Don't Cut Off a Limb To Get Away From Disturbance

 

Once you learn that it's okay to feel inner disturbances, and that they can no longer disturb your seat of consciousness, you will be free.

Micheal Singer 

Easy to Get Disturbed

Side note:  I am really sick of my lazy fingers not keeping up with my mind leading me to make silly typos...like  these 'e' before 'i' mistakes I am making all the time in words like 'expereince'...see did it again...experience...lol and I often do the opposite for words like receive and perceive. I also struggle with 'because'...creating some strange word jumble with it. 'The' is an annoying problem too...I tend to type 'teh'...and then because I do not have spell check on this, I  have to go back afterwards and correct all my 'teh' typos.  Do you know how many times a person uses 'the' in a 500 + word entry?  A lot. Just thought I would pass that on...as we continue to speak of how the outer world disturbs our inner lol

Speaking of disturbances, are you sick of me talking about this dilemna I am experiencing brought on by this push to make a change? 

Well I am starting to believe Life, the teacher, lined up the lessons beautifully for all of us.  There is definitely a lesson here that I am meant to learn and that I am meant to share.

Caught in Rubble?

All this stuff ( life circumstance and challenge) piled  up outside me...like rubble from a wreckage.  I find myself thinking that I am disturbed because some of this rubble has landed on my left leg entrapping me in it. At the same time I hear a faint voice underneath the wreckage saying, "Help!  Help!" 

That voice  makes me feel more uncomfortable than the leg does. I don't want to deal with it.  So  I reach for the  saw to cut off my limb,  just so I can get away.  Then before I get my trembling hand around the handle of the saw,  something deep within spurs me to read untethered soul again.

Reminder of the Truth

I am reminded, once again,  of this wise truth within me...It is like: 

"Aha!I am finding myself "stuck" now  so I can release whatever that is under the rubble trying to get my attention. Cutting my limb off to avoid the discomfort of some buried crap is a ridiculous idea.  It is only going to cause more pain and disability.  It is not going to free me. "

"If I really want to be free of this so called suffering once and for all...I need to pick away at the rubble while I am here so that my leg, as well as the  trapped energy/emotion/trauma...whatever...can be released. Sawing my darn leg off, running ( hopping) away, and trying to change what is happening 'out there' is not going to save me from discomfort  for long. In fact, it will only compound the problem. I will be hopping around  in  intense pain, bleeding all over the place...and that voice will still be there getting louder and louder annoying me until I set it free. Life will keep piling up the circumstances until I release what needs to be released whether I am standing on one or two legs."

The problem will be back the moment the external situation [the change or in the case of this example...the cutting off of the leg to run from the voice in the rubble]fails to protect you from what is inside. page 84

Running Away Into Change Could Compound the Problem

I know that is a pretty drastic way of looking at it but that is what we do, isn't it, to run from  painful feelings that are being stimulated by some outside disturbance? We put all our energy into "doing" things to control or change  our outside experience just so we do not have to deal with the pain we stuffed.  We manipulate  things to prevent us from having to deal with the inner cries should they make so much as a whimper in their attempt to be heard. We blame Life for our being stuck in our suffering.  We blame the rubble  of circumstance and we do whatever we can so that we can run from it or numb from it, rather than embrace it as a learning opportunity. We are even willing to  cut off parts of who we are so we do not have to deal with these inner problems.

Hmmm! I felt "stuck" in the  circumstances Life had recently handed me.  I had this intense need to get away from it all or at least part of it...not so much because these circumstances were weighing heavily on me as they were in the here and now but because  they were somehow activating some unhealed crap buried inside me that I didn't want to deal with. 

They were touching my stuff and I didn't want my stuff touched.

I felt  I had to stop my stuff from getting touched in the way it was getting touched.  I was debating over the need to make some drastic life changes that I knew  there would be no going back from. Making these changes in my external life seemed like the thing to do. This decision would be deemed logical and supported by many others. It represents the way our society tends to think today. 

Yet...the wise part of me knew ...as reminded by Singer... that this change would require alot of effort, a lot of pain and alot of suffering for others...all so "my stuff " would not get touched.  I was willing to take such drastic measures in a fruitless attempt  to protect some inner crap, I didn't want in me in the first place.  I would have compounded the so called 'problem', the  suffering tenfold...just like sawing off a leg...when all I had to to do...was allow this stuff to come to the surface, and watch it  be released.  So simple...all I had to to do was let go of the stuff inside me so there was nothing there for others or Life to touch or to bother. 

The More Sensible Solution

Wouldn't doing  that be the less painful and more sustainable  option, making more sense in the long run? 

If we feel like we have to "do" something, manipulate the  world and make changes every time someone or something touches our  stuff(the inner blockages we don't want to deal with) ...man we are  not going to have a great Life are we? Our whole life will center around protecting ourselves from the stuff we stored inside by blaming Life and others for causing our suffering, running away, numbing, cutting off pieces of who we are etc. 

And it doesn't work to do this...that stuff doesn't go away ...it just gets buried, denied, pushed down and hidden. 

The solution then for dealing with suffering  is not  to make such a drastic change .  Don't cut off your limb. Cut off that piece of you that prevents you from allowing the energies of life to flow through.  

How do we do that? 

Just Watch

1) Get back up into that seat of awareness and watch Life doing what Life does...watch as it breathes in experiences and as it breathes out.  Notice that Life is just behaving and unfolding naturally. Come to see that Life is not the problem.

2) Then watch that trouble- making, problem-creating part of you in action in response to what Life does..  I call this part the ego.  Watch as it sends you off into the external world to fix everything out there so you do not have to deal with the stuff inside that it tells you is "bad" or "unpleasant". Watch it and know that  as long as you are watching it, you are not it.  You have detached. Notice how ridiculous its solutions for your so called problems are. 

3) Then watch as the feelings you have been avoiding come to the surface, watch as they trigger more thoughts that want to drag you away.  Don't go!  Stay in the seat of watching and as long as you are watching these thoughts and feelings  will not consume you.  It probably won't be pleasant...there will likley be pain if these things were buried with pain...but when you realize these feelings and thoughts are not you...you are the one watching them...they lose their power over you. Like all form, they come, they spin around a bit before you and then they go. 

3) Look at the Life situations that have taken you to this point as teachers, pointing you  to the root of the problem and the true solution...release and letting go. 

So We don't Make Changes in Our External Worlds? 

I am not saying we do not make changes in our lives. We can make all kinds of small changes that  help to take pieces of rubble away...which I am in the process of doing now.  There is no cutting away involved in these small changes I am making. :)  

As far as the bigger changes go...I still may have to make some of those in the future...but only after I release and let go of that inside part of me I was folishly trying to protect. Then and only then can  I  look out at the world, from the clear state of consciousness, to determine what type of chnage may need to be made.  

The real and most effective changes we make are internal not external.  Go inward first and deal with that mess you have hiding away.  Then decide if outer world change is really  required to bring more peace into your expression of Life and therefore in the world. 

Even if it is, it probably will not require the cutting off of a limb.

Hmmm!  Something to think about.

Allis well. 

Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger/Noetic Books

The Haze of Disturbance

 ... let all your blockages and disturbances  become the fuel for the journey.  That which is holding you down can become a powerful force that raises you up.  You just have to be willing to take the ascent. 

Michael Singer, page 79

It is probably hard to believe  what Singer is saying in the above quote. We might not  agree that the disturbances we sometimes  feel can be fuel  that lifts us higher when it seems  like the challenges are just bringing us down.  Many of us are conditioned to  believe that   we have to run from disturbing things  or "do" something to make it all better. 

I keep writing here about my dilemna ( one I am no closer to understanding let alone solving  btw).  I "perceive" disturbance in my outer world and I am questioning if I  need to make some major life changes  in response to this ongoing 'situation'.

Most 'normal-minded' people, including professionals, would look at my situation and say, "Definitely.  Make some changes to your external situation.  You are suffering because  of what is happening in the world around you , so go there for the solutions and the changes.  Do something and do it quick!"  

I myself often go to that place of thinking the same thing.  Even my strong gut instinct occassionally points to certain things 'out there' as the source of my disturbance.

Yet, though I know this focus on the external world as the source of our happiness or suffering is 'normal'...a deeper part of me knows normal does not equate to truth. A deeper, more wise part of me knows that all disturbance has  an internal cause and therefore the solution will never be found in any change I may make 'out there'.  It will only come with cleaning up my insides. 

It is the inside that is a mess not the outside.  The so called disturbance is coming from the inside. Life events  have little to do with it. So housecleaning should begin inside. 

Most of us, however,  are looking out at the world  through this internal mess without even  seeing it   and that is like looking through some really dirty lens and seeing the world around us through the haze of disturbance. The world looks like it is a mess. The world looks disturbing. But it isn't, our view is.

