The Universe only ever says Yes to whatever we want. As spirit, there are no ethics. No judgment of good or bad. As Shakespeare wrote, Nothing’s good or bad lest thinking make it so.”
The U brings us what we expect and demand, even if just by repetition. Being the receptor, always waiting for signs from the U and not being able to clarify what you want, but being really clear and imaginative about what you don’t want gives very clear “anti-“ instructions to the U. Focusing on not having enough money goes a long way towards not having enough money. But I’m not asking for that – I’m afraid of that! Well, the content is lack of money and the fear level, the emotional level – think of that as the volume control. That emotional intensity is power, baby. That is the jet-fuel of manifesting. That emotional intensity is the uber-magnet of manifesting and creating on the physical plane.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The Cart before the horse...
One of my favorite questions from students is, “but how long is this going to take? I’m already (years old) and I’m not getting any younger. Is this going to take years?” It’s a favorite question because it is such a human question. When confounded by a new growth front, I still ask it myself. It’s like the sign, “Start here”. This point comes in every journey, every quest.
Back in the 1980’s when first confronted by this question I was stumped. Yea, why do this human potential movement class/seminar/workshop/practice? It may or may not work, and it will probably take time to get the hang of it and this teacher has been at it longer than me and I’ll never “catch up” to them.
Then I realized: two years from now, if I do this every day, I will be that much further down this road of choice and manifesting and living spiritually aligned. Otherwise, in two years, I’ll just have two more years of a mixed bag, a lot of which I don’t much like, including feeling like a victim. Two years down the line is coming either way. Better to make it intentional rather than just random and hap-hazard.
A lot more than two years have passes since then. I still have a lot mixed results, but that’s life. Focus changes. What is important to us changes. But has been quite a ride. I generally know when I’m tweaking myself now, feeling low and "less than" for instance, and can either judge myself for it or laugh myself out of it.
I’ve been working with the image of the cart before the horse lately. It’s a great image. I’ve realized that one of my responses to grief was to be struck dumb by the unexpected, uncontrollable aspects of death and trauma. I’d been the deer caught in the headlight that then got hit by the bus, and part of me was frozen there. For a very long time I acted from that “hit”, place; a bit frozen and arrested in receptive/reactive mode, always expecting the worst. It fit in perfectly with my always looking for signs from the Universe, which fit perfectly on top of the Roman Catholic/Marine/Patriarchal infrastructure I was raised on. Many different ways of saying, “be a good girl and wait till other’s think it’s your turn.” Don’t initiate anything – it will probably be wrong or go wrong or be taken wrong; you’re only a girl/human/mortal/whatever. I even worked at “fitting in” in the hopes that I could at least stand near the windows of someone else’s home and family life, pretending I was part of something. (never mind my own experiences with home and family life were huge sources of unresolved pain and I made sure I wasn't in that boxed in position again.) But that romanticism just made the loneliness that much more pronounced, that much harder to focus on anything else.
I didn’t know that was what I was doing for a good long time. In the past I used to kick myself for not knowing yesterday what I just realized today, but in this I see a lot of grace. Shock and its numbing aspects are a gift. Death is a huge gift. Even traumatic events are gifts. And I don't mean in an "Oh good, I don't need crutches," kind of way, but in an, "oh, my, the colors are brighter and the universe is kinder and life is sweeter than I'd thought," kind of way. There is forgiveness and adventure in the air again.
I’m changing normal by switching the order of the horse and cart. I’m switching to identifying with the horse, and not so much the cart. The cart - me as a catchers mit saying Yes to life and looking for signs, always in receptive mode, letting myself get overwhelmed then criticizing myself for not making more headway. I’m deciding to do more leading and less following in my life. Time to be the horse and give the Universe some of what it's been waiting for from me - some declarative direction. Go here. More of that.
Back in the 1980’s when first confronted by this question I was stumped. Yea, why do this human potential movement class/seminar/workshop/practice? It may or may not work, and it will probably take time to get the hang of it and this teacher has been at it longer than me and I’ll never “catch up” to them.
Then I realized: two years from now, if I do this every day, I will be that much further down this road of choice and manifesting and living spiritually aligned. Otherwise, in two years, I’ll just have two more years of a mixed bag, a lot of which I don’t much like, including feeling like a victim. Two years down the line is coming either way. Better to make it intentional rather than just random and hap-hazard.
A lot more than two years have passes since then. I still have a lot mixed results, but that’s life. Focus changes. What is important to us changes. But has been quite a ride. I generally know when I’m tweaking myself now, feeling low and "less than" for instance, and can either judge myself for it or laugh myself out of it.
I’ve been working with the image of the cart before the horse lately. It’s a great image. I’ve realized that one of my responses to grief was to be struck dumb by the unexpected, uncontrollable aspects of death and trauma. I’d been the deer caught in the headlight that then got hit by the bus, and part of me was frozen there. For a very long time I acted from that “hit”, place; a bit frozen and arrested in receptive/reactive mode, always expecting the worst. It fit in perfectly with my always looking for signs from the Universe, which fit perfectly on top of the Roman Catholic/Marine/Patriarchal infrastructure I was raised on. Many different ways of saying, “be a good girl and wait till other’s think it’s your turn.” Don’t initiate anything – it will probably be wrong or go wrong or be taken wrong; you’re only a girl/human/mortal/whatever. I even worked at “fitting in” in the hopes that I could at least stand near the windows of someone else’s home and family life, pretending I was part of something. (never mind my own experiences with home and family life were huge sources of unresolved pain and I made sure I wasn't in that boxed in position again.) But that romanticism just made the loneliness that much more pronounced, that much harder to focus on anything else.
I didn’t know that was what I was doing for a good long time. In the past I used to kick myself for not knowing yesterday what I just realized today, but in this I see a lot of grace. Shock and its numbing aspects are a gift. Death is a huge gift. Even traumatic events are gifts. And I don't mean in an "Oh good, I don't need crutches," kind of way, but in an, "oh, my, the colors are brighter and the universe is kinder and life is sweeter than I'd thought," kind of way. There is forgiveness and adventure in the air again.
I’m changing normal by switching the order of the horse and cart. I’m switching to identifying with the horse, and not so much the cart. The cart - me as a catchers mit saying Yes to life and looking for signs, always in receptive mode, letting myself get overwhelmed then criticizing myself for not making more headway. I’m deciding to do more leading and less following in my life. Time to be the horse and give the Universe some of what it's been waiting for from me - some declarative direction. Go here. More of that.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Resistance 101
Resistance is very often the first step for me. Honestly, sometimes I sound just like a modern republican, "NO!" (republican's haven't always been this way, remember - they used to be sometimes worthy opponents.)
But luckily I have this inner guide. As I wrestle with this new level of awareness that I really do create my physical reality, I wake up with some great words of encouragement and reminders. Today's topic was loneliness;
"Fill the desire to not be lonely with inner-conversation with us, your guides and angels - you innate connectedness. Feed that today. Nurture that today. Act as if that is true and real today, since you know it is."
And
"Give today what you most need to experience - such as faith and mirth. Make a game of seeing the good in others, in the situation, in the stack of back-logged problems. See how these are gifts, not menaces! Go for that old attitude of gratitude thing today. A p p r e c i a t e EVERYTHING all. day. long. I dare ya."
Here we go.
