It's the middle of January, and I'm already hearing stories of New Year's resolution dieters being frustrated with their weight-loss goals. So, rather than listen to people beat-up some more on themselves, critiquing and judging themselves--I'll share a little something SIMPLE that will free you from the tape measures, scales and goal-setting. And instead, re-connect you with that GIFT of a BODY you've been so blessed with. That beautiful body of a human BEING that you've become so disconnected from. You're so disconnected from yourself, that you're no longer even present in your bodies (embodiment)--thus the reason for many of the weight and disease issues each human experiences.
Let's get you back into those bodies--with utmost GRATITUDE for you--ALL of You!
...and that will free you from many of those issues you've burdened--literally WEIGHTED--yourself with.
Diets never worked for me. First, they're loaded with rules--and I have a tendency to challenge and break the rules in my own rebellious kind of way. Rules are too limiting and constricting, and the more I try to control and monitor myself--the more the very thing I'm trying to avoid pops into my reality.
My sister and I used to have sugar bets, where we tried to see who could avoid eating sweets for the longest time. It was our way of getting into shape--I seem to remember having made a few New Year's resolutions of my own in the past. The moment the bet started, I found myself "thinking" I was hungry and craving something sweet. I'd graze my way through the cupboards, trying to avoid the sweet stuff, and I'd end up eating way more than I did when I allowed myself the bit of sweetness in life that I so craved. The less I ALLOWED myself to indulge in the sweets, the more focused I became on my hunger and lack of joy in life. I changed nothing about my weight, and I grew less appreciative of myself. I was literally fighting with myself.
I grew up very health and diet conscious. My parents were fairly organic foods conscious--much of our diet was home-grown on the family farm. My sister has a degree in foods and nutrition. I was never much of one for taking a lot of medications or going to the doctor. I've been aware of that KNOWINGNESS within, that nudges and reminds me, that everything I need to live abundantly and healthfully in the world is right here INSIDE of ME. I don't need rituals and rules to follow, nor do I even need food to live--but I can enjoy the sensual gift of it all--this experience in the human body.
I used a tool called the BODY PENDULUM to re-establish a loving and compassionate, and more importantly, an APPRECIATIVE and SELF-AWARE relationship with my body.
The Body Pendulum:
While standing with your feet about a shoulder's width apart, hold the food (or medication or clothing) item in BOTH hands up against your heart.
Close your eyes...take a deep breath...
If you feel your body leaning FORWARD (rocking onto the balls of your feet) into the food item--it means "YES!" Your body is saying, "I will enjoy it, and feel good...at this moment in time."
If you feel your body leaning BACKWARDS (rocking onto the heels of your feet) away from the food item--it means "NO!" Your body is saying, "I don't want that--not AT THIS MOMENT in TIME."
Keep in mind, that NOTHING is PERMANENT. People often get tripped up with food allergies by BELIEVING that the allergy is a permanent issue in their life--and that FEAR feeds the reality manifestation--so they experience being STUCK with a food allergy. Utilize the body pendulum before ingesting anything you might normally be allergic to. If you get a "Yes" on something you usually were allergic to, step back out of the story, and give yourself the time and space to FEEL into whether or not you want to actually try it. You don't have to ingest it at all--especially if you FEEL any FEAR or DOUBT at all.
Be responsible for your own well-being:
Make sure that if you do CHOOSE to try something, try just a tiny, miniscule amount (a homoeopathic approach)--and make sure you have whatever medication you use for an allergic reaction ON HAND. The Kryon.com channelings has some excellent material on why homeopathy works: Click the following links: "The Mysterious Innate" and "Moving Into 2014."
Just remember: A "NO" answer just means "NOT AT THIS NOW MOMENT in time." It's not permanent.
DON'T eat ANYTHING you perceive as poisonous to yourself--just to test yourself--because you'll probably poison or kill yourself. TESTING oneself in such a way is idiotic--and you'll probably just die and have to be born all over again.
The more you play with using the body pendulum, the more you realize that some days it feels good to drink orange juice, for instance, but on other days, when orange juice doesn't really even sound appealing to you--you feel better by not drinking it. All that the Body Pendulum does is put you back in touch--into awareness with yourself in the PRESENT MOMENT at hand.
You'll find yourself eating, and enjoying, all kinds of foods you didn't even like in the past, or that you craved, but felt guilty about indulging in because some SUGGESTED BELIEF or BIASED SCIENTIFIC STUDY said it was "wrong." Over the years, I've observed the egg being believed to be all bad, to just the yolk being bad, to the white being the culprit, to the whole egg being good for you--depending on the latest diet and medical trend. All scientific studies--even the double-blind ones--are biased according to the consciousness of the person/s involved in them. I don't follow the advice of scientific studies anymore. I haven't for a long time.
What is good for one person, doesn't mean it's good for everyone, because we're each a pinpoint of consciousness, each having experiences, and perceptions of those experiences, that are unique to that individual. None of us see or experience things exactly alike. This is why diets and exercise regimens don't work. They may get you to a goal, but so often, we back-slide once the goal is reached, or the diet and routine has limited us so much that even though we look and feel healthy in our bodies, we're not enjoying living our lives--and that opens the door for some other form of DIS-ease to manifest.
I don't even need to use the body pendulum anymore. I just used it as a stepping-stone means to get back in touch with my own body.
I eat WHEN I feel hungry--not according to the three well-rounded meals-a-day schedule I was taught in grade school. I sometimes eat left-overs, if I have them, when I'm alone during the day. Sometimes cheese and crackers are appealing. Yesterday, I fried an egg and made toast. I nibble something here and there during the day, and I usually enjoy at least one evening meal with my husband on days that he works. We have cappuccinos and a snack in the afternoon when he gets home. Eating together, whether at the table or while sitting on the couch, watching a movie--it's a time for the two of us. And, yes, there are days when I'm not in the mood for cooking--and we eat fast food or frozen stuff that people often refer to as junkie, processed stuff. McDonald's French fries are still one of my favorites--and I allow myself to enjoy them when I crave them.
Some days, I crave chocolate--and I give myself chocolate in whatever form FEELS appealing to me in the moment. Sometimes, that means I bake us a decadent chocolate cake or brownies. Sometimes it's a Snickers candy bar or a piece of Dove dark chocolate. I may go a week or more eating a little chocolate every day, and then suddenly, I don't desire it anymore.
I never used to have a potato chip in the house, but now I enjoy kettle-cooked potato chips dipped in sour cream. Not a french onion dip either. I like just plain sour cream--something I had never even tried before this past year. And my husband likes them that way too, now--and, in the past, he wasn't much into using sour cream even on a potato.
I enjoy fruits and vegetables--raw or cooked or baked. I love how they color up a plate. Presentation of the food is as much fun for me now, as the eating. My latest favorite dressing for a fresh salad consisting of Romaine lettuce, sweet pepper, cucumber, carrot, sunflower seed and tortilla strips--is:
2 Tablespoons of freshly squeezed Lemon or Lime Juice
2 Tbsp. Sugar
2 Tbsp. Grapeseed or Olive oil
Fresh-ground pepper and salt to taste
I like how the salad pretties up the slice of pizza or whatever other food I serve it with. Sometimes, the salad alone is satisfying.
I love potatoes in the form of French fries--it's a comfort food, and brings up fond memories with my dad and my mom. Dad used to order a heaping plate of fries at the restaurant for whomever was at the table to share. Mom used to tell me I had to eat my hamburger first before eating my fries. Back when I was little, eating a meal consisting solely of greasy French fries meant Mom was probably going to have a kid with an upset tummy. To this day, I often become aware of myself quickly eating up my hamburger in order to get to my favorite French fries. My husband still gets a chuckle out of it. It's the one thing I'm faster at eating than he is.
I enjoy meat, too, and crave it at times--but I don't desire it every day.
I don't eat nearly the quantities of any foods that I used to--but I cook with whole milk, cream and butter. I also use grapeseed, olive and vegetable oils. I use whatever TASTES BEST--all without FEELING GUILTY. It all depends NOW on what FEELs appealing to me in the moment I'm creating a meal or a snack.
Even the cooking or baking has become a more sensual and joyful expression and experience. I play with recipes and spices--smelling and imagining potential combinations of textures and flavors and colors.
I can eat anything just to pacify a hunger pain, and not worry about it's effect on me.
I've found that I can even seemingly over-eat, and not feel painful consequences because of it. It's easy to over-indulge during the holidays with friends and family, when eating and enjoying the moment with others--and I've discovered that because I'm ALLOWING MYSELF to enjoy and appreciate all the sensuality of this life in the moment at hand, without radiating out GUILT--but with GRATITUDE instead--my body reacts in kind.
As for exercise--I keep it LIGHT and ENJOYABLE. I walk because I love to walk, whether alone or with company--especially outside in nature. I'm not a power walker--I lollygag and breathe in the moment sometimes, and sometimes I stretch out my stride, relishing the feel of my body in a faster gait. I bought active-wear clothing that is warm in winter and cool in summer--just because it makes my walk more enjoyable and easier. I do a few light yoga positions to BREATHE and STRETCH sometimes, especially at night when I awaken in the wee hours with body aches. It helps get me back into my body, and flows my energies. I also drink 4-6 ounces of water first thing in the morning, and as the last thing before going to sleep at night, because WATER helps FLOW CONSCIOUSNESS and energies, too--whether you drink or bathe in it.
So throw away those weigh scales and stop perusing yourself in the mirror with judgment, or comparing yourself to some other "more beautiful and fit" person "out there" somewhere. I've found that when I got caught up in comparing myself to others I always found someone out there more attractive and more beautiful than myself.
Instead, I take the WEIGHT of PRESSURE off by actually hugging myself, while FEELING GRATITUDE for all that I've been and experienced, and for all that I am right now. I love my life. I love being here on earth. I love this sensual experience of a human just being...and discovering who I really am...
Related Posts:
With this Body...
We're all quite the characters--actors, that is--role-playing together. These are stories of my awakening, my remembering realization that Home/Heaven is wherever I am. That I am not the puppet on someone else's string. The search is over. I simply FREELY CHOSE to quit searching outside of myself, and realized all my answers have always been within.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Monday, December 23, 2013
Being Self-Aware WITHOUT Judgment, vs. Battling Victimhood
FEELINGS that are ALLOWED--without judgment as to whether they're right or wrong, good or bad, positive or negative--will flow through your consciousness WITHOUT MANIFESTING in your life experience.
After all, we're just ACTING.
Close your mouth and eyes, take a deep-down-into-your-lower rib cage breath (inhale through your nose, exhale out your mouth or nose)--and ALLOW yourself to feel into you...
Note and acknowledge how you FEEL. Acknowledge the THOUGHTS (both Negative and Positive) that keep popping forth. This is a Conscious Breath.
Then breathe again, and feel into yourself again--drop the guards and open up, allow it ALL to simply BE, and allow it to flow through you. This is Unconditional Love and Hands-off Compassion.
Take the few seconds to open, breathe and feel into you. This "allowing, without judgment" will set you free from monitoring yourself. This is Grace in action.
If you remember anything from this posting--I hope it's that first part. The following is just explanation based on my own experiences with the victim archetype energies. Every human has the victim energies in his/her consciousness.
I've spent decades learning how to come to terms with the Victim aspect in me. I've tried to battle it, suppress it, avoid it, ignore it, handle or control it, analyze it to death, fix it...
...and none of that worked.
If you're familiar with any of my blogs, you have probably gleaned that I've struggled most with the Victim energies. I didn't much like dealing with victimhood in others, much less dealing with the victimhood in myself. I've experienced them as being very sucky, draining, energy-feeding experiences.
Because of that DISLIKE--because I JUDGED them as being "wrong"--I kept experiencing feeling like a victim in all of my relationships, near and far (though I tried my damnedest not to feel that way). I kept being surrounded by "poor, pitiful" victim-y people and pets--all kinds of drama. It irritated me to no end.
Those victims outside of me were just mirrored reflections of what I would not accept about myself (that I was actually FEELING like the Victim of all those "Other Victim's" over-reacted dramas). And because of that FOCUSING of my attention--it stopped the energy FLOW, and instead, HELD it in my reality.
Every Christmas of my adulthood has brought out the victim in me--even this year (much to my consternation and frustration). Every year, I tried to get a handle on it ahead of time, and every year, I felt compromised--like a victim--no matter how positive and open I TRIED TO BE. The Judging Monster was still there shaking her head, blaming others, FEELING all victim-y like a drama queen. Because, you see, I judged that as "no way to BE." I judged that as "no way to FEEL." And I was trying to get, and keep, her under control--but, of course, that never worked, not really.
It's just in the last couple of days that I've realized that the reason I still experience playing "that annoying victim" ROLE is because I've been bracing myself for it. I HAVE PROTECTIVE GUARDS UP. I especially become aware of them when I close my eyes to feel into myself. And those guards stop the NATURAL FLOW of the energies, because I've focused my attention, my consciousness, on Victimhood.
When I have emotionally protective armor on with the walls up, I'm radiating out to the Universe that I have something to fight, to guard against--and SO IT IS...the Universal energies, LOVINGLY and IN SERVICE TO ME, align themselves to match my radiation. And wha-la!--I'm wrangling with Victimhood! I'm inundated with relationships with victimizers--and I'm their poor little victim.
If I want to really release myself, I have to drop all the old stories where I felt wounded, along with the armor. I have to let go of keeping score. None of that really matters NOW, UNLESS I make it matter NOW!
I have to just QUIT THINKING ABOUT THE PAST. Hanging onto the old perceived hurts and "injustices" keeps me re-cycling victimhood in my experience.
There's really nothing to think about, figure out, analyze--especially not to judge. It's actually best not to think about it, or dwell on it.
It's just merely BECOMING AWARE that I'm FEELING like a VICTIM--honestly ACKNOWLEDGING that, without JUDGING it, without struggling to control or handle it.
Just observe myself ACTING--And LAUGH.
View it from the broadest perspective, where I am seeing it from a vantage point of being above the entire Gameboard of actors.
Then taking another breath to drop the guards and open myself to freely flow...and harmonize...while walking through the Game.
Victimhood that is ALLOWED to be felt, without judgment, simply flows through on the gracious breath, without being manifested in my present reality.
