Cracking the Overlays – the Illusions & Delusions of Reality

IN Dark Night of the Soul
prison_of_your_mind
  • Updated:7 years ago
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Overlays are the illusion our minds create when we are in a situation that we don’t know whether we can handle, that we believe will be easier to deal with. 

We get these overlays from parents and other people as we were going through life, and as we are facing our fears and insecurities throughout life. As we get told what is truth and what “feels better” and what is the “done thing” etc, as people try and “help us” and we try and “help ourselves” through the ups and downs of life.

What you focus on is what you see, where you focus is where you live. You desire to feel secure in any situation, that desire can create an overlay (illusion) that helps you deal with the situation at hand. When you “take on” that illusion, more beliefs are imagined into the overlay to support and “prove” it. As you “perceive” reality through this overlay, you come to “expect” to see certain things because you are training your mind in this overlay to “seek out” that which you desire to or believe you are experiencing.

The reality that you experience, is through the lens of these many different and merging overlays that you have created throughout your lifetime that dictates and directs what you seek and expect, and by default what you “see” and how you experience different events, because your mind is constantly seeking “proof” that your overlay is real – because if not, then you have to face all those fears and experience more discomfort – one of our overlays we are taught from birth, is tools for ‘avoiding discomfort’.

The fear of death, the fear of being rejected, the fear of being unloved/unlovable, the fear of being hurt, the fear of being betrayed, the fear of humiliation or embarrassment, the fear of doing wrong, the fear of upsetting others, and so on. Overlays are the “avoidance of pain”.

The overlays you have created become habits, automatic perceptions of the world/reality around you.

You are now used to viewing the world through these lenses and when faced with similar situations, you experience them from your “overlay”.

You have grown up with overlays from others and your own unique ones mixed-in. Many situations you face in your life, makes you adjust your overlays. And some things you experience might trigger the crumbling of your overlay. When the illusion is removed, you either create a brand new overlay to not have to deal with “all of the fears/beliefs you have been avoiding or not facing” throughout your life, or you see reality. Although I find it difficult to believe that we don’t all of a sudden create a new overlay.

What I’m trying to figure out here, is what are my overlays, and do they serve me or not.

Creating an overlay that disconnects me from others is not an overlay that serves me, but taking on an overlay “just because everyone else is experiencing that particular overlay” doesn’t serve me either. I’m a truth seeker, I want truth. Maybe to understand why my life has been the way it has, I’m possibly seeking to understand why it is the way it is and how it can change to be better.

So for example, if I grew up in a particular religious overlay (I didn’t), it might not serve me to remove that overlay if all the people in my life, my parents, family, friends and community all live in that particular overlay. But then again, if that religion was leading me down a path that is harmful to others or myself, or giving me illusions that went against what my deep core of my soul/being/best-self wants for me while I’m here, then it might be in my best interests to crack open that overlay, remove it, or create other overlays that can help me connect with my loved-ones, whilst at the same time serving my higher-self’s or deep core’s interests.

When I was nearly dead, it was useful for me to create an overlay that I was already healed (many overlays were created on this path), but the most useful and biggest transformation was to actually believe that it’s possible to heal myself, and then to create an overlay that my body was “already healed”, and by default, I then “did the steps needed” from a supportive place that helped me heal. Where I could avoid that which was harming my body and train the mind to “seek-out” solutions. Foods, supplements, vitamins, minerals, removal of stressful situations, detoxing, taking care of myself, etc. The “harmful” part of this overlay is that I also trained the mind to see everyone that wasn’t doing these things as “wrong” and “poisoning themselves” etc. For me to believe in my own overlay of healing, I had to see that everyone else was poisoning themselves, but also for me to “take my own advice” – I had to see that noone was believing my overlay, I had to “prove to them” that what I was learning was real, so that they could see for themselves that what I was saying was true”. I also had overlay after overlay of how to see this reality from an “already healed” state, but also that’s when I started experiencing that there was “more to this reality that I didn’t understand”, and I got the bug to dig deeper into everything – from the pharmaceutical industries “keeping me sick”, to how far does the conspiracy go – what is truth? And how did this state of “already healed” work.. I started to believe that we really do create our own reality.

