Marilyn Monroe
10/18/18 – MM
Hello beloveds, it is so lovely to come and speak with you today. It has been a long, long time, and I am so excited to connect with everyone in this way. Many of my fellow “authors” have spoken of very big themes that we’ve learned about on the other side – themes of worth, power, love, acceptance, the light of each soul. I want to add to the discussion of love, specifically learning the immense power of unconditional self-love. This also includes unconditional self-acceptance, self-compassion, self-forgiveness… all of it. Truly and completely loving yourself on both a human and a soul level, brokenness and all. It is a rare person who has learned how to do this, who doesn’t self-criticize, self-blame, carry shame and guilt and self-punishment, self-judgment, even for the littlest of things. As a species, we are very hard on ourselves. Oddly so, to the point where most of us beat ourselves up for the tiniest perceived mistakes.
That self-criticism, that self-judgment and punishment, comes from a lack of truly unconditionally loving ourselves. Mostly, this is because we are taught not to. We are taught that if we fully own our beauty, our light, our worth as a human and a soul, we are at best being egotistical and narcissistic, at worst completely unsafe in the world. There is such deep soul wounding around loving ourselves, truly loving ourselves on every level, all aspects – as my friends like to say, “the good, the bad and the ugly.” This speaks to the great wounding we have around integration – accepting all of our parts, all of our flaws, our struggles, our mistakes, our challenges, as well as the immense good in us.
I heavily struggled with this. I saw myself as split in two – Norma Jeane, the poor, shy, insecure, uneducated, not-too-smart brunette from a small poor town and a small poor life, and Marilyn, the bright, shiny, sexy, powerful, bombshell blonde who owned the whole world and who was loved by the whole world. As my friend Chris mentioned in his writing, at first, I embraced the role of Marilyn because she was getting me the attention and love I thought I deserved but didn’t have. She was helping me feel loved and accepted. More than accepted, actually revered.
But as time went on, I felt trapped in that persona, and Norma Jeane sat within me, small, dark, sad and scared – ignored by me, shamed by me, rejected by me. I tried to squash her, erase her, forget she even existed – and my misery grew and grew, because she was a huge part of me that I was shutting down, refusing to accept or integrate. She was locked in a room in my mind, not allowed to see the light or have a voice. She grew darker and angrier as time went on, and it was her voice I was trying to numb with the medication. Her pain I was trying to ignore and suppress and erase. The more split I became, the more despair I felt, until it became too much.
I share all of this because my struggle stemmed from not fully, unconditionally loving myself, all parts of myself, including Norma Jeane. I saw the success and “love” that Marilyn brought me, and I clung to that with such desperation that I viewed the other part of me, the true part of me, little humble Norma Jeane, as something that I needed to get rid of, eradicate so that I could become Marilyn as completely as possible. But my soul knew this wasn’t healthy, my soul was devastated at the split I was forcing, and this is why it ended the way it did. I didn’t fully love myself, I didn’t fully accept myself, the real me underneath the persona that had been crafted for me. And Norma Jeane was screaming out for love and attention and acceptance, and I kept burying her as much as I could. I was too scared to let her out, to embrace her, scared that I would lose all the “love” and acceptance I had garnered as Marilyn. Scared that once the public saw the real me, saw Norma Jeane, they would laugh at me, completely reject me. And I would be utterly alone, which was my worst fear.
My beloved friends, it is so very important that you accept all of yourself, give yourself the unconditional love that you deserve on a human and a soul level. You’re not going to get it from outside yourself if you don’t have it within, first. That was a lesson I did not learn, which is why I desperately sought out love and acceptance from the public, from my lovers, from anyone outside of me. And the more I turned outward as Marilyn, the more Norma Jeane suffered and hence, I suffered. For she was me, a huge part of me, and I was rejecting her in every way possible.
Love yourselves, friends. Truly, unconditionally, fully love yourselves – work on it all day, every day. Connect with your heart, feel the thriving energy within, and know that you are meant to see yourselves as the light you truly are. I now know my light. I now know how special Norma Jeane was, right from the start. I love her now, because she is me – the true me. I am integrated.
I wish the same for you, we all do. We love you so much, and are watching you from this side with so much joy. We hope you are able to learn from our struggles, and embrace the lessons we were trying to embrace, so that you find true peace and happiness. It is nothing less than you deserve.
