Cheater
By Kristen Fox
Why have I been able to create anything I want within the bounds that society has set, but have been unable to move past that framework? Why have I been unable to move forward and create more of what I want – why have I been ‘hovering in the doorway’, so to speak?
Because… if you create what you want, the way you want it, then you’re CHEATING!!! You’re a CHEATER!!! CHEATER!!!!
I wasn’t even consciously aware that I held this core belief, but recently my life had ground to a halt – I was unable to move forward and unable to see what this invisible wall was all about. Physically, it manifested for me in terms of a leg with pulled muscles and tendons that made it difficult and often painful for me to move. All the symbology told me what it was – right leg was about moving forward and the future – the pain was self-evident – it was too painful to move forward, or the belief that moving forward would cause me pain. Or, I was causing myself pain by holding myself back. All of it made sense to me on some level.
For me, moving forward meant stepping into my life more fully as a conscious creator. In specific terms, this implied the creation of many of the things I have been focusing on – a new home in a new place, plentiful money, and all being “created” instead of “earned.” All coming my way because I chose to have and accept them into my life. But NOT coming to me because I spent hours laboring in this job or that, accruing a healthy bank account, taking out a loan, or going through any of the “normal” steps people usually take when they want these things.
Growing up, I had always been able to see, what seemed to me, the more direct path to a goal. But what usually happened when I innocently (and perhaps ignorantly) suggested this to someone, I’d get explanation upon explanation about WHY that wasn’t possible and/or all the things that they HAD to do to achieve this goal. As a kid, I didn’t really understand the kinds of games people seemed to play with themselves, but I did learn that that was the way it was SUPPOSED to be. I learned there were rules to be followed! These rules were often assumed, and even more often unconscious to the follower, but they were THERE and they were IMMUTABLE! (I mean, winning the lottery sure seems like a more direct route to having lots of money than scrimping and saving as you go to work each day, but that’s not part of the “allowed” framework – you can’t just CHOOSE to win the lottery – that’s cheating!)
There was an entire FRAMEWORK that society apparently functioned within that I had to learn about – the hard way – when you broke the rules you were ridiculed until you admitted you were wrong, or it was insinuated that you were a cheater, or you were “explained to” until you gave up your idealistic and naive ideas of what the world was about.
Most people didn’t seem to see the framework, but worked within it all the same, usually having to leave a chunk of themselves behind to fit inside this relatively tiny enclosure. Most of the sarcasm I expressed as a child was probably a direct result of thinking that the rules were really stupid and difficult, but not knowing (or feeling comfortable admitting that I knew) a better alternative.
Conscious Creation is that better alternative. It can work within that societal framework or without, conscious creation works either within or without that framework of “rules”. In the old terms, knowing ourselves as conscious creators gives us a free ticket to cheat our way through life, take the easy road, leave the struggle and step by step plodding behind us.
Is that okay???? The societal framework that I’d internalized was telling me that it was NOT, in fact, OKAY. Don’t you think that EVERYONE would just do things the easy way if it were even POSSIBLE? Well, after taking a close look at my own belief systems, and those of others, I’d say that many people are still getting many kudos from society for working hard, following the rules, being victims, and, as a friend of mine had often expressed, “being the good little factory workers that we were trained to be.”
On the personal front, during this revelation, my leg (the muscles and tendons) blossomed into a shock of pain for me as I became aware of this judgment I’ve been holding against this part of myself. I actually had to repeat over and over again, “I am not a cheater!” out loud to reassert my real knowing over this false belief. As I did so, the pain and anguish began to release itself and diminish.
The most amazing part for me is that I have been very excited about stepping into my full power as a conscious creator, and yet I was also believing that this dream to do so meant I was a horrible person who couldn’t be trusted or appreciated. In the middle of all this turmoil, I coined a new belief phrase for myself.
“Cheating is when you know the rules and agree to play by them, but then don’t. I am not a cheater, because I am no longer playing the game at all.” By “the game”, I mean following the linear, hard work and struggle rules of acquisition that most of us grow up with in one form or another – the “game” to me means staying within the limitations I learned as I came to know the world around me.
For instance, one thing I learned, the hard way, was that adults were always right, and kids didn’t know what they were talking about. So even if I had a good idea, it was discounted mainly because the adults didn’t appreciate being upstaged or out maneuvered by a kid. I only remember one time being told that I had a good idea, and I’ve remembered it my whole life as one clear moment of appreciation and validation.
You know what? I am not a cheater, I am a visionary with a unique expression in physical reality. I am not attacking or trying to destroy “society” with my new ideas, I’m simply offering up an opportunity for growth, as seen through my own personal perspective. I am not attacking people who choose to believe in struggle, nor am I calling them idiots – I am simply choosing the way that seems right to ME. If other people’s belief systems call this “cheating” – then so be it – that may be their label, but it is no longer mine.
[Originally published on Themestream, July 2000.]