Loving yourself involves the discovery of the true wonder of you; not only the present you, but the many possibilities of you. It involves the continual realization that you are unique, like no other person in the world, that life is, or should be, the discovery, the development and the sharing of this uniqueness.
---Leo Buscgalia
The divine triune structure of Silent Stillness giving rise to Sound (the Word or Holy Spirit) which then becomes Light (the sun or Son) is one way of conceptualizing the Sacred Trinity. When this trinitized energy has finally expressed itself in and as the Unified Consciousness Field, our cells can begin to replicate a new tetrahedral crystallinity, a biological trinity, based on the Adam Kadmon or lightbody template. This is a deeply personal and internal process that, in the end, requires the individual to adapt his or her own belief system (the spiritual subtle body) to accept enlightenment as a biological reality. Creation of such a biological reality is, I propose, the ultimate form of healing or wholing.
---Sol Luckman
"There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever anytime. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than others. If I add something to my time, then that is my prize."
---Martha Graham
"Start as a human being in this culture, toss in madness, toss in mystical states, toss in being gay, toss in being HIV-positive, toss in religion that assures you God hates you for all of that - and then look me in the eye and tell me you can feel OK about yourself. I dare you. I just dare you."
---Ken Wilber
"Ask someone to give a description of the personality type which he finds most despicable, most unbearable and hateful, and most impossible to get along with, and he will produce a description of his own repressed characteristics-a self-description which is utterly unconscious and which therefore always and everywhere tortures him as he receives its effect from the other person. These very qualities are so unacceptable to him precisely because they represent his own repressed side; only that which we cannot accept within ourselves do we find impossible to live with in others. Negative qualities which do not bother us so excessively, which we find relatively easy to forgive-if we have to forgive them at all-are not likely to pertain to our shadow."
---Edward Whitmont
"We either misdirect or depress great amounts of energy in order to keep ourselves from feeling pain, including what we feel in the moment and being who we are in the moment."
---Barbara Ann Brennan
"When your at peace with yourself and you love your self, its virtually impossible for you to do things to yourself that are destructive. When you get enough inner peace and feel really positive about yourself, its almost impossible for you to be controlled or manipulated by anyone else. The more you extend kindness to yourself the more it will become your natural response to others. A secret of abundance is to stop focusing on what you do not have and shift your consciousness to an appreciation for all that you do have. No limit people are so in charge that they can trust their instincts, be childlike, be creative and do anything that makes sense to them."
---Wayne Dyer
[I am searching for words today. It is Friday and I have been keeping busy all week. Sometimes I just get to the point where I don't know what I can say that will be impactful---meaningful, but I know I must write to keep myself going. And maybe, just maybe, somebody will be touched.]
I realized that I am a hair away from living in a world that does not belong to my yesterday. It is strange to recognize that the conventional world I grew up in and conformed to for so many years is no longer "my home." Instead, my life is like an independent film. Odd.
Unbeknownst to me, I have been playing it safe for several years. However, I am now at a cross roads. And it is time for me to cross. There is no going back once my foot touches the line. But where exactly am I going??? I don't know.
What I can tell you is that most people I know in America are trying to establish a stable foundation; and that foundation has yet to present itself to me. I had an illusion of such stability when I was growing up; but, as I matured the illusion shattered like a broken mirror. Chards went everywhere.
Life changes constantly. And, really, isn't life supposed to do so? The world is, of course, moving incessantly. Things around me are growing and developing without fail---even when things appear completely dead, the world is continuing to transform. [The earth is filled with beings that create from decay.]
I can feel myself holding on to what I know as though it is all that will ever be. But that is a mere fantasy. What was is no longer readily available. What is to come has not reached me. I AM here. That is all for now. And it is the perspective of now that is wrapping itself around me and demanding that I pay attention.
I am on the cusp of a world that I have read about, and sometimes even dreamed about. And it is a bit intimidating. My mind is not sure what to do next. Will life provide me with a "pebble" to step upon, or will I have to learn to fly? Uh...I just don't know. I am a little frightened as my illusions begin to crumble into something altogether new.
Sometime ago I met a man that made me sit up and take notice. According to my various life experiences, he was unusual, and he held a certain something inside him that made him awfully powerful to me. He felt like I was cupping a lit up lightning bug in my hands! I still can't define what mesmerizes me about him. I have spent the last year trying to figure it out. But whatever it is, I find myself deeply involved with that particular inner world that I catch snippets of here and there. I speculate: is he mirroring a glimpse into my future, and that glimpse, subsequently, fills me with wonder? I think he must be because I seem to be "following" him into a "purple haze" excited to see what I will find. [It is like I am the most curious of cats.]
I had to cease writing this blog. I am now resuming my writing on it. [4/30/2008]
The last thing I was pondering was what made me sit up and take notice of the man in question. I have since stumbled upon the answer. I see my shadow in him. It is dense and attractive. It is exotic and fascinating. I like to visit my shadow because it fulfills me. I come face-to-face with my darkened self. The self I most want to see and know is hidden from the light.
"The Shadow is the personification of that part of human, psychic possibility that we deny in ourselves and project onto others. The goal of personality integration is to integrate the rejected, inferior side of our life into our total experience and to take responsibility for it."
[http://www.iloveulove.com/psychology/jung/jungarchetypes.htm]
As I learn to integrate all the "inferior" elements of my persona, I become more myself. I am my own truth. I am really me. And it feels good.
Our American culture still believes heavily in the "survival of the fittest" mentality. Its peoples are resigned to the philosophy, and many of the people are hopeless as a result. The philosophy is obvious in everything we do. Competition permeates our egoic developments. Monetary and/or material success is a resounding gong throughout the land.
But then, we notice a person like Stephen Hawking, or for that matter, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Their physical shells were/are broken. And yet, their work was/is miraculous and strong. And, if I adhere to my spiritual roots, I must believe that human weakness fosters the power and strength of God. In other words, if we get out of the way, big things can and will be accomplished through our lives.
My body is broken. Everyday I work to repair it. I don't consciously know what I will accomplish, but I try all the same. I comply to the traditional medical regime for my diagnosis, and I continuously search for any and every alternative and/or holistic modality that will serve me as well. By necessity, I do not believe in "survival of the fittest." I believe in love, tolerance and compassion. I aspire to forgive and believe in each person's utmost for his/her highest. We are all powerful beings that belong to one whole and perfect family. The sooner we open ourselves to this point of consciousness, the sooner our earth will heal. We will cease to see ourselves as different. We will know we are One and thus we will BE One. There are many people who ARE currently practicing wholeness perspectives, and they are making a difference! You can too.
I rarely watch the news. It is filled with hate and destruction. When I went to University of Florida, I attended a class called MMC2100. It was a fundamental journalism news class. My instructor, initally, said I could not write. He wanted "sensationalistic codswollip." I wanted to write straight news like I learned in high school. [Actually, I wanted to write fun feature stories for magazines.] Needless to say, I did poorly in the class. My convictions have become that much stronger since UF. I am not about tearing people down. I am about building people up. Every day, I try to focus on the building and deny the tearing down.
Peace starts from within. The Divine lives within (and, yes, outside as well). Our hearts are the physical vessels which contain the collective consciousness. Going deep inside yourself will cause you to intersect with your Highest Self. Trust in your truth. [No one but God knows that like you.] Each one of us has direct and perfect access to our holiest of holies. The veil was torn many years ago. See the place in your mind's eye. Concentrate on the space just between your eye sockets. Connect with yourself by watching your life like a movie. Don't become subjectively involved. Just see. And then let it all go. Keep seeing. Peace will come. And when it comes, just BE there.
Life, for the most part, is a practice. Grow in your peace by dedicating a small period each day to it. If hostilities present themselves to you, remember that no hostilities are solved by more hostilities. Cultivate a new sense of peace. Believe in your power to go within. And, most of all, don't struggle with yourself. If peace doesn't seem to be coming forth from within, just let go and watch your thoughts like clouds that are coming into view and then drifting by. Peace will make its own Way. Trust. Let your faith flourish.
If you get overwhelmed by an intense emotion like anger, just accept that you are feeling exactly what you need to be feeling at this moment. Nurse the emotion like a baby. Hear what it has to say. Give it what it needs, and whenever you can, just let go. Continue to monitor your thoughts. Let them move into your eye line and then just let them go. Be with your feelings but do not react to them. Expect your peace to come. It will.
You are an amazing creature. God has created a space in you just for peace. He lives right in the center of that space. Ask God each night before you go to bed to help you move into the peaceful center. He will. You are His child. You are love. You are His love! Learn to trust in His love for you His precious one.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
"I believe that there is only one story in the world...Humans are caught." ---John Steinbeck
"… of all the weapons of destruction that man could invent, the most terrible –and the most powerful –was the word. Daggers and spears left traces of blood; arrows could be seen at a distance. Poisons were detected in the end and avoided… but the word managed to destroy without leaving clues."
