The Road to Peace

 There is no right road or wrong road...just roads. Take the one that shows up in front of you with peace as your intention.

I heard myself saying that to someone today

Sat down here to write and realize I don't have an oompf of anything that is required to write in me right now.  In mind's opinion , it has been a very challenging few days. Will be back when the waves have settled a bit. 

In the meantime, I am going to share with you a little meditation practice...pranayama ...that I am about to do.  

And please try Tonglen at some point...doesn't have to be the guided version I offered a few days ago but some version, (Pema Chodron's or Tara Brach's, maybe) . The last few days have reminded me about the Noble Truths: Suffering exists; there is a cause for suffering; there is a way to get through suffering to peace; and the eightfold path offers a way.  I don't care if you use the Eight fold path or not...just take the road that shows up in front of you, any road, and travel down it with peace as your intention in every step you take. You can't go wrong.

All is well

Use Unhappiness For Your Practice

 Whatever arises in life is to be used as your practice...until your inner state is not determined by outer events...that's awakening.

Eckhart Tolle

"My" awakening is just awakening because there really is no "my", right? I know, I know...."crazy lady's talking the woo-woo again". :) Someday, if you don't already, you will see the bit I am seeing now...or hopefully, go far beyond that. That is why I share what I share, I guess.  I am seeing so few distinctions between my story and story, my version of life and Life these days, between me and you. There really is no "personal" in Life is there? .It is all about learning, all about growing...like a plant toward the light (heliotropic effect). The light=Enlightenment=awakening. We are all in different stages of this growth, at different levels of understanding and awareness.. .When we talk about being truly happy ...this is it. This is what real happiness is...something that can not be disturbed by that which happens to us or around us.  It is in  nonreactive presence where peace is found and it is from this peace that we have happiness.

 It all begins with accepting and allowing whatever arises in our moment to simply be. Eckhart Tolle, in the below video,  tells us that accepting what is will alleviate 95% of our suffering. We will all feel unhappy from time to time.  When I think of the suffering of my loved ones, I feel a certain unhappiness in my inner state. Unhappiness can not survive very long with acceptance. If we are resisting what happens like the reactive pain body is so in the habit of doing, however, we get lost in our unhappiness. We become   "the unhappiness sufferer" and when we are not aware of how we are feeling, what we are doing, we feed the pain body with our thoughts.  The reaction escalates into some ferocious entity attempting to consume all. This is what this beautiful, lovely but resisting individual did a few days ago. 

There is a practice that can take us to happiness and that practice is being aware of our inner states.

The primary factor in any situation is your inner state because it will determine how you will respond...Eckhart Tolle

Hmm! This is a very challenging situation to deal with someone who because of pain keeps feeding that which keeps her stuck in pain. I so want her suffering to end but her reactivity and therefore her resistance is in the way of her healing. This could take "me" down if I am not careful and if I do not continue to be mindful of my inner state. I need to stay out of my head and in that "deeper dimension of consciousness" Tolle talks about.

May she be well. May she and all beings be free from suffering.

Man...it is hard not to come here everyday. 

All is well! 

Eckhart Tole (Aug 2, 2022) Accepting Your Unhappiness to be Happy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wd2CMXhU0s

Dealing With The Reactive Ego

Non reaction to the egos in others is one of the most effective ways not only of going beyond ego in yourself but of dissolving the collective human ego. 

Eckhart Tolle

I am getting somewhere (I know that concept of "getting somewhere" will not be necessary for ever but for now it helps to explain my progress).  I am advancing along this path.  I can, for the most part, stay calm and nonreactive in the most reactive of situations...while holes are being kicked into walls around me, things are being thrown over my head, when I am chasing someone around pulling sharp things from their hands or placing my hands between the wall and the back of their head again and again ...and most painfully, when I  am being accused of "not caring and not being there enough" after dragging my exhausted body into situations that the mind warns, "This will not be good for you. Don't do this to yourself!" ... just so I can be there for this loved one. I see the pain beneath the behaviour.  I see the higher self, this beautiful soul  and all this amazing potential beneath the out of control pain body.  I see the bigger picture it seems and though I recognize and validate her pain I don't harbor judgement for her, or the others who she believes ( rightfully so) have betrayed her and hurt her.  I just somehow see it all clearly. So I do not walk into her circle of reactivity  judging anyone, reacting with anger nor do I actually say much of anything.  I am just very present  but  she sees a lack of caring, a lack of compassion and a lack of support in my non reactivity.  When I use my heart and  all the wonderful communication skills I learned, taught and am in the process of writing a book about to validate that I hear her and I know she is suffering...she tells me( and others) that I am judging, cold, uncaring, punitive, defending, mechanical etc and the reactivity grows and grows and grows until the whole place is on fire with it.  I have repetitively asked myself and others who have witnessed my presence with her, if indeed I am doing something wrong, if my ego is somehow in the way, if  am being cold and unknowingly reactive myself...and the answer is consistently "No...you are doing nothing but being calm, caring and validating." 

