There is Nothing holding Us Back

Nothing holds me in this world. Only my wish to stay keeps me a prisoner.  I would give up my insane wishes and walk into the sunlight at last.
ACIM Lesson 57: 1

I read the above lesson yesterday (for the fourth time maybe :)) and it triggered something in me.  I said to myself, after reading it, I have to write a poem about that.  So I came here a couple of times to write a poem about getting through the mental prison we create with our attachment to thought.  Nothing seemed to come out. Then it hit me, "I already wrote a poem about that." And I did ...a couple of summers ago...after spending a moment of escape from the stress of what awaited me inside the house .  That particular morning,  I snuck outside, curled up on a lawn chair and became consumed  with watching buttercups swaying in the breeze.  I knew I would have  to go back in and deal eventually but in that moment, just sitting there, I felt so connected, so alive and so free. Hmmm! I'll share because I believe it applies to Lesson Two.

Buttercups

I breathe in.

Tethered to the end

of feathery ribbons,

my eyes are pulled

to the buttercups

waving in the distance.

Yellow tutued dancers

gracefully perform on

elegant long bodies

that bend

backwards

and

forwards

while

billowing arms

extend into

the morning sky.

I breathe out.

 

Green limbs sweep

the earth

this way

and that

as bodies balance

on delicate point shoes.

I breathe in again.

 

For this brief moment

of what is,

I am mesmerized

by the dancers' perfection.

I am mesmerized

by the dance.

The brilliance of the

Choreographer’s artistry

surrounds me and

I am lost in a trance of now.

Like the dancing flowers

I am consumed by what is.

I breathe out.

 

 

Lulled by His orchestra,

I close my eyes.

I listen to the

majesty of every chord

as the June breeze

strums the delicate instruments

above my weary head.

He whispers to me

in the sweetest of voices

that I am home,

and His gentle Voice

drowns out

the nasty reprimands,

the ticking clocks,

and

the ringing phones

from the other world.

I smile and relax into

 this brief moment

of what is.

In and out

I breathe again

 

But the breath

gets stuck in my chest.

The other world’s noises

are determined to

disrupt the silence

and the stillness

of my now.

Suddenly,

I feel the pulling of

something cold

around my ankle.

I look down to see

the heavy iron shackles

and feel the tug of chain

pulling me back and away

from “Fairy land”,

from “irresponsibility”

and “make belief”.

I am being drawn so cruelly

from this brief moment

of what is

to the real world.

 

There I find myself once again

and I shiver on the cold floor

of painful memory,

beneath the ominous clouds

of future fantasy.

I pick up the uniform

of social expectation,

limitation

and

“real world” responsibility

and reluctantly

I put it on

as I am told to do.

It is heavy.

It weighs me down.

 

How I long for the flimsy

fabric of the dancer’s costume.

I want to run back

to their performance,

to lose myself in their

grace filled moment

but the chains

I have created

in my mental cell

hold me firm.

Unfriendly officers

armed with past and future

weapons

threaten me at every corner.

 

A model inmate,

I follow their orders

and their senseless directions

as I move around this

dark world

towards the “what ifs”

and the “whens”

that will never lead to freedom.

 

I cry out in silence

for the yellow tutued dancers

to free me.

In the emptiness of a busy day

of doing,

in the very prison wall

that surrounds me,

a window emerges

out of nowhere.

Through its small opening,

I see the yellow tutus

swaying back and forth.

The long elegant limbs

of the beautiful dancers

beckon me forward

into the light.

 

I hear the music

that makes me smile.

I feel the sun and wind

on my aging skin

and the gentle tugging

of this moment’s soft ribbons

against my willing flesh.

I am at last  willing to go.

 

I stop heeding the voices

of the armed guards around me

and they become

phantom shadows

with no solid hands

to hold me back.

I step out of the shackles

and the iron restrictions

that once held me here

become dust around me.

I bring a knee up

to crawl through

that small opening

but suddenly

there is no wall.

I am free.

There is no more confinement

for anyone or anything.

