Observing the Story at 7 O'Clock

 Have a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing. 

I am so stuck!! Or am I? 

I am struggling to get out of this story but as you can see by my last entry, I keep getting pulled back in.  There has to be some valuable learning that I am meant to gain and possibly share from it. I am learning some crazy but very cool things when I sit with my experience.  My experience at this moment is one of resisting my pull back to the story. I observe myself fairly present.  Then I observe myself experiencing the physical discomfort and the thinking that goes with it, then I observe myself getting pulled back into the story, the memory, and the identity. When I realize I am in a story, I consciously pull myself out with whatever tool I have in my toolbox: mindful breathing, awareness of my surroundings, the feel of my feet against the floor or earth as I walk.  I come  back and I ask, "What do I do with this so I don't keep getting pulled back in?"  I say, "I'll write!". I come here to write and what do I write about?  This story, of course. I don't intend to write about it but something pulls me back to it again and again.  Not sure if what I write is wholesome or skillful but it is honest. Yet the narration alone takes me from "experiencing" that which is likely crying to be experienced. 

According to Eckhart Tolle, in the below video, I am operating in a fiction called, "I am this".  I need to remind myself that " I am not this!" I am not this character in this story.  Every time I go into this story, however, I have to ask if I am strengthening my identity as the character in this story.  

I am not completely lost because I also realize I am not a character in any story. I am, like all human beings, really on a journey to lose self...not strengthen it.  That is what our true purpose is, what awakening is...getting beyond this puny little idea we have of self to who we really are. Even Jesus in Matthew 16: 24 tells his disciples that if they wanted to follow Christ in holiness,  they had to deny themselves.  This little puny "me-me" that we often over-dientify with/as and all the trappings that go with it is really nothing.  The Buddha reminded all who would listen, that the "self" was merely an illusion, a mental concept and as long as we are trapped in that identity we will have suffering/dukkha. As long as I am trapped in this story of me the suffering victim, I am suffering.

How trapped am I? And it must be really, really boring and annoying to hear me or read me when I keep getting lost in this story. lol 

I think that is some value to reviewing the story ( with some objective distance).  It allows me to see how my mind works, the minds of other humans work, and to explore relating through crucial universal laws and their effects on our experience. There is definitely some value to having those stored emotions related to memory come up so I can sit with them, look deeply into them and then let them pass through. Wayne Dyer speaks to this as well in the below video. In order to take charge of our lives and become unstuck, we need to let go of the "junk" we have stored within us that does not serve.  We need to heal from our traumas brought on by our identifications with little me. He said he was as positive and optimistic as he was because he did this.  We can all do this. 

He also explains using a cool analogy that we spend a lot of our lives moving away from who we really are, from the true Self in our identification with the little self that is not real. He uses the clock and explains that we start out at the 12 knowing who we are and then as we begin to age, like the hand of the clock, we begin to move away from that Self. By the time we hit three we forget about True Self and live like the little self,  lost in all the superficial glitter of the material world, creating a superficial idea of who and what we are based on what we do and what we own, what we believe and how our bodies look.   By the time we get to six (O'clock not six years old lol)  we are up to our necks in it and realize that something so important is missing. We are truly suffering.  That 6 O'clock can be seen as our dark night of the soul. We suddenly want more gold and less glitter. That is the turning point! From there, realizing that the "little self" does not offer us anything of value, we begin to move back toward the true Self.  We have gained certain life-altering realizations by the time we hit 9 from asking, "Who am I?" and find peace instead of dukkha.  The little self and all its glitter no longer does anything for us.  It dissolves.

And like the hands of the clock as we evolve there is no going back.  Once we reach that understanding that the ego identity is not who we are we cannot go back to it.  We cannot "unawaken". From six to 12 is a wonderful, sometimes confusing and challenging, journey. I see myself maybe around 7 O'clock.. It is still confusing and challenging but I am learning and growing.  So I may visit this story I seem to be stuck on again and again but it will never be able to pull me back in completely.  There is a distance between me and it. . My little identity is dissolving as I realize more and more who I really am.  I see clearly what I am doing and that is the progress of an awakening individual. 

Hmm!  I thought that was cool. 

All is well! 

Wayne Dyer/ The Prosperity Code  ( April, 2022) 15 Minutes with Wayne Dyer to Ease Your Mind and Soul. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jcaYk1VXYY

Eckhart Tolle (July 12, 2022) What is the Main Purpose in Life? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5NFgN-djJQ

Don't Suffocate in Victim Identity

 Holding on is suffocation; letting go is freedom. 

Deepak Chopra.

Struggling to Stay Centered

I have been having a challenging time staying in my peaceful center.  My mind keeps pulling me along that current of past memory and future expectation.  I so, just want to be in my moment but the pull away is so strong.  I am struggling to get out of my head and back into my body, my breath, and my moment. I think I am doing okay until  I see that a 30-dollar life insurance payment didn't go through because of insufficient funds.  I don't even have 30 dollars in my account!  And my mind says, "Why are you, who worked hard to save, invest, put away for the so-called "future", in this situation where you do not even have thirty dollars in your account? Oh yeah, I know why."

 I feel that knot in my gut beginning to unravel and that hand pushing the emotions back down to the bottom of that knot.  I tell myself I need to meditate.  When I close my eyes to focus on breath, however, every breath in leads to awareness of that feeling in my side. That sensation brings me to the "there is something there"  thought and that thought brings me to the thought, "Oh you better find out what it is," and that brings me to, "What?  Don't you remember how health-seeking is for you?  Come on...you are never going to find out what that is? And if you try to, you are only going to make things worse for yourself and others." ...And that brings me to memory after memory, stuffed painful emotion after stuffed painful emotion of what what was done, what wasn't done, what I experienced since I started to seek help for symptoms that were so real. 

...And then the mind says: "Well what are we going to do with all this pain?  Let's put it in a story where you are the star, a tragic heroine, powerless and waiting for a rescue that will likely never come." 

The Story

The mind turns the story into a mental movie and I go over and over the moving narrative again and again and again.  And then before I know it I am caught up in the story...forgetting that I am actually just observing it...not actually in it.  I become the tragic heroine. I get caught up in the "my" of this mental story and it becomes my identity.  

Victim and Villains

I identify as a "victim". Every victim needs a villain.  In my story, there are many my mind wants to label as "villains". No doubt there have been plenty of individuals who acted unconsciously in an attempt to preserve their own egos over the years...some more unconscious than others...and their actions have drastically impacted my life. What they have said or done, or not done was unskillful and unwholesome in dealing with other human beings....in dealing with themselves. But in truth, there are no villains...just other lost human beings in various stages of consciousness who I just happened to come in contact with during my health-seeking experience. They definitely did not set out to be cast in the role of "villain" in "my" story. In fact, they probably truly see themselves as the protagonist in their version of the story and me as the antagonist. ...or at least an "annoying obstacle"(if they see me at all) in their hero's journey.   

Grasping, Clinging, Holding On to Trauma

Anyway, this is what dealing with trauma is like for many of us. Despite how awful it feels, for some reason, we tend to cling to it and the identity it gives us.  We identify as powerless victims of our traumas and to the villains we perceive in our traumas. We get lost in this story ...living it as the star character when the story is no longer happening, when the real events are in the past. Sure it may be an ongoing thing like it seems to be for my form...but at this moment, I am not actively seeking help, I am not dealing with any unconscious people right here or now... except in my head.  What is causing my sense of suffering right now is not what happened in the past but my clinging to it through this story I keep living through.  

I am not a character in some story.  I am not, therefore, a tragic heroine, or a victim...and there are no villains tying me to railroad tracks right now.  What is bothering me at this moment...right here, right now...is just a story in my head and my insistence on playing the lead role in it for the sense of identity it gives me. 

Do you get that?  I am finally getting it. 

Thanks to a video I just happened upon today from Eckhart Tolle.  (Man is uncanny how these videos pop up right when I am writing or thinking about these issues.).  I felt like he was gently wagging his finger at me saying, "Now, now...look at what your mind is doing. Stop playing the victim!"  

In this video he asks the question, "How do you deal with what was done to you?" and of course, many of us deal with it the way I described above.  He then reminds us that the ego is always trying to add to our identity/its identity with something that allows for superiority...in this case: moral superiority.  My story as a victim sets me above my story's villains. I am somehow morally and ethically superior.  They, therefore, are morally and ethically inferior. Ego likes that.  It likes this story and what it does for self-identity. It is almost redemptive.  My memory of what was done to me gets incorporated into my sense of self.  It becomes who I think I am. But...it is just an illusion. All ego identity is delusional. 

Why would anyone want this version of self as a victim? Victims have no power...they are tied to railroad tracks, for goodness sakes.  They are helpless; they are stuck.  Why do we want to condemn ourselves to powerlessness when we can be free? 

Choosing Freedom Over Suffocation

We need to stop holding onto these stories, these delusional identities of victim if we want to transcend trauma.  Please know...that doesn't mean, by any means, that we dismiss or deny what happened, that we don't work through the memory and the pain, or that we don't make others accountable should they need to be accountable.  It doesn't mean we do not speak our truths for the benefit of others coming behind us...but we do not need to grasp the experience in our hands so we can say, "This is what I am!" 