Dealing with that behaviour is not easy, let me tell ya. Still, I have learned because of my practice to stay calm, not to react even when that reactive ego of this person wants nothing more than for me to react. That is just it...the reactive ego does not like the nonreactive ego in another. The reactivity will actually escalate out of  control the more calm and centered I stay. This reactive ego does not like peace.  It does not like calm.  It does not like non reactivity. It doesn't want my presence.  It wants my reactive ego to feed it.  When it is not fed by it...it becomes ferocious in its desperation to get me to react.  Still...I stay centered and not because of anything special on my part  but because presence knows better.  Presence naturally emerges and stays dominate in me during these times of crisis and the reactivity of others.  I don't do anything to make it happen anymore...it just happens. 

There is a certain detachment there, yes...but it isn't "cold" detachment...it is spacious, accepting, allowing  detachment. I am not my ego at those times...I am Self.  It is strange that she cannot see it  but I am more open and loving as that spacious Self than I could ever be as a reactive ego.  And when these very painful things come hurdled at me...her desperate  pain trying to find a place to land in others...I say to myself, "Who is hurt by that? Presence or ego?  Who is experiencing this?" I find myself observing what is happening rather than being lost in that overwhelming drama caused by so much pain. I see my body and know I am not my body.  I see my own ego personality and know I am not that. I see the opinion of others about me  that she has passed on and I know I am not that opinion. I see my ego momentarily feeling the sting and the hurt and the fear and the anger...I allow all that but I am not clinging or attached to any of it. I see it all passing through this body, passing through this mind, this idea of "me" and  "personality" and I stay calm and present. It just happens. "I can be here for her pain no matter how it tries to hurt me or others in its out of control reactivity. This is not who she is.  This is not who I am. What is happening to my body right now, to my personality is meaningless. This can't harm anything that is real" is what  I tell myself...and I fall more into presence, more into awareness, more into the center. 

Even if my heart closes up slightly during those times I feel the hurt, the fear, the anger and resentment because of the nature of the behaviour, because of the extent of her pain...it does not stay closed. I realize what I am feeling...I notice, allow, accept, embrace and I breathe my way back to the present moment.  I return to what lay beneath the behaviour... her suffering  and all the amazing things she is. 

Some one pointed out to me today that they thought I was such a strong woman  for handling this the way I do again and again. After I hush the remnants of my ego which is beginning to feel all superior with that comment...I tell them it has nothing to do with" me". "Me" would only be in the way. They, in turn,  respond with, "huh?" I leave it at that.

My point is that with practice we can all reach this state of nonreactivity. It is actually not a "reaching"...it is an opening up to allow presence to come through.  It is a getting out of the way. We open up when we mentally step away from the drama,  relax and release, open and allow  and then proceed from there. Other egos might not like it  but only because the ego knows this is the type of response  that will eventually lead to the demise of all egos.

All is well

The Path

 Everything in your life-every moment, every struggle-is the path. Everything is an opportunity for awakening. Without practicing this way, you lose the extraordinary opportunity to learn from your very own being.

Pema Chodron, How to Meditate, page 148

[The Path?] ...Everything will be okay as soon as you are okay with everything. And that is the only time, everything will be okay.

Michael A. Singer

Delightful Lesson

 When my body has succumbed to the attacks of painful illness,

I will not count on medical relief,

But take the very illness as a path and by its power

Remove the obscurations blocking me,

and use it to create the qualities worthwhile.

When illness rears its head (5), sheer delight! 

