especially to feel. Or not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to -- letting a person be what he really is ... Most people love you for who you pretend to be ... To keep their love, you keep pretending -- preforming. You get to love your pretence ... It's true, we're locked in an image, an act -- and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image -- they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forgot all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it -- they feel like you're trying to steal their most precious possession.

Lizzie: It's ironic -- it's sad. Can't they see that what you're trying to show them is the way to freedom?

Jim: Most people have no idea what they're missing. Or society places a supreme value on control -- hiding what you feel. Our culture mocks "primitive cultures" and prides itself on suppression of natural instincts and impulses.

Lizze: In some of your poetry, you openly admire and praise primitive people -- Indians, for instance. Do you mean that it's not human beings in general but our particular society that's flawed and destructive?

Jim: Look at how other cultures live --peacefully, in harmony with the earth, the forest -- animals. They don't build war machines and invest millions of dollars in attacking other countries whose political ideals don't happen to agree with their own.

Lizze: We live in a sick society.

Jim: It's true ... and part of the disease is not being aware that we're diseased ... Our society has too much to hold on to, and value -- freedom ends up at the bottom of the list.

Lizze: But isn't there something an artist con do? If you didn't feel you, as an artist, could accomplish something, how could you go on?

Jim: I offer images -- I conjure memories of freedom that can still be reached -- like The Doors, right? But we can only open the doors -- we can't drag people through. I can't free them unless they want to be free -- more than anything else ... Maybe primitive people have less bullshit to let go of, to give up. A person has to be willing to give up everything -- not just wealth. All the bullshit he's been taught -- all society brainwashing. You have to let go of all that to get to the other side. Most people aren't willing to do that.

Humility in Practice - Learning to embrace Every opportunity and God's great Love.

This journey towards understanding and living humility is much more challenging that I thought and it is taking longer than I had imagined.  I guess that is a good thing.  In the midst of the final wedding preparations for my youngest daughter's wedding I am finding that I am easily distracted by earthly things and not taking every opportunity to focus and grow in humility.  My reflections on the second interview on humility will follow in the coming days in the meanwhile I would like to share this entry from my journal from this morning as I feel that it fits well here.

Thursday 9^th May 2013

This past week has been one of resistance.  Everything has been difficult.  I have been tired all of the time and not sleeping very well.  Lots of fear is coming up when I go to bed at night and it is often well past midnight before I get to sleep. I feel overwhelmed and confused and have been making very poor food choices – not eating vegan and as a result eating foods that I am now finding disagree with me – mostly white bread and dairy which have been my comfort foods.  I guess God is showing me that what appears to be short term comfort actually produces long term discomfort. It is just not worth it! And all this is occurring I the midst of a two month focus on humility!  It is showing me that I am not yet very humble and that I do not yet trust God fully. And I am paying the price for this!

There have been many opportunities to welcome humility in the past couple of weeks, some of which I have embraced, many of which I have brushed aside. And I am realizing over and over again just how far away I feel from God on a moment by moment basis.

But then, in the midst of my denial and avoidance there have been some precious moments of connection - both with God and with my ever-patient soulmate.

And this is what keeps me going.

It is as if God is reaching out a hand and touching my heart and saying “I’m still here – do not give up”.

I am so very grateful for these moments of connection, however fleeting they may be, because they remind me of God’s unwavering Love and bring me back to myself.  Without these precious moments of connection it would be all too easy to give up and go back to a life of avoidance and addiction, of blindness and error. 

But these moments are so powerful and moving and it is as if I can hear God saying “Don’t give up. I am here with you every step of the way.  I will never leave you.  You are not alone.  Have faith and you will find your way back to Me. I will help you clear away all of the muck and debris that blocks your path home. Trust this. Do not give up.  The road back is fraught with danger while the road ahead might be bumpy, and at times seem overwhelming, it is the only way home and you must have faith and courage and forge ahead.  I am waiting to show you My Kingdom.  I am walking beside you every step of the way.  Turn to Me when in doubt and I will find a way to help you.  Trust this.  Trust Me. I love you – you are my precious child and you are only just beginning to tap into and understand the depth of My Love for you.  Don’t give up. Stay the course and your rewards will be great.  Trust this.  Trust My Love for you. I am here with you. Always.”