---Paulo Coelho
"I believe that there is only one story in the world...Humans are caught--in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too--in a net of good and evil...A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean question: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well--or ill?"
---John Steinbeck
"For all whose intention is a shift in focus of consciousness to a higher dimension, it is helpful to be aware that kindness to all of life (example: even one's pet dog) raises the overall level because the energy of love calibrates very high. To raise the level of the sea lifts all of the ships afloat effortlessly. Love itself is a transformative energy."
---Darren Meade
"Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love."
---Unknown
"Be Kind whenever possible. It is always possible."
---Dalai Lama
We are human. Our lives are here, before us and behind us all at once. We discover ourselves along an individualized path that we call life. Each of knows what we have been taught, what we have gleaned/discovered, or what our bodies inherently tell us. It is our Way.
Recently I had a friend hurt me quite deeply, and it is when such occurrences come and go that I begin to really think. I try to problem solve and overcome such pain and defeat with my mind and through my heart. Mother Theresa, I quoted in an earlier blog, said that if you judge people you don't have time to love them. This point seems so clear, but it doesn't address our need for a defense system---for our self-preservation.
Most people do not understand my "take" on things. I have to say, I can be very different. I am often described as deep, an old soul. I would say I am often quite lonely. [Funny how our perspectives work!]
I take things very seriously a lot of the time. I believe people are the most important phenomenon on the planet. We house eternal love in our bodies. The love can be shared, given, received, experienced or what not. Virtually my entire existence has been spent learning to love others as I love myself. At one time in my life, this "loving" concept took a crazy turn or two.
You see, I am an empath. When I encounter people I begin to interpret what they say and do through my own emotional system. I do that to understand. I imagine how the people must be feeling, and what they must be thinking to cause them to act/react as they do. Sometimes I cannot differentiate between my feelings and the other person's feelings because there is such a striking similarity between the two.
This innate methodology got the best of me for many years because in conjunction to the empathy, I have, historically, been a pleaser. So, I would empathize and then reach out to make the other person's life better based on the data I imported via my senses. I didn't realize until a few years ago that the vast majority of people do not do this. Furthermore, I embroiled myself in lots of erroneous data sorting because I failed to register the subtle differences between people, especially men and women.
My brothers used to give me holy heck because I was constantly "in" their worlds "messing." I wasn't "messing," I was attempting to process all the outpouring data. And it was altogether confusing and/or frustrating. I can't tell you how upset I would get when my brothers perceived me as self-absorbed. I just didn't know any other way to understand what was going on around me other than to put myself smack dab in the middle of everything and try to "breathe in" the happenings. That was/is my Way.
However, when I turned 35 I had an unusual "tide wash into" my life. For the first time, I understood that other people often do not connect with life the way I do. And I needed to stop acting as if they do. It was "killing" me slowly but surely.
And, also, for the first time, I reckoned with the "Airplane Theory." The "Airplane Theory" goes like this: Take care of yourself first---put the "oxygen mask" that drops down on your face first. If you don't the whole "plane" could go down.
My pleasing principle was dumped by the way side as soon as I realized how awfully it was affecting me. I began encouraging my own self-esteem little by little by learning to trust myself when I made decisions---and learning to love myself for being an empath. I began to understand how giving and receiving really worked. As a result, my giftings became more astute. I cleared away many of the negative resistances that were getting in the way of their effective performances.
I believe in forgiveness. I think we all are blundering our Way through to our Truest path. Some of us are closer to that path than others. We each come into this world with a different pallette to create our lives with. My heart is such that I believe in the Scripture, "I do not say to you, up to seven times (for forgiveness), but up to seventy times seven." Matthew 18:22
But with far less naivete, I am now a firm believer in boundaries and using your head. I do not believe in enabling people; but, I do believe in being kind, earnest and giving. The world is full of illusion and brokenness. People hurt others all the time. People have agendas that range from agrandizement to plain and simple survival. Everyone has a unique viewpoint from which he/she sees the planet. And often our "teamwork" is lacking. I believe these varied life plans are a result of the human race learning individuality and individuation. But by the same token, I believe these varied life plans are, also, a result of the task of learning to love.
Love is our greatest vision. It is all encompassing and it is powerful! We each own the ability to love more and more each day we live. It is progressive. We must simply choose love as an attribute we would like to have. Love fulfills all our needs. Yet, we often choose other means to get what we want and what we have. And we come up short.
Our words guide our courses. By learning to speak in and through love, we empower ourselves and others. If we fail to speak from the heart, we can damage other people---or at the very least, cause people pain. I believe all of life is used for our overall good; but, I, also, believe that human life is a precious and fragile gift this world is given. Flesh and blood do not last forever (at least not yet!).
We can choose to love every day; and if we do, the earth will be the unimaginable. It will be filled with everyone's heart and soul. It is not easy, but it is simple. If you wonder where to start, start somewhere that takes very little effort. Start some place safe. Give you heart where it is least likely to be hurt. But give your heart completely.
You are love. You are a child of God. Let your love go. Let it run wild and free. Believe in your power to give without end. You are infinite. You ARE!!!
---Paulo Coelho
"I believe that there is only one story in the world...Humans are caught--in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too--in a net of good and evil...A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean question: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well--or ill?"
---John Steinbeck
"For all whose intention is a shift in focus of consciousness to a higher dimension, it is helpful to be aware that kindness to all of life (example: even one's pet dog) raises the overall level because the energy of love calibrates very high. To raise the level of the sea lifts all of the ships afloat effortlessly. Love itself is a transformative energy."
---Darren Meade
"Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love."
---Unknown
"Be Kind whenever possible. It is always possible."
---Dalai Lama
We are human. Our lives are here, before us and behind us all at once. We discover ourselves along an individualized path that we call life. Each of knows what we have been taught, what we have gleaned/discovered, or what our bodies inherently tell us. It is our Way.
Recently I had a friend hurt me quite deeply, and it is when such occurrences come and go that I begin to really think. I try to problem solve and overcome such pain and defeat with my mind and through my heart. Mother Theresa, I quoted in an earlier blog, said that if you judge people you don't have time to love them. This point seems so clear, but it doesn't address our need for a defense system---for our self-preservation.
Most people do not understand my "take" on things. I have to say, I can be very different. I am often described as deep, an old soul. I would say I am often quite lonely. [Funny how our perspectives work!]
I take things very seriously a lot of the time. I believe people are the most important phenomenon on the planet. We house eternal love in our bodies. The love can be shared, given, received, experienced or what not. Virtually my entire existence has been spent learning to love others as I love myself. At one time in my life, this "loving" concept took a crazy turn or two.
You see, I am an empath. When I encounter people I begin to interpret what they say and do through my own emotional system. I do that to understand. I imagine how the people must be feeling, and what they must be thinking to cause them to act/react as they do. Sometimes I cannot differentiate between my feelings and the other person's feelings because there is such a striking similarity between the two.
This innate methodology got the best of me for many years because in conjunction to the empathy, I have, historically, been a pleaser. So, I would empathize and then reach out to make the other person's life better based on the data I imported via my senses. I didn't realize until a few years ago that the vast majority of people do not do this. Furthermore, I embroiled myself in lots of erroneous data sorting because I failed to register the subtle differences between people, especially men and women.
My brothers used to give me holy heck because I was constantly "in" their worlds "messing." I wasn't "messing," I was attempting to process all the outpouring data. And it was altogether confusing and/or frustrating. I can't tell you how upset I would get when my brothers perceived me as self-absorbed. I just didn't know any other way to understand what was going on around me other than to put myself smack dab in the middle of everything and try to "breathe in" the happenings. That was/is my Way.
However, when I turned 35 I had an unusual "tide wash into" my life. For the first time, I understood that other people often do not connect with life the way I do. And I needed to stop acting as if they do. It was "killing" me slowly but surely.
And, also, for the first time, I reckoned with the "Airplane Theory." The "Airplane Theory" goes like this: Take care of yourself first---put the "oxygen mask" that drops down on your face first. If you don't the whole "plane" could go down.
My pleasing principle was dumped by the way side as soon as I realized how awfully it was affecting me. I began encouraging my own self-esteem little by little by learning to trust myself when I made decisions---and learning to love myself for being an empath. I began to understand how giving and receiving really worked. As a result, my giftings became more astute. I cleared away many of the negative resistances that were getting in the way of their effective performances.
I believe in forgiveness. I think we all are blundering our Way through to our Truest path. Some of us are closer to that path than others. We each come into this world with a different pallette to create our lives with. My heart is such that I believe in the Scripture, "I do not say to you, up to seven times (for forgiveness), but up to seventy times seven." Matthew 18:22
But with far less naivete, I am now a firm believer in boundaries and using your head. I do not believe in enabling people; but, I do believe in being kind, earnest and giving. The world is full of illusion and brokenness. People hurt others all the time. People have agendas that range from agrandizement to plain and simple survival. Everyone has a unique viewpoint from which he/she sees the planet. And often our "teamwork" is lacking. I believe these varied life plans are a result of the human race learning individuality and individuation. But by the same token, I believe these varied life plans are, also, a result of the task of learning to love.
