Thank you for your betrayal...

"Giving thanks for all parts played, whether right or seeming wrong."

Thank you for your service, for loving me so much you were willing to play my transgressor for a moment.

Thank you to my husband, my family, my teachers, my neighbors, my pets, my friends.

Thank you to my communities, my governments, my religions, my businesses, and employment jams.

Thank you to my healthcare givers, politicians, bankers, lawyers, and insurance plans:

This is my thank you for all the times you seemingly betrayed me or failed me--

Because every time you let me down, you gave me the opportunity to turn back to myself, to my own knowingness within. 

Every time you fell off the pedestal I had placed you on, you reminded me to quit giving my sovereignty away to anyone or anything outside of me. 

In doing so, you helped me to look to me and trust in me, first and foremost. And that, my loves, is the grandest and greatest gift of all!

Where did my joy in simply being alive go?

A few days ago I realized it was time for me to give myself a proper holiday...a holiday from trying to just get through another gathering pretty much like the last one. Gatherings where I didn't really enjoy myself because I was focused on not offending anyone or smoothing over the rough spots for others, whether they were angry or sad or judgmental. It's a heavy, and not so satisfying, juggling act trying to make everyone else feel at least okay, if not happy. I chose to give myself a holiday where I didn't feel obligated to plan for and cook for others--even if it was just one dish for a type of potluck affair. I didn't have to leave my home and my beloved pets to make trips in weather and traveling conditions I had no control over. I let my husband do his own thing--I let him leave me for his family--and that part wasn't quite so easy...

I realized I hadn't truly enjoyed a holiday since my first boyfriend died back in 1984. The feeling of magic and joy in them had been seeping away even before then because my family was stuck in our own limited consciousness situation of lack of abundance--both financially and status-wise in our community. I was old enough to worry about what others thought of me and I lost myself in that story. I lost myself in the programming that taught me that I should worry about and plan the future, and that I should recognize, and not make, the mistakes of the past.

Once upon a time I thought I made a really, really bad and wrong choice.

...and that belief that I was wrong has been haunting me ever since.

Because, you see, that choice involved my having asked to do something I enjoyed doing instead of just going along with someone elses desires and program. It involved me feeling hurt when my request was turned down. It involved me feeling angry with him because he chose his family and their work instead of being with me. And so I did something out of town on my own without him that night...and he died.

So then I felt guilty because I believed my anger and my "that's no way to be" selfishness killed him.

I left him for a moment--we went our separate ways just for an evening...and he died.

All I did was ask if he wanted to go to a simple teenage romantic comedy showing at the movie theater in town that night. A chick flick called "Sixteen Candles." Considering the fact that I continued going out with him after our first date was watching the movie, "Cheech and Chong: Up in Smoke" shows that I was pretty flexible in my own expectations of others. Ha! I really wasn't used to giving voice to my own wants or desires, to making choices, so I was venturing out on an uncertain limb to began with.

And then he died...and there I was stuck in a futureless void that I didn't know how to fill.

I couldn't imagine a Penny without him. His life actually ended, but mine did, too, only I was still waking up to the same reality, but it was without him in it. In looking back, I remember how I was literally grasping anything and anyone to help me stay here. Holding hands, simply being held--I grappled for all of it to keep me tethered to this world.

I wanted to die, too, but I was afraid of it for fear I wasn't good enough for a happy hereafter. After all, he was taken away as punishment for my selfishness--yes, that's what I believed at the time. I believed I'd killed my brother's best friend. I felt responsible for everyone else's pain in losing him because I'd made a simple request for my own enjoyment.

I didn't trust myself to ask for something after that. I didn't trust myself to make any kind of choice--especially not the big ones.

Isn't that THE MOST WARPED AND INSANE THING a person could do to themselves??? A simple little, really inconsequential choice that I MADE into an overwhelming, unclimbable monstrosity of a mountain. I built myself a jail cell, and I slammed the door and threw away the key.