As I write this I can feel my heart opening and tears are flowing as the warmth of the autumn sun caresses my back and the cool autumn breeze kisses my face.  This has come through me and not from me and I am grateful.  I know that God is real and that She is kind, patient, loving and persistent.  She does not judge, she just observes and waits and Loves.  And I realize that these are qualities that are still so foreign to me that I find myself longing to be like God in these qualities. Far too often I find myself becoming impatient, judging or criticizing myself or others or just giving up temporarily because it all seems too hard.

And it is hard because I do not yet fully trust God in this process. And because I am not yet humble enough to simply embrace what God is trying to teach me without question. I find that I still question everything  - I still look for an easier way out.  I still look for that ever elusive fast forward button – and there is none! There is only here and now - this moment. My challenge it to learn to embrace every moment and to be fully present in my life.  To learn to catch myself drifting away without judgement or criticism and have empathy and compassion for my injured self – without excuses!  I need to let go of despair and doubt and embrace humility more fully and completely.  I need to grow in faith and hope that God’s Love can and will transform my soul if I will allow it.

I pray for more moments of deep connection to light my path.

Where would I be without God in my life? What would my life look like? I can only imagine the answers to these questions.  So, for me now the only way forward is with God. 

Please Mother teach me to trust. Teach me to embrace fully every opportunity that You give me to grow in humility and love.  Please Father, help me to overcome the obstacles that prevent Your Love from transforming my soul into a divine child of God. Teach me to love.

Lessons from the movie The Road

Yesterday I watched the movie “The Road” in an attempt to feel into some fears around earth changes which we will likely to be soon experiencing. 

This is a movie set in post war America some time in the future where the landscape is totally annihilated.  Everything is gray, bleak, dirty and cold, including the human condition.  I thought that this movie might trigger in me emotions around surviving earth changes but I found I had very little emotional connection with the movie.  Either I have worked through a lot of these emotions from watching “The Book of Eli” or I was in total denial.  I just could not believe that the human condition would sink so low in this time in history or even at some distant time in the future.  There has no doubt been a time in history when humans did sink this low (and perhaps even lower) and as always there remain little rays of hope in even the most desolate and desperate of conditions, but for me, this scenario did not seem real nor plausible at this time. And I would like to believe that as we raise our collective condition of love, with God’s Grace, there will never again be a time in human history when we revert to the bleakness and hopelessness that this picture portrays.  I suspect that it did however portray a fairly good depiction of life in the hells of the spirit world, a place that we all no doubt want to avoid.

After the movie I allowed myself to just sit with my feelings and watch what would surface.  Fear. Disbelief. Grief. 

I asked myself - how is it that the human condition could sink this low?  What is my part in this?

Eventually I had the realization that every time I choose to live in my fear and anger I contribute to the overall degradation of the human condition, but when I choose to face my fears and feel my grief love can now flow into my soul and the power of love is infinitely greater than the power of fear.  Jesus (as AJ) has taught us many times that Fear blocks Love.  Fear and Love can not exist in the same space.

My task then is to feel my fears, with God, release my anger, shame and grief and allow Love and Truth to govern every aspect of my life. This task is easier, quicker and much more effective if I allow God to guide me in this process.  This is called self-responsibility and God-reliance. 

I recognize that no mater how an error entered my soul, I alone am responsible for how that error affects my life. I alone can feel and release these errors, but when I relax into the process and Trust God, the process is much more rewarding.

I know this.

I have experienced this on numerous occasions.

So why then do I find it so difficult still to relax into trusting God totally in every situation?  What is the error, the block that I need to work through and overcome in order for me to trust God completely in every aspect of my life?

And why am I still choosing not to go there?

How can I change this?

For now prayer and faith are all that I have.  Faith that with God’s Guidance and Grace I will one day find the courage to remove these blocks, the obstacles that prevent love from flowing freely into and out of my soul.

Father, I kneel before You, your daughter, your servant, how may I help?  Give me the courage and the willingness, I pray, to face my fears and to step more fully into love, truth and trust.  Help me to be all that I was created to be so that I might better serve You through service to my brothers and sisters and all of Your creation.

Teach me to Love.

Linda

20.01.12