Love is our greatest vision. It is all encompassing and it is powerful! We each own the ability to love more and more each day we live. It is progressive. We must simply choose love as an attribute we would like to have. Love fulfills all our needs. Yet, we often choose other means to get what we want and what we have. And we come up short.
Our words guide our courses. By learning to speak in and through love, we empower ourselves and others. If we fail to speak from the heart, we can damage other people---or at the very least, cause people pain. I believe all of life is used for our overall good; but, I, also, believe that human life is a precious and fragile gift this world is given. Flesh and blood do not last forever (at least not yet!).
We can choose to love every day; and if we do, the earth will be the unimaginable. It will be filled with everyone's heart and soul. It is not easy, but it is simple. If you wonder where to start, start somewhere that takes very little effort. Start some place safe. Give you heart where it is least likely to be hurt. But give your heart completely.
You are love. You are a child of God. Let your love go. Let it run wild and free. Believe in your power to give without end. You are infinite. You ARE!!!
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
"Never regret. If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's an experience."---Victoria Holt
Our beliefs shape us into the persons that we now are. Our beliefs come from something or someone we have encountered. Do you know what beliefs you hold? They can be tricky sometimes. Often if you write your thoughts down, you will become aware of the beliefs that drive you.
Louise Hay is metaphysical teacher and lecturer that has spent many years teaching people how to heal. She believes in seven power points that can totally transform your life. Those seven points are:
1) We are each responsible for our experiences.
2) Every thought we think is creating our future.
3) Everyone is dealing with damaging patterns of resentment, criticism, guilt and self-hatred.
4) These are only thoughts, and thoughts can be changed.
5) We need to release the past and forgive everyone.
6) Self-approval and self-acceptance in the "now" are the keys to positive changes.
7) The point of power is ALWAYS in the present moment.
Hay urges us to not give our power away. She asks us to become aware of ourselves by learning to understand more of our inner, spiritual-selves. If we give ourselves permission to learn we also give ourselves permission to change. We are worth every second we take to understand who we are and how we are relating to and interacting with the world around us.
People often confuse taking responsibility for their life experiences with self-condemnation and guilt. Guilt and self-condemnation rarely promote positive results. They, also, rarely promote change. Taking responsibility means reviewing a situation honestly and then taking appropriate steps to do what the situation actually calls for. Guilt and self-condemnation, generally, cease all forward movement. People tend to get stuck in a vicious cycle which speaks to them over and over with a highly powerful, negative charge. It is like wheels of a car spinning in mud. The car goes no where.
By determining what the real situation is, we can learn from everything that has happened and then proceed to grow from it. Furthermore, we assume the powerful role of being master of our own fate.
Afterall, every thought we have creates our life.
This is a two-fold concept. First, if we give ourselves flexibility, we give ourselves the power to change any outcome for the better. If we learn to shift our perspectives just a fraction of an inch, we realize how that tiny movement in our thoughts can completely adjust the position we are in. My brother, Chris, likens this to sky diving. The rule of thumb in sky diving is that if you see a red barn and you feel you are going to smash into it, you are directed to look away from the barn. That tiny redirection will send you away from the barn and to a safe landing place. If you don't look away, you will crash land.
I take this concept and I apply it in terms of opening ourselves to God. While we are hurting about something, almost unable to breathe, if we stop for a second and realize how much pain we are in, we can open ourselves to healing. We need to lay down (or sit, whatever works) so that we can just imagine a door that encloses over our heart. All at once we "summon" the door to open just a millimeter or so. Suddenly, we see a sliver of light coming from the edge of the doorway. We find a quick breath of refreshment in the light. We are encouraged to continue pulling the door open. Finally, we can go inside and find the healing we need and want. Voila! God is there waiting for us. He likes to be asked into our lives---even into our troubles.
The second concept is that, "Physical science teaches that underlying all forms, degrees and apparent differences in matter and energy, there is to be found a manifestation of some elementary energy, which manifests in what is known as "Vibrations." Everything in the material world is in vibration - ever manifesting a high degree of motion. Without vibration there would be no such thing as a material universe. From the electronic-corpuscles which science teaches compose the atom; up through the atom and molecule, until the most complex forms of matter are manifested, there is the ever-present Vibration. And through all forms of energy, light, heat, electricity, magnetism and the rest, Vibration is also ever present. In fact, physical science itself teaches that not only Vibration, the basic force underlying other forces and the various forms of matter, but also that the apparent differences between the various forms of matter, and also between the various forms of energy, are caused simply and solely by the varying degrees of Vibration manifested." http://www.psitek.net/pages/PsiTekPMI1.html
Our thoughts consist of these vibrations. We must be aware of our thoughts. If we are not, we will go somewhere in life we do not want to go.
"The Law of Vibration states that everything in the universe is in a constant state of vibration. One of the highest and most potent forms of energy is thought. Thought is electrical energy, vibrating at a very fast frequency. You may have heard it said that thoughts are things. Every thought creates a vibration, which travels out into the universe and begins to take a form. Remember that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Therefore, that thought was borne of another energy form, and will exist in some form or another forever. This fact means that we have tremendous responsibility for monitoring and disciplining our thoughts. Our thoughts form energy fields that travel from our mind into our world. A passing thought will receive little energy, but if the thought begins to develop and you give it attention, it begins to carry power. The more attention it is given, the more it begins to affect or shape our world and our relationship to it."http://www.ajna.com/articles/everything_in_motion.php
"The Law of Attraction -- 'Birds of a Feather Flock Together' This brings us to the Law of Attraction, one of the two subsidiary laws to the law of Vibration. The Law of Attraction tells us that like attracts like--that we will draw to us energies similar to our own, as well as similar to whatever we focus on in our thoughts. Vibrations of similar frequencies attract one another, those of different frequencies repel one another. This is why we attract to us the things we focus on, think about, and give energy to."http://www.ajna.com/articles/everything_in_motion.php
If our thoughts seem repressive, then we need to find a way to change them just a little bit. Adjust the volume so-to-speak.
Some ideas are to become "Mary Poppins" in your imagination. Create a positive charge in your mind. Sing, paint, listen to music, watch an uplifting movie, go to the beach, speak to a friend who will redirect you to the realm of positivism. Before you know it, you will be generating enough positive vibration that your position will change.
By the same token, your whole life is being generated by your thoughts. If you have a dream, dream BIG! The more details you add to your imagination, the closer you will come to actualizing your inner world. Write your dream down. Find pictures of it. Affirm your dream every day that you wake. Make it happen in your thoughts so it can then happen elsewhere vibrationally. Manifest the vibrations into matter. It all begins from those thoughts. Believe in your beliefs. They are life changing.
I am 37. I have finally grown into and realized that nine times out of ten, life is not greener on the otherside. It just SEEMS that way! For example, I was a product of divorced parents. Now I witness the pain and suffering of my friends who are going through divorces or who have lived through divorces and have broken families. I have suffered from disease, and I have witnessed others who have, also, suffered from disease or injury. It is often difficult to see the pain in other peoples' lives. Especially when many people do everything they can to conceal such hurt and pain for fear of vulnerability.
We all suffer. We all experience brokeness and devastation. We are human.
We come from parents who are victims just like us. But, we don't have to remain victims. The cycle can come to an end. We have choice whether we will overcome or be resigned. Again, our perceptions can be altered just a fraction of an inch in order to make difference in our lives. Our thoughts can change, and our idea of who we are is nothing more than a thought.
If we grab a hold of all the hurts and indiscretions we have experienced during life so that we might look at them closely and then throw them away, then wonderful. If we grab a hold of them to "bury them in our backyard," then we will continue to suffer and lament.
A year ago, I got an unusual opportunity. A woman I knew was very sick. She was not someone I cared for. To me, she was always very plastic. That injured my soul a great deal. We knew one another from Church. Most of my life, I have expected excellent things from the Church World. Afterall, we were "supposed to be" big believers---ambassadors of the Christ. This woman's general attitude was very disappointing to me. It made me sad. It also made me angry.
The unusual opportunity arose when I ran into four different people I rarely ever encountered--- bing, bing, bing. Each person told me about the woman and her severe sickness. I had to stop, look and listen. Four synchronicities, one right after another, was something to sit up and take notice of.
My mind puzzled over the connections. I said some prayers for the woman because I didn't know what else to do. I felt weird about the whole experience. My chest ached from the thought of the woman and my experiences involving the four other people. And finally, I came to a powerful realization. It was the "backside" of the Holy Spirit. I was given the opportunity to let go and let God---to forgive the woman for the pain I felt from her. She didn't need the forgiveness. I did so I could heal and move beyond the hurt between us. [We never know how much we hurt ourselves unless we are given some opportunity similar to this.] As men and women, we constantly cling to our various aches and pains.