So I set out to try to fill that futureless-feeling void with all kinds of good deeds. I set out to be of selfless service to others. Isn't that what truly good people do--concern themselves with making life better and easier and more enjoyable for everyone else out there? And the especially good ones do so by generously sacrificing their own joy in being--others joy is our reward. Yep--we do-gooders do so with a smile on our face--we take up the gauntlet of joyful martyrdom, and when that whiny voice inside starts to rear its ugly, unsaintly head, we just tell ourselves to hush up and get over ourselves. We slap that "selfish little icky thing" upside the head because that's no way to feel (even though we honestly do feel taken for granted). Believe me, those crabs out there can be a real challenge to lighten up--so that whiny voice yells more frequently than I'd like to admit. Life really sucks here, but damn, that hereafter life is going to be worth it!!!

I hope you're laughing at this by now--I am! What a hilarious act! If I were watching all of this on a movie screen, I'd be laughing at this character and her bizarre insanity!

And there's more!

I'm quite conscious now that I've been (we've all been) just play-acting all this time, and it's been getting easier and easier to step back out of the drama on my stage and just observe it all as playing "Let's Pretend." And frankly, that's a tremendous gift to have right now in the midst of the inhumane acts taking place in this reality. There's a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering going on around the world due to a limited human consciousness that's gone psychotic. There are a lot of humans feeling like cornered beasts out there--beasts who lash out at anyone and anything in order to survive, to feel a bit more powerful and in control of their lives by trying to control others...or kill them off.

With that said, you don't get more conscious by trying to mentally figure it all out. I tried that route. You can't fill up that void of a future by mentally analyzing and pressuring yourself to come up with, and implement a plan A, or B through Z, that involves making all the right choices.

I feel that depressed "failed before I even started" feeling enveloping me just in writing that previous statement. How many times have I wanted to change my life, but the mental human details of what I had to do overwhelmed me so much that I felt myself close up and thus, changed nothing? I gave up even allowing myself to dream of something more, and I plugged away, dispassionately in the same old looking day, after day, after day...after day.

When my husband left me to spend Thanksgiving with his family, that fear-laced voice assaulted me again. It's a voice that tells me this moment could be your last one with him, Pen, so you'd better make it count. Don't ask him to pick you over anyone or anything else--and don't be angry with him if he chooses someone other than you.

It's been a tough voice to deal with. You see, I KNOW it's based in fear and I KNOW better than to give it any credence anymore, but the bastard keeps whispering in my ear, nonetheless.

After my boyfriend died while riding a motorcycle across the highway on his way home from swathing that awful evening, I really don't care for bikes anymore. Actually, I really didn't like motorized recreational toys even before that--they were gratingly noisy to me. I know people don't die just because they like riding cycles. I have a really great memory of him taking me for a ride on that very bike. I know people don't get killed just because some "careless and unfeeling" person in a vehicle doesn't see them. I know motorcyclists don't die just because they didn't wear a helmet, etc. etc.

And I have a husband who rides a Harley Davidson. Every time he heads out to ride it though, that voice taunts and I work to breathe through it, to not let myself worry, to not imagine the worst-case scenario outcome. I CHOOSE to not create that awful story for myself again, but I have to do some conscious breathing to keep myself open and the self-protective guards down. He picked up a motorcycle for my brother-in-law back when we lived in the Twin Cities. It was after I had been the first person on the scene of yet another tragically fatal motorcycle accident--a horror of a nightmare for me--and I had to follow him in our car as he navigated that vulnerable-looking piece of equipment through all that traffic. I was a shaky piece of white-knuckled, bawling wreck of humanity that finally walked in our door afterwards, but I did it, and he made it home without incident. All these years, he's made it home to me without incident, yet every time he leaves me--no matter what he drives--that voice haunts me. And I have to shush it...but it never really disappears completely.

