Institutionalized?
I’ve been feeling uncomfortable in my skin for a long while now. Restless. Aimless. Unfocused. On edge. I’ve had difficulty feeling…
I’ve been feeling uncomfortable in my skin for a long while now. Restless. Aimless. Unfocused. On edge. I’ve had difficulty feeling emotional connections to other humans that I love. I suffer from guilt about having achieved my life dream of living in paradise, which contributes to feeling paralyzed about what to do next. I’ve been trying to understand why. What shifted in myself to bring about such a contrast between my inner and outer worlds, a prisoner living in ultimate freedom? I mean, from all appearances and at my stage of life, I should be at the apex of my meaningful contribution to this world. But instead, I have been in a long phase of feeling lost, dried up, stuck, and unmotivated.
A lightbulb went on this week, after watching the decades-old movie, “Shawshank Redemption,” about what I’m experiencing. Prison inmate, Morgan Freeman (the irony), who played a character named “Red,” commented on the psychological impact of institutionalization on prisoners and why they encounter so much difficulty trying to adjust to the outside world after incarceration:
“First you hate it, then you get used to it, and if enough time passes, you come to depend on it.”
Many prisoners, after struggling with a mountain of obstacles under the weight of their newfound “freedom,” end up trying to go back to prison — to the known world of predictability, routine, security, and lack of responsibility, where they are told what do, where to go, and how to think. The longer one is incarcerated, the more difficult the adjustment to life outside.
I see now, this is also my story. I’ve been incarcerated (The Four Agreements terms it “domesticated”) most of my life. Though not consciously aware, I’ve spent the better part of my life being guided by some form of institutionalism mentality in regards to my “purpose” and productivity: More than three decades of religious programming and indoctrination, institutional programming in the name of “education,” and life-sucking employment, primarily, again, to institutions. It was a classic bait and switch mind-effery, sold to me as the greatest path to happiness and “The American Dream.”
The truth is, now that that I’ve been cut loose from all that, I don’t know what the eff to do with my freedom!
There’s actually a term for this, Post Incarceration Syndrome! It stems from the learned helplessness and the trauma of losing freedom, choices, and being stripped of personality and power. It’s the enduring mental prison that results from integration of incarceration experience. Symptoms can range from depression, anxiety, deterioration of ambition, feeling lost, not knowing where to begin, flat affect (loss of the spectrum of natural human emotion), social isolation, low agreeability, and less suited to life on the outside after release.
Sound familiar? Like it or not, most of us — save the few brave, wild, “rebellious” free spirits we distanced ourselves from, lest we be contaminated by their ambitionless ideals — have been domesticated. Starting as young, programmable children, we have been taught to: ignore our life-saving intuition; trust our doctors instead of our own intelligently designed bodies; “trust the science” which historically has been nothing more than a religion of disempowerment shaped by a few controllers of information (and is based upon suppression of true scientific principles and honest scholarship); set aside our right-brained gifts and creativity — our closest connection to Source and each other — all for the pursuit of more stress, competition, capitalism, and adrenal burnout. We’ve been subtly ingrained to mentally shun those who don’t comply with the above status quo, as if they were modern savages. We yearn for our freedom, like a bird staring through the bars of a cage, longing to fly free in the wind. But the wild, untamed, expansive flight (and light) in us has been long ago extinguished. We don’t know who we really are, or what we really want, outside of some extraneously defining, narrow, mind-controlled framework. This is the Matrix from which we are trying to find our awakening, our escape. But escape to what?
There is only One Reality of healing at this crossroads. Unlearning the ways of mental captivity, and reprogramming ourselves with the one Truth. I Am, the power within us that shifts reality. I am an expression of God in this world. I am the creator of my reality, my destiny. What do I want? What do I want to create? What do I want to express in this realm? What do I want to shape and birth into existence? By divine right and inheritance, I have the power to do it, as soon as my consciousness is ready, open, expansive enough to accept this truth and wear these unlimited shoes. This is not an overnight undertaking. It takes time to assimilate and embody such a transformative realization of the great power we have within us.