Life Doesn't Change Its Nature, Perception Does

Life is not punishing us when challenging situations of varying degrees show up in front of us.  It doesn't set out to hurt or destroy.  It is just Life coming and going, arising and dissolving through different forms.  Sure Life is in a constant state of change.  That is the nature of Life.  That nature, however, has not changed just because we percieve difficulty. It is not like sometimes Life is still and frozen in time...where nothing moves, nothing dies, nothing comes in, keeping us safe and protected...and other times all these things suddenly start to happen and move about threatening us.  This is always happening...Life is always moving, changing, bringing things in and taking them out.  That is the nature of Life. 

It is just sometimes we 'perceive' it as beautiful and sometimes we percieve it as 'ugly'.  Sometimes we 'like it' and sometimes we don't.  Sometimes it gives us the  warm fuzzies ...other times we 'perceive' it  to be dark and depressing. Life has not changed its nature.  We just changed our perception of it.  We changed the way we look out at the world.

The Seat of Clarity 

When we are able to step back away from ego with all its silly and unrealistic expectations, when we refuse to get lost in drama or what is happening out there and maintain instead our seat of awareness in higher consciousness....where we can witness Life doing what Life does around us and through us without getting lost in it ...when our insides are clean and the energy of outer  things just flow through without getting jammed up...we look out at the world through a very clear lens.  There is no judgement of "this is good", "this is bad", 'this is pleasant', "this is unpleasant", "this is disturbing", "this isn't". Life just is.  It is beautiful, amazing, full of mystery and awe.  There is no ego interference, therefore there is no fear.  Without fear there are no problems and therefore no need to fix or make changes. We operate from a very high vibration...Love, joy, enthusiasm can flow into us, through us and from us. It is a state we want to be in.  It is an inner state that determines how we see the world. 

When we fall from this seat of witnessing...things change. We see differently.  We experience Life differently on the inside. We struggle against it, believing we need to manipulate it somehow. 

Through the Haze of Disturbance

How do we fall?

Well the whole thing starts with fear...and fear is just another thing that comes into our experience.  If we do not accept, let in,  release and let go of fear like we are meant to do with all these things that come into our experiences,  fear  gets stored inside. Then becasue fear does not like fear...we will spend the rest of our lives trying to keep fear inside and hide from it so we do not have to feel it. This blocks our energy.

How do we hide from fear?

By doing whatever we can to control and manipulate the world out there, to make it safe and easy so it doesn't 'trigger' our fear.  We begin to define how Life should be out there in order to avoid anything disturbing fear in here. That is where "This is good" "This is desirable" and "This is bad" "This is undesirable" comes from. We then spend a great deal of enegry seeking, and clinging to the good and desirable,  and pushing away, resisting, struggling against the bad and undesirable. We are actually struggling with Life just so we can avoid feeling fear. 

You are either trying to figure out how to keep things from happening , or you're trying to figure out what to do because they did happen. You are fighting with creation.... pg 73

How is that working for you?

Have you stopped fear? Or are things out there constantly stimulating your fear no matter what you do to try to control it? Are you noticing that the more you try to supress fear, keep it under wraps inside you, to stop the world from bothering you...the more you get bothered? 

Life meant to challenge us to release fear

Life is going to constantly hand us situations that disturb us and therefore stimulate fear because it wants us to release all these blockages.  Life is meant to flow through us so we expand and go upward, not so that we shrivel up in fear. We need to have open hearts to do that...so we need to remove the blockages fear creates.

So things are going to happen.  Some life situations will be easy, some challenging. We are not meant to run from the challenging ones, in order to keep fear hidden  in its place within us.  We are meant to "allow and embrace" the challenges so fear is triggered and comes to the surface and from there we release it and let it go! 

If we allow these situations to distract us, and take us to a place where we neeed to run from them or "do" something about them just so we do not fear...we will fall from our peaceful state of awareness.  We will fall down into that lower energy vibration.  We will get all caught up and tangled up in disturbace and not see that...that is not who we are.  We will forget that we are the witness, not the disturbance.  

When we look out at the world all tangled up in this inner mess we created...the world looks pretty bleak. 

...as you look out through your disturbed energy, everything is distorted by the haze of disturbance.  Things that looked beautiful now look ugly.  Things you liked, now look dark and depressing.  But nothing has really changed.  It's just that you are working at life from the seat of disturbance.

This is sufferng. This is being held down by disturbance.It is not the situation that is the problem for us...it is the way it somehow stimulates our fear.  But what seems like a problem is actually an opportunity for growth. 

It doesn't have to be this way.  We can instead free ourselves from this and get back up into the seat of higher consciousness. We can have an open heart that sees the beauty and majesty of the world.

All we have to do is be willing to confront fear and allow it to come through us, so it can be released from us. This disturbance ...if embraced rather than resisted...can take us back up to higher awareness and a higher vibration. 

Are you willing to climb?

All is well.

Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger/Noetic Books

Watching the Dance of the Psyche

 There is nothing wrong with being peaceful and centered[ in response to heavy life challenges and loss] as long you are releasing the energy , not suppressing it. ...No matter what events take place in life, it is always better to let go rather than close.

Michael Singer , page 67

I really, really do not want to close my heart.  I want to live with a permanently open heart that flows freely with love and joy and enthusiasm for Life.  I do.  

I have been watching my psyche dance around  and see how I have been opening and closing over the last little while.  As I observe this dance now I see thatt the ballerina has bowed her head and is still.  The curtains have closed!

Watching the Dance

When we watch this dance going on in our minds we are going to see several things happening. (Singer, 2007)

• First we are  going to see this tendency we have to defend and protect ourselves.  We have tender and wounded  flesh within that we want to protect from getting irritated. We have a tendency to close up around it when something we deem as unpleasnat or disturbing comes our way. 
• Then we will notice how much work that closing and protecting requires...It is life long work .  It is exhausting.
• We can shift our focus from the protecting actions of the mind to the part of the mind that is doing the protecting. We recognize the ego.
• We can decide not to do that anymore and to get rid of that nasty frightened  little part of us   that feels it needs to attack and defend all the time to protect itself instead.  If you don't really want it, then don't protect it. 
• We can put our whole being into what is happening here and now...be in the moment.
• Know that we are constantly going to run into disturbances from out there.  Just be aware of our reactivity: the subtle energy shifts of disturbance happening inside  and stop!  Just stop tensing up and resisting and struggling against.
• Let Go...take our attention away from the disturbance.  Go back to the center...breathe, focus on body, on the sensations around us.
• Refuse to follow those disturbed energies where they want to take us.
• Release and relax into our center!

Making a decision

Can you recall the last time you had to make a big decision?  Watching the somewhat awakened mind make decisions can be a little dizzy making. 

Hmmm! I am in a conundrum. A change in my life  is definitely required.  I am trying to figure out if an internal or external one  is required.  My gut seems to be screaming at me that it is external change I need to make  ...yet I am, for some reason, doubting that internal warning. I am even questioning these strong feelings I get .  

I find myself asking these questions: 

Am I just reacting egoically to some minor disturbances?  Or is this legit heavy stuff that requires a different approach than above? 

Is it really intuition and a warning from higher Self  prompting me to actively make a change in my life circumstance or is it mind playing tricks with me just to stir up some drama ?   (Ego is by far the biggest 'pot-stirrer and trouble maker' out there.)

Am I to follow through on the change gut is telling me to make, listen to these strong "feelings" I have been having or am I to see it all as a form of  resistance, the ego's way of protecting and defending this idea of "little me", of running away behind  a protective shield?

Will this change I feel like I need to make really help me to open my heart and heal once and for all...or will it actually be a means to close it down farther? 

Am I trying to manipulate and change what is happening 'out there' just so my tender parts 'in here'  don't get more disturbed than they already are?  Or is staying in the circumstances I am in  preventing me from releasing samskara and healing these tender parts once and for all so who I really am can shine through? 

Is the most important objective  of  these circumstances Life presented me with  ...to learn to accept what is and make peace with it as it is,or is it to realize the  value of my own needs and grow and move away from circumstances that keep me stuck...albeit gracefully and gratefully. 

Who is "me" that  I want to prserve and help grow?

Is my apparent dissatisfaction with my life circumstances right now and my challenge accepting them with grace and joy  a result of the unhealthy heaviness of these life circumstances, their negative and unnecssary "impingement" on my heart and mind and my inner Self's attempt to say I can grow beyond them...or is it a sign of a closed heart...a heart that is judging things as good or bad and  pushing away to avoid disturbing my insides? If I stop judging will I find enough peace to stay here? 

What do I feel I need to protect anyway...really?  Is it what my spirit needs in regards to physical form: mind, body, health, property that is being threatened or is it just this version of "little-me" and its puny "me, my, mine" needs that I am attempting to protect? Should I just let them have that? 

Am I fooling myself  again, even after all my practice, into thinking that anything done "out there" will make it better for me "in here" when I know all disturbance is a result of mind not external world events?  And if I know that it is just the mind I need to work on, does that mean I should conscioulsy choose to stay in situations that my gut warns me are unhealthy?  Unhealthy for what or whom?