Those potentials are always a possibility...but they're just one of multitudes of potentials. It's just that my worrying about them and bracing myself for their possibility of happening is more likely to bring them into my experience because of my focus on them, than if I let go and open myself up to something more. Yes, that involves lowering my guards and expectations--and I feel extremely vulnerable.

But living in that fear and that worry is no life. That's misery. And I honestly know now that if he should die by that route or any other, that we would both be okay. I wouldn't feel the need to try to fill up the void anymore.

I still don't know how to plan a more joyful future experience without getting overwhelmed, but I no longer feel the need to worry over it.

At this moment, my future doesn't even exist!

I'm in the Void of nothingness--Again!

And I realize that even when in this void, I still EXIST!--I am!

And I feel so free here, unencumbered by stories!

Oh, that sweet deep breath of freedom of being...whatever and without judgment.

And this time I'm not worried about surviving. I don't need to be reaching out to serve others in a manner they expect me to in order to stay alive, to stay grounded. In truth, I realized that's what I'd been doing. I was just trying to stay embodied here on Earth--and my tool to do that at the time, in my very limited consciousness, was in TRYING to SERVE OTHERS, instead of making choices for myself. It served me well when I needed it most, but it's obsolete now, and it's actually getting in the way.

If I were to die right now, I'd actually be okay with that, but I'm here to experience embodied enlightenment--to see and feel, firsthand, that something more that I've known has been here all my life. I've never made a RIGHT or a WRONG choice--ever!!! It was my feelings and beliefs about myself and those choices that drew to myself every particular experience I went through.

That futureless void I once sought to fill in any way possible actually feels really freeing right NOW. I don't have to have a plan! I don't have to figure out details surrounding financing or relationships!

It's a relief to know I'm so much more than that character that I played and have been playing up to now. I really like and appreciate this human that I've identified with all these years, but it's been tough going playing the Little That's all I am Human. There hasn't been much joy in it, not really, because I've kept myself so limited. When you feel so unworthy of living, that's what you get--a pretty boring, often frustrating and tough life.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Penny, and she didn't worry about creating and filling up a future. She didn't worry about saving a world or anyone else. She wasn't trying to make somebody happy or trying to prove herself worthy of being. She was just visiting a world filled with wondrous experiences, a world that was so sensuous and seductive, so REAL FEELING, that she immersed so deeply into it that she forgot she was just a visitor playing a fun game.

I remember that little "I'm here for a visit" girl. It's the girl that was before she adopted other's ideas about how life on earth worked. In the first 7-8 years of my life, I realized that my family probaby enjoyed the most abundance ever in our history as a family, until now. I understand what all the ascended masters have been saying now--when I radiate joy and ease and graceful allowance in my own conscious awareness--all my loved ones around me benefit from my radiance without my having to say a word, or convince them to do it my way. They benefit because they are a part of MY created reality--they're no longer playing tough parts for me because I've lowered my protective guards.

And before that little girl that I was got caught up in all the stories and play-acts that said "life is tough and harsh and sometimes cruel"--that world of hers was A-MAZING! That world was awesome and full of possibilities to CHOOSE without self doubt or second-guessing herself. That world was magical and she didn't have to figure out how to go out and get it--it came to her, freely, easily, without a goal or plan. Wha-La! It was just there!

That world was a gift of experience she ALLOWED herself to receive OPENLY. It was a world undistorted by the judgments made by insignificant-feeling Little Humans who didn't remember they were so much more...

The magic is back, Penny! Doesn't it feel liberating? I feel so open, so excited about experiencing something more! Get out of the way, my beloved and scared Little Human play-act, and ALLOW it to flow to you...

It comes to you, kid. It comes to you--just open up and allow yourself to receive it with ease and grace.

It's time to really enjoy your life as the gift of experience that it truly is...

My shields are down...I am open...wide open...

It's amazing, this experience of having ALLOWED MYSELF a HOLIDAY with just myself.