But luckily I have this inner guide. As I wrestle with this new level of awareness that I really do create my physical reality, I wake up with some great words of encouragement and reminders. Today's topic was loneliness;
"Fill the desire to not be lonely with inner-conversation with us, your guides and angels - you innate connectedness. Feed that today. Nurture that today. Act as if that is true and real today, since you know it is."
And
"Give today what you most need to experience - such as faith and mirth. Make a game of seeing the good in others, in the situation, in the stack of back-logged problems. See how these are gifts, not menaces! Go for that old attitude of gratitude thing today. A p p r e c i a t e EVERYTHING all. day. long. I dare ya."
Here we go.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
"It doesn't matter what we do until we accept ourselves. Once we accept ourselves, it doesn't matter what we do"
pg. 223 - Dan Millman's The Life You Were Born to Live
Amen. THAT's where I'm going.
You know that saying that when the student is ready the teacher will appear? What I've noticed in life is when the student is ready, they see the Answer wherever they look - on the back of a cereal box, a randomly opened book, the next conversation they have with it doesn't matter who, because really and truly all our answers are within ourselves and when we are ready to see them, we do.
Thank goodness the game is rigged that way!
Amen. THAT's where I'm going.
You know that saying that when the student is ready the teacher will appear? What I've noticed in life is when the student is ready, they see the Answer wherever they look - on the back of a cereal box, a randomly opened book, the next conversation they have with it doesn't matter who, because really and truly all our answers are within ourselves and when we are ready to see them, we do.
Thank goodness the game is rigged that way!
Quick Notes
Short version:
It is cheaper – financially, emotionally and self-credibility – to buy/get what you actually want, because there is no Enough of what you don’t want.
For years I've bought the cheaper versions of things, then another cheap version, until eventually I either had a lot of what I didn't want and/or finally got the version I actually wanted in the first place at which point I'd spent a lot more then the simple cost of the thing I really wanted. This goes for food and all the other appetites as well.
Second chances are 100,000 choices in what you tell yourself and what you do taken every day.
If you don’t have it in you to believe in yourself and can’t seem to stop the avalanche of all your failings, suggest to yourself simply, “Maybe not. I could be wrong.” Repetition helps break the wall of the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves, the world, what things meant, and what’s possible. The cheery people already know this. That’s why they are always telling themselves and everyone else how lucky they are – and mean it, without sarcasm!
Repetition helps make things real for the body/personality, so pick a sentence of something you really want, like, “Quitting smoking is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.” and write it down over and over again. Fill a notebook page with it. The physical experience of hand writing is more potent than the mechanical activity of typing. I did this in a careless, non methodical way for about 6 months off and on before I quit smoking. Think of it as counter-programming.
Sure, everyone in our world has been and is programming us all the time, but the most important and powerful programmer is ourselves - own thoughts. I’d heard this for years and talked about it often. I had techniques for releasing old programming and practiced them a lot and they helped. I know that it was true that I was mean and hard on myself and I’d had a lot of glimmers and improvement over the years. But finally I saw how I had been adding new toxic programming reinforcement faster than I was cleaning out the old stuff by how crummy I kept feeling if I didn’t stay really, really vigilant. I realized that I had so desperately not wanted to be “one of those people” who I believed thought too highly of themselves I had gone in the exact opposite direction. I’d become one of those people who lied to myself fall the time – in the negative because I didn’t want to lie to myself like those other people.
Naturally when I meditated on this and asked spirit about this I was shown how there was one specific person from early childhood who modeled the things I didn’t want to be like – the one who wasn’t good at receiving but a “taker”. I didn’t want to be a “taker” so I was lousy at receiving because I didn’t know the difference. And this was the same person who always professed such a high opinion about themselves, acting like Royalty while everyone else was supposed to be Subjects, so I didn’t want anything to do with arrogance (to claim for ones’ own). I was so far repelled by and in resistance to these kinds of things that I became their antitheses, which really is just the same in reverse. The gargantuan arrogance of the inferiority complex is just as damaging and unpleasant to be around as the famous opposite. Competition (from either direction) does not contribute any healing or benefit at all, just more derision, distrust and meanness.
I didn’t want to lie to myself by saying positive or supportive things to myself. Then I realized that at least half of the things I said to myself in the “constructive criticism” category were in fact lies. They were the most hateful versions and interpretations of things I had done and said. Kind of like Fox news talking about democrats. Once I realized that it was in fact a lot easier to see the truth in the bumper sticker, “Don’t believe everything you think.” Finally I could see the viciousness people had been telling me about of so long.
It is cheaper – financially, emotionally and self-credibility – to buy/get what you actually want, because there is no Enough of what you don’t want.
For years I've bought the cheaper versions of things, then another cheap version, until eventually I either had a lot of what I didn't want and/or finally got the version I actually wanted in the first place at which point I'd spent a lot more then the simple cost of the thing I really wanted. This goes for food and all the other appetites as well.
Second chances are 100,000 choices in what you tell yourself and what you do taken every day.
If you don’t have it in you to believe in yourself and can’t seem to stop the avalanche of all your failings, suggest to yourself simply, “Maybe not. I could be wrong.” Repetition helps break the wall of the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves, the world, what things meant, and what’s possible. The cheery people already know this. That’s why they are always telling themselves and everyone else how lucky they are – and mean it, without sarcasm!
Repetition helps make things real for the body/personality, so pick a sentence of something you really want, like, “Quitting smoking is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.” and write it down over and over again. Fill a notebook page with it. The physical experience of hand writing is more potent than the mechanical activity of typing. I did this in a careless, non methodical way for about 6 months off and on before I quit smoking. Think of it as counter-programming.
Sure, everyone in our world has been and is programming us all the time, but the most important and powerful programmer is ourselves - own thoughts. I’d heard this for years and talked about it often. I had techniques for releasing old programming and practiced them a lot and they helped. I know that it was true that I was mean and hard on myself and I’d had a lot of glimmers and improvement over the years. But finally I saw how I had been adding new toxic programming reinforcement faster than I was cleaning out the old stuff by how crummy I kept feeling if I didn’t stay really, really vigilant. I realized that I had so desperately not wanted to be “one of those people” who I believed thought too highly of themselves I had gone in the exact opposite direction. I’d become one of those people who lied to myself fall the time – in the negative because I didn’t want to lie to myself like those other people.
Naturally when I meditated on this and asked spirit about this I was shown how there was one specific person from early childhood who modeled the things I didn’t want to be like – the one who wasn’t good at receiving but a “taker”. I didn’t want to be a “taker” so I was lousy at receiving because I didn’t know the difference. And this was the same person who always professed such a high opinion about themselves, acting like Royalty while everyone else was supposed to be Subjects, so I didn’t want anything to do with arrogance (to claim for ones’ own). I was so far repelled by and in resistance to these kinds of things that I became their antitheses, which really is just the same in reverse. The gargantuan arrogance of the inferiority complex is just as damaging and unpleasant to be around as the famous opposite. Competition (from either direction) does not contribute any healing or benefit at all, just more derision, distrust and meanness.
I didn’t want to lie to myself by saying positive or supportive things to myself. Then I realized that at least half of the things I said to myself in the “constructive criticism” category were in fact lies. They were the most hateful versions and interpretations of things I had done and said. Kind of like Fox news talking about democrats. Once I realized that it was in fact a lot easier to see the truth in the bumper sticker, “Don’t believe everything you think.” Finally I could see the viciousness people had been telling me about of so long.