After all, we're all just a bunch of CHARACTERS ACTING out parts together. We're just divine, spiritual beings pretending to be limited humans--WHAT A GIFT THAT IS for all of us!
I've KNOWN this stuff for a long time. I've even practiced it. But every now and then, I need a reminder, too. We'll see how this Christmas holiday unfolds...
After all, we're just ACTING.
Close your mouth and eyes, take a deep-down-into-your-lower rib cage breath (inhale through your nose, exhale out your mouth or nose)--and ALLOW yourself to feel into you...
Note and acknowledge how you FEEL. Acknowledge the THOUGHTS (both Negative and Positive) that keep popping forth. This is a Conscious Breath.
Then breathe again, and feel into yourself again--drop the guards and open up, allow it ALL to simply BE, and allow it to flow through you. This is Unconditional Love and Hands-off Compassion.
Take the few seconds to open, breathe and feel into you. This "allowing, without judgment" will set you free from monitoring yourself. This is Grace in action.
If you remember anything from this posting--I hope it's that first part. The following is just explanation based on my own experiences with the victim archetype energies. Every human has the victim energies in his/her consciousness.
I've spent decades learning how to come to terms with the Victim aspect in me. I've tried to battle it, suppress it, avoid it, ignore it, handle or control it, analyze it to death, fix it...
...and none of that worked.
If you're familiar with any of my blogs, you have probably gleaned that I've struggled most with the Victim energies. I didn't much like dealing with victimhood in others, much less dealing with the victimhood in myself. I've experienced them as being very sucky, draining, energy-feeding experiences.
Because of that DISLIKE--because I JUDGED them as being "wrong"--I kept experiencing feeling like a victim in all of my relationships, near and far (though I tried my damnedest not to feel that way). I kept being surrounded by "poor, pitiful" victim-y people and pets--all kinds of drama. It irritated me to no end.
Those victims outside of me were just mirrored reflections of what I would not accept about myself (that I was actually FEELING like the Victim of all those "Other Victim's" over-reacted dramas). And because of that FOCUSING of my attention--it stopped the energy FLOW, and instead, HELD it in my reality.
Every Christmas of my adulthood has brought out the victim in me--even this year (much to my consternation and frustration). Every year, I tried to get a handle on it ahead of time, and every year, I felt compromised--like a victim--no matter how positive and open I TRIED TO BE. The Judging Monster was still there shaking her head, blaming others, FEELING all victim-y like a drama queen. Because, you see, I judged that as "no way to BE." I judged that as "no way to FEEL." And I was trying to get, and keep, her under control--but, of course, that never worked, not really.
It's just in the last couple of days that I've realized that the reason I still experience playing "that annoying victim" ROLE is because I've been bracing myself for it. I HAVE PROTECTIVE GUARDS UP. I especially become aware of them when I close my eyes to feel into myself. And those guards stop the NATURAL FLOW of the energies, because I've focused my attention, my consciousness, on Victimhood.
When I have emotionally protective armor on with the walls up, I'm radiating out to the Universe that I have something to fight, to guard against--and SO IT IS...the Universal energies, LOVINGLY and IN SERVICE TO ME, align themselves to match my radiation. And wha-la!--I'm wrangling with Victimhood! I'm inundated with relationships with victimizers--and I'm their poor little victim.
If I want to really release myself, I have to drop all the old stories where I felt wounded, along with the armor. I have to let go of keeping score. None of that really matters NOW, UNLESS I make it matter NOW!
I have to just QUIT THINKING ABOUT THE PAST. Hanging onto the old perceived hurts and "injustices" keeps me re-cycling victimhood in my experience.
There's really nothing to think about, figure out, analyze--especially not to judge. It's actually best not to think about it, or dwell on it.
It's just merely BECOMING AWARE that I'm FEELING like a VICTIM--honestly ACKNOWLEDGING that, without JUDGING it, without struggling to control or handle it.
Just observe myself ACTING--And LAUGH.
View it from the broadest perspective, where I am seeing it from a vantage point of being above the entire Gameboard of actors.
Then taking another breath to drop the guards and open myself to freely flow...and harmonize...while walking through the Game.
Victimhood that is ALLOWED to be felt, without judgment, simply flows through on the gracious breath, without being manifested in my present reality.
After all, we're all just a bunch of CHARACTERS ACTING out parts together. We're just divine, spiritual beings pretending to be limited humans--WHAT A GIFT THAT IS for all of us!
I've KNOWN this stuff for a long time. I've even practiced it. But every now and then, I need a reminder, too. We'll see how this Christmas holiday unfolds...
Monday, November 25, 2013
Lighthouses of Freedom: Every American's Responsibility? How?
In the 1990's, I tried to do what I was told was each and every responsible American's duty to do--I tried to officially document, file, and claim my sovereignty. I tried to free myself from the imprisonment and slavery/serfdom of established systems. And it was a terrifying experience.
I was reading all this material with strange and foreign words--even the word, sovereign, was elusive to my ability to mentally grasp. As far as feeling free--feelings were pretty much scoffed at at that time. We were supposed to act, and react, intellectually and logically, to not be ruled by our "silly" feelings and emotions. I remember one of my husband's bosses telling him to not make "emotional decisions." It made me laugh. How can you NOT make an emotionally-triggered choice when you're totally UNAWARE of what you're feeling in the first place? Most human behaviors and experiences--actions and reactions--are due to emotional triggering.
I was instructed to be patriotic by the ones around me who thought they were freedom fighters. Turns out, we were all just fighting our own personal demons, and not a single one of us understood what true freedom is. Even though we were fighting for it (not with weapons, but with words, in my case), we were also mentally placing limitations on the concept--we didn't trust ourselves, much less any other being out there, with total freedom. We're sure to abuse it down the line somewhere, aren't we? Gotta keep the Satan-monsters in check, right? Trying to control the behavior of those outside of oneself is like herding cats...it isn't going to happen.
I love those words: "With Liberty and Justice for All"
Is it freedom, or is it a political power-play, to demand someone to pledge allegiance to something they don't really understand--just because someone thinks it's the right thing to do, because that's the way it's always been done? What if I disagree with some of the things elected officials have done in my name? Do I freely honestly proclaim allegiance to that? Is that freedom when, inwardly, I feel myself cringing and putting on the brakes? As a kid, and as an adult--I had no idea what those words of our pledge of allegiance actually meant, because no one ever really discussed the subject of sovereignty and freedom--and yet we're all told that those words matter. Hm. Are you really free if you are programmed, forced, or manipulated using shame, into doing something expected of, and unquestioned by, you?
For the record, I tear up at our national anthem, and I have a deep appreciation for ALL who came before me--ALL OF IT! I love the idea of Self-Sovereignty, of true freedom for ALL--and I choose to explore that in depth.
What I remember most of all from those very chaotic, confusing, and frightening days, is the sense of always feeling like I had a finger slammed in my face, blaming "idiotic-me" for the state of our country and world. Every time I read something, the authors were telling me I should be ashamed of myself for taking my freedom for granted, for giving it away, for allowing all those bad people out there to sucker me into being their slave.
So when I finally gave up, and returned to the system, I bowed my head in shame and disgrace at my failure to claim my sovereignty that way, and in shame that I'd even tried that path to begin with. Most of my peers thought I was crazy to even try to break out of the system. I walked around feeling foolish, like a big zero, for years afterward.
In retrospect--I was too hard on myself. I hadn't given myself credit for having the courage to at least attempt to see outside that old box of a belief system. Especially, when all of my life experience and education, up to that point, had nothing to do with even discussing the topic of true sovereignty and freedom. It wasn't in our human consciousness awareness. All of our education, K-12 and higher, focused on teaching the democratic process, and how to create laws--and that has nothing to do with personal sovereignty, and everything to do with trying to limit and control ourselves and others.
All that education in this "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave," and none of it had any of us contemplating what it meant to live out our own total freedom, while honoring and respecting all others and being together harmoniously. We were taught to idolize those with power and fame, and if we didn't have the brains and the power to lead others, then we should follow those who had it, and whine about all the ways "they" fail us. And bravery--is that a concept reserved only for soldiers? I can think of a huge number of roles that fall into the category of bravery--and some don't include fighting anything, but simply releasing oneself from a belief.
I don't identify with any political parties, and I frankly think this 2-party system is in need of a good cleaning. I've heard of the possibility of a third party emerging from all of this upheaval in 2020. A non-politician like Donald Trump is looking like the catalyst for change that we needed to set ourselves in a new creation direction of electing representatives at all levels who actually serve us in honoring freedom for all, first and foremost.
What's going on with agenda-motivated mainstream news and social media like Facebook censoring and promotion of fighting with our own friends and relatives, and the spyware is insane! It's all sheer distraction from every individual's possible foray of going within--into taking a clearer, responsibly-self-compassionate look (not the personal blame crap I mentioned above) at oneself, and learning to practice trusting oneself with total freedom, while living harmoniously alongside others choosing the same sovereignty, or not.
But frankly, that search-for-power distraction is what every American has been taught to do by the OLD family, education, religious and government systems in place--seek power through making money via businesses, fight to control its distribution, and try to tell anyone external from us how to behave. That's the package being sold as "The American Dream"--but that distorted viewpoint is NOT this American's, my, dream.
I'm tired of being told that I'm taking for granted the freedom all those soldiers are supposedly dying for--for me. Especially when those reprimanding me with that opinion and agenda haven't even considered what true freedom is. They're just passing on mental programming--the blind leading the blind. I'm not asking ANYONE to fight or sacrifice their lives for me--I haven't done so in all these years--and yet, everywhere I look, blind people are telling me to make my truth, a very old belief they haven't felt into themselves. Some politician has used that idea as a popular means to gain people's votes--they tell you what their polls tell them you want to hear.
I heard a lot of people wanting revenge for 9/11--and politicians gave them exactly what they asked for by sending soldiers and National Guardsmen and women (not meant for war on foreign soil) to blow to hell the countries and people of Afghanistan and Iraq, looking for a few terrorists and a dick-tator, and his weapons of mass destruction bullshit. And you got a government watchdog in the process, protecting your safety--and I've never seen anyone more "safe" and free than those being searched like criminals before boarding an airplane. That last part was sarcasm.
I NEVER asked for that, and I don't feel that honors the memory of all those beloved men and women and children who died on 9/11. I NEVER demanded revenge--to me, that wasn't justice served. That was politics and greed and power plays--manipulating the EMOTIONS of the people to get "their" (and I'm not talking ANY conspiracy crap here) agenda accepted. We all have agendas--it helps if you are aware and can acknowledge that you have them. I'm sorry our armed forces were called into action, and that so many suffered so much tragedy, ALL OVER THE WORLD, for ALL THESE YEARS--but none of that was my choice. That was politicians and all the blind sheep who followed their lead--wanting to play power and war games. I guess everyone got exactly what they wanted..."If it's in my life, I put it there."
I'm choosing my own sovereignty--no one else can give it to me--and no one needs to sacrifice anything for me to make that choice. That latter part is an example of a guilt trip--that's the classic tool a manipulative person with an agenda uses to get someone shamed into acting the way they want them to. We've all used it at one time or several others.
Freedom isn't a power game--it's a feeling, and feelings are about as unique and personal as you can get.
In US history classes, we read boring textbooks and memorized dates and battles, but I was never taught to imagine myself in the shoes of those amazing people who brought about the creation of my beloved country, the first of its kind to make an experimental step towards recognizing freedom--sovereignty--for all. I never had a world history class in all my schooling--and in order to appreciate our America--the personal sovereignty/freedom experiment--you really need to have some idea of the life, trials and tribulations, and challenges--the consciousness--of the Old World people prior to its creation.
I learned of the French Revolution--how it felt, on a human level, for both the wealthy aristocracy and the peasants--from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. It took me reading that book to realize that their revolution was going on about the same time as our American Revolution--and what a difference there was between the two. I even more deeply felt into, and contemplated, revenge versus true justice because of that work of fiction.
I just recently experienced a glimpse of the Russian people's life experience during Joseph Stalin's reign of terror prior to, and during World War II, through another novel by Kristin Hannah, Winter Garden. I was born in 1964, a baby boomer who grew up during the Cold War era--we were taught that Russians were our enemies with mutual nuclear weapon capabilities, and that Communism was bad, and that people who were thought to be enemies of the state were banned to Siberia.
But not once, were we encouraged to imagine what the daily life was like for the human being living in such a state, much less how Marxism came to be, who the Bolsheviks were, and how they came into power through Lenin. I had no real understanding of what World Wars I or II were even truly about--and I'm not sure the citizenry of the world then even knew that either.
I'm not sure anyone knows why we fight any of the wars. Everyone has different personal reasons and purposes for choosing to play the roles we each play. Wars come about mainly due to emotional manipulation--through guilt trips and propaganda--of the masses willing to UNKNOWINGLY give their personal sovereignty away. You can be in a prison--and still, at the core of the real you, exercise FREE CHOICE. On the basic human level alone, I don't think anyone truly comes out a winner of a war, do we? It feels like a barbaric waste.
The latest war in America doesn't have war in its title even--the health conflict. If you CHOOSE, fellow free-born sovereign, to play and fight in that power game, enjoy your procto-exam. You see, when you give your responsibility for your own life into the hands of another, expecting them to take care of you and make you happy, you're going to get betrayed...I'd bet on that, and I'd win. But it's an experience, and I honor your choice to have it, just don't expect me to commiserate with you, either side.
I've had this old saying come to mind recently--it always made me cringe with distaste: "Get up! The world's on fire--get up and piss on it."
I've realized it revolted me so because, to me, to intentionally urinate on someone or something is to treat them with disrespect.
What I hadn't recognized before, though, is that it's representative of the Old Consciousness world I grew up in--the aggressive, war-like, power-plays of a human mass consciousness OUT of BALANCE toward the masculine end of the spectrum.
I haven't really ever quite fit into the mindset of the old world, and I used to apologize and feel ashamed of that--but I've realized I didn't come to fit in. I came in at that time because the potential was great that I would live to experience, along with others, a huge quantum shift in human consciousness never ever experienced before. A shift that would change the world as we know it, into something new. The Earth will go on without me, and so will other beings of all kinds--they don't need, or want, me to save them. No one really needs anything from me--and that makes it easier to see how we all unconditionally love each other, no matter what trauma/dramas we play out on the surface.
