Plans?

A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
-Lao Tzu (Brainy Quote: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/plans)

Life is grand.  The music of it is amazing as I listen to what is going on outside my window...all "the sighs and murmurs" as Tagore referred to it.  So much life! 

It dawned on me that in my "beingness" that I can still "do" without having to, musting myself to death or shoulding myself in the foot...I can still plan a bit and do a bit while maintaining this  wonderful "I am" ness. I think it is important to stay up, at least to some extent, with the physical world.  Eckhart Tolle in a video entitled Universe helps if you allow things as they are states that "Walking through the limitation, not running away from it is equal to inner freedom."  I want inner freedom...so to walk through my perceived  limitations I need to stop escaping and  do something from this end.

Making Plans

I decided to do a few things to bring me back into doing....just a bit...at least so I do not become like Java the Hutt. I am already starting to resemble him a bit around the middle, and as someone who could never gain weight before I have gone beyond being a little excited with the novelty to being a little alarmed lol.  Not for aesthetic reasons but for health ones.  I have been going so far into the inner body, I have been ignoring the outer body...I am less and less concerned about its well being and it shows. It has taken pain, reprimands from dentists and doctors and the inability to fit into my clothes...that made me aware once again.  "Hey...I have to take care of this thing don't I if I want to continue with "I am" ing."  And I do want to continue to be.

Besides I have been in a rut!  The inner work is wonderful and the most important thing in my life now...but I still need to function out there in some form or another.  That part of me has been knee deep in mud for too long.  Time to get out of it.

So...I am making plans.  I am going to do several things to keep me motivated and inspired...committed to keeping the body  moving forward...not toward anything in particular...just moving forward. 

• I am going to create a plan that makes room for getting my house ready to sell...so many hours a day on that.  That will remove some of this guilt and shame I have been feeling over letting things go. I am not sure how much I will be able to do but I will map out a plan that seems like it won't exhaust me and I will take it as it comes. :)
• I am going to continue to do the spiritual work every morning: meditation, ACIM, and other reading or listening things. 
• I will also add a short solitary walk to that every morning ( body willing) so I can spend mindful time in nature and get cardio. I miss that so much. 
• I am going to do yoga ( arm willing) as I have been doing...physically I can get six sets of salutations in a day before symptoms...but I am going to continue to slowly and gradually add to that.
• In fact, I am going to do a Yoga Instructor Training course on line...which I have been meaning to do full out before my body and finances decided to make it challenging for me. Taking it on line...allows me to gain the knowledge and know how in teaching yoga to others without the physicality or expense of it. I also believe it may have the ability to heal me to some degree from my "perceived limitations".  More than anything, it will give me a little purpose now that I am no longer a nursing instructor. I found a very cost effective and well recognized  one that will give me the necessary hours to become certified.  I may need to accept the fact that being registered may not be a reality for me considering that I am still clinging to this idea of physical limitation. (200 active contact hours are needed for registration). Get past that perceived limitation  and who knows what can happen.  :)  I am willing to adjust my less than sufficient finances so that I have money for this...only because I truly feel the benefits will out weigh the expenditure. Besides anything to do with Yoga will enhance my growth and take me closer to knowing Self. That is my major life goal right now.  I feel inspired and compelled to take this course!!!  I will.
• Also found some wonderful little photography courses on Udemy ( $14.00 Canadian).  I feel compelled to learn in that area too. Who knows...I might make money doing this someday.  (Again...I am a little hesitant to turn this into "work" or to be "intent on arriving")
• I am also going to  write ...a blog entry every other day (2-3 week)
• For now,  I want to concentrate on my creative writing...so many words of my novel a day, maybe a short story every month.  Just need to build that skill and test the water for receptivity
• I know I have other non fiction I started ...I guess I should start with organizing what needs to go out etc and ensure that everything is out there somewhere. 
• I might...might...do up a chap book?.  I don't know though...because I am looking at everything I wrote here so far and I am already feeling exhausted lol.  I do not want my writing to feel like "work" ...especially the poetry.
• Oh...oh ..getting ahead of myself

So I got a plan as I step away from the things I knew, including this rut lol. It is not a fixed plan and I have no real destination in mind. I know  life will step in and make its own plans known every now and again...I still have family and social obligations that I want to meet to some degree but man I don't want to over plan.  I like Lao Tzu's wisdom as quoted above.

A new chapter begins...a new chapter begins.

All is well in my world.

Certain Pathway or a Waste of Time?

I will stand back and let Him lead the way.
(ACIM-W-155)

Ego is not happy with me being here.  When I look at the stats it sighs.  When I put in "time" and  what  it refers to as "work"(What the bigger  "I" refers to as "being") with no "compensation" which it so needs: recognition, payment, readership etc....it wags its finger in my face and hisses.   "So you want to teach peace, do ya?  Well who are you teaching it to...the spammers and the few loyal people who are caught between feeling sorry for you and wanting to have you committed?  How much peace are you spreading there? What a waste of time and effort."

