Unblock Your Threshold
A practice for noticing where your walls are keeping grace out
Key Takeaways
The walls that protect us from being hurt also prevent grace from reaching us.
Showing people only a curated version of yourself is not self-protection; it’s a denial of grace.
Receiving requires being seen fully; the place where most of us stop short.
Theme
Grace cannot land in a place that is restricted. The walls we build to protect ourselves from pain are not selective. They keep out the hurt, but they keep out the grace, too.
Mini Teaching
I don't have many friends from childhood. In fact, I only keep in rare contact with very few people I grew up with. Not because we drifted apart, but because at different points in my life I let go of entire groups of people before they could see me change. I showed each of them a version of myself I had decided was acceptable, and when I outgrew that version or that version was too vulnerable, I severed the relationships along with it. What I understand now is that I wasn't just protecting myself from judgment; I was denying grace. Every person who might have stayed, who might have held me through a transition and offered something freely and without condition, never got the chance because I had already decided they wouldn't.
This is the cost of walls built high and strong. Our inner fortresses not only keep the pain out, but also the grace we never let through.
Notice / Reflect / Try
This week, notice if you are managing what someone else sees of you rather than allowing them to see what is truly there. Reflect honestly whether the thing you are protecting yourself from is a current threat or an old story still running on your behalf. Then try to consider what might arrive, what grace might actually be waiting to reach you, if you softened the walls around that story just enough to let someone in a little further.
Integration
You don't have to dismantle the walls entirely. You only have to find one place, one moment to soften them enough to let something good enter.
Reflection Question
Where in your life right now is a wall you built for protection now standing between you and the grace that is trying to reach you?
With love & light,
John Moos, MD
Soul Surgeon