The forgiveness in that particular scenario is still working itself out in me even today. It didn't just involve the woman, it involved the Church as a whole. But, I did recognize that the forgiveness was somehow very important while she was still alive. I began the process of giving everything over to God. I'll never forget the experience. It moved me in a number of ways!
Louise Hay is metaphysical teacher and lecturer that has spent many years teaching people how to heal. She believes in seven power points that can totally transform your life. Those seven points are:
1) We are each responsible for our experiences.
2) Every thought we think is creating our future.
3) Everyone is dealing with damaging patterns of resentment, criticism, guilt and self-hatred.
4) These are only thoughts, and thoughts can be changed.
5) We need to release the past and forgive everyone.
6) Self-approval and self-acceptance in the "now" are the keys to positive changes.
7) The point of power is ALWAYS in the present moment.
Hay urges us to not give our power away. She asks us to become aware of ourselves by learning to understand more of our inner, spiritual-selves. If we give ourselves permission to learn we also give ourselves permission to change. We are worth every second we take to understand who we are and how we are relating to and interacting with the world around us.
People often confuse taking responsibility for their life experiences with self-condemnation and guilt. Guilt and self-condemnation rarely promote positive results. They, also, rarely promote change. Taking responsibility means reviewing a situation honestly and then taking appropriate steps to do what the situation actually calls for. Guilt and self-condemnation, generally, cease all forward movement. People tend to get stuck in a vicious cycle which speaks to them over and over with a highly powerful, negative charge. It is like wheels of a car spinning in mud. The car goes no where.
By determining what the real situation is, we can learn from everything that has happened and then proceed to grow from it. Furthermore, we assume the powerful role of being master of our own fate.
Afterall, every thought we have creates our life.
This is a two-fold concept. First, if we give ourselves flexibility, we give ourselves the power to change any outcome for the better. If we learn to shift our perspectives just a fraction of an inch, we realize how that tiny movement in our thoughts can completely adjust the position we are in. My brother, Chris, likens this to sky diving. The rule of thumb in sky diving is that if you see a red barn and you feel you are going to smash into it, you are directed to look away from the barn. That tiny redirection will send you away from the barn and to a safe landing place. If you don't look away, you will crash land.
I take this concept and I apply it in terms of opening ourselves to God. While we are hurting about something, almost unable to breathe, if we stop for a second and realize how much pain we are in, we can open ourselves to healing. We need to lay down (or sit, whatever works) so that we can just imagine a door that encloses over our heart. All at once we "summon" the door to open just a millimeter or so. Suddenly, we see a sliver of light coming from the edge of the doorway. We find a quick breath of refreshment in the light. We are encouraged to continue pulling the door open. Finally, we can go inside and find the healing we need and want. Voila! God is there waiting for us. He likes to be asked into our lives---even into our troubles.
The second concept is that, "Physical science teaches that underlying all forms, degrees and apparent differences in matter and energy, there is to be found a manifestation of some elementary energy, which manifests in what is known as "Vibrations." Everything in the material world is in vibration - ever manifesting a high degree of motion. Without vibration there would be no such thing as a material universe. From the electronic-corpuscles which science teaches compose the atom; up through the atom and molecule, until the most complex forms of matter are manifested, there is the ever-present Vibration. And through all forms of energy, light, heat, electricity, magnetism and the rest, Vibration is also ever present. In fact, physical science itself teaches that not only Vibration, the basic force underlying other forces and the various forms of matter, but also that the apparent differences between the various forms of matter, and also between the various forms of energy, are caused simply and solely by the varying degrees of Vibration manifested." http://www.psitek.net/pages/PsiTekPMI1.html
Our thoughts consist of these vibrations. We must be aware of our thoughts. If we are not, we will go somewhere in life we do not want to go.
"The Law of Vibration states that everything in the universe is in a constant state of vibration. One of the highest and most potent forms of energy is thought. Thought is electrical energy, vibrating at a very fast frequency. You may have heard it said that thoughts are things. Every thought creates a vibration, which travels out into the universe and begins to take a form. Remember that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Therefore, that thought was borne of another energy form, and will exist in some form or another forever. This fact means that we have tremendous responsibility for monitoring and disciplining our thoughts. Our thoughts form energy fields that travel from our mind into our world. A passing thought will receive little energy, but if the thought begins to develop and you give it attention, it begins to carry power. The more attention it is given, the more it begins to affect or shape our world and our relationship to it."http://www.ajna.com/articles/everything_in_motion.php
"The Law of Attraction -- 'Birds of a Feather Flock Together' This brings us to the Law of Attraction, one of the two subsidiary laws to the law of Vibration. The Law of Attraction tells us that like attracts like--that we will draw to us energies similar to our own, as well as similar to whatever we focus on in our thoughts. Vibrations of similar frequencies attract one another, those of different frequencies repel one another. This is why we attract to us the things we focus on, think about, and give energy to."http://www.ajna.com/articles/everything_in_motion.php
If our thoughts seem repressive, then we need to find a way to change them just a little bit. Adjust the volume so-to-speak.
Some ideas are to become "Mary Poppins" in your imagination. Create a positive charge in your mind. Sing, paint, listen to music, watch an uplifting movie, go to the beach, speak to a friend who will redirect you to the realm of positivism. Before you know it, you will be generating enough positive vibration that your position will change.
By the same token, your whole life is being generated by your thoughts. If you have a dream, dream BIG! The more details you add to your imagination, the closer you will come to actualizing your inner world. Write your dream down. Find pictures of it. Affirm your dream every day that you wake. Make it happen in your thoughts so it can then happen elsewhere vibrationally. Manifest the vibrations into matter. It all begins from those thoughts. Believe in your beliefs. They are life changing.
I am 37. I have finally grown into and realized that nine times out of ten, life is not greener on the otherside. It just SEEMS that way! For example, I was a product of divorced parents. Now I witness the pain and suffering of my friends who are going through divorces or who have lived through divorces and have broken families. I have suffered from disease, and I have witnessed others who have, also, suffered from disease or injury. It is often difficult to see the pain in other peoples' lives. Especially when many people do everything they can to conceal such hurt and pain for fear of vulnerability.
We all suffer. We all experience brokeness and devastation. We are human.
We come from parents who are victims just like us. But, we don't have to remain victims. The cycle can come to an end. We have choice whether we will overcome or be resigned. Again, our perceptions can be altered just a fraction of an inch in order to make difference in our lives. Our thoughts can change, and our idea of who we are is nothing more than a thought.
If we grab a hold of all the hurts and indiscretions we have experienced during life so that we might look at them closely and then throw them away, then wonderful. If we grab a hold of them to "bury them in our backyard," then we will continue to suffer and lament.
A year ago, I got an unusual opportunity. A woman I knew was very sick. She was not someone I cared for. To me, she was always very plastic. That injured my soul a great deal. We knew one another from Church. Most of my life, I have expected excellent things from the Church World. Afterall, we were "supposed to be" big believers---ambassadors of the Christ. This woman's general attitude was very disappointing to me. It made me sad. It also made me angry.
The unusual opportunity arose when I ran into four different people I rarely ever encountered--- bing, bing, bing. Each person told me about the woman and her severe sickness. I had to stop, look and listen. Four synchronicities, one right after another, was something to sit up and take notice of.
My mind puzzled over the connections. I said some prayers for the woman because I didn't know what else to do. I felt weird about the whole experience. My chest ached from the thought of the woman and my experiences involving the four other people. And finally, I came to a powerful realization. It was the "backside" of the Holy Spirit. I was given the opportunity to let go and let God---to forgive the woman for the pain I felt from her. She didn't need the forgiveness. I did so I could heal and move beyond the hurt between us. [We never know how much we hurt ourselves unless we are given some opportunity similar to this.] As men and women, we constantly cling to our various aches and pains.
The forgiveness in that particular scenario is still working itself out in me even today. It didn't just involve the woman, it involved the Church as a whole. But, I did recognize that the forgiveness was somehow very important while she was still alive. I began the process of giving everything over to God. I'll never forget the experience. It moved me in a number of ways!
Every wound we refuse to let go of occupies space in the here and now. The now cannot manifest properly because there is no room for it to do so.
Self-approval and self-acceptance enable us to move forward. If there is a part of us that remains in the past, that part will drag us into the dead and gone day after day. It is almost like living in a cemetary. If you are in your thirties and you are still pining away over college excursions, you are entrenched in the past. You must make efforts to reclaim yourself and bring yourself into the now. Once a day, take a mental inventory of your big and/or consistent thoughts. What are they? Do they play out in the present, past or future?
You have this moment. This is all you have and will ever have. You live in the now. Synchronize your thoughts with realtime. You cannot be powerful in the past. It is over and gone. Your point of power is right now---this second. Live now. Live powerfully. You cannot live powerfully in the future. It may never come. Dream your dreams as they present themselves to you. Each thought that is vibration happens in this moment. Dream your dreams today. Before you know it, you will be like the "Little Engine that Could." You will think you can and think you can right up until the moment of manifestation!
