"For the last 12 years I have been unhappy. Ever since I left home at 18, I have been a misplaced alien. I lost my family, my friends, my enjoyment. In Lancaster, I was an insider; in Rockingham, I am an outsider. All I think about night and day is what I lost. I lost dad, I lost Uncle John, and I lost cousin Bill. Every moment that I could shake loose, I went home. I hated all of the time I was not at home. I’m surprised my wife did not divorce me. I even quit jobs and went home. I envied those who were still at home. It is a three and a half hour drive home, but I did it as often as possible."

Why didn’t you just move back home? "I would have lost my wife and my security. My wife got a good paying secure job and did not want to move back home. She hated living there.

I could have forced the issue earlier before my children were born, and I should have. Now I have three kids, a house, a nice car, and a good income. I can’t leave now, and my wife won’t. It would tear up my kids if I left them. Besides, my father and Uncle Bill no longer have the jobs they once had, and I’m not sure I could support my family at home now. Here I know no one, there I knew everyone and they knew me. No one knows me here. I am trapped here. I lost my home. I guess I will just stay here until my kids are grown and then I will leave my wife and move back home. But I wonder if it will still be a home by then."

He continued: "I did have one interesting experience this week. Two guys at work have been ignoring and snubbing me for months. They have no respect for me and I feel so uncomfortable when I see them. I decided to just walk up to them and stand there while they were working on their truck. I did. After a while they seemed to warm up and become friendly and now we are on speaking terms. They know me a little and I know them some."

The oracle:

I said to my client that most of the time people live the story of insiders and outsiders, the story of fear. You probably noticed in Lancaster also that there were insiders and outsiders, but you were an insider there. Now you live in Rockingham and you consider yourself to be an outsider. Your two wo-workers are insiders with each other, and treat you like an outsider that they fear. And you fear them as insiders who have the power to reject you. But in this instance, you broke into their world. You walked up to them and broke down the insider/outsider barrier. You treated them like your dad and Uncle John and cousin Bill. You began to re-establish your home here in Rockingham.

Up until now for the past 12 years, you have not been at home in your body here and now. You have been living in the there and then, living 3 1/2 hours from here and 12 years in the past. You have neglected and rejected yourself. You thought that your selfhood and your happiness depended on where you were and who you were with, on being an insider. You were an outsider to yourself. All of this misery that you have experienced since you were 18 is your symptom and your gift. It all has the purpose of making you aware of how you

have mistreated yourself due to your insider/outsider story.

Suppose that the world is your home, and that your dad, your Uncle John and Cousin Bill is everyone you meet. Suppose they are all insiders and just don’t know it. Suppose that by a change of mind you can walk up to people and break the insider/ousider fear barrier and discover that they are just like you and that they are feeling lost also. Once this discovery is made, you realize that you have lost nothing. You have not wasted the last twelve years. It took whatever it took to discover the truth. You have been living a necessary lie for twelve years. Why was it necessary? Because it happened. Now it is changing because it is changing. You are entering a new stage of awareness. You are discovering that you left home and found home, and that is what everyone has to do. You are right on track, you have not missed one necessary step.

What if all of our discomfort is due to a story of misunderstood freedom, misguided love,

mis-imagined power, and ignored infinity? What if I am an insider suffering with a belief that outsiders exist? What if I am free, but dreaming that I am trapped? What if there is nothing but power, but I am a victim of the story that there is weakness and inadequacy? What if everyone one is a winner, and I am caught up in playing the win/lose game? What if everyone is dad, Uncle John and Cousin Bill and I can only see strangers?

What if the loss, waste, separation, entrapment, and lack that I perceive are all lies? What if I am home and don’t know it? What if the self that I put down or parade before the world is not the true me? What if I am depressing myself with the belief that I am not home, but I am.

Just for today, consider that everyone you meet is you. Consider that the entire universe is your home. Consider that there are no strangers. No aliens. Consider that when you see the difference in your story and yourself, you are home free. Consider that your story, your judgments, your beliefs and your opinions are the source of all of your stress and misery. Consider that you can exchange your lies for the truth just as you exchanged the truth for lies. Consider that you have deceived yourself and that it was a necessary step in self-awareness. Consider that you have worn yourself out struggling against reality and now you have the chance to find out that reality is your best friend. Consider that the only reason you aren’t home here and now, and totally in love, is your story that you are a misplaced alien. You are not misplaced, you are not an alien, you are not homeless. You are just not yourself yet. You are in the universal evolutionary process of self-discovery in which you are moving from alienation to true individuality and oneness.

People attach their security to their story. If you challenge their story, they will defend their story. Everyone dies for their story, and some even kill for their story, for their security- story. Until our story is clearly understood to be the source of our suffering, we will not change or give up our story.