Second Chances
Satiate; fullness; satisfy; completeness; gratify; slake – slake is such a great word. It is so suggestive, like it should have a lascivious meaning. There was a M*A*S*H* episode in which Radar was wanting to woo a girl (played by Mary Kay Place) who was bookish so he wanted to present as bookish and debonair – okay, maybe it wasn’t that episode but I’m sure I remember Radar getting all hot and bothered over the word slake and asking Hawkeye what it meant. Pretty sure anyway.
Satiate; fullness; satisfied; complete. All these words that describe the sensation that signals it’s time to stop eating. It occurs to me that a lot of us these days do not know this feeling, this sensation. We have, for various reasons, lost touch with the sensation of fullness, completeness. The lack of feeling full – not recognizing that sensation, has become very common in our modern, fast lives.
I’ve been noticing things since I first heard this notion. Around the time I first heard about feeling full, feeling satiated, I quit smoking after 39 years. Quitting smoking made starting a blog make sense, though I honestly couldn’t explain the logic to you. I’ve not smoked in over a hundred days – and I’ve gained some 10 – 15 lbs. To someone else I would say, “Oh, that’s temporary and a small price to pay for quitting a habit that has been simultaneously your best friend and poisoning you since you were 14.” Yea, to you I’d have some nice, support things to say. To me, on the other hand, it’s more dire and threatening than that.
In August I had my gall bladder taken out after 8 months of severe pain. I had thought I could manage things with diet, etc. and resisted the surgery from the first attack in December to the surgery in August. By then I was having “attacks” nearly every other night. One of the last times was so severe I had to go back to the ER for pain and also fear it might have been my heart. They did an ultrasound that time. A week later the surgeon told me the stone was about 1.5 inches in diameter. 1.5 inches! If I’d know that all those months ago when all the pain began I would have had the surgery sooner. One thing this experience made very clear to me is how having a high pain tolerance is not really such a good thing. In fact when you have a really high pain tolerance you subject yourself and your body to a whole lot of unnecessary stress and, well, pain.
I did apologize to my body for all I had put it through, and admitted that obviously I wasn’t great at knowing how to take care of myself, but that I wanted to do learn to do better. I promised my body I would listen to it more. My body had heard this many times before, so there’s been some righteous friction for a really long time. But this I really got it that I didn’t listen to my body at all. So I tried different things to help me stay out of autopilot and paying attention more. Know what I discovered? Modern man doesn’t much like being conscious, hence all the forms of constant stimuli. So all the tv watching and internet surfing and grocery shopping and my main event being cooking and eating – all these little distractions are alternatives to being present and aware. “Duh,” I know, huh? But that is part of this deal – this doing it different and changing normal.
After the gall bladder in August and not feeling as better as I would have hoped I would I got the Swine Flu and my throat and lungs were on fire so I would take 3 puffs of a cig and had the most brilliant idea to not inhale. Simple, simple stuff. Stuff I’d known all along but hadn’t put together in quite that way until just then. To this day when I think about smoking or having a puff, I get the sensation of my throat and lungs being on fire and it is dead easy to move on to distract myself. See, this is an example of distraction being a good and useful thing. Anyway, as one of my brothers says, “The only way I could quit smoking was if it was easy. If it had been at all difficult I never would have been able to do it.” It was the same for me. I’d been thinking and taking about thinking about quitting for about a decade and with all the stuff in the airwaves about how hard it is, etc., I just know I couldn’t quit. I know it would take a miracle. Funny, when I quit drinking in 1991 I would go to meetings and hear people say how they didn’t want to drink. I would wish that I felt that way too, but instead I’d go home and drink again. But eventually I had enough and sure enough, I didn’t want to drink any more.
I have been so grateful to my then-self for having gone through all that then because I know how that felt (hopeless) and scary and this has too. It was such a relief to know that I had gone through this before and it had turned out to be a really great thing, so my body had some sense that this would work out, too.
So I quit smoking in late October and a few weeks later I had to call the 800-nurse on my insurance card. The pains were horribly similar to the pains I had had with the gall stones. This freaked me out since that had been removed. Oh crap – maybe my heart is involved in all this illness after all. The nurse wanted me to go to the ER of course. It was about 2:AM and I didn’t know if they’d dope me up while I was there and then not be able to drive myself home, so I called a cab. I love where I live and the fact that the cab ride to the hospital is less than $10 with the tip included just makes it better. Funny, since before the last 10 months I’d never needed surgery and the ER so much in my life.
This time they didn’t send me home as they had so many times before with the gall stone. This time it was an emergency and it was lucky I’d gone when I did because I was suffering acute appendicitis and I’d be going into surgery in the next few hours, as soon as the surgeon got there. Luckily it was the same one that had done my gall bladder operation and that was recent enough that he could remember me – what a treat! I was just so relieved there was a solution in my very near future.
I know that compared to a lot of things a lot of people have to deal with every day this little 6 month period isn’t much, but since none of these kinds of things have ever happened to me before it all had me pretty freaked. Body certainly was demanding my attention and that I wake up like never before, that’s for sure. Not having much of an attention span hasn’t helped anything either. It has really messed with my ability to sit down and meditate and that’s never a good thing. That’s like greasy wax build-up on your perspective and with all the old stuff that’s coming up to be healed and released - that everyone is being asked to heal and release, it’s been a very intense time.
One minute I truly see and feel how everything that ever was is perfect and everything as it is now is perfect too. And in a heartbeat I’m filled with fear and uncertainty and paranoia. And in each phase, it feels 100% true and accurate and real and like the other perspective is a long way away and won’t be coming back. In early sobriety I called it the, “Always, never and forever,” syndrome and recognized it as a warning signal – “danger, danger, Will Robinson. Don’t believe any of what you’re about to hear/feel/think!” So true. Like a caffeine overload, you just have to sweat it out and not act on any of it. Like being on acid and hallucinating. The trick is to remember that none of it is really real. It’s the worst-case-scenario, distorted version of things, not to be believed. Hence the bumper sticker that says, “Don’t believe everything you think.” I also want one that says, “Don’t believe everything you feel.”
One of the big things that came to me out of all this is that I can’t live like I used to anymore. It really is killing me. Normal is changing anyway, and I’m much better off when I don’t resist and in fact find ways to participate and initiate positive change for my life. I can either be a victim to the changes or I can try to get ahead of them and initiate a few changes of my own.
You know the most important, primary relationship we humans have isn’t with another – it is with ourselves. Body and spirit chose each other specifically, actively. There is a powerful bond there and without the commitment required in any marriage or partnership, we really are screwed. I chose to use my powers for good, not ill. First do no harm. Peace begins at home. Home is where the (physical) heart is. Honey, I’m home! I mean to be here. I mean to be here now, fully, 100%. I came here for a reason, with a purpose in mind. I may have forgotten it for a while, but it’s never too late to begin again.
Second chances are a switch to be flipped. It’s an attitude, an ability. Like serendipity is an aptitude for making desirable discoveries. Second changes aren’t a single event, but a hundred thousand choices in thought and action every. single. day. Here’s to the good ones.