Should I put my needs aside in order to meet the needs of others? Is that what a fully functioning heart plan is all about?  If "little me" is something I should get rid of...should I commit Self to a life of unhappiness and unfulfilment in order to spare others from the suffering my decision may cause? 

Hmm!  I am just perpelexed. Watching this dance going on in my psyche has got my head spinning lol.  I am quite confused. 

I do not want to make any major decisons from ego guidance.  I want it to come from what Singer calls, "The Seat of Consciousness" .

Hmm!  Another big question is...am I there yet? Sometimes I think yeah...this is where this decision guidance  is coming from and other times I just don't know.

I will figure it out.

All is well! 

Open Heart Surgery

 

Do you want to try to change the world so it doesn't disturb your Samskaras, or are you willing to go through this process of purification? 

Michael Singer

Hmm! This is a big question for me.  I have been writing and talking about how I so desperately need to make a change in my external world as if that will solve all my problems.  Not? 

Whatever is happening in my external world is simply triggering some inner world stuff.  It is activating some Samskaras which are blockages, according to Michael Singer ( page 53) , an impression from the past. It's an unfinished energy pattern that ends up ruining your life.

I have some old knots in me, some unhealed emotions stuck inside me...like plaque around the cusps of my spiritual mitral  valve creating an unhealthy opening and closing in reaction to what Life throws my way. 

Our  perceptions are meant to sense what is going on in the now... take the "energy" of things outside us in ..so we can experience them and then this energy is meant to pass through us so we can be there fully in the next moment. Life energy from  experience is just suppose to flow through us.  

The heart is like a big beautiful center for that to happen.  Most energy just passes through as it is meant to. Unfortunately, mind sometimes steps in and says "Oh No!  That cannot go through!  Too painful. " So we resist this particulat event.  

Or it says "Wow!  That is wonderful!  Hang on to this one. This is what you want all the tme.  Look for more of this and whatever you do do not let this go!"  So we cling to certain emotional energy.  

This energy of a resisted or clung to experience  gets stored in our heart like vegatation from a staph infection...affecting how the valve works and therefore affecting how the energy of Life is passed through us. It affects  the way we process Life.  This is a Samskara...a blockage of energy in our hearts .

The only way to fix it  is...not by controlling all the events out there...making sure we have positive circumstance to stimulate the positive energies we have stuck...or to push away, avoid and resist the negative circumstance so it doesn't trigger our negative stuck energy.

Healing means fixing the valve...removing the plaque and vegetation the samskaras leave behind.   We need a type of open heart surgery...but not the kind that replaces a valve...the kind that releases the valve.  We get that  through accepting all that is...relaxing and releasing into our pain.  

Sure it will hurt for a bit If it was stored with pain, it will release with pain. but when we allow the energy from these trapped emotions to be released we heal in the ultimate of ways and we get what Singer refers to as "a permanently open heart" ....which is the ultimate state of being alive.

Hmmm!

Something to think about!

All is well!

Micheal Singer (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger/Noetic Books 

More on Story Telling

 

You are never going to kill story telling because it's built into the human plan. We come with it.

Margaret Atwood

Hmmm!  I am about to write a list of events down that "I" was a part of   ...or more accurately, witnessed, in the last little while with the soul purpose of relaying them to one selected individual who handles these types of things on a regular basis.  

Now part of me instinctively goes back to wanting to spruce these details up with melodramatic flair...to selectively pick the goriest or most sensational details out of the pile of stuff that has landed over this little clump of flesh I call "me".  I might actually follow my story teller's compulsion and write it out like  a great drama with "poor little me"  starring in it, but then I will do what I did with February 12th's entry...strip it down to the simple facts. 

Yes, telling story is a way to release trauma and pain. It does serve a purpose. And as Atwood  quotes above, it is a natural part of being human. 

Removing story, however,  is probably even  more therapeutic in the long run. Removing "me, my, and mine" brings us away from this idea we are seperate characters in this play and helps us to understand the impersonal nature of suffering. Removing a lot of the unnecessary narration and detail...as perceived by ego...gives the story a different texture. Stepping away from the "star role" in the drama and becoming the witnessing audience instead also puts a totally different perspective on things. 

Story telling, as natural as it is for us,  can take us away from actually experiencing Life as it is...keeping us locked in the drama the mind creates , caught up in the "words" rather than allowing us to 'be" in this moment, right here and right now. It can close us up. 

The absence of the need for story or the  process of removing story  keeps the heart open rather than closed...allowing all the circumstances, energy and feelings of life to just flow through us instead of getting jammed up through rsistance in details that knot up our insides. We have the space, then, to be compassionate and kind rather than closed up and suspicious.  We don't have the need to push things away, or pull things closer to us and cling to them.  We don't have the compulsive tendency  to attempt to  manipulate and fix our outer expereinces so Life is more bearable. We don't get lost in the idea of past and future and we settle into our now. We just love Life as it is instead of fearing it.

That is what I want...to be open, compassionate, kind, loving, joyful and enthusiastic about Life.  Why can't I tell a story about that?

All is well in my world. 

Telling Our Stories

 

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

Joan Didion

Hmmm!  Still thinking about the desire to tell story.  This is what I came up with in my pondering.

We tell story and by that I mean we  relay the details of our experience in a selectively descriptive way in order to:

• personalize what is happening to us and around us so the egoic mind can make sense of it.  The ego is very narcisstic isn't it?  And it likes to analyse and  make sense of external events.  It does that by insisting there be a "me, my or mine" attached somehow.  So it personalizes everything.  Somehow the pyschosis or suffering of another is created to be something thas has to do with 'little me'.  (I mean in this case it did...because I was the supicious target and because it is happening in my houseold) but any detail we add to the story we tell others has to be "me" focused.  So we take things that have nothing to do with us personally...things maybe we have no business making our own...and we make them about us through story.  And I am not talking about a story of  empathy, compassion and metta kindness here. I mean...using  other experiences to create a melodramatic victim status. 
• to project away from true suffering and real emotions we would rather deny.  The better the drama we create, the better the story.  The better the story, the more in the head we focus.  The more in the head we are the less we have to focus on real feelings and experiences in the here and now.  I was feeling a mixture of things yesterday..."overwhelm" being one of these things. There was also fear, worry, concern, frustration, hoplelessness, resentment, guilt and shame.  It was uncomfortable to feel this way and my protective mind said, "Yucky!  Don't go there.  Story telling is much more fun." So Iwas really tempted  to create story around this experience.  
• release emotions.  Reflecting on our experiences and how they make us feel is a very healthy thing to do. For that reason writing and telling our story can have therapeutic effect.  It will allow us to understand how "we feel" and help us to release trapped or residual emotion  that accumulates in our dealing with the circumstances of our lives.  The thing is, we don't need an audience to release emotions...just writing the story in a letter or telling one trusted person would suffice.  Many of us, however, tend to go beyond telling one trusted person.  We want an audience taht will react. We do not write a letter to have it stuffed away in a drawer or burnt.  We seek an audience that will feed our egos and keep us from releasing these emotions. We really don't, then, tell the story just so we can release emotion...we do it so we can control emotion.  
• get  a reaction and validation.  We share our stories so that we are validated.  "Man this is is what is happening.  Don't you think it is alot tohave to deal with?  Don't you think I have a lot on my plate too?  Don't you believe you would find all this challenging if it were happening to you?"  We want the fact that we are finding it difficult to cope validated as normal, don't we?  Yet...too often we take it a step farther. We want  people to not only validate our challenge but to  oohh and awe over the magnitude of "problems" and "challenges"  we have in our lives.  To tell us that we are strong or that we are undeserving of such challenge.  We want, I guess, some "special" status reward for our suffering....that will come with such  reactions from others.  

Well that is what I came up with so far in my thinking about the need to tell story.  It really is quite interesting.

All is well in my world. 

The Drive To Tell One's Story

 

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Mary Angelou

Note: I caught the typos on this post that I hurried to write before getting back to things...and it was quite amazing...just how many there were.  Will edit some. (I really have to start getting affect and effect right, don't I? Effect is a noun, affect is a verb ( well unless you use the psychiatric term for someone's facial  expression and outward appearance...I think that is why I get screwed up so much...well we'll blame it on that lol) 

The Need to Tell Our story to Others

I write and as someone who writes I have a compulsion to tell story. I hav a compulsion to tell my own story.  I am testament, I suppose, to the fact that truth can sometimes be stranger than fiction. I have quite a story.

The point is whenever I find myself "overwhelmed" or bombarded by the experiences of Life...I have this drive to go and tell someone what  I am experiencing....more specifically to describe the  external circumstances that  have come my way.  I want to relay all the gory details...well the ones I select to enhance the version of story I wish to tell, one where I come off a certain way.  It is more than a coping mechanism for me.  I want others to know just how "bad" it was or is for "me".  