 

I enter the present

that calls me,

into this never ending

moment of

what is.

I find myself swaying,

dancing,

bending

being in unison  with

the yellow tutued buttercups

that dance life’s only song.

 

And I know I am alive.

 

Dale-Lyn June, 2016

 

Lesson Two: The Trick to Getting Beyond Thought

What we must try to be, of course, is ourselves and wholeheartedly. We must find out who we really are and what we really want.
Nelson Boswell (https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/nelson_boswell)

So in order to discover who we really are we need to get beyond thought to truth.

What do you mean we need to get beyond thought? Isn't that impossible?

Getting beyond thought is not as it seems.  I am not saying that we set out on a mission impossible.  I am just saying we need to get beyond our "attachment' to thought.  It is our attachment, our identifying our sense of self with thought that is the problem...not the thinking itself.  Thoughts are just little blurs of words, images and ideas that pass through  our consciousness...there is nothing to them unless we give them more meaning than they deserve.

The problem is that so many of us are stuck up in our heads, glued to the flickering screens of our psyches as the 60,000 thoughts a day are shown.  We watch so intently as the same story lines, dramas and characterizations are played over and over again mesmerizing us with their compelling performance under ego's expert direction.  We see ourselves up there on that mental screen and we come to believe that is who we are. We identify ourselves more with a thought...a character played out in some past or future story we are constantly creating...than with the person sitting and watching the movie at that present moment. So we are confused. 

We have forgotten ourselves. We have become attached to  and identified with  an image rather than realizing who we truly are.  What we are watching  is all just an illusion. We observe these images of ourselves doing, loving, losing, winning but we can't truly "experience" what they experience because it is just an image.  As compelling as the movie is...it is not real.  And we are not characters in it. We are simply  observers of it.  Who we really are is the observer of it in this moment.

Why do we get so lost in our heads?

The answer to that is simple.  Like any good director ego tricks us into getting lost in the world and characters it creates for us on our mental screens by making a really, really good movie. We are pulled into the story and characters. As long as we are watching ego's drama, however, we are not living the observers life.  As a character image we are two-dimensional and we see only the limitations of a movie with a beginning and an unpredictable end. We are trapped. We are at the mercy of ego's cuts and ego's determined direction.

Huh?  So what do we do about that?

The trick to getting beyond thought is to see thought as nothing more than a movie you are watching.We have to come back to where we are, feel the seat beneath our butts and the breath in our chests. We need to say no to ego,  take our eyes away from the screen, close them for a bit and reconnect with the being that was observing.  Be one with that observer because that is who we are. Not the character out there be she heroine or victim; he beauty or beast....but the being with the beating heart watching right here, right now. This is who we are beyond thought.

Don't Beat Yourself Up!

Don't beat yourself up for watching it. Most of us spend our entire lives watching these mental movies about who and what we are.  Man it is hard not to.  Ego is one hell of a director and made you the star of one exciting, drama filled story! Who wouldn't want to watch themselves in such a movie?  So don't beat yourself up for watching...simply be aware that you are.  That's all.  Be aware that you are watching a movie about your life but it is just fiction. You can keep watching if you want to.  That's your choice.  But if you want reality, want truth...than you have to be willing to take your eyes from the screen and put your attention back into the experience of the observer: You!

All is well in my world.

Lesson Two: Getting Beyond Thinking to Remembering Who We Are

I have not lost the knowledge of Who I am because I have forgotten it.
ACIM Lesson 56: 4

Finding Self beneath the Thinking

The first 50-60 lessons in A Course in Miracles speaks to Lesson Two.  It states that we can only find our True Selves when we get past the thinking tricks of ego that have made us forget.  Ego creates a threatening world in our minds where we are separated and at the mercy of pain, illness, loss, age and death. We feel under constant attack as a result of this thinking and the fearful self-image we create as a result of it.  How can we know ourselves in the truest form if we see ourselves under constant attack? How can we appreciate our loving and divine essence as long as we are looking out at a fearful and dangerous world?