As I recently joked with some facebook friends, writing our names while urinating is quite an exhausting and messy endeavor for us females, but it's how territories get marked. It's about making sure others know you've been there, and made a difference. It's how we're taught to be in the old consciousness. Prove you're worthy of being alive, even though when you're dead and gone long enough, the world will still forget you, no matter how pretty and elegant your casket and headstone are. And your story gets distorted and diluted, if it's even attention-worthy enough for someone to share with others. Few of us make it into the history books, and after what I've seen done to the life story of Jesus/Yeshua, I don't care if I'm famous.
In essence, all that awful statement above is saying is, "Prove that you matter (that you exist) by making your mark on the world, by putting out the fires--the things we are mentally programmed to believe that we should care about, and fix."
And just so you know, I can roll my eyes and laugh at the absurdities and craziness of the individuals who are sleepily choosing to continue playing the old game, by playing politics, religion, family, business and conspiracies--the power game--because I did all of those things, too. I was a crazy, absurd, foolish woman--and I took a lot of things for granted. And none of that really matters. There's nothing to really be ashamed of. Others can play using the guilt trip, but I'm bored with that concept, so, in that respect--you have my respect, and I choose to honor your sovereignty, however you choose to live, and play, it out.
There's one thing I know for sure: I am! I exist! And regardless of the game, whether I live or die here, I will always exist. I am that I am!
And I don't need to file any silly documents for some belief system, full of inconsistencies, in order to claim my natural inheritance--my freedom and sovereignty.
All I had to do, was quit "busily" searching, and listen to what has been within me all along...I live it out with every consciously-aware breath...one breath at a time...
P.S. I find it ironic that those who seemed to really hate our current president, Donald Trump, have accused him of being the next Hitler, when, in fact, I haven't seen him taking any freedoms away in all these past 4 years. When I've heard him speak, I have felt a kindred sense of a love of all that is good about our country and freedom and its people.
I was reading all this material with strange and foreign words--even the word, sovereign, was elusive to my ability to mentally grasp. As far as feeling free--feelings were pretty much scoffed at at that time. We were supposed to act, and react, intellectually and logically, to not be ruled by our "silly" feelings and emotions. I remember one of my husband's bosses telling him to not make "emotional decisions." It made me laugh. How can you NOT make an emotionally-triggered choice when you're totally UNAWARE of what you're feeling in the first place? Most human behaviors and experiences--actions and reactions--are due to emotional triggering.
I was instructed to be patriotic by the ones around me who thought they were freedom fighters. Turns out, we were all just fighting our own personal demons, and not a single one of us understood what true freedom is. Even though we were fighting for it (not with weapons, but with words, in my case), we were also mentally placing limitations on the concept--we didn't trust ourselves, much less any other being out there, with total freedom. We're sure to abuse it down the line somewhere, aren't we? Gotta keep the Satan-monsters in check, right? Trying to control the behavior of those outside of oneself is like herding cats...it isn't going to happen.
I love those words: "With Liberty and Justice for All"
Is it freedom, or is it a political power-play, to demand someone to pledge allegiance to something they don't really understand--just because someone thinks it's the right thing to do, because that's the way it's always been done? What if I disagree with some of the things elected officials have done in my name? Do I freely honestly proclaim allegiance to that? Is that freedom when, inwardly, I feel myself cringing and putting on the brakes? As a kid, and as an adult--I had no idea what those words of our pledge of allegiance actually meant, because no one ever really discussed the subject of sovereignty and freedom--and yet we're all told that those words matter. Hm. Are you really free if you are programmed, forced, or manipulated using shame, into doing something expected of, and unquestioned by, you?
For the record, I tear up at our national anthem, and I have a deep appreciation for ALL who came before me--ALL OF IT! I love the idea of Self-Sovereignty, of true freedom for ALL--and I choose to explore that in depth.
What I remember most of all from those very chaotic, confusing, and frightening days, is the sense of always feeling like I had a finger slammed in my face, blaming "idiotic-me" for the state of our country and world. Every time I read something, the authors were telling me I should be ashamed of myself for taking my freedom for granted, for giving it away, for allowing all those bad people out there to sucker me into being their slave.
So when I finally gave up, and returned to the system, I bowed my head in shame and disgrace at my failure to claim my sovereignty that way, and in shame that I'd even tried that path to begin with. Most of my peers thought I was crazy to even try to break out of the system. I walked around feeling foolish, like a big zero, for years afterward.
In retrospect--I was too hard on myself. I hadn't given myself credit for having the courage to at least attempt to see outside that old box of a belief system. Especially, when all of my life experience and education, up to that point, had nothing to do with even discussing the topic of true sovereignty and freedom. It wasn't in our human consciousness awareness. All of our education, K-12 and higher, focused on teaching the democratic process, and how to create laws--and that has nothing to do with personal sovereignty, and everything to do with trying to limit and control ourselves and others.
All that education in this "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave," and none of it had any of us contemplating what it meant to live out our own total freedom, while honoring and respecting all others and being together harmoniously. We were taught to idolize those with power and fame, and if we didn't have the brains and the power to lead others, then we should follow those who had it, and whine about all the ways "they" fail us. And bravery--is that a concept reserved only for soldiers? I can think of a huge number of roles that fall into the category of bravery--and some don't include fighting anything, but simply releasing oneself from a belief.
I don't identify with any political parties, and I frankly think this 2-party system is in need of a good cleaning. I've heard of the possibility of a third party emerging from all of this upheaval in 2020. A non-politician like Donald Trump is looking like the catalyst for change that we needed to set ourselves in a new creation direction of electing representatives at all levels who actually serve us in honoring freedom for all, first and foremost.
What's going on with agenda-motivated mainstream news and social media like Facebook censoring and promotion of fighting with our own friends and relatives, and the spyware is insane! It's all sheer distraction from every individual's possible foray of going within--into taking a clearer, responsibly-self-compassionate look (not the personal blame crap I mentioned above) at oneself, and learning to practice trusting oneself with total freedom, while living harmoniously alongside others choosing the same sovereignty, or not.
But frankly, that search-for-power distraction is what every American has been taught to do by the OLD family, education, religious and government systems in place--seek power through making money via businesses, fight to control its distribution, and try to tell anyone external from us how to behave. That's the package being sold as "The American Dream"--but that distorted viewpoint is NOT this American's, my, dream.
I'm tired of being told that I'm taking for granted the freedom all those soldiers are supposedly dying for--for me. Especially when those reprimanding me with that opinion and agenda haven't even considered what true freedom is. They're just passing on mental programming--the blind leading the blind. I'm not asking ANYONE to fight or sacrifice their lives for me--I haven't done so in all these years--and yet, everywhere I look, blind people are telling me to make my truth, a very old belief they haven't felt into themselves. Some politician has used that idea as a popular means to gain people's votes--they tell you what their polls tell them you want to hear.
I heard a lot of people wanting revenge for 9/11--and politicians gave them exactly what they asked for by sending soldiers and National Guardsmen and women (not meant for war on foreign soil) to blow to hell the countries and people of Afghanistan and Iraq, looking for a few terrorists and a dick-tator, and his weapons of mass destruction bullshit. And you got a government watchdog in the process, protecting your safety--and I've never seen anyone more "safe" and free than those being searched like criminals before boarding an airplane. That last part was sarcasm.
I NEVER asked for that, and I don't feel that honors the memory of all those beloved men and women and children who died on 9/11. I NEVER demanded revenge--to me, that wasn't justice served. That was politics and greed and power plays--manipulating the EMOTIONS of the people to get "their" (and I'm not talking ANY conspiracy crap here) agenda accepted. We all have agendas--it helps if you are aware and can acknowledge that you have them. I'm sorry our armed forces were called into action, and that so many suffered so much tragedy, ALL OVER THE WORLD, for ALL THESE YEARS--but none of that was my choice. That was politicians and all the blind sheep who followed their lead--wanting to play power and war games. I guess everyone got exactly what they wanted..."If it's in my life, I put it there."
I'm choosing my own sovereignty--no one else can give it to me--and no one needs to sacrifice anything for me to make that choice. That latter part is an example of a guilt trip--that's the classic tool a manipulative person with an agenda uses to get someone shamed into acting the way they want them to. We've all used it at one time or several others.
Freedom isn't a power game--it's a feeling, and feelings are about as unique and personal as you can get.
In US history classes, we read boring textbooks and memorized dates and battles, but I was never taught to imagine myself in the shoes of those amazing people who brought about the creation of my beloved country, the first of its kind to make an experimental step towards recognizing freedom--sovereignty--for all. I never had a world history class in all my schooling--and in order to appreciate our America--the personal sovereignty/freedom experiment--you really need to have some idea of the life, trials and tribulations, and challenges--the consciousness--of the Old World people prior to its creation.
I learned of the French Revolution--how it felt, on a human level, for both the wealthy aristocracy and the peasants--from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. It took me reading that book to realize that their revolution was going on about the same time as our American Revolution--and what a difference there was between the two. I even more deeply felt into, and contemplated, revenge versus true justice because of that work of fiction.
I just recently experienced a glimpse of the Russian people's life experience during Joseph Stalin's reign of terror prior to, and during World War II, through another novel by Kristin Hannah, Winter Garden. I was born in 1964, a baby boomer who grew up during the Cold War era--we were taught that Russians were our enemies with mutual nuclear weapon capabilities, and that Communism was bad, and that people who were thought to be enemies of the state were banned to Siberia.
But not once, were we encouraged to imagine what the daily life was like for the human being living in such a state, much less how Marxism came to be, who the Bolsheviks were, and how they came into power through Lenin. I had no real understanding of what World Wars I or II were even truly about--and I'm not sure the citizenry of the world then even knew that either.
I'm not sure anyone knows why we fight any of the wars. Everyone has different personal reasons and purposes for choosing to play the roles we each play. Wars come about mainly due to emotional manipulation--through guilt trips and propaganda--of the masses willing to UNKNOWINGLY give their personal sovereignty away. You can be in a prison--and still, at the core of the real you, exercise FREE CHOICE. On the basic human level alone, I don't think anyone truly comes out a winner of a war, do we? It feels like a barbaric waste.
The latest war in America doesn't have war in its title even--the health conflict. If you CHOOSE, fellow free-born sovereign, to play and fight in that power game, enjoy your procto-exam. You see, when you give your responsibility for your own life into the hands of another, expecting them to take care of you and make you happy, you're going to get betrayed...I'd bet on that, and I'd win. But it's an experience, and I honor your choice to have it, just don't expect me to commiserate with you, either side.
I've had this old saying come to mind recently--it always made me cringe with distaste: "Get up! The world's on fire--get up and piss on it."
I've realized it revolted me so because, to me, to intentionally urinate on someone or something is to treat them with disrespect.
What I hadn't recognized before, though, is that it's representative of the Old Consciousness world I grew up in--the aggressive, war-like, power-plays of a human mass consciousness OUT of BALANCE toward the masculine end of the spectrum.
I haven't really ever quite fit into the mindset of the old world, and I used to apologize and feel ashamed of that--but I've realized I didn't come to fit in. I came in at that time because the potential was great that I would live to experience, along with others, a huge quantum shift in human consciousness never ever experienced before. A shift that would change the world as we know it, into something new. The Earth will go on without me, and so will other beings of all kinds--they don't need, or want, me to save them. No one really needs anything from me--and that makes it easier to see how we all unconditionally love each other, no matter what trauma/dramas we play out on the surface.
As I recently joked with some facebook friends, writing our names while urinating is quite an exhausting and messy endeavor for us females, but it's how territories get marked. It's about making sure others know you've been there, and made a difference. It's how we're taught to be in the old consciousness. Prove you're worthy of being alive, even though when you're dead and gone long enough, the world will still forget you, no matter how pretty and elegant your casket and headstone are. And your story gets distorted and diluted, if it's even attention-worthy enough for someone to share with others. Few of us make it into the history books, and after what I've seen done to the life story of Jesus/Yeshua, I don't care if I'm famous.
In essence, all that awful statement above is saying is, "Prove that you matter (that you exist) by making your mark on the world, by putting out the fires--the things we are mentally programmed to believe that we should care about, and fix."
And just so you know, I can roll my eyes and laugh at the absurdities and craziness of the individuals who are sleepily choosing to continue playing the old game, by playing politics, religion, family, business and conspiracies--the power game--because I did all of those things, too. I was a crazy, absurd, foolish woman--and I took a lot of things for granted. And none of that really matters. There's nothing to really be ashamed of. Others can play using the guilt trip, but I'm bored with that concept, so, in that respect--you have my respect, and I choose to honor your sovereignty, however you choose to live, and play, it out.
There's one thing I know for sure: I am! I exist! And regardless of the game, whether I live or die here, I will always exist. I am that I am!
And I don't need to file any silly documents for some belief system, full of inconsistencies, in order to claim my natural inheritance--my freedom and sovereignty.
All I had to do, was quit "busily" searching, and listen to what has been within me all along...I live it out with every consciously-aware breath...one breath at a time...
P.S. I find it ironic that those who seemed to really hate our current president, Donald Trump, have accused him of being the next Hitler, when, in fact, I haven't seen him taking any freedoms away in all these past 4 years. When I've heard him speak, I have felt a kindred sense of a love of all that is good about our country and freedom and its people.
Hitler wasn't a one-man operation. Millions didn't die because he single-handedly executed them. He had a major following in the population--an emotionally-triggered mass of people. People who were willing to hand over their own freedom for better education, wages, welfare offered through the Nazi government programs. Feel into those pointing fingers for yourself--are they trying to motivate and limit your freedom by making you afraid? Do they really care about you? How badly do you want to be taken care of? Or are they trying to get you to fight their battles for them and destroy yourself?
So, throwing all your energies at disliking a select group of people, or disliking one person--whether he/she is a "leader" or not--is that truly the path you FREELY CHOOSE to take? I KNOW we're all MORE than that...