Oh ego can be nasty...lol. I know that a teacher needs students and a writer needs readers but that part, I feel, is not really my responsibility.  My job is to come here....to show up everyday and offer what I have to offer.  That simple.  The rest will be "taken care of"...by when, what or how, I haven't a clue.  Yet I know...I am doing my part because it feels so good.  In the offering comes my rewards.  That is all I need to know.

His trust has made your pathway certain and your goal secure. You will not fail your brothers or your Self. (ACIM-W-155:13:6-7)

All is well.

Giving and Recieving; Teaching and Learning

Peace, then, be unto everyone who becomes a teacher of peace.(ACIM, Chapter 14: V:8:1)

Still wonder why I feel so compelled to come here every morning.  I am not getting paid, not being recognized, very few people read what I write here and what I have to say may not be received favorably by the few that do.  I am quite sure that if it were any other way I would not be as compelled to come here.  The circumstances of slight anonymity  are perfect for whatever I am doing here...and I am not quite sure what that is. :)  That is why I do not publicize this site or seek anything from it other than a willing platform on which I can plant my words and images.

 I am devoted  to this Blog...I feel my day is not quite complete until I put a few words down here.  Usually it is so effortless.  That tells me that whatever I do here is for some higher purpose. There are no "ego" reasons for being here.  Maybe that is why I come to these pages...so I can be myself. ..my most authentic and real self...the Self.

I read a line in A Course today that went like this, We will not recognize what we receive until we give it. (ACIM-W-154;12:1)Sometimes I don't see what I am getting from this. I learn here.  I grow here. It seems that I am giving something to whomever may stumble upon these pages ...that I am teaching...but in truth...it is only through the giving that I am receiving  and through the teaching that I am learning all this stuff I write about. I want to learn. It is a selfish act and it is a selfless act at the same time.  I teach what I am learning and I am learning what I teach. 

What it boils down to here is that I  simply want peace.  I find it here. So I teach peace. It can't be any other way I suppose.

It is all good.

Putting Down our Defenses

...Who would replace their fearful toys with joyous games, which teach them that the game of fear is gone.
-ACIM-w-153: 12:2

Have you ever really imagined what your life would be like if there was no fear in it?  Fear, we know, comes with many faces including a bit of worry to down right panic for one reason or another.  It comes because we perceive a "threat" out there or within.  I see it as an emotion that dominates most of our lives.  So aware, am I, of the power of fear in me and around me that I was inclined to write a book about it.

Just imagine...what it would be like...to be afraid of nothing!  To know for certain you were safe, protected, loved without condition.  What would it be like if you didn't have to do anything to ensure that safety...you just had to be? You didn't have to draw lines in the sand, put on heavy layers of armour, build walls around yourself, or invest in weapons of attack ( defense always leads to attack eventually)? You just had to be.

What would we do then if fear didn't stop us? How would we feel then?  How would we approach life then?  How would we grow?  And most importantly, how would we look upon one another?

The world would be a different place , wouldn't it?  We would be different...there would be nothing left for ego to manipulate us with, would there? There would be no more struggling to own and possess, no more clinging, no more protecting, no more fighting, and  no more war.

The perfect world is one without fear.  According to ACIM fear will only go away  when we put down our defenses. With no defenses, there is no fear of attack and with no attack, there is no need for fear or defense.

Will we ever be able to do that?  It starts with one person at a time.  Are you ready to undo your armour and put down your shield? I think I am.

All is well in my world.

Okay...I know ...I said "My" after my big long spiel.  I said "My little apple tree"....lol...not changing it now...We will just excuse it as a little poetic license, okay? My bad :) Oh...and I said "My" bad....that "my" is a challenging word to run away from.

My Little apple Tree

 

My Little Apple Tree

If peace can have a scent, it takes me to your side

where leaf is green and flowers bloom and bees so happily abide.

You stand so like an angel with branches  stretched like wings  toward the sky

and wanting Heaven too, I lean against your steady bark and quietly I sigh.

I am lost in the sweet presence that makes the blossoms escape from your tiny tips

and I close my eyes and feel It as "thank you" slips from my lips.

You teach me what I need to know without useless word or thought;

You show me what I am and you show me what I'm not.

I breathe you in and when I do I breathe in all that I could ever be.

Somehow I find the truth I seek, in you,
my little apple tree. 

-Me...

©Dale-Lyn (Pen) (May 30, 2018)

 

That came out of me really, really  fast lol.

 

 

 



"My" or "Mine."

Language is power, in ways more literal than people think.  When we speak we exercise the power of language to transform reality.
-Julia Penelope

Still hung up on the language thing.  I am creating another series. Everything I think or do seems to come in clumps or clusters...even the chest pain lol.  Go figure.  I cannot seem to switch gears until all that topic energy is expended. So bear with me.

Possessive Pronouns

I am thinking about the use of possessive pronouns(or what some would argue are 'determiners' ) . I am looking at how we erroneously use 'my', and 'mine' and how that effects ( I mean.."affects" ...keep getting those words mixed up lol) our belief systems, and therefore our lives.