Satiate; fullness; satisfied; complete. All these words that describe the sensation that signals it’s time to stop eating. It occurs to me that a lot of us these days do not know this feeling, this sensation. We have, for various reasons, lost touch with the sensation of fullness, completeness. The lack of feeling full – not recognizing that sensation, has become very common in our modern, fast lives.
I’ve been noticing things since I first heard this notion. Around the time I first heard about feeling full, feeling satiated, I quit smoking after 39 years. Quitting smoking made starting a blog make sense, though I honestly couldn’t explain the logic to you. I’ve not smoked in over a hundred days – and I’ve gained some 10 – 15 lbs. To someone else I would say, “Oh, that’s temporary and a small price to pay for quitting a habit that has been simultaneously your best friend and poisoning you since you were 14.” Yea, to you I’d have some nice, support things to say. To me, on the other hand, it’s more dire and threatening than that.
In August I had my gall bladder taken out after 8 months of severe pain. I had thought I could manage things with diet, etc. and resisted the surgery from the first attack in December to the surgery in August. By then I was having “attacks” nearly every other night. One of the last times was so severe I had to go back to the ER for pain and also fear it might have been my heart. They did an ultrasound that time. A week later the surgeon told me the stone was about 1.5 inches in diameter. 1.5 inches! If I’d know that all those months ago when all the pain began I would have had the surgery sooner. One thing this experience made very clear to me is how having a high pain tolerance is not really such a good thing. In fact when you have a really high pain tolerance you subject yourself and your body to a whole lot of unnecessary stress and, well, pain.
I did apologize to my body for all I had put it through, and admitted that obviously I wasn’t great at knowing how to take care of myself, but that I wanted to do learn to do better. I promised my body I would listen to it more. My body had heard this many times before, so there’s been some righteous friction for a really long time. But this I really got it that I didn’t listen to my body at all. So I tried different things to help me stay out of autopilot and paying attention more. Know what I discovered? Modern man doesn’t much like being conscious, hence all the forms of constant stimuli. So all the tv watching and internet surfing and grocery shopping and my main event being cooking and eating – all these little distractions are alternatives to being present and aware. “Duh,” I know, huh? But that is part of this deal – this doing it different and changing normal.
After the gall bladder in August and not feeling as better as I would have hoped I would I got the Swine Flu and my throat and lungs were on fire so I would take 3 puffs of a cig and had the most brilliant idea to not inhale. Simple, simple stuff. Stuff I’d known all along but hadn’t put together in quite that way until just then. To this day when I think about smoking or having a puff, I get the sensation of my throat and lungs being on fire and it is dead easy to move on to distract myself. See, this is an example of distraction being a good and useful thing. Anyway, as one of my brothers says, “The only way I could quit smoking was if it was easy. If it had been at all difficult I never would have been able to do it.” It was the same for me. I’d been thinking and taking about thinking about quitting for about a decade and with all the stuff in the airwaves about how hard it is, etc., I just know I couldn’t quit. I know it would take a miracle. Funny, when I quit drinking in 1991 I would go to meetings and hear people say how they didn’t want to drink. I would wish that I felt that way too, but instead I’d go home and drink again. But eventually I had enough and sure enough, I didn’t want to drink any more.
I have been so grateful to my then-self for having gone through all that then because I know how that felt (hopeless) and scary and this has too. It was such a relief to know that I had gone through this before and it had turned out to be a really great thing, so my body had some sense that this would work out, too.
So I quit smoking in late October and a few weeks later I had to call the 800-nurse on my insurance card. The pains were horribly similar to the pains I had had with the gall stones. This freaked me out since that had been removed. Oh crap – maybe my heart is involved in all this illness after all. The nurse wanted me to go to the ER of course. It was about 2:AM and I didn’t know if they’d dope me up while I was there and then not be able to drive myself home, so I called a cab. I love where I live and the fact that the cab ride to the hospital is less than $10 with the tip included just makes it better. Funny, since before the last 10 months I’d never needed surgery and the ER so much in my life.
This time they didn’t send me home as they had so many times before with the gall stone. This time it was an emergency and it was lucky I’d gone when I did because I was suffering acute appendicitis and I’d be going into surgery in the next few hours, as soon as the surgeon got there. Luckily it was the same one that had done my gall bladder operation and that was recent enough that he could remember me – what a treat! I was just so relieved there was a solution in my very near future.
I know that compared to a lot of things a lot of people have to deal with every day this little 6 month period isn’t much, but since none of these kinds of things have ever happened to me before it all had me pretty freaked. Body certainly was demanding my attention and that I wake up like never before, that’s for sure. Not having much of an attention span hasn’t helped anything either. It has really messed with my ability to sit down and meditate and that’s never a good thing. That’s like greasy wax build-up on your perspective and with all the old stuff that’s coming up to be healed and released - that everyone is being asked to heal and release, it’s been a very intense time.
One minute I truly see and feel how everything that ever was is perfect and everything as it is now is perfect too. And in a heartbeat I’m filled with fear and uncertainty and paranoia. And in each phase, it feels 100% true and accurate and real and like the other perspective is a long way away and won’t be coming back. In early sobriety I called it the, “Always, never and forever,” syndrome and recognized it as a warning signal – “danger, danger, Will Robinson. Don’t believe any of what you’re about to hear/feel/think!” So true. Like a caffeine overload, you just have to sweat it out and not act on any of it. Like being on acid and hallucinating. The trick is to remember that none of it is really real. It’s the worst-case-scenario, distorted version of things, not to be believed. Hence the bumper sticker that says, “Don’t believe everything you think.” I also want one that says, “Don’t believe everything you feel.”
One of the big things that came to me out of all this is that I can’t live like I used to anymore. It really is killing me. Normal is changing anyway, and I’m much better off when I don’t resist and in fact find ways to participate and initiate positive change for my life. I can either be a victim to the changes or I can try to get ahead of them and initiate a few changes of my own.
You know the most important, primary relationship we humans have isn’t with another – it is with ourselves. Body and spirit chose each other specifically, actively. There is a powerful bond there and without the commitment required in any marriage or partnership, we really are screwed. I chose to use my powers for good, not ill. First do no harm. Peace begins at home. Home is where the (physical) heart is. Honey, I’m home! I mean to be here. I mean to be here now, fully, 100%. I came here for a reason, with a purpose in mind. I may have forgotten it for a while, but it’s never too late to begin again.
Second chances are a switch to be flipped. It’s an attitude, an ability. Like serendipity is an aptitude for making desirable discoveries. Second changes aren’t a single event, but a hundred thousand choices in thought and action every. single. day. Here’s to the good ones.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Reminders from the Universe
Reminder from the Universe - little hits from along the way.
I often wake up with these little reminders, such as:
Excelling is like pure oxygen. It gives you great energy and it energizes everyone and everything around you. Once you have some of it, you want more and more. It nourishes everyone, is inspiring and leads to a contagious sense of happiness, powerfulness, and that all good things are possible.
Mediocrity is like a low-grade infection. You don’t feel bad enough to stay home from work, but you don’t have it in you to really try to achieve excellence. It has a “what’s the point,” drag to it a sense of powerlessness. Not necessary out-right powerlessness, but an under everything, black-hole kind of powerlessness that isn’t overly obvious but colors everything around it.
You have to go for your true heart’s desire, your true bliss, your true ability for excellence because anything less than that is boring!