Related Posts:
Christ Consciousness: Rest Assured--No Soul is Truly Lost
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Christ Consciousness: Rest Assured--No Soul is Truly Lost
Monday, November 18, 2013
Allowing Me in My Enlightenment
When I chose to awaken, I naively thought that it would make me exempt from losing any more loved ones to death. After all, I'd lost a boyfriend, and later, both of my parents. There were several others that died, but these were my closest relationships. After the experience with my dad, I truly thought I understood it all, therefore, no more deaths were needed for me, right? Even when Tobias told us Shaumbra that we were going to experience more losses--relationships ending, jobs ending, and deaths, I trembled inside, but still tried to convince myself that he was talking to all those other people. That it was totally unnecessary for me.
Then in 2010, my beloved Molly cat suffered a second stroke, and died several hours later that day. She had the first stroke about a year or so earlier. When that happened, she was unable to move for about twenty minutes one morning, and I kind of lost it, and told her not to do that to me--that I couldn't withstand losing her. We took her to the vet, though she was back to normal, and he said it was her thyroid, that he could remove it, or put her on medication. Thyroid diseases were the hot topic in mass consciousness at the time--even Oprah was sharing about her thyroid condition. I didn't want to put Molly through surgery--felt it was unnecessary--and no way was I going to force medicine down her throat every day. To me, that wasn't allowing her quality of life. When she was mauled by a dog 12 years earlier, it was a challenge to get her to swallow the medication for that short period. I just wasn't going to do that to her, no matter how much it cost me to lose her. And even then, I was still trying to convince myself that I was exempt from losing her, because I was awake enough. I was a spiritual lightworker, dammit!
I was spiritually bullshitting myself. Trying to mold myself into being how I mentally thought a spiritual self-master should be. Weren't they these people who were wise, gentle, mild, strong, composed all the time? Weren't we beyond having our feelings and emotions triggered? Didn't we have the perfect solution for every situation we faced?
Ahhh! Having all the answers...I've KNOWN deep down that I've always had them for myself, but what I hadn't realized is that my human mind keeps limiting them, diluting them, distorting them in an attempt to make the answer match its VERY LIMITED UNDERSTANDING of the soul's experience while in a human consciousness and form.
In other words, my human expectations of what spiritual enlightenment looked like and how it was, kept me closing down and limiting my experiences. I couldn't perceive and then consciously choose potentials that my limited human mind didn't even know were possibilities. I was trying to force myself to experience death differently than I had in the past, but all I was succeeding in doing was numbing myself down, emotion-wise (by trying to not grieve and cry so much), trying to grapple about and define how I should handle, and comport, myself with the subject of death. Trying to figure out how to over-ride death. My human mind was limiting me all the while it was trying to serve me. I was throwing myself against brick walls, trying to figure it all out--putting so much pressure on myself to perform, to prove to myself and others that I was truly enlightened, and that I had a handle on this death thing.
Two years later, I lost Molly's brother, my beloved Max. In the last few months, he started sleeping under the covers curled next to my husband, and then moving over to my pillow to purr in my ear for the next portion of the night. He was getting us prepared to say good-bye.
He had an episode one night in June. I honestly didn't know what to expect--whether he was going to miraculously get better or die. For three weeks, I struggled with trying to figure out how I was supposed to be as an awakened, enlightened being, while watching him be fully present, lovingly interacting with me one moment, then, the next, not-- he'd stare through me as if I was invisible and wouldn't respond to my voice. It helped a bit more in having heard Adamus say that we often leave our bodies weeks prior to our actual physical deaths, regardless of whether it's an "accident" or an illness--that we don't suffer pain, though our bodies go through the motions and may appear to be in pain. I wasn't beating up on myself as much with Max as I had with Molly by trying to figure out where I went wrong in caring for him. I had compassionately finally realized that I'd done the best I knew how with both--and that it was cruel to dwell on thinking I'd screwed up.
I let him be outside on his own all day, while checking on him now and then--trying to not to hover too much and force my will on him, yet loving him, touching him, and thanking him for our time together. We allowed him to stay out all night when he seemed close to the end, in an effort to let him go off and die in peace, on his own, as pets often do in those last moments. Only to come awake the next morning (not really having slept at all), to rush out to find him, my heart pounding in fear that he died, and breathing in relief to find him alive. This went on and on, with me trying to be what I thought was enlightened through the whole process.
He finally died in my husband's arms on the Fourth of July, 2012. I was outside, trying to just let go and trust that all was truly okay, trying to keep myself open to all kinds of possibilities, but without expectation of the outcome. I did know that he, like Molly, wasn't dying to punish or hurt me. I knew this was all to help me release myself from the beliefs humans have surrounding death, aging, and dying--but that didn't mean it was without heartache and pain in my experience. When Max had taken his last breath, Kel said he just seemed to glow, and that he was so beautiful that he had to bring him out to show me, where I sat in the moonlight, on the bench where Max loved to lay, under the silver maple tree--and he truly was beautiful...but it was still Good-bye...
Some people may be rolling their eyes, thinking, "For God's sake, Penny--all this silly, foolish angst over an animal. That's not like losing a human child, partner, parent, etc. Get over it!"
I've always loved animals, and when I was a kid, our pets were my best friends. They, cats and dogs all together, walked the pastures with me. One dog, Charlie, when he was no longer able to physically walk that distance with me, actually sat up on the hillside watching and waiting for me to return. They sat beside me to watch the sun set. They listened adoringly while I sang to them--Born Free, One Tin Soldier, Billy-Don't Be a Hero, Tapestry...When I was down, they comforted me and did everything they could to make me laugh and lighten up--and they always succeeded, if only for a moment. I actually mattered to them.
According to Tobias (crimsoncircle.com), our pets came into being, an extension of oneself, specifically to support the humans with whom they identify--they were created to remind us humans, who felt so lost and far from Home/Heaven, that we are, in fact, never alone--and that Home is wherever we each are. Heaven is right here, in me, right there, in you...
Tobias said that when our pets die, we should go wherever there were babies (species didn't have to be the same), and the ones we'd lost would be reincarnated--we'd see it in their eyes.
I knew Max and Molly came to be with us specifically--I'd read it in their eyes. Molly, a gold and white tabby, was the first one we saw, and, when Kelly picked her up she lay back in his hand and cuddled under his chin like it was her place to be. Max actually disappeared when my sister went to claim him from the litter. He was the only black and white short-hair, the one she planned to take home, but he was nowhere to be found, so she chose another. When I went looking for the kittens that were left that the mother kept moving around, Max, gazing steadfastly into my eyes, was the lead kitten emerging from their mother's hiding place. He'd been waiting for me.
Kel and I had planned to get just one cat as our first pet together, but we couldn't decide between Max and Molly, so that morning on the drive to Mom and Dad's place to get them, we agreed to take home the first one we saw. The first ones we saw were Max and Molly, sitting side-by-side in a cinder block. We took it as a sign to take them both--and I'm SO GLAD we did!
So, my pets are not just animals--and I am not their master. We're best friends and we're family. Letting go of them was like letting go of myself--because I actually was letting go of a part of me...that's what love does. It lets go of all control over its creations. Love releases them in total (not just a little bit as it suits me) freedom. Love gives life, and sets it free--releases it from all expectation.
And when you're a human stumbling around half-awake and immersed in a human mass consciousness that is very much dead asleep--well, you have no idea how to be enlightened. You want to be able to trust yourself enough to let go of those you so dearly love, but it's hard, it's confusing and frustrating, and it hurts, and it feels and looks like an effing hell of a mess! Deep down, in excruciatingly-fleeting glimpses, you KNOW, without a doubt, that this human experience is more and can be more than what one's experienced and perceived so far--but you've no idea how to bring it all about. So I resorted to spewing spiritual bullshit--mahkyo--in a desperate attempt to convince myself that I was getting somewhere with all of this. Even now, I realize that I had a goal "in mind"--a destination. I didn't "think" I even set goals anymore! I was still searching, whether I wanted to admit to it, or not.
You know the story of how the bridegroom in the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament wandered the streets searching for his bride? He searched and he searched and he searched, wandering the streets outside of himself--only to finally realize she was there with him, within him, all along. The searching outside kept him distracted, kept him from "seeing" a potential reality--one that was ACTUALLY as real as him losing his loved one. It's only when he quit searching for her that he discovered her.
In short, I feel completely powerless when it comes to losing others to death.
According to Adamus Saint-Germain, allowing oneself to be powerless and no longer trying to control an outcome is exactly what it means to allow enlightenment. He said, "You CHOOSE to AWAKEN, and you ALLOW your ENLIGHTENMENT..."
For me, that finally meant that I FINALLY simply ALLOW myself to feel and act and react and fully immerse in, and experience, whatever happens in my life--without judging how I am. Without trying to monitor, analyze, control, and mold myself into acting and feeling how I THINK I should be. I just am--and that's okay.
I may be a bitch. I may roll my eyes at the crazy absurdities I observe in the world. I may laugh embarrassingly loud. I may try to crack a joke that no one else seems to get. I may get sick and sometimes have difficulty bending or walking, or experience any number of those myriad, often annoying, symptoms of awakening. I may burst into sobbing tears over some book I read. I may feel sad, even inconsolably bereft when a loved one dies. I may have relationships end. I may even physically die.
I may--much to my consternation--feel like, and act the part of the victim, the one role I've struggled for years not to be. I have, in fact, felt like a victim all the time, but like those priests who tried to deny their own sexuality, my victimhood, and their sexual appetites came out in spades.
I can feel totally POWERLESS, lose complete control over myself, or realize I never did have control--and, yet, still--I EXIST.
I've realized that NONE of us HUMANS could have committed the atrocities with one another that all of us have experienced and done to ourselves and each other in the past, UNLESS, deep-down within every single one of us was the profound KNOWINGNESS that the darknesses we explored and played in weren't permanent--that we were more than these stories and beliefs and identities we dabble in.
Some part in all of us KNEW we could NOT truly take the life of anyone. That those dark roles were just role-playing on all our parts--none of it was who we truly and fully are. Deep-down, every one of us KNOWS, without doubt, that ALL LIFE is ETERNAL, and that this experience on Earth, pretending to be limited human beings, is our chance to explore and discover this gift of life that we've all been given--that I Am , that You Are, on a SAFE and SACRED playground.
And with ALLOWING my own ENLIGHTENMENT--simply allowing myself to authentically be, and experience, without limiting it mentally--I've recognized that I'm most likely not going to harm anyone or fight anything anymore. I'm safe with me, and so are you.
Deep down, all of us KNOW that all is truly well in all of Creation...we're all okay, and I don't have to care about trying to save anyone or the world from all this experience.
Aaah! I finally ALLOWED myself to say honestly, "I don't care!" That's SUCH A RELIEF to admit that--to let go of such a limited, and wildly inconsistent, human programmed belief about how I should be, and what I should care about. I'm done trying to figure out how to prioritize all the things I was taught I should care about. That was a hamster wheel effort going--that's right--nowhere!
And lightning didn't strike me down for admitting I don't care. I love and I respect and I honor, but I don't care. I have hands-off compassion, but I don't care. And, imagine that!--I still exist. Even though my humanity wants to judge me as being so "bad and wrong" for not caring. My blind, all-alone humanity is yelling at me, "Pen, that's selfish! That's no way to be! Don't admit that (even though, we all know deep-down that it's true, and we're afraid admitting it means we're monsters)."
I don't care about Max and Molly because I KNOW they're okay--and by allowing that, I've felt myself truly finally set my loved ones free...I am no longer limiting them. That's what love is. That's what love does. TRUE LOVE LETS GO!
It finally really doesn't matter to me if no one else understands this or not. I still exist...and I really don't know what embodied enlightenment is going to look like or how it will feel...I don't care! Oh, the breath of freedom that comes with that ALLOWING of MYSELF!
I'm just ready for a new set of potential experiences not conceivable, much less, realized, before--I'm bored with the old traumas and dramas manifested out of those old limited Little Human beliefs and mind traps. I know there's more, and so does everyone else--and they'll all choose to awaken, however much, and allow their own enlightenment whenever they want...and always, ultimately--we're all okay...
P.S. On Friday, December 13, 2013--a little over a month after writing the above post--Max suddenly appeared in a dream during an afternoon nap. I knew, without a doubt, that it was definitely Max--alive and healthy--and I picked him up and carried him over to their food dishes to feed him.
I grappled slightly trying to remember the story of how I'd lost him: Had he actually died? Or had he just wandered off for a long time?
I realized none of that mattered.
What mattered is that he was alive! And he had returned HOME to me! The past--our old story--had faded, all the pain disappearing with it. All I felt was joy and ease...everything was good...all was well in all of Creation. And I'm left truly feeling excited about being here on Earth now, having my ENLIGHTENED human experience...
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My Awakening
Forgive Yourself--We're All Just Role-Playing Together
Then in 2010, my beloved Molly cat suffered a second stroke, and died several hours later that day. She had the first stroke about a year or so earlier. When that happened, she was unable to move for about twenty minutes one morning, and I kind of lost it, and told her not to do that to me--that I couldn't withstand losing her. We took her to the vet, though she was back to normal, and he said it was her thyroid, that he could remove it, or put her on medication. Thyroid diseases were the hot topic in mass consciousness at the time--even Oprah was sharing about her thyroid condition. I didn't want to put Molly through surgery--felt it was unnecessary--and no way was I going to force medicine down her throat every day. To me, that wasn't allowing her quality of life. When she was mauled by a dog 12 years earlier, it was a challenge to get her to swallow the medication for that short period. I just wasn't going to do that to her, no matter how much it cost me to lose her. And even then, I was still trying to convince myself that I was exempt from losing her, because I was awake enough. I was a spiritual lightworker, dammit!
I was spiritually bullshitting myself. Trying to mold myself into being how I mentally thought a spiritual self-master should be. Weren't they these people who were wise, gentle, mild, strong, composed all the time? Weren't we beyond having our feelings and emotions triggered? Didn't we have the perfect solution for every situation we faced?
Ahhh! Having all the answers...I've KNOWN deep down that I've always had them for myself, but what I hadn't realized is that my human mind keeps limiting them, diluting them, distorting them in an attempt to make the answer match its VERY LIMITED UNDERSTANDING of the soul's experience while in a human consciousness and form.
