Seeing Through True Mind Instead of Old Mind

 When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend. And when a thing can no longer offend it ceases to exist in the old way. When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist. 

Seng-T'san Third Patriarch of Zen, Hsin Hsin Ming

I have read the Third Patriarch a few times but every time I read it, I seem to be learning like I am reading it for the first time. Every time I read the Tao Te Ching, it is an absolutely novel experience.  Every time I hear or read the Vasisthas it is like I am learning something new.  Every time I read a passage from the Holy Bible ...blown away...I see it in a way I never remotely considered seeing  it before. And every time I hear any great teacher speaking to this ancient wisdom I become  a brand new student in the classroom.  I don't know what is up with that, but I listened to Michael Singer addressing these amazing truths in his podcast, Looking into the Lake of Life for the third time today and it was like it was the first time. I even wrote about it a month or so ago. The notes I took then were so different than the notes I took this time and I have pages. And it always seems to tap into things I learned before and addressed even before I tapped in to these specific pieces of wisdom.  Like the poem I wrote about Narcissus over a year ago and added to another recent entry.  It all just comes together.  All this learning comes together to one major truth.  We are not what we see...in fact we are in the way of what we see.  (And I use the term "see" loosely.)

Breaking Down the Quote

Let's take the quote above and understand that a bit better first.   

When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way...

Four  key words here: mind, exists, undisturbed, and the Way.

The Mind

The mind is this tool we are equipped with to help us make sense of this physical world as well as our inner world.  It extends beyond the limits of the body ( the 'brain') but is not near the level of importance as the spirit, soul, Deeper "I", Self, Higher Consciousness (whatever term suits your fancy). It is like a radio by which we can pick up the vibrations of the inner and outer world, of consciousness. 

Patanjali explained the mind as Citta and taught that within this Citta were different levels ( different knobs or ban widths maybe?) . The first three are simply "modifications of the mind" that are like clouds over an open sky.  The forth level is the natural state of mind, like the sky itself. 

 At the most basic level, where most of us operate nearly 100 % of the time,  we have the "ego mind", the mind that is wrapped in "I" and "me". Then we, from there,  have the "intellectual- mind" , that part of us that discriminates, judges, perceives...makes those distinctions between "good" or "bad", "right" or "wrong", Should be" or "shouldn't be".  And then  we have the "desiring-mind",  the mind that gets attracted or repulsed by  outside things because of the senses. ...the part of us that says, "I want that. That will make me feel better."  or "I don't want that.  That will make me feel worse."  Finally, underneath these three levels is the natural, open, spacious and  peaceful state of mind. I call this "True Mind". The first three mental modifications get in the way ...filtering our experience and preventing peace from coming through. All the while consciousness is available to come through each of these levels if we clear the path for it to do so. (Satchidananda , 2011)

The other Terms

Exists...refers to the process of being...being here and now...what is. 

Undisturbed...the ability to remain calm, peaceful, smooth, unaltered, stable, in harmony with what is...not bothered, not "offended" .

The Way...the Taoist term for the flow of Universal Life.  We may refer to it as the Will of God, the energy of the Universe...it really doesn't matter what terms or words we use because they could never adequately explain what this is.  

So when our mind is in its natural state , when it is  operating without mental modifications, flowing with Life rather than against it, present moment focused and is therefore calm and undisturbed,....

... nothing in the world can offend.

When we are absent of "ego-mind" and any notions of "I" or "me"; when we are not discriminating, judging and perceiving aspects of Life as being "good, right, should be" or "bad, wrong, shouldn't be" we are not rocked by what shows up in our experience, we are not blown here or there, we do not feel the need to react. 

What is Offence? 

Offence is simple a mental reaction brought on by little me's attempt to grasp or push away what it judges and perceives as pleasant or unpleasant to the senses and is therefore able to "disturb".  There  is disturbance in the mind and therefore in the body when we are offended.  It is, however,  never the forth level of mind that gets disturbed ...only the first three. We are just too lost in  the first three to notice. 

And when a thing can no longer offend it ceases to exist in the old way.

Seeing from the Forth Layer of Mind 

When we realize that how we see the world is determined and distorted  by these three levels of Citta and learn to see from the forth layer of the mind instead...external things become what they are and not what we imagined them to be. Everything we look upon is a projection of our inner experience. The emergence of this world is no more than thoughts manifesting itself. ...The universe is  a long dream...we create worlds as the natural expression of our beings. (Deepak Chopra on the the Vasisthas).  

Not Woo-Woo

This is not as woo-woo as it may seem.  If you are really  depressed one day and you look outside you are more than likely going to see any dark clouds in the sky that might be there, you may be more likely to notice and store any less than kind remarks made toward you, noticing the frowns on some rather than the smiles  on others. Right?  If you wake up happy and well, on the other hand, you are more than likely going to notice the silver lining in a sky that is quite cloudy and dark, and  the kind words and smiles from others.  Are you not?  And if you are like most humans on this planet absorbed with this idea of you as a separate little person, and as this separate little "me" see yourself as the center of the universe you look upon... everything you see and experience you are going to perceive as personal to you, are you not?  You are going to fail to see the impersonal nature of the universe and will be "offended",  and at the  mercy of being disturbed by it if it doesn't go "your" way.  So you will do what we are all conditioned to do...grab for that which will bring pleasure and disturb you less...push away that which is unpleasant and has the potential to disturb more,  while you completely ignore the billions and billions of neutral things Life unfolds in front of you every day. (Neutral only because the intellectual and desiring parts of your mind sees no use for them). 

The point is: We tend to see Life not as it is but how we assume it should be in order to meet the needs of an idea ( reflection on a lake) we have of "me".  

When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist. 

This is simple right?  If we stop looking out at the world and saying "This is good, right, should be...I want that" and/or "This is bad, wrong, shouldn't be...don't want that!" and therefore stop reacting the way we do to whatever Life gives us or doesn't give us by grabbing and clinging and seeking and striving for the "good stuff" and pushing away, resisting, denying, struggling against, and stuffing the "bad stuff",  our whole worlds are going to change aren't they?  Both the outer and the inner?  First of all we are going to be so much less exhausted.  Man, the physical and mental energy it takes from us to live like this! And then we are going to realize that without entanglement in these first three levels of mind, these mental modifications, these Cittas, these judgments, excessive thinking, perceiving, discriminating... all that which makes up " Old Mind", the habit mind so many of us follow, a wonderful thing happens.  .Just like clouds, that obscure a spacious blue sky, all aspects of old mind float away to reveal "True Mind". True mind is a clear and spacious mind that is naturally peaceful, that cannot be moved by wind, that cannot be disturbed or agitated by anything "out there" and that doesn't recognize any "little me" for it is everything. 

And when we operate from this mind, what type of a world do we see?  We see it for exactly what it is. We let go of our obsession with a personal little self that is so easily offended, and  does not even exist really  and we get to, for the first time, know Life for who and what she is! We stop getting disturbed when she blows this way or she blows that way.  We stop trying to fix her, control her, make her go our way and be something she isn't! We just let her do what she is going to, marveling in all of it.

Wow! So much learning! 

If you think there is something to fix out there, you are broken. ...Everything that ever ws, everything that ever is, and everything that will ever be...is God. There is nothing else. Life is God made visible. You are looking at aspects of the Divine.

Michael Singer. 

All is well! 

Deepak Chopra & Adam Plack (2011) The Secret of Healing: Guided Meditation for Transformation. Spotify 

Michael Singer Podcast/ Sounds True ( April, 2022) S2 E5 Looking into the Lake of Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G1zvgJvm7Y 

Sen T'san / Age of the Sage (n.d.) The Third Patriarch of Zen Versus on the Faith of Mind  https://www.age-of-the-sage.org/buddhism/third_patriarch_zen.html

Sri Swami Satchidananda (2011) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Yogaville: Integral Yoga

Bearing Fruit

 Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it dies alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life  loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 

John 12: 24-26 ESV

Hmm!  Now that is a potent piece of wisdom and it has a lot to do with what I have been pondering today. We truly do need to let go of  many of our notions, don't we, if we want to be happy and free? We need to let go of a lot of stuck stuff within us, that are consequences of these notions of us as separate little beings. We need to stop clinging to the illusion of life, we perceive when we see ourselves  as individual grains of wheat. We need to be willing to let the ego die for it isn't real and what we gain from letting go of it, from "dying onto self",  is freedom .

As Deepak Chopra reminds us in his translation of the Yoga Vasisthas, Be firmly rooted in the non-existence of the ego...which is the individuality, the apparent grains of wheat  we come to see ourselves as. All just a notion that prevents us from bearing the fruit we are here to bear. 

What are these fruit that we bear  when we are willing to let go of our mind's never ending attempt to create and cling to   the life we love and when we are willing to die (mentally surrender to Life and whatever she unfolds in front of us)? 