Hmmm!  Somehow when I tell the story...when I get lost in the drama and the details (again selective) I seem to make the suffering more bearable...or at least I am getting some form of external reward for it.  I am hoping to get what is equivalent to an Oscar I suppose , for my little egoic and lost starlet to redeem herself with. 

So last evening...I felt overwhelmed.  Watching someone struggle with a psychotic episode can be overwhelming, especially when there are so many other things going on. Feeling helpless...I found myself collecting story details.  I then expanded the story beyond this circumstance to all the tough experiences I have been a part of lately. 

Then I wanted so desperately to share them with someone...to get some type of reaction, maybe?  An "OMG...I can't believe you ( yes it becomes about "me" not the people I am witnessing) have to go through that.  You are a true victim...a true hero...worthy of praise and adoration." 

The story and drama, ego tells me,  will take me away from fear, vulnerability, inadequacy or at least make it all worth while.

Who I am beyond this bloody ego... let's use 'I' was luckily the part of me that was dealing with the crisis from that quiet, calm and wise space. The whole time it /'I'was also watching my ego react to this intensely stressful situation.  I watched as it felt helpless, frightened, concerned; while it added this circumstance  to a list of a thousand other plot twisters. I watched as it personalized every deal, somehow making it about "me".  I watched as it wrote the story in the head and then looked for a reader or an audience to share it with.  I watched as I sat here for over an hour yesterday  writing all the deatils of 'my' life that would play 'me' as the heroic victim while the situation went on behind me; I watched as I faught the temptation to go visit someone and spill it all out; I watched as I texted people I have not spoken to in a couple of weeks and slipped the fact that "my"  life is in turmoil into a casual conversation somewhat sublimally yet obviously with the main intention as to say, "Man have I got another story to tell." 

No one took the  bite...thank goodness...because the higher part of me...did not want to get lost in story. It just wants peace for all.  It just wanted to stay open, loving, compassionate, calm and peaceful. 

It recognized ego and the pattern...saw what ego  was doing and thankfully Life intervened by not allowing any fish to bite.  So I did not "get to " tell more than a slither of detail to anyone.  I did not publish yesterday's rant.  And I am now considering this need to tell story very carefully.

Is this drive  to tell one's story healthy or unhealthy? Is it release or entrappment? Does it offer spiritual healing or does it just make the ego fester and grow over spirit? What does it give and what does it take away from our waking up experience?

Hmmm! I don't quite know. What do you think? 

All is well. 

Waking Up Instantly? Or Slowly?

 You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world,and a compulsion to do something about it. 

Edgar Mitchell, Apolla 14 Astronaut

As I reread the untethered soul by Michael Singer (highly recommended btw) I am thinking about awakening to the realization of who we really are.  I guess, I have a narcissitic focus and am really thinking of how this waking up is happening in this little clump of flesh I call "me". 

Instantaneous Awakening? Samadhi 

Some people wake up instantaneously.  A Course in Miracles refers to is a Holy Instant and teaches that this profound  transcendence in our understanding of things can happen in a moment.  

This Course is not beyond immediate learning,  unless you believe that what  God Wills takes time. And this means only that you would rather delay the recognition that His will is so. The holy instant is this instant and every instant...Delay it not. 

ACIM-T-Chapter 15:IV:1

Through Suffering and Awe

It happened in a moment for Eckhart Tolle and for astronaut, Edgar Mitchell on his way back from the moon.  For one (Tolle) it was in a moment that emerged through a field of intense suffering and for the other ( Mitchell) it was a moment that emerged from a field of immense awe.  

Through Meditation, Prayer and Sacred Rituals

It can also happen through an intense meditaton practice. It happened for Buddha in an instant...but only after years of walking in the woods alone, starving himself, meditating for hours in search of it.   Then  one day when he was meditating under a tree, doing what he was doing for years...the inner scenario changed...and in came Mara and a bunch of temptations he was able to put aside for the peace he longed for. And boom...he woke up from that meditation a Buddha.

 It happens to Yogis too.  Patanjali wrote about that "Samadhi" that can be attained through meditation and yoga practice. It happened for many Christian saints when they prayed, as well. Shamans also report experiencing it during their rituals

Through Death and NDE's

It also happens, it seems, the moment people die.  Some people come back from that experience to talk about it...like Dr. Eben Alexander III or Anita Moorjani.  The message they tend to bring back is that "You do not have to wait until you die to see clearly what Life is really all about". 

A Certain Death Required

But I am starting to believe it takes a certain death to acheive this realizaton.  Maybe not necessarily our own physical death but  it requires the loss that comes from the death of some type of form, be it physical or psychological. Maybe we will lose someone or something we love that we identified with and find with the absence of that form an emptiness that we cannot make sense of.  Maybe it will come with the loss of our health (physical or mental), the loss of our freedom ( Nelson Mandella) or the loss of some belief system we once trusted heavily in.  It definitely comes with the loss of old limited ways of seeing. These are all cracks or openings for a Great Truth...a Great Mystery to shine through.

Hmm! In his video, Beyond Form: Allowing Loss, Eckhart Tolle puts it this way, 

Every form obscures God and every death of form allows God to shine through.

Shining Through

When Edgar Mitchell was rotating in his craft, suspended in space looking down at the earth ...a form died.  That form was the very limited perspective he had about the universe, a perspective  he lived with while on earth. With that form gone...and in a state of complete awe...God, higher consciousness, Complete awareness, shone through.  His old ideology was nolonger obscuring it and he seen and experienced the interconnectedness of all things. He had a "samadhi", a "Holy instant", a sudden awakening, a divine epiphany. Instead of seeing the Universe through an egoic mind...he saw it while settled in the "Seat of Consciousness".  He saw it clearly.

I am Slow Waker-Upper.  What about you?

My awakening is not really coming in an instantaneous way lol but it is coming.  Thanks to a certain amount of suffering and a lot of questioning of that suffering, I sought spiritual knowledge.  I studied at a deeper level than I ever had before, a level that went beyond science, psychology and what I was conditioned to believe. 

From there I reached a mini-realization...the starting point for samadhi,  that allowed me to see that the mind was the problem, not Life.  From there I had a willingness to go inside and work with the mind.

 So that is what I have been doing...trying to observe, and befriend, and release my Self from the prison of  a very untamed mind.  I am heading toward Samadi which will be attained when I am firmly seated  on the Seat of Consciousness ( Singer, 2007) and am able to see through the form that comes and goes around me, be it my thoughts, feelings, or circumstances etc. 

Will I attain it in this  life time?

I don't know.  Maybe not...but I am getting glimpses of peace and understanding that is definitely changing this life experience I, as "little me", am experiencing  and which, I believe,  has the potential of changing the life experiences of  others should I share what I am learning. 

I have more of a global consciousness than I ever had, seeing the need for unity rather than division.  What about you?

I have more of a people orientation being that I recognize and have more compassion for the suffering of others than I ever had.  I am sure you do too?

I am deeply dissatisfied with the state of this world...how we treat each other, other beings and the planet. You?

So I continue to learn, to grow, to change as I continue to share and teach from my limited understanding about the possibility of samadhi or at least living in a higher state of consciousness.  

Why?  

I don't know.  I just feel compelled to do so. So I do.

All is well. 

ACIM Text, Chapter 15

Kasia Bosne ( December, 2014) An Interview with Dr. Eben Alexander . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCRwuJoQAZg

Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. Oakland: New Harbinger Publications/Noetic Books

Eckhart Tolle (March 2021) Beyond Form: Allowing Loss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ojq1AAMvZvg

CBC Quirks.Going into Space is a Life Changing Experience. https://www.facebook.com/CBCQuirks/videos/1272457726177844

TEDxTalks (November, 2013) Dying to Be Me: Anita Moorjani at TEDx Bay Area https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhcJNJbRJ6U

Attempting to Control Life with the Mind

You recreate the world within your mind because you can control your mind where as you can't control the world.  That is why you mentally talk about it. If you can't get the world the way you like it, you internally verbalize it, judge it, complain about it, and then decide what to do about it. This makes you feel more empowered. ...you feel better.  In the thought world there is always something you can do to control the experience.

Michael A. Singer, the untethered soul, page 12

Hmmm!  Now that is something to think about lol.

How much do you narrate your life so you do not have to "live" your life?  How much time do you spend in your head rather than in your body or moment? What world are you in right now?  The thought world? Or the real world? 

Well yesterday's post shows that I am not near as evolved as I would like to be. I am obviously still very much in the thought world, narrating my life so I am not actually living it.  

I looked around the real world recently  and realized I didn't particularly like the way it was. So I internally (and externally) verbalized it, judged it, complained about it and then went on a mission to decide what to do about it. 

Why did I do this?  

Reality is just too real for most of us, so we temper it with the mind.