In other words, my human expectations of what spiritual enlightenment looked like and how it was, kept me closing down and limiting my experiences. I couldn't perceive and then consciously choose potentials that my limited human mind didn't even know were possibilities. I was trying to force myself to experience death differently than I had in the past, but all I was succeeding in doing was numbing myself down, emotion-wise (by trying to not grieve and cry so much), trying to grapple about and define how I should handle, and comport, myself with the subject of death. Trying to figure out how to over-ride death. My human mind was limiting me all the while it was trying to serve me. I was throwing myself against brick walls, trying to figure it all out--putting so much pressure on myself to perform, to prove to myself and others that I was truly enlightened, and that I had a handle on this death thing.
Two years later, I lost Molly's brother, my beloved Max. In the last few months, he started sleeping under the covers curled next to my husband, and then moving over to my pillow to purr in my ear for the next portion of the night. He was getting us prepared to say good-bye.
He had an episode one night in June. I honestly didn't know what to expect--whether he was going to miraculously get better or die. For three weeks, I struggled with trying to figure out how I was supposed to be as an awakened, enlightened being, while watching him be fully present, lovingly interacting with me one moment, then, the next, not-- he'd stare through me as if I was invisible and wouldn't respond to my voice. It helped a bit more in having heard Adamus say that we often leave our bodies weeks prior to our actual physical deaths, regardless of whether it's an "accident" or an illness--that we don't suffer pain, though our bodies go through the motions and may appear to be in pain. I wasn't beating up on myself as much with Max as I had with Molly by trying to figure out where I went wrong in caring for him. I had compassionately finally realized that I'd done the best I knew how with both--and that it was cruel to dwell on thinking I'd screwed up.
I let him be outside on his own all day, while checking on him now and then--trying to not to hover too much and force my will on him, yet loving him, touching him, and thanking him for our time together. We allowed him to stay out all night when he seemed close to the end, in an effort to let him go off and die in peace, on his own, as pets often do in those last moments. Only to come awake the next morning (not really having slept at all), to rush out to find him, my heart pounding in fear that he died, and breathing in relief to find him alive. This went on and on, with me trying to be what I thought was enlightened through the whole process.
He finally died in my husband's arms on the Fourth of July, 2012. I was outside, trying to just let go and trust that all was truly okay, trying to keep myself open to all kinds of possibilities, but without expectation of the outcome. I did know that he, like Molly, wasn't dying to punish or hurt me. I knew this was all to help me release myself from the beliefs humans have surrounding death, aging, and dying--but that didn't mean it was without heartache and pain in my experience. When Max had taken his last breath, Kel said he just seemed to glow, and that he was so beautiful that he had to bring him out to show me, where I sat in the moonlight, on the bench where Max loved to lay, under the silver maple tree--and he truly was beautiful...but it was still Good-bye...
Some people may be rolling their eyes, thinking, "For God's sake, Penny--all this silly, foolish angst over an animal. That's not like losing a human child, partner, parent, etc. Get over it!"
I've always loved animals, and when I was a kid, our pets were my best friends. They, cats and dogs all together, walked the pastures with me. One dog, Charlie, when he was no longer able to physically walk that distance with me, actually sat up on the hillside watching and waiting for me to return. They sat beside me to watch the sun set. They listened adoringly while I sang to them--Born Free, One Tin Soldier, Billy-Don't Be a Hero, Tapestry...When I was down, they comforted me and did everything they could to make me laugh and lighten up--and they always succeeded, if only for a moment. I actually mattered to them.
According to Tobias (crimsoncircle.com), our pets came into being, an extension of oneself, specifically to support the humans with whom they identify--they were created to remind us humans, who felt so lost and far from Home/Heaven, that we are, in fact, never alone--and that Home is wherever we each are. Heaven is right here, in me, right there, in you...
Tobias said that when our pets die, we should go wherever there were babies (species didn't have to be the same), and the ones we'd lost would be reincarnated--we'd see it in their eyes.
I knew Max and Molly came to be with us specifically--I'd read it in their eyes. Molly, a gold and white tabby, was the first one we saw, and, when Kelly picked her up she lay back in his hand and cuddled under his chin like it was her place to be. Max actually disappeared when my sister went to claim him from the litter. He was the only black and white short-hair, the one she planned to take home, but he was nowhere to be found, so she chose another. When I went looking for the kittens that were left that the mother kept moving around, Max, gazing steadfastly into my eyes, was the lead kitten emerging from their mother's hiding place. He'd been waiting for me.
Kel and I had planned to get just one cat as our first pet together, but we couldn't decide between Max and Molly, so that morning on the drive to Mom and Dad's place to get them, we agreed to take home the first one we saw. The first ones we saw were Max and Molly, sitting side-by-side in a cinder block. We took it as a sign to take them both--and I'm SO GLAD we did!
So, my pets are not just animals--and I am not their master. We're best friends and we're family. Letting go of them was like letting go of myself--because I actually was letting go of a part of me...that's what love does. It lets go of all control over its creations. Love releases them in total (not just a little bit as it suits me) freedom. Love gives life, and sets it free--releases it from all expectation.
And when you're a human stumbling around half-awake and immersed in a human mass consciousness that is very much dead asleep--well, you have no idea how to be enlightened. You want to be able to trust yourself enough to let go of those you so dearly love, but it's hard, it's confusing and frustrating, and it hurts, and it feels and looks like an effing hell of a mess! Deep down, in excruciatingly-fleeting glimpses, you KNOW, without a doubt, that this human experience is more and can be more than what one's experienced and perceived so far--but you've no idea how to bring it all about. So I resorted to spewing spiritual bullshit--mahkyo--in a desperate attempt to convince myself that I was getting somewhere with all of this. Even now, I realize that I had a goal "in mind"--a destination. I didn't "think" I even set goals anymore! I was still searching, whether I wanted to admit to it, or not.
You know the story of how the bridegroom in the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament wandered the streets searching for his bride? He searched and he searched and he searched, wandering the streets outside of himself--only to finally realize she was there with him, within him, all along. The searching outside kept him distracted, kept him from "seeing" a potential reality--one that was ACTUALLY as real as him losing his loved one. It's only when he quit searching for her that he discovered her.
In short, I feel completely powerless when it comes to losing others to death.
According to Adamus Saint-Germain, allowing oneself to be powerless and no longer trying to control an outcome is exactly what it means to allow enlightenment. He said, "You CHOOSE to AWAKEN, and you ALLOW your ENLIGHTENMENT..."
For me, that finally meant that I FINALLY simply ALLOW myself to feel and act and react and fully immerse in, and experience, whatever happens in my life--without judging how I am. Without trying to monitor, analyze, control, and mold myself into acting and feeling how I THINK I should be. I just am--and that's okay.
I may be a bitch. I may roll my eyes at the crazy absurdities I observe in the world. I may laugh embarrassingly loud. I may try to crack a joke that no one else seems to get. I may get sick and sometimes have difficulty bending or walking, or experience any number of those myriad, often annoying, symptoms of awakening. I may burst into sobbing tears over some book I read. I may feel sad, even inconsolably bereft when a loved one dies. I may have relationships end. I may even physically die.
I may--much to my consternation--feel like, and act the part of the victim, the one role I've struggled for years not to be. I have, in fact, felt like a victim all the time, but like those priests who tried to deny their own sexuality, my victimhood, and their sexual appetites came out in spades.
I can feel totally POWERLESS, lose complete control over myself, or realize I never did have control--and, yet, still--I EXIST.
I've realized that NONE of us HUMANS could have committed the atrocities with one another that all of us have experienced and done to ourselves and each other in the past, UNLESS, deep-down within every single one of us was the profound KNOWINGNESS that the darknesses we explored and played in weren't permanent--that we were more than these stories and beliefs and identities we dabble in.
Some part in all of us KNEW we could NOT truly take the life of anyone. That those dark roles were just role-playing on all our parts--none of it was who we truly and fully are. Deep-down, every one of us KNOWS, without doubt, that ALL LIFE is ETERNAL, and that this experience on Earth, pretending to be limited human beings, is our chance to explore and discover this gift of life that we've all been given--that I Am , that You Are, on a SAFE and SACRED playground.
And with ALLOWING my own ENLIGHTENMENT--simply allowing myself to authentically be, and experience, without limiting it mentally--I've recognized that I'm most likely not going to harm anyone or fight anything anymore. I'm safe with me, and so are you.
Deep down, all of us KNOW that all is truly well in all of Creation...we're all okay, and I don't have to care about trying to save anyone or the world from all this experience.
Aaah! I finally ALLOWED myself to say honestly, "I don't care!" That's SUCH A RELIEF to admit that--to let go of such a limited, and wildly inconsistent, human programmed belief about how I should be, and what I should care about. I'm done trying to figure out how to prioritize all the things I was taught I should care about. That was a hamster wheel effort going--that's right--nowhere!
And lightning didn't strike me down for admitting I don't care. I love and I respect and I honor, but I don't care. I have hands-off compassion, but I don't care. And, imagine that!--I still exist. Even though my humanity wants to judge me as being so "bad and wrong" for not caring. My blind, all-alone humanity is yelling at me, "Pen, that's selfish! That's no way to be! Don't admit that (even though, we all know deep-down that it's true, and we're afraid admitting it means we're monsters)."
I don't care about Max and Molly because I KNOW they're okay--and by allowing that, I've felt myself truly finally set my loved ones free...I am no longer limiting them. That's what love is. That's what love does. TRUE LOVE LETS GO!
It finally really doesn't matter to me if no one else understands this or not. I still exist...and I really don't know what embodied enlightenment is going to look like or how it will feel...I don't care! Oh, the breath of freedom that comes with that ALLOWING of MYSELF!
I'm just ready for a new set of potential experiences not conceivable, much less, realized, before--I'm bored with the old traumas and dramas manifested out of those old limited Little Human beliefs and mind traps. I know there's more, and so does everyone else--and they'll all choose to awaken, however much, and allow their own enlightenment whenever they want...and always, ultimately--we're all okay...
P.S. On Friday, December 13, 2013--a little over a month after writing the above post--Max suddenly appeared in a dream during an afternoon nap. I knew, without a doubt, that it was definitely Max--alive and healthy--and I picked him up and carried him over to their food dishes to feed him.
I grappled slightly trying to remember the story of how I'd lost him: Had he actually died? Or had he just wandered off for a long time?
I realized none of that mattered.
What mattered is that he was alive! And he had returned HOME to me! The past--our old story--had faded, all the pain disappearing with it. All I felt was joy and ease...everything was good...all was well in all of Creation. And I'm left truly feeling excited about being here on Earth now, having my ENLIGHTENED human experience...
Related Posts:
My Awakening
Forgive Yourself--We're All Just Role-Playing Together
Monday, September 23, 2013
Forgive Yourself: We're All Just Role-Playing Together
Forgive yourself--for everything that you feel ashamed of, guilty over.
That wasn't the real you, and that wasn't the real me.
Our human identities are merely costumes for a Divinity exploring and experiencing itself, and harvesting the gift of wisdom that only comes from pretending to be Human.
We were playing "Let's Pretend" there are good guys and there are bad guys in this grand, SAFE and SACRED, playground--the REALITY/ILLUSION called Earth--all of it done out of love and the desire to discover, to experience, to know thyself.
Several years ago, I awakened from a dream where a dark and shadowy being towered over me, accusing me by calling me, "Dark Lady." I can't recall any of the rest of the conversation, but I knew the title was fitting for some aspect in me, and I knew the entity was trying to feed off my feelings of guilt for a really dark and evil life-expression of my soul. In essence, the shadowy entity was an aspect of me, too--a reflection of how I'm monitoring and using guilt and shame to prevent myself from being a cruel and harmful human again. I'm certain that the Dark Lady did some of the most abominable things anyone could do to another--and I'm pretty certain she's a life expression that I used as a motivation for enlightenment and ascension in this lifetime. All of my life as Penny, I've carried deep feelings of guilt and shame, way out of proportion for anything I've ever done in this lifetime to warrant such self-condemnation and tight self-monitoring and control. I had a deep fear of harming anyone--even unintentionally--to the point I was paralyzed when it came to making even the simplest choice. It's also made me one of the most compassionately wise and accepting human beings you'll meet.
Ascended masters, Tobias and Adamus Saint Germain both warned that those of us going through the awakening into enlightenment would probably experience these psychic attacks, and that we could command them to leave--that's all we had to do--and they would have to leave. In the dream, I did exactly that. I commanded in a voice (this time there was NO SELF-DOUBT) that roared, "LEAVE NOW! I Command you to leave now!" And it did. I awoke confident and resolute in my choice to stay, and freely be, here on earth.
The Dark Lady aspect, through my simple self-forgiveness, is free to integrate into my BODY of CONSCIOUSNESS. I now think of all parts of myself integrating together as The Benevolent Rebel.
However, integration doesn't happen instantly. The Dark Lady character first came into my awareness through that dream about a decade ago--and even though I was aware of her in me all this time--ten years later, I've realized her regret and sense of attonement, and self-monitoring have been still influencing the consciousness I have been radiating in my daily life as Penny. Instead of playing the Leading Lady, the source and center of my realities--I've been playing the Best Friend Supporting Actress to my entire creation. I've been compromising my own desired realities by supporting and protecting the stories of bits of plasma in the form of all the other actors in my play. I've been walking around apologizing for simply existing--as though my very breathing the air here is taking oxygen from someone more deserving. I have been playing the lowly servant role instead of acting as the central and sovereign master who can truly be of service to her creation by being an example that we can consciously create our own realities--a life that flows with ease and grace instead of suffering and sacrifice and guilt.
I even have been sporting a scar on my right cheek that, in looking back, surfaced about the time the Dark Lady dream happened. I didn't do anything in this lifetime to wound myself there. I had a boil appear in that area in high school, but it disappeared without leaving scar tissue. By feeling, intuiting into it--I felt it was a branding wound for witchcraft that was connected with the Dark Lady life expression. And I definitely see, it's been present in my current life as a reminder to myself to be aware that she is still influencing and skewing my desired manifestations. She's had me walking the part of the supportive best friend--apologetic and unstar-like in demeanor. And the energies, in complete service to me, have responded to that limited consciousness by continually manifesting a reality where I'm never the star in my show.