German Chocolate Cake

This is a favorite recipe from the Bowman Lutheran 75th Anniversary 1908 - 1983 Cookbook. Klara Strand contributed this recipe and entitled it "Zit City Choco Delite." Back in the 70s and 80s the food myth was that chocolate was bad for you and that it promoted acne outbreaks. My family was so large that when Mom baked a cake it was eaten hot out of the oven. This is my absolute favorite chocolate cake--heavy, chocolatey and moist. I often pair it with Vivian Hall's "German Chocolate Cake Frosting" which I like to make with cream.

Zit City Choco Delite (Chocolate Cake)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour 9 x 13 cake pan.

1 c. Butter, melted (can substitute 1 c. vegetable oil)

2 tsp. Baking Soda
1 c. Hot Water (boiling)
3/4 c. Cocoa

2 c. Flour
2 c. Sugar

1/2 tsp. Salt

2 Eggs
1 c. Buttermilk (or 1 Tbsp. Vinegar and enough Milk to make 1 cup)
2 tsp. Pure Vanilla


Melt butter and set aside.
Dissolve the baking soda in the hot water and let cool a bit. 

With a wire whisk sift the flour, sugar, salt and cocoa together in a large mixing bowl. 

Add the rest of the wet ingredients, making sure the hot water and melted butter has cooled enough not to cook the eggs. 

Put all the ingredients at once into a large bowl. Mix on LOW speed with mixer for 2 minutes, only until well-blended. Pour into greased and floured 9x13-inch pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 35 - 40 minutes, until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

German Chocolate Cake Frosting

1 c. Evaporated Milk or Cream
1 c. Sugar
3 Egg Yolks, slightly beaten
1/2 c. Butter
1 tsp. Pure Vanilla
1 c. Walnuts or Pecans, chopped and *toasted
1 1/3 c. Flaked Coconut *Sweetened, or Soaked Unsweetened Unsulfured

Mix evaporated milk, sugar, yolks, and butter in saucepan and cook until thickened and bubbly on MEDIUM LOW heat. Boil about 12 minutes, stirring constantly with a whisk to keep from burning to the bottom of the saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla, toasted walnuts and coconut. Cool and stir until thick enough to spread.

*Toast walnuts or pecans in 325 degree oven for 4-8 minutes and allow to cool. The toasting makes them pop when you chew, as well as adding a roasted nut flavor.

*Lately, I use Unsweetened and Unsulfured flaked (large or small) coconut which has to be soaked in 3 c. water for 1 hour and then the water drained off through a strainer before adding to the frosting. It's less sweet. Otherwise, I used the bags of sweetened coconut found in the baking aisle.

Self-Honesty & Conscious Awareness: Breaking the Bonds of B.S.(Belief Systems) and Dis-ease

The chemicals, those drugs used for managing mental imbalances--they aren't truly curing or healing anything. Have you noticed?

I can hear and feel people who are taking drugs for depression and anxiety. Their speech is slurred and their energy level is blah. I can feel their numbness, their detachment from living, their tiredness. They are not present in their bodies. They are playing the role of a "Victim of Life," and they are an energy suck if you allow them to do it.

I can feel those who are in a manic state. They're running from themselves--and it's clear as day.

Factor in the side effects of those medications, along with the fact that they are only reinforcing the hypnotic suggestion that "something is inherently wrong with me"--it's no wonder people never get better. 

You see, I can feel and recognize those symptoms because I've felt them all myself--every human has. I had days where I was so exhausted I couldn't do anything but sleep. And I've had nights and days where I couldn't shut my mental ramblings off enough to sleep or sit still--and walking, getting out and away from my day-to-day routine was the only thing that leveled me out. I had mornings where I woke up disappointed that I was still alive in a body. I did things that I regretted and felt ashamed of, and I wished I could have that all-elusive do-over.