-Singer, Page 13

Because it gave me back some of the  power I felt life circumstance was taking away.  Thinking the way I did and writing it all out here made me feel better.  I actually had this false sense that I was regaining control of something I was never meant to control...Life! 

Outwardly Sharing the Mind's Voice

My writing is and always has been an expression of the world I created in my mind, not necessarily what is real. Yesterday, I took the  circumstances I was witnessing  and selected and chose which ones best suited the theme of my present schemanta(Negative), matching them up with judgement and interpretation to similiar thoughts and memories from my so called past and  similiar expectations and projected visions I had for the future. I then created this narrative, this story that I spilled out here on this page. 

All along, it was just a story...just a voice chirping away in an attempt to make "me" ( whoever this "me" is)  feel better, to trick me into feeling like I had some control over Life and that there was something I could "do" to make it all better.  

Hmmm! Meanwhile Life was being Life, doing what Life does. Circumstances were just flowing through and past as all things of form are meant to do. "I" ...who I really am...am not these things nor am I the narrator/the voice that gives play by plays to myself or others about these things.

I am the witness! I am the one that silently witnesses Life and the mind that intreprets it. 

When will I finally get that and give up my need to narrate?  

(Well that would be a tricky thing for a writer to do lol.  I would offer nothing but blank pages if I stopped narrating.  So maybe it is a good thing I am merely in the beginning stages of awakening, so I still have something to offer here.) 

Rereading the untethered soul.

All is well! 

Come to know the one who watches the voice, and you will come to know one of the great mysteries of creation.

Singer, page 13

Michael A. Singer ( 2007) the untethered soul. New Hrabinger/ Noetic Books

Giving the "mine" away

 The meaning of life is to find your gift.  The purpose of life is to give it away. 

Pablo Picasso

"This isn't "my"  house. Heck this isn't "my" life.  It is just a house this form I call "me" pays a monthly mortgage for and lives in, and Life  just happens to  be expressing itself through this form, as it expresses itself thorugh all the forms around me.  There is no owndership...nor is there anything personal going on."

That is the mantra I keep reciting to myself as I deal with the present circumstances that I seem to be so egoically reacting to. I am not being very gentle or compassionate with this "little me" as I watch myself reacting, creating story and thought around why I am feeling so unhappy and unfulfilled with where this form is at right now. I am even watching myself collecting greivances. 

It isn't "mine".  

None of this that I am trying to protect is "mine." Yet I seem to be going around with a super sized label maker, mentally putting my name on the things around me, the things I do and on me...because people seem to forget that the "me" I think I am is even here. The ego is not liking the fact that "my" rights , "my" needs, "my" efforts, "my" time and "my" space are not being appreciated, respected or considered in the way it thinks it should be . 

I keep hearing Picasso's words in my head, "Give it away." 

Give it All Away

Heck these lives we call our own are not our own. They are meant to be given away, aren't they, for the greater good? 

The Life that makes us and flows through us, is all about giving. Even if it was mine, I am to give it away, right? We are to give away our special gifts...whatever we are here to do .  We are to give away our possessions, our love, our time.

So why am I drawing back behind imagined borders, trying to protect my title to this house,  the rights of this persona , and this body from the thoughts, deeds  and energy  of others? Why am I defending  and attacking for that which isn't important in the long run?

What is important and worthy of protection anyway?

It was easy, when we were egoic to defend and attack for that which we thought ws important. Protecting the idea of "little me" was all important and  anything that stepped on the  toes of it was worthy of our attack.  Right?

Things change as we begin to evolve.  The whole idea of "me, my and mine" loses its significance. So we may become confused as to what we should actually protect and what we should let go of.  The following are worthy of consideration:

What we are here to do?

Giving our special gifts or the fruits of our callings away  is why we are here. What I am here to do is important. And as crazy as it sounds to even me, writing and teaching  is what I am here to do.  I am more than  okay with giving that away....if anyone will take it that is. :)

Ownership of Material Things? Independence? 

Is maintaining ownership of or order in this house important?  Oh to ego it is...ego has been really slapped around over the last decade or so and has lost a lot of the things that redeemed it.  Being able to maintain independence in paying this mortgage on my own, and  keeping the house in "my" name was one of the last ego things I clung to.  I was clinging to that in fear of what I would become without it. 

Healing Space and the Right to Avoid Excessive Draining?

I also tell myself that I need a space to heal, nourish, nurture and replenish that which will allow me to give, and serve in. I need a place where I am  "fed", where I am not always giving and doing...if I can't be given to in this space...it is important that I least prevent myself from being drained farther. If I don't maintain  a comfortable and healng place to call mine ...will I still be able to do what I am here to do? So I cling to a corner that seems to be getting smaller and smaller and less and less "mine". Ego is getting more and more diminished which I know in the long run will be a good thing but for now it is sucking the energy out of me!! It seems to be hurting more tahn my ego. 

The Body

My body is important to protect.  Yes. But becasue I feel like I am being drained of precious energy in my attempt to meet the needs of others, especially when that effort is not actually helpful in the long run ( enabling) , appreciated, or respected, and I am not given the space or time to replenish myself...my body is getting sick. I know from my dream that I have time to reverse this.  Yet does that mean reclaiming this idea of what is "mine", when it it is just that ...an idea? I don't know.

Peace of Mind

That is the most important thing in my life and I feel it is very worthy of my protection. Maintaining peace of mind often involves, not only the internal soothing but external soothing as well. It may mean removing Self from negative and unhealthy energy drainers.  It means facing truth instead of denying and supressing painful truths and behaviours that may have hurt or has the potential to hurt others in the future.  (That is becoming the new norm here and in my exhaustion I am somehow allowing  it  so I can get through my days. Yet the truths are constantly whispering to me, interfering with my peace. ) Peace of mind  means...staying compassionate.  I am not as compassionate as I want to be...with others or myself.  In an attempt to prevent more draining, I  am sharp and prickly, rather than kind and peaceful. Yuck!

Human Rights

I mean, I was always big on preserving human rights and equality for all. Unfortunately, I am not so big on including myself in that mix. I have a tendency to deny my own needs and rights in giving to others.  I set an example for the people around me to do the same. When I notice others impinging on my rights, taking advantage,  taking and breaking  "my" things, dismissing my requests, treating me like a housemaid etc   I tell myself ..." well there is no "me, my or mine" anyway, is there? This is just an ego thing."  I step back and swallow my desire to be assertive. I end up surrounding myself with more and more of the  same circumstances again and again. I own that! 

Sigh.

I am going to figure this all out. 

 I share it as an example of what we individuals who are waking up  may ponder when we consider the need for change.  Not as easy as it used to be , is it,  when all we had to do was look out for number one?

All is well! 

Honoring Your Reality Right Now

 

The first step to change...is honoring your reality right now. 

Dan Millman

While on the topic of accepting the now and at the same time mentally preparing myself  for some necessary change, I came across an Eckhart Tolle video today entitled, Accepting the Present Moment, not the Life Situation. 

So though I know the circumstances of "my"  life seem overwhelmning at times, there is still a succession of precious moments within them that I can focus on.  

And I am learning that though we are best off to revel in the 'isness' of Life and  allow it to express itself through everything we encounter, that does not mean that we are not supposed to take action to change our situations for the better.  

In fact, the two go together.  We accept the now for what it is, witnessing Life expressing itself through any form we are offered.  And by being present and aware we gain the clarity and the wisdom to take the steps necessary to improve our life situation.

Notice, accept, allow and even honor embrace what is first.   Then change.

We cannot make healthy change when we are in a state of denial, or resistance.  We must first accept the reality of our here and now....then we either watch as Life changes for the better before our eyes or listen as we are guided towards the healthiest steps to take  for change. 

Hmmm!

All is well.

Eckhart tolle (May, 2019) Accepting the Present Moment, Not the Life Situation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9y6G8PvGFY

Needing Something to Look Forward To?

 I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.

Charlotte Bronte

Do you need something to look forward to? 

Is having something to look forward to essential for making your life a happy one?  One that is worth living? Are you one of the many who ascribe to the idea that "hope is everything"?

The Beauty of Hope

I do love the feeling of hope.  I love the way it picks me up and gives my life a little meaning. I like the way it puts a spring in my step and gives me a gentle nudge forward. Hope and having something to look forward to has provided much needed light in some of the darkest spaces of my life.  It kept me going.

 I also  absolutely hate the way I feel when there seems to be an absence of hope...when  something I was hoping for or looking forward to doesn't materialize. I hate how dark it all gets when there doesn't seem to be anything "positive" or powerful enough to focus on up there in the distance, something I can move toward that will take my mind at least, if not my physical entity,  out of these holes Life seems to so unceremoniously dump me in from time to time.

I, for the longest time, was  convinced that hope was essential in creating happiness and meaning in this human experience.

