The Excuse
The intellectual block keeping you from love.
In my life review, there was one thing that was unmistakable and it may surprise you. There were no excuses. Not one. Not for anything.
But it wasn't “judgement” that I felt during the life review. It was something else. It was unconditional love, but it was also truth. And the truth is, simply, that during the existence that had led to that review, all of the excuses created and used in that life were meaningless. They never mattered.
Not a single reason I had ever rationalized for how I treated someone, any excuse for how I may have withheld love, the intellect’s logic for how and why I deservedly reacted to something, judged someone, none of it was there. Zero.
It wasn’t that any rationalization was weighed or measured during the review. There wasn’t judgement in any way. It was more like the excuse, whatever excuse there was, for anything, just wasn't there.
The excuses were never real to begin with. They were all just an illusion. An intellectual exercise for staying blind to "The Darkness" of how that life was being expressed.
I Have An Excuse!
Here on this side of existence, if you are unaware, you will walk through life almost entirely on excuses. You treat someone a certain way, and you have a reason. “You”…always have a reason. It is based on judgement. What you think you know, what they say, how they act, what you should do, what they should do, or don’t do, and your response to all of it is “you” positioning, calculating.
But strip away every excuse from a human life, and you will find something you weren't expecting: life was never what you thought it was.
It is like hearing a lead singer perform your favorite song without the band, no backing track, no production. Just the raw voice. No filler. Nothing to hide behind. And when you hear it, it is not what you thought it was.
Excuses are manufactured by the ego, by your intellect, the fabricated self. Excuses act as a judgment mechanism. They are your measuring instrument. The ego looks at your life and says: “this is how things are, so this is how I get to respond”. You then act and react based on this assessment.
The problem is that because this entire assessment is based in the intellect, by default it is void of love. The reaction, the rationalization, the excuse, was never created to embody love. It can’t embody love. It was used as a form of judgement to measure and create an intellectually permissible response - an excuse.
The exercise of excuse creation resides in “The Darkness” found within you. It isn’t some dramatic evil, just the quiet ability to forget love, or to be talked out of it by the part of you that sounds reasonable. “I can be short with you because I'm tired”. “I can withhold love today because I've had a hard day”. “I can avoid you because of what you support.” “I can judge you because of how you act.”
The intellect is what hands you the permission slip, and because it sounds rational, you take on the excuse, you act it out, and you become something.
You become the creature with the free will to choose its state but unknowingly you are choosing the state that is void of love. You become a creature with conditions. A creature that only loves under certain circumstances. A creature who seeks a beneficial transaction. An unspoken trade. “I” need it to be this way.
Love has no conditions. It has no judgement. It never has. It never will.
The Dog Ate My Homework
Go ahead and sit with one of your favorite excuses for a second. The one you reach for most often - the tiredness, the busyness, the excuse about who hurt who first, the I’m sick excuse, the excuse for the routine that you refuse to break.
Can you see the difference between rationalization and choosing love? Between the intellect and the heart? Between the mental exercise of justification and a choice to be love in a particular moment? Can you see the darkness?
You most likely have habitual patterns of excuses. So habitual that you might even have a set of excuses that you use for certain people in your life. “I don’t feel like it”, “I don’t want to”, “that’s not me”, and on and on. Is it the truth, or is it the ego seeking a little comfort for the fabricated self, the “I” that you think you are.
The truth is, you are never too tired to be love. Ever. Who is it that needs the sleep? You are never too tired to say “good morning”. You are never too busy, never in a bad enough mood to say "I love you" and mean it, to somebody, somewhere, including you. If you believe that you are too tired and too busy, you are sitting in your ego, the intellect, your rationalization. Really you are just sitting in your darkness. Love isn’t a depletable energy.
Believe it or not, being rational and being love are not on the same spectrum of understanding. One measures. The other doesn't need to. It chooses not to. There is no excuse needed to choose love or not to choose love.
If by realizing this you are feeling a bit exposed, don’t worry, that’s a good thing. You are seeing the darkness controlling your life, influencing you, affecting your relationships. That feeling of exposure is not judgement or condemnation. And it is certainly not something for you to collapse under. You are unconditionally loved at this very moment! More than you could ever imagine.
That uneasy feeling is just the feeling of guilt. That is the ego measuring. It's just measuring you instead of someone else. You could look at it as if the ego is saying: “I’ll make you feel bad for shining a light on me. I want to stay hidden. I want to remain in control.”
Let your feeling of exposure be guidance, not a “guilty” verdict. What comes after that feeling is just the truth, and the truth is love. The choice is to love yourself when you see how “yourself” creates excuses instead of just choosing love.
You will reach a point where you choose love, and then there will be times when you slip. You will find yourself filled with excuses. You will attempt to justify your actions through those very excuses. But know that you will not be judged. Also know that freedom is found on the other side of the part of you which creates the excuses.
A Guiltless Existence
Are you starting to feel or witness the difference between who you think you are and what you actually are?
If so, and you recognize that you are love manifested in the world, then say all the I love you's, and mean them. Say them. Say them like the world turns on the next one you give. Say them like you might not get another chance to say it. Because the truth is you might not. Take nothing for granted. Ever.
Your voice, carrying authentic love, heard by one other person, means more than everything that you think you have ever built or accomplished in this life. Everything. Period. That is what you will understand on the other side. It is that important.
I am asked often what it's like “over there”, or in that state, or on the “other side”. And here is the truth: you are closer to feeling the other side in a single, authentic, warm and loving embrace with another person than you are in all the accumulated knowledge of the universe. You don’t feel knowledge on the other side. You feel love.
Live in your heart. Be grateful for your next breath, the next meal, the next phone call, the sunshine and the rain. Be grateful for all of it. Be grateful for the opportunity to love.
Live presently. Live consciously, right now, in this moment. Because it's the only moment you are holding. The only moment you know for sure, that you have.
There is nothing stronger than your capacity to be love. Not pain. Not circumstance. Not what you call loss. Not your anger, not your darkness. Nothing is greater than that spark within you.
The truth is, there are no excuses on the other side. There won't be one. Not a single one. But remember, nothing needs to be excused when the state of love is actually where you live from.
So, what's your excuse?