Gotsampa and The Seven Delights (11th Century)

as found in Pema Chodron's How to Meditate,page 149

Delight? Sounds a little dramatic, I know, but this 11th century Buddhist Monk was very wise.  And Life is very wise  dropping this page, with these words of wisdom on it, right in front of me when I needed it the most. I mean...let me clarify that I am not in an "attack of painful illness".  I am just experiencing some pain in my body that is indicative that there is something going on in there that is not "normal". I can handle the discomfort...would not want it to get much worse...but I can definitely handle this.  Any real suffering that comes from this is a mental and emotional reaction to the challenge of finding out what is causing it. I was erroneously depending on "medical relief" when , for whatever reason, I seem to have challenge after challenge getting a medical diagnosis for any apparent illness my body experiences, let alone relief. It has left me wondering, "Why?  Why are  all these obscure and bizarre things happening to me in my health seeking? Why this challenge?" I have  spent many years asking that question and with this new little issue that question was fully activated once again...as was  all the resistance and unskillful and unwholesome habitual ways of dealing with it. Sigh! 

So I look down at this page yesterday as I am skimming through this great little book for something on Tonglen...and the words, I will not count on medical relief...hit me like an arrow between my eyeballs. I have been walking around, holding my side, frustrated and down, filling my mind and my moments with  memory and "waiting" for the ultrasound which is another two weeks away. As if that is somehow going to give me relief from this . All the while there is this amazing teacher standing before me opening up this great lesson, "Here, look what I have for you. Isn't it wonderful? I am giving you another opportunity to unblock your blocks, untangle your knots and to grow into your higher self. "

Hmm!  Now that is the way to look at it! To look at all challenge, not just physical pain and illness! Lesson and Blessing!

When the whole thing's just not working, everything's lined up against you,

Don't try to find some way to change it all.

Here, the point to make your practice is to reverse the way you see it.

Don't try to make t stop or to improve.

Adverse conditions happen(7); when they do it's so delightful.

I also heard Eckhart Tolle saying today that we could look at all challenges as if we have chosen them.

Pema Chodron (2013)How to Meditate.  Boulder: Sounds True 

My Job?

 Give me a job Universe and I will do the best I can. 

I told myself I would just show up here on alternate days but....It is so very challenging to alternate between studying and writing.  I have this insatiable appetite for all this wonderful learning that shows up in front of me...texts, scriptures, ancient wisdom   translated into forms I can read and understand , as well as all these teachings from teachers of today like Michael Singer, Thich Nhat Hanh and others from Plum Village, Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra etc.  I am grasping and clinging, I know, but I am so drawn to this path to understanding...and it just keeps unfolding in front of me. As crazy as it sounds, it is like all this teaching  is coming to me. So I listen, I read and I take notes like I am back in university.  I have pages and pages and pages of notes I am trying to absorb and  assimilate.  I do that by sharing here or in my other writing. I just cannot get enough! And I love this learning.

Yet, I have been struggling to find meaning and purpose in my life lately.  I have been telling myself..."you have to "do" something other than "this". This, what you are doing here, is not meaningful work! Meaningful work serves humanity and who are you serving here?  One or two souls who are probably more curious about the crazy lady that writes this stuff than the message? You have spent years doing this studying and sharing here and for what? Where is it going? " 

Man,  it is my ego-mind that needs to know where it is all going. This part of me that still stubbornly lingers, even after all this wonderful understanding about the true nature of  reality I have absorbed, is constantly asking:  "Am I wasting my life here?  Am I doing something "wrong"? Is it enough?"

 Whatever part of me that is drawn to this is obviously much more powerful than my ego-mind because I keep coming back here  with, "This is what I learned today from what I read or listened to, what I experienced and observed in my own little version of Life. I think you need to hear this." Despite what my mind, that feels it has to "do" more, be more productive, serve in a different way, keeps telling me, despite the fact that I only have a few consistent and loyal readers ( and I do appreciate you!) , despite the fact that what I do here does not put food on "my" table or help with "my" mortgage...here I am again and again and again.

Is it enough? 

I recall these wise words from Michael Singer  ( well...I don't recall...I see them scribbled in my notes lol) Just do what is right in front of you as best as you can and that is enough."  I have been going over and over again in my head about how I should find work "out there" again, how I should give up on the writing thing so I can actually make money to live on...and how I have to turn my life around so it is more productive.  Yet, here I am.  All this wonderful learning comes to me and I just need to absorb it and share it. This learning...from the words of ancient and present day teachers, as well as the learning that comes from the best teacher: Life.... is in front of me.  I keep thinking that maybe  all these crazy and bizarre challenges show up in front of me for a reason. I am Life's student and I am supposed to learn from these challenges and share my learning.  That's my job!  Crazy I know.  But it was challenge that pulled me (or guided me) out of the work force, out of that type of "doing" and brought me here.  I am supposed to be here because, as Michael Singer would say,  I am here. 