Hope: A Conditioned Response

I know I am not alone in thinking this way, am I?  Philosphers, poets, as well as spiritual and political  leaders have for centuries used hope and our dependence on it to move humanity forward, haven't they? Aren't we taught that it is all about going forward.  What has been conditioned in us, is this message, "Now sucks! Don't think about it. Deny it! Repress and suppress it!  It is not important. Escape it by turning your mind to something up in the distance.  The future is all important, all that matters really.  This moment doesn't matter unless it can take you up there. Just use this awful or insignificant  now as a stepping stone only ...step on it, crawl over it, pretend it doesn't exist...as you make your way to that distant light up ahead. Always have a light up ahead to move toward. Focus on that. " 

Hmmm! This mentality works I suppose in keeping people moving forward toward their goals.  It keeps up productivity and movement, activity and alike. 

But.... 

Hope: A Destroyer of the Acceptance of  Now? 

What does hope and a reliance on looking forward to something do to our understanding of the "now"?   If my happiness is dependent on having something to look forward to up there in the future ( a time, I will remind you that never comes) am I truely happy, and at peace?  Am I truly living if I am experiencing life only in my mind? How do we then respond to the moment we are in, the timeless, furureless presence? Are we using hope as a drug to numb from , so we do not have to truly "experience" and "feel" Life right here and now? 

When we get to a certain understanding that life is now...not up there in the "idea" of a  future, that the future is just a mental concept created by an ego that is never satisfied....will hope still have the same effect on our life expereience? Will we still need "something to look forward to" or will we find a certain peace in having "nothing to look forward to"?

Hmm!  I ponder this as I realize my future, according to ego, looks pretty blah! At first, I was like OMG...I have nothing to look forward to...there must be something terribly wrong with me."

Peace in Not Having Something to Look Forward To.

Then I gently reminded myself : My life isn't up there in some proverbial future.  It is here and now.  I don't have to numb from this moment, no matter how challenging it may be, by filling my mind with an injection of hope...I just have to be  here and now, breathe here and now, experience what my body is feeling here and now, notice, allow and learn from the emotions that are here and now as I express them, release them without judging them. I don't need something to look forward to.  I need to live in the only time I can truly live...here and now.

Wow!

That was a bit of a revelation. 

Maybe we should do as Charlotte Bronte did...look into the moment, the presence, the essence of now which she referred to as looking upward to the source of faith...  rather than spend all our time looking forward to something.

All is well.

Change Required?

 

I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.

George C. Litchenberg

Man.  I know I need to make a major change in my life.  I have been knowing I had to do this for a while.  This dream I had recently about what was going down in my body and the warning I had that if I don't make changes soon it could become something more serious...was more than a little reminder to make a change. My symptoms are a reminder everyday.  My body is a loud communicator! 

I kind of know what type of change I need to make but I really do not know...or at least...I refuse to accept fully what this change will entail. I just know I gotta make one.

How do we know we need to make a change in our lives?

I have realized there is several things that I experience that precedes any change making necessity in my own life experience:

• I find myself dissatisfied with doing the same old thing over and over again.  It seems that I am stuck in a cycle of mundane activity. It becomes even painful to do the things I do in my "routine".
• Energy levels are low.  I become tired and easily fatigued physically.  Emotionally, I am less happy.
• I get sick.  That is a big one for me.  My body cries out , "Don't keep doing this to me." 
• Negative circumstances, just keep bombarding me.  It is like I am a cow in the wrong pasture and Life is constantly zapping me with some Celestial cattle prod in order to get me moving out of that pasture. 
• I care about the material things around me less and put less energy into looking after them.  Whereas I might be all up on everyone to not eat in the living room when I am settled, for example, ...I just give up on nagging, realizing how insignificant it all is when a need for change is pending. 
•  I notice and have less tolerance for others' less than considerate behaviours but at the same time I do absolutely nothing to try to change them.  I don't even express my feelings about them anymore.
• I am irritable and not nice to be around.
• I have an intense need to run away, to leave everyone and everything in my present experience behind
• I am withdrawn and self protective. I don't want to be around people.
• I need time alone to think, write and meditate.
• I hungrily seek nature...even if it is only to stand out in the sun or to open a window so as to feel the breeze and listen to bird song.  
• I need to pray, meditate, reflect a whole lot more.
• I become selfish and even narcisstic.
• I become less dependent on others
• And the big one...I no longer look forward to the future....with more of the same in it

Of course, these are also all the signs and symptoms of depression, aren't they? Yet...I know from past experience ...that all it takes for me to get beyond these things is a change.

There is an old saying, "A change is as good as a rest." I truly beleive that.

The question is, now as I am evolving ever so slowly: "What type of change is called for?  An internal one or an external one?"

Sometimes I need an internal change to match or deal with the external circumstances of my life.  And sometimes I need an external change, to deal with or match the internal condition of my life.

What I figure I need when I answer that question this time  is an external change to match what is happening inside me. For some reason the  energy of my present environment  and circumstances is not matching my inner  compulsion for peace and harmony. I am choosing, accepting, allowing, and unsuccessfully closing my eyes to things in my outer world that are negatively affecting me and that I have the power to change. 

Hmm!

I need to serioulsy think about what type of changes I need to make..

What about you?  Do you see a need for change in your life?  And if so...is it an internal or external change you need to make?

Something worth considering.

All is well in my life.

Writing About Pain

 

Took yesterday's post down.

Why?

It came off complainy.  I was focusing on pain,  the less than positive that was happening to my body and in my life. It all seemed like a very narcissitic adventure.

So I took it down.  

But as I was writing about why I took it down, this came to me. 

Pain 

It wakes me up;

it knocks me down;

it causes me to curl up in a ball.

I step away;

I slap away;

I slip away into "me"

It steeps,

it bubbles up

until  it boils over, 

scalding 

and inflaming "my" tender flesh

into a vibrant shade of red.

 

If only  I could remember

that all I have to do

is not panic

and reach over with one trembling limb,

to lift the cover the mind provides 

up and away,

just so  pain,

in gasps of steam, 

can escape

while humanity patiently 

watches the boiling sensation

be reduced to a simmer.

I can manage a simmer. 

We can all manage a simmer.

Dale-Lyn, March, 2021

And then I felt compelled to put yesterday's post back up. 

Isn't it okay to express how we all can  overcome the suffering pain brings about when we allow story, resistance and impatience ito escape from the  experience, even if it is an "I" explanation?  I also  wanted to express how pain is a human experience rather than an individual one...even when it seems so personal.  Expressing pain, allowing it to be released helps to reduce the pain of human  Life to a simmer.

I often write in "I" but I do want to take that "I" and expand it into a greater Self. 

As far as the dreams I can have go...don't get hung up on that.  I don't understand them.  I just , at this point, trust them. And I haven't a clue why.  Call it woo-woo if you want to.  It is all good. 

All is well.

 

Enduring Pain With Patience

 It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure the pain with patience.

Juluis Ceasar 

I guess this energetic chaos is going to last until after March...in my version of life anyway lol.  

The Many Forms of Pain

 In my attempt to be there for  a suffering  loved one yesterday,  something I said or did ( not sure what), caused a severe behavorial reaction. And of course, though I automatically put on my Old Psych nurse persona when I feel it is called for and appeared  so calm and distant, I couldn't help but to soak it all in . It was like breathing in a cloud of dark, heavy smoke. It just polluted me. When I was alone, I literally fell to my knees. 

I have been feeling a little less than well physically the last week or so anyway.  This "energy" or emotion...whatever you want to call it that I have been picking up over the last few months is being absorbed, it seems, by the cells of my body.  

My old friend...pelvic pain...started with a vengenance two days ago ...after I noticed the other things that go with it. I am like, "Why? Do I not have enough?" 

It got so bad after the other's reaction I felt like I was in labor. It was excruciating for hours.  Others wanted to take me into ER but as always I resisted that big time.  Not that I should, nor do I recommend anyone with that amount of pain sucking it up...just my fear of past experience induced shaming is always bigger than my fear of pain or being ill...now that I really do not have much of a fear of dying anymore. I have even less desire to go there. Rationally, I know I probably should have went. Anyway...not recommending that avoidance to anyone . 

So this phyiscal pain became all emcompassing in my experience.  I couldn't see beyond it.  I was far from patient. All I could do was think about me in this body.  The pain took me away from thinking about the others who were suffering...any other.  I got lost in it.  I got lost in "me". I found myself "fighting" it, "resisting" it, "closing up" to it etc...my head was full of, "This isn't right!  This shouldn't be happening at this point of my life.  Something is really wrong." etc   

I had to remind myself of a very reassuring dream I had a week ago, before the symptoms even showed up,  that explained what would be happening in my body...and told me not to worry, it was not life threatening. That the removal of a body part would be coming but it was all going to be okay.  (Yes...I have those kinds of dreams). That  memory of the dream removed the "negative story" from the  experience, so there was just the pain and not the worry.