You have to go for your highest vision because that’s where your life-force energy flows to and from. You have to do what you came here to do or over time you’ll just die of disappointment; first emotionally and spiritually and much later physically. Did you really go to all the trouble of choosing an adventure, a worthy Quest for a lifetime - arrange which souls you’d meet along the way and share the adventure with - arrange for some pentacle adventures (usually disguised as traumas from a body perspective) and obstacles to help build some spiritual muscles, growth and understanding, and then part way into the deal turn it into just an endurance game? Planet Earth is the Adventure Park of this dimension! You can act out adventures, thillers, romances, gothic – all and any kind of story – those are the “rides” of life on this planet! Only we’ve forgotten that we are spirits who donned a body to come into the physical realm to enjoy having emotions and sensations!
I often wake up with these little reminders, such as:
Excelling is like pure oxygen. It gives you great energy and it energizes everyone and everything around you. Once you have some of it, you want more and more. It nourishes everyone, is inspiring and leads to a contagious sense of happiness, powerfulness, and that all good things are possible.
Mediocrity is like a low-grade infection. You don’t feel bad enough to stay home from work, but you don’t have it in you to really try to achieve excellence. It has a “what’s the point,” drag to it a sense of powerlessness. Not necessary out-right powerlessness, but an under everything, black-hole kind of powerlessness that isn’t overly obvious but colors everything around it.
You have to go for your true heart’s desire, your true bliss, your true ability for excellence because anything less than that is boring!
You have to go for your highest vision because that’s where your life-force energy flows to and from. You have to do what you came here to do or over time you’ll just die of disappointment; first emotionally and spiritually and much later physically. Did you really go to all the trouble of choosing an adventure, a worthy Quest for a lifetime - arrange which souls you’d meet along the way and share the adventure with - arrange for some pentacle adventures (usually disguised as traumas from a body perspective) and obstacles to help build some spiritual muscles, growth and understanding, and then part way into the deal turn it into just an endurance game? Planet Earth is the Adventure Park of this dimension! You can act out adventures, thillers, romances, gothic – all and any kind of story – those are the “rides” of life on this planet! Only we’ve forgotten that we are spirits who donned a body to come into the physical realm to enjoy having emotions and sensations!
Monday, January 25, 2010
Still about breathing
There's a lot of things I love about talking to people. One of them is how it is such a relief to experience that we all go through the same doubts and tribulations, mistakes and did I say doubts? I meant doubts. Twenty years ago a friend told me a quote (can't remember who first said it) that goes something like,
"To chose a life of faith is to live a life of doubt." It's like how in so many natural healing modalities, things get worse before they get better. And in healing development, when you chose to have more love in your life all your existing blocks to love show up first - so you can heal them and actually have what you're saying you want = more love in your life.
I was talking to a friend who is also a professional healer and spiritual coach this weekend. We had a great boost of healing in the form of laughing as we talked about various people we both know (including ourselves) who are bouncing off the walls these days as our bodies struggle to catch up with the energy shifts that are going on like a series of small earthquakes.
I was telling her how one minute I clearly see how everything that is and everything that has been is all perfect and in alignment and good to go. And then suddenly, it's like someone has turned the etcher-sketch upside down again and all I can see or feel is failure and chaos, again! Just her laughing from relating and sharing that we each have friends that are experiencing similar tumult was like a balm and helped the body relax and not take things so seriously.
I know that's one of the things that I get hooked on - the seriousness of it all. There is a downward spiral of doubt that sucks all the life out of things. And then I'm hooked, I give my life energy over to thoughts of what I'm afraid will happen or has happened. Fear and not in the present - two energies guaranteed to agitate body enough to throw spirit out in the death-grip of survival. What's the opposite of the law of attraction? Desperate survival energy, the ultimate repellent. It won't work on bugs but it sure works on sending away what would really help while drawing towards you all the stuff you don't want.
If I didn't give it so much power and life-force energy, it wouldn't have enough power to become true in physical reality. I have sometimes really excelled at creating what I most fervently don't want. It really sucks, but I'm turning that around. That's what doing it different is all about really. Turning things around. That and remembering that "normal rules don't apply."
On Haiti -
I did some healing meditation work on Haiti again today. I got the message that as spirits, the people who have been involved in this mass tragedy were all signed up for this and that much good and awareness is and will come from this. This is not to say that people make choices on a body-personality level to go through something like this. It's not the self-conscious mind that signs up for these things, it is that as spirit, as the one who takes on a body and a lifetime as if donning a garment - that everlasting spirit part that takes on challenges like this one. Death is not the hard part. Death is really a graduation to a higher next level of awareness and life - just not with a body and on this plane of existence. It is a completion and a graduation of sorts. It is the physical suffering that is so hard to bear. That and the extreme fear, and the engulfing sense of aloneness.
A really surprising piece of information that came from today's session was the message that one of the things this wake-up call is trying to tell us is that in the recent past society has been moved away from supporting individuals to supporting corporations and institutions, and we must turn that tide back around. This event and Katrina and the Tsunami show how if it is an area where people with money want to go for their pleasure (vacation fun) then the infestructure will be repaired, streets repaved, buildings and utilities restored in quick order because otherwise, some company (companies) will loose out on those sales and that is unacceptable losses. Yet if it is an area where the wealthy are not likely to go and spend money, then we hear a lot about the problems of the infestructure and getting supplies delivered, etc, etc. Institutions are having trouble getting real help to real people, and yet small organizations that are not institutions but a collection of people helping people - these are the ones that are not having trouble getting help where it is needed.
Institutions want the people to come to it and do what it needs them to do so it can help them. People will just go where the other people and the needs are.
We can no longer think of sustainability only in terms of renewable resources for food and energy. This is also a wake up call to how unsustainable the economic practices are. Since the end of WWII so much of our culture, driven by the economy, has switched from self-sustaining to dependence on corporations. And government at one time was there to protect the citizens from corporate greed, but many of those safeguards have been dissolved.
The truth is that many of us feel neither protected, defended or supported by our economy, or our "way of life" - corporate first, people second.
It is time we realize that in truth, if I don't have your back and you don't have my back, we're both in trouble. Neither corporations or government have our backs and the truth is, that's our job. WE are the family of man - and we have to wake up from the lies that tell us to suspect each other all the time. Remember, people could be friends you just haven't met yet, instead of suspects or the undeserving poor.
"To chose a life of faith is to live a life of doubt." It's like how in so many natural healing modalities, things get worse before they get better. And in healing development, when you chose to have more love in your life all your existing blocks to love show up first - so you can heal them and actually have what you're saying you want = more love in your life.
I was talking to a friend who is also a professional healer and spiritual coach this weekend. We had a great boost of healing in the form of laughing as we talked about various people we both know (including ourselves) who are bouncing off the walls these days as our bodies struggle to catch up with the energy shifts that are going on like a series of small earthquakes.
I was telling her how one minute I clearly see how everything that is and everything that has been is all perfect and in alignment and good to go. And then suddenly, it's like someone has turned the etcher-sketch upside down again and all I can see or feel is failure and chaos, again! Just her laughing from relating and sharing that we each have friends that are experiencing similar tumult was like a balm and helped the body relax and not take things so seriously.
