Anger & The Afterlife...
Updated: Oct 17, 2019
A friend of mine asked me the following question:
Do you think our deceased relatives can be mad at us? And how shitty is a person that is mad at their dead relatives?
This is a really great question because it allows the opportunity to discuss transcendence. Before addressing the question, it's important to have a starting point for discernment. At our most basic understanding of who we are, it is fair to say that we are both a human being and a spiritual being. But in what order?
It is my belief that the soul part of us, being eternal, is our CORE self and is educated only in truth. Our soul is the part of our existence which is connected to both God and our body at the same time (which is what allows us to be co-creators with the divine).
So let's go with the perspective that the soul is in fact first in creation, before we are born on Earth. Then we are born on Earth into a human body. You as a baby don't know anything in humanity. You don't know how to speak, how to rationalize, how to talk or walk or feed yourself. You know nothing. You depend on humanity... to teach you to be human. Think about that. If the soul is eternal, and the soul came before the body... and the soul is the direct link to God AND your body...then wouldn't your soul know everything in truth upon arrival here in humanity? If so, then someone (parents, teachers, caregivers) has to teach you how to be human right? So the world imprints itself on that body... you know, the one you see in the mirror... that body. The world teaches it everything it needs to know in order to live here on Earth. You learn how to say please and thank you. You learn who to like, who to trust. You learn how to judge yourself and others. You learn what love is and what hate is. You learn... and learn... and learn... You have experiences in your life that develop perspectives and ideas and as you grow those experiences and the people in your life shape who you are on Earth. And so unfortunately most of the time human beings act and live according to their teachings.
"You know, 10 years ago, I was in a similar situation so now I don't trust doctors anymore! Or you know every time I try to bring a new idea to the table everyone shoots me down... so now I'm just not gonna say anything.... blah blah blah... "
We all know this drill. Because of what the world taught us, we have stifled half of our existence. We have learned to become who we are, which is our education and not our truth.
And so we interact with others and we grow to love them. Sometimes they are our parents, our friends, our spouse... We love them through condition. In other words, we love them as long as they are not acting like assholes (and then even still we will keep giving them opportunities to love us back). But sometimes they they don't, and yet, we wait for them and forgive them because we know that what they are doing to us is not their truth, but their education. And we can fight like hell to try and get them to see the truth, whether that be our own truth or theirs. But sometimes event when people know the truth, they choose not to listen to it because it's just too hard to pay any attention to that inside self, the soul self. Like the one we have been telling to shut up since we got in trouble by our parents for saying that one thing to the neighbor lady about being fat... You know the drill: Behave, fit in, be nice, etc. And so here we gather anger, judgement, remorse, abandonment, loneliness and an infinity of shit from all the people that we thought were supposed to love us.
So what do we do? What if we are just so done with their shit that we split, or that they walk away? What do we do if they are our sisters, brothers, parents? In humanity, we probably feel vindicated in our decision. After all, we have reasons why we are angry at them, we have reasons why we couldn't sometimes bear to be near them. Maybe they did something really shitty; maybe they did that same shitty thing all the frickin' time, over and over again and then, well... we became exhausted and said no more and we just let it go.... or maybe we really buried it.
So let's say we bury it and then they die. OH CRAP! It all comes back! Now what? Is it okay for us to be angry at our family in Heaven? In a sense. You must ask yourself: who are you really mad at?
Remember we are two things, human and spirit. The spirit, the soul, the part that lives in Heaven.... Are you mad at that part? Or are you mad at the human being who most likely smothered/quieted down/shut up/ignored or disregarded the soul inside of them?
I think about every time my dad lifted his hand to hit me, and every time he kicked me out, and every time he told my mom I ran away and that he didn't kick me out... Every time he professed that nasty expression, every time he lied, every time he hit me, every time he pitted my sisters, mother, aunts and uncles against me...
Every single time his humanity did that to me, his soul was crying out from inside of him. "Don't hit her, she's a little girl!" "Don't kick her out...She's not wearing shoes."