The Vasistha answers that question: 

Mental distraction and distress cease, just as the ocean becomes calm when the wind ceases to agitate its surface. There arises self-knowledge within and the realization  of truth puts an end to the perception of the world illusion. Infinite consciousness alone shines.  There is an experience of bliss, not granted to the ignorant, who are full of desires. Even as shoots may emerge from burnt leaves, a new life may emerge from this. However, he who would avoid entanglement in delusion,once again rests  in self knowledge.constantly. Such are the fruits of your absence, o mind, and there are countless others.   

Say what crazy lady? 

When we stop listening to the mind, following it here and there and everywhere and rest in the quiet Self (Infinite Consciousness)  below its surface, we are no longer "bothered" "perturbed", thrown around like waves on an agitated ocean. We are not so screwed up. We get out of Life's way and we simply enjoy the experience of whatever we are offered moment by moment. We do not react.  We do not judge.  We do not grasp or cling to that which the ego mind says is pleasant, distracting  and non triggering to any memory we store inside.  And we do not push away that which is triggering, that which allows pain to emerge.  We do not stuff down and are finally freed of all the stored "junk" inside us, making room for things to  blow right through. We accept it just like we accept the wind blowing across our faces. Without ego, there is no judging of pleasant or unpleasant, of grasping, clinging or pushing away. When we truly realize Self, and rest there when the wind blows, we remain at peace.  More than that, we can experience a bliss that the ego-dominated mind could never give us. The only condition is...we must constantly, constantly practice keeping ourselves free from the tangles ego can wrap us in. We must constantly be mindful and on guard. Every moment of every day...we must chose the Deeper Self over the "little self", Infinite Consciousness over our puny little minds. We must drive the vehicles we are in and not allow mind to...because as soon as we take our hands off the wheel...the mind will drive us into the ditch, and we may find ourselves lost in ego once again.

Still doesn't make a lick of sense? 

Once again,  I will encourage you to listen to Michael Singer.  I love the way he teaches and explains things like this  because it takes "spirituality" out of the conceptualization of being "woo-woo"  and makes it a very practical and rational necessity. He reminds us simply that we have a mess inside our heads and it is up to us to clean it up.  It isn't what Life is doing but what we are doing in response to Life that causes our so called "problems" and "mental distraction and distress".  The mess comes from a tendency we have, as humans, to repress, suppress, push away, deny that which we "judge" as painful. Maybe we had some childhood trauma, lost some loved ones, were sick or whatever and instead of dealing with it, instead of allowing it to flow through us like all energy is supposed to do...because it was so painful we learned early on to push it down.  So we may now have a lot of stored negative energy within us. It gets in the way of a natural flow of peace and bliss, blocking it.  

We Made the  Mess; We Need To Clean It Up

When we do not see ourselves as responsible for this mess...we are constantly going to be "looking out there" for ways to feel better and to prevent this mess from being triggered by more pain. This is what the ego dominated mind tells us we must do and we listen. So we learn to grasp and cling to the "pleasant", that which distracts us  and eases the  pain...and we push away the unpleasant, that which will add to the pain or make it come up to the surface where we don't want it. All our mental energy goes to searching for things to make us feel better and anticipating and being on guard against things that will make us feel worse.  We begin to attempt to manipulate life and others in any way we can so that we are not bothered.  

This is how most of get through our days.  This is away of living that is considered "normal" It leads to a hyper-alert, busy and restless mind.  It leads to some pretty messy insides. . Michael Singer, a business man, asks us to do a cost analysis on our plan of action.  When we do we see that what we get in turn for our effort is 100% cost ( making us sick and crazy) and 0% benefit, ( at the end of the day we are far from happy and our minds are still a mess. ) All that energy and effort and does it work ?  No...it creates more distress, more stress and more of a desire to distract.  It takes us farther and farther away from Self realization and truth which is truly the only way to happiness. 

What do we have to do then? 

Stop doing what we are doing.  Stop listening to the ego dominated mind. In fact, let the ego die.   Stop grasping and clinging.  Stop pushing away.  We need to stop getting in the way of Life and just let Life be Life as we experience it all. 

We need to be willing to take responsibility for our mess and make a committed effort to practice everyday to do things differently. We need to make a clean insides the most important goal in our lives. 

What does that have to do with the mess inside our heads?

We need to purge; we need a good thorough cleaning of our insides.  We need to get all that stuff out of us that is in the way of allowing the natural peace and bliss to flow. Now some of that stuff is pretty deep seated and entangled so it's best to practice with all the experiences we have going on around us now and to learn to stop reacting to those. Like the person driving too slow ahead of you, the unexpected bill you just got in the mail, the less than nice comment your coworker made about you etc.  Just practice noticing how these make you feel, allow those feelings to come in, try to re-frame them more positively ...like "Maybe there was some truth to what she had to say, I will look at it.  But this is her opinion and I am not her opinion." ; anchor self with breath; and  find that true Self beneath the mind and anchor yourself there. Relax there and observe and experience the  situation from that place where the wind can't reach you. 

Practice this constantly.  

Every moment, every situation offers us an opportunity to learn how to open and clean out our insides.We want it all out!  We do not want to add more junk to the pile we have stuffed...so we need to let these new experiences to blow through us.  We need to remain open to them.  And if we continue to practice moment by moment, eventually the stuff stored inside will just come out naturally and when it does, the energy of peace, bliss and Love will begin to flow up through us the way it is meant to. 

Hmm!  There is so much to this truth, this realization it is challenging to get it all down in one sitting.

All is well! 

Deepak Chopra & Adam Plack (2011) The Secrets to Healing. Spotify

Michael Singer Podcast/Sounds True (April,  2022 ) S2 E4: Taking Care of Your Inner environment https://resources.soundstrue.com/podcast/s2e4-taking-care-of-your-inner-environment/

Google Books: The Concise Yoga Vasistha https://books.google.ca/books?id=IbqFcTyGlEgC&pg=PA244&lpg=PA244&dq=Be+firmly+rooted+in+the+nonexistence+of+the+ego&source=bl&ots=086-QtMMAJ&sig=ACfU3U0Cuepyj2CeGNR26LkKfFLUG_5b2g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiKxI2dvIf4AhUlQjABHfgWApIQ6AF6BAgjEAM#v=onepage&q=Be%20firmly%20rooted%20in%20the%20nonexistence%20of%20the%20ego&f=false

Writing and Submitting

 I can shake off everything as I write. My sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.

Anne Frank

I do not have half the reason for sorrow or fear in my life as Anne Frank  had in hers but I can definitely relate to the quote above. Going back to my book to get it out has been so therapeutic. What isn't so fun, however, is the submission process.  Yuck! That is where I am at now. So though I still have a very ambivalent relationship with hope...I am glad it is in me now so I can go forward with this painstaking process.  Writing is easy...selling the writing, not so much.

All is well.  

Nothing Unreal Exists

 

The unreal has no existence. The real never ceases to be (never ceases to exist). Men [man...I wish these things were more gender neutral lol] possessed of the knowledge of the Truth fully know both these. 

Bhagavad Gita

That sounded very familiar to me and as Deepak Chopra recited this passage in his meditation series, The Secrets of Healing (2011) on Spotify it clicked as to where  heard it before.  

In the introduction of A Course in Miracles, it is written:

Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists

Herein lies the peace of God. 

Hmm!  Now those are thoughts to ponder.

Note: 

Something quite strange is going on here and it leaves me a little uncomfortable again. I have another "O" on the readership numbers in my stats page.  I am perfectly okay with there being a zero readership...if there is a zero readership but either I have always been prone to a zero readership prior to this and the numbers I did get were exaggerated or I don't have a zero readership now. Well I do  get comments on occasion ( not always posted) and I do have people pointing out in person that they read my blog so I know "o" is not always accurate.  Analytics does not pick up a "zero" readership...definitely a small readership but a readership??? And the stats page, when I do have numbers, seldom displays  what was read anymore.  Just an abrupt change noticed in the stats page... just makes me question why.  If it is because my writing is not appealing to anyone , all good lol but if it is something else I would  like to know. The sudden change just leaves me a little uncomfortable. 

All good 

From Unworthiness to Perfected Self Love

 All you need is already within you. Only you must approach yourself with reverence and love. Self- condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors.  Your constant flight from pain and search for pleasure is a sign you bear of love for yourself. All I plead of you is this: make love of yourself perfect. Deny yourself nothing, give yourself infinity and eternity,and discover you do not need them.  You are beyond.  All I plead with you is this: make love of your self perfect. 

Sri Nisargadatta

As I have been writing about my little woes and how they have been affecting me,  I come across a video by Tara Brach....and it is almost as if I listened to this before I wrote what I wrote over the last two days but this is actually  more of an after the lesson  confirmation and validation of the insight I gained ( Of course Tara Brach has influenced me very, very much over the course of my awakening so far...so much of my "insight" recently is due indirectly to her teachings as well. )  

Trance of Unworthiness

She always speaks to something called the, Trance of Unworthiness, and I see how that has been a part, not only of my writer's block, but of this stuck feeling I had in regards to my own healing. Most of our obstacles in life, at the deepest level, have to do with a sense of unworthiness...an inability to love ourselves perfectly.