I do not care if you adhere to the teachings in a Course or not.  I don't care if you have strong religious or philosophical convictions that make you strongly resist it or any of the other sources I referenced. I am not trying to promote A course.  I am just trying to share the universal wisdom it offers.  That wisdom is non-denominational, non-secular, and relevant for all of us no matter what our background of belief . 

What is that Wise Truth?

We are more than what we perceive ourselves to be.  The way we approach the world is based on our goal to prove ego's version of it and ourselves true.   We spend so much of our life energy trying to prove to ourselves and others that what ego says we are, we are: limited, undeserving, separate from God and each other and at the mercy of a cruel, punishing world.  At the same time, we know deep down that we are so much more than this and that the world we see is so much more than the purpose we use it for. 

Undoing ego's Version of self

Once we change our thinking we begin to change the perception of Self that lies beneath the thinking.  We undo and let go of ego's version of "self" and begin to remember Spirit's version of Self which is so much different.  That knowledge of who we are resides within us whether we remember it or not. With the letting go of ego mind the fugue lifts. We begin to see clearly once again and remember.  We put aside our limited eye sight and look upon the Self and the  world with true vision. A limited self becomes an unlimited Self and a dangerous world of fearful things becomes a world of Love.

Do we all not want that?

All is well in my world.

Foundations for Inner Peace ( 2007) Lessons 1-60. A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume. Third Editions. Mill Valley: Foundations for Inner Peace.

Lesson Two: Seeing What Animals See

As forgiveness allows love to return to my awareness, I will see a world of peace and safety and joy.
ACIM Lesson 55: 3

We have eyes of love through which we can have vision but too often we choose to see through the eyes on our head instead.  When we do that  we do not see the world for what it really is.  Most sadly, we do not see the light within us and the light within others.

The first step to understanding who we really are is to discover the light. We need to see light in order to see who we are.  Love offers light and forgiveness offers love.

Animals know how to forgive...well they see no need for forgiveness.  They are not caught up in thinking about the past  and worrying about the future.  They are not collecting grievances or looking for the negative in life or others.  They are simply so into just being. We can learn from them. 

I also believe they literally see light in us humans and all other beings.  Horses, especially, seem to be mesmerized by it.  I stood in front of my sister's horses this weekend and they stared back at me as if seeing something in me that I can not yet see in myself.  It was almost magical.

And my camera...an amazing piece of equipment...picked up the light in them. I have so many pictures of animals where I see light radiating around them.  I don't see it when I am shooting  (my eyes are so bad these days I do not see much when I am shooting lol...go mostly by gut) but I see it when I bring the pics up. I get blown away each and every time.

Animals know the true meaning of Namaste: "The light in me  sees the light in you."  

Hmm! 

Namaste!

Behold

I would behold the proof that what has been done through me has enabled love to replace fear, laughter to replace tears, and abundance to replace loss.
ACIM Lesson 54: 5

 

That's what I want "to behold" as I leave this life...whenever my time comes to leave ( I am not in a hurry lol)...to know that I allowed my little self to be used for the betterment of the bigger Self.  I want to know and see that I was able to guide someone from fear to love; that I added laughter and joy to someone's life  and that I gave  something of me to the world. We are doing it now...we all are but we just don't see it.  We do not see how much we can give and how much we do give with every breath we take.  I want to see!

 

All is well.

Summary of Lesson One

What I have chosen to see has cost me vision. Now I would choose again, that I may see.
-ACIM, Lesson 52: 1

Finally!!!!  I am going to do what I promised to do weeks ago...summarize Lesson One so we can move onto Lesson Two.  Now, after all my distracting side roads and add ons I need to remind myself what the lessons were in the first place.  What were we even talking about? lol

I am joking.  I do remember.  I decided way back in early January to share some of the amazing things I have been learning in an organized lesson plan.  Though I may have strayed from the "organized" part, the plan still exists. These were the lessons I wanted to cover:

1. We need to change the way we think.
2. We need to get beyond thought to the truth of who we are.
3. We need to know who we are and from Whom we came.
4. We need to understand what the ego is so we truly see it as the "nothing" that it is.
5. We need to detach ourselves from our physical world clinging, including  our attachment to body.
6. We need to see fear for what it is so we can get beyond it.
7. We need to be open and willing to accept Love in our lives.
8. We need to know that our purpose here is to extend Love.