Yet, even though I've experienced all those symptoms, I never got diagnosed or labelled with a mental illness, and I moved through my TEMPORARY Dark Nights of the Soul all on my own. I'm healthy and I'm balanced, and when I feel under-the-weather I reassure myself that I'm okay, that I'll move through whatever bothers me. I'm not stuck in any reality experience permanently. 

Several years ago, friends who were ascended self masters pointed out to those of us who were exploring consciousness (back when people didn't even know the meaning of the word) that we had a tendency to leave our bodies--we weren't present in our lives, in the moment. It was hard to be here playing the old hypnotic games when none of it mattered to you anymore. Not when something deep inside you questioned whether there was more to life than all those same old dramas and traumas that never seemed to have resolutions. And retiring to sunny Arizona to play golf the rest of my life after working for a living at something that was just a job and a paycheck simply felt like nothing I wanted for myself.

They suggested changing our routines and getting out for walks in nature. They reminded us to take the good deep conscious breaths--inhaling deep into our lower rib cage and then blowing it out. They recommended using water to help flow the consciousness energies by drinking it, taking baths and showers and swimming in it or simply by being near an ocean, stream, fountain or lake, They suggested creating things that didn't have to be masterpieces made to impress someone--things like painting and doodling or drawing, writing poetry and music, singing and playing music, allowing yourself to honestly and freely express yourself. Which is why I started this blog. 

And when depression hit (which you do experience with enlightenment or awakening awareness), we were to simply allow ourselves to honestly feel it, observe ourselves, and experience it through--with the knowledge that it too would pass if we quit trying to monitor and squelch legit feelings. Monitoring and trying to control your thoughts and feelings will distort and complicate things even more--you'll suffer longer.

I remember my mom talking about being afraid of getting Alzheimer's. She didn't want to put us--her family members--through that pain and suffering. This is the woman, after all, who would remind me, "Never judge another until you've walked a mile in his moccasins." She was a living example of a person being willing to imagine what it was like to be in another person's proverbial shoes, or situation.

So, when people did dark, abusive acts, instead of just shaking my head, saying they deserved to be gutted and strung up to die--I found myself curious as to what could possibly motivate them to such depravity. As I've talked about before--killing someone didn't seem like a real solution. I wanted to get to the core of why humans do such things so we could change our world. So we could make such things obsolete in our world.

And when I had friends diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar illness and Alzheimer's, I wondered what it felt like and why it came on? What triggered it? What happened that led up to the event of them getting that diagnosis, and how did it feel to act and live that out every day? I grieved with them getting that label and having to take those prescribed chemicals that numbed them to life and had such horrid side effects. I didn't like being asked to monitor whether my friend was acting "normal" or not. How the hell should I know?

There were a couple of women around Mom's age in our community who suffered from Alzheimer's, and I remember Mom talking of how they were such nice and gentle and mild women for as long as she'd known them--and then Alzheimer's hit, and they no longer even resembled themselves. These once mild-mannered ladies could be difficult, with bouts of anger and accusations or paranoia. They eventually tuned out completely and didn't recognize their own loved ones.

Okay, now let's feel into the old mass consciousness beliefs about what it's like to be feminine. I played the role of a woman in this life expression so this is really easy for me. We're supposed to be self-sacrificing nurturers who make everyone's owies feel better. You can dump your emotional troubles on your mom or your wife or your sister, and she'll shoulder most any burden--she'll hold those energies for you. I had difficulty with allowing myself to feel, much less express anger. I had to practice allowing myself to feel anger without feeling guilty about it. Women were supposed to be gentle, mild, good listeners. And we're supposed stay attractive for our mates. The problem is that HOLDING ENERGY (instead of flowing the energies through) often means putting on actual physical weight and it ages you physically. 

In short--to be a woman means to many of us, that we're always there for you no matter what. And we'll love you EVEN IF YOU TAKE us and our love for you FOR GRANTED. And we're not supposed to allow ourselves to be angry about it.