Empower yourself. Be willing to change!!!
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Your sacredness...your truth.
"All Finite things have their roots in the infinite, and if you wish to understand life at all, you cannot tear out it's context. And that context, astounding even to bodily eyes is the heaven of stars and the incredible procession of the great galaxies."
---W. MacNeile Dixon
"Science's view of intelligence itself has begun to change. Historically, 'intelligence' has been defined simply as mental capacity. Some have even proposed that it is, therefore, fixed, finite, and genetically predetermined. Now it appears intelligence has other dimensions as well, physiologically and emotionally. We all have considerably more intelligence than we thought; we just have not learned to bring our capacity for intelligence into coherence."
---Doc Childre and Bruce Cryer, From Chaos to Coherence
"The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity. "
---Sir Thomas Browne
Man, like all life, is sacred. But somehow we grow away from our understanding of eternity, beauty, and holiness. We are bound to time. We've chosen our "stomping ground" based on what we can see or experience in the here and now---or in the past. And that "ground" is limited. It is an illusion of the mind. A mind that appreciates static moments in order to "make sense and meaning of it all." The underlying forces create terrific hunger for the release of their kinetic origins. Man is a dynamic creature. Man is not stagnate and unmoving. Every day life is made anew in man an infinite number of times. In fact, one breath can change the destiny of many.
I feel I get closer and closer to my "God" identity with each day that I spend on the earth. My heart lives for all that remains to be seen in me. It lives for the birth of my internal vision.
My heart lives for all that I encounter and know.
As a little girl I innocently and naively knew heaven. Heaven was the spot that I shared with God. I experienced many "God" spots as a child. Each second that came and went without notice was infinity passing through my little body---my small world. My play was my highest purpose for the "then and there" of yesterday. My play was my most basic calling.
But for some reason, as my internal and external structures of youth began to disappear, change or get destroyed as I aged, I began to forget my destiny/place as God's love and lover. My heart was damaged by what I saw as broken promises, abandonments, imperfections, insecurities and cruelties. I ceased to know myself. I ceased to know heaven. I ceased to know my brothers and sisters of planet earth. I knew confusion and doubt----fear.
I am 37 now. I have had an interesting and often difficult life. 16 years ago I was diagnosed with a very traumitizing disease. The first six years of that diagnosis I spent sheltered in a blanket of ignorance. I had no understanding of what my diagnosis meant. Furthermore, everyone in my life had an opinion about the validity of the disease. And I was a kid. I had no idea what to think or believe. Generally, I listened to every heart and mouth but my own. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't know there were any options aside from my limited viewpoint.
This "trusting all" that was outside myself was a pattern of mine that was strongly entrenched in all my belief systems. I believed everyone knew better than I did...about everything. I couldn't imagine that others were just as confused by life as I was. They seemed so sure of themselves. I felt so fragile and insecure.
When I turned 35, I had had enough of the pain of living according to everyone else's creed or motto. By that time, I was learning to stand on my own two feet emotionally. I was separating from the tribe. I was seeing people for what they were.
I had had a very powerful love in my life who pushed me time and time again to develop my own gut reaction (the process of learning that nearly killed me---literally). I was, also, discovering how the "adults" in my life were less than perfect and how they often had desires that took care of themselves first and foremost. I took it for granted that we were all working as a team toward togetherness. [And we weren't.]
Two years later, I am connecting to many people who have learned that we are each and everyone of us special and sacred---holy. We are holy "ground." Consecrated. Loved. Eternal. And One.
Dr. Wayne Dyer names 14 experiences that come from realizing our own sense of self-awareness. The 14 experiences do not come from the material world. They come from the journey down our inner path.
"1. Experiencing and enhancing the meaningfulness of coincidences
There are no accidents. Everything that shows up in my life has something to teach me. This opens an appreciation for everyone and everything in your life. You begin to rely on your sense that seemingly unconnected events have meaning. You even begin to create these situations as you need them. You begin to realize you are a partner with fate---not a victim to it.
2. You become aware of a universal source of energy
You begin to exercise your ability to make contact with this source and make it part of your daily life. You develop a strong knowing about the "God" force and your ability to access this energy. You develop an understanding that weakness and falsehood come from a refusal to know that all beings are a part of the Source and they receive sustenance from it.
3. You feel loved
You will call for and accept Divine guidance. This vital spiritual nourishment is felt in both your inner and outer experiences. Immobilizing fear diminishes as you feel the presence of the Divine energy within you. You feel peaceful about what you see and feel. Your desires to right wrongs and fix the broken parts of your life are also part of the Divine plan. You pursue your desires to serve God and humanity with clarity and peace.
4. You will develop a sense of appreciation and awe
You begin seeing beauty, and feeling awestruck at the magnificence of the universe. The feeling of appreciating beauty is actually the feeling of love when you are Divinely connected. That love will fill you with a new sense of power. By focusing your inner energy on the beauty that surrounds you, you will receive that energy from your surroundings. With practice, this kind of receptiveness will become a source of strength and sustenance in your daily life.
5. You will feel connected to everyone
As your higher self becomes the dominant force in your life you will become more and more conscious of your connectedness to others. You will sense that anything that is destructive to one human is destructive to all. You will know that the essence or life force that flows through you flows through all.
6. You will make a new agreement with reality
The limits of perception will expand to include another world that coexists with ours. You will know that limits result when the social order defines our lives. You will transcend the social order and break the agreement that once defined your personal reality. When you discover that you are limitless, your choices will begin to come from the limitless of knowing within yourself.
7. You will experience surrender and acceptance
You will finally stop fighting and simply let go [even when you fail to understand why so many things transpire that are inconsistent with how you would orchestrate the universe]. You will accept that God knows what He/She is doing. This surrendering process will make you more effective in your sacred quest. You will no longer judge God. You will know that you exist in an intelligent system. Every storm, accidental death, crime and poverty is a part of the divine plan. Your desire to improve conditions is also part of the plan. You will focus on your desires to improve the conditions. That will be your center rather than focusing on the negative conditions.
8. You will become a waking dreamer
Your heightened awareness will permit you to be waking dreamer. Everything you are capable of achieving while dreaming will be possible while awake. The power of your mind to manifest what previously could only occur in sleeping dreams will begin to be your awakened reality.
In your dreams, when you want to closely examine an object, you don't have to get closer to the object---you bring the object to you with the power of your inner energy. You will begin to manifest objects in your awakened state of consciousness with the same energy. As a waking dreamer, you will be able to move back and forth in time, to create the characters you need for your life drama, to communicate with the deceased, to be in more than one place at the same time, to make yourself invisible, to make yourself appear older or younger, and all of the other tricks that you enjoy in your dream state.
9. You will know the power and ecstasy of silence
You will discover that when you 'fall silent,' you fall into the most sacred place of all.
10. You will know that there is a spiritual solution to every problem
In the realm of the spirit you will find the answers to your difficulties. Your higher self has the solution regardless of how grounded the problem may seem in the material world.
11. You will shift from acquiring to sharing
In this state of heightened awareness you will shift from personal desires to the question, "How may I serve?"
12. You will live authentically
You will no longer have any difficulty just being yourself. You will know that a life lived authentically leads to universal truth and heightened awareness.
13. You will experience bliss as a natural state
You will experience an inner knowing that is like a warm shower running inside of you. Bliss is a natural state and can be accessed without the assistance of external substances. Bliss is a state of grace. It is a connectedness to God, a connectedness to universal truth. It provides you with a sense that 'you are on purpose.'
14. You will be less judgmental and more forgiving
Heightened awareness will erase your judgmental tendencies. You will begin seeing that judging others does not define them---it defines you.
Your sacred self: making the decision to be free, p. 17-22"
I have pursued myself with relish for three years. A year after I started on my Path of Me, I discovered the entrenched desire to please everyone but myself. I didn't realize I needed to give to myself first in order to survive then thrive. I had been giving all of myself for many years. It is no wonder my body-mind broke into several pieces.
35 was the year I learned who I was. I started by saying my "I don't give a damns." [I don't give a damn that...blah...blah...blah.] Then I learned the path of love and collaboration. Each moment I lived [whether good or bad] was critical to the process and product of who I am now. And it was critical to the process and product of who I was then.
I was not a very rebellious young person. [My mom would disagree.] I, generally, aimed to please so that I could be rewarded with positive feedback and such. I hated negativity. I figured my brothers could do all the rebellion stuff and I could learn from their example. And that is what I did for 21 some years until I was no longer able to reconcile any of the aspects of my life.
After I turned 21 and I had my first episode of my illness, I briefly lost my bearings. And then another path "appeared" before me as I went deep within myself. [I spent months praying, doing simple pre-written meditations, and searching my heart for the truth. I lived with a lot of guilt and condemnation.] The path I found was a new and stronger relationship with the Church. The new relationship sustained me for another six years---until the second major break of my illness. I remained loyal to the dogmas I embraced for another three or so years. My mind was disillusioned but my body and soul remained stationary to the "Cause." I felt I had to. My heart and mind were still limited.