The truth is we cannot grasp any experience.  It is impossible.  Experiences come... experiences go.  If we try to hold onto them like holding on to an in-breath...we will suffocate.  Let it go...just let it go...let it simply be the memory it is ...and we will all find our way to freedom. (Deepak Chopra)

All is well! 

If you are dealing with trauma memory right now, I am going to encourage you to view the videos below. 

The Chopra Well (May 30, 2022 ) New Guided Meditation- Finding Inner Peace.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW8tM9jpwBY

Eckhart Tolle (July 7, 2022) How to Deal with Victim Mentality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqtt6rhrNEs

Opening Up to the Vulnerability of the Heart

 The intimacy that arises in listening and speaking truth is only possible if we can open up to the vulnerability of our own hearts.  Breathing in, contacting the life that is right here, is our first step. Once we have held ourselves with kindness, we can touch others in a vital and healing way. 

Tara Brach 

It is so beautiful out there.  I close my eyes and I just get lost in the sound of the breeze rustling through the oak tree leaves, the pear leaves, and the apple tree leaves surrounding the front of my house.  I hear robins singing some beautiful chorus. It is so heavenly.  I could get lost in this.  I want to get lost in this. This is my moment.  This is my realiy.  This is where I want to be. 

 My mind has been struggling to pull me away from my moment since Saturday...I feel like I am tangled up in some brush being pulled down a thought stream current related to my health-seeking trauma. I just can't seem to do anything but go with it.  Memory after memory, thought after thought, emotion after emotion. Sometimes I just find myself standing staring into space with tears streaming down my face as I remember. Trauma triggers like the ones I encountered by simply walking through the ER doors ...have that way of pulling us away from the present into the past. Don't they?

Trauma?  Why do you keep calling it "trauma", crazy lady? Are you not overexaggerating? 

For you or anyone else, it might not have been so but for me it was "trauma". Why and how this has been traumatic for me is hard to explain. All I can say is that my experiences have led to so much suffering and loss, I will never fully recover from it.  Body, mind, and life situation has been irreversibly damaged. Oh, I can transcend it but whatever part of my ego that is left behind will be tangled up in residue from this experience for the rest of my life.  And that is okay, I understand that.  I can live with that...all a part of being human. I also know now that I  can use it as something that will take me to a higher level of understanding and peace where I so want to be, where there is no bruised and beaten ego or body to contend with. For that reason, I am grateful for "my perceived" experience of trauma.

Despite what may be believed by others, I am really not all that concerned about what is happening to my body. I am not afraid of ineveitable illness, inevitable death of form.  I am, however,  committed to taking care of it because I know I need it to take me wherever it is I am meant to go from here.  Yoga has taught me to be in my body, to "hear" my body, to listen to it, to use my body wisely, to appreciate it, and to look deeply into the messages it is telling me and others.  This pain I have in my side right now as I write this is one of those messages. That's all.  All the "many, many" bouts of pain I have experienced over the years were all communications from a wise body to the mind.  That's all.  I did not enter the ER on Saturday because I could not handle the pain.  It is not even that bad...a 5 may be on the scale. I can handle pain.  I have a remarkable pain tolerance but I know I also need to listen to these messages from my wise and amazing body.  Getting other people, who may or may not have preconceived ideas about me, to hear these messages is another matter. I have spent time, so much time and energy, trying to convince others of my truths, to get past assumptions and judgments, so my poor body could be heard,  I burnt myself out.  I gave up. 

 And I have come to the conclusion that it is really not that important if they do hear me, believe me, I suppose.  I mean, in the big scheme of things, it isn't important. I am not their opinion of me any more than I am limited to this form I am in. What is important is that "I" believe me.  That I realize, own, and express my truth.  My ability to trust myself and my body got all tangled up in that brush as well.  And that is the saddest part of all this. I stop knowing what is true for me.

Writing was my saving grace. Recording and working through the events, the memories, and the emotions have allowed some major healing to take place and that healing is just beginning.  I am healing now, with every bout of memory-induced tears, I am healing.  I am opening up to that which I stuffed down and locked away in my pandora's box. Every time I tell my story, without anger, malicious intent or a desire for revenge, I am healing.  When feelings of compassion come up for me and what I endured, and what my loved ones endured because of this experience, I am healing.  And man oh man, I am even having genuine feelings of compassion and forgiveness for all involved...that is real healing. 

Hmmm!  I know my recent entries have me far too "self-centered" and I apologize for that but in order to be there for others, I need to be there for me. This trauma is calling for me to sit with it, breathe through it, feel whatever it is I have been stuffing and heal...so I can do my small, probably insignificant, part in helping to heal the world. That's what we are all here for right.

Namaste! 

All is well. 

Getting Through the Trauma of Assumption

It is sad that we never get trained to leave assumptions behind.

Sebastian Thrun

 Lovely day.  Sitting here still holding my gut.  Though I feel so better in so many ways about my visit to ER yesterday, the pain...sigh...has not gone away. I probs shouldn't even call it pain...discomfort maybe, an uncomfortable fullness that gets worse when I eat. Sure, there is sharp pain every now and again when I move a certain way but for the most part it is just a dull ache.  Something I can definitely handle. I would not have made a fuss about it at all if it wasn't for the fact I thought it might be from an enlarged spleen.  I just didn't want to walk around with that if it were the case.  I thought I needed to know so  I could take precautions. Anyway, part of me wishes I did not go in yesterday.  I hate adding any more to my already swollen chart that leads to so, so much "assumption" about me that is quite challenging for the reactive part of me that is still present to deal with. I have dealt with so many judgments, "wrong perceptions" and negative assumptions over the years when it comes to health-seeking...I have been deeply traumatized. It impacted almost every aspect of my life. From shame to pain...from psychological loss to physical.  Here I am about to lose my house...why?  Because of that assumption. As soon as that feeling of "injustice" and "loss" and "powerlessness" comes up I notice the desire to push it all back down away from my conscious awareness with an "Oh well!" or an "Anyway..."It is just too much. 

In my attempt to make peace with my version of life, I have been stuffing, repressing, suppressing, minimizing, intellectualizing and using every other defense mechanism I can think of just to prevent this thing from taking me down.  But I also know that isn't a wise or skillful approach to challenge. I know that the only way out of this sense of trauma is by going through it.  I have to walk through, all those memories, stored experiences, and stuffed emotions, namely the shame and the fear, so I can get to the other side. 

It is definitely challenging to deal with these painful emotions. Every time I encounter what I perceive as this assumption from others (and it could be 'wrong view' on my part) ...the sense of shaming is like kryptonite to me, triggering and reactivating a lot of pain.  It knocks me to my knees for a while. So though yesterday offered some wonderful steps to recovery, it still has left me a little shaken.  I am having a bit of difficulty getting away from "trauma thoughts" today to clear-headed presence.  I am reminded of all the challenges I now have to deal with,  the circumstances that have arisen because of these negative assumptions...

There was a paragraph here full of: ....story...story...story...expressed anger...suffering victim identity...subtle pointing out the "perceived" villains to strengthen my victim identity and "my" story...feeding a subtle desire for anger and revenge...hurt...pain...shame...story, story, story....

Ugh!!! Okay...these are useless ruminations taking me farther and farther away from presence Deep breath! .  There is no going back...just forward.

My practice has led me to see that I have not and will not lose anything of value: my reputation as an honest person, my livelihood, my career, my investments and money, my house, and my body are really not great losses.  I am not what I do.  I am not what I own.  I am not other people's opinion of me. I am not this body.  I am so, so much more. 

I will overcome all this.  I will. I have so much to gain from this experience of suffering...a deeper understanding, transcendence, and a connection to what is really important. I will get there, one step at a time. 

Forgive me for my rampage...it seemed to want to come out here.  Not sure if it is of value to anyone, including me. I will consider that and take it down later if I see no value.

All is well. 

From Prisoner to Pioneer

 

Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.

Deepak Chopra

Ahhh...still reactive.  It is amazing how challenging it is to stay non-reactive, to stay in that higher state of consciousness, eh?  Despite all my practice and my commitment to behaving non-reactively...I still react to certain things.  I still go from a higher state of consciousness to a lower one when triggered. One of my biggest triggers is the health-seeking environment.  