Now let's feel into what it means to be a man in the old traditional belief systems. Sensitivity is not a trait of the Divine Feminine only. Some of the most sensitive men and boys I've ever known hide behind masks of intellectual arrogance or tough-guy bravado. You're supposed to be macho tough, slow to tears (because that was viewed as a tolerated weakness reserved for women), you make the big decisions, you fix things. You're the leader. You're the provider. You're in control and everyone relies on you. You don't make emotional decisions--you're supposed to be logical and reasonable. Again--you fix things, dammit!!! 

And, guess what--all those wonderful masculine qualities get TAKEN FOR GRANTED by your loved ones, too, don't they? And you're just supposed to suck it up and be a man, because that's just how it is....

So, if you're trying to suppress and stuff down all those "I'm unappreciated and being taken for granted" feelings of an entire lifetime, at some point all that pressure is going to burst. And it's probably not going to look pretty. Out splashes all that "inappropriateness" that you believed was a wrong way to be. Can you see the freedom and the release gained by getting a label of some mental diagnosis that basically says I don't have to be held responsible for acting angry and naughty and all those things I felt I couldn't allow myself to be when I was supposedly in my right mind?

The roles of men and women are starting to blend--women are embracing more of the Divine Masculine traits, and men are allowing themselves to express more of their Divine Feminine as human consciousness awakens and grows more aware that the qualities of both reside in us all, regardless of our gender. It's when we embrace both within ourselves that we lead a more balanced and genuine life. When we realize it's okay to feel and be angry, and it's okay to cry, and to let go of trying to control everything--that all of those things release and flow the energies--and set us free.

There are also cases of Dementia and mental imbalances where humans don't want to stay embodied because life has gotten too painful to manage--there doesn't seem to be a win-win solution. 

Maybe they did something they feel foolish and ashamed of having done--they've judged themselves as being "wrong," and they're trying to distance themselves by running away from looking at it honestly and without giving themselves the benefit of self-forgiveness and compassion. They try desperately to avoid looking at it for fear that they might not survive the pain of responsibility. They'll even risk the stigma of getting diagnosed as being mentally ill and endure being medicated and hospitalized for the rest of their lives. There has to be a benefit for them in there somewhere for them to keep choosing that experience.

Maybe the person has suffered a loss of a loved one. Maybe a child died before the parents, for instance, and even though that happens all the time, it's still feelingly believed that that kind of thing just shouldn't happen. I didn't know how to go on after losing my first boyfriend--my future felt empty and I felt disloyal by moving forward into living a happy life without him physically in it. There was a great deal of hopelessness piled on with guilt, self-doubt, very little self worth--I didn't even like myself. There was many a morning I regretted waking up to another day to get through.

While we feel alone in our unique loss, we're not the only ones to experience such pain, regret, guilt, embarrassment or whatever. 

I put self-honesty into all of my troubled experiences, and I tempered it with self-compassion and self-forgiveness in place of blame or trying to justify my being an arse. We've all done atrocious things at some point in our human history, some that we really can't even justify...

AND...

we can REALIZE that the one who did such terrible deeds was simply deep asleep in the old human consciousness of survival of the fittest--one where we tried to gain power and control over a world we were simply scared shitless in. We all know deep down inside that there is so much more going on than the events we see and act out on the surface. I sought out and felt into REAL solutions that resonated with me and I balanced naturally when I quit trying to analyze and fix and monitor myself.

My point in writing this is that those of you dealing with mental imbalances in your life, whether it's your own experience or that of a loved one, don't be afraid to be curious. Don't be afraid of questioning everything you thought or feelingly believed or were taught about these diagnoses. Open up discussions with your friends and loved ones about these uncomfortable feeling things.

Feel into the shoes of all the characters in a situation...and one day you'll realize as I did, that none of us has ever done anything right or wrong. We were all just playing--acting out--games of "Let's Pretend" together. No one got irreparably hurt or blasted out of existence. It just seemed that way. Our souls are eternal...and I'm glad you all are here with me. Thank you for everything.