I know that's one of the things that I get hooked on - the seriousness of it all. There is a downward spiral of doubt that sucks all the life out of things. And then I'm hooked, I give my life energy over to thoughts of what I'm afraid will happen or has happened. Fear and not in the present - two energies guaranteed to agitate body enough to throw spirit out in the death-grip of survival. What's the opposite of the law of attraction? Desperate survival energy, the ultimate repellent. It won't work on bugs but it sure works on sending away what would really help while drawing towards you all the stuff you don't want.
If I didn't give it so much power and life-force energy, it wouldn't have enough power to become true in physical reality. I have sometimes really excelled at creating what I most fervently don't want. It really sucks, but I'm turning that around. That's what doing it different is all about really. Turning things around. That and remembering that "normal rules don't apply."
On Haiti -
I did some healing meditation work on Haiti again today. I got the message that as spirits, the people who have been involved in this mass tragedy were all signed up for this and that much good and awareness is and will come from this. This is not to say that people make choices on a body-personality level to go through something like this. It's not the self-conscious mind that signs up for these things, it is that as spirit, as the one who takes on a body and a lifetime as if donning a garment - that everlasting spirit part that takes on challenges like this one. Death is not the hard part. Death is really a graduation to a higher next level of awareness and life - just not with a body and on this plane of existence. It is a completion and a graduation of sorts. It is the physical suffering that is so hard to bear. That and the extreme fear, and the engulfing sense of aloneness.
A really surprising piece of information that came from today's session was the message that one of the things this wake-up call is trying to tell us is that in the recent past society has been moved away from supporting individuals to supporting corporations and institutions, and we must turn that tide back around. This event and Katrina and the Tsunami show how if it is an area where people with money want to go for their pleasure (vacation fun) then the infestructure will be repaired, streets repaved, buildings and utilities restored in quick order because otherwise, some company (companies) will loose out on those sales and that is unacceptable losses. Yet if it is an area where the wealthy are not likely to go and spend money, then we hear a lot about the problems of the infestructure and getting supplies delivered, etc, etc. Institutions are having trouble getting real help to real people, and yet small organizations that are not institutions but a collection of people helping people - these are the ones that are not having trouble getting help where it is needed.
Institutions want the people to come to it and do what it needs them to do so it can help them. People will just go where the other people and the needs are.
We can no longer think of sustainability only in terms of renewable resources for food and energy. This is also a wake up call to how unsustainable the economic practices are. Since the end of WWII so much of our culture, driven by the economy, has switched from self-sustaining to dependence on corporations. And government at one time was there to protect the citizens from corporate greed, but many of those safeguards have been dissolved.
The truth is that many of us feel neither protected, defended or supported by our economy, or our "way of life" - corporate first, people second.
It is time we realize that in truth, if I don't have your back and you don't have my back, we're both in trouble. Neither corporations or government have our backs and the truth is, that's our job. WE are the family of man - and we have to wake up from the lies that tell us to suspect each other all the time. Remember, people could be friends you just haven't met yet, instead of suspects or the undeserving poor.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Just breathe
I went to a great MeetUp this weekend in North Seattle. A practitioner of Byron Katie's The Work held an afternoon workshop that was very good. The Work (http://www.thework.com/thework.asp) is a terrific tool for getting in charge of your thinking and beliefs. Very powerful, and empowering. And the site has a lot of great free information and resources.
One of the things I love about any of the methodologies of deepening, healing and discovering new frontiers, aspects and potentials within ones self is that really there are some number of stories and really we all share them to one degree and another. The woman I was seated next to was very vocal and experienced in The Work and I was naturally a bit unsure of myself at first with her. In my process of doing it different and changing normal in my own life I find my emotions are very near the surface most of the time. As a poet, a woman, a human being, and a spiritual being, I find that having my emotions flow such much is very healthy and reflects my true values, but as a "middle-aged" woman in the professional world I find it rather challenging to deal with and not judge myself for it, or care when others judge me for it. When the time came to work with a partner I was of course matched up with her. (you draw to you what you resist!)
(Please go see the site to get a real description and understanding of the work - I'm only describing my experience with it. I'm not trying to teach it or anything here.)
When you do the work with someone you hear some intimate things about them and as they are affected and sometimes swept away with their emotions, like I was when it was my turn, you gently remind them of the belief they are working on and bring them back to topic. The session went well enough when she was helping me. At this point I have gotten used to being emotional in front of people especially when it is a safe, healing setting, so of course I cry at least some. So I didn't really mind crying in front of someone I didn't know, and as much healing work as I have done I figured she could relate to what I was working on. I haven't ever been in a healing session where I couldn't relate to my clients, and I've heard so many stories - enough to know that none of us have created any new emotions since time began, and that we all have them, just to an infinite shading and degree.
When we switched turns, and she did know the procedure, but since she was actively doing it and working on her own stuff (stuff I totally related to and could have been saying myself), she was in her emotions (rightly so) and so I helped her back to her topic and supported her as she did the work. I was laughing at myself inside for how I had felt a bit vulnerable and intimidated by her before we worked together. I laughed at my falling for the lie that I'm not good enough (therefore others are better than me) again, and how even though I have improved a great deal in this area, I still fall for it. But laughing kindly at myself for that instead of 1) totally believing it or 2) beating myself up for it - again -- this is a great reminder of how far I have come.
In the end some of us exchanged phone numbers and we may get together at some point. Who knows.
It was so clear (again!) how we are all convinced that we are the only ones with this or that and feeling isolated. Partly we isolate ourselves for various reasons, but also our culture isolates us, ignores us, makes us irrelevant.
Who among us hasn't enjoyed attention and favors in the world - from being waited on a little faster to getting out of a speeding ticket, etc. and then woken up one day and Boom! you're suddenly invisible. It is the weirdest thing.
My pal Mary Jane and I had a lot of discussions about that, trying to figure it out and just how to adjust to it, when it first happened to us. And tonight I was surfing imdb.com, one of my favorite sites (I love movies. I have a very cosmic, spiritual relationship with movies). I'd seen Diana Rigg in Network earlier and so I wanted to read her biography on imdb. and in the Personal Quotes section, she talks about suddenly being invisible! Diana bloody Rigg! One of The Most Fabulous women of the 1960's! I can't imagine anyone being dumb enough as to not see her, or think she's not relivent, or has nothing other than sex appeal to offer! Absurd, not to mention sexist. I'm sure I'll come back to this rant later.
Where I was going with this is that we've all been programmed to believe that we are alone feeling like this, and we aren't. As Tony says, we know all these amazing women who are spiritual and healers and creative as all get out, living in a culture that totally doesn't care or value any one it can't make a buck off of, so we buy the lie that we aren't good enough or that people don't want what we have to offer, and it's a crock. In fact the world needs us more than ever.
Each one of us has a specific note to sing in the chorus of the Universe and the song isn't complete when even one of us don't sing our note to the fullest of our ability. God/The Universe/our Spirit selves doesn't make junk. Our special gifts are needed - here and now - today. We need each other to be who we really are. Imagine how different (better) the world would be if we all actually Showed Up as ourselves. Our real, full, powerful-yet-vulnerable selves... For one thing we wouldn't be able to keep the lie that we were alone and irrelevent!
Just breath. Breath into being. Breath into grounding into the now. Breath into being who you truly are. Just breath.