Another Personal Example 

As I mentioned a few posts ago I was quite sure I had an enlarged spleen. 4-6 weeks ago probably closer to 6, I noticed some tenderness in my Left Upper Quadrant under the rib cage.  Thought for sure I just pulled a muscle in yoga so when I spoke to my doctor in June about other things...namely that bad bout of chest pain I had on May 9, I did not feel it was necessary to mention the "muscle pain".  Well, that pain continued to get more and more "annoying" as the weeks went by and less and less typical of muscle injury pain.  When I started getting it in my shoulder, I automatically thought it must be the spleen.  It must be enlarged. Why would it be enlarged? My mind started to go through all the possibilities: Mono, some type of infection, some type of liver issue or gall bladder issue,  or maybe something to do with that cyst on my ovary.  All I knew was that if the cause of this pain was the spleen and if it was enlarged I should probably get it checked to avoid the risk of rupture or perforation...  But that would mean entering the place I hate to go to, entering a system that I literally have PTSD from (as weird as that sounds).  So I put off getting checked for another two weeks, telling myself I will wait until I hear from my doctor about the other tests I had done recently.  I also knew that since I didn't hear back, the blood tests were probably normal meaning I did not have Mono ( which seemed like the most obvious cause for having an enlarged and tender spleen).  So the mystery of what was causing this splenic pain became an even bigger mystery.

 As you can read, I make a lot of "assumptions" that this is splenic.  My gut was and is so strongly telling me it is and my gut, despite the initial opinion from others,  is often right when it comes to health issues related to me or my loved ones.  That being said, it has also been wrong on more than one occasion...like when I hurt my arm in 2017 and was so sure it was fractured...I made the second trip to ER demanding an X-ray... that x-ray showed it was not fractured after all...embarrassing. 

Anyway, the "discomfort" has been affecting my sleep, and D. and others were starting to notice I was having pain and expressed concern.  I promised that if by Monday, it was not better I would contact my doctor and let him know.  They were not happy with that answer and more than strongly suggested that I go to ER so I could have the tests done that needed to be done. And part of me knew I should not wait too long if an enlarged spleen was a possibility. 

Facing Old Trauma Triggers 

So reluctantly and oh-so shamefully and anxiously  I went to ER this morning.  I was so anxious before I went and in that first thirty minutes dealing with the health care team. Trigger! Trigger! Trigger! Anxious!! My thoughts were wild: "Why did I come?  What if it is nothing more than muscle pain?  Oh man, they are going to see the size of my chart and it is all going to start all over again. Once again, I am making too much out of nothing." 

I got myself so worked up, that I was afraid I would go into a run of something while there that would just complicate things.  I felt like a vet walking back onto a battlefield or something. I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could. But something in me said: "Learning Opportunity, healing opportunity, growing opportunity. Just sit with this! Regardless of what happens physically, this is important for your growth!" So, I practiced my mindful breathing, sat with the anxiety and shame, allowing it, embracing it, and prepared myself for a wait.  So grateful that it wasn't busy. I didn't have to wait long at all. 

Defensive, and Assertive

I have great respect for health care teams and what they do.  I really do. I used to be a part of one. Still, because of my own memory and defenses, I perceived judgment and shaming from others that may or may not have been there.  I found myself fearful and defensive, and at the same time, surprisingly,  remarkably assertive in insisting that I believe the spleen was involved. I didn't try to be assertive...it just pushed itself through my habitual way of reacting in this environment. And there I was observing what was happening around me, and more importantly in me as if from a distance.  Cra-cra. 

Courage: Confronting Other Opinion/ Confronting Our Own Reactivity

Well in dealing with the attending I found myself even more reactive.  I perceived a challenging, testing and over-probing tone to his questioning as he referred again and again to the "many, many" complaints I had of "belly issues" in the past...my chart! As he asked questions in this way, I found myself slipping back through the years to old conditioned ways of reacting.  I was stumbling over my explanations, forgetting things, panicking almost as I sat there waiting for him to call me a liar like others, who ironically had the same accent,  have done.  I started to curl up small. 

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt this thing come up in me. I looked at him and heard myself ask, "Why are you asking me so many questions like that in that manner?" 

It surprised him.  He stopped. ( It surprised the heck out of me.)  He began to explain how he needed to ask questions to gather all the information he could. 

I interjected again, "I understand and appreciate that but I am picking up something in your tone. Yes, I have had a history of pelvic pain in the past. The reports will show an ovarian cyst. This, however,  is the first time I had this type of pain.  I am a fairly well-educated and intelligent human being and I know something is going on in there. And because of the location and nature of the pain, I think it might be the spleen. " 

With that, everything shifted.  Even though I was trembling like a leaf, I felt myself uncurling, getting taller, bigger. And he no longer seemed to be an opponent towering over me in a position of power.  He became, in my eyes, just another human being I was relating to. His approach changed dramatically. He suddenly became much more respectful and kind. And instead of probing and challenging, he began to explain everything, all the possibilities. He explained what he was going to do. He told me he was going to call my GP for more information and I said, "Go for it!" It turned out to be a quick and relatively painless health-seeking experience after that.

So I am now home. We still don't know what is going on and if indeed my gut instinct is right or not. Ultrasound has been ordered to check the spleen more thoroughly. I am to meet with my GP  on Monday.  If there is swelling in the spleen, it is not enough to cause concern for rupture ( usually has to be double the size for it to happen). And it has been determined from palpation that it is not double the size. I have a prescription for an NSAID .  So I will take it at night so I can at least sleep. ...all good.

The Point of This Story 

The point of this story, like my life,  has little to nothing to do with what is going on in my body/the body but more about what goes on in my mind/the mind.  I wanted to address, once again,  using a personal example, the very human tendency many of us have toward reactivity based on our stored memories.  I wanted to speak about the importance of confronting our fears, our traumas, and our shame. I have had some very traumatic and life-altering health-seeking experiences that have impacted me greatly. And I  have stored memory inside me that still gets triggered whenever I even think about having to access the health care system.  Instead of avoiding triggers, and continuing to repress and suppress, however, we need to process through perceived trauma.  This experience of confronting my trigger, first by accessing the system and then by speaking up about the way I was being addressed, as trivial and inconsequential as it may seem,  has given me the opportunity to do that. If I can take these baby steps toward recovery, there is great hope anyone can do it. 

In our missions to be more conscious and aware, we want to eliminate reactivity by releasing our stored painful emotions once and for all. We begin this process by first of all observing and understanding our tendency to mentally and emotionally react because of these stored emotions.  Then we can challenge ourselves, to stop avoiding, numbing from, stuffing down those feelings that are painful. When we are ready,  we can then courageously call these emotions up to our awareness, sit with them and even befriend them. If I didn't do that prior to my face-to-face with the attending I probably would not have said anything and allowed myself to continue to react in conditioned ways of avoidance of feeling and learned helplessness to the approach that was so triggering for me.  But I had told myself I was not going to flee like I so wanted to do, that I am so used to doing.  I was going to sit and be with the feelings that were coming up as triggered.  As each feeling came up, I didn't resist them or push them back down.  I observed and allowed. They were very much a part of my experience when I confronted the attending in the mild but meaningful way that I did.  

I also wanted to show how mindfulness of the present moment can be an amazing anchor, keeping us grounded in present-based response rather than past-based reaction.   When I felt the reactivity within me, instead of my natural tendency to resist, I began to breathe mindfully.  I began to observe what was happening in each moment. ...both pleasant and unpleasant.  This reduced my anxiety tremendously and gave me the foundation of presence needed to be assertive in a wholesome way. 

This was a very productive learning, healing, and growing experience for me. Huge, actually! I am so grateful for it, the attending, my GP and the entire team that has helped me in ways they would never understand.

All is well

Think Big

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.

Proverbs 23:7 KJV

Okay, I have been touched again and again today by these little fingers of serendipity and it is oh so cool. I have been happening upon speakers talking about "How can I serve?" over and over again, when that is a question I recently have been asking.  I read the same question in a book I am reading.  And most awesomely...I heard Wayne Dyer speak to certain quotes about  "banishing doubt" using ACIM....to do here what we are meant to do as bringers of light.   I go into my computer to write and look down to see my copy of ACIM randomly opened to a page and can you guess what page it was?  

The page these quotes are found on. Go figure! ACIM Chapter 15, III:3-5

 Every decision you make stems from what you think you are, and represents the value that you put upon yourself. Believe that little can content you, and by limiting yourself you will not be satisfied.  For your function is not little, and it is only by finding your function and fulfilling it that you can escape your littleness...

You do not have to strive for it, because you have it.  All your striving must be directed against littleness...To hold your magnitude in perfect awareness in a world of littleness is a task the little cannot undertake. 

Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God?..for every decision you make does answer this and invites sorrow or joy accordingly...Every decision you make is for Heaven or for hell, and brings you the awareness of what you decided for. 

What we think we are is who we are.  Think big and be big, think small and be small.  Why do so many of us choose to be small?

All is well.

How Can I Best Serve Humanity?

 Discover your divinity, find your unique talent, serve humanity with it, and you can generate all the wealth that you want.  When your creative expressions match the needs of your fellow humans, then wealth will spontaneously flow from the unmanifest into the manifest, from the realm of spirit to the world of form. You will begin to experience your life as a miraculous expression of divinity-not just occasionally, but all the time. And you will know true joy and the true meaning of success-the ecstasy and exultation of your own spirit. 