We get caught up in phrases like; "My body", "My foot" "My house" "My job" "My children" "My friend" "My man" "My love" My God'  "My pain" "My story" "My thoughts"  "My feelings" "My belief" "My country" "My race" "My gender"  My depression" "My illness"  "My life"...it goes on and on. 

When we put "my" or "Mine" in front of something or beside something  we take ownership or possession of that thing and we create an invisible border around us and it.  We separate the my and mine from the "we' "us" and "our" dimensions of our world, don't we?...

These types of pronouns lead to a sense of loneliness and isolation, do they not...like we are cut off from others all because we took possession of this thing.

Not only that ...that possession implies a need to protect and defend.  If we need to protect and defend, we therefore must believe that something outside our "my bubble" will attack us to get at that thing.  Therefore there must also be a "they" and a "them" and a "their"..and 'they' must be the enemy or at least a potential threat. Wow!  Whoever knew pronouns could be more complicated than the grammar rules made them.

More separation, more need for defense and attack and more fear is induced by these little words used in our English language.

We can change them though.  We can start replacing them with more neutral words, can we not?

Neutralizing the Possession and Attachment Need

What is the most neutral word in the English language...the one I keep incorrectly typing as 'teh' for some reason lol..."THE".  What if we stopped owning everything and starting looking at things of the physical world  as rentals or loaners instead of something that belongs to us?  What if I looked at my arm when it was hurt and said "The arm is bothering me" instead of saying "My arm hurts". 

I detach right?  I detach.  And freedom requires detachment.  Without the "my" and "mine" I no longer have to defend it or protect it.  I no longer have to define it or explain it.  It  just is the arm attached to the body I am using while I am here.  Total different context, total different frame of reference...leading to a totally different way of approaching life.

"The body has pain." detaches me from my ownership of the pain, thus eliminating my need to defend and or attack for it. 

I am losing "the house", sounds so much better than I am losing "my house" , doesn't it? I am just losing something that doesn't technically belong to me...it was just a house I lived in. 

"The  job" rather than "my job" brings the idea of what a job is  back down to reality.  It was never "my job'...it was just a job I did, that anyone with the same qualifications can do. 

The children I raised are not mine...They are "life longing for itself" (Gibran) .  They just came from me.  I do not own them.

I have friends yes and I love my friends but they are not mine.  We are getting into the idea of special relationships again with friendships and intimate relationships by the use of these pronouns.  D. is not mine either.  And Love, by  the true nature of the experience...is not something that could ever be limited to special relationships or "my" or "mine."

As for "My God"...well that is self explanatory, is it not?  There is just God.  So many wars and so much destruction has occurred over the years in an attempt to own some idea of God.

Do I need to go on?  One more..."My Life"...There is no "my to life"...there is just life and we are all it.  Someday maybe we will truly realize that. Maybe we will put down our need for possessive pronouns and  our fear so that we can see Self for what it really is....something that never separates, defends, attacks  or possesses the valueless.

Hmm!

Okay...I am done talking about language...I think lol.

All is well.

Accomplishing Much?

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else, is the greatest accomplishment.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

What do you want to do today?

The question that makes me cringe more than any other lately is, "What do you want to do today?"  When D. asks me that question for some reason I want to haul off and hit him.  (If you knew D. you would realize how extreme of a reaction that is...nobody wants to do anything but hug D. lol) Yet he asks me that question and I feel assaulted and I want to assault back.  Why? 

Because I do not want to do anything.  I don't want to "do".  I don't want to think about doing...plan doing...make choices of doing.  The thought of that sickens me.Yuck!  yuck!  Yuck!.

Accomplishing much?

I am not naturally a lazy person.  I have worked hard to accomplish many things over the course of my life.  I can stay focused and work non stop at something without taking a break as I have with the marking needed for this last course I taught. I am okay with working hard, body willing.

"Accomplishment" in fact used to be one of my motivating mantra words.  I mentioned before that I used to be a  "To-Do" list addict, right?  I would gain a great sense of "accomplishment" whenever I checked something off that list. 

I now stay clear of to-do lists and the word accomplishment sounds like something I burp up. I accomplish very little it seems...well from what can be seen with the human eye that is.  There is so much I know needs to be done...fixed...cleaned...repaired...ordered...dealt with etc...but heck I am not going there.  I am not picking up a pen to write those things down either. I just want nothing to do with doing...or accomplishing.  It shows...man it shows...but I just don't care.

I mean I write...and words are there somewhere that some would call accomplishment.  I spend a lot of extra hours on this last course doing what some of the students expressed great appreciation for though it is not measured in pay or scheduled hours.  Kids will tell me I am great because I am always there for them.  Yet none of this stuff is really measurable by society's standards is it?  According to society...I am a big lazy mess of unproductive flesh. I know that...yet I still won't pick up that pen to write a list and I still cringe when someone asks me what I want to do. 