Loving Self Perfectly

She offered the above quote in her video and it resonated with me .  What does it mean? 

Loving the life that is expressing itself through us is loving self perfectly. And by self, "you", "me"  we are not referring to the narrative of self, the story of self, the personality, the ego, or to  the idea of a "separate self"  but to  the deeper Self. If we learn to love ourselves unconditionally, to open up and feel whatever we feel without judgement, the false self, this notion of us as separate, falls away and we fall into the reality of who we are.

What stops us from being kind to ourselves...not loving who we are? 

Many of constantly judge ourselves harshly, taking over where someone or something in our past left off. We fear that if we don't judge ourselves we will never improve...we will never become  the person who we are striving to be. Of course, that is foolish...normal... but foolish.

No one has ever judged themselves into enlightenment

Why We can't Love Ourselves or Feel Worthy

We often have a very challenging time directing love towards ourselves because it is too far from what we are feeling and because we feel so undeserving of our own love. Self affirmations of love ...like "I love you...me" can often seem so uncomfortable and unrealistic, like a lie...but we would benefit greatly by practicing replacing our self-contempt and self-condemnation with something more loving, or at least more neutral on a daily basis. 

We can start this cognitive restructuring slowly , taking small   steps...like just waking up each moment with a hand on the heart, "Hello you" or "Good morning, you".  The point is to make it a committed practice with a sincere intention...a willingness to put away our critical judgments of Self as we go through the motions, faking it util we make it, experimenting with ways that feel safer to us as we advance to the outward and sincerely felt, "I love you...Self".  

Not Letting Love and Worthiness In

Truth is the inner place of vulnerability often has a hard time letting love and a sense of worthiness in.  I know that is my case.  What is stopping me from letting it in?  My mind always says, when someone professes love or care towards me, something like: They mustn't see me for who I am...if they did they would see I was not worthy of their love.  This crosses over into my health seeking experience. Even though I certainly was not looking for love or even a sense of caring from the professionals I seen, part of me wanted them to validate my worthiness for being in their office... but the thing is...even if they did, I was not able to let their view of my worthiness in. So it became, almost a self fulfilling prophecy. 

Tara Brach guides the listener into a little guided reflection by asking the question Who do you trust loves you?  Most people's minds will come up with someone who they believe loves them even if it is a pet.We can do this conceptually, but if we are then asked the question Can you let that love in? or How does it feel to let that love in?, we may realize that we do not know what it feels like to let it in because we can't. That love that we conceptualize as being ours  may hit the resistance of our protective armor. It may not be able to get past it. We, therefore,  do not have the felt experience of being  loved, or the felt experience of worthiness.  Can you let that experience of being loved  into your vulnerable place? 

We all get stuck, Tara Brach reminds us, giving out love or letting it in.. What we can do if we realize that it is not getting in...is  to feel our longing for it to come in, pray to let it in. "Please can I let this worthiness in. " Please can I let this love in." and just feel what it feels like to want that. 

Who or what are we praying to when we do such a thing?  We are praying to our heart that is already awake and loving.  " Love is always loving you." 

Pray??? 

Prayer is the bridge between longing and belonging." 

We can love ourselves into feeling loved.  We just need to learn what it feels like to let love in. It too is a practice.  We can close our eyes and think of someone or something we "assume" loves us...and then we see if,  first of all,  we are letting it in, and if we are not...we pray, "Please let this love in, please let this worthiness in". ...and we experience that longing  until the heart opens a bit more, a bit more, and a bit more. 

Practice

We can start with safe love objects like a pet or a child.  I thought of my dog that has been gone for a few years now. Conceptually, I knew she loved me as much as a dog can love a human. Closing my eyes on reflecting on her love for me was not a conceptual experience.  At first I had a hard time letting that love in but I kept praying and longing for the feeling of her love for me inside me, her love for me finally  made it past the armor and I felt a nice warmth.  That helped me to feel what it is like to be worthy of love...to be worthy in general.

I know that talking to the person I spoke to yesterday about my health seeking experience helped me to see how worthy I was for that which I barely received . Allowing that worthiness , I was unable to let in for so long, in  felt so exhilarating and healing and uplifting.  

Opening With RAIN

Opening up directly to the suffering /trauma of not belonging, being undeserving, unworthy etc can be done by  using RAIN .  R. recognize; A. allow; I. investigate, N. nurture. This is what I did over the last couple of days as you will see reflected in my most recent entries. . We need to first of all create warmth and space before we open to vulnerability. As we proceed we must be aware of any signal in us that says  "This is too much!" and go back to grounding, to a feeling of safety and peace.. There has to be some sense that we are ready and that it is safe for us to proceed. A practice of meta kindness meditation can create this space. 

Each step of RAIN helps the identification with ego to dissolve. Through the process we sense the story and then let it be a portal to explore  the "felt sense"  with generosity and curiosity.  Brach tells us we need to get to a place of "ouch" in our investigating...to a "this hurts" which leads to nurturing. We can experiment with ways to nurture self. I got to that sense of ouch in exploring my recent experience and though it stung it ws also so freeing. 

The end result of this is transcendence. After the rain...after we let in love we realize we are the love that is holding our being, that has always been holding our being...that is the shift. 

Oh so cool but you really need to listen to Tara Brach in the below link, not me. 

Oh, of what avail is it if we can travel to the moon if we cannot cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves. This is the most important of all journeys, and with it, all the rest are useless. 

Thomas Merton 

All is well!

Tarca Brach (April, 2021)  "Make Love of Your Self Perfect",with Tar Brach. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p70x2ztQ4m4 

Hope and Writing Inspiration

 And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that is a gift and a privilege, not a right. 

Ray Bradbury 

What is that feeling in me? 

You will never guess what I woke up with this morning....so, so uncanny !  I woke up with a feeling of hope! I mean real live hope infusing my present experience of Life with a good deal of Zest.  Hope and zest...wow! After all my talking about the unnecessary and sometimes unskillful purpose of hope in our lives, after feeling a bit more "hopeless" than usually with the unset of this bout of physical symptoms...I wake up to feel the energy of hope vibrating through me. I am certainly confused by it but  I am also excited and enthusiastic.  I have a purpose.  I feel confident that I can accomplish something of importance to me and most likely many others. Why? What brought on this dramatic change of heart?

A Change in View About Hope

I talked to a non biased person yesterday about my hopelessness, about my present set of symptoms and how they were triggering past trauma and shame, how I was trying to accept all this emotional energy  instead of pushing it back down, how I thought my health seeking trauma ( and that was validated by this person as something that would be very traumatic for anyone)  was preventing the old stuff that so wanted to come up from doing so,  only because it was in the way, blocking the exit ramp.  In order to release the stuck pain energy of  childhood trauma , that I feel so wants to come out, I had to release this somehow first .  Of course , "release" means letting go of the emotional energy that keeps getting triggered within us,  right? It does not require  a diminishing or a dismissing of the  experience or the emotions associated with it as if it never happened...It is simply  a noticing, an allowing, an accepting and even an embracing of all that memory, all that pain.  It involves a looking deeply into it...observing how it triggers us and how we tend to react and close down when we feel it.  Then we learn to stop closing to it so we stop closing to what Life provides for us now . Without that energy pulling us into reactivity, we learn to keep the psyche hotel door open so all  "guests" can come in  and out without any notion of over staying their welcome. 

From Hopeless Suffering to Hopeful Transcendence 

Anyway...my point is after this conversation: I realized, even more clearly, how I tend to keep pushing it all down.  With validation from a very wise, non biased person, I was able to see my experience as traumatic and "impersonal".  It happens to many people. And that...lead me to say, "I am truly ready to heal from this!"  And anyone who knows me, knows how I heal best...through my writing.  I was inspired to go back to my novel...realizing that any blockages I have been having with the revising of the  three books I have written  had to do with this "most recent" trauma pain being in the way, because all three books address in one way or another the suffering that comes with trauma...more specifically...the "transcendence" that can come with trauma. One book is based on childhood, the original wounding. One is based on this health seeking experience and one is a copulation of all my experiences in order  to show how we can transcend trauma and  "suffering".  

Unblocked and Unstuck 

I was kind of stuck in the mud for years when it comes to my writing ...spinning around and around ...going  back and forth from one book to the other, really feeling like I was not getting anywhere . I was sending each of them out but felt like I was sending a child to school when they were not developmentally ready to learn. I knew they all had to be revised before I could call them finished and ready.  The question was:  "Which one do I finish first?"  Each of them, as I wrote them,  offered a tremendous cathartic experience of opening up some doors so stuff could be released... but becasue of the lack of a natural flow and my going back and forth...it kept getting stuck.  I would get blocked in one book, go to the other, get blocked there etc.  Now I see what that natural flow is...just like in Life...I need to deal with the most recent "stuffed stuff" first ...allow that to be released upon the page...and the other stuff will naturally flow right out.  I need to stay with this book about my health seeking experience until that is  released in a truly healing way,  so the deeper, childhood stuff can come up.  So after I say, "The End!" with this book and mean it... I can go back  to my book about my childhood with my late sister until I can once again say "The End!" and man it.  Finally, from there I go to the book on transcendence because by then I will have more genuine "transcendence" to write about.  How cool is that?  