His soul, the part of him that is connected to God, the part of my father that is eternal, the part of him that only has truth and love connected to his existence, that part of him fought for me. That part of my father shouted at him to stop, but the human part was stronger. The human part of my father lived through Castro's regime, endured a treacherous journey to the United States at 14 with no family. The human part of my father watched his baby brother die in his mother's arms and watched Castro's soldiers beat his mom to a pulp! This man grew up understanding that he was not Cuban enough to be accepted by the Cubans and not white enough to be accepted by Americans. This human man suffered his own earthly conditioning, which made him who he was here on this Earth. And although I'm pissed at that man, that human person, I do love his soul. I love the part of him that shouted to do the right thing, and I understand that this part of him, he lost touch with long before I ever became his daughter.
I know when he got to Heaven, God said: "Well done, Vernon. You have prepared Nicole for her journey in life." My father probably said, "I was wrong... I shouldn't have done that. I should have listened to myself!"
And I think God must have answered something like this:
"Well Vern, when you kicked her out of the house all those times, she learned to be a survivor; she learned to work hard and to support herself. It's a good thing she learned that because only six years later her husband would leave her alone with a baby and she needed to know how to do that. She learned that from you, Vern. It wasn't the greatest manner of education, but you passed.
And it's a really good thing she is resilient to physical impact. You taught her to withstand a beating from the world, from a man, and it's a good thing because later she became a Marine and had to do hand-to-hand combat with men twice her size! She wasn't afraid, Vern! Bad education... You could have done that better had you listened to your soul's voice, but again... You pass.
Also, it's great that she learned that as long as she follows her own inner voice and as long as she follows her soul, she will be doing God's work. You taught her how to trust her "gut," her "inner voice." You taught her very well. Even all those times you told her she was crazy for "talking to the dead" and all those times you tried to tell her to leave it, to ignore them... You told her God would be mad and you told her she was a sinner. Oh, my son. You could have taught her differently... but did you know she speaks to all of us here in Heaven? She connects all of those who seek us on Earth and she speaks for them. They ridicule her, tell her she's crazy, try to break her down. They tell her she's a sinner and that she should stop... But she keeps going. You prepared her to stand her ground. No matter whoever tells her she is crazy, it will never hurt her like it did coming from you. After all, Vern, you taught her how to pray, you took her to church, and you told her about God, about Jesus. You told her to pray and to read the Bible. You used to kneel with her next to her bed. The first lesson you taught her, and the most important, was that God is above all else. And that is how she does her job.
So, is it okay to be mad at your relatives in Heaven?
The answer is: It is okay to be mad at the human being. After all, that is emotion created here on Earth, so of course it's okay to feel it. Separate the two parts, human and spirit.
Isn't it a really awesome thing that my human dad Vernon is not part of Heaven, but that the soul part of him that fought for me and also fought for him is in Heaven?
But don't be mad at the soul part, because you are who you are in part because of another person's impression on your journey. Sometimes our supposed enemy is actually our best friend. The lessons you learn about yourself in the process of pain and suffering are immeasurable. And those humans that had a hand in bringing you that pain or suffering? Well, the souls attached were the only ones in Heaven who agreed to help you learn what you came here to learn, to help you become who you are... even if that meant they had to be the assholes of your life journey.
So, yes, I'm mad at my dad Vern. But his soul? Well, all I can say to him is, "Mission accomplished. And thanks for agreeing to be the asshole in my life."
On the flip side, do you think our deceased relatives can be mad at us?
This is simple. No. Without the ego self (the conditioned, human self), they are pure soul in every expression of their truth. So no, they are not mad at you and cannot be mad at you because every single conditioning that would have created that judgement is removed by the death of the physical body. When only truth remains, well... there isn't a rebuttal to truth is there? It just sort of is...
So my recommendation would be to find the truth in those relationships... the truth that goes above the bad treatment, the ugly words, the beatings, the abandonment, the abuse, the neglect. Go above it, look at it differently, turn it on it's side..
You are beautiful. You are perfect... thanks to all the wonderful, loving, and nurturing souls you have met on this journey of life....and also, thanks to all the assholes too!