One of the things I love about any of the methodologies of deepening, healing and discovering new frontiers, aspects and potentials within ones self is that really there are some number of stories and really we all share them to one degree and another. The woman I was seated next to was very vocal and experienced in The Work and I was naturally a bit unsure of myself at first with her. In my process of doing it different and changing normal in my own life I find my emotions are very near the surface most of the time. As a poet, a woman, a human being, and a spiritual being, I find that having my emotions flow such much is very healthy and reflects my true values, but as a "middle-aged" woman in the professional world I find it rather challenging to deal with and not judge myself for it, or care when others judge me for it. When the time came to work with a partner I was of course matched up with her. (you draw to you what you resist!)
(Please go see the site to get a real description and understanding of the work - I'm only describing my experience with it. I'm not trying to teach it or anything here.)
When you do the work with someone you hear some intimate things about them and as they are affected and sometimes swept away with their emotions, like I was when it was my turn, you gently remind them of the belief they are working on and bring them back to topic. The session went well enough when she was helping me. At this point I have gotten used to being emotional in front of people especially when it is a safe, healing setting, so of course I cry at least some. So I didn't really mind crying in front of someone I didn't know, and as much healing work as I have done I figured she could relate to what I was working on. I haven't ever been in a healing session where I couldn't relate to my clients, and I've heard so many stories - enough to know that none of us have created any new emotions since time began, and that we all have them, just to an infinite shading and degree.
When we switched turns, and she did know the procedure, but since she was actively doing it and working on her own stuff (stuff I totally related to and could have been saying myself), she was in her emotions (rightly so) and so I helped her back to her topic and supported her as she did the work. I was laughing at myself inside for how I had felt a bit vulnerable and intimidated by her before we worked together. I laughed at my falling for the lie that I'm not good enough (therefore others are better than me) again, and how even though I have improved a great deal in this area, I still fall for it. But laughing kindly at myself for that instead of 1) totally believing it or 2) beating myself up for it - again -- this is a great reminder of how far I have come.
In the end some of us exchanged phone numbers and we may get together at some point. Who knows.
It was so clear (again!) how we are all convinced that we are the only ones with this or that and feeling isolated. Partly we isolate ourselves for various reasons, but also our culture isolates us, ignores us, makes us irrelevant.
Who among us hasn't enjoyed attention and favors in the world - from being waited on a little faster to getting out of a speeding ticket, etc. and then woken up one day and Boom! you're suddenly invisible. It is the weirdest thing.
My pal Mary Jane and I had a lot of discussions about that, trying to figure it out and just how to adjust to it, when it first happened to us. And tonight I was surfing imdb.com, one of my favorite sites (I love movies. I have a very cosmic, spiritual relationship with movies). I'd seen Diana Rigg in Network earlier and so I wanted to read her biography on imdb. and in the Personal Quotes section, she talks about suddenly being invisible! Diana bloody Rigg! One of The Most Fabulous women of the 1960's! I can't imagine anyone being dumb enough as to not see her, or think she's not relivent, or has nothing other than sex appeal to offer! Absurd, not to mention sexist. I'm sure I'll come back to this rant later.
Where I was going with this is that we've all been programmed to believe that we are alone feeling like this, and we aren't. As Tony says, we know all these amazing women who are spiritual and healers and creative as all get out, living in a culture that totally doesn't care or value any one it can't make a buck off of, so we buy the lie that we aren't good enough or that people don't want what we have to offer, and it's a crock. In fact the world needs us more than ever.
Each one of us has a specific note to sing in the chorus of the Universe and the song isn't complete when even one of us don't sing our note to the fullest of our ability. God/The Universe/our Spirit selves doesn't make junk. Our special gifts are needed - here and now - today. We need each other to be who we really are. Imagine how different (better) the world would be if we all actually Showed Up as ourselves. Our real, full, powerful-yet-vulnerable selves... For one thing we wouldn't be able to keep the lie that we were alone and irrelevent!
Just breath. Breath into being. Breath into grounding into the now. Breath into being who you truly are. Just breath.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Living spiritually - in a small office
The office is not a natural setting for human beings. Sitting still for 8 hours with occasional breaks to the bathroom or lunchroom is not natural. Bodies aren’t built for that. The 40 hour week isn’t natural either. To spend 40 hours a week in the company of people you might not ever care to know is hard enough, but to do that with the false and unnatural physical intimacy (in my office no body is further than 5 feet away from some one or two other bodies) and false friendliness when really everyone gets on everyone else’s nerves, due partly to proximity.
I know people (one, anyway) who is really passionate about what they do and they do it in an office setting, but they are at the top tier and don’t have to be at the office to work, have a lot more flexibility along with all that more responsibility, and are in charge of themselves – when they show up, where and when they go, etc. They are in positions of authority and while others may not agree with them, they aren’t in a position to argue too strongly with them either.
I know one thing – I am not now, nor have I ever been, built for office life. Yet that’s where I’ve been off and on for most of my adult life. I guess it’s a testament to determination and my ability to succeed at anything I set my mind to, since everyone will tell I don’t belong in an office, doing bookkeeping/accounting tasks, and yet that’s what I’ve been doing to pay the bills for a very long time.
I read some of "Eat, Pray, Love" and while it seemed a really well written and good book, I couldn’t get past the fact that yea, when I’m on the road and traveling to distant and wonderful places I feel very spiritually in tune and aware. Hell, when I have some financial security I find it very spiritual. My problem is that when I work in an office 40 hours a week to pay the bills and stave off the wolf at the door it’s hard to feel anything other than numb. Numb because otherwise I’d be a screaming lunatic or in seething mode all the time.
My theory for years has been that I ought to be able to be spiritual in any and every situation. Would the Dalai Lama feel the way I do working 40 hrs a week at a job isn't his main passion in life? I mean, if told death was coming in 3 weeks, who would be rushing to the office to call an insurance company to find out benefits and coverage for a client of some else’s? I mean, I could possibly see myself doing that if it were my client, but if I had just 3 weeks to live, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be spending it ‘in business’. Besides, insurance companies don't cover spiritual counceling or psychic readings, so it wouldn't come up.
So the question is; is working in an office so hard for me because of some weakness or fault on my part? or, is it that my strenghts don't get tapped into in administrative tasks so the problem is me putting myself in situations I don't belong in, artifically making me and "them" wrong?
I know people (one, anyway) who is really passionate about what they do and they do it in an office setting, but they are at the top tier and don’t have to be at the office to work, have a lot more flexibility along with all that more responsibility, and are in charge of themselves – when they show up, where and when they go, etc. They are in positions of authority and while others may not agree with them, they aren’t in a position to argue too strongly with them either.
I know one thing – I am not now, nor have I ever been, built for office life. Yet that’s where I’ve been off and on for most of my adult life. I guess it’s a testament to determination and my ability to succeed at anything I set my mind to, since everyone will tell I don’t belong in an office, doing bookkeeping/accounting tasks, and yet that’s what I’ve been doing to pay the bills for a very long time.
I read some of "Eat, Pray, Love" and while it seemed a really well written and good book, I couldn’t get past the fact that yea, when I’m on the road and traveling to distant and wonderful places I feel very spiritually in tune and aware. Hell, when I have some financial security I find it very spiritual. My problem is that when I work in an office 40 hours a week to pay the bills and stave off the wolf at the door it’s hard to feel anything other than numb. Numb because otherwise I’d be a screaming lunatic or in seething mode all the time.