Deepak Chopra, page 101

Giving Up Expectations 

Been a busy day. 3:33 and I am just sitting to write now.  I was blessed with time with all three grandchildren today and it was worth a bit of disruption in practice: no meditation, no salutation, no writing...until now.  I was able to squeeze in a bit of listening and some QiGong for which I am grateful.  I also went out for a walk with dogs in the woods, after all children were with their parents,  in hope that I would slip into a  nice walking meditation but other than a few mindful breaths and a few mindful steps...can't say I got my practice in there.  All good...is what it is. Some days the world seems like it is laying out a golden path to meditation before me and other days it is an old country road full of potholes and mud.  :)  I have long since given up expectations of how my practice should be. As I was walking, I had a book proposal idea come to me ...cool.  And when I was rocking one of my grandsons I had a little ditty come to me that he seemed to like. So though I might not have been completely mindful all day, I was able to get beyond thought to the island of creativity within me. I love that when it happens. :) 

Wanting to Serve

Anyway...as I wrote in recent entries I really, really want to serve and I am not sure how to serve.  I just know that I want to give the remainder of my Life away to a higher cause...one that goes beyond "me-me".  I was looking into volunteering abroad, thinking too that would also be a wonderful opportunity for my daughter who struggles...for both of us to step beyond "self", use and appreciate using these amazing bodies that allow us to see so much, do so much,  travel and above all help those in need!! And I so want to travel. We had to step back away from a trip to Crete that we were planning with family because of the finances...We were looking forward to it, would have been fun but unrealistic right now. Travelling is still very much on my bucket list so this volunteering abroad thing seems more up my alley anyway. I think I would prefer travelling like this, rather than in luxury.  Don't get me wrong...I would have enjoyed that trip very much too but since I feel this renewed vigor to honor my calling to "serve"..volunteering might be the way to go.  

Unique Talents

At the same time, I am being reminded in several different ways that the most rewarding service to provide is one that comes when we honor our unique talents and gifts.  I mean I have nursing, teaching, mindfulness, and yoga teacher experience as well as elder and child care experience...so they may come in handy somewhere.  I also have some experience working with the mentally ill. I know that would be of value somewhere.  Yet, my real talent...or the thing that I am pulled and drawn to do is write, speak and teach about this eye-opening stuff I am learning. 

Spreading Consciousness

Eckhart Tolle in,  Learning to Suffer Consciously, reminds us that our purpose should be aligned with the purpose of the universe.  What is that purpose?  To bring more consciousness into this dimension, to bring more light into this world.  I guess that is what I am attempting to do here in my most imperfect way and what I will continue to do whether I want to or not.  I am being pulled.  I see myself writing, speaking and sharing what I am learning.  Other than that I have no attachment, no expectation of outcome.  I just know, even in the smallest of ways, that is what I will be doing with my life as well. 

So those are two ways I see myself serving. I, of course, also serve my family, serve my grandchildren, serve the animals that surround me and seek to serve others around me.

"How Can I Serve?" 

So as this "serve" is in my mind I am reminded of it with almost every video that comes on, every book that I read. I listened to Wayne Dyer in a video I had not listened to before say, "The most important question we need to ask is 'How can I serve? "   It is being reinforced nonstop and it is wonderful. 

Deepak Chopra in, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, also suggests that we devote our lives to the dharma...to true purpose.  He states we begin, however, by seeking the higher self through spiritual practice. ( I can check that off). Then he says we should work to discover our unique and much-needed talents (check).  Then we ask ourselves, How am I best suited to serve humanity?

So that is what I am asking, "How can I serve and how  am I best suited to serve humanity?" I want to put that into practice

And as Wayne Dyer also encourages, our doing for others should be done without any attachment to outcome.  He explained how most of the books he wrote were written without any concern about whether they were successful in terms of publications sold etc.  He wrote them because he felt pulled to ( I can check that off).  He said he was pulled to teach and speak as well and when he gets up on stage he just allows whatever is in him to come out without thought of the audience's reaction ( I would like to check that off!) 

Detached From Outcome

This desire I have now to serve is not dependent on any type of outcome where I might be rewarded in anything but a bit of peace. I am finally detaching from the need for certain outcomes and it is so freeing! As I say this...I might also say that three-times today, by three different individuals, I was reminded that by letting go of a need for certain outcomes those things that we were seeking for ego reasons ...will show up.  Hmm! We just won't care that much anymore if they do.  Cool.  

All is Well! 

Deepak Chopra (1993) The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. California: Amber - Allen Press/ New World Library

The Prosperity Code /Wayne Dyer (May, 2022) It Will Come to You When You Let It Go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kssj-dekEL0

Exhart Tolle ( July 5, 2022) Learning to Suffer Consciously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA4WGVsqG9A 

The Impermanent Nature of The Body

 This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds.

To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance.

a lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky,

Rushing by like a torrent down a steep mountain.

The Buddha 

So I feel, as I have mentioned in the last few entries,  this deep desire to serve with the time I have left.  Before I go any farther with this I need to address this "time I have left" thing. This feeling that my time is running out keeps creeping up again and again.  It will subside and then it will return.  It has been very prevalent the last few days with the onset of a different type of pain which I believe to be from an enlarged spleen.  (Yep!  That is what my gut is telling me!  Crazy, I know. ) I began noticing a full feeling under my left ribs about 4 weeks ago and thought I pulled something in yoga ( which would be unusual being that I practiced yoga for 25 years without any issues in that area)   I know it isn't muscular because it is not when I move into postures that stretch that side that I feel the pain which would be indicative of a muscle strain ...in fact, that type of movement allows for a little relief.  It is when I move into asanas that compress that side that I really feel it.  And when I take a deep breath.  I know my spleen is enlarged.  

Why the heck would the spleen be enlarged, crazy lady? I have an idea that is not all that comfortable to go to but at night that idea comes full force into my psyche ...not to scare me...but to remind me of the impermanence of the body...to give me a gentle shove that says, "Go!  Serve, make a difference while you can. " It is so very strong...this gut feeling.  Regardless,  if the enlarged spleen ( oh I know it is enlarged) is from an infection in my body or some other more ominous thing...that message is so, so important for all of us to hear.  "Go! Serve, make a difference in the world while you still can!" And that is why I am sharing this.

Our bodies have expiration dates people. Every single body does.  Sure advanced yogis can increase their life spans...but their bodies too will someday perish. That is the nature of all things. None, of us on this planet know exactly when our last breath will come and how it will come but it will come.  We here in the west live in a culture that "shuns" even the idea of death. We turn our backs on it.  We push it away.  We try to ignore it until we cannot ignore it anymore.  Even when it is one of the most basic truths of our existence, we still do what we can to "pretend" it won't happen to us or our loved ones. Our fear keeps us from even contemplating it, let alone trying to grasp an understanding and acceptance of it. 

Take care of your body.  It is the only one you got. 

Jim Rohn

So when I get this pain, or pelvic pain or anginal pain I am reminded that my body is not going to carry me around forever. I am not saying I like that reminder lol but it doesn't trigger fear in me like it used to.  I believe we are biologically wired to be reminded of the possibility of death with every pain we get. For most of us, pain causes a severe fear reaction for that reason.  Up until lately, I thought that the  "fear-reaction"  we get with pain was due to the body's inherent desire to stay alive...warning us that something was "wrong" and we have to "do" something to fix it. But now I am wondering if we have evolved enough as a species to see that pain is more of a reminder of the impermanence of our vehicles and a gentle or not-so-gentle encouragement for us to do what we are here to do.  I don't feel fear with pain anymore.  I don't resist the reminder of my body's potential death anymore. I don't particularly like it but I am, for the most part, able to relax into it. When I do, I hear this internal:  "Go! Serve, make a difference in the world while you still can."  I am reminded that "my life" is not "my" Life...it is just Life and I am the consciousness beneath that Life.  I am to use my consciousness, as well as my physical form, to serve Life.  Life is not here to serve me.  And I serve Life by serving other beings be they human or not, by serving the planet, and by serving the world. That realization comes so quickly to me now with every experience of pain.  I spent the night in that realization. 

That doesn't mean we ignore the pain or not look into its physical cause and relief.  We still need to care for our bodies.  I had a very strong dream in February 2021 that reminded me of the importance of looking after our bodies. Some voice in this dream told me I would soon be experiencing another bout of bad pelvic pain with other accompanying signs and symptoms.  I was told, so clearly, not to worry, if diagnosed and treated soon, all would be well.  A body part would be removed and I would be fine. I could see the body part in my dream.  Two days later the pain started, followed by the other things and out of a blue I get a call from my physician about an appointment I never even knew I had. Everything was lined up so synchronistically to deal with this issue.  It was amazing. Even though the events that followed did not adhere to the "diagnose and treat soon" of the message, leading to a 16 month "wait and see" approach, I had full trust in my dream message.

Anyway...it is what it is.  I am reminded to recognize the impermanent nature of my body so that I do what I am here to while I can  And I will serve in the way I know best.

All is well

Learning From A Meditation Challenge

 As I elevate my abundance consciousness, I do my part to heal the world.