If you let go of yourself, Life is easy. Michael Singer

I need to let go of this idea of "me" and "my" life and just deal with what is right in front of me.  

Hmm! 

All is well in my world! 

Michael Singer/ Mayim Bailik's Breakdown ( June 14, 2022) Michael Singer: Let Go Of Yourself And Surrender to Life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOTwnTtSzvs

Tonglen

 Tonglen is a way of being with people who need you-beginning with yourself.

Pema Chodron

Here is a Tonglen Practice from my yoga page.  I am not sure about you but when I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, stressed or physically not 100%, as has been my "personal" experience lately, I  find it helps to go beyond self-focus to "other" focus. I mean ego may not like it when we do that...it likes to wrap itself in a blanket of negativity and to stay on the "it is all about me" couch.  But Self...that higher part of us...sees no separateness or uniqueness in our experience of suffering. We can actually be reminded of that Self when we  think of others. 

I have so many people who seem to need me right now but because I am feeling so overwhelmed and somewhat unwell I am not there for them in the way I want to be.  I still have that discomfort in my side and though it may be absolutely nothing to worry about...it is a little worrying.... adding to the stressors I already have on my plate.  My "next day" ultrasound has been scheduled a month from that "next day" and I have yet to hear back about any urgent cardiac tests ordered months ago when I mentioned the bad bout of chest pain I had in May... while my daughter was already in and out for her non-urgent testing in that department, leading me to perceive or assume that I have been flagged in some way.  It is not that I want any tests...I just want to know what my body is trying to tell me through this nagging pain in my side and I want to know how the valve and heart is doing. The ultrasound would confirm if there is or isn't anything wrong with the spleen. As far as the cardiac test all I want, and ever wanted, was an echocardiogram once a year to check that valve  and the size of my heart (left ventricle). But other things show up like the palpitations and crazy pulses, the pelvic pain and then the  post menopausal DUB,the breast mass,  the left eye issue which I have given up on, and this pain in my side. I am not running to ER...have not been there, prior to July 9, since I hurt my arm and really, really thought there was a fracture  a couple of years ago.  I stopped going for my chest pain...have not been there for that since 2016 or 2017.  Man, I pulled a black legged tick out of me last year ( or the year before) and had a full blown bulls eye rash. I never wanted to bother anyone for antibiotics so I decided to put the tick in a bottle so I could send it away to find out if it had lyme prior to going that route.  Well a couple of big family issues came about and I forgot about the little guy until he disintegrated. So I let that go. But here I am...once again, it seems and this might be wrong perception, stuck in an  assumption from others that prevents me from getting help for my body.  This is adding to triggers that bring me back to the old health seeking trauma.  It is taking great  effort to keep me  from going there, to keep me in  my here and now.  It is also leading to  a depletion in energy reserves that could best be used to help those who need me. Sigh! 

Then I remembered Tonglen and that I am now a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness Teacher.  I may not be able to control what is going on in my body or how the health care system is responding to it...but I can practice and share Tonglen!  I may not be able to physically or directly end my loved one's suffering but I can do and share Tonglen!    The only way out of a sense of suffering is by going through it!  Tonglen helps us to go through it...or more accurately...helps the suffering to go through us. 

Tonglen is a practice very counter productive to the ego's attempt to run our psyches and our lives.  It is very counter intuitive to the personality's conditioned way of reacting to Life.  We are often habitually programed to run away, push away ( or down), ignore, deny, avoid suffering of any kind be it in the form of mere unpleasantness or  overwhelming pain.  When we do that we shut ourselves off from the full experience of being human. We actually hold on to and increase our suffering when we do that. Tonglen asks us to open up to suffering, to let it in and then it transmutes it with compassion before releasing it back to the place all things go to and come from. 

Pain  is an essential part of our experience here and if we open up to the unpleasant, the painful, the challenging and difficult we will see that like all expereince...it is temporary and fleeting.  It will blow right through us if we are open to it.  Resisting that which we really cannot avoid , however, as we are so conditioned to do prevents it from flowing through.  It doesn't escape us...it just gets stuck in us.  It gets stuck in the collective human experience like a big knot. Tonglen helps us to avoid creating an even bigger knot and it helps us to untangle the knot that is already  there.  It replaces suffering with compassion, one breath at a time.