To just accept the status quo as your own truth--it's at the cost of enjoyment of the gift of your own life and the lives of your loved ones.

Sensitives: The Art of Walking a Mile in Another's Moccasins

Sensitives are empathetic and compassionate by nature. Empathy and compassion are the ability to feelingly imagine what it's like to walk in another's shoes.

I grew up on my mom's adopted adage: "Never judge another until you've walked a mile in his/her moccasins." It's easy for me to feel what it must be like for someone else--I do it so naturally it happens without me thinking about it.

For a good portion of my life, I had difficulty discerning what was my personal baggage and what belonged to others--most of it belonged to others. I would take on another person's issue or crisis as if it was my own and I'd work and feel my way through it, always hoping to resolve it for them. I found answers for many things--but they were only answers for myself. Often the other person didn't care enough, or wasn't curious enough, to resolve his/her issue to even ask a question, much less search for an answer, or even look at mine. They were enjoying their story and their experience too much to let it go. In that case, I learned to let them go. Compassion allowed me to drop their burden and leave their story until they chose to be done with it, or not.

Choosing to be curious and aware and open to shifting your perspective can bring a great deal of clarity to your situation. And with clarity comes release from an illness or story or identity.

After all, if it's in my life, I put it there, and it will stay in my life as long as I'm getting some benefit from it on some level. Everything in my life is there in service to me.

Too often, we FEED the "poor" VICTIM, and that perpetuates the story.

It's often been my experience that those who claim illness or imbalance as their state of being--whether it's emotional, mental, physical or spiritual--CHOOSE NOT to imagine themselves in the shoes of their own loved ones and caregivers. I don't think they realize they can do it even--I think they're unconscious of having made that choice.

And they use their illnesses to be energy feeders--vampires. In many cases I'm not certain they're fully aware that they're doing that. They hijack relationships by CHOOSING to make themselves and their illness stories the FOCUS of attention for themselves and others.

Doctor and specialist appointments, treatments, diets and medications become the focus of people's lives. I've observed many of these illness situations become full-time jobs for the sick person and family members. I watch it become work that people bring home with them. And it usurps spending a lot more fun and enjoyable time with friends and loved ones.

When I feel sick, the last thing I want is a visitor. I want to be able to thoroughly enjoy another's company.

I have a friend who was diagnosed with bipolar illness, and pretty much our entire relationship revolved around her diagnosis. For awhile, I let her get by with crazy, abusive things simply because she had a "I can be crazy all I want to and get by with it free" card. She had an excuse to treat people like she wouldn't if she wasn't "chemically imbalanced--poor thing". I'm wondering now if she ever once imagined what it was like for her family members, her loved ones, who did everything they could possibly do to try to make her life happier, only to have her throw it back in their face and do another poor, pitiful me episode that landed her in yet another hospital. Did she ever imagine what it was like to be in her own mom's shoes?

I'm not pointing a finger of blame here because, again, I don't think she was aware that she was making a choice, and most of our illnesses and imbalances are a result of karma and ancestral biology--factors that affect our lives until we wake up out of the "Little Human just trying to survive" dream, and realize we can simply CHOOSE to RELEASE ourselves from all karma and ancestral stories. That's all it takes--choosing ownership of, and compassionate forgiving responsibility for your own life makes karma and bloodline baggage null and void. Choose to CONSCIOUSLY release yourself from it, and you start with a fresh, clean slate. All of that past stuff was done out of blindness to who you really are--there's nothing to feel guilty about or ashamed of. You were just deep asleep in a survival hypnosis.

When people get yearly physicals or feel under the weather and go to a health professional or guru and get a diagnosis, I wonder how many question whether or not they're going to claim that diagnosis as their own? 

Do they know THEY have the ULTIMATE CHOICE in that matter? 

Do they realize they are the ones selecting and creating their own reality experience? 