Deepak Chopra

Meditation Series

There was, I discovered, a 22nd day to the 21 days of Meditation for Abundance.  In this last meditation, Deepak Chopra offers a lovely visualization of all of humanity sitting around a glowing light holding hands and smiling.  This light, he explained, is the same light that is in all of us and the light that we salute in the greeting Namaste: The Divine Light in me sees and honours the Divine Light in you. If we all truly recognized the beauty in that salutation, the world would certainly be a different place eh?  There would be peace, harmony, Love...and I don't mean the romantic kind... I mean...Love, as the energy of Life,  flowing everywhere.

The First Time 

So I finished this meditation series for the second time and I realized I now look at abundance so differently, than I did the first time I did this series.  Then, I was focusing on having money come into "my" personal experience.  I was just beginning then to feel the lack of money in my life, to get wrapped up in that "scarcity" ideology. I had just gone through my first year off work with no income. I had cashed in everything I could with the exception of my life insurance in fear this physical thing I was going through would end my life and leave my children destitute.  And I was clinging to "my" house because I needed to keep a roof over my children's heads. I mean I was practicing mindfulness and meditation then but I was so stressed I had a hard time settling my "monkey mind".  And  I had not quite reached the level of understanding that I am at now.  I was resisting what is...big time, fighting and struggling, so so angry and resentful that a system I thought would be there to support me wasn't. I was also very self-centered. Viewing myself at the center of all big universal and karmic events.  I could not see beyond my own suffering ( and that of my loved ones)  to the universal nature of suffering.  It was a "look at what is happening to "me and mine " type of experience.  It was brutal.

Something within told me to pull back a bit in my striving tendency,  to step back...a bit...away from trying to change what was happening in the external world that seemed to be impacting "me" and just go inward...go inward first and touch that place within that would allow for radiation outward.  I didn't necessarily stop "doing".  I didn't stop trying to rectify what I perceived strongly as a grave injustice...but I made a commitment to go inward first and act from there if I had to. So around that time, I came across this meditation series and it seemed perfect.  My mindset was: I can fix my outer experience by going to my inner one. If I become more peaceful, my outer world will be less challenging.  My ultimate goal then was not to establish peace of mind...it was to create a positive change in my outer world through peace of mind. Through establishing more clarity and peace of mind, I believed, I would find abundance.  It was abundance...or at least a freedom from this suffering.... that I was seeking.

That is how I approached this meditation series for the first time, not realizing I still had everything backward. Needless to say, my external circumstances didn't improve a whole lot...some for sure...but like all life events I had some ups and a lot of downs. My financial situation did not change very much at all...there was a sudden short-term influx of income that I used very wisely.  It allowed me to first of all, pay back my personal debt ( I hate owing money!),  give my children some financial assistance as I had not been able to do previously, then it gave me the means to create a yoga studio and a rental space for sustainability. I felt strong and almost stable financially for the first time in so, so long but as there are ups with Life, there are also downs...COVID hit as soon as that was established, and neither investments were able to come to fruition. Of course, the old habitual and conditioned mindset in me  just used that as evidence that the universe was  still out to pay me back for some type of Karmic debt I owed. I went quickly back into a "scarcity" mindset. Throughout it all, I clung to this house, even when my children grew up and had another place to stay. I clung because of the idea it represented to me.  As long as I had this piece of material property in my name I was not completely destitute.  I had something that could redeem me in society's eyes. 

The Second Time

Of course, my committed practice of meditation and mindfulness, my studying and writing about what lies beyond the obvious, and my devoted commitment to awakening...has led me to see the unskillfulness of my previous ways. "Peace of Mind despite what was/is happening in my external world" became my ultimate goal.  So when I happened upon this meditation series years later, I approached it differently.  I did not strive to see "monetary"  abundance coming my way, and I still don't...I visualize peace of mind in abundance coming to me and my loved ones.  I also seek it, pray for it and wish to know how I can physically act in service of it...for all of humanity.  It isn't a "me-me" thing anymore.  I also see so clearly that suffering is not individualized, and neither is freedom from it; neither is abundance and well-being in the true sense. 

I listen to the centering thought from Day 22 of this meditation practice and say, "Yes!  Yes!  Yes!" I walk away from this series with a deeply sincere wish to serve, to help bring an end to suffering in any way I can.  Ironically, this renewed realization comes to me just as I finish my Meditaton and Mindfulness Teacher  training.  Hmm!  Do you think that is synchronicity in action? I am now willing, I beleive, to let go of this house and the remaining "things" in my life that do not serve Self  or the greater picture. I am willing to use what ever gifts, talents, mental and physical ability I have left to serve Life.  And not for the sake of manifesting any positive change in my external circumstances but simply for the peace of mind it will provide me and others. I want to serve with what I have. I just need to know how. 

So I ask Life to show me what it is I am to "do" to help heal the world?

Pretty crazy, huh?

All is well in my world.

Deepak Chopra/ The Chopra Center (n.d.) 21 Days of Abundaance Meditation Challenge. Spotify

Luckier

 When you think  things are bad,

When you feel sour and blue,

When you start to get mad...

You should do what I do...

Just tell yourself,  Duckie,

You are really quite lucky!

Some people are much more... 

ever so much more...

oh, muchly, much-much more...

unlucky than you! 

Dr. Suess?

Warning: Self Disclosure

Lucky

Attended a lovely wedding this weekend where the minds of people were open and happy.  I did not leave the house that morning to travel there...open and happy.  I was worried about the lack of money again, the well-being of my loved ones again...feeling a boulder-sized knot rolling around in my belly.  I slipped away from my committed mission to be mindful, to make peace of mind my priority,  and was very reactive...rushed, and hurried to get somewhere "up there " in the distance at a future time... I wasn't thinking clearly but by the time we got on the road...and there was this realization there was nothing left that I could do to get me "there" faster, to make things go smoother, or to change what was...I just breathed and settled into my seat realizing what I was doing.  I observed my past reactivity, with some degree of compassion, and just sat with the boulder in my gut allowing it to be whatever it was.  Slowly it diminished and I ended up having a lovely time.  

Pretending to Be Luckier

I also, somewhat detached and attached at the same time,  watched another tendency come and go over the weekend.  I will often slip out of the reality of my present economic situation and deny that I/we are as strapped as we are.  We sometimes spend way too much money, money we do not have at this moment, to 'keep up' with those that do.  That is not fair...it had nothing to do with others...we probably spent more recklessly than they did... and not so much on ourselves but to provide for the kids so they could have fun and a reprieve from the stressors of their lives, be with family without having to "worry" about the "cost" of the weekend.  We could have stayed and eaten somewhere more conducive to our economic situation but, no, I insisted we be with the others who could afford it.  Told myself, it would be the last splurge...last "family hurrah". It would be the last time I would be willing to live above my means. I better clarify that I am far from a big spender but I spend beyond my means....and not on me. It is not like I spend a lot other than on family.  I spend little on myself. Like to me...though I insist on staying in a clean environment ( one that is a heck of a lot cleaner than my own home lol) ...it doesn't matter where I stay or what I eat.  I am not trapped by the need for luxury.     I don't buy for myself.  In fact, I wore a 20-dollar dress from Walmart that my daughter actually gave me because she didn't like the way it looked on her... Believe me...it didn't look any better on me......but I was okay with all that. I just wanted to have fun and be with the people I love.  And that did happen. It was lovely.  But now... we have to pay for it and it is like "How?"

Not So Lucky 

Anyway, I am not stupid.  I know I am losing the last of what I was clinging to in hope that it would keep me up there "with the others." ...keep me "independent" because I will not be financially dependent on D. or any other.  So though it is the only material thing of value I have left, I cannot keep this house and it is silly that I went this long pretending otherwise.  For what?  Some social stigma? Some societal expectations of what an "independent" and "self-sufficient"  woman with 9 years of post-secondary education should be? Come on...just an idea.  I was struggling with worry and stress since the time I first got sick and couldn't work my regular hours..clinging with white knuckles to an idea of what I " should have" at this time of my life, what I should be able to give my kids. Crazy? Truth is, regardless of how or why, I do not have a lot of money right now, and trying to keep this house is keeping me in the pit of growing debt. 

Luckier Than

Well, I was reflecting on this as I went in and out of mindfulness while we were away...I guess I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, a couple of times, as I compared myself to the others who didn't seem to have to worry about such things in their lives.   Each time I caught myself in self-pity mode,  the Universe reminded me of my good fortune by showing me other situations to compare mine to.  I saw three homeless people, and got so close I could smell their suffering.  Two, a couple, were pushing all their belongings in shopping carts.  One stopped to check the bottom of his shoe where the sole was wearing away and his foot was coming through.  And there I was in a clean 20-dollar Walmart dress and good sandals from Winner's that I bought years ago. I wanted to give them something but I only had a couple of quarters in my purse and there was so much shame and damaged pride on their faces as they walked by with their heads down...I probably would have offended them.  The next day as we and hundreds of blessed individuals walked down the streets of that city I noticed a man in his forties, maybe, curled up in a door sill ...a small suitcase by his side...and he did not look up when we walked by. Again the damaged pride, the suffering was so evident on his face my heart just dropped to my knees.  I reached for my wallet but remembered I didn't have any money in it.  I also realized, though,  that what we had spent on our accommodations for one night could have probably fed him for over a month. And there I was calling myself poor.  These people obviously did not want to be in these situations. They did not ask for this. Their suffering, I could feel,  was so, so much greater than any I could even imagine. All I had to give though was a whispered prayer as they or I walked by, "May you be well.  May you be at peace.  May your suffering end."  What they gave me was so, so much more.  Man...eye-opener. 