Inspired

So yesterday, after my conversation with this lovely and skillful communicator/listener I felt this great inspiration consume me. I went to back to my book and I sat down with it for what I thought was an hour... only to discover I hadn't moved from my chair in five hours.  Five hours!!! That is inspiration...that is zest...and why?  Because  now I have hope.  As contradictory as that sounds in regards to what I tend to think and write about "hope"; even though it makes me sound like a big fat hypocrite...I have "hope"  and it feels good!

Yes I have that future, confident  focus of "completing"  this "goal" but mostly I just want to write and heal in this moment.  That is what is so exhilarating for me.  I have happily jumped into the river, with my feet up, and I am allowing it to take me to wherever it will take me with this.  I am enjoying just being in the river, having that freedom of being unblocked and having my writing flow freely. .  But I also have this feeling at the same time, that it is taking me to a pretty good place. 

Everything from the restlessness I had a few months ago to the chest pain...and the triggered memories to this renewed inspiration has been guided by something amazing and invisible.  I know that.  All my suffering over the years has lead me to this point where I am right now. I am supposed to write!!! That is what I am here to do!!! I am to write   the story of " one person", offer the puny experience of one little being who comes  from a race of 7 billion to the world, just  so the universal nature of the human experience can be recorded in some strange way, observed through a few insignificant words and then maybe used to help another human being somewhere go, "Oh! I see!" 

I am so grateful right now, so very, very grateful.  

This is hope. 

Back to the book! 

All is well in my world! 

Space in a Pot

 Where can the Self go when all that is, is within it? If a pot is moved from one space to another, the space within the pot does not move from one space to another for everything that is, is forever in space.

The Vasisthas, as offered by Deepak Chopra and Adam Plack in The Secrets of Healing: Meditation for Transformation (2011). Spotify 

Now I am not sure if I quoted that passage above  exactly...was listening as I did my Qigong today and told myself I would remember but I am not so sure I got it exactly right.  

All about that space, that emptiness, that "shunyata" (all things are empty of intrinsic existence and nature), isn't it? Space...all space is within us and we are all space.  We are pots containing space  but that space within us goes no where when we move from place to place...because what we think of as "us", "me" "You"...this pot...this body and mind is also space. Space is neither inside or outside "us". It is us

So this brings me to another quote I have scribbled down on the back of a grocery receipt...and once again when I jotted it down weeks ago, I assumed I would remember the author.  When do we learn, at this age, not to trust our memory lol? 

You should never trade your consciousness for the the object of consciousness.

I am going to assume it was Alan Watts that said that but I can not confirm that assumption. So what we so often do as human beings is focus on the object of consciousness which could be the pot...and want that, get lost in that, see that as our reality ...rather  than honoring, focusing on, learning from and "wanting" the consciousness that observes the pot...the space. If we really want to heal at the deepest ...we need to start focusing on the space, on the consciousness that is all aware of whatever shows up upon it, around it, in it...(whatever type of term you want to use so your mind understands). 

Self is not material.  Self is space, consciousness etc. Space is all there is.  

Hmm!  It takes a while to get that understanding clear in the head...well at least in "my" head.

All is well. 

Old Stuff Checking Out

 You are not here in order to go there. ...There is nothing to do, or nowhere to go, just this. 

Ram Dass

Zero readers...zero according to the stats page. I have never had that before lol. 

I have this impulse to skip, and dance, and sing out loud across the page. To swear on it, to type out a bunch of curse words in big bold letters....not becasue I am angry...only because sometimes it feels so  good to let out the forbidden and we can do that when there is no one around to witness. I just want to see what I feels like. I want to run naked through  some type of verbal sprinkler..(now that immediately provides an image none of us, and I mean none of us, wants to entertain for a second  ...oh but there is no one in this yard to imagine anything but me and I can't see myself ...so here I go...Wee!) 

I feel  the way one tends to feel when they look around to suddenly realize no one is watching them ...there is a certain freedom to completely be one's self.  But you know ( If I am talking to myself now when I say "you", I ramble to myself all the time  off the page...so it is all good lol), I am always completely myself when I write.  I can't be anything but myself when I come here. Writing is an expression of truth for me.  I may be a bit reserved,  awkward, shy and held back  around some people I know in person...but when I write it is like I open up and let it all out.  And, no offense to my imaginary reader, I don't care what others think.  I mean, I would never want to offend or hurt or be unkind..I have a genuine kindness and compassion in my heart for all....but I am not going to hold back on being who and what I am just to please anyone. Man, spent too much of my life as a people pleaser...done with that. (Well at least when I write lol).

Old Stuff Coming Out

I guess, I can share that what I wrote about over the last few entries regarding my chest pain and how it triggers past health seeking shame...has really been quite cathartic for me, helping me in ways I never thought it would.  I think ...it is time for the "old stuff" to leave and I have been experiencing the   process.  There is a lot of packing  going on, a lot of bumping and thumping  to get to the point of standing  in line to await one's turn to exit.  Obviously, the  most recently seated knots leave first because they are closer to the exit. The deep seated stuff, though impatient, has to wait for the space to come out. Maybe that is why I am getting chest pain and being triggered.  That pain has to leave before the original  trauma pain can  come up.

Really though, when it comes to releasing stuffed and stored emotion, we don't have to "do" anything, according to some pretty wise people.  We just have to be willing to stop resisting all the new stuff we  encounter, and  keep the heart open.  If we just keep the door open, all the old junk will just make its way to the exit when it is ready...we can then have a chat with each thing that resurfaces  as we stand to the side so it can get past; we can thank it for visiting; give it a hug or a warm handshake  and then we can  say goodbye. As we watch it totter off ,pulling its suitcase behind it, we can breathe a big sigh of release as if to  say, "Wow! Wasn't that an experience", and then  we wait  patiently and calmly for  the next thing to  come up. 

Singer suggests three things we can also do as it comes up and out and as we encounter "new" stuff:

1. Stay positive...as negative thoughts come to mind in regards to stuff that has just entered our psyche motel or stuff that has been around for a while...we can use a bit of cognitive restructuring to revamp those messages.  "This feels awful.  I don't know if I can stand this."  can be replaced with. "Hmmm! This is different, not all together pleasant but I can handle it. I have handled worse before. And all the determination, energy and will it took to keep stuff down or push it away...that was something pretty impressive...that's testament to how strong my will is.  I can do anything.  It may hurt a bit coming out but I will feel much better with it out of me." 
2. Carry a Mantra with you that soothes and keeps you open.  Practice this mantra on a regular basis so it becomes a subconscious belief you can turn to when you need it. "I am full of love and light." "It all is as it is and its perfect." "I can relax and release" 
3. Surrender.  Let go and relax into what is as it unfolds in front of you and as it is released from you. Sure there may be some pain.  If something is stored in pain , it will be released with pain. Just breathe and relax into it...don't get in its way by tensing up and resisting it.  Just let it go. 

There is always a karmic effect when we hold onto something, according to Ram Dass.  What we do when we resist pain, or  resist what Life gives us...is   get in its way.  We don't understand why Life is gives us the things she does...yet we automatically assume we need to somehow "do" something about it. That was my experience with my health seeking.  I was trying to change something I didn't even understand, not even remotely...Life.  When all I had to do is step back and observe and experience ... Just this!

So much learning. 

All good

Ram Dass/ Be Here and Now Network( March, 2021) Here and Now- Ep177- Perspective on Work and Money  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkoVnD3wsxo

Michael Singer Podcast/Sounds True ( July, 2021) Spirituality: the Exploration of Consciousness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE4_q7qdZ0E

A Lesson Thirty Years in the Learning

 When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind's essential peace  is disturbed to no avail. 

Seng Ts'an, Third Chinese  Patriarch 

So...on yesterday's long winded entry,  I wanted to say that though my intention was to encourage a reexamination of the benefit of hope in our spiritual evolution,  it also allowed for some personal insight to surface. I realized upon writing, much more than I intended to, that  I am still stuck there.  

As much as I talk about living in and appreciating the now, at the mere thought of "chest pain", I am still pulled back to something that began 30 years ago. I still have that emotional pain  stuck within me like a knot tangled around my insides. It is probably more life limiting, more  detrimental to my health than the angina is.  It gets triggered so easily and I react so strongly  whenever that pain, that so wants to come out and be done with me, comes up.  My initial reaction is to reflexively attempt to push it back down so that I don't have to experience it  coming out. 

Pain On Top of Pain

It is the "shame" feeling I think, that is the hardest for me to deal with and that "shame" goes beyond that health seeking  experience.  In fact, that experience triggered some deep shame that was already in me long before I started getting chest pain. So I actually have a shame- upon -shame -kind -of -squishing-down- thing going on, a trauma over a trauma. I can see so clearly what Michael Singer is talking about in the below video. 