Anyway...the point is that it is so easy to get lost in the habitual way of responding to pain, be it physical or emotional. We can resist it, deny it, react to it with unwanted behaviours, we can close up to it and attempt to push it away or down...but what happens when we do that...the pain gets worse doesn't it?  It becomes all encompassing. This supressed and repressed pain can come out in an explosion of behaviour like the one I witnessed or it can become so intense physically like my pain experience did.

Resistance not the answer.  Patience is.

When I , yesterday, remembered my Tonglen practice of dealing with similar pain, when I decided I was  going to fall and relax into it instead of curl up in resistance to it...when I said out loud that I was going to allow it to be.  Then...I began to feel the pain and watch the pain and know that I was not the only one who ever expereinced this type of pain. I became the witness of the pain, rather than the pain. The pain, rather than being a monster in my life...became a teacher.  I asked "Why?" but not in the resistance tone I did earlier.  It was more of a "Why are you here in my life? What are you here to teach?" 

Then I relaized that pain was directing me back into this body and this idea of "me". It told me to look after this form.  I seen it too as a reminder to release tension and other emotion from my body...  to let go... so I can heal. I physically uncurled my body from the fetal position it was in. I uncurled my fists, relaxed my jaws which were clenched up, released my brow from the furrow it was in. I simply breathed in and out and did my best to follow the breath. I began to watch the nature of pain....it came in waves with a gentle onset thatt quickly rose to a crest or peak before falling back down and away. I breathed with it. ...instead of against it.  I was very, very patient with it. 

Before long my body relaxed into the pain and I fell asleep.  When I woke up I was relatively pain free.  Now I know the "problem" is not resolved.  Pain still creeps back in every now and again but I am using OTCs to keep it from getting too much.  I am seeking medical help for it. My focus is not so much on what is "wrong" or on how much it will hurt but on how much does it have to teach me. Pretty cool.

And then when I went to check what was read today...there was an entry read  on my stats page  from way back where I talked about how I dealt with such pain...how cool is that? 

Hmmm! 

A Little Nudge to Keep Going

 

No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaken excellence. 

Martin Luther King

So today my stats reveal that I have had over 60,000 readers (not just for today lol...but so far...since 2017).  It seems like such a big number, more than I ever expected, but I am still not really sure what that means because I am not sure if those registered hits are actually from sources who have read or who even can read. I have been informed that there are plenty of bots out there. (I picture a bunch of R2D2's randomly punching the keys on some computer keyboard...that is how up to date my technological understanding of things is lol)). 

For other vloggers or bloggers who get  well above the 100,000 viewer/reader mark  in a few days or weeks,  60,000/ a five year span is probably such an insignificant number anyway.

But when I allow "Sixty-thousand" to roll off my tongue I get a nice feeling inside me.  Not because I think  "I, in this little typing form, have been 'recognized' but because it "may" mean that this learning that  is so important to me...this internal pull I have to come here everyday so as to pass it on...may actually be received by at least a few. It, my chosen 'work',  may not just be for "nothing". 

I know the more I come here to spit all this stuff onto the page, the more I am learning, the more I am growing, healing, moving forward in a direction  that brings peace.  I don't think I am doing it just  for  me though nor do I want to be. When I come here I sincerely hope I am doing it for a higher purpose I have  yet to completely understand....that I am using the little  I have left to give away  to  serve.   Hmmm!

So for some reason...whether it has to do with some left over ego gratification I am still clinging to or this realization that I may actually be doing my small part to uplift humanity...60,000 readers is like a little pat on the back from the universe, a little gentle nudge to keep going. So I do.  I keep going. 

All is well.

Relieving a little Water

 

Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by a little water.

Antoine Rivarol

Still crying off and on.  Man! Once the damn is open the water just keeps flowing, eh? I literally feel lighter.  There was sooo much stuffed inside me.  I think what I am releasing is only the stuff that accumulated from December til now...so much 'crisis' in that time frame. ...so much intense emotion.  Because I was called to "act" on so many occassions, I didn't have the opportunity to process through one crisis before there was another one to deal with. So I had to stuff it, push it down, swallow it so I could act  on the next crisis, so I could be there for yet another...telling myself in some unspoken way that I would process and deal later with the undealt-with emotion I kept accumulating as I went from one event to another.   An opportune later just never seemed to come. Some one constantly needed me.

And my being there, my actions, were seldom  appreciated or valued for the most part.  Not that they had to be, that is petty ego stuff...but at least if it were I would be given the validation that what I was doing was at least helping in some way so I would know all my self-draining was at last serving a beneficial purpose.  Infact, what I gave  was even met with a certain amount of resentment from others, contempt.  I assume some of that resentment and contempt came because what I was able to give  was so limited by the number of demands and the number of people who needed me. Those hurting individuals could not understand my effort or my limitations. And then there were those who just felt "entitled" and/or who blamed me, assumed I was out to get them and  who clung to past conflict in order to rationalize why they had the right to not appreciate my efforts or be angry at me.  Very few expressed concern or awareness  about my own human limitation and need.  They expected and demanded to be served. 

So not only did I pick up the suffering of others ( actually feeling it) , I picked up their anger, that resentment, that blame, that expectation, that lack of consideration for me.   It was all so blasted overwhelmning.  I kept stuffing it down and down and down. 

I want to say as I did yesterday when the flood gates first opened, "It is just 'too' much!  It is too much." but it isn't "too much"...it just is.  It is as it is. 

All is well. 

Conceiving and Believing

 Whatever the mind  can conceive and beleive, it can achieve.

Napoleon Hill

It is after three in the morning. I awoke with the intense need to cry...and I did. The tears actually started last evening. I broke....I cracked...I bawled. I began, without planning on it, to release the flood gate of emotion that was damned inside of me...my emotion, the emotion I absorbed from others around me ( my children's mostly), then the world's. 

Conceiving Suffering

I was holding on to all this emotion...so much stuffed  suffering in this imperfect, broken shell I still call "me". In this very flawed form I can only "do" so much to help relieve it, to make it better for others . I was reminded last evening that I haven't done enough,that  I can never "do" enough and the results if I don't do more  may be be drastic. 

I don't know what to do that will help.  I don't know who to go to. My own experiences accessing a very broken system  have scarred me deeply and I am allowing those scars, that fear and that doubt to get in the way of accessing it for others. I beat myself up for that only to realize...I cannot access it for anyone else anyway.  I cannot fix this for anyone...yet I feel the intense pain of guilt and shame for not trying harder.  

And I am not trying hard enough...I know that.  I am just so burnt out from carrying my own trauma and the trauma of others. I am so tired. I have been seeking moments, shut off from the rest of the world with all its suffering to preserve myself, to rejuvenate and to replenish so that I could altruisticly  be there more fully...and selfishly so I could experience some peace in my life....but Life wouldn't let me have much of  those moments either.  It would constantly interupt me with "Someone needs you."  And I would go...or at least try to offer my presence and my support...a bit of my hard earned wisdom if it was called for....only to get  called away here and then there and then back here...Everyone seemed to need me at once and I just couldn't spread my mind and my body thin enough to be there for everybody...and for each person that did get me... what they got from me, in regards to what they needed and expected,  was just too thin. 

Beleiving Suffering is My Destiny

Eventually this body and mind I call "mine" gets so frustrated with life for asking me to give so much while not giving me the opportunity to replenish between all the crisis'...I stop seeing the goodness in it and start to expect these challenges to keep coming my way.  Then I feel like "Oh my goodness, I am somehow creating this suffering for others because all I expect is suffering."If my mind creates my experience...and my mind conceives and believes suffering...and my deepest suffering now comes from watching others suffer and not being able to help...then this is what life gives me."  Does it really work that way? 

How do I stop it?

 All I can think to do now is pray.  I ask for help from that which cannot be seen with the human eye.

I need your help in this prayer, too. ..if you would be so kind. I believe I need your good intentions, your positive thoughts, your prayers sent in my direction.  I need outside forces to break through this cloud of negativity that binds those loved ones of mine and the people around me in this karmic wheel of suffering.  

Pray Please

Pray for me (that sounds so selfish); pray for my loved ones, and pray for all those who are suffering from anxiety, depresssion, psychosis and addiction; pray for healthy reform and recovery of this system so there is better and more timely access and help provided; pray for all those souls within the system who are trying their best to help with the limited support resources and time they have; pray for the light of hope to weave its way through all of this...growing and glowing so we all can see that suffering is only a small part of this human experience, not all of it, that the 10,000 joys are available to all of us if we would only conceive of them and believe in them ; pray that the human mind can know its own power so that it conceives and believes in light...in its amazing potenial to create a life of peace and happiness, instead of constantly enduring one of suffering. .. And pray that we see our God-given power to  make Life something very much worth holding on to!

Amen

Thank you!

All is well in my world. 

Away From My Desk

There is no trick or cunning, no art or recipe, by which you can have in your writing what you do not possess in yourself.