Lucky and Wanting Others to Be Lucky Too

So here I am...ready to face the financial situation of my Life right on.  I am okay being this type of poor.  If I need anything...it is simply to get my butt off the self-pity pot and say to this suffering world, "How can I serve? What have I got that you need?" And it is not important if I get paid a cent for any service I provide that helps end suffering. 

Hmmm! Well, that is where I am at.  I am off the pity pot and asking, asking, asking ..."How can I serve?" I really hope I get an answer soon...if I didn't already.

Thought I would share. 

All is well! 

More on 'self' and 'Self'

 Like two golden birds perched on the selfsame tree, intimate friends, the ego ['self']and the Self dwell in the same body.  The former eats the sweet and sour fruits of the tree of Life, and the latter looks on in detachment. 

The Mundaka Upanishads

I love this passage from the Upanishads as found in Deepak Chopra's The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. I am obsessed now with this need to explain the little I understand and know about 'self' and Self. The passage teaches that the little self and the true Self both reside within us.  The  'self' desires and averts,  attached to the things of the external world, while the Self simply observes, attached to none of it.

The self is linked with our attachment to symbols, the personality's 'gold' ...those things the ego craves and is so attached to: money, recognition, some notion of success, material things, etc.  The "Self", however, is pure detachment from these things...needing none of it. 

Remember how I said that our identification with 'self' leaves us confined, imprisoned, and suffering. Well, that is true. With 'self' as our identity, we are forever chasing symbols and....

Chasing symbols is like settling for the road map instead of the territory. It creates anxiety; it ends up making you feel hollow and empty inside because you exchange your Self for the symbols of your Self ['self']. Chopra page 84

The things 'self' wants are not what 'Self' wants. They are points on a map, not the actual earth the map is pointing to.  These things are constantly changing, coming and going, just as our idea of self comes and goes. 

And we experience the truth of selflessness when we see nothing lasts long enough to be called 'self'. Goldstein, page 282

What we want is that which does not have to come and go: peace and joy, and that can only come from Self

By renouncing worldly things you possess the most important sacred property: your peace. Yoga Sutras, page 24

Renounicg doesn't mean we have to give all our possessions away or stop wanting things altogether.  It simply means we are not attached to getting them, our happiness is no longer dependent on the outcome of our desires.  We play with things of the external world but knowing that they will come and they will go we don't base our happiness on them. We are the Self looking at the sweet and sour fruit of the tree of Life with utter detachment. They are not important to us.  Our peace is. 

I love this from the Yoga Sutras,

The moment you understand yourself as the true Self, you find such peace and bliss that the impressions of the petty enjoyments you experienced before become as ordinary specks of light in front of the brilliant sun.  You lose all interest permanently.  'that is the highest non-attachment. Sutras, page 28

Deepak Chopra (1993) The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. California: Amber-Allan/New World Library.

Joseph Goldstein (2013) Mindfulness.Boulder: Sounds True 

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali as translated by Sr. Swami Satchidananda. (2011) Yogaville: Integral Yoga Press

Tat Tuam Asi: From self to Self

I celebrate my unity with all life, knowing we are one.

Deepak Chopra

I have been talking a bit about the personality and how, in order to reach true awareness, we have to go beyond the idea of " myself, my personality, my life" etc to who we really are.  That gets confusing, I know.  So I would like to make the distinction between self ( lowercased 's') and Self ( uppercased 'S'). 

Just Words! 

To begin, let me remind you that these are all just "words"...symbols, concepts, ideas, and pointers toward truth but in themselves, they are not the real experience of 'truth'. We really, really need to see the limitations of words. 

'self'

Next, let me explain again that 'self' is this idea we have of who we are based on something we call the personality. The personality, in turn, is a collection of "ideas' we either absorbed from others or have created over the years based on our conditioning, opinions from others, and memories of how we reacted, responded, felt, thought, acted, believed, stored, achieved, or lost in response to life.  I can not stress enough...that 'self' is an idea, a mind-made construct... This 'self' is not a real entity but a tangle of collected thought in our minds and in the minds of others used to help us make sense of our experience.  The thing is though...it only creates a pseudo surface layer understanding that keeps us on the superficial layer of our reality. It doesn't really help us to understand and experience Life fully.  In fact, it takes us away from our true  'experience' of living because it keeps us trapped in our heads. As a concept, in order to understand it and live it we must conceptualize it.  To conceptualize we must spend time in our thinking and in our mind. If we are constantly living in our minds just so we can make sense of some 'self' we created, we are not in our bodies, not in our environments, not in our moment, and not in our Life.  So this idea of 'self' then is only in the head and if we are caught up in it, like so many of us are we are living in our heads instead of living in our lives. We can not see clearly what Life truly is and who we truly are.  If we cannot see clearly we cannot live fully on the experiential level.  Yet,  many of us are so caught up in that tangle, this ego-self...we do anything to create, define, build up, tear down things in the way, judge, perceive, react, defend and even attack to protect this  'self ' that is just an idea.  We build a whole industry around its preservation and advancement in the form of psychology, psychiatry, self-help, and personal development. We erroneously strive to make it stronger by trying to increase its esteem and give it the power it needs to control the external environment. We work diligently to feed that mental tangle and we get more and more caught up in the concept of a separate 'self'. 

Letting Go of 'self' for 'Self'

The teachers of ancient wisdom, however, have been telling us for eons that this is not wise.  They have been encouraging humanity to begin 2 'letting go' of this notion of 'self' because it is the source of most of our suffering. They teach that this knot of collected ideas and feelings, perceptions and beliefs we call 'me' is not enhancing our experience of Life,  not bringing us closer to true reality, it is, in fact, in the way of our Life and our truth. When we get past this mental construct, past our busy mind and all its tangles, we will fall into the true Self. Self, with a capital S is who we really are.  It is the experience of "I" without all the mental tangles in the way. It is not dependent on thought. It just is. 

 Now, in Yogic and Vedic teachings Self-realization should be our goal. To become self-realized, however, we must be able to see beyond our distortion of 'self'. 

You seem to have lost your original identity and have identified with your thoughts and body. Suppose I ask you who you are. If you say, "I am a man," you have identified yourself with a masculine body.  If you say, "I am a professor," you are identifying with the ideas gathered in your brain.  If you say, "I am a millionaire," you are identifying with your bank account; if "a mother," with a child; "a husband,' with a wife". ...But without any identification. who are you?...behind the different forms of energy is one unchanging consciousness...Self. page 7-8

Life Skill Development 101

The Buddhists refer to the term "no-self" but really it is the same as Self.  Both simply point to freedom from entanglement in this false notion of 'self'.

There is a whole industry, or movement built up around this disentanglement from 'self', this realization of "Self/no-self and it is called spirituality. (Again...spirituality is just a word, right?  I prefer to call it "life -skill development.')  Why would we want to invest in that movement? 

On an individual level, though, Self-realization or no-self realization eventually takes us away from any false notions of us as  "separate individuals"...it will free us from suffering and allow us to live peacefully, and joyfully. It is in this idea of 'self' where our fear breeds and grows and it is our fear that causes most of our human suffering. Imagine your life without fear! Imagine the world without fear!

 We also get out of our heads when we are not caught up in those mental constructs.  We come down into the body and we experience Life fully as it is in our moment...we are no longer disconnected.  We are here and now. We are!

Unity

On a deeper level, it takes us to the understanding that 'self' as separate is a false idea. There is no separate 'self', therefore there is no other. Separation of us from others, from Our Source, from Life is not possible. We are reminded of  our inter-being, our unity our  "Oneness." 

If you detach yourself completely from all things you have identified yourself with, you realize yourself as the pure "I". In that pure "I" there is no difference between you and me. ...That is why, if we could calm our minds and get to the basis of all modifications, we would find the unity among everything. page 8

So if we are wanting to begin this Life-Skill Development journey of going from 'self' to 'Self' we do need to understand 'self' and all the mental modifications we have swarming around in our heads.  We need to see them, accept them, and understand them, before we can let them go.  So psychology does come in handy for that.  We also need to recognize that this is not where it stops.  Letting go of our notions of 'self' will help us let go of our notions of 'other' so we can experience Oneness and the  Tat Tuam Asi of our experience ( that you are ).

Hmm! "Ain't going to happen overnight,"...at least not for most of us... but the sooner we begin, the happier and healthier we will be and the happier and healthier the world will be. This, my dear friends, is Yoga!

All is well

Deepak Chopra (n.d.) 21 Day Meditation on Abundance. Spotify

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (as translated by Sri Swami Satchidananda) (2011) Yoga Ville: Integral Yoga Publications

 As a spiritual being you fear nothing because you know there is nothing to fear. And all that truly exists in the world is Love. 