Part of me says , "You need to explain to people why you aren't working, to tell them about what your body is doing and how hard it is for you to be physical."  I have no desire to explain anything to anyone anymore...not even to my self. :)

I don't seem to need that validation for accomplishment any more.  In fact...I am starting to see that true accomplishment cannot be measured externally or by others.  It's an internal game.

Choosing "Be-ing'' over "Do-ing"

I want to be...not do.  I want to be.  I want to live...not accomplish.  I want to live.  I want to be peaceful...not act, fix, solve, partake or be busy.  I want peace.  Where does that put me in this society?  Crazy lady! lol

You know what? I am okay with that. lol.  I just  don't care that much anymore about pleasing others and meeting social expectations.    For now, I am honoring this feeling.  I am not doing.

I am hoping this is just part of the waking up process and eventually I will find a balance between being and doing.  Hopefully my resistance to D.'s innocent question will not always trigger such a reaction in me. He doesn't deserve a black-eye.lol

All is well.

Blossom!

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Elizabeth Appell

The Difference Between Words

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
-Mark Twain


I am still a little stuck on the limitations of the English Language as a symbol of the limitations of our western cultural conditioning. Get all that? :)

I am looking at the words "I have" in how they relate as a replacement for our distorted use of "I am."

Not to be used with doing

 Now when I use "I have" here in favorable terms...I am by no means recommending it as  a good choice for describing doing. When it comes to doing, I see it as a curse term synonymous with "should' and "must".  I absolutely hate to see it in forms like, "I have to do this."  "I have to go." etc.  No...it is yucky in that context. It denies the freedom of choice that each of us have internally. 

Replace "I am" with "I have"

The context I want "I have" to be used is simply in the replacement of "I am" when we identify with the perishable or temporary that diminish the "I am" potentiality. In other words...I would like to see us say, "I have a role as a nurse, doctor, writer...or whatever right now," instead of saying to ourselves and to the world, "I am a nurse, doctor, writer."   "I have feelings of frustration, anger, loneliness right now," instead of saying, "I am frustrated, angry, lonely." "I have pain right now," instead of saying, "I am sick or broken."  Does that make sense?

The Difference

What difference does it make to replace "I am" with "I have" there?  A lot. 

Firstly, when I say I am...it is like I am saying to myself and the world..."Look at me.  This is who I am.  This sickness, this emotion, this role...is who I am." It is a piece of me.

When I say" I have...", I am not identifying, not making what I have a part of me.  It is like I am holding this particular something in my hands and showing it to myself and the world. "Look at this.  This is what I have in my hands right now." The thing I have is separate from me...it is just something I am holding a part from me and experiencing with my five senses. It isn't "me".

Another difference is in permanence. In "I am"...whatever I am experiencing is deemed to be as eternal as I am. There is no temporary nature to it.  I am clinging and making things of this world something they are not.  For example, if I say "I am sick." it implies there is no end to it.  It is as if sickness is as much  a part of me as is my name or my eye colour.

I, however, use "right now", when I describe the experience of having, to bring us back into the moment, the only time there is.  In this moment...I have this or that. I may have pain but it will not last forever.  I just have it right now.  I may not have what I have now in the next moment but that is irrelevant.  Right now I have this or that. The use of "I have" shows that I recognize that things of the external world are temporary and fleeting.

The biggest distinguishing point between I am and I have is...is that in "I have" I express that I can put whatever I am holding down whenever I choose to, it is not a part of me...I don't have to amputate pieces of the Self if I decide to remove it.  I don't lose who I am when I set it on the ground and walk away.  If you are holding a heavy bolder in your hands and it gets heavy, what do you do?  You put it down and walk away.

If I use "I am" however...it equates to this understanding that part of me will be removed if I take this thing away. I will be less than. Even removing painful things like a heavy bolder or painful emotion may be resisted if we use these terms for fear of losing who we are in the process. If I am angry...I will cling to that anger in fear of the pain of amputation if I don't. There is a potential for loss and pain  in the inappropriate use of "I am" and much less in  in "I have".

Try this and see which one "feels" better for you.  "I am suffering"  or "I have suffering in my life right now."  ????

If we want to use language to detach from erroneous cultural beliefs, we need to change "I am" to "I have" when we describe roles, feelings or temporary experiences.  It will, I believe, eventually change the way we look at Self and look at Life.

More food for thought.

All is well.

"I am" in the English Language

No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.
-Robin Williams https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/words


For the Love of Words

I love words and I love to understand their meaning.  My mother tongue ( my only tongue lol) is English so I am fascinated with the English language...it's beauty and its limitations.  I believe our language reflects our culture and our culture reflects what we think and believe as a people.  The words we use then can reflect what we believe. 

The Limitations of the English Language

"I am sick!"  "I am afraid". "I am lonely." "I am a doctor."  "I am a photographer."  "I am a writer." 

We tend to use that "I am " a lot don't we, in the English language?  We tend to identify with roles, ideas, experiences,  thoughts and feelings as if we...who we really are...are those things. But we aren't those things are we? 