A Mind Disturbed

I created a very disturbed mind by reacting to my circumstances in the way I did. When the pain of childhood trauma was meant to flow through me as all emotion, all thoughts, all energy is meant to do... it, instead,  got  deeply stuffed within me. It was too painful then for my little mind...so I suppressed and repressed, pushing it out of conscious awareness. I actually fooled myself into believing it went away, when it actually remained, all along,  very much a tender, receptive-to- triggers part of my personality.  When  I encountered what I encountered in my health seeking ...it got poked,  triggered to the point it started to come up again and again. My mind said, "Too much pain!"   It convinced me, without words, that I  could not deal with the initial trauma, and therefore I could not deal with the trigger either...so I pushed that down too. I resisted.  

My resistance did not benefit me or others in my family.  And by my resistance, I mean  my inability to allow my emotional pain to just be expressed. I judged it all as "too painful", therefore "wrong, bad, shouldn't be". 

A Lesson Thirty Years in the Learning

Though these external events  were indeed extraordinary and very challenging by anyone's standards, I clearly see now how my resistance only made it all worse.  Like Annie, I encountered some difficult times and rainy weather,  and have  been at the receiving end of what could be viewed as "unjust"  judgement and treatment from  some  less than conscious human beings attempting to preserve their own egos. Still,   I could have probably dealt with it all in a much healthier way. I was, however, too busy, at the time,  "reacting" to the way it triggered old trauma while I went about resisting the resistance, to see that. 

 Could I have changed the situation, changed those personalities, made them see my truth, and  gotten what I wanted and now know I deserved if I responded rather than reacted?  Maybe not... but I could have had a lot more peace in my life, a lot less trauma and a lot less suffering if   I "surrendered" sooner and learned to relax into what Life was giving me. 

When I first noticed the external assumption and judgement was being formed about me and observed how it was getting in the way of "my" truth as I presented with my very real symptoms , instead of saying, "Oh No!  This shouldn't be!", and beginning a desperate effort to make people see my truth...maybe I could have done something completely different.  Maybe, I could have taken a step back to see it all with a deeper perspective that went beyond mind and body. Maybe,   I could have said, instead,:

"Ohhh...this is what Life is offering me for an experience now. Wow! This is different. . I don't understand why this is unfolding the way it is unfolding but it's okay.  I trust  that I do not need to change what I don't understand about Life.  Maybe instead of trying to change it, fix it, control it in some way, I will just witness what  is happening inside me because of it? I will experience all of it."

" Okay...I can see that hurts.  I feel shame.  I feel frustration.  I feel confusion.I feel fear.  I feel a lack of trust. I feel devalued, diminished, unseen.  I feel punished. I see how this experience  is poking at some old wounds, wanting me to react.   Hmm! It feels strange, not pleasant....part of me really, really wants to resist this .. but I won't react. I will allow each of these feelings their time with me, watching them as they pass through.  I won't judge them as "bad" and push them down and away. I will experience it all...and then just observe it as it goes. I won't cling to any of it either. I won't  grasp for pleasant  experiences to distract with and ease the pain. I will just feel and experience it all. This is what living Life is all about...experiencing fully the 10,000 joys as well as the 10,000 sorrows. "

" I won't waste my energy hoping that "they" will see the truth and that things will be better  tomorrow. I won't distract myself from feeling and dealing with the unpleasant in my present.  I will notice, allow and accept this experience to be whatever it is, knowing that my peace is not dependent on any condition outside myself.  I will observe, and participate in this life experience without judgement or expectation,  finding meaning in it as I do."

" I won't get lost in this false notion...that I have  to "do" something about it. I mean, I will continue to speak my truth and seek what this body and mind needs and deserves but I will not struggle against what is or "fight" to make people change their minds about me. I will not spend my Life fostering thoughts of blame and injustice either , nor will I live as a victim.  They may or may not ever see my truth  and they may or may not ever  help me. That is beyond my control.  All I can do is speak what is true for me. The rest is up to Life."

"Sure it is painful but it doesn't have to advance to full blown suffering.Whether or not I suffer here, is up to me. Awareness, I have learned, is the true antidote to any state of altered well being. As long as I remain aware, allow Life and all she puts in front of me  to be what it is, this pain and all things with it ,will pass. That is the nature of things.  It comes in and it goes out. I will relax into this experience knowing that for now, (which is the only time that matters, in fact it is the only time there is) it simply is what it is and it is all perfect."

Wow that would have been a game changer, wouldn't it have been?  If I would have let go and stepped back in the beginning and allowed Life to take care of things...things could have been a lot different.  Maybe I would  still have chest pain...maybe even have  succumbed to it because I would not have gotten the diagnosis' and treatment I did eventually get for some of it... ( if that is what Life had in store for this body)...but...but   I would not have the big   fat folder  I now have full of tests that show "some" but not "enough" evidence to warrant the help  I felt I needed at the time  and that supports the  rationale for other's assumption about me.  And I would not have spent thirty years living in shame and fear.  My getting in Life's way, I see so clearly now,  actually made the situation worse on the physical plane. On the spiritual plane, however, ...didn't matter one bit what I did or didn't do for who I truly am is just a "happening" as well , an ever unfolding process just like all the other happenings  that unfold in front of me. It's just Life!

All is well in "my" life.

Michael Singer Podcast ( July, 2021) Spirituality: An Exploration of Consciousness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE4_q7qdZ0E

Warren Weinstein (n.d.) Third Chines Patriarch: Hsin Hsin Ming https://home.csulb.edu/~wweinste/HsinHsinMing.html#:~:text=The%20Great%20Way*%20is%20not,for%2C%20or%20against%2C%20anything.

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The Disease of the Mind

 The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction , however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth, then hold  no opinion for, or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind. 

Seng Ts'an, The Third Chines Patriarch of Zen  

That last entry was long winded, eh?  I don't expect many, if any, will read it and that, maybe,  is a good thing. Something beyond my initial intention may have plopped itself down on the page.

But...

Questioning The Necessity of Hope in Our Spiritual Evolution

The intention behind it was to question the necessity of "hope" in our spiritual evolution.  Sure, hope is big in psychology and in building a strong character...but it does little, to no good, for the Deeper Self. In fact, reliance  on the future to provide external situations that are more favorable to our personality may keep us in that unwholesome  mental activity that  distracts us from what the Deeper Self is all about: recognizing, accepting and  appreciating Life now, as it is. Hope keeps us in our head.  It is not about the "now", the only time there is.  It is about some notion of a future time that will supposedly be better than this moment. And by "better" what we really mean is  ...it won't trigger a reaction in us. With this whole concept of hope and the need for it, we are deciding this moment, for whatever  reason,  is not good enough and we are then   putting our emotional energy into convincing ourselves  that the "next one" will be better. 

Can you see what  is wrong with that picture? 

Ask yourself the following questions: If you are feeling very dissatisfied with what is going on right now, is it the moment that is the problem?  Is it the challenging external circumstance or set of circumstances that showed up in this moment, this day, this span of time...that is the problem?  Is it the bad patch of the unfavorable, unpleasant  that is before you that is  the problem? Is it the illness the depression or the relationship down you are going through? Is it the financial slump ? The weather?  

"The Sun will Come Out Tomorrow" ?? 

Let's say you believe it is  the weather that is your problem. Is the best thing to do, then,  when it is raining....to spend your whole day singing  "The sun will come up out tomorrow..." and envisioning a better day tomorrow?  That is hope , right?  Sure it made Annie feel better...only because it took her out of the reality of her now and put her up in some future time that really does not exist anywhere but in the head. She judged her present moment as being terrible and something she really needed to escape, didn't she?  Her present reality ws the problem. We all probably would have done the same thing. It is normal for us to want to do whatever we can to escape what we judge as  "challenge, hardship, problematic,  unpleasant" and seek what we judge as "good, desirable, pleasant", isn't it?  Hope is a means for us to do that, if only in our minds.

External Situation...Not the Problem

But don't you see...it is this judgement that is the problem, not the situation. It is the determining  that this is good or bad, right or wrong, should or shouldn't be...followed by what mind does with these judgments ...that is the source of all so called problems  It is this grasping and clinging for the pleasant and this pushing away, denying, and stuffing of the unpleasant that is the problem. Resistance to what Life is unfolding in front of us right now ...is the problem.  This idea that we know better than Life what she should or shouldn't be offering us, is the problem. It is this habit tendency of the mind that creates the problem.

Don't Try to Fix Life;  Stop Reacting

When we judge something as unpleasant or bad, or wrong because it triggers something in our little personalities that we tend to believe are so much more important than they actually are, we resist it...we push it away from our conscious awareness using distraction, avoidance, denial, suppression and repression.  We put so much of our mental and physical energy in to attempting to keep the "bad" down and  the "good" in  by grasping, seeking, clinging to the "good" just so we do not disturb our delicate personalities. This process leaves a host of emotional experiences that were just meant to flow in and out of us...stuck within at the mercy of being repeatedly triggered by life circumstance, creating more and more pain. So we constantly get triggered by external circumstances...reacting here and reacting there. We erroneously believe that in order to stop the reaction we have to either "fix", control or manipulate  Life and make her do what suits us or we escape Life altogether by projecting somewhere in our minds. 