As for Lesson One of these lessons, "Changing the Way You think", this is what I covered in summary version:

1.  We begin by changing the way we choose to think. In order to do that we need to be aware that our thoughts are choices and we need to recognize when we are choosing wrongly.  Every time we are choosing wrongly we will feel it in fear or a sense of victimization. The entry on January 5th, offers steps to correction.
2. We then need to choose to see the world differently. We open ourselves up to the idea that we can change the way we perceive the world because our perception is a product of the mind only. I offer steps for correction on January 8th.
3. We can also change the way we think by using opposites and contrast. When we catch ourselves using terminology that expresses the things we do not want...we rephrase our thoughts into what we want.  I speak of this contrast thing many times in my entries but the entry on January 11 will tie it into this lesson.
4. Entry on January 13th better explains the mini lessons above.
5. We also need to focus on changing what we have control over.  The only control we have is in our minds and that is the only thing we need to change.  We really cannot change the things around us unless we change what is going on in our heads.
6. I offered an entry and a video on three powerful words to avoid in the process of changing the way we think: You!! Should!!! and Can't.  January 18th has that covered.
7. On January 19th I added a personal example of how I incorrectly used those words and caught myself in the process.  What a difference it made to the experience to speak and think differently
8. Words are just pointers.  We need to see beyond them to what they are pointed at. (January 19th)
9. I used the words of others to validate my idea that we need to change our thoughts to improve our lives on January 20th.
10. I brought it back to letting things be instead of resisting our thoughts  on January 25th.
11. And on February 2nd, I mentioned the importance of avoiding the human tendency to narrate our way through life.

So there you go...lesson one, "Changing the Way You Think, "in a nutshell.

All is well.

Sadness

Something sweet can be found in sadness, a soft melancholy whisper that breathes life into a withering soul...
-me

Sigh!  I am going to talk about sadness.

Sadness?  Haven't you been going on and on about changing our thoughts so we feel better ,so we live better?  Didn't you rave on about this ladder thing we are meant to climb one rung at a time until we get away from those negative depressive emotions that keep us down?  And now you are going to talk about sadness?

Yep! You are right...I did all that and I do all that but  I am still going to talk about sadness.  Why? Because I ( again referring to the little me who always has some drama going on lol) am feeling sad and I bet there are plenty of times that you feel sad as well.

When "little me" is sad

The wise me is watching the little me who for now will I refer to as "I". 

I am feeling sad right now.  That is the truth and reality of my situation.  In my ego mind I have great justifications and rationalizations for my sadness.  "I don't feel physically well and I am so tired of feeling this way!  There's the chest pain, the back pain and once again the good old pelvic pain to deal with.  These "different" pains are hitting me all at once, interfering with my sleep, my ability to perform all the activities of daily living most people take for granted and there seems to be so little external help and validation for them.  I perceive that I can't even talk about them or mention them anywhere but here. My body is completely exhausted!  There also has been so much loss in my life over the last few years that I can't seem to process through: loved ones, support, finances, the stripping away of work, social and professional identity. (Parts of me I reluctantly give up to the physical limitation and gratefully give up to the pursuit of the real me.) There are past trauma memories needing to be processed through and released. Things around me are chaotic, broken, messy and uncared for and I feel so responsible.  I worry about the well being of my children, D., siblings, friends  and my pets. People around me are hurting for one reason or another and I feel that hurt so acutely.  I have also been like a sponge soaking up emotion from other beings. There is suffering in the world and I feel that so intensely. And I want to "do" something about it all but I am just too tired. So I do nothing. I am feeling sad! "

All the above is just a thought, an idea,  a story so I can rationalize my sadness, justify my sadness and resist my sadness. 