At the same time, I had to heal my mind out of depression, I took on an overlay of “everything is here to help me”, seeing the “positive” in everything, seeking tools to help me get to a “happier” mindset, etc. I took on the overlay of “everything happens for a reason” and that what I was going through would one day help others, that all of my suffering wouldn’t be in vain, that it would one day be my legacy to help others ease out of their own suffering and illness. I also started witnessing the power of believing that your thoughts create your reality, although I didn’t have this “overlay” view, I could literally see the transformation within myself by choosing to live in a more positive, loving way.

To deal with the feeling of not being wanted anywhere, my parents’ rejection, living in a girl’s home and the 30+ years of living in victim-everyone-hates-me-and-im-not-worthy-of-being-loved-mode, I created an overlay of “well I don’t need them anyway…”. I put a shield around my heart and didn’t let anyone in. I became a “warrior”. A “mean bitch” that cannot be hurt. Instead of being sad, I lived in anger, hate, despair. Trust noone. That wasn’t how I felt inside, it felt like torture the whole time, so that was not a useful overlay but then I had no idea what overlays was until just now as I’m reflecting and playing with this idea.

To deal with being raped as a teenager & messed-with when I was young, I created an overlay of “hating men”, that they are all evil and can’t be trusted. I naturally removed that particular illusion as I became online friends with men through the game Quake TeamFortress. As I started to realise that not all men were bad, that I can actually be friends with them and that not all of them were going to take advantage of me or hurt me, that overlay was adjusted accordingly, although I don’t ever think that I have ever dealt with my insecurities around loving and accepting myself.. I still carried a lot of shame, guilt, blame, anger, distrust, and a big yearning of wanting to be in a “loving and kind, caring world” (loving & accepting myself). 

These overlays can be a trap if you are unaware of them, because whenever you find yourself in fight-or-flight mode, you can default back to the “safety” of any one of these overlays that you have created throughout your life to be able to deal with your fears and insecurities. If you are unaware that the overlays are merely illusions that you perceive this reality through, then you are making decisions according to that belief system, which feels safer for you but it might not be the best course of action in that particular moment. It might not be serving the current situation, and it might make things worse instead of better.

By addressing and healing the traumas that might be still affecting your life or triggering these overlays, you will not need to default back to an overlay that might not be serving you, and will help you stay focused, conscious, balanced, and centred. Having less highs and lows, and more awareness of the now that you are creating/observing/experiencing.

This is where I am at now. 

The past few months, I created an overlay that was ‘messed with’ when my mind couldn’t compute them altogether. The beliefs that I had put in there, made me experience some incredibly powerful and magically amazing things, as well as lead me down the path of disaster for my soul. I found myself in an overlay where I believed that I was helping other people’s souls, that what you believe is what you experience, that I was here to help people, to be the change, to have unconditional love and compassion for people’s souls, that the path of true happiness was to believe/live in, totally embrace that which you want to have in your life. Whilst in that space, I was experiencing downloads about parallel realities, multi-dimensions, multi & inter-dimensional beings, communication with our higher-self/source and other beings, as well as at the same time – whilst being on a “high” from the things that I was experiencing, I delved further down the rabbit hole, wondering what else is possible from this new awareness.. what else could we do if we just “believed” it, how else can we help people and what else don’t I know about this reality? I got into a whole bunch of David Icke stuff, Dolores Cannon, Bentinho Massaro, The Law of One, Max Igan, etc. and have always been delving into the quantum physics stuff, and into the Law of Attraction, Abraham Hicks, Bashar, etc. Anything that could help my life and strengthen my belief in us creating our own realities, in sycronicities, in manifestation, in trusting your intuition, in trusting your higher-self, etc.

Being in this overlay put me in many situations where the only way to deal with the fears and insecurities that came up, was to be a “loving being”, being a person that accepts them for who they are, that everything is here to help me, and that I was put in this situation to help their soul so that they didn’t hurt anyone. Not being “real” about it, seeing reality through these mix-match of overlays ended with hurting my own soul.