As happened with the Dark Lady, loved ones don't see me unless they want something from me. They are insensitive to me. I basically end up being betrayed by those I love the most--it doesn't matter if they are spiritual or biological family or friend or acquaintance or stranger. It hurts--but worse, I don't like feeling so angry with those I love. It's an awful feeling experience. I have a tendency to go to the broader, more enlightened viewpoint of seeing that they are just acting FOR me as a means of avoiding the expression of honest anger with someone I feel has betrayed me. I don't like feeling angry at a loved one who has played the part of hurting me. And that avoidance has kept me from honoring my own experience--because I've been afraid of my human self, knowing from the Dark Lady's lifetime how truly dark a human can go.
But the Human Being is just a Costume.
Those times each of us played the bad person--we dived into the character and immersed so whole-heartedly into the role, from the understanding of what motivated one to behave in such a manner--that we convinced everyone, including ourselves, that that's who we were--period. And because we played it so well, the "good person" in the play had the opportunity to experience his own shiningly beautiful light even more. What a gift! To be loved so much that someone was willing to risk one's own reputation and life-experience in order to let another experience the wonder and beauty of themselves. But it was all JUST AN ACT--on all our parts! Humans are just costumes!
SELF-FORGIVENESS is simply realizing, and embracing, that that wasn't REALLY me! I acted out a role. And with that realization, all the shackles of guilt, shame and misery are loosened and fall away.
This SELF-FORGIVENESS concept was perhaps the most challenging thing for me to completely grasp. It goes hand-in-hand with learning to unconditionally love oneself. If I can forgive and love all of me, I can forgive and love anyone and everyone else with ease.
The key, for me, has been to remember that this has all been a VERY LIMITED VERSION of REALITY being played out by blind, deeply asleep humans, unaware and unconscious of who we really are. In the past, I've called it a grand illusion. That perspective helped me perceive my reality as more transparent and flexible and flowing, rather than solid, concrete, immovable--STUCK. I felt safer to risk making choices then, especially "mistakes," in something less solid. But in a more expanded understanding of the truth, I realize it was real experience and wisdom gained. And there really is no such thing as a mistake--it's all simply experience.
In the outer world mirror around me that was ultimately reflecting the conflicted inner me, I'd hear sentiments like:
"I can forgive, but I can't--or won't--forget." This basically means, "I CHOOSE not to forgive."
"God forgives everything, BUT, I can't--or won't." This means the same as, "Some god out there separate from me is capable of doing what I simply CHOOSE not to do."
Some forgiving god "out there" is having way more fun than that human being.
As a result of choosing to not forgive, we find ourselves STUCK in a STORY, playing out a CHARACTER ROLE or IDENTITY that we believe is who we are--for the rest of our lives. And we walk around, limited and suffocated, with the weapons ready, the protective armor on and the guards erected, trying to convince ourselves that we still belong in this world, all the while feelingly believing that we don't deserve to even exist. If you CLOSE YOUR EYES, you can feel this inside of you.
Those above sentiments on forgiving are actually personal CHOICES. We can forgive--unconditionally and compassionately--but many choose not to, and our human minds back up that choice by using all kinds of reasons and justifications. If you really want out of the story, you'll find yourself having to tell your "justifying mind" to "SHUT UP!"
Unforgiving people are actually choosing to continue acting out stories that they often say they hate--regardless of whether they're playing the role of victim or perpetrator. Frankly, if I'm still playing in a story--even though I'm frustrated in it--I'm liking it on some level. And that's okay, too. We're all here to act out and experience stories together, after all.
As long as I understand that I'm choosing to pretend to role-play in any story, I'm never really going to be stuck in an identity again.
The important thing for me here, is to realize that I can simply CHOOSE to step out of the roles that don't feel like much fun for me, while still allowing and honoring the sovereignty of those who continue to play in that game--without judging them.
Everyone outside of me can joyfully experience their realities, and I can enjoy mine without being affected by others' choices. It means my husband and family and loved ones can make choices that I can choose to not affect me. What they do, or how they are, doesn't have to reflect on me. I can rest, finally knowing, deep within, that we're all okay--no matter what transpires. That there is nothing I have to figure out how to fix in this world--IT'S A SAFE SPACE to EXPERIENCE and DISCOVER ONESELF while RELATING with OTHERS. And I don't need to feel guilty about anything, about stepping back and letting go of trying to control everyone and everything--including myself.
How do I step out of the story?
Unfinished business--ALLOW yourself to leave the story mid-way by allowing yourself to AUTHENTICALLY FEEL the experience through, without judging how you "think" you "should be."
Self-Honesty--It's the compassionate thing to do. For me, that means ALLOWING myself to FEEL and EXPRESS anger at those who play my betrayers.
OBSERVE yourself acting...
A couple of weeks ago, I awakened in the morning from a dream feeling extremely frustrated and at odds:
I was in a classroom writing down my answer to a one-question essay assignment. The only problem was my handwriting was fading as quickly as I wrote the words down. Suddenly the teacher wanted our answers typed out. I searched all over the classroom, and eventually, the school, trying to find a typewriter that wasn't being used already. I never did find a machine, and to make matters worse, a couple more questions were added to the assignment. The story just worsened and grew more complex, the longer I stayed with it--nothing in it was resolved to my satisfaction or for simple peace of mind.
When Dad was dying, I spent a good portion of those last days, trying to help finish all his unfinished business and relationships and stories in order to help him make his death transition easier and more peaceful. All of us humans naturally want to bring our stories--and our character identities--to perfect happy endings.
And that has been a stumbling block for me in stepping over the threshold into living out my own recent embodied enlightenment as a self-master.
My dream made me aware that I've been trying to finish all the stories and relationships I co-created and played in in the past. I was trying to bring them all--my identity as Penny--to the "perfected human" ending. To finish all that old business I had going in order to transition into the new consciousness energy world. Just like my dad, Penny has been dying all along, too--some days, it even feels like I'm physically dying--because, ultimately, Penny was just a character role, too. She's a bit special, because it was in the lifetime role of Penny that I've experienced the integration of my spiritual divinity and all my other aspects and lifetimes with this one human incarnation. I not only lived out the ascension process (the awakening to self-awareness) on earth, but I also chose to then stay embodied (incarnate) as a self-master without actually having to physically die.
The dream made me aware of how my human mind wants to finish stories--become a perfect human specimen--but it also doesn't want me to die--or in this case, let go of my identity as Penny. And those two attitudes end up being at cross purposes with one another. I had all the answers, was writing them down with ease, but the more I tried to complete them according to the rules of my human mind (symbolized by the teacher's requirements), the more complicated and frustrating the assignment became for me. In order to "keep me alive," the assignment could never actually be finished--the story couldn't end. My human mind never wanted a resolution because "it thought" that would be the end, the destruction, of Penny.
I have a dream of every little community having a local theater for the performing arts--a place where everyone in the community, a mixture of all ages, can come together and consciously role-play. So we get more comfortable with immersing into a character role--AUTHENTICALLY FEELING our way through it WITHOUT JUDGING OURSELVES, and then switching out of it when we're ready to experience role-playing something else. I'd like everyone to have the opportunity to realize the joy of playing ALL kinds of PARTS together with SELF-FORGIVENESS, GRATITUDE, COMPASSION, CELEBRATION--and lots of LAUGHTER. Where everyone can someday realize that we've all just been role-playing together all along, and that our past experiences don't define us, or keep us stuck in a limited identity and genre.
We are ALL SO MUCH MORE than our pasts--and our pasts are SO MUCH MORE than we've understood.
These days I remind myself constantly of these four things:
1. It's all A FLEXIBLE HOLOGRAPHIC REALITY (my body included).
2. There is NO-thing I have to do or finish--or perfect.
3. BREATHE and ALLOW my consciousness (self-awareness) to OPEN and flow and mingle HARMONIOUSLY with all that is, within and without--without thought. Weapons down, armor off...
4. Be honest with myself about how I feel in the experience.
With releasing myself from the role of Penny, I find myself breathing so much more at ease, so much more at home in my own body than I ever was before. She never did die, she's just integrating into all that I am now...and I am much more at peace finally. The protective armor and all the barriers I PUT in around me to protect myself in what felt like a really tough and harsh world are, one-by-one, dropping away as I realize--become aware that they're there. Life, and my ability to co-create what I choose to experience, is simplified, so much more graceful. It's just a matter of re-minding myself to quit thinking, and to allow myself to receive it all with ease, and to flow it through by being HONEST about myself in the experience. All my old personal demons are being put to rest--with my own gratitude for ALL the parts I played...
Little One--come sing with me!
We have a song, a joyous melody.
Little One, come lift your heart in song--
Giving thanks for ALL parts played,
Whether right or seeming wrong!
Hear the thunder, hear the ROAR--
A celebration like we've never FELT before...
Little One--at last you're free!
Little One, come and dance with me.
It's all right, you've let your story be told,
And in the LIGHT of DAY, behold:
You're a WONDER!
Life's a GIFT!
A celebration of ALL THAT IS!
Though you stumble, though you fall--
When it all is said and done,
All there is IS LOVE!
Related Posts:
Allowing Me in My Enlightenment
My Beloved Mirrors
The Blessing of My Dark Side
The Virtual Reality Game--A Grand Illusion
Good-bye Conspiracy Theories--Especially, Satan
That wasn't the real you, and that wasn't the real me.
Our human identities are merely costumes for a Divinity exploring and experiencing itself, and harvesting the gift of wisdom that only comes from pretending to be Human.
We were playing "Let's Pretend" there are good guys and there are bad guys in this grand, SAFE and SACRED, playground--the REALITY/ILLUSION called Earth--all of it done out of love and the desire to discover, to experience, to know thyself.
Several years ago, I awakened from a dream where a dark and shadowy being towered over me, accusing me by calling me, "Dark Lady." I can't recall any of the rest of the conversation, but I knew the title was fitting for some aspect in me, and I knew the entity was trying to feed off my feelings of guilt for a really dark and evil life-expression of my soul. In essence, the shadowy entity was an aspect of me, too--a reflection of how I'm monitoring and using guilt and shame to prevent myself from being a cruel and harmful human again. I'm certain that the Dark Lady did some of the most abominable things anyone could do to another--and I'm pretty certain she's a life expression that I used as a motivation for enlightenment and ascension in this lifetime. All of my life as Penny, I've carried deep feelings of guilt and shame, way out of proportion for anything I've ever done in this lifetime to warrant such self-condemnation and tight self-monitoring and control. I had a deep fear of harming anyone--even unintentionally--to the point I was paralyzed when it came to making even the simplest choice. It's also made me one of the most compassionately wise and accepting human beings you'll meet.
Ascended masters, Tobias and Adamus Saint Germain both warned that those of us going through the awakening into enlightenment would probably experience these psychic attacks, and that we could command them to leave--that's all we had to do--and they would have to leave. In the dream, I did exactly that. I commanded in a voice (this time there was NO SELF-DOUBT) that roared, "LEAVE NOW! I Command you to leave now!" And it did. I awoke confident and resolute in my choice to stay, and freely be, here on earth.
The Dark Lady aspect, through my simple self-forgiveness, is free to integrate into my BODY of CONSCIOUSNESS. I now think of all parts of myself integrating together as The Benevolent Rebel.
However, integration doesn't happen instantly. The Dark Lady character first came into my awareness through that dream about a decade ago--and even though I was aware of her in me all this time--ten years later, I've realized her regret and sense of attonement, and self-monitoring have been still influencing the consciousness I have been radiating in my daily life as Penny. Instead of playing the Leading Lady, the source and center of my realities--I've been playing the Best Friend Supporting Actress to my entire creation. I've been compromising my own desired realities by supporting and protecting the stories of bits of plasma in the form of all the other actors in my play. I've been walking around apologizing for simply existing--as though my very breathing the air here is taking oxygen from someone more deserving. I have been playing the lowly servant role instead of acting as the central and sovereign master who can truly be of service to her creation by being an example that we can consciously create our own realities--a life that flows with ease and grace instead of suffering and sacrifice and guilt.
I even have been sporting a scar on my right cheek that, in looking back, surfaced about the time the Dark Lady dream happened. I didn't do anything in this lifetime to wound myself there. I had a boil appear in that area in high school, but it disappeared without leaving scar tissue. By feeling, intuiting into it--I felt it was a branding wound for witchcraft that was connected with the Dark Lady life expression. And I definitely see, it's been present in my current life as a reminder to myself to be aware that she is still influencing and skewing my desired manifestations. She's had me walking the part of the supportive best friend--apologetic and unstar-like in demeanor. And the energies, in complete service to me, have responded to that limited consciousness by continually manifesting a reality where I'm never the star in my show.
As happened with the Dark Lady, loved ones don't see me unless they want something from me. They are insensitive to me. I basically end up being betrayed by those I love the most--it doesn't matter if they are spiritual or biological family or friend or acquaintance or stranger. It hurts--but worse, I don't like feeling so angry with those I love. It's an awful feeling experience. I have a tendency to go to the broader, more enlightened viewpoint of seeing that they are just acting FOR me as a means of avoiding the expression of honest anger with someone I feel has betrayed me. I don't like feeling angry at a loved one who has played the part of hurting me. And that avoidance has kept me from honoring my own experience--because I've been afraid of my human self, knowing from the Dark Lady's lifetime how truly dark a human can go.
But the Human Being is just a Costume.
Those times each of us played the bad person--we dived into the character and immersed so whole-heartedly into the role, from the understanding of what motivated one to behave in such a manner--that we convinced everyone, including ourselves, that that's who we were--period. And because we played it so well, the "good person" in the play had the opportunity to experience his own shiningly beautiful light even more. What a gift! To be loved so much that someone was willing to risk one's own reputation and life-experience in order to let another experience the wonder and beauty of themselves. But it was all JUST AN ACT--on all our parts! Humans are just costumes!
SELF-FORGIVENESS is simply realizing, and embracing, that that wasn't REALLY me! I acted out a role. And with that realization, all the shackles of guilt, shame and misery are loosened and fall away.