A diagnosis is only a SUGGESTION of a potential you can choose whether or not to claim as your own truth, just like a suggestion a hypnotist makes to his subject who is under hypnosis. If he suggests you are a chicken and you accept that as who you are, you're going to be clucking, flapping your arms and strutting around like a chicken. Even though we all seem wide awake, most of mass consciousness is under hypnosis, especially those not questioning the status quo, especially those who aren't curious as to whether there is more to life than the current one they are living.

Can they imagine themselves living out the diagnosis...and...can they imagine living a life free of any diagnosis? Imaginatively feeling what it could be like to dramatically act out both scenarios helps you pick the potential you want to experience more easily and gracefully. -- I do this all the time.

That's called FEELING into POTENTIAL experiences--and we have a plethora available to us that we've never realized were even there before simply because we've been defaulting to the same perspectives and habits and stories over and over again. We've been accepting the suggestions of mass consciousness as our own truths.

For all of you family members with loved ones with Alzheimer's dis-ease and dementia--they are busy playing in other dimensions, in other realities. They generally aren't in pain when they're out there, and they're pretty much not present in this reality, and I don't think most of them realize what they are putting you through.

Ask them to imagine what it's like to be in your own shoes. I don't know what your answer will be. On some level, they don't want to be here on Earth in this reality anymore, and there is no shame in that, but if they want to leave they can die and take their body with them--no guilt, no shame. And the rest of you who are choosing to stay and play the Earth game can do so burden-free. I'm not endorsing suicide or murder here either--you can choose to leave your identity and story without that painful gore and trauma, which are hurtful to family and loved ones.

Cowardice is not in choosing to leave--you can choose to die (something most of us humans have done hundreds and thousands of times) and simply go in ease and grace. Cowardice, fellow sovereign, is play-acting crazy and feeding off your loved ones pain and suffering in trying to take care of you because you're not choosing to be present in your own life.

Consciously choosing to imagine what life must feel like to be one's caregiver opens you up to a new conscious awareness. That willingness to shift my perspective made me heal and balance quicker. It stopped me from energetically feeding off them.

When I was sick in the past, I often felt how it was affecting my husband. When I got a diagnosis for scoliosis and allowed myself to imagine a future of treatments and possible surgeries and doctoring--that made me choose to take responsibility for my own well being. I chose to not claim scoliosis anymore. When I realized that stomach cramps often resulted in me passing out and getting bruised while jarring my husband out of a deep sleep to the sounds of crashing, I decided that waking my husband and asking him to warm me a heating pad made more sense and was far less dramatic and traumatic for us both. I made sure I had secured my footing when I experienced vertigo. I rested when I was too exhausted to function. I hydrated myself and fed myself. I took myself for easy and enjoyable walks to help flow my energies, to breathe more consciously. I CHOSE to simply be kind to myself--and that made it easier for my loved ones, as well as for myself.

Choosing to be curious about what it must feel like to walk in another's shoes or what it would be like to act out different scenarios breaks open the prison of the stories we feel trapped in. 

It opens a person up to CHOOSING potentials of life experience with more clarity, rather than defaulting to the old "this is just the way life is" consciousness of the masses. You become the actual owner of your gift of life...

Life: An Assorted Mess of Sensual Personalized Gifts

Seeing absolutely everything in one's life as a gift requires a huge shift in perspective. 

It means I make the choice to view all my enemies as being gifts packaged JUST FOR ME, instead of being something for me to fight. 

It means I ask the question, "What gift are you bearing me in being as you are right now?"

I drop my weapons and shields, 
I take a deep breath, and I take a step back--
I open up my perspective to a broader view of the whole picture,
and I look for what I've discovered about myself from this situation.

Gifts, gifts--all of them gifts of grace. There is always something to be grateful for in every situation:

The Gift of DEATH of my loved ones was that it shot me into deep inner reflection--I stopped being busy on the outside for