The Disease of the Mind

We can't control Life.  I don't care how many ways you manifest and imagine the future.  Life is going to do what Life is going to do.   Should we not just let her?  Should we not just learn to trust this thing that has been taking care of itself for billions and billions of years , seeing that she knows best? And get out of the way? Stop judging what she offers us as right or wrong, stop grasping and stop pushing away (which really means pushing down deeper inside us adding to the pile of unresolved emotions that want to come out)? . Should we not just let all experiences just flow through us without judging and reacting, resisting or clinging so we are free of them?  Should we not just learn to find that all the conditions we need for happiness we have right here and right now no matter what is unfolding around us, what is "happening" to us?  

Does hope help us to do that? 

Hope serves some purpose for the personality and if you want to serve the personality for the rest of your life...by all means foster hope. If you want to get beyond the personality, however, and break the habitual mind tendencies that keep us stuck...maybe reconsider if hope is a good use of your energy. Practice relaxing into what is instead. 

For more on this, much better explained, see the video below. and read the Hsin Hsin Ming 

All is well. 

Michael Singer Podcast/ Sounds True ( July, 2021) Spirituality: Exploration of Consciousness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE4_q7qdZ0E

Warren Weinstein (n.d.) Third Chines Patriarch of Zen: Hsin Hsin Ming https://home.csulb.edu/~wweinste/HsinHsinMing.html#:~:text=The%20Great%20Way*%20is%20not,for%2C%20or%20against%2C%20anything.

Hope?

 Linked to optimism, hope is an attitude or outlook that good things will happen and one's wishes or aims will ultimately be fulfilled. 

Camille Preston (October, 2021)The Psychology of Hope,https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/mental-health-in-the-workplace/202110/the-psychology-hope 

Hope is Not A Strength of Mine

I have a challenging time understanding and fostering "hope."  I am not the most "hopeful" of people. Though I score high in transcendence traits, according to a list put together by Positive Psychology .com, hope tends to elude me.   I look up at the definitions and see that hope has a lot to do with being optimistic about the future.  That might be partially why I cannot wrap my mind around hope and I seem to have so little in my life.  I am not overly optimistic about my future. Nor do I try to be.  I tend to put effort into "not thinking about the future" by telling myself I am a present moment being...and I focus my attention on noticing what is in my life right here and now, finding satisfaction and happiness in whatever is unfolding before me. I am great, fantastic even   and getting better at accepting and allowing "what is" to be. .. but I am not so great at believing things will get easier for me any time soon.  I have been conditioned to believe from my own past experiences that, "things don't always work out the way one wants them to"  Heck...let's take that a step farther into honesty...I often operate from a core belief  that says "things in my life seldom work out smoothly or the way I want them to."   Pretty Pessimistic, huh? 

Hope is an emotion characterized by positive feelings about the immediate or long term future. Often hope is coupled with high motivation, optimism, and generally elevated mood.

Good Therapy https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/what-is-hope

It seems that way but it really isn't. My core belief definitely needs some tweaking  but my lack of hope is not necessarily a sign that I am "pessimistic" in nature. Well...not completely.  Truth is, things in my version of Life have not worked out to date in the easy and grace filled way I wanted them to. I have had more than an average amount of extraordinary challenges that I judged as "unpleasant" and "difficult" and they did not get much better for "me"  over time. Hoping did not make "me" feel better.  Because of that , I found a new way of coping with them: acceptance.I have learned to allow and accept what is to be as it is and that brings something better than hope...it brings peace. 

I Used to be Hope Dependent.  This is Why I No longer Am: 

Let me give you an example of a long term  life experience that led me to stop relying on hope...to stop looking toward the future for things to get better. I will start by telling you that   I am a fairly bright woman with a good sense of medical intuition which goes  beyond my scope of practice as a nurse/nurse educator. So whether you believe this or not, I knew something was going on with my ticker way back in 1993 when I first began "presenting"in the health care system  with my symptoms. I had a strong sense , from the very beginning, that this was familial and had a lot to do with the issues going on in my father's family.  Tests were done, many referrals were made and I seen a few specialists in the early years. When the initial tests just showed an issue with heart rate,  the first opinion was a common one offered to women back then..."anxiety", and a bit of "histrionics".  Though they shamed me deeply and though I outwardly denied them, I could not completely discount these diagnosis' then.  I could not say, in all honesty to myself, that  they did not have some truth and validity to them.  My cardiac symptoms began, after all,   the same time  as my  Post Traumatic Stress started to make itself known to me.  There was anxiety and there was also a great deal of "fear".  I had this incredible sense of doom every time the chest pain started...thus my insisting something was going on...thus maybe what appeared as "histrionics" to others.  So part of me believed those shame-inducing suggestions even though I persisted with finding a physical cause. I also knew they were not the whole truth to my situation. 

For almost thirty years I went back and forth between believing "they" were right and I was just loopy, imagining such symptoms and knowing in my core that I was right and there was some physical cause to my experience. I  kept going between  shame and fear...shame when I presented and was sent away, fear that if I did not keep pushing for a diagnosis I, or someone else in my family, would suffer. I went back and forth, back and forth.  

The chest pain was very, very real but it was seldom  considered to be a real thing by others....even when I had ST changes that  supported it. My chest pain became something no one took seriously.  For a while, I stopped taking it seriously. Though it was very challenging,  I pushed myself to do the activities I so loved to do.  I was actually a fitness instructor at the time, leading aerobic classes. I also ran, skied, snow shooed, walked and did yoga.  On top of that I had four small children to run and look after. One day, eight years after it  began,  I went into ER...with chest pain episodes (that were accompanied by near fainting and palpitations) I started to experience while at the gym. At that point, I worried  I would be sent home without an answer but I still had some hope.  I was lucky enough to be seen by someone who took the time to do the necessary tests and the next thing I knew I was in CCU waiting to be shipped out by ambulance to the regional cardiac unit. I even got my last rites as I was waiting to be shipped out.  The internal med strongly suggested that it was definitely my heart and  if it was not a blockage... it was coronary vasospasm and assured me they would  test me there for that and treat me.  When I arrived there, I had a cath  done...there was no blockage... but the cardiologist who seen me  did not test me for spasm...he did not think it was necessary in a young fit female like myself.  Others  heard the mitral valve clicking and that became a big thing among the medical students but after an echo to determine a mitral valve prolapse I was sent home, not knowing what was causing the chest pain. It was 911 and my little issue seemed so insignificant compared to what was going on in the world.  

I still had the pain and this overwhelming fatigue. It was suggested that I either see a rheumatologist or a GI guy to determine some alternative cause for the pain and fatigue. I agreed to see a rheumatologist though I was still quite sure it was the heart.  Before examining me, the rheumatologist sat me down to talk to me about my test seeking and explained how it was costing the tax payers money to have young women like myself "insist" on having such expensive and dangerous  tests, like cardiac catheterizations,  done that they do not need. Most of the hope I had left in me drained out  in his office. Still, besides a ton of shame and guilt, I left that appointment with a tiny  smidgen of hope  left within me.  His "opinion" was left on my medical chart and followed me where ever I went after that. The pain and symptoms did not go away though I did whatever I could for years after that not to mention them to anyone.   Though I eventually got a diagnosis of "coronary vasospasm" from a cardiologist in 2013 , twenty years after the pain started,  to support what I and one other  had been suggesting for decades  that it might be...to this date it is often dismissed as having any relevance. 

Even the valve issue, as benign as these things can be, was denied over and over...even when ultrasounds showed that it was there, even though the click-murmur was so obvious.  I was even called a liar to my face by an internal med when I insisted I had this issue and questioned if it was getting worse. I did my best to "suck up the symptoms"  and pretend everything was fine. But when my sister died of a sudden cardiac death at 45, the fear returned.  I was even more convinced this was familial. I persisted again  looking for an answer, not just for myself but my family. I was called a liar, I was told to stop "test seeking", I was referred to as an "interesting patient" ...like I was  some big medical joke. The symptoms got worse. I was able to do less and less. I was scared...so once again I began to present to the "ER" with my very real complaints. Though there were many kind and thorough GP's in the ER who took the test results and my complaints seriously ...the internal meds always seemed to refer to my chart and explain to me how I had so many tests done in the past that were not showing "enough" evidence to warrant concern or treatment. How my life was impacted by them was always dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders. I even had an internal med slip a piece of paper, with a latin word on it, in my hand on one ER visit, as he kindly told me to look up the meaning of his diagnosis for me when I got home...which turned out to be "Fat Folder Syndrome".  So much shame...just for insisting that something was wrong with my heart and possibly the heart of others in my family.  Eventually, in 2010 I had a stress echo done by a cardiologist that proved on top of three other echocardiograms that others dismissed over the years,  to myself at least that I was not lying about the valve. 