All is well. 

https://youtu.be/J4TpEjc2_Ho

Fragile Ego; Let It Go!

 Not writing today.  Sticking to the new routine but I just felt the need to plop this awkward and very imperfect poem I wrote years ago down here.  All is well!

Fragile

How fragile this cup  I hold in my  two hands. I suddenly realize it  will not last.
Like all of the surface phenomenon of Life, it will crumble; it will die; it will pass.
I look down at these hands, wrinkled with passing time and see the same
like the cup, this idea of me in its aging form,  is just a chip in ego's cruel game.
Nothing lasts. The clock's busy second hand  will someday cease its distracting noise
and the magic secrets of past and future will be revealed as  deceptive ploys.
Bodies will die, yours and mine. The things we cling to will rust , decay and get lost.
Our desire to win a game or two as ego deals, will always come at cost.

The continuous flux of worldly things will surely turn to rubble and bury us alive
but if you find your little self  choking on the dust beneath the debris,  fighting  to survive...
Stop for a second, quiet  your mind and listen . Be still.  Allow the door of truth to open.
Through just a crack you will see the absolute reality when the true seer has awoken.
There is something there that is not fragile, that is permanent, real, remaining as it is.
This timeless awareness of who you are will show you there is so much more than 'this'.
From that place of knowing just watch the insignificant pass  and enjoy the changing scenery.
Learn to breathe, learn to smile, learn to love and learn to simply be.
Dale-Lyn Dec 2018

Notice!

 Notice that you are noticing.

Michael Singer

Are You Noticing?

One of the themes I picked up on my week off was about the importance of "noticing" .  Most of us, I believe,  go around our busy worlds so busily doing and thinking we do not "notice" all that is happening around us and in us in this moment. We barely notice the beauty of the natural world around us, let only "experience" it.  We barely notice the people around us...what they are saying, what they are feeling, let alone "experience" it.  We barely notice what is going on in our bodies, if there is pain or tension, numbness or tingling, fatigue or energy, let alone "experience" it until it is too late. We barely notice our thoughts and feelings, let alone "experience" them  until we are in full fledge reactivity and they are all consuming pulling us away from our present moment awareness. We barely notice our now, let alone "experience" it , accept it, allow it, embrace it, use it as the wonderful healing opportunity it is. 

The Mind Is Not a Noticer

The mind is a busy doer, a protector of the psyche and the body and is more or less conditioned not to "notice", not to experience "what is" .  It wants to get things "done".  To make sure "you" as the little personality is safe.  It is like a big machete swiping and swinging through the external world your personality has determined as real...cutting down the uncomfortable and throwing it to the side, manipulating life so as to create a clear path for you to walk through.  It doesn't have time to "notice", to stop and smell the roses etc 

There are two things we have to remember here as we make our way through the jungle  we created and projected.  The first is that we, who we really are, is not the mind and the second: it is not the mind that does the noticing. Who we really are as Self, higher consciousness, "Deeper I", Atman, soul (whatever term you care to use) is that which notices. As Eckhart Tolle reminds us in, How to Enter a Different State of Consciousness, there is no thinking or doing  involved in noticing. Noticing is an aspect of higher consciousness.   Noticing is going home to who we really are beyond the mind. 

Consciousness needs to be reclaimed from the thinking process. Eckhart Tolle

The mind is not a noticer. It is a thinker, perceiver, a judger, a discriminator and a fixer but not much of an observer. The mind's job, the job we, as these little me identities, have given it is to make the outer world okay for our inner worlds which are not okay by grasping from the world that which the mind deems as pleasant, and pushing away (which usually means squishing down) that which is unpleasant while we fail to "notice" anything that is neutral. If  something pleasant comes up to the mind and says, "Helloooo. I am here."  The mind reaches out and grabs it , clinging to it , thinking that it found and preserved something that will make what is not okay inside us, okay.  If  something unpleasant and uncomfortable comes up into our conscious awareness either from the external world, or from all that collected stuff within that so wants to come out, with a "Helloooo, I'm here," the mind will do whatever it can to avert it...to push it away from conscious awareness so it does not disturb us farther. That usually means pushing it back down.  If something "neutral" comes up, something that is neither threatening or glittery enough for the mind to see it as helpful, then the mind will not even see it, or hear it, or feel it.  It will walk all over it in order to do its job. The moment and the "what is" or "suchness" of it, is often neutral and unnoticed by the mind. 