I, for example am not sick.  How can a person "be" a sickness?  If I had colitis for example...would it sound okay for me to introduce myself to people I first meet, "Hi.  I'm Colitis, nice to meet you?" "Or even, "Hi.  I'm Influenza.  What?  You're Influenza too?  Weird, what are the chances of that? We have the same name."

I can have an illness...more accurately...My body  can be experiencing the symptoms of a sickness  but I cannot be "Sick. " Yet so many of us accept that temporary experience as our identity by adding the "I am" in front of it.  We become sickness in our minds where our twisted version of reality exists. We share it and it becomes a part of the collective mind set. Sickness takes on a real and potential  part of our beingness (in our minds only).

What about if I said "I am afraid." or "I am lonely?"  Again, can I be a temporary emotional experience?  Can I introduce myself to a crowd of people and say,  "Hi, I am frustration and I am here to talk to you today about slow drivers" ? I can feel anger; I can experience loneliness but I cannot be anger or loneliness.

Yet there we are with that big permanent marker scribbling "I am" in front of those emotions so that we become them in our minds. We cling to temporary and fleeting experiences as a part of who we are. Tomorrow, I may get up on stage and say, "Hi, today I am peaceful and I would like to talk to you about forgiveness." How do we explain the permanence of  that "I am-ness" then?

Can you change your name that fast?  Are you Sally one hour and Tom the next?  Talk about the Split personality again.  Emotions are so temporary and changeable.  So how can  we attach "I am" to them when those two words signify eternity? And what happens when we do...we become lost in them, overwhelmed by them, powerless to them...because they are not just passing by like leaves on a stream but we see them as a part of who we are.

What about the roles we take on?  Can we be those things?  Sounds better for sure, when I introduce myself as "I am So and So and I am a photographer."  That makes sense right?  Yet, is it?  When I say I am a photographer...I am saying that is who I am...It is not just what I do even though it is all about what I do. Roles are action words with a twist.  Each of the  roles require  an action + an  "or" or  an "er." Do they not? I write but I am not a writer.  I am so much more than  a play on an action word, aren't I? I am so much more than what I do.

The Sacredness of "I am" in other Languages

I am in many eastern languages has a very eternal and sacred connotation to it.  There is a passage in  Exodus, written in Hebrew that gets translated to English as, "I am Who I am.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites,: 'I AM has sent me to you.'"  Exodus 3:14 NSV   How can you get more sacred, more eternal than that?  Yet we take those two words and plop them in front of words like sickness, emotion, what we do.  Does that make sense to diminish them in such a way?

I am that (So hum) in Sanskrit sums up the eternalness of who we are beautifully.  I am That...which is sacred, which is eternal.  So why on earth would we diminish the potentiality of those words  by saying something like , "I am angry?"

The English language limits us, removes us from who we really are and keeps us stuck in the temporary and the perishable. Despite its beautiful poetry, English tends to be ego's language, doesn't it?  Hmm

Just some food for thought.

All is well

A Weight of Nerves Without a Mind

So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, so much to be.
Alfred Lord Tennyson; In Memoriam LXXXIII

A lot is said in this sad and pensive poem by Tennyson, a memoriam to his almost brother-in-law and dear friend Arthur who died too young. Throughout this very, very long poem the poet is talking to Christ asking him to keep him rooted in faith in fear that grief will take him away.  What has that got to do with ego talk, and finding the True Self?  Everything!

Many Worlds

What I hear from this section (LXXXIII) is the division of self throughout the worlds (death -life, dimensions, countries, daily experiences) ...the getting caught up in doing and eventually leaving things undone  when there is so much to "be". He resents the fact that his friend didn't get to be, all that he can be.

Like a Dove

For some reason...not that it will ever make sense to anyone, including myself lol...I find myself caught like he as he watches the dove in an earlier section of the poem. I long to be "without a mind".  I too, (though not quite resembling  the drama the poem speaks too lol) am jumping off a cliff and hasting away from this world that I knew.

Like her, I go;I cannot stay.

I leave this mortal ark behind,

A weight of nerves without a mind,

And leave the cliffs, and haste away.

- Section XII

 

Like Tennyson, I am not seeking death, in the physical sense, I am seeking death in the mental.  Tennyson imagines becoming like the dove and escaping all he thought the world was. He imagines flying up and above, circling, looking out at the world in a whole new way, being careless, without worry or concern...thinking possibly it is the end,  before eventually slipping back into the body and time. "...an hour away."  He goes from life, to death ( immortality) to life.

 

(So technically ...this is not a "dove" in this image.  It was the closet I could find.  Either that or a pigeon on a roof  which is technically a dove...but you know it wouldn't have the same effect  :) )


On the Cliff Caught Between Two Worlds

 

In this poem he obviously feels caught between two worlds...the physical and the spiritual.  The physical world is full of pain and grief, the spiritual ...freeing.  This freedom, this joyful vision of the world doesn't require death of the physical body, it requires a death of our "resistance" to it. ...an escape from the mind to just be " a weight of nerves".  How eloquently that describes this beingness...feather light, nothing but the full experience of living, guided by each nerve impulse and the wind beneath the wings...without thought, without resistance, without mind. Is that not living? Hmmm!