 I also knew I had atrial fib and flutter...I had been experiencing palpitations  for years along with the sudden increase and decrease in heart rate.  I even seen the evidence myself on a couple of reports while I sat in front of the internal med who had earlier  called me a liar as he told me it was just "muscle twitching".  Then when I mentioned the fluctuations in my pulse, he  told me again that I was lying about that.  Even though I had a run in his office while he was taking my pulse.  He was willing to prescribe meds for me then, only because I was"so insistent and so worried about this benign condition". It got to the point that I felt I needed evidence to prove to myself and others why I was  having such a hard time coping with my symptoms so I began to collect it myself...I began to record pics of my pulse readings from a running monitor I wore and from my BP cuff.  And it proved to me that yeah...my pulse is really going out of whack at times..up over 200 for no reason  and it is dropping into the 30's . Still no one would validate this truth for me.  A year after my encounter with this internal med who told me all I had was "muscle twitching" and that I was lying about everything else, he was cardioverting my brother who went into  a run, like I have been having for years,  after a stress test.  He ws taken very seriously.  I, on the other hand, was still just  a liar. Another familial connection that no one would put together. 

Hope- a feeling of optimism and anticipation about a positive future. 

Positive Psychology.com/ Courtney Ackerman ( March 23, 2022) Positive Emotions: A List of 26 Examples & Definitions in Psychology.https://positivepsychology.com/positive-emotions-list-examples-definition-psychology/

Though the hope was trickling down to nothing,  I persisted, with great, great shame, to find an answer for myself and my family.   I  walked away again and again with more shame, no answer. And as if manifesting what was going on in my mind...every test they did perform never showed "enough" evidence even though it always showed "some". The fainting starts. When I continued to insist something is going on, with the evidence of my own monitoring with me, I was sent to  a renown specialist for an EPS.  This specialist  seemed so nice at first, so willing to support me. The belief was that the fainting was not cardiac but vasomotor.  I was willing to entertain that possibility. When I asked about the chest pain, I just got that shrug of the shoulders I was was becoming so familiar with whenever I brang it up.   Still, my hope was actually renewed. Then out of nowhere everything changed.  Someone else did the procedure and he obviously read my chart before he did it because he treated me like a piece of you know what.  It took a while but I had a run...I also had very severe chest pain during the procedure. Though the report clearly stated that I had a run of fib and flutter...I was told there was none.  That it as perfectly normal.  There it is on the report so clearly in black print in front of me but I am told there was no fib or flutter and as for the chest pain I had...totally denied and dismissed. (My  hope is that the nurse put it in her notes...just to prove I am not a liar). I think the hope might have been nothing more than a drop then but it was still there. A loop recorder was inserted, a few months later,  to monitor this atrial fib and flutter I apparently don't have. A Cardiologist sees me for preop assessment before the loop is inserted, he hears  the mitral valve prolapse  I apparently don't have, and tells me he will see me again when I am 60...that I will likely need a repair or replacement then...I go home and get a call a week later saying that something showed up on the MRI I also had done before the procedure... a patch of ventricular dyskinesia. Ironically, the day before I get this news my sister  who is a year older than me, 50 at the time, infarcted out of no where ...no blockage. Later gets dismissed.  I am having more and more bradycardia , rates in the 30's , becoming increasingly tired. I am told by this specialist that ordered the EPS and Loop that there is no evidence of bradycardia.  I pushed when I was brady to record it, so how can there be no evidence.  I have it as well in my self collected evidence?  I have evidence of bradycardia! I am told I am likely just depressed. I leave that appointment hopeless...

After a few too many ambulance trips to ER after nose-planting at work,a cardiologist sees me and diagnosis's me with coronary vasospasm. He confirms the mitral valve click/murmur and tells me, from his past experience working with the man who termed the condition,  I will likely need a valve replacement or repair by the time I am seventy.  They also  finally see the bradycardia and are  concerned. A pacemaker is suggested. Hope returns...maybe, just maybe the pacemaker will make the symptoms go away. I was just about to sign the consent form for a pacemaker, literally had the pen in my hand,  when the cardiologist  discovered what this other specialist had suggested...that it was vasomotor, that the bradycardia  was due to my BP and not the other way around and maybe I am just "anxious," "depressed", and "histrionic".  That was enough.  I didn't get the pacemaker ( which is a good thing obviously...if there is any indication that it might not be beneficial, I didn't want it )  and no one mentioned my bradycardia again. Two years later another sister ended up stented. Two years after that another brother, not the one with the atrial fib,  infarcted...no blockage.This is indeed a familial condition! 

The whole time I was becoming more and more debilitated by my symptoms. Without adequate specialist validation for them ..there was no support. ..even when  the symptoms seemed to control my life.   I had to reduce my hours at work, just so I could stay upright for my children and my students. Doing the stairs became a work out.  I had to carry my nitro with me wherever I went. I continued to faint and it was so embarrassing.  Though I had meds to control my fast rates and to help prevent the spasming, I still got a lot of pain. I went off work in hope I could get LTD just long enough until I got an adequate diagnosis and treatment so I could get myself back on track.  It didn't come.  I went without an income for over a year...cashing in everything I had saved or invested for the children and I.  I went back to work farther reducing my hours.  I loved my job and I needed some form of income...so we did what we could on my part time salary until it got bad enough again to make me have to go off.  Again, I go another year without a cent of income coming in...hopelessly waiting for things to change, for someone to say or do something to validate why I needed help. My GP  helped but it was no use. Another year, absolutely no income.  There is nothing left to cash in.  I went into even more debt.  So tired of fighting,  I completely give up...I go back to specialists and tell them I am "fine"...I don't need them anymore and I stop going to doctors about anything cardiac related.  I stop looking for support, validation and help... I get to the  point where I  make a very difficult decision to  retire early even when  it meant sub existing financially. I put my health first.  I take it upon myself to do what I can to make each moment better.

...Hope is the motivation to persevere toward a goal or end state even if we're skeptical that a positive end state is likely. 

Everett Worthington from https://healthypsych.com/psychology-of-hope/

The point is...I stopped hoping that someday someone would see this familial condition I see so clearly...and help me "fix" it instead of just treating some of the superficial  symptoms of it.  Anyway,the reality is I do have a cardiac issue that limits me , I am now living below the poverty line...if it wasn't for D.'s contributions to the household, I wouldn't have this roof over my head. That's the reality of my today  I don't have hope...that this will all get better tomorrow...that my life will get better. I have some serious skeptical doubt. I am not optimistic about my health and financial  future...but I am not pessimistic either. I am still persevering towards wellness...just not an externally determined state. 

Without hope I learned to do an amazing thing.  I learned to  accept what is. I learned to look for the conditions I need to be satisfied and at peace  in my present moment instead of waiting for them to arrive in some distant future,  the future that never comes. I stopped resisting what my body was doing...what the system was doing and allowed this to be a part of my Life.  I embrace the positive things this has given me...and there are so many positives besides the learning and growing I have done becasue of it. 

Hmm! So I do persevere in many avenues of my life...just not in the external health seeking one. I mean, I will go for  help when it is absolutely needed and if it is something I cannot manage on my own.  I will try everything else first.  I will tell my doctor about this pain when I speak to him next.  I will go in to ER  if absolutely necessary (if Nitro doesn't work after three shots) . I do want to stay alive as long as Life will let me. But do I have hope or trust that others  and the external situation  will change ? Absolutely not! Do I have hope and trust that if I access the system I will be helped and healed? Absolutely not.  That I will encounter more conscious and evolved people, than I have in the past,  who will  not attempt to shame me to protect their own egos? Absolutely not.  I do have trust and faith, however, that my changed internal situation will give me a lot more than a different experience ever could have. It has given me a much more stable and peaceful mind that is less likely to react. So though my situation may never change, my mind has. I can endure the hardship and tomorrow of course will be just as wonderful as today.

All is well. 

If we believe that tomorrow will be better we can endure a hardship today. 

Thich Nhat Hanh 

Life's Moving Toward Perfection

Allow your life to unfold naturally.

Know that it too is a vessel of perfection.

Just as you breathe in and breathe out,

there is a time for being ahead

and a time for being behind;

a time for being in motion

and a time for being at rest;

a time for being vigorous

and a time for being exhausted;

a time for being safe

and a time for being in danger. 

To the sage

all Life is a movement toward perfection...