Notice

The goal than is to notice more.  To, in increments,  become more and more aware of our experience in each moment be it pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. These things we notice also include not only what the five senses pick up from the external world in each moment but more importantly what is going on inside us in response to that. It involves noticing our thoughts, our feelings and our body sensations. To notice how the mind reacts or responds to the different perceptions of experience...to notice our tendency to grasp and cling to the pleasant that arises, our tendency to push away  or stuff down the unpleasant or uncomfortable , and our tendency to ignore the neutral. What happens emotionally, mentally and physically when something we deem as "bad, wrong, or shouldn't be" happens? Are you tensing up, are you feeling frightened, are you automatically thinking, "Now what can I do to stop this or fix this?" That is, after all, the way most of us are conditioned to react.

Notice, Don't React

We do not need to "react".  We can respond.  As a nursing educator who happened to teach Interpersonal Communication for many years, I always taught my students about what I called the "three B's".  I would encourage them before interacting with patients or other members of the health care team, before performing their skills or most importantly before responding to conflict or crisis, to practice the 3 B's. First, take a mental or physical step back from the personality's view of the situation. Become the Observer, not the reactor. Then I tell them to take a deep breath (or three)...to become aware of that breath.  Not only will that breath reactivate the parasympathetic nervous system so they are more relaxed and calm which is always the best way to approach anything, it will activate the noticer...the observer within themselves, that higher level of consciousness and clarity.  Then I tell them to begin again from there...so it is not the frightened, reactive personality running the show but spacious and calm awareness. 

The First Step to Awakening

Michael Singer, in most everything he writes or teaches related to untethering the soul, suggests that noticing is the crucial first step toward awakening. As soon as we notice that reaction starting , the moment we begin to feel uncomfortable it is an opportune time to take a step back and ask, "How do you know you are uncomfortable?  That you are feeling physical pain, anger, depression or whatever? Who is thinking this?  Who is feeling this? Who is aware of "you"...this entity you created with your mind...feeling, thinking or reacting in anyway you might be? " As soon as we do that, as soon as we realize that something deeper in us is witnessing something else in us behave, think, feel...we are going home to the spacious awareness that we are. We are Noticer, Observer, or as Deepak Chopra puts it, the passenger looking through a perceptual window taking a perceptual snapshot.

From there we can farther examine our tendency to want to push the unpleasant back down and instead of doing that, instead of resisting it and adding more junk to our over stuffed internal pandora's boxes, we allow it to release or pass through us. By taking this proverbial step back we relax with the perceived "unpleasantness" of  what is instead of tensing up against it as we are so conditioned to do.

Mindfulness and Noticing In Everyday Life

This is a very profound and healing use of "mindfulness" but we do not need to begin there.  We can begin by stopping so many times an hour just to notice our surroundings, all that we are picking up with our five senses, close our eyes and notice what is going on in our external  bodies, and our inner ones...Are there thoughts?  Don't follow the thoughts...just "notice" them. Are there feelings? Are they pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? What does your mind want to do in response to  those feelings? How is your body responding to those feelings? Your thoughts? Just notice. Then ask, "Who is noticing?"

One very neutral thing we can notice in our experience to help us to build this skill, is breath.  Just notice that which we barely ever notice...that which the mind judges as neutral yet it something so essential to our experience, our existence. If we practice daily to notice and observe our breaths for a certain amount of time...we can build the skill of noticing and we can tap into that spaciousness of who we are .

Anyway, that is a lot of rambling, eh?  Just want us all to  begin to notice what is really important. 

All is well. 

Deepak Chopra/ The Chopra Well ( July, 2022) You are the strange unknowable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agAb__58Y3E

Michael Singer/ Mayim Bailikis Breakdown  ( ) Let Go of Yourself and Surrender to Life. Bialik Breakdown

Eckhart Tolle ( ) How to Enter a Different Sate of Consciousness.Eckhart tolle & how to enter a different state of consciousness - Google Search

We Are The Gold We Seek From Meditation and Mindfulness

 Meditation is who you are; the person is what you do.