If this illusion or overlay didn’t exist, I might of avoided a lot of pain for my soul, because as I tried to accept the wrongs that were happening, tried to love the wrongs that were happening, I was also defaulting backwards and forwards through different overlays that I had created throughout my lifetime and through recent overlays that I had deliberately “created” to be able to experience this reality “on purpose” with so much more, and my new viewpoint about having direct communication with my soul and getting visions of helping another’s soul coupled with my fear of being raped/hurt/abused and my fears of being unlovable/crazy turned me into some kind of “succubus” like creature. I turned on some kind of “super loving and accepting being” instead of going “wtf? no freakin’ way!”. From this overlay, to “be there for them”, I had to turn myself into someone that would accept them for who they are, to accept and be “turned on” by what they were saying and wanting. To “help them”, I had to let them know that I was their safe-place for sharing who they really are, so that I can show them what else is possible when you “create your own reality”, that life didn’t need to contain so much suffering and grief and shame – I wanted to help them experience the “high” that I was experiencing from knowing that I was “creating my own reality”. This pain-free, amazing reality (delusion?) that I was experiencing.

As each fear was being brought to the surface for me to face, I was twisting my mind into how to make this work with my new “overlay” of being the change, of being a loving being, of helping them. At the same time, I was seeing how this could help me. I can be more “free” and less of a “victim” of my childhood encounters. I “activated” something in me that I had never experienced before, some part of me that wants to be free of my past. I was facing my fears by “pretending” they weren’t fears at all, that I was ready, that I was more spiritual and loving than that. I was facing my fears with love for their soul. 

That’s where it got really messy. As I didn’t deal with any of my fears and kept being this “succubus”, I was not listening to my soul’s cry for help – because I was in an illusion of my soul being there to help their soul. Instead of fearing them, I pitied them for being so lost. Instead of facing my own fears and doubts about what was going on, I was getting strong intuition to help them. I was creating a “happy world” in my head where I am a loving being, by seeing we are all “children inside” and wanting the best for them – to have confidence, be happy, to be who they came here to be. But when my soul could take no more, and other areas of my life started to fall apart, the veil of illusion was cracking. I started to self-doubt everything.. and with that self-doubt, the walls came crashing down and I no longer knew what to believe. I was no longer getting downloads/insights, no longer getting visions, only seeing betrayal and disgust, but still so much wanting to be this loving being – I didn’t want my illusion to go away because I thought it was helping me (and I didn’t know it was an illusion). I thought I was free of my fears, that I was helping people, and that I was creating it all to help me.

The space where I was at, was that the higher the vibration you are experiencing, the more magic, miracles and happiness you receive. I had unconditional love for the whole world, the whole experience, it was a beautiful place to be. So my mind wouldn’t accept anything that was going to put me in a lower vibration. I was basically fooling myself and pulling the wool over my own eyes trying to stay in this “high vibration”, but the more I was tested, the more my soul was tormented by it all. I delved into all possibilities to try and make it “right”. To try and not see this situation as wrong. I delved into conspiracy theories, demons, etc. I started to believe that the communication I was getting from these multi-dimensional beings was “bad”. I didn’t know who to trust, because I was doing whatever I could to trust this one person. The strong intuition to help him but the visions of betrayal – it was awful. To keep him as an “innocent” and thereby also keep myself as an “innocent” and “free to be me”. 

I created some youtube videos from this state and lots of blog posts over the past few months as I got these downloads and insights etc.(Unpublished for now while in this transitional period of not knowing what to believe). I didn’t know that these overlays were just the reality that I was creating from my own mind because it was and still feels very real, but from this perspective of “overlays”, I can look at it from a safer and more contained place. Even the “overlays” could be my way of dealing with the trauma, but serves my life at the moment so that I can take a step back and review it all, and get back to a centred, more balanced, and clearer state of mind.

A new subscriber brought this ‘overlay’ idea to my attention (although I don’t know if he sees it the same way as I have explained in this blog post as I try and get my mind around it), but it has helped me come back out of the ‘high’. I no longer would do anything to hurt my soul. I no longer try and contact my “higher self” or get downloads/insights. I’m in a safe little bubble right now.. reviewing/observing my entire life from a new perspective, from this overlay perspective, wondering what this means and how I can use it better.

From here, I intend to write down the things that might trigger overlays to appear, as well as write a gratitude list (to create a better overlay?).. and to investigate all the overlays that I have created and what I need to adjust to better serve my life, to “know” myself, whilst still keeping me “connected” to the people I love and helping others… and keeping my sanity.

 

Penny (PennyButler.com)
Penny (PennyButler.com)

Truth-seeker, ever-questioning, ever-learning, ever-researching, ever delving further and deeper, ever trying to 'figure it out'. This site is a legacy of sorts, a place to collect thoughts, notes, book summaries, & random points of interests.