This SELF-FORGIVENESS concept was perhaps the most challenging thing for me to completely grasp. It goes hand-in-hand with learning to unconditionally love oneself. If I can forgive and love all of me, I can forgive and love anyone and everyone else with ease.
The key, for me, has been to remember that this has all been a VERY LIMITED VERSION of REALITY being played out by blind, deeply asleep humans, unaware and unconscious of who we really are. In the past, I've called it a grand illusion. That perspective helped me perceive my reality as more transparent and flexible and flowing, rather than solid, concrete, immovable--STUCK. I felt safer to risk making choices then, especially "mistakes," in something less solid. But in a more expanded understanding of the truth, I realize it was real experience and wisdom gained. And there really is no such thing as a mistake--it's all simply experience.
In the outer world mirror around me that was ultimately reflecting the conflicted inner me, I'd hear sentiments like:
"I can forgive, but I can't--or won't--forget." This basically means, "I CHOOSE not to forgive."
"God forgives everything, BUT, I can't--or won't." This means the same as, "Some god out there separate from me is capable of doing what I simply CHOOSE not to do."
Some forgiving god "out there" is having way more fun than that human being.
As a result of choosing to not forgive, we find ourselves STUCK in a STORY, playing out a CHARACTER ROLE or IDENTITY that we believe is who we are--for the rest of our lives. And we walk around, limited and suffocated, with the weapons ready, the protective armor on and the guards erected, trying to convince ourselves that we still belong in this world, all the while feelingly believing that we don't deserve to even exist. If you CLOSE YOUR EYES, you can feel this inside of you.
Those above sentiments on forgiving are actually personal CHOICES. We can forgive--unconditionally and compassionately--but many choose not to, and our human minds back up that choice by using all kinds of reasons and justifications. If you really want out of the story, you'll find yourself having to tell your "justifying mind" to "SHUT UP!"
Unforgiving people are actually choosing to continue acting out stories that they often say they hate--regardless of whether they're playing the role of victim or perpetrator. Frankly, if I'm still playing in a story--even though I'm frustrated in it--I'm liking it on some level. And that's okay, too. We're all here to act out and experience stories together, after all.
As long as I understand that I'm choosing to pretend to role-play in any story, I'm never really going to be stuck in an identity again.
The important thing for me here, is to realize that I can simply CHOOSE to step out of the roles that don't feel like much fun for me, while still allowing and honoring the sovereignty of those who continue to play in that game--without judging them.
Everyone outside of me can joyfully experience their realities, and I can enjoy mine without being affected by others' choices. It means my husband and family and loved ones can make choices that I can choose to not affect me. What they do, or how they are, doesn't have to reflect on me. I can rest, finally knowing, deep within, that we're all okay--no matter what transpires. That there is nothing I have to figure out how to fix in this world--IT'S A SAFE SPACE to EXPERIENCE and DISCOVER ONESELF while RELATING with OTHERS. And I don't need to feel guilty about anything, about stepping back and letting go of trying to control everyone and everything--including myself.
How do I step out of the story?
Unfinished business--ALLOW yourself to leave the story mid-way by allowing yourself to AUTHENTICALLY FEEL the experience through, without judging how you "think" you "should be."
Self-Honesty--It's the compassionate thing to do. For me, that means ALLOWING myself to FEEL and EXPRESS anger at those who play my betrayers.
OBSERVE yourself acting...
A couple of weeks ago, I awakened in the morning from a dream feeling extremely frustrated and at odds:
I was in a classroom writing down my answer to a one-question essay assignment. The only problem was my handwriting was fading as quickly as I wrote the words down. Suddenly the teacher wanted our answers typed out. I searched all over the classroom, and eventually, the school, trying to find a typewriter that wasn't being used already. I never did find a machine, and to make matters worse, a couple more questions were added to the assignment. The story just worsened and grew more complex, the longer I stayed with it--nothing in it was resolved to my satisfaction or for simple peace of mind.
When Dad was dying, I spent a good portion of those last days, trying to help finish all his unfinished business and relationships and stories in order to help him make his death transition easier and more peaceful. All of us humans naturally want to bring our stories--and our character identities--to perfect happy endings.
And that has been a stumbling block for me in stepping over the threshold into living out my own recent embodied enlightenment as a self-master.
My dream made me aware that I've been trying to finish all the stories and relationships I co-created and played in in the past. I was trying to bring them all--my identity as Penny--to the "perfected human" ending. To finish all that old business I had going in order to transition into the new consciousness energy world. Just like my dad, Penny has been dying all along, too--some days, it even feels like I'm physically dying--because, ultimately, Penny was just a character role, too. She's a bit special, because it was in the lifetime role of Penny that I've experienced the integration of my spiritual divinity and all my other aspects and lifetimes with this one human incarnation. I not only lived out the ascension process (the awakening to self-awareness) on earth, but I also chose to then stay embodied (incarnate) as a self-master without actually having to physically die.
The dream made me aware of how my human mind wants to finish stories--become a perfect human specimen--but it also doesn't want me to die--or in this case, let go of my identity as Penny. And those two attitudes end up being at cross purposes with one another. I had all the answers, was writing them down with ease, but the more I tried to complete them according to the rules of my human mind (symbolized by the teacher's requirements), the more complicated and frustrating the assignment became for me. In order to "keep me alive," the assignment could never actually be finished--the story couldn't end. My human mind never wanted a resolution because "it thought" that would be the end, the destruction, of Penny.
I have a dream of every little community having a local theater for the performing arts--a place where everyone in the community, a mixture of all ages, can come together and consciously role-play. So we get more comfortable with immersing into a character role--AUTHENTICALLY FEELING our way through it WITHOUT JUDGING OURSELVES, and then switching out of it when we're ready to experience role-playing something else. I'd like everyone to have the opportunity to realize the joy of playing ALL kinds of PARTS together with SELF-FORGIVENESS, GRATITUDE, COMPASSION, CELEBRATION--and lots of LAUGHTER. Where everyone can someday realize that we've all just been role-playing together all along, and that our past experiences don't define us, or keep us stuck in a limited identity and genre.
We are ALL SO MUCH MORE than our pasts--and our pasts are SO MUCH MORE than we've understood.
These days I remind myself constantly of these four things:
1. It's all A FLEXIBLE HOLOGRAPHIC REALITY (my body included).
2. There is NO-thing I have to do or finish--or perfect.
3. BREATHE and ALLOW my consciousness (self-awareness) to OPEN and flow and mingle HARMONIOUSLY with all that is, within and without--without thought. Weapons down, armor off...
4. Be honest with myself about how I feel in the experience.
With releasing myself from the role of Penny, I find myself breathing so much more at ease, so much more at home in my own body than I ever was before. She never did die, she's just integrating into all that I am now...and I am much more at peace finally. The protective armor and all the barriers I PUT in around me to protect myself in what felt like a really tough and harsh world are, one-by-one, dropping away as I realize--become aware that they're there. Life, and my ability to co-create what I choose to experience, is simplified, so much more graceful. It's just a matter of re-minding myself to quit thinking, and to allow myself to receive it all with ease, and to flow it through by being HONEST about myself in the experience. All my old personal demons are being put to rest--with my own gratitude for ALL the parts I played...
Little One--come sing with me!
We have a song, a joyous melody.
Little One, come lift your heart in song--
Giving thanks for ALL parts played,
Whether right or seeming wrong!
Hear the thunder, hear the ROAR--
A celebration like we've never FELT before...
Little One--at last you're free!
Little One, come and dance with me.
It's all right, you've let your story be told,
And in the LIGHT of DAY, behold:
You're a WONDER!
Life's a GIFT!
A celebration of ALL THAT IS!
Though you stumble, though you fall--
When it all is said and done,
All there is IS LOVE!
Related Posts:
Allowing Me in My Enlightenment
My Beloved Mirrors
The Blessing of My Dark Side
The Virtual Reality Game--A Grand Illusion
Good-bye Conspiracy Theories--Especially, Satan
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
We Are More Than the Choices We Make
We are more than the choices we make and the experiences that result from them.
Here's a life-expanding perspective on reality that I've been breathing and contemplating for some time:
Here's a life-expanding perspective on reality that I've been breathing and contemplating for some time:
"Just because a potential was experienced doesn't mean it's any more real than all of those potentials in The Field that haven't been experienced."
This means, for me, that one choice doesn't mean an all-or-nothing path--it means that there's no such thing as a wrong choice!
A choice may not result in the consequences you expected or like. It doesn't mean you have to commit to that choice. Just keep making new choices and the path will adjust to that. It frees a person of a great deal of burden in decision-making, and it's helped me get past that body-bracing, choice-making paralysis from the fear of making a choice that harms anyone or anything. It's FREED me to express and to take ownership of my life. I breathe EASE instead of waiting for a shoe to fall on my head and squash me into oblivion.
My beloved friends, let go of the guilt from the belief that you've done wrong--it keeps you from living and enjoying the gift of life that you are. You can't have played "being human" without having had challenging experiences--painful experiences made more miserable simply because we've been asleep while appearing awake. We didn't know the choices we made didn't have to define us.
Many of us have been stuck in our tragedies and traumas for decades because we weren't aware of this concept. We are so much more than the limited identities we are currently living out.
Choose and write the stories of your lives, instead of letting the stories write you.
We are in a brand new consciousness energy world--with potentials feasible that we couldn't even imagine a few years ago. I'm excited to be a part of this grand shift!
Blessings,
Penny
P.S. What is the "right" CHOICE here:
A) You stay home to work and help your family bring in the harvest.
B) You go to the movie, a chick flick, called "Sixteen Candles," that your girlfriend invited you to go with her to see.
It turned out to be a life and death choice. He picked choice A because it was a humanly kind and noble thing to do, and I'm proud of him for that--but we experienced losing him to death as a result. And because I felt guilty for being momentarily angry at him for not picking my "stupid and silly" option (according to my mind afterwards), and then having him die on me while he was being such a noble and perfect person, it took me over a quarter of a century to REALIZE I HAD, IN FACT, PRESENTED HIM--all of us--WITH AN ALTERNATE DOORWAY.
Arlen was hit by a gray car at dusk, while simply crossing the highway on his motorcycle on his way home from swathing with his brother.
Beneath the actual events, many of us intuitively sensed something was going to happen. His mom called me a week earlier, worried because he hadn't arrived home yet from riding his motorcycle over to my brother's place. He asked me if we should break up for awhile so I could go back to college. We'd talked about how long-lived his family seemed to be. That night, I had gone with my cousin to Baker, MT, to go out with a friend of ours--and on the drive home, I wanted so badly to get home to him, not knowing he'd already died.
Choices ARE NOT cut and dried. And with this particular story, I'm still choosing new ways of looking at the experience that give me--and that 20-year-old young girl--the benefit of the doubt...and my Beloved Arlen likes what I've got going here.
P.S. What is the "right" CHOICE here:
A) You stay home to work and help your family bring in the harvest.
B) You go to the movie, a chick flick, called "Sixteen Candles," that your girlfriend invited you to go with her to see.
It turned out to be a life and death choice. He picked choice A because it was a humanly kind and noble thing to do, and I'm proud of him for that--but we experienced losing him to death as a result. And because I felt guilty for being momentarily angry at him for not picking my "stupid and silly" option (according to my mind afterwards), and then having him die on me while he was being such a noble and perfect person, it took me over a quarter of a century to REALIZE I HAD, IN FACT, PRESENTED HIM--all of us--WITH AN ALTERNATE DOORWAY.
Arlen was hit by a gray car at dusk, while simply crossing the highway on his motorcycle on his way home from swathing with his brother.
Beneath the actual events, many of us intuitively sensed something was going to happen. His mom called me a week earlier, worried because he hadn't arrived home yet from riding his motorcycle over to my brother's place. He asked me if we should break up for awhile so I could go back to college. We'd talked about how long-lived his family seemed to be. That night, I had gone with my cousin to Baker, MT, to go out with a friend of ours--and on the drive home, I wanted so badly to get home to him, not knowing he'd already died.
Choices ARE NOT cut and dried. And with this particular story, I'm still choosing new ways of looking at the experience that give me--and that 20-year-old young girl--the benefit of the doubt...and my Beloved Arlen likes what I've got going here.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Healing the Guilty Gossip in Me
"Worry not so much about what you put IN your mouth, but rather about what comes OUT of it."
Okay, so I'll go ahead and eat a few more of those kettle-cooked potato chips dipped in sour cream...and we'll just kind of avoid that last part...
"Eeeeew! Ouch, Pen! Honey, do we REALLY have to go there? You're going to be the death of me. I've worked so damned hard and long to make you appear to be this PERFECT HUMAN SPECIMEN, who has all the right answers in every situation, who acts and reacts in all the right ways, Ms. "Embodied Self-Master"--and here you go, outing us, sharing one of our most awful secrets about yourself!"
The above little drama-queen moment comes to you compliments of my cringing-in-shame ego, the old all-alone-feeling, Little Insignificant Human.
The above little drama-queen moment comes to you compliments of my cringing-in-shame ego, the old all-alone-feeling, Little Insignificant Human.
I reply, "Hang in there, kid. Don't we both know by now that the best way to overcome a fear is to walk through it with honesty? And it's tough going, trying to stay on that wobbly pedestal, isn't it? So, let's dust off the musties and bring it out here into the Light. It stinks to high heaven in here. Don't worry, honey--we're all going to be okay...and I'm taking a huge pressure off your shoulders with this."
Yes, my friends, I have gossiped--way more than I'd like to admit.
Yes, my friends, I have gossiped--way more than I'd like to admit.
One of the latest favorite approaches to try changing bad human behavior is to teach that there are absolute right choices, and there are absolute wrong choices--and you stand on a pedestal behind a podium (or share a rant on facebook), and you point your finger at others and chew them out for doing something you would surely never do. Or maybe you did do it, and regret it, and are trying to "help" others avoid the same "errors" in judgment. Whatever the justification, it's all just an attempt to manipulate those outside of you, in hopes of feeling more safe and secure in a world you really can't control.
I have certainly done my fair share of self-righteous ranting and raving about "those other people's" gossiping transgressions.