Jason Gregory

·       What most of us on this journey to spiritual awakening fail to remember is that we are already that which we seek…Tat Taum Asi …and we just need to get out of the way. 

       While I was away from my writing here I did a lot of listening to a lot of wise people and amongst the themes the truth about meditation/mindfulness being more of what we truly are than what we do came up. Though my citing will be off I was reminded by one of the speakers about the parable of Buddha and the philosopher. It goes a little like this:

       Once a philosopher, who spent his life painfully seeking the answers to many questions he had, came upon the Buddha.  He asked the Buddha to help him answer these questions.  The Buddha said, “Do you really want answers? Can you pay the price?”

      The philosopher was so desiring and striving for answers it was driving him cra-cra . He said, “I am in desperate need of answers…I cannot rest until I get them…I do not want to die without having them answered. So please, please…answer my questions.  I will pay the price. “ 

       The Buddha said, “I am glad you are willing to pay the price. I see how badly you want your answers.  The price for your answers will mean you will have to sit with me for two years in silence, asking no questions and at the end of those two years I will answer any questions you want answered.”  

      The philosopher thought of that but had great doubts and reservations.  First of all, he didn’t want to sit for two years and say nothing. That would be painful and how, he wondered, could he be sure the Buddha would answer his questions after two years. The Buddha assured him that if he sat still and in silence for that length of time he would answer any question asked of him.  

      There was a man sitting quietly beside the Buddha the whole time of this interaction. This disciple suddenly began to laugh and the philosopher asked him why he was laughing.  The disciple answered, “I too wanted my questions answered and was tricked in much the same way you are being tricked.  I sat here still and in silence for two years.  It is true what the Buddha said…he will honor any question we have after two years.  What I discovered after my two years of silence and stillness, however, is that I had no questions to ask him.  The answers to all my questions came to me in silence.”

       So the philosopher agreed to sit and be quiet for two years and at the end of those two years when the Buddha said the time was over and asked, “Do you have any questions now? I will answer.”  

      The philosopher began to laugh…”No I have rec’d all the answers I needed”

      I don’t know about you but when I think of having to sit for two years, I would be more than a little hesitant.  It seems like a cumbersome task one had to do.  Yet it really isn’t something we do to get answers or get somewhere.  It is who we are. We don’t do meditation because meditation is simply higher consciousness…it is who we are

      In another analogy shared by Eckhart Tolle in one of the videos I listened to (and I am not sure which one…my bad) we are asked to imagine a beggar sitting on a trunk that he never opens to look inside.  He spends his days reaching out to people and things as they move past…grasping from the outer world when all along there is gold inside the trunk. All that is truly valuable is inside us and we can access it when we stop seeking answers and satisfaction from the outside, when are still and quiet and open the trunks of our psyches to look within.  We don’t have to stay quiet  for two years maybe but every time we enter that space we will come closer to realizing who we really are and that is golden.

      Most of us, I was also reminded by Eckhart Tolle, are so busy looking outside , so trapped in this idea of who we think we are that we ( the personality)  don’t even bother to open up that lid…to still ourselves enough to make contact with what is truly precious.

       " Most of us carry the burden of the personality/self all our life…troublesome, anxious, angry, fearful, dissatisfied, always sensing that something is missing, always looking toward some other moment for some type of fulfillment…reaching end of life and realizing it wasn’t very enjoyable and you have not really found your self” somewhat paraphrased?? Eckhart Tolle

     “The most dreadful state is to be in trapped in your personality….not aware of anything beyond that…complete unawareness of the transcendent dimension.”  Eckhart Tolle

             “...you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed- or indeed only one" Luke 10 This is what Jesus said to an anxious, fretting and resentfully busy Martha...meaning there is only one thing in life that is absolutely important and it isn’t cooking and cleaning for guests...it is resting in higher consciousness, in awareness, in being as her sister Mary seemed to understand. 

     We eventually reach a point where we want to look inside and may get lost in the "doing" of it rather than the being. The most precious thing we gain from mediation and mindfulness is connection to that higher state. We want the transcendent dimension. We want that higher state of consciousness. But the thing is...it is not something we do... we are the very thing that we seek

·     “Who you are is inseparable from the present moment…who or what you are in your essence is the now…not what happens in the now but the spaciousness of now”…Eckhart Tolle

     Or Thich Nhat Hanh puts it, “…you are  wave on an  ocean that has been beat around by the weather…so, so tired of going up and down, up and down…We can find peace, solidity, center when we realize that we are the water and not just the wave…We can find peace in realizing that we are a manifestation of God in these apparently separate forms.” Somewhat paraphrased.