Deepak Chopra

I guess the moral of my last two entries...what I have learned is...we do so much better when we do whatever it is we do more lightly. My friends remind me of that.

This is how I want to proceed with the remainder of my physical life: 

I move through my days light-hearted and carefree, knowing all is well. 

Deepak Chora ( n.d.) 21 Day Meditation Challenge for Abundance . Spotify

The Personality and "My Life"

 All too often our personality is nothing more than psychological clothing that we wear to hide our true self [Self]from the world. 

Teal Swan https://kidadl.com/quotes/top-personality-quotes-to-unleash-your-true-self

I spent hours, off and on, yesterday on a big long post related to what I learned that morning in my "listening" practice and in my meditation practice related to a real-life experience I had on Monday but I struggled to put the message out in the way that felt "wholesome and skillful". There are still so many tangled knots in me that truth sometimes gets caught up in on its way out...snagged...you know...so it comes out thready and a bit tangled itself.  I know that when I struggle over an entry...say if it takes more than an hour...if it just doesn't come..."poof"...out, that ego is still lurking around wanting a say. "There is ego slipping in through the back door trying to have its say", I may say to myself at those times.  Other times, I don't recognize that once again I slipped and am allowing ego to come in to take control of my household. My message gets convoluted.  I post it because that is what I do here...but when I recognize the ego nature of it,  I will take it down for either revision or sleepy time. I do my best to remove the ego contribution.  So I will go back to that entry because it is really important and wants to be expressed....I will determine  where "my personality" and "my life" got in the way of the truth wanting to be expressed and revise it with as little ego as possible.  

Hmm! So today I will probably take some of yesterday's learning and today's learning and whip up an entry on "ego" and on this idea of "my life". 

This morning  I listened to Eckhart Tolle in How to Release Yourself From the Grip of Personality. He spoke about how we get mixed up in our understanding of things because we are very attached to these notions of "my personality" and "my life".  When you read, if you read lol, about the little experience I had with my ego on Monday in a social situation...you will see how caught up I was and still am in "my life" and how "my personality" appears to others. These notions very much dominated my communication and my relating.  Ego went in bruised and somewhat broken in some mind- made comparison scale and once or twice attempted to redeem itself by displaying itself as someone who had "knowledge" or was somehow more because I had such suffering and challenge  in my life etc.

The ego strives incessantly for some type of superiority.

Truth is my ego and my personality are dissolving as part of my own transformation. Without it, I feel oh so naked, especially around others who still view me by my personality. I assume my friends have  an idea of me and who and what I am bsed on our shared working past. I don't want to disapoint because I fear that I will belong less than I do now and I do want to belong.  I always wanted to belong. (The process of awakening and dismantling our shells, I am discovering, leaves one feeling very, very vulnerable) . Though I am in the process of stepping away from ego, that doesn't mean my big fat, reactive ego is gone.  No, not at all. It will step in through the back door again and again especially in social situations. It stepped in Monday. Before I went to brunch, ego was telling me I no longer met a certain standard of acceptability, if I ever did.  I didn't belong and in order to belong I had to be a certain way. If I couldn't compare on the material , belonging to a group, postivity level than I would somehow be superior on how I handle  suffering and having "less than" level.  Bizarre, because I don't feel like I am handling the suffering and the having less than very well at all lol . I realize that my sharing of some of the negative experiences was to redeem "me" from my "notion" of being a pesonality that no longer belonged. I unconsciously sought to  redeem and strengthen this idea , and it is only an idea, of me as the  "brave sufferer" in the group. Yes, Life was offering me plenty pf challenges throughout the years  and I did suffer but ego used those challenges as a rationale for why I didn't belong as a personality...too much suffering! Infact, I realize  this was the screen through which I related to these individuals for years.  Whenever I felt vulnerable, at the point of nolonger belonging, I would amplify my personality as the sufferer and my life as one of suffering. That is what fed my ego and kept me imprisoned in my personality. Yuck! 

Personality

What is the personality, anyway? Tolle describes personality as the subtotal of mental and emotional conditioning. He explains that we often describe ourselves by referring to the opinions of us expressed by others over the years, our past, our memories, by the roles we play in society, what we do, what we have accomplished, what we believe, and how we think and feel. He also explains how limiting this is, how when we define like this we confine like this. We can actually imprison ourselves in our own personalities. This idea of the personality of "me" is just a concept!  Just an idea.  When we explain ourselves as distinct, separate "little me's"  we are deriving a sense of who we are from a conceptual mind-made self.  It is just an idea that we support, cling to, and defend.  We need to get that, right? It is just a mental concept in our heads...it is not the experiential reality of who we are. The personality is merely the "surface you". You are much deeper than that. 

"My Life"

What is this idea of "my life" then? He goes on to say that the idea of "my life" is our story.  It is the predominant narration in my mind, that through which I interpret everything I come in contact with...the screen through which I interpret other people, events, places, and things. 

Notions, Not Reality

We are often so attached to these notions and they are just that: notions.  In truth who we are, is so far beyond the personality and its confining nature.  There is no "my life"...there is just Life being breathed through all of us and happening all around us as it has been for billions and billions of years.  Yet these ego-minds cling to the "my" in us as expressions of that Life, as if somehow we are the center all these ancient complicated forces circling around. Man...we are not "It"...we are just an expression of "It" and we get this miraculous opportunity to observe it and experience it.  We get to be a part of all this! The reality of who we are is pretty cool actually...but so many of us are snagged on those tangled knots of ego and are so lost in the screen we cannot see what is behind it. We are so lost in our heads, building and protecting ideas of self, that we do not "experience" Life as the Self. The screen gets in the way of us seeing the world, others, and life circumstances in a clearer view and it prevents us, if we are so lost in those notions of "my personality" and "my life", of seeing who we really are beneath it.  

Sure we have roles here and that is okay and normal to our experience.  We just have to come to see, according to Eckhart Tolle, that those roles are merely our functions for serving Self and humanity, the world, Life.  They are not who we are. 

In the Way

You know, the "you" and the "me" is often in the way of our experience of Life, clouding it, confining it, diminishing it etc. Deepak Chopra explains that gratitude is one of the most effective ways of  getting ego out of the way and getting in touch with the soul.  If we could only learn to see the whole picture beyond our puny ideas of self, if only we could recognize everything we experience s a gift. Life would then be a very sweet experience. 

I love this mindful approach to understanding our personalities: 

By recognizing our patterns and those of others, we begin to understand them all as being impersonal, simply as the playing out of our habitual [and conditioned] tendencies, rather than as the expression of some reified sense of self. They become less of an unconscious prison and more of a playground of transformation.

Joseph Goldstein,  page 237.

All is well! 

Deepak Chopra (.n.d.) 21 Day Meditation Challenge for Abundance. Spotify

Eckhart Tolle (June 28, 2022 ) Release yourself from the Grip of Personality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnQTridVaTM

Joseph Goldstein (2016) Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening. Boulder: Sounds True

Positive Psychology Meets Knife in Heart

 Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. 

GK Chesterton 

Warning: Some boring personal disclosure used to share some important learning

It is a bit cloudy out there today...but the blue sky is beneath it.  I just need to remember that.  All the committed practice, all the devoted effort...and I still often get lost in the cloud cover. That reminds me that  I am not taking Life lightly. There are plenty of times I did, I am sure, when the heaviness of circumstance was lifted and I could breathe and laugh easily.  The first thing I want to do when that heaviness lifts a bit is laugh.  Man, I love to laugh. Why does life circumstance have to change in order for us to laugh freely, I wonder.  Why can we not just find it all humorous? I want to be able to stop taking life so seriously and just laugh at it, you know?  I grew up in a family that did that.  Why can I not tap into that response so easily now?  There were times in my life when laughter was so much easier than it is now ( don't get me wrong...I still laugh a lot...just not as much).  

There were also times when things seemed to be going right and they kept going right for a good long stretch...like I was caught up in the play of the universe that spreads the banquet of abundance before you. (Deepak Chopra). The more positive things I noticed, the more I could have fun with Life and laugh at Life.  The more I did, the more positive and favorable situations appeared around me, as if to support me.Deepak Chopra, in his meditation series listed below, calls this "synchro destiny."  I am recalling such a time. 

I am also thinking about how we ride negative waves sometimes and they too can seem long.  It seems that one challenge hits, and before you have time to catch your breath, another one hits and another and another.  When one rides this wave it is like we are picking up every negative element in the universe.  I have the perception and it is likely a "wrong perception" that I am riding a negative wave of synchro destiny and I just can't seem to get off of it.  I am longing to ride the wave of positivity I recall. 

Why am I so prone to getting lost in the negative, attracting more negative,  after all the work I do to stay positive?  I am taking a positive psychology practitioner course, for goodness sake. Why can I not take Life more lightly and fly like the angels?

I Got a Knife in My Heart.