 

What drives him to this heart to heart with the Divine? Grief, pain, suffering...what the second noble truth of Buddhism refers to as Dukkha.  Dukkha brings a recognition that yes there is suffering in this world as human beings but there is a way from it. By "leaving the cliffs" ...that edge of physicality... our "attachment" to it...our connection to idea, identity, ownership, separation, ego...we can become free, like the dove...and we connect, as he felt he would, with all other beings in a timeless state. Is that what we are not here to do?

 

I have been feeling like such a misfit in this world lately.  I don't know how to do the "normal" things people do anymore.  They do not have meaning for me.  Yet ego keeps pulling me back into it because as awkward and sometimes painful  as it is...it is still familiar. It tells me I am supposed to be normal lol. Shame and redemption seem to be the normal pattern of existence for me. For so long, I have been standing on this cliff  knowing that I cannot stay.

 

Don't get me wrong...I am not planning to off my Self (or leave this physical body)...I am just wanting to off my 'self", my ego. I want to leave my connection to it behind.  I leap.

 

Ironically...what lesson do I happen upon in ACIM as I pray for faith and guidance, just as Tennyson did?  No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth &; I loose the world from all I thought it was. Lesson 146

 

Now what? lol

 

It is all good.

 

References:

 

ACIM

 

Tennyson, Lord Alfred. (1893) In Memoriam.  Full text: In Memoriam by lord Alfred Tennyson; edited with notes. Retrieved from:  https://archive.org/stream/inmemoriambyalfr00tennuoft/inmemoriambyalfr00tennuoft_djvu.txt

 



Time Out for Ego Twins

Just in case you are wondering about the previous blog...no...I am not like the character in Split.  Well, not really lol.  I was once again speaking very figuratively.  If you were popping in for the first time and concerned about all this "ego" stuff, you don't have to be.  It is all good.  No worries.  Though I am as 'insane ' as the majority of the population, I do not have any virgins in my basement waiting to have their hearts fed to "the beast."  I am just waking up and having a good look at what is real and what isn't. I see the ego twins in many of us and I comment on them.

Now, you could shake your head and think I am crazier than a bag of hammers if you need to.  I am okay with that.  Before you do, however, please take a look at the people around you and take a look at yourself.  Do you not see any signs of a Shamer or Redeemer ego there?  I bet you do.

Anyway. I am grateful for the experience yesterday and what it has taught me.  It showed me that my ego twins both need a long time out.  :)

It is all good.

Wrong again!

Sigh...I hate being wrong when it comes to my physical health for all kinds of reasons...but I know it is all ego based.  It is therefore very good for me when I am :)

The Personalities of Ego

I believe, that not only do I have an ego in  me...a little self that tries so hard to convince me that I am separate from the world, and at the mercy of those around me...I have two of them. Two egos?

Well I believe the ego in most of us is insane and mine is suffering from a dissociative disorder.  It has a split personality. :)  Sometimes it comes out as  Shamer ego...knocking me down and keeping me down with reminders of all the nasty things I am and all the wonderful things I will never be.  It reminds me constantly of the things I did wrong!

Other times Redeemer ego comes out of the recesses.  He does the opposite of Shamer. He  tries to build this idea of me up in the eyes of others with ways I  can compensate for losses, "be better" than someone else...or at least be proven right when Shamer was proven wrong. He gets me into so much trouble with his ceaseless need to "do", to "win", to  "own", to "gain" and to prove myself to this world that Shamer feels so inferior in.

I absolutely despise the both of them lol.  Shamer leaves me feeling the way I feel now but Redeemer never stops. He is too persistent for my liking.

Do you see where this is going yet?

Do you remember my little arm problem that I have been complaining about?

No fracture! 

I decided to ignore Shamer and listen to Redeemer. I spent way too much time thinking about this...and avoiding all the risks associated with the only way I would know for sure.  I had to pull up my Redeemer ego pants, push the voice of Shamer aside, take a deep breath and I had to go back in there!!!  lol.  And I did, if for no other reason than to get out of my head.  I was not going to stop thinking about this until an x-ray was done and a fracture was ruled out.  (But man...I am still not convinced...just too much pain 12 days after a fall to be just soft tissue....did I say that Redeemer was pretty persistent. lol)) 

Anyway...the poor doctor assured me it was not broke because I could pronate and supinate ( hurts to supinate) but I looked at her and out it came, "I don't care!  I want an X-ray!"  (In my mind I was thinking...could be a hairline fracture or a longitudinal one...I would be able to make those movements then and I didn't wait eight hours for a "just a bruise" diagnosis).  So ...I was hell bent on not being dismissed.   I am not sure from where it came...the place of Being or the place of  being frustrated and p###$# off lol.   ...but I was assertive and I got my x-ray!