But does putting someone on the defensive--shaming them--about their behavior actually stop the behavior? Does accusing someone of being a gossip cause them to stop gossiping? It doesn't work with me, no matter how ashamed I feel, and I doubt it works with anyone else.
You see--we all make choices that we regret at times, and we wish for a do-over--but if we don't encourage independent choice-making and allow each person the chance to make choices of all kinds, we end up with a society of whiny slave robots. I got to the point of trying to be so perfect and mild and wise--the way I mentally thought a self-master should be, that suddenly I was paralyzed when it came to making even the simplest choices. I lost confidence in myself, and I found myself drowning in the victimhood act that I was so tired of playing in the first place.
I was so afraid of making a wrong choice, that, for years, I didn't paint my rooms anything but white, for fear of wasting money on paint and wasting my time, in labor. Finally, I allowed myself to choose two paint colors--an eye-blinding yellow and a really boring beige--before settling on a coneflower yellow. I painted that room over completely three times (two coats each time) within a year. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? All that worry about a choice in paint. Ha!
One "bad" choice is not the end-all of everything--it doesn't mean a person is now committed to that bad path for life. We need to make an allowance for self-discovery and the so-called "mistakes," so we learn we can KEEP CHOOSING in order to not get stuck in an act we don't enjoy. This is a SAFE and SACRED PLAYGROUND ILLUSION, after all.
Maybe in place of the finger-pointing shame, we should instead explore death and abundance and those areas that keep humans afraid of making choices for fear of harming anything or anyone unintentionally.
I have my own personal set of rules of behavior that I try to adhere to as much as possible, and my personal definition of gossiping is: any time I catch myself energetically feeding off discussing any interpersonal relationship where I am not a party in the story.
The family unit is one of the longest established belief systems, and each family has a moral code its members try to follow. My own family is no exception. My grandmother's advice when she sent Mom off to school in town was, "Don't be a gossip." She was the rock of her family, and she died six weeks after my 19-year-old mom's wedding, so that piece of insight has been one of the stoniest parts in our family's unwritten code of honor. It's not that we didn't gossip--we're all perfectly imperfect humans, after all--but we were aware of its power to really hurt someone, so we made it a point to try not to engage in it so much.
For me, struggling to not be a gossip has been as frustrating as struggling to not be a victim. No matter how much I try to avoid the energy-feeding involved in both, I still find myself playing the roles--and they are going to continue irritatingly popping up all around and within me, until I bring the subject out into the open, take a more objective look, and make my peace with being imperfect. Until I let go of taking myself so seriously and quit monitoring the "be-jesus" out of myself--and finally reach that feeling of actual gratitude for the wisdom gained from all that experience and exploration.
To add insult to injury, my pointing finger and my wrist is sprained, nearly arthritic with overuse. Just kidding.
So, let's step out of those guilty feelings that I've admitted to feeling--that, frankly, haven't helped me change anything--and take a seat in the audience chair:
Gossip is hurtful when it causes anyone longer-lasting misery and more suffering than needed. There is a "wicked delight" (energy feeding) at telling others about the downfall of someone you don't much like--or that you envy. That elated-feeling, pedestal-superiority is hard to let go of when you feel so insecure about yourself, and basically bored with your own life.
Is there a difference between news-reporting and gossip? There is so much "news" shared that probably shouldn't be reported in the first place. We don't know people--anyone--well enough to always understand why we do the horrendous things we Unawakened Little Humans do to one another. So is it in our best interests to keep the worst things humans can do to one another at the forefront of mass consciousness by replaying the story out on the nightly news? Lately, I've discovered I would rather pick defaulting to closed-mouth compassion over lip-flapping judgment every time.
Have you noticed that while participating in a gossip session, you find yourself energetically commiserating with the other gossips? It feels like "us" against "them." I notice this can happen so easily with my husband and me--it's us against the world. Ha! Or women talking about "the way men are," and guys talking about "the way women are." It's probably just an unconscious attempt to combat that I'm-insignificant feeling by trying to convince ourselves we belong. Sometimes we desire so much to connect with others that we get carried away and say too much, when it's probably best to let the silence be.
Still, regardless of why we do it, when you leave any gossip scene, you're pretty certain you're the next-in-line gossip victim. And there's no way you can control any of that.
Lately, when someone shares some news item or gossip, I find myself desiring to not have heard it in the first place. I ask myself, "Is that little tidbit of information something I REALLY need to know, and do I want to share it and make it a part of my own reality illusion? Or do I choose to honor the agreement between the characters in that story by letting it slip through and out of my consciousness? Lately, I find I'm more often CHOOSING to keep my lips shut, to NOT perpetuate the story. And I remind myself that nobody is really doing anything wrong on this safe and sacred playground--they're play-acting together, by agreement, at a soul level that I can't always see.
The grace-filled beauty of self-mastery is you know that you're going to behave like an imperfect human at times--and that it's okay. You know why? Because you know it's all just an illusion. And because the more you unconditionally accept yourself, and appreciate the gift of the moment of a human imperfection, the more you'll be that way with everyone outside of yourself. You breathe easier, your personal radiation smooths out and brightens up, and your world changes to match. The energy-feeding trauma-dramas--and the tendencies to gossip about them--dissipate.
There is a story in the New Testament of a man who accused his wife of adultery. He and his self-righteous friends brought her before Jesus and asked him what he would do with her, "outright sinner that she was, caught in the act." The story was even a bit more juicy, because the supposedly jilted husband may have, in fact, framed his wife in order to make himself appear innocent in his own sleaziness. That time, Jesus didn't point a finger at the wife or the husband or anyone who was a part of the spectacle. His answer was, "Let he who is without sin be the first to cast a stone."...And everyone walked away.
Jesus had the opportunity to draw out the story by listening to all the "he-saids/she saids"--but no matter how much people wrestled over who was in the right and who was wrong, passing any kind of judgment in the matter was a silly no-win situation. All of this sounds similar to the O.J. Simpson trial, those over-acted, chair-throwing Jerry Springer episodes, and reality--REALLY???--TV shows. It would have just created an even more massive suck-fest, sensational story.
Instead, he directed everyone's attention inward--to themselves. End of story. No one was chewed out, shamed, and put on the defensive for being a gossip, or for any other bad behavior.
So, if it helps, put the pointy finger to rest (it just eventually points right back at us anyway)--and, instead, step back from the story. Observe yourself, and check into how you feel inside (CLOSING YOUR EYES, of course).
Before you open your mouth to spread the news, take a moment to consider the consequences of perpetuating it.
Is that the story you want in your world--in your personal reality illusion?
Does the way you share it uplift and celebrate humanity?
In the darker, evil stories, does your pity or self-righteous outrage for the beings involved change things for the better--or does it just spread fear and misery and just add to the steaming pile of "everything that's wrong in this world"?
What do YOU CHOOSE for YOUR WORLD?
The growth in my self-awareness has replaced a great deal of the self-monitoring and my trying to control those slippery-snake aspects of myself that I don't like. I'm beginning to see potential choices that I didn't see before because I was too busy trying to handle myself correctly. I've noticed I've gotten much quieter these days about some things...and I like that.
I have certainly done my fair share of self-righteous ranting and raving about "those other people's" gossiping transgressions.
But does putting someone on the defensive--shaming them--about their behavior actually stop the behavior? Does accusing someone of being a gossip cause them to stop gossiping? It doesn't work with me, no matter how ashamed I feel, and I doubt it works with anyone else.
You see--we all make choices that we regret at times, and we wish for a do-over--but if we don't encourage independent choice-making and allow each person the chance to make choices of all kinds, we end up with a society of whiny slave robots. I got to the point of trying to be so perfect and mild and wise--the way I mentally thought a self-master should be, that suddenly I was paralyzed when it came to making even the simplest choices. I lost confidence in myself, and I found myself drowning in the victimhood act that I was so tired of playing in the first place.
I was so afraid of making a wrong choice, that, for years, I didn't paint my rooms anything but white, for fear of wasting money on paint and wasting my time, in labor. Finally, I allowed myself to choose two paint colors--an eye-blinding yellow and a really boring beige--before settling on a coneflower yellow. I painted that room over completely three times (two coats each time) within a year. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? All that worry about a choice in paint. Ha!
One "bad" choice is not the end-all of everything--it doesn't mean a person is now committed to that bad path for life. We need to make an allowance for self-discovery and the so-called "mistakes," so we learn we can KEEP CHOOSING in order to not get stuck in an act we don't enjoy. This is a SAFE and SACRED PLAYGROUND ILLUSION, after all.
Maybe in place of the finger-pointing shame, we should instead explore death and abundance and those areas that keep humans afraid of making choices for fear of harming anything or anyone unintentionally.
I have my own personal set of rules of behavior that I try to adhere to as much as possible, and my personal definition of gossiping is: any time I catch myself energetically feeding off discussing any interpersonal relationship where I am not a party in the story.
The family unit is one of the longest established belief systems, and each family has a moral code its members try to follow. My own family is no exception. My grandmother's advice when she sent Mom off to school in town was, "Don't be a gossip." She was the rock of her family, and she died six weeks after my 19-year-old mom's wedding, so that piece of insight has been one of the stoniest parts in our family's unwritten code of honor. It's not that we didn't gossip--we're all perfectly imperfect humans, after all--but we were aware of its power to really hurt someone, so we made it a point to try not to engage in it so much.
For me, struggling to not be a gossip has been as frustrating as struggling to not be a victim. No matter how much I try to avoid the energy-feeding involved in both, I still find myself playing the roles--and they are going to continue irritatingly popping up all around and within me, until I bring the subject out into the open, take a more objective look, and make my peace with being imperfect. Until I let go of taking myself so seriously and quit monitoring the "be-jesus" out of myself--and finally reach that feeling of actual gratitude for the wisdom gained from all that experience and exploration.
To add insult to injury, my pointing finger and my wrist is sprained, nearly arthritic with overuse. Just kidding.
So, let's step out of those guilty feelings that I've admitted to feeling--that, frankly, haven't helped me change anything--and take a seat in the audience chair:
Gossip is hurtful when it causes anyone longer-lasting misery and more suffering than needed. There is a "wicked delight" (energy feeding) at telling others about the downfall of someone you don't much like--or that you envy. That elated-feeling, pedestal-superiority is hard to let go of when you feel so insecure about yourself, and basically bored with your own life.
Is there a difference between news-reporting and gossip? There is so much "news" shared that probably shouldn't be reported in the first place. We don't know people--anyone--well enough to always understand why we do the horrendous things we Unawakened Little Humans do to one another. So is it in our best interests to keep the worst things humans can do to one another at the forefront of mass consciousness by replaying the story out on the nightly news? Lately, I've discovered I would rather pick defaulting to closed-mouth compassion over lip-flapping judgment every time.
Have you noticed that while participating in a gossip session, you find yourself energetically commiserating with the other gossips? It feels like "us" against "them." I notice this can happen so easily with my husband and me--it's us against the world. Ha! Or women talking about "the way men are," and guys talking about "the way women are." It's probably just an unconscious attempt to combat that I'm-insignificant feeling by trying to convince ourselves we belong. Sometimes we desire so much to connect with others that we get carried away and say too much, when it's probably best to let the silence be.
Still, regardless of why we do it, when you leave any gossip scene, you're pretty certain you're the next-in-line gossip victim. And there's no way you can control any of that.
Lately, when someone shares some news item or gossip, I find myself desiring to not have heard it in the first place. I ask myself, "Is that little tidbit of information something I REALLY need to know, and do I want to share it and make it a part of my own reality illusion? Or do I choose to honor the agreement between the characters in that story by letting it slip through and out of my consciousness? Lately, I find I'm more often CHOOSING to keep my lips shut, to NOT perpetuate the story. And I remind myself that nobody is really doing anything wrong on this safe and sacred playground--they're play-acting together, by agreement, at a soul level that I can't always see.
The grace-filled beauty of self-mastery is you know that you're going to behave like an imperfect human at times--and that it's okay. You know why? Because you know it's all just an illusion. And because the more you unconditionally accept yourself, and appreciate the gift of the moment of a human imperfection, the more you'll be that way with everyone outside of yourself. You breathe easier, your personal radiation smooths out and brightens up, and your world changes to match. The energy-feeding trauma-dramas--and the tendencies to gossip about them--dissipate.
There is a story in the New Testament of a man who accused his wife of adultery. He and his self-righteous friends brought her before Jesus and asked him what he would do with her, "outright sinner that she was, caught in the act." The story was even a bit more juicy, because the supposedly jilted husband may have, in fact, framed his wife in order to make himself appear innocent in his own sleaziness. That time, Jesus didn't point a finger at the wife or the husband or anyone who was a part of the spectacle. His answer was, "Let he who is without sin be the first to cast a stone."...And everyone walked away.
Jesus had the opportunity to draw out the story by listening to all the "he-saids/she saids"--but no matter how much people wrestled over who was in the right and who was wrong, passing any kind of judgment in the matter was a silly no-win situation. All of this sounds similar to the O.J. Simpson trial, those over-acted, chair-throwing Jerry Springer episodes, and reality--REALLY???--TV shows. It would have just created an even more massive suck-fest, sensational story.
Instead, he directed everyone's attention inward--to themselves. End of story. No one was chewed out, shamed, and put on the defensive for being a gossip, or for any other bad behavior.
So, if it helps, put the pointy finger to rest (it just eventually points right back at us anyway)--and, instead, step back from the story. Observe yourself, and check into how you feel inside (CLOSING YOUR EYES, of course).
Before you open your mouth to spread the news, take a moment to consider the consequences of perpetuating it.
Is that the story you want in your world--in your personal reality illusion?
Does the way you share it uplift and celebrate humanity?
In the darker, evil stories, does your pity or self-righteous outrage for the beings involved change things for the better--or does it just spread fear and misery and just add to the steaming pile of "everything that's wrong in this world"?
What do YOU CHOOSE for YOUR WORLD?
The growth in my self-awareness has replaced a great deal of the self-monitoring and my trying to control those slippery-snake aspects of myself that I don't like. I'm beginning to see potential choices that I didn't see before because I was too busy trying to handle myself correctly. I've noticed I've gotten much quieter these days about some things...and I like that.
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