Wayne Dyer's summary/ interpretation of ten translations of Verse 29 of  the Tao Te Ching

As I meditated today, I said a quiet intention that I would be able to accept, allow without judgement or resistance, without blame or shame...my physical heart to do whatever it is doing. I am not sure if  I am just having an extended bout of Coronary vasospasms or if the floppy chordae tendineae  of  my Mitral Valve are finally saying, "We had enough of holding it together with all this flapping and slapping you put us through.  I don't care what any one says or doesn't say about the conditions we were working under. It was too much lady... you put us through way too much stress. We are given you our notice...we are about to quit!" Maybe it is years of tachy brady...going from rates over 200 for no reason to rates in the 30's resulting in blood pressures dropping to the floor and my body following suit ... finally taking their toll ( even though the last medication I was prescribed years ago and the "not working"  seemed to work wonders.  I have not fainted in five years. ). Or maybe it is just my heart following the lead of my exhausted  mind as it recites its never ending mantra, "Just too tired ...Too much! Too much!" I don't know but I know something is going on when playing with my grandchildren, one of the most joyous things in my life, leaves me completely breathless and exhausted after thirty minutes...so much so that I can't stay awake when I get home. I had to cancel several yoga classes over the last week or so as well...not like me. Man this is starting to sound like a "Poor Me" session...that is not what I intended.

What I am trying to say is ...we need to accept it all, let go of any resistance to what we consider to be the "downs"  because they are just as much a part of Life's perfection as the so called "ups" are.   As challenging as it is to do this when we are facing these so called "difficult" times , we need to "RELAX" into them and  let Life do what Life is going to do, with or without our approval. I have literally, all in the span of a few months been feeling so behind...acutely aware of how behind I am financially, in the chores I want done, in society's eyes, in this notion of "success", in my parenting, in my writing, in my ability to keep up with others; I have been forced to rest which is hard for me, a person who so loves to move the body; I have been feeling emotionally and physically exhausted; and I have literally been in danger ( had death threats against me and loved ones  as well as being at the risk of succumbing to whatever my heart may or may not be doing here)) . Yet, I know in the deepest part  of myself, that it is all still so good.  This is the way it is meant to be...this is just Life moving toward perfection.  These downs will come and they will go. Maybe in two weeks time I will be writing about how "ahead" I sense I am, how I am able to move vigorously through my days and how safe and secure I feel. Or maybe not. Who knows? It will be what it will be.

I don't want to fight or struggle against this.  I made an appointment with my doctor, scheduled for a few weeks time,  but I have absolutely no expectations about that.  Not because of him but because of my past experience  I have no trust in the system, therefore little hope that this will be looked after when or if  I am referred. In the meantime,  will go into the dreaded ER  if the nitro doesn't take the pain away after the third hit or if I start to faint again.  I promised loved ones that I would and I will keep my promise.  For now I will rest when I feel the need to and move when I can. I will recognize and accept the stressors in my  present life situations and do my best to relax into them.  I will take precautions when I need to  but other than that I have done all I have the control to do...the rest is up to Life.   

It is all good!

Wayne Dyer (2007) Change Your thoughts, Change Your life. New York: Hay House

 

The Coming and Going Of It All

In the infinite consciousness of every atom infinite universes come and go  like particles of dust on a beam of light that shines through   a hole in the roof. These come and go like ripples on the vast ocean of consciousness ....

The Vasisthas ( as recited by Deepak Chopra in The Secret of Healing,Spotify )

When we are truly conscious, centered in this ocean of consciousness, simply observing the dance of Life around us and in us... we see the coming and going of all the things our unconscious states are so attached to. 

I still get pulled away from this state of consciousness I  have been working hard to attain and maintain for longer periods of time.  It is my major Life goal now  to do what Michael Singer tells us we must learn to do if we really want peace of mind : eliminate the gaps in our consciousness. If I "strive" to do anything, I strive to do that. 

Becoming more conscious, I am learning,   is not about meditating twenty-four seven or making sure we don't ever think; it is not about having complete control over our minds so much that we figure we have to beat ourselves up every time we slip into human tendencies of thinking, negativity, fear, anger and dissatisfaction with our present moment; and it is definitely not about fixing, controlling, changing and determining what Life has to do  or not do to make us happy as we push away the unpleasant and grasp and cling to the pleasant. It  is simply about trying to prolong those periods when we are grounded in presence, aware and accepting of what is without all that judgement,  narration and story telling...and it is about shortening  the amount of time it takes for us to realize that we slipped off the track so that we bring ourselves back to the here and now. We just need to keep coming back!  

Yes, we are going to think...and some thoughts will continue to have the power to pull us away from the natural "peace-filled and centered"  state that lies beneath all this "stress, anxiety, dissatisfaction" the mind creates.  We will tend to follow these thought streams, get lost in them and forget about or fail to see what is truly happening here and now as life unfolds in front of of in this moment. We will get lost in the story about the "out there" and what is right about it and what is wrong about it. We will credit the "out there" for our satisfaction with Life...and blame it for our dissatisfaction with Life. But...but...every time we realize that we got lost in thought or story , blaming others or things for our present state of inner dissatisfaction etc...then we've come back.  We are conscious again. The more we come back, the more we learn that "out there",  is never the problem or the "issue",  "in here" is.  All the outside world has the power to do is "trigger" some reactive  emotional tendency already in us if we are not aware or conscious enough.  And we often  fail to be aware enough,  committed enough or skilled enough to stop ourselves from following that thought stream or emotional energy.  We allow it to take us off center. Our goal, then,  is to learn to stay centered enough, we are not pulled away. 

So we don't have to "fix" Life. We don't have to control it , nor do we have to stand on alert all our days ready to grab what we think will bring life satisfaction and push away what we believe won't based on how it triggers our insides. ...We just need to observe, understand and"fix" the way we react to it.  We need to step back and let Life be Life realizing this very, very important point: All things she offers us are wonderful opportunities to help us broaden our ability to stay conscious.  And everything, absolutely every experience, will come and it will go into our consciousness if we let it.It has no permanence,no substance and no value.  

What is of value is our peace of mind, is our conscious awareness...is being in  that state where we are not swayed  by this phenomenon, where we do not feel the need to run after it or to push it away.  It doesn't move us. 

Hmm! Not that easy to do. I am getting so much better at noticing when I leave my center and I come back quite quickly...but I still leave, a lot.  I am still a work in progress. What about you? 

All is well! 

Deepak Chopra & Adam Plack (2011) The Secret of Healing ; Meditations For Transformation. Spotify

Michael Singer Podcast ( April, 2022)  The Commitment to Stay Conscious. Spotify 

All is well. 

Languishing Versus Flourishing

 

Flourishing goes beyond happiness and satisfaction with life. True, people who flourish are happy.  But that's not the half of it. Beyond feeling good,they're also doing good- adding value to the world. 

Barbara Fredrickson (note: I did not take this quote from any course material  but from "quote fancy" on line) 

Languishing or Flourishing? 

Are you languishing or flourishing?  Are you feeling , blah! unmotivated, defeated, purposeful less and just going through the motions of Life (which would be languishing) or are you feeling enthusiastic, excited, hopeful, and full of Zest for Life (which would be flourishing) ? Well the New York Times took on both of these definitions in an attempt to help individuals understand why they were feeling less than happy during the pandemic and ways to feel better...They provided ways ( see links to self tests) to determine if you were languishing or flourishing, and then helpful tips on how to go from languishing to flourishing. I also learned a lot about flourishing and how to get there, in my course, but because it is a " positive" psychology course I did not learn a lot to date about "languishing".  Still...one of the reasons I decided to break the bank and take it is because I want myself and my loved ones to "flourish"! I am so tired of languishing. 

Weighed Down

I have been languishing for quite some time, and though the pandemic was only partially responsible for the weight on me, I did have weight.  In the poem below I wrote about having a heavy -weighted -blanket- on- me- experience. 

Ironically, I was both appreciative of the pandemic because it allowed me to stay in a comfort zone which weighted blankets are for, giving me an excuse for not being productive 'out there', putting me on par with everyone else for a brief refreshing time, but it and all the other things I was dealing with also  weighed me down.  I don't feel light, and energetic and care free...I just felt heavy...and with this recent bout of cardiac symptoms I feel even heavier.  I feel I am languishing big time. 

From Languish to Flourish

One of the tips, offered in the articles, for taking ourselves from languishing to flourishing is to savor moments instead of looking for big highs.  That, as one of my long time  go-to  philosophies of Life,  was something I had been doing and continue to do.  It does help.  I savored a moment just  this morning, as the poem below also expresses. 

Of course, gratitude, doing good deeds, serving and connecting to community are all beneficial as well. And those are all things I do . 

I fear, though,  that I am not "serving" the needs of others enough even though that is all I seem to be doing lol. Everyone's needs come before my petty little needs, it seems...and as the "my" in "my needs" become less and less important ...I just do it automatically ...but am I doing enough  "measurable" service  outside my loved ones? Am I doing enough good in the world? I don't know.  Need to look at that. 

Anyway, have a read and see where you are at.

All good. 

The New York Times/Dani Blum ( May 6, 2021) The Other Side of Languishing is Flourishing. Here's How to Get There. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/04/well/mind/flourishing-languishing.html

The New York Times/ Adam Grant ( December 3, 2021) There's a Name for that Blah You Are Feeling: It's called Languishing. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/well/mind/covid-mental-health-languishing.html