Around 30 I just had to let go of everything "I knew." This was not easy. It is just that things got so intense, I felt like I had to start "throwing things overboard" in order to survive my daily life. I was sinking. God felt so self-contained and unreachable. I limited His strength by insisting on my own strength. [And that was ever waning.] I felt I knew what God was---who He was and I felt like a miserable failure in light of that---a bad Christian. I felt disconnected to Him and to my brethren. I felt lost and empty. I felt immoral and lifeless. Nothing made lasting sense. Everything ended.
My sweetheart knowingly filled all of my holes. [We were both class A martyrs!] He became my everything. Everything he knew and could be because that is what I told him I needed. God became superfulous. Where could I fit Him afterall? I was broken. He would pour through my desecrated body and need something more. I wasn't it. How could I be? My heart knew nothing that could be sustained. My heart knew a love so shredded and dedicated it couldn't stop from moving forward through the pain and wastelands.
And then...it did. It just ceased to move. And everything changed at once.
I wasn't me anymore. And Chris was not Chris. The year that I turned 34 I hit a wall. I faced death. And I walked away from it---with a lot of conviction.
My life is sacred. It is something I have always known. But the price of that sacredness seemed unfathomable and more huge than I could bear. I felt the need to perform and be a perfect, statuesque individual in order to be accepted. That has finally changed for me. The year I learned who I was, was the year I learned to hear my own voice.
I study the chakra system. Each chakra is a wheel of energy that ties us to ourselves and to everyone else. Each chakra runs up and down our central core. That core centers us between the universe and mother earth. That space is our ground.
My power to communicate came from the work I began to do with my third, fourth and fifth chakras. I learned to say what I need and what I want. And as I began to understand each chakra's role in that, the rainbow bridge began to repair itself. I have gained a much stronger sense of self. I feel more authentic than I have felt since I was a child.
I still work to please others. I feel that is an "X-men type" gifting of mine. But, I start by pleasing myself. By being good to me first, I am able to be good to others. I have scaled back quite a bit. I recognize my bodily limitations. I know how to be reasonable. Every day is a new day. Every breath is extremely important.
Our sacredness is our Truth. Learning to love ourselves for the gift that we are is one of our highest callings. Every one of us has the capacity to love ourselves and to love one another. Everyone of us is a child of the Great I AM. Our hearts are and will always be intimately connected to Him. We are in Him and He is in us.
---W. MacNeile Dixon
"Science's view of intelligence itself has begun to change. Historically, 'intelligence' has been defined simply as mental capacity. Some have even proposed that it is, therefore, fixed, finite, and genetically predetermined. Now it appears intelligence has other dimensions as well, physiologically and emotionally. We all have considerably more intelligence than we thought; we just have not learned to bring our capacity for intelligence into coherence."
---Doc Childre and Bruce Cryer, From Chaos to Coherence
"The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity. "
---Sir Thomas Browne
Man, like all life, is sacred. But somehow we grow away from our understanding of eternity, beauty, and holiness. We are bound to time. We've chosen our "stomping ground" based on what we can see or experience in the here and now---or in the past. And that "ground" is limited. It is an illusion of the mind. A mind that appreciates static moments in order to "make sense and meaning of it all." The underlying forces create terrific hunger for the release of their kinetic origins. Man is a dynamic creature. Man is not stagnate and unmoving. Every day life is made anew in man an infinite number of times. In fact, one breath can change the destiny of many.
I feel I get closer and closer to my "God" identity with each day that I spend on the earth. My heart lives for all that remains to be seen in me. It lives for the birth of my internal vision.
My heart lives for all that I encounter and know.
As a little girl I innocently and naively knew heaven. Heaven was the spot that I shared with God. I experienced many "God" spots as a child. Each second that came and went without notice was infinity passing through my little body---my small world. My play was my highest purpose for the "then and there" of yesterday. My play was my most basic calling.
But for some reason, as my internal and external structures of youth began to disappear, change or get destroyed as I aged, I began to forget my destiny/place as God's love and lover. My heart was damaged by what I saw as broken promises, abandonments, imperfections, insecurities and cruelties. I ceased to know myself. I ceased to know heaven. I ceased to know my brothers and sisters of planet earth. I knew confusion and doubt----fear.
I am 37 now. I have had an interesting and often difficult life. 16 years ago I was diagnosed with a very traumitizing disease. The first six years of that diagnosis I spent sheltered in a blanket of ignorance. I had no understanding of what my diagnosis meant. Furthermore, everyone in my life had an opinion about the validity of the disease. And I was a kid. I had no idea what to think or believe. Generally, I listened to every heart and mouth but my own. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't know there were any options aside from my limited viewpoint.
This "trusting all" that was outside myself was a pattern of mine that was strongly entrenched in all my belief systems. I believed everyone knew better than I did...about everything. I couldn't imagine that others were just as confused by life as I was. They seemed so sure of themselves. I felt so fragile and insecure.
When I turned 35, I had had enough of the pain of living according to everyone else's creed or motto. By that time, I was learning to stand on my own two feet emotionally. I was separating from the tribe. I was seeing people for what they were.
I had had a very powerful love in my life who pushed me time and time again to develop my own gut reaction (the process of learning that nearly killed me---literally). I was, also, discovering how the "adults" in my life were less than perfect and how they often had desires that took care of themselves first and foremost. I took it for granted that we were all working as a team toward togetherness. [And we weren't.]
Two years later, I am connecting to many people who have learned that we are each and everyone of us special and sacred---holy. We are holy "ground." Consecrated. Loved. Eternal. And One.
Dr. Wayne Dyer names 14 experiences that come from realizing our own sense of self-awareness. The 14 experiences do not come from the material world. They come from the journey down our inner path.
"1. Experiencing and enhancing the meaningfulness of coincidences
There are no accidents. Everything that shows up in my life has something to teach me. This opens an appreciation for everyone and everything in your life. You begin to rely on your sense that seemingly unconnected events have meaning. You even begin to create these situations as you need them. You begin to realize you are a partner with fate---not a victim to it.
2. You become aware of a universal source of energy
You begin to exercise your ability to make contact with this source and make it part of your daily life. You develop a strong knowing about the "God" force and your ability to access this energy. You develop an understanding that weakness and falsehood come from a refusal to know that all beings are a part of the Source and they receive sustenance from it.
3. You feel loved
You will call for and accept Divine guidance. This vital spiritual nourishment is felt in both your inner and outer experiences. Immobilizing fear diminishes as you feel the presence of the Divine energy within you. You feel peaceful about what you see and feel. Your desires to right wrongs and fix the broken parts of your life are also part of the Divine plan. You pursue your desires to serve God and humanity with clarity and peace.
4. You will develop a sense of appreciation and awe
You begin seeing beauty, and feeling awestruck at the magnificence of the universe. The feeling of appreciating beauty is actually the feeling of love when you are Divinely connected. That love will fill you with a new sense of power. By focusing your inner energy on the beauty that surrounds you, you will receive that energy from your surroundings. With practice, this kind of receptiveness will become a source of strength and sustenance in your daily life.
5. You will feel connected to everyone
As your higher self becomes the dominant force in your life you will become more and more conscious of your connectedness to others. You will sense that anything that is destructive to one human is destructive to all. You will know that the essence or life force that flows through you flows through all.
6. You will make a new agreement with reality
The limits of perception will expand to include another world that coexists with ours. You will know that limits result when the social order defines our lives. You will transcend the social order and break the agreement that once defined your personal reality. When you discover that you are limitless, your choices will begin to come from the limitless of knowing within yourself.
7. You will experience surrender and acceptance
You will finally stop fighting and simply let go [even when you fail to understand why so many things transpire that are inconsistent with how you would orchestrate the universe]. You will accept that God knows what He/She is doing. This surrendering process will make you more effective in your sacred quest. You will no longer judge God. You will know that you exist in an intelligent system. Every storm, accidental death, crime and poverty is a part of the divine plan. Your desire to improve conditions is also part of the plan. You will focus on your desires to improve the conditions. That will be your center rather than focusing on the negative conditions.
8. You will become a waking dreamer
Your heightened awareness will permit you to be waking dreamer. Everything you are capable of achieving while dreaming will be possible while awake. The power of your mind to manifest what previously could only occur in sleeping dreams will begin to be your awakened reality.
In your dreams, when you want to closely examine an object, you don't have to get closer to the object---you bring the object to you with the power of your inner energy. You will begin to manifest objects in your awakened state of consciousness with the same energy. As a waking dreamer, you will be able to move back and forth in time, to create the characters you need for your life drama, to communicate with the deceased, to be in more than one place at the same time, to make yourself invisible, to make yourself appear older or younger, and all of the other tricks that you enjoy in your dream state.