Thich Nhat Hanh, in Fear, writes that many of us are walking wounded, going around with a great big knife in our hearts from the past. It is really embedded in us, yet we fail to even see that it is there. That is until someone bumps into those knives or certain life events jiggle or add weight to the handle.  Then we feel the searing pain and become "reactive" and defensive.   I was a knife-carrying person most of my life and unknowingly did whatever I could to protect myself from more pain.  Even during the good times, I was very often sensitive and reactive without truly understanding why. I also had a tendency to be consumed by wrong perceptions.

Knife meets Knife -Respecting- Positivity

I recall when I rode the positivity wave for a few years in a row.   After a lot of struggling,  I "spontaneously"  landed my dream job "teaching" in 2004 and I was partnered with this friend... someone who had an infectious and positive personality. We connected and built a history together with an awful lot of laughter in it. She was a person who took Life lightly even if she took her job very seriously.   Though this relationship certainly had its share of ego interruption and reaction to life circumstances, and there have been several "changes" occurring both in the work environment and our lives outside the environment over the years that impacted many things including the relationship...work was fun! Life was fun! I was enjoying being in the rhythm of Life's cosmic dance. (Chopra) Good things seemed to happen (despite the challenges that also popped up)...I earned a really good income doing what I loved to do, I had great students who liked me, I got a house, I got a car, I got pets, and I got my life back it seemed after a marriage that was not healthy.  My "personality" and "my life"  were becoming things I could be proud of. What was being built was certainly "ego's" idea of success and not necessarily what I am now seeing as important...but man it made things easier.  I felt this connection to life's goodness. I trusted that Life had my back. I didn't realize until yesterday just how much that flow had to do with my friend.

Positive Psychology Practitioner 

 This friend  had/has remarkable communication skills and she had a way of making you feel like your positive points were always being lit up and your mistakes somehow were not so bad. I always felt, that  I could do many things well largely due to her cheerleading,encouragement and support...I am sure. She seemed to see something in me I did not see in myself...At first, I did not recognize the character strengths she would point out in me ...but I actually began to look at myself differently, in a more positive light. My personality and my ego were flourishing. 

So as I learn about Positive Psychology from my course, I  have this realization  that she was and is a "Positive Psychology Practioner"  without ever trying to be.  She may not have put me on that wave of positive synchro destiny but she certainly helped to keep me there for as long as I was there. 

Broken Inside

 I was riding the wave, it seemed, of good fortune when I met her and it seemed to last a fairly long time. The whole time I knew her, however, I was, like many of us, also very "broken" on the inside in ways I did not even understand.    Even though I was only vaguely beginning to understand in that stage of my development, that I was very broken and beat down by Life, this internal brokenness impacted everything I did.  I had that knife in me.  It didn't go away or fall out. I just wasn't focusing on it or "pain" so much during those good times. I am not sure if my friend ever  noticed the knife handle sticking out of my chest or the blood I dripped everywhere because she seldom bumped into it. It was like she was intuitively sensing it and respecting it.  I  didn't feel quite as broken, in those earlier years I worked with her.  I felt stronger, more capable. External challenges were still there, in fact, they seemed to be increasing but Life was something  I had come to believe I could handle.  There was this flow of positivity under everything Life  offered in those years. 

 I see now, how that had a lot to do with her. Even though the life challenges continued to plop down into this river of positivity making it a bit murky and negative, and even though it occasionally got very hard to swim,  there was always a current of "I got your back!  You can do this! " Somehow and in some way, she added the positivity to the river we floated on even when things got tough.  And they got tough! But I flourished.   I flourished greatly because of her positivity.

Riding the Ups and Downs

Well Life has a wave-like motion to it, this synchro destiny too seems to have a wave-like motion to it. Sometimes we are up, sometimes we are down.  Sometimes we flourish and sometimes we languish.  

Well as the years went on...this arrow in my heart continued to get beat around enough so that I could no longer deny its presence.   I started to see how "unwell" I was because of it. How it created great fear in me and how that fear was always there affecting my decisions and actions. I got sick. The events in my life  seemed to get more challenging and negative ( or at least my focus was on the challenging and negative things).  The flow of positivity was still there under my feet but I didn't recognize it, let alone appreciate it, too busy was I on focusing on what was going "wrong"and what I had to fix. Ego, which was starting to die, was clinging to anything it could get a hold of so it wouldn't perish.  I found myself full of resentment and anger for people and circumstances who I blamed for not helping me fix my body and my external situations when all along it was this knife that had to come out that was the real problem. I started losing all those things that were a part of my positive wave and I resented it...I was not where I am now in the understanding of the impermanence of things. I felt gently pushed out of the work team picture, out of a group I so loved belonging in. I felt like I no longer belonged.  I  did not see my incessant need to prevent the knife from being bumped as the possible cause for my sense of not belonging and told myself that it was because my life was too heavy for others.  Man I was a mess. I kept getting sicker.   I actually thought everything would settle once I left work.  It didn't.  Sure I am able to rest more and my body feels better, but I cut myself off from a lot of positivity.  I realize how I miss that flow of positivity under my feet that my friend inspired somehow. Where is the positive synchro destiny I once enjoyed with or because of ( not sure which) my friend? 

Hesitant to Contaminate; Afraid Knife Might Get bumped

So once or twice a year she and I and another friend/former colleague who also added warmth and positivity to my working experience, get together. My Positive Psychology Practitioner friend invited us to brunch yesterday.  Since I am in the process of removing this knife that is not yet completely out of my heart and I am a bloody mess, dealing with that and the other life events that have arisen since our last meeting without the pseudo protection of a once intact ego-personality, I debated about going to brunch yesterday. My thought was, "Why would they care if I went on a good day...let alone when I am so bloody "messy" right now? I really don't belong anymore, do I? I don't want to ruin their afternoon. "

I also had selfish reasons for debating if I should go.  What if they bump my knife? Judge me for it? Say then and there that I could not belong because of it? I had a lot of "wrong perceptions". 

 At the same time, I wanted to see them, wanted to pick up some of that warmth and positivity I usually get from them, to be reminded of that part of my life that was filled with laughter and lightness and belonging. So I went and somewhere along the line I blurted out a few of these experiences that were weighing me down, sliming them with "my life".   It is bad enough that I am perceiving myself in a negative flow, but I certainly do not want to take others on it. 

Regardless, it was a lovely afternoon! There was warmth, lightness, positivity, and laughter and I walked away feeling like, maybe I still do belong and that there is hope for me yet.

Moral?

Anyway...what is the moral of this big long spiel crazy lady? 

It was supposed to be about the positive effect, positivity from others can have on our own perception of brokenness and how it can enhance our life satisfaction. This one experience of enhanced life satisfaction can be the beginning of positive synchro destiny.  It can take us on a nice long ride down the positivity river. At the same time, however, we need to accept that we may have a knife in our hearts and if we do, we and we alone have to remove that knife.  Until we do we are going to be pulled back again and again from the positive flow to the negative flow of synchro destiny. 

Hmmm! Big long spiel when all I could have written was: got together for lunch with friends yesterday and it was lovely.  I realized how much of a positive influence they had on me, even in my brokenness, and how  I missed having it and them in my life.  Dealing with the brokenness on top of some heavy situations now, and it is pretty messy.  Did not want to slime them in any way but I went to the brunch regardless and dropped a few slime bombs.  I must look into the true motivation behind doing that.  Hope they can forgive me. I hope I can forgive myself. I must tell them how much I appreciate them.

All is well.  

Deepak Chopra (n.d.) 21 Day Meditation Challenge for Abundance. Spotify

Thich Nhat Hanh ( ) Fear. Audio book Spotify.

Eckhart Tolle ( January, 2022) Is Your Awakening Taking Too Long?/Eckhart Tolle Teachings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCcmr6WrrUI

Alan Watts (May, 2022) Lust For Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HPjUUplIIg

How Can I Serve?

 

There is a way I can fulfill my true purpose in Life.

Deepak Chopra

We all have unique gifts, talents, or abilities. How can I best use these gifts to serve the world?  This is the question we need to ask ourselves on a daily basis. Do you know what your "gifts" are?  These gifts I believe not only serve others but they serve these entities we call "me" as well.  They can make "the heart soar ", and fill us with passion and fulfillment simply by doing them.  It is said that when what we love to do matches what others need...that is our purpose, our dharma.  Hmmm! I wonder if I am offering what is needed,  if I am using my so-called abilities for the greater good.  I truly want to do that.  

Even bigger questions we need to ask on a daily basis are: How can I help?  How can I serve? 

I am asking...I am asking.

All is well.

Deepak Chopra ( n.d.) 21 Day Meditation Challenge for Abundance. Spotify

Letting Go of the Need to Arrange Life

 As I let go of the need to arrange my life the universe brings abundant good to me. 

Deepak Chopra

I am not sure about the abundant good, coming my way, but I do see how attempting to arrange my life just leads to more stress and frustration than necessary.  Letting go of that tendency will bring abundant peace. 

If only we could: accept uncertainty and witness that which spontaneously springs forth from it. 

All is well

Deepak Chopra (n.d.) 21 Day Abundance Meditations  Spotify