The results were negative. She came back in to tell me basically that it was "just a bruise". Ugh!!! One thing Redeemer ego cannot stand is to be called "wimp" and I feel I have just been called one...big time! Ego is really getting quite the tuning , isn't it?

And I, now just a red faced Shamer ego,  had to walk out of there with my tail between my legs....again!  All those doctors which were branded and herded together to become the "they" in my health care dilemma won again.  "They" 2,899,000,000...me ( my ego)  0...well maybe 3 lol....oh the shame.

My True Self...however, takes no score. It is not one bit interested in who is right and who is wrong, who calls themselves the doctor and who calls themself the patient, if the arm was  fractured or just bruised, and if my ego got slapped around or not.  It sees no battling personalities  in my mind.  It is beyond all that stuff. It just is.  I want to be "just is" lol

 Man!  There has to be some big learning in this.    I will get to that later.

A Lesson learned when I hurt my arm

Thanks for everything.  I have no complaints what so ever.
-from a story told by Eckhart Tolle in Transcending the Ego Video

I am still  such an ego maniac, a thought junkie, a chronic narrator, a roving reporter, a little prisoner stuck in the confines of the personal self, the heroic victim in the  tragic story I alone am writing  and  I am still for the most part very much asleep. Sigh!

I realize that I am not yet where I want to be.  I am having trouble waking up and staying awake...no matter how annoying that buzzing alarm gets. I am almost there, it seems, I begin to wake up and just as I am crawling out of bed, I fall back to sleep again. I seem to be caught on a "enlightenment wheel" lol. Another big pathetic sigh!

Body Focus

I think I have come so far...and I have...but every now and again I get reminded of how far I have to go.  This arm is reminding me of the obstacles I have before me. It bloody hurts and it is so annoying.  I get pulled back into body focus  and will sometimes get lost in the discomfort.

Mind and Story Focus

But the pain  is benign in comparison to what happens in my mind to spin a story around it.  I get the pain and I think, "Oh it hurts again.  There has to be a fracture.  I wish they would have x-rayed it when I went in nine days ago.   It took me so long to get the courage up to go in when I did. I hate going in there. And like always, my health seeking attempt turned against me."

The thinking will continue to expand to, "I can't go in again.  I think I would rather have a fracture. What will happen long term with a mal union if there is a fracture there? Can I live with that? But the pain...can I live with that?  Man...I live with the chest pain on a regular basis.  This is minimal in comparison."

It goes on..."It would be worse if I got it x-rayed and there was no fracture, wouldn't it? I would then have another "unnecessary ER record"  stuck to my massively large chart, giving them ("them" being all physicians who I have rounded up, branded and herded into one big coral...stereotyping at its best, lol)  even more reason to  adhere to their assumptions about me, 'Fat Folder Syndrome; hysterical hypochondriac, attention seeker or someone with a factitious or conversion disorder.' My future or my family members' future cardiac complaints will then be possibly dismissed when help is needed most. Is my arm worth that?"

The thinking continues to grow into a whirlwind. "I can't expect them to take my complaints seriously just because of a few bruises that are almost faded when they never took the chest pain seriously, the pelvic pain seriously, the loss of eyesight seriously, the severe vertigo I had that time seriously, the fainting seriously or me seriously. I mean...if they did take me seriously wouldn't something have been done about it? My chest pain, even after my sisters' heart attacks, is still such a reality for me but no one hears me.  How am I to  think that they will believe me that my arms hurts when someone else basically tells me the usual story, "These tests or assessments show that it shouldn't therefore it doesn't"? "

I know then that I am out of the present moment. Time becomes my opponent.  I leave the future and am dragged into the past by my desperate little mind, "It has been such a hard journey.  Over twenty years I tried to get help for what most of me knows is very real.  And I still don't have it...even after my sister died of a sudden SCD and two others infarcted in their early fifties, years after I first presented with what appeared to be cardiac symptoms...I am still here living with this, unable to work or do few of the  things I used to love to do. Everything has fallen apart around me.  I have lost so much and I continue to lose so much but still no one hears me.  There is no hope for ever getting any medical help for my health.  And it takes too much out of me to try. It is all so unfair.  I am such a victim to my tragic life.  I don't want this suffering anymore.  I give up trying."

Accepting What is

It is with this 'giving up' that I finally ironically find what I have been looking for... a certain peace in acceptance...I feel myself settling in to what is.  " This is my reality now. It is what it is. As Eckhart Tolle says,   Reality is relatively very benign compared to what your mind is saying about it. (2018).  I can get out of my mind. I will let go.  I will let others believe what they need to believe about me to appease their own egos.  I accept the lack of diagnosis, the lack of help, the lack of support and find my way to the healing that really matters. It is all good."

Then I find myself in the right place, getting to what is really important.  I lose my attachment to ego and physical world things. I feel the veil moving between me and this "transcendent dimension'' (Tolle, 2018) I wake up and I I feel a certain peace.  It is all so lovely...