9. You will know the power and ecstasy of silence
You will discover that when you 'fall silent,' you fall into the most sacred place of all.
10. You will know that there is a spiritual solution to every problem
In the realm of the spirit you will find the answers to your difficulties. Your higher self has the solution regardless of how grounded the problem may seem in the material world.
11. You will shift from acquiring to sharing
In this state of heightened awareness you will shift from personal desires to the question, "How may I serve?"
12. You will live authentically
You will no longer have any difficulty just being yourself. You will know that a life lived authentically leads to universal truth and heightened awareness.
13. You will experience bliss as a natural state
You will experience an inner knowing that is like a warm shower running inside of you. Bliss is a natural state and can be accessed without the assistance of external substances. Bliss is a state of grace. It is a connectedness to God, a connectedness to universal truth. It provides you with a sense that 'you are on purpose.'
14. You will be less judgmental and more forgiving
Heightened awareness will erase your judgmental tendencies. You will begin seeing that judging others does not define them---it defines you.
Your sacred self: making the decision to be free, p. 17-22"
I have pursued myself with relish for three years. A year after I started on my Path of Me, I discovered the entrenched desire to please everyone but myself. I didn't realize I needed to give to myself first in order to survive then thrive. I had been giving all of myself for many years. It is no wonder my body-mind broke into several pieces.
35 was the year I learned who I was. I started by saying my "I don't give a damns." [I don't give a damn that...blah...blah...blah.] Then I learned the path of love and collaboration. Each moment I lived [whether good or bad] was critical to the process and product of who I am now. And it was critical to the process and product of who I was then.
I was not a very rebellious young person. [My mom would disagree.] I, generally, aimed to please so that I could be rewarded with positive feedback and such. I hated negativity. I figured my brothers could do all the rebellion stuff and I could learn from their example. And that is what I did for 21 some years until I was no longer able to reconcile any of the aspects of my life.
After I turned 21 and I had my first episode of my illness, I briefly lost my bearings. And then another path "appeared" before me as I went deep within myself. [I spent months praying, doing simple pre-written meditations, and searching my heart for the truth. I lived with a lot of guilt and condemnation.] The path I found was a new and stronger relationship with the Church. The new relationship sustained me for another six years---until the second major break of my illness. I remained loyal to the dogmas I embraced for another three or so years. My mind was disillusioned but my body and soul remained stationary to the "Cause." I felt I had to. My heart and mind were still limited.
Around 30 I just had to let go of everything "I knew." This was not easy. It is just that things got so intense, I felt like I had to start "throwing things overboard" in order to survive my daily life. I was sinking. God felt so self-contained and unreachable. I limited His strength by insisting on my own strength. [And that was ever waning.] I felt I knew what God was---who He was and I felt like a miserable failure in light of that---a bad Christian. I felt disconnected to Him and to my brethren. I felt lost and empty. I felt immoral and lifeless. Nothing made lasting sense. Everything ended.
My sweetheart knowingly filled all of my holes. [We were both class A martyrs!] He became my everything. Everything he knew and could be because that is what I told him I needed. God became superfulous. Where could I fit Him afterall? I was broken. He would pour through my desecrated body and need something more. I wasn't it. How could I be? My heart knew nothing that could be sustained. My heart knew a love so shredded and dedicated it couldn't stop from moving forward through the pain and wastelands.
And then...it did. It just ceased to move. And everything changed at once.
I wasn't me anymore. And Chris was not Chris. The year that I turned 34 I hit a wall. I faced death. And I walked away from it---with a lot of conviction.
My life is sacred. It is something I have always known. But the price of that sacredness seemed unfathomable and more huge than I could bear. I felt the need to perform and be a perfect, statuesque individual in order to be accepted. That has finally changed for me. The year I learned who I was, was the year I learned to hear my own voice.
I study the chakra system. Each chakra is a wheel of energy that ties us to ourselves and to everyone else. Each chakra runs up and down our central core. That core centers us between the universe and mother earth. That space is our ground.
My power to communicate came from the work I began to do with my third, fourth and fifth chakras. I learned to say what I need and what I want. And as I began to understand each chakra's role in that, the rainbow bridge began to repair itself. I have gained a much stronger sense of self. I feel more authentic than I have felt since I was a child.
I still work to please others. I feel that is an "X-men type" gifting of mine. But, I start by pleasing myself. By being good to me first, I am able to be good to others. I have scaled back quite a bit. I recognize my bodily limitations. I know how to be reasonable. Every day is a new day. Every breath is extremely important.
Our sacredness is our Truth. Learning to love ourselves for the gift that we are is one of our highest callings. Every one of us has the capacity to love ourselves and to love one another. Everyone of us is a child of the Great I AM. Our hearts are and will always be intimately connected to Him. We are in Him and He is in us.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Healing the cracks in the mirror
You have enormous untapped power you'll probably never tap, because most people never run far enough on their first wind to ever find they have a second.
---William James
Deciding to remember, and what to remember, is how we decide who we are.
---Robert Pinsky
A simple separate person is not contained between his hat and his boots.
---Walt Whitman
When you grow a bit older you begin to rebel from your parents in a subconscious hope to create your own Way. Life isn't as small and neat as it used to be during your infancy, toddler years or childhood. It is hard and exciting all at once. Life begins to present you with challenges and choices of your own.
You start to understand that your "omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient" parents are not so powerful after all. That can be both disappointing and scary! In addition, your parents begin to realize the repercussions of their Way of living as you begin to walk the world all by yourself. There is a lot of separation anxiety on both sides of the fence.
And as you enter adulthood, you begin to realize how hard it is to forge the simple path...the path to your Way. In fact, you begin to realize the path you are carving for yourself has lots of bumps, nooks and crannies you didn't expect and you must overcome. In fact, you might even sink back into your parents' Way, again. Your rationale: At least I know where that path goes, and how I will do walking upon it.
But the reality is that we all have our own individual Way to walk through. The sooner we discover this truth and accept it, the easier it will be to plow through all our "forseen" stumbling blocks.
We all have a "pack of cards" to carry through our life; and, each card provides us with creativity, freedoms, choices, gifts, and hungers. The trick is for us to remember that we have this deck available to us at all times. It lies within our hearts and it always has. We can choose a card to help us through our daily decisions, or we can use the deck once in a blue moon. The important thing is that it is there.
Upon awakening each morning, walk to a mirror and look at your image. What do you see? What do you want to see? How do others see you? Somewhere between all these thoughts you will find your truth. Follow it.
My earth identity was created in an environment where I learned to distrust myself at an early age. I would say that I began to realize this cognitive dissonance regarding my life approximately six years ago. And as I have explored all the myths that are me and what is actually before me every day, I have begun to realize I am not alone in this disparity. Most people around me are struggling with their own "cracked mirrors," and the "cracked mirrors" of their children. Some people may have learned about healing such cracks, but most are struggling to live around the breaks.
If I had to choose one "crack" in the mirror that has hurt me quite significantly, it would be my identity as a female. I suppose there is not a day that goes by that I do not contact with that particular splinter.
Growing up in a male dominated household, I assumed many different roles as a female. I have spoken of my mother's iconography regarding me. She called me her "ruffles and lace." [That always felt so patronizing and demeaning. It WAS one source of rebellion for me. There weren't many. I wanted to be loved. I didn't want to feel strife.]
My father, on the other hand, when he was around, called me his princess. And I suppose, for him, and his attention toward me, I proceeded to identify myself as such. [My dad was constantly gone on business; and, eventually, he left the home I grew up in altogether because he left my mom. I did live with him in his home with my step mother several years later, but that was only for a year.]
I liked to fist fight when I was very young. I clobbered many little boys on the way home from school. It was powerful and it felt good to prove time and time again that boys were just boys. Totally defeatable. As a girl, I was still stronger! [Was it my desire to achieve a status with my own brothers that drove me to these battles? Probably.] It sure did take a huge energy charge to win against my fellow classmates, but I was ok with that for many years. I think I had a big driving force of anger in me even then. [Who was I mad at?] And, yet, eventually, I had to stop fighting because mom forced my hand and told my oldest brother to tell me how ashamed he was of me---how unlady-like the whole thing was. That day, of course, hurt a lot.
[I didn't realize why it hurt so badly. It was all so over my head. But I knew it in my body, and my body began to rebel since my persona would not. I became physically ill quite often as I grew up. (I was constantly getting warning notices from the school system. I made straight A's but if I missed a total of 15 days per semester, I would be held back. I never did get held back, but I resented the threats nevertheless.)] It was an age of inner conflict.
The year following my cessation of "physical embattlement," brought great pain to my life. It was the year that dad left for good. I entered junior high school. My body was far ahead development-wise than most boys and girls my age [I was 5'7" at the end of sixth grade, my cycle commenced and and I had quite a chest.], and I was constantly entering into verbal and mental conflicts with my male classmates.