This sadness has accumulated with one thought after another and curled itself up and chained itself in the center of my chest . It...like many of our  emotions.... has been sitting in protest and resistance mode for a while. Most of the emotions whirling around inside us are not new. They are the result of accumulated things we cling to with our memories and file away to be dealt with later.  We resist experiencing them now.

 

Stuffing emotion.

How do we resist our emotional experiences? We stuff them down  below our conscious awareness through  defense mechanisms called repression and suppression.  We suppress the memory or details of an event and then repress the emotional component of it.

We don't want to feel pain do we? ...So we push painful emotional experiences away and hold them  down away from our conscience experience.  Or at least we try to.  We place the sad  in a folder to be filed away with a big stamp on  it . When we stamp "later" on an emotional file we are setting ourselves up for even more suffering.  The file will grow. The file gets so big it cannot be filed away.  It is at that point in the way of our growing and our expanding. The protestor becomes so big and noisy it prevents the flow through of other things in us and out of us. It prevents other positive things from entering our minds and our perception of the world. It distorts our ability to see clearly around it. It keeps us retracted and small so we feel to restricted to give what we are here to give. Stuffing causes even more pain. A stuffed emotion...if not dealt with will cause even more suffering for us and for the world.

My very, very thick sadness file has a great big LATER on it and I ignore that stamp as my subconscious continues to stuff more and more information in it to justify it. Now it is so big it is causing undeniable pain in my body and in my mind. Hmm!!!  Later might have to be now.

Sadness is an energy that needs to be expressed

Yes sadness is a lower rung emotion on our ladder.  It belongs under the Fear spectrum of emotions and like most fear emotions we do not want to stay there forever. Still, it is just an emotion. 

All emotions are energies and energies need to be expressed and released.  I have given this analogy before...If you get electrocuted by something in your environment, as a first responder, I want to see an exit wound.  I want to see that that powerful energy  has passed through you...for your sake and for mine....because as long as it is still whirling around inside you it is doing damage.  At the same time I can't touch you or help you without getting hurt unless you have released the energy. 

Emotions are meant to pass through us...all emotions...even the ones that are painful. Resisting them just keeps them away from our conscious awareness but it doesn't stop the energy from moving in destructive patterns inside us or outside of us.  Resistance leads to the formation of blockades in the form of developmental arrests and illness.  Create an exit for your feelings by experiencing them.

See the Messenger in Sadness

Our emotions are also messengers. Sadness is a gentle messenger as I wrote in the above quote.  It is a soft whisper telling us that it is time to let go and move on from apathy or a refusal to feel. It is okay to feel sad.  It is okay to just stop and listen to what sadness has to say.  We can get back to the climbing after we have listened for a while.

Accept sadness when it shows up in your life.  Accept it and the situation that brought it on if it is present in your life now.  Feel it, experience it, express it and then let it go. 

If sadness is telling you that it is there because of a big file of accumulated stuff you need to process through be at least willing to open the file.  Get some help, some loving support and work your way through it.  Accept, feel, experience, express and then let it go. 

Send the File to the Shredder

Once expressed and released...you can shred the files that once held the emotions .  You do not need to cling to the information that you stuffed away.  Memory is just that...information, ideas, thoughts, stories  and theories about why you are the way you think you are.  They represent the "little me"...not the "Real Me." The real you can never be reduced to information in a file and the real you is what you are right here, right now. 

Feel, Experience, Express, and Let Go!

You do not need to hang on to "little me's"  story of identification.  Once the emotional energy is released, shred the files that contain it.  There is no need to cling to such stuff that causes pain. Resistance of our present experiences, the failure to release emotion and our clinging to ideas and notions about what we think we are...is what causes the pain not the emotion. Feel, experience, express and let go. 

If you are anything like me, it might be time to clear some space in your mind and in your life.  Sweep up and move on.

All is well

Pride divides the men,humility joins them.
-Socrates (https://quotefancy.com/quote/908711/Socrates-Pride-divides-the-men-humility-joins-them)

I have been feeling less than well.  It is hard for me to admit to that. This is the only place I feel completely "safe" in doing so.  Here is my place of truth because it represents my quest. It is a place where I can be imperfect and honest while I discover who I really am.  (Aren't you lucky you get to hear me whine lol). 