Walt Whitman

 Truth comes out so easily and without effort in a poem, doesn't it? We come out in our poems...all raw and naked, trembling and exposed. You really cannot hide anything when you write poetry.

 Skipping into Chapter Five : Shards of Memory Poems in my self directed poetry workshop and feel compelled to finish some poems before I come here...great once again for my memoir...possibly lol. I don't know.  I just have to write them.

I will be back.

All is well!

A Little Song of Hope

 Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, -and sings the tunes without the words- and never stops at all.

Emily Dickinson

I am not sure what to write today.  So very tired. I feel like I have been bombarded with challenging life circumstances the last few months...not so much in anything one would call "my" life but in feeling the suffering of others. Sometimes... it just feels so overwhelmning!

It is all good though...it is all good.

Today as I was getting out of the car and the intense light was shining down on me...I heard a robin singing in the not so far distance.  My heart quickened with hope.  Spring is close. Things are going to turn around.  Things will turn around. 

All is well in my world. 

Everything can heal

 You look at me and cry:everything hurts; I hold you and whisper: but everything can heal.

Rupi Kaur

It is lovely out there...I love the light!!! 

I have this strong urge to seek a deeper answer regarding a big issue...after finding out that someone who I feel needs it has been taken off all antipsychotics for a reason I cannot understand! He, I discovered, has actually been without these meds since the time that dark, heavy feeling remerged in me? 

I am like "WTF(rontdoor)?"...I am not even going to try to go to the mental health system...any system  to ask , "Why?" "Why is this happening?  Why is there such a deficiency of  help in this area when the need is so very, very great? "  

The system, I know,  is so overwhelmned.  Individuals within it, as well meaning and caring as they may be, have no choice but to close down and shut off.  Pointing out inadequacies, blaming and judging those who work within this system is not the answer. They, for the most part, are likley doing the best they can!

My gut tells me not to go there for help or to point a finger.   It tells me, instead,  to sit in meditation and ask, "What am I to understand from this and what can I do to help?" 

That is what I did today.  That is what I will keep doing until the answer comes.

So, so ironically, when I finished meditaton today I immediately happened upon a news story about mental health in my province and the call for reform.  They mentioned the need to expose the deficiency.  I get the feeling we need to instead dig for the solutions and implement them. Not just by getting more funding, psychiatrists and other professionals trained in this area...which would be great for sure...but by getting to the root of this "pandemic" of suffeirng that is taking palce in the age group especially between 15-30. 

I have always been big on preventive health...let's teach kids at a young age about life's contrasts ... the 10,000 joys as well as the 10,000 sorrows...  so they are better able to cope with both.  Hmmm! That's what my gut is telling me. 

All is well

Oh, The Words....

 Oh, the words, the words, the achingly inadequate beautiful words.

Terry Hertzler from In the Palm of Your Hand

On Chapter Three of the poetry workshop book,   In the Palm of Your Hand by Steve Kowit. In this chapter the reader is asked to write three prose poems. For some reason he is always trying to dig into childhood trauma as the creative center of these poems. Luckily I have a lot of grist in my writing mill. And it is also helpful that I am doing my memoir in poetic verse. (I know what you are thinking...I better learn the art of poetry before I go in that direction lol...thus the book I am working with now!!) I can maybe...use these poems...in that memoir. 

I wrote the first two quickly within ten-20 minutes each. It was tricky trying to get these memories properly emoted and clearly described in three to four sentences. Try it yourself!

Ultimately, what you need to do is give yourself permission to write poetry-and to have fun doing it.

Steve Kowit

This exercise  made me think of the prose poem...though I format most of my poems ( if someone would dare call what I put here poetry) in verse...they are probably more prose than poetry.  I tend to like full punctuated sentences with a beginning, middle and end.  Anyway....so I am going to try another prose  poem here...maybe about yesterday's topic? ...three to four sentences. Whatever comes out here, stays here, k?  Not edited, not revised...just down. Neither good or bad...just is.  I am going to write it quickly as I have someone waiting for me elsewhere.

Drsta Dharma Sukha Virharin

I try to settle myself down on this cushion awkwardly  situated  between the background of  a soothing emptiness and the world that dances like intoxicated fireflies in front of me, a world that drags my eyes up and down and all around. I close these hyper orbs of  limited vision and breathe in deeply,  searching as I do for that promised ease,  for a peace so settling it will allow me to slip beneath this cover of  here and now now, to rest a weary mind that so needs the silence and stillness the moment offers. I breathe out releasing the accumulated knots of  tension brought on by the busyness of repressed and supressed living.  My body and mind relax into the breath as if it were a comforting hamoc on a sunny July afternoon and I find the sukha  I have been looking for in this place  where it has always been.

All is well

Steve Kowit (2017) In the Palm of Your Hand. Second Edition. Maine: Tilbury House Publishers

Drsta Dharma Sukha Virharin

 Drsta dharma sukha virharin

-The Buddha

What?

Those lovely Sanskrit words that come from one of the Buddhist sutras  (I am not sure which one), and which I heard in a dharma talk from Thich Nhat Hanh today,  can be translated to mean:  dwelling happily in things as they are or dwelling peacefully and with ease in the here and now. 

I want drsta dharma sukha virhari for you.  I want it for me.  I want it for every being on this planet. Imagine what life would be like if we all had it.

I sit here with that dark heavy and confusing  feeling in the background of my experience, while I watch snow being blown almost ferociously over a cold landscape in the forefront of my experience and I feel a certain happiness with  things just as they are.  I find a certain  peace and an ease in this here and now.  I am indeed finding the capacity for drsta dharma sukha virharin.  Hmm! 

I offer you this video because it reminds me of the need to accept all things, even anxiety or fear, as they are. And please check out the amazing words of Thich Nhat Hanh in the link below.

Namaste

All is well.

Thich Nhat Hanh (October 2020) Sitting, Resting and Not Worrying https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jANxd6YGdAA

Healthy Empathy

 Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.

Roger Ebert

In a new spot, one I have never written in before.  I have moved my writing  desk which was stuffed awkwardly into the hall to make room for L. into my daughter's old room.  I have a window to look out of.  Yeah!!  And from that window I can see that it is beginning to storm out there.  March is coming in like a lion, therefore she will leave like a lamb. 

I am reminded of the energy reading I heard somewhere.  Things will begin to smooth out in March.  That will be nice.

Dark, Heavy Feeling Still Lingering

I do feel better than I did...I mean this dark, heavy feeling comes and goes and I know partially where it is coming from. Why I am picking it up...I don't know ...but I have a good idea where it is coming from. I know it isn't all mine...my reaction to it is mine but the source is enemating from  outside me. I can trust that empathetic or empathic ( whatever you want to call it) ability I have.  I am picking up something from another.  It is a something I cannot read and since I misread it before  it leaves confusion...a sense of mistrust in the other and in me mostly. 

 I know what I am seeing on the surface is not completely authentic...there is something behind appearances yet to be revealed.  Every now and again it will come  out in tiny little outbursts before being quickly sucked back in, and I can see certain behaviours slipping through the effort to restrain them. I am not saying what is beneath the surface is "bad" or "malicious" ...it is just not what I am seeing. 

I Don't Know What It Is

I feel off because I don't know what that emotional energy is. Whatever it is, I know it is very "strong" because of the way it affects me. And because I sense that it is being pushed and held down in order to provide an acceptable appearance, I fear how it will come out if that retsraint for control is weakened or lost.  How draining for the individual to have to hold it all in? I feel that too.

I felt this before. This time it is different, however, because for some strange reason most of the time I feel protected from it....which I didn't feel before.  And I do not feel the need to resist it and its many behavioral manifestations like I did before.  I feel more accepting of it and more empowered maybe.  I made a committment to "help" until this someone is better able to help themself. I see and have no problem with any of  the outer reasons for the person's need for support, the support I am in a position to provide temporarily. I have outward validatons that rationalize some of the behavioral choices, past and present. I genuinely can feel for the most part kindness, genorosity, compassion and love.   

At the same time I sense there is something else hidden under the surface that none of us are 'getting'. It is that unexplained something that leaves this dark heavy feeling in me. 

Regardless, I will do what I can to "help" meet this person's needs.  That is why we are all here. It is important that we  look to the hidden good in all of us and there is so much good in this individual.  He, as is every human being on this planet, worthy of my support, time and effort. 

Yet, I also know my own needs, as a person trying to evolve enough to make a difference in this world are very important too...regardless if others think so or not...and I will assert when the  time comes. 

This is all happening for a reason.  It imust be a part of both are learning curriculums. We are both, in a sense,  learning to see,accept, undersatnd and help meet the needs of others and ourselves.  

As part of meeting my own needs, I need to find a way to protect myself from other people's emotions, to seperate to some degree so I don't get lost in them.  I want to be empathetic and compassionate if it helps to make the world a better place but if it drains the heck out of me or makes me sick ...what kind of a difference will I be able to make? I need help learning to be empathetic in a healthy way. 

All is well.