---William James
Deciding to remember, and what to remember, is how we decide who we are.
---Robert Pinsky
A simple separate person is not contained between his hat and his boots.
---Walt Whitman
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.---2Timothy 1:7
"This life is yours. Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well. Take the power to love what you want in life and love it honestly. Take the power to walk in the forest and be a part of nature. Take the power to control your own life. No one else can do it for you. Take the power to make your life happy."----Susan Polis Schutz
When you grow a bit older you begin to rebel from your parents in a subconscious hope to create your own Way. Life isn't as small and neat as it used to be during your infancy, toddler years or childhood. It is hard and exciting all at once. Life begins to present you with challenges and choices of your own.
You start to understand that your "omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient" parents are not so powerful after all. That can be both disappointing and scary! In addition, your parents begin to realize the repercussions of their Way of living as you begin to walk the world all by yourself. There is a lot of separation anxiety on both sides of the fence.
And as you enter adulthood, you begin to realize how hard it is to forge the simple path...the path to your Way. In fact, you begin to realize the path you are carving for yourself has lots of bumps, nooks and crannies you didn't expect and you must overcome. In fact, you might even sink back into your parents' Way, again. Your rationale: At least I know where that path goes, and how I will do walking upon it.
But the reality is that we all have our own individual Way to walk through. The sooner we discover this truth and accept it, the easier it will be to plow through all our "forseen" stumbling blocks.
We all have a "pack of cards" to carry through our life; and, each card provides us with creativity, freedoms, choices, gifts, and hungers. The trick is for us to remember that we have this deck available to us at all times. It lies within our hearts and it always has. We can choose a card to help us through our daily decisions, or we can use the deck once in a blue moon. The important thing is that it is there.
Upon awakening each morning, walk to a mirror and look at your image. What do you see? What do you want to see? How do others see you? Somewhere between all these thoughts you will find your truth. Follow it.
My earth identity was created in an environment where I learned to distrust myself at an early age. I would say that I began to realize this cognitive dissonance regarding my life approximately six years ago. And as I have explored all the myths that are me and what is actually before me every day, I have begun to realize I am not alone in this disparity. Most people around me are struggling with their own "cracked mirrors," and the "cracked mirrors" of their children. Some people may have learned about healing such cracks, but most are struggling to live around the breaks.
If I had to choose one "crack" in the mirror that has hurt me quite significantly, it would be my identity as a female. I suppose there is not a day that goes by that I do not contact with that particular splinter.
Growing up in a male dominated household, I assumed many different roles as a female. I have spoken of my mother's iconography regarding me. She called me her "ruffles and lace." [That always felt so patronizing and demeaning. It WAS one source of rebellion for me. There weren't many. I wanted to be loved. I didn't want to feel strife.]
My father, on the other hand, when he was around, called me his princess. And I suppose, for him, and his attention toward me, I proceeded to identify myself as such. [My dad was constantly gone on business; and, eventually, he left the home I grew up in altogether because he left my mom. I did live with him in his home with my step mother several years later, but that was only for a year.]
I liked to fist fight when I was very young. I clobbered many little boys on the way home from school. It was powerful and it felt good to prove time and time again that boys were just boys. Totally defeatable. As a girl, I was still stronger! [Was it my desire to achieve a status with my own brothers that drove me to these battles? Probably.] It sure did take a huge energy charge to win against my fellow classmates, but I was ok with that for many years. I think I had a big driving force of anger in me even then. [Who was I mad at?] And, yet, eventually, I had to stop fighting because mom forced my hand and told my oldest brother to tell me how ashamed he was of me---how unlady-like the whole thing was. That day, of course, hurt a lot.
[I didn't realize why it hurt so badly. It was all so over my head. But I knew it in my body, and my body began to rebel since my persona would not. I became physically ill quite often as I grew up. (I was constantly getting warning notices from the school system. I made straight A's but if I missed a total of 15 days per semester, I would be held back. I never did get held back, but I resented the threats nevertheless.)] It was an age of inner conflict.
The year following my cessation of "physical embattlement," brought great pain to my life. It was the year that dad left for good. I entered junior high school. My body was far ahead development-wise than most boys and girls my age [I was 5'7" at the end of sixth grade, my cycle commenced and and I had quite a chest.], and I was constantly entering into verbal and mental conflicts with my male classmates.
I fought my battles with boys for many years to come. And then I fought my battles with men. My struggle with my feminine side grew to an insurmountable position.
Being a girl was not a positive position in my household. It was a position of weakness (weakness thrust on me by the realization that I was not to display my physical prowess by fighting; and then weakness I tripped over as my body grew and changed. I suddenly no longer felt physically powerful in any capacity.).
Being a girl was, also, a position of disdain in my household. Mom disliked girls/women. To her they were "back biting, coniving, game players." [What were boys/men? I often stated.] I can't tell you how many times I heard negative statements about females made in front of me.
Moreover, as I grew into the natural desire to be physically attractive to the opposite sex, I, again, confronted the reality that my mother liked me as her "ruffles and lace" icon. She did not want a beautiful young woman in her midst. She wanted to further my childhood. She was tough on my fragile reality. Actually, I would say she forced her Way on me 98% of the time. I didn't know how to "hold onto" my view of life without upsetting her. Eventually, I just accepted my conflicted world sullenly. I turned inward and morose. My hair was "kept" ugly and outdated, I didn't wear makeup easily, my body felt big and overdeveloped [Despite the fact that I was 120lbs., beautifully proportional, and 5'7".]. I just felt awkwardness and insecurity. My shoulders sloaped inward so I could shrink away from the world.
Yet, my mind continued to find its own Way and that Way was executed through lots of pain. My body strapped itself like a ticking time bomb to everybody else's wants and desires. I got pulled in various different directions---but rarely were any of the directions mine.
Rebellion did not play itself out with me very well. I didn't like the disscension [Mom would beg to differ, I am sure.]. If I had, I doubt I would have wound up in knots the way I did. I wanted to please people. I wanted to be loved. And as I saw it, I was not very lovable. I certainly didn't love myself. I heard the "I love you's" from other people. But, I rarely felt the "I love you's" in my body and heart. I believed in the "cracked mirror" and the thirteen years of bad luck.
I forgot my early Way. I unlearned the love I once knew so naturally as a child---the love for myself, the love for and of God in and around me. By the time I was a teenager, I couldn't conceive of a life without pain and suffering. I knew pain and suffering were readily available. I didn't believe anything else was.
My life abruptly shifted my senior year in high school. I moved from my mom's to my dad's. Suddenly my life was made anew. {And, yet, it wasn't}. I became a goddess of sorts. My new friends were filled with fun and life. We partied a lot. A lot! And for awhile I felt kind of whole. However eventually, I hit the point of reckoning when the superficial grasp of reality was no longer enough. My soul hungered for truth and passion and depth.
I began to explore my inner world when I reached my junior year of college. My path polarized. I didn't know the Joan without the myth; and, I wouldn't know that Joan for another 12 years or so. I just kept creating the stories to perpetuate the myth. And my body broke.
One day, I could no longer lie to myself. I stared at myself in the "mirror." I saw myself as empty and stricken. I was standing in a hospital room for the umptenth time. I didn't know what I needed or wanted. I didn't know who I really was. I didn't know how to find myself. I didn't even know what the word "myself" meant.
I began to seek my heart. I, initally, encountered gobs of pain and frustration. All of the mirror chards were piled upon my lap. Until I began to know what I loved about me. And when I began to learn what those things were and what they meant, I began to be free of the brokeness inside.
It wasn't magic. It took work and dedication. But, eventually I began to feel good; and I begin to seek the path to wholeness. The path to wholeness is where I am now. I am determined to love and to know love.
Too often we choose the myth of love over the path to love. We visualize someone else's story or someone else's fairy tale and we try to mold ourselves to those chronicles. That is a path toward heart ache. The true loving path stems from the heart inside our own chests. We are totally unique in our essence. The more we deny the unique qualities that lie within, the more we experience pain.
It is a brave new world to live your uniqueness. But, it is a world filled with beauty and awe. The broken mirror results from a myriad of disappointing factors; but, see it as a point of freedom into the world of individuality.
"Your heart has its own power, and this power is the greatest power you have. Therefore you do not need to add anything to it. Let your heart do its own work, toward its own desire. It will do this best if you do not get in the way by seeking diversions or engaging in self-destructive behavior." p. 205, Energize Your Heart
I am not sure where I stand in the realm of the female identity. But, I do know that I am listening to my heart and following it where it goes. I didn't do that for many years. I must believe it will get me to a few really fabulous destinations. It certainly pulled me out of the abyss I used to live in.
Each one of us has the capacity to be amazing and strong and loving. It is my heart's wish to open up the capacities and let each one of us see the light of freedom that we can choose to fly to. We are people made in God's image. We deserve to be loved. We deserve to be able to heal the cracks in our mirrors. We are beautiful beyond measure. We must learn to KNOW that.
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