It can feel both liberating and frightening to look out, beyond these prison doors. To imagine what might be. Will I step through this threshold into my I Am presence (“I and the Father are One”)? Or will I retreat back into the mental shackles, which is merely the construct of someone else’s intentions for me?
Just for fun, I drew tarot cards to help me process this uncomfortable realization, hoping to find some encouragement. Let me show you what I encountered:
The first card is the king of swords. This is usually the card I use as my “signifier card,” meaning, after I shuffle, I find this card and trust that it is pointing to the next card(s) that are meant to help me with a question or dilemma. The king of swords represents mediating any dilemma with truth and compassion that comes from wisdom (of age or experience). I did use this as my signifier card in this pull, but the fun part of this is that I blindly picked this card (the first time), thumbing through the deck, trying to see if I could tap into my intuition. This felt very reassuring that I am on the right path. So it was pointing to:
9 of pentacles: To look at this card feels like happiness. I see a bright, expansive card, full of bountiful, harmonious, spring-like, transformative components that teem with strength and hope. Keeping in mind my dilemma, here is what I got from the symbolic meaning of the elements. This plane offers some dense experiences, but eventually, the difficult encumbrances (institutionalization/ enslavement/ indoctrination, etc) have served their purpose in one’s life, offering the stark contrast to freedom, personal power, and enlightenment. Nine incidentally, is the number of completion of a cycle or a process. With awakening to the dark, difficult intentions that were intended to entrap me, comes a new level of transformation (butterfly), hope (spring), strength (wolf, tree), depth (tree), harmony (wild animals peacefully interacting), abundance of mind and creativity (pentacles/coins), and the ability to break away from the pack and live by instinct rather than institutional norms (wolf).
Ace of Cups: Of note again is the sun — which feels like a central sun coming up out of the earth, representing one’s personal power and autonomy (the solar plexus is also called our body’s “central sun”). There is abundance of water overflowing a chalice into an infinity pool, with lotus flowers galore. Fire burns hot and full at the base of the chalice — fire that cannot be extinguished by any amount of water. Passion, power, abundance, all in harmony. Deep meaning can be derived here. The connection of deep, profound intuition (water endlessly flowing from the chalice) to inform the five senses (five streams). Pink lotus signifies an awakened spirit, or enlightenment (to the Matrix). Chalice represents religious freedom from impositions of doctrine by hierarchy, and divine feminine energy (cooperative rather than competitive, nurturing rather than controlling). This is the opposite of patriarchal domination.
3 of Swords, reversed: The injury and the pain is there — it can’t be ignored — but with awakening, it’s reversing now. The number 3 represents creation and collaboration. Working together from our places of gifting and intuition is how we find our way out of the Matrix, and how we find healing for these wounds of isolation and dehumanization. At the core, we share one heart. This heavy mortal wound of truth (swords=truth and mind), that we are in a Matrix, is only a mental construct. There is no substance behind it, no real threat to our essence. The three swords could also represent three aspects that have been wounded by our false beliefs and indoctrinations: body, mind, spirit.
And now I leave you with these words of affirmation and empowerment. They can be said out loud daily to create a vibration in this world of standing in the truth of who we are, sparks of the Divine, Image Bearers of the One Source (“God,” if that makes you feel better).
*I am the omnipresent all-powerful protecting intelligence governing this mind and body
*I am the perfect intelligent activity within this mind and body
*I am the only presence acting in my world
*I am the illumination in this room
*I am the invincible I am
*I am the presence of divine harmony
*I am the heart of the divine and I now bring forth ideas and accomplishments to change the world
*I am always the majestic power of pure love that transcends every human concept
*I am the limitless
*I am the full comprehension and illumination of this thing I want to know and understand
*I am the resurrection and the light
*I am the open door which no man can shut
*I am the mighty presence of God in action
~From The “I Am” Discourses of St. Germain
For it is written, “in God, we live, and move, and have our Being. …For by God all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through God and for God. …There is one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
If we really allowed these truths to sink in, we would never be imprisoned again: There is nothing outside of God.