      Hmmm! All is well!

 I am back! Meant to return yesterday but birthday celebrations and a bit of chaos made that challenging. I am writing on a new laptop, a gift from D., one of those material world things I secretly longed for, only because my old computer with Windows 7 kept crashing. I was so afraid that one day all my writing (four plus books, hundreds of poems, short stories, personal essays, and what not) would disappear into a black cloud. So here I am.  I accepted this gift with great joy even though I knew it was a mortgage payment. If I end up on the street at least I will still be able to write! Isn't that crazy?  That is how my mind works. Being able to write comes before almost everything in my life. ( Of course, I am exaggerating when I say I might be on the streets...I might end up technically homeless...but I have a big family and they wouldn't leave me destitute. Another indication of how lucky I am compared to many.) I am saying "I" and "me" instead of "we" because I know D. will be okay.  He has a place where he and his son can go to if I let go of this house until the situation turns around ( and it will turn around). So it is not that bad.  I am hoping I did not make it sound more dire than it is while in "victim" mind frame. Hey...I got a laptop now ...a way to write where ever I end up...that somehow takes me out of victim status and gives me hope. Weird, I know!

Man...am I rambling!  I feel like a junior high school kid getting to talk to  her best friend again after a couple of months of vacation. Silly!  

Anyway, I have a plan for this so it is not so all consuming, taking me away from my other writing and my life.  I am going to "study": listen to wise teachers, read great texts, take notes etc on one day, than I will share what I learned on the next...alternating back and forth.  So you will only read me every second day. 

So while away I have studied, collecting over 20 pages of notes that I somehow have to summarize and share here today or tomorrow.  

All is well. 

Detaching and Opening Up

 

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

Tilopa

My dear readers, I am wanting to, first of all, thank you for reading and second of all apologize for the fact that my writing has taken such a personal turn.  It is one thing that I am struggling to cope with certain life events, I don't need to drag you down into those challenges as well.  Though I do believe that tracking and recording "my" awakening will help others...I may have self-disclosed too much. In my trying to share truths and the universal nature of all experiences through the filter of experience I see through, I sometimes make it a "me-me" adventure.  That is not what I want to do here.  I strongly believe that observing our awareness and lapses in awareness is crucial to our waking up to a higher understanding...but man it must be so boring to repeatedly hear about my silly struggles, my lapses in trying to make sense of "my" life events when you most likely have your own struggles to deal with, when there are so, so many much more life-altering traumas out there in the world to focus our healing intention on. 

So what I might do, after today, is slip away for a while.  Though this blog has been so therapeutic for me, and from what I hear, for some others as well...I might be falling into some unhealthy patterns of "stuckness".  I seem to be spending more and more of my time here trying to work through what is going on in my psyche in response to life circumstances and because of that, I am spending less time "living" and "being" in the other moments of my life. Again, I am using "my" only to make a point. Even though I am observing the story from a distance now and really ready to finally do what needs to be done to let it go, to heal from it once and for all, there is definitely a clinging, a pull, a desire to wrap myself in it. I seem to be able to do that here. so, I guess, in a sense it is enabling. 

Like you, I want the healing and freedom that comes with letting go of that which no longer serves us, by determining what is really important and living through that. I, we all, have to keep asking the important questions: " Beyond this story, my beliefs, this "idea" I have of who I am...Who am I...really? What is my purpose here?  How can I best serve? and What am I grateful for?"   We do not need to answer these questions in a conceptual way...we just need to experience the answers as they come to us and they will. 

I have been so busy explaining...I have not been listening for the answers. I have been a bit too attached to my story and my need to explain why I am where I am at this point in my life that I was not really open to this amazing, miraculous life that is right in front of me despite and because of what has happened. I need to reconnect with being. So just for a week, I am going to step away.

 I wish you a wonderful and amazing week of peace, of joy, of truth and awakening. Until I connect with you again, may you be well! Namaste!

All is well in my little version of Life! 

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

Deepak Chopra/ The Chopra Well ( Feb, 2020) The Mechanics of Manifestation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsYr9NTLduY

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

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

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

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