Ego not done with me yet

That is until...I move my arm a certain way or wake up in the middle of the night to the throbbing and the darn thing starts all over again, "This shouldn't hurt this much.  It must be broken...."     and on and on and on...it goes.  :)  Ego is not done with me yet.

I know there is a very good lesson in hurting my arm.  If I didn't I would just be waking up on a pseudo level.  I wouldn't be dealing with the pain and frustration I stuffed about my health seeking adventure over the years. It is like a big fur ball caught inside me that I need to cough up.

 I don't need to build story around it but I do need to experience the feelings, sit with them, express them.  I haven't done that.  When in ego I numb with story telling, I complain which is equal to resistance and I feel sorry for myself. When in that other beautiful place I ignore the knocking at the door. I shut out the feelings.

I think it is okay to step out and just sit with these feeling for a while. Let them be too.  Maybe this arm is taking me there.  :)

I still don't know about going in to get it x-rayed.  The practical part of me knows I should. still not sure what part that is though...the ego or the true Self. Hmmm!  We will see.  For now, it is just good to see what I am doing in my mind.  :)

It is all good.  It really is.

References

Creative Manifestor (2016, May) Eckhart Tolle: Transcending the Ego. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7QQqJcx4uI                                                           

Inside

Outside,

the world

is noisy and chaotic,

full of voices

calling out my name,

hands

grabbing at my flesh

as they cling to me

in desperate need

of something

I don’t know

how to give.

 

Outside,

the world

is fast and pressured,

with clocks

reprimanding me with

their sharp ticking speeches,

“Get moving!

Keep doing!

Get it done!”

 

Outside,

the world

is a blurry collage

of faces

that rush past me

with their grievances

and their pleas for help.

My hand is so weary

it trembles

when I lift it up

to wipe away a tear

from one of those lovely cheeks.

 

Outside,

the world

is not accepting

of the fatigue and pain

that is claiming

my body

and my mind,

telling me

to just push past it

so that I do not complicate

the constant momentum

of things.

 

Inside,

the world

is different.

 

Inside,

the world

is quiet and peaceful.

 

Inside,

the world

is slow and still.

 

Inside,

the world

is full of  abundant Love.

 

Inside,

the world

is accepting of “what is”.

 

Inside,

is where

everything is real.

 

Inside,

is where

I want to be.

 
 
Dale-Lyn 2010

It is funny how I am running into all these poems now that I wrote so long ago.  They speak to the same issues I am dealing with now...the same learning.  :)

The Gift of Challenge

"This is the gift I give you," Life says. "A tailored made set of challenges, just for you."
-Eckhart Tolle (from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWx1JJTaGa4)


Turning Our Noses Up at Free Tuition

Hmmm!  I love this idea that each of us are given a set of challenges in which to process through, learn and grow.  If we were given free tuition to the university of our choice, would we not be grateful?  We would more than likely accept that it will be challenging and down right difficult at times but we would look at this opportunity to learn and emerge victorious on the other side as a blessing, wouldn't we?  Why then do so many of us complain and blame life for being difficult when it offers us challenges?

So often we look at life as this unfair punisher that is randomly throwing unfavorable circumstances at us, sabotaging us, "picking on us" while favoring others in the class. We look at the circumstances it offers us, sometimes, as unfair punishment.  "Why are you doing this to me?" we may shout out to the universe.

Curriculum Design

We don't get it.  We don't see that every life challenge we encounter is a gift, a precious gift that was picked out thoughtfully by a loving parent of many, many children, just for us. Each of us, each unique expression of the One source that is Life, are given a tailored made set of challenges to process through.  What I am given to experience may be different than what you are given.  Some individuals on this planet seem to suffer excruciatingly painful and difficult challenges, while others seem to pass through life with so few.  Why?  Because what I need to express Life fully and to bloom like the crocus does in spring...is different than what you need, what the person on the other side of the globe needs. Each of us have a different curriculum design to help us achieve the same outcome.

The Real Challenge is in Our Resistance 

The greatest difficulty we have with life is not the circumstances but  our resistance to the challenges or life lessons they offer us. We tell ourselves that life should be a particular way; we compare with others who seem to have it easier; and  we dismiss the thought of others who may have it worse.  We say, "No! It shouldn't be this way.  That person shouldn't be that way.  Life should be easy!!!!"

Life, like a challenging degree, is not meant to be easy.  In fact, it can be down right difficult! But it is difficult for a reason.  Each challenge we encounter is a growth lesson.  If we resist the lesson ...it won't stop the Teacher from rattling on...it won't make the lesson go away.  We will still need to learn what is being offered...and the lesson will not go away until we do. Sigh...we need to stop resisting.  We need to settle in our seats and accept the gift of challenge being taught.

That doesn't mean we have to like it or say it is easy when it is not.  Accepting "what is" is the first and most necessary step into learning, growing and changing life circumstance.  Accept first.  Appreciate next...and then you will be shown when, how or if change is required.

All is well!