Dearest Michael Sharp,

I hope you’re doing well.  I have been following your teachings for some time, and I have some questions.

I feel like I’m blocked.  I started practicing the GI around 2008 when I was a senior in college.  I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into, and life turned bizarre and scary.  I felt so emotionally vulnerable and alone that I married my college sweetheart who used me to get a green card, took my money and then ran away.  I also recovered a repressed memory of being sexually molested or raped by my uncle when I was 11, but the memory is so choppy that I can’t really verify it (although the dreams I had were disturbing and very straight forward).  An old pervert who was “helping” me with my emotional issues triggered the memory because he wanted to sleep with me as well.  Major issues with sex and men there!  I almost lost my mind.

My family pulled me out of that situation.  I was able to see that I placed myself in those situations partly because I had really low self esteem.  I’ve been gleaning my memory for two years and making connections about things.  I was raised to be very subservient and to put myself last.  So many people have taken advantage of me, used me, and treated me badly for an ego boost or their own selfish purposes, and no one was there to stand up for me (like my parents when I was child).

I cannot believe that so many people would willingly abuse a beautiful, intelligent, young, good-natured person like myself.

I am living back in my hometown with a job. I managed to manifest some nice things for myself afterwards, but I have not been able to clean up and shake the disgusting feelings from those past experiences.  It’s been a little over two years and I have not moved on as much as I’d hoped.

My lived experience has shown me that the world is incredibly unjust and that people are so unbelievably selfish (especially men using women for sex!).  I now realize I have a lot of anger pent up after years of taking peoples shit.  I feel very angry, resentful, and bitter.  I do not trust people or men (especially not men!) and I am having a difficult time socializing.  To cope, I spend most of my free time alone and I smoke a lot of pot.  I’ve learned to enjoy my own company, but I feel like my life and the future I’ve planned for myself is empty because there is no room for people.  It’s just too scary to think about or seems impossible, especially being married with kids.  I have imploded and become kind of my own independent little island, within myself.

So…my questions are the following….

I want to be a better person, but I don’t know what to manifest or how to interact with people.  I can’t tell if a person has good intentions or ulterior motives or if they’re telling me the truth or not or if I should trust my gut feeling and I’ve almost driven myself crazy trying to figure this out!!!  I don’t know how to get rid of my cynicism or feel good.  I’m not even sure what a healthy relationship is supposed to feel like.

Also, I feel pretty cynical because despite the fact that everything you’re saying is VERITABLY TRUE, no one else believes in it.  And who cares what I am generally manifesting if I have to be a slave at a 9-5 job, 5 days a week, every year until I die.  Either that or worry about money.  That is a lot of people’s lived reality. I don’t want to be angry and bitter.  I want to manifest good things.  I want to have healthy, loving relationships, and I want to be loved.  How do I change my perspectives? What should I be manifesting?  How should I be spending my time?

And Michael Writes…

Your perspective is the right one, so why change your perspective?

1. The vast majority of people on this planet are damaged, feeding off the energy and naivety of others. Men and women are the same in this regard. Both are damaged, both are hurt, both have unmet psychological needs, and both try and cope with that damage by exploiting others, but in different ways.
2. You cannot trust most people and you must have strict, strict boundaries. I don’t socialize much either for the same reasons you cite above, and many people on the LP find in fact that as they progress spiritually, they do become isolationist. They can’t stand the “vibration” that they get when they step into “the matrix” and so they isolate themselves. I call it spiritual cocooning (http://subscriber.thelightningpath.com/symptoms-of-spiritual-advancement-cacooning-2/) and like a lot of the things I say, it is a verifiable empirical phenomenon

So my advice to you? Be cynical, be angry, and use that cynicism and anger to transform the world. You say you were molested when you were 11. Have you told you parents this, your mom and dad, brothers and sisters? Has this been dealt with in any way, have you worked to create RIGHT ENVIRONMENT, have you acted with RIGHT ACTION, or are you carrying that trauma all by yourself? You need to deal with that properly before moving on.

Also, if you want something to happen in the area of relationships, do something about it. Post over at our forums http://forums.thelightningpath.com, meet some people there.  There are a lot of people on the forums like you and you’ll find kindred there. If more people would find the courage to do that it might make for some interesting “meetups” down the road.

The reality is you’re going to have a hard time finding somebody to love amidst so much pain and suffering. Honestly, I think if you want something to happen, you should start a spiritual study group centered around the Lightning Path. Just put a poster up in a new age book store (see Lightworker resources here. Start maybe with the GREAT AWAKENING.  See what happens then. You want to manifest relationships and meet people on your wave length, you’re going to have to do the groundwork and create those people yourself. People are desperate to find this authentic spiritual stuff, they just don’t know how to find it. Put feelers out and let people come to you.

Be the Lightworker and light the way! And don’t be afraid to charge a few bucks for the group to cover costs of muffins, drinks, and (most importantly) your time. You want to be a Lightworker, you also have to create an economy of light. People pay 10 bucks for a load of fast-food crap, they can pay ten bucks for the benefits of working towards awakening and empowerment with you.

m