My theory for years has been that I ought to be able to be spiritual in any and every situation. Would the Dalai Lama feel the way I do working 40 hrs a week at a job isn't his main passion in life? I mean, if told death was coming in 3 weeks, who would be rushing to the office to call an insurance company to find out benefits and coverage for a client of some else’s? I mean, I could possibly see myself doing that if it were my client, but if I had just 3 weeks to live, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be spending it ‘in business’. Besides, insurance companies don't cover spiritual counceling or psychic readings, so it wouldn't come up.
So the question is; is working in an office so hard for me because of some weakness or fault on my part? or, is it that my strenghts don't get tapped into in administrative tasks so the problem is me putting myself in situations I don't belong in, artifically making me and "them" wrong?
Thursday, January 7, 2010
One day at a time
These days I am experimenting with repetition. For years I didn't really go with affirmations because to me they seemed like lying. I was still under the illusion that I was very dedicated to honesty and didn't appreciate the manipulation and lying to myself by telling myself things that weren't true today. I really didn't get what they were talking about when it came to affirmations.
Then I went through psychic seminary and saw how we are programming ourselves and being programmed by others all the time. Family and society start programming us even before we are born - this I know. I had railed against and done many hours of healing work around this fact and got to know its depths. I also learned that under the surface energy on any of these lie/beliefs I'd naturally picked up, the face and voice that perpetuated them was me. The old Pogo joke, "I've met the enemy and they is us!" I saw over and over again that no matter what the lie was and who " started" it, I'm the one that has kept it alive in some form and brought it with me through the years. The fact that many of those "perpetrators" have died has also helped me get real.
I started noticing how in the name of telling myself the truth about myself, I'd lie like crazy. I noticed how I often seemed to not feel better until I had settled on the absolute worst interpretation of what I had said/done/whatever. As a child someone had told me, "if you aren't in pain, you aren't telling yourself the truth about yourself," and as an impressionable child I listened? That, or I've just rebelled and resisted the concept so much all my life I periodically become that notion. Or maybe it was just all that Catholic training I grew up with. All I know is that I was willing and would go to any lengths to get myself feeling bad about myself and had no problem lying like crazy to get there. Totally an inside job.
Now that I've done the research and really listened to inside my head enough that even Catholic denial can't keep me believing that the river of criticism is true, I've started changing the tapes, so to speak. Now I take another slice of the truth, a slice less caustic and more neutral, or more caring, and repeat that thought over and over for a while, till I lose focus and fall unconscious again, usually at my desk at my day job. But more and more often during the day am I remembering to challenge the old tapes.
I love that bumper sticker that says, "Don't believe everything you think." And, "Don't believe everything you feel" would be good too.
Between not believing all the old tapes/lies/hooks, and playing around with the stories I tell myself about me and the world, etc, things do seem to be improving. A little at a time.
Then I went through psychic seminary and saw how we are programming ourselves and being programmed by others all the time. Family and society start programming us even before we are born - this I know. I had railed against and done many hours of healing work around this fact and got to know its depths. I also learned that under the surface energy on any of these lie/beliefs I'd naturally picked up, the face and voice that perpetuated them was me. The old Pogo joke, "I've met the enemy and they is us!" I saw over and over again that no matter what the lie was and who " started" it, I'm the one that has kept it alive in some form and brought it with me through the years. The fact that many of those "perpetrators" have died has also helped me get real.
I started noticing how in the name of telling myself the truth about myself, I'd lie like crazy. I noticed how I often seemed to not feel better until I had settled on the absolute worst interpretation of what I had said/done/whatever. As a child someone had told me, "if you aren't in pain, you aren't telling yourself the truth about yourself," and as an impressionable child I listened? That, or I've just rebelled and resisted the concept so much all my life I periodically become that notion. Or maybe it was just all that Catholic training I grew up with. All I know is that I was willing and would go to any lengths to get myself feeling bad about myself and had no problem lying like crazy to get there. Totally an inside job.
Now that I've done the research and really listened to inside my head enough that even Catholic denial can't keep me believing that the river of criticism is true, I've started changing the tapes, so to speak. Now I take another slice of the truth, a slice less caustic and more neutral, or more caring, and repeat that thought over and over for a while, till I lose focus and fall unconscious again, usually at my desk at my day job. But more and more often during the day am I remembering to challenge the old tapes.
I love that bumper sticker that says, "Don't believe everything you think." And, "Don't believe everything you feel" would be good too.
Between not believing all the old tapes/lies/hooks, and playing around with the stories I tell myself about me and the world, etc, things do seem to be improving. A little at a time.
Monday, January 4, 2010
It's a beginning
Recently a dear cousin asked me what I've been doing to, "stay so happy and productive," and I almost fell off my chair laughing. I had just had yet another day at work were I felt crazier and crazier as the day went on until I couldn't stand it anymore, and couldn't wait to get out of there. I felt pretty buggy, and as many years as I've been doing healing work and soul searching and self-awareness exercises and advanced psychic development and training, I would have thought I wouldn't get buggy anymore. But I do. That's one of the things I miss about my mother and the spirituality of her peers. You could be a good Catholic without being perfect. You did your best, took action to make a difference in the lives of those around you, talked and listened to the god of your heart and practiced forgivess daily. These days the expectations are so distorted and the agreements to go along with them so prevelant it's hard to just be honest and authentic and perfectly human, not perfect like stagnant imaginary standards.
So I'm on a mission to be perfectly human and to be relaxed and self accepting. And this job is part of that because really, it is not now nor has it ever been my passion to do accounting in any of the forms I have done it or am currently doing in. (Terrible grammer but you get the point.) I've been on my case for "hiding" in the bookkeeping jobs but that's where talking things over with friends is so great, for a more neutral, healing perspective. Today my pal Tony said, "You aren't hiding - you're working to pay the bills! There's no dishonor in that. And it's okay that you are doing that job even if it isn't your spiritual mission on Earth. You gotta balance being spiritual with action steps. When the time is right for you to be doing something else, you will. In the meantime don't give yourself additional grief for getting a little crazy when you're having to spend so much time in an unnatural, toxic environment. It's not that the people you work with and for are bad or evil, but it is an unnatural situation and just because it is common as dirt doesn't mean it's not crazy making. Any time there is a person who has the power to fire you and that person can tell other people who work there who they can spend time with and talk to, well it's a crazy world we live in. Don't add to it by making youself wrong by judging yourself for getting a little wiggy by be in that crazymaking environment."
That did help a lot. One of the things I've seen over and over again is that The Truth may be hard but it never makes you bleed. Sad, maybe, but it doesn't make you pay and pay all the time. Whatever that is, it's not The Truth. The truth sets you free because you don't have to pretend anymore; you don't have to cover up or run away anymore. The truth is I am not on this earth to be a good administrative assisant or office worker. Once I accept that and stop making myself wrong for finding that environment to be so totally toxic, the less my body will have to act out with illnesses to try to get my attention.
Tomorrow is Monday and Monday's aren't too bad usually. Everyone still has the scent of their real lives all about them so they are less inclined to mess with each other. In the meantime, I have started a blog. There's an action step taken in my favor. It really is true that what is inside you must be expressed or what is inside you will kill you. What 's inside me is a poet and painter and essayist and clairvoyant and spiritual teacher, and I have to act on those parts of me or it won't be pretty!
It's a beginning.
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