Ego pride.

Outside of these self-reflective and isolated places I wear my stoic clothing, a remnant of ego pride that clings like the dickens to me. I am way too proud for my own good.  Pride, according to the Buddha, is three-fold involving a  thought that we are superior, a thought that we are inferior and/or a thought that we are equal. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABgOBv20_fw).

In my attempt to hide my perception of a lack of wellness I am striving to be all three of these.

I strive to be seen as superior to myself and others...in the sense that I want to appear like some special being who can easily get beyond physical complaints and limitations and challenging life circumstance without uttering one complaint or needing help from anyone.

I also feel pride when I goof up and fail in this impossible request.  When I start to feel sick I feel inferior and ashamed so I do not want to admit out loud...that I hurt, that I need, that I want help and support.  I retract back into my safe place and wait it out...so no one sees me hurting and "failing". Most sadly, I punish myself by pushing myself to the point where I am at now because I think that I am not worthy of recovery time, wellness maybe.  I devalue myself and that according to Buddhist teaching is pride.

Then there is this striving to appear equal to everyone else.  If I say that I "can't do " what everyone else does with ease; if I admit to my physical limitations or this feeling of unwellness; if I call attention to my life circumstance I will not be like everyone else.  So my pride keeps me from admitting that I am not equal....that I have special needs.

Pride puts me in this place again and again.  I put me here because I choose to listen to ego and thus cling to my ego pride rather than divine pride.

What is Divine Pride?

Divine pride recognizes that we are all parts of the one spiritual essence.  There is no division between those who can and those who cannot. The only limitations are the ones we put on ourselves, a crippling refusal to know our own blissful light. (https://somathread.ning.com/groups/buddhism/forum/divine-pride)

We all have this divine light inside of us.  To deny it does a great injustice to the world and to ourselves.

Let's be willing to trade our ego pride in for Divine Pride.

References

Video: Published by Michael Scalet( 2017) Opening your Heart with Ani Tenzin Palmo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABgOBv20_fw


ADMoon (Feb, 2014) Divine Pride in Somathread. Retrieved from    https://somathread.ning.com/groups/buddhism/forum/divine-pride

Illuminate

Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.
Thomas Aquinas (https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/thomas_aquinas_192548)

I found this poem in my devotional journal this morning as I was going through the thousands of pages to get to where I was at so I could write today lol ( scary that a person can write so much eh?) .  The computer just froze the  scroll on that page where I wrote this poem in what seemed like so many years ago.

It explains where I am now in my desire to add just a twinkle of light and understanding into my own life and into the lives of others.  It also resonates with the quote above from our friend, the 13th century monk, saint and philosopher.

All is well in my world.

 

 

                             (Can't tell you what I shot this in because I don't remember lol)

 

 

Lamp

Hold your lamp up high.

Let the small flame flicker

and glow as you swing

it back and forth

with every step you take.

Know that it can be seen

through the thick fog

and through the darkness

that surrounds this world at times.

Feed the flame with your sweet breath.

Let it grow and expand

as the globe of golden light

extends in tiny arms of compassion,

reaching  out to the others

stumbling along their paths.

Fan it with your talk of dreams

and your laughter

and your love

as it ripples through the thirsty world

quenching an emptiness

and a need for more.

Watch as the embers dance and giggle

beneath the conduction of your joy.

 

There is nothing to fear.

Do not  cup your hand over it

to defend against  others

who might want to blow it out.

Do not dim it

with the intention of

conserving it for darker times.

Let it shine as bright as it can,

now.

Let it grow

until the flames lick the stars

and until the healing light

that comes from you

pours over the world like

a glorious sunrise.

 

Shine your light brightly,

mesmerizing all who watch in awe

as you beam

in the way you were meant to beam,

warming and brightening the entire world

With your lamp.

 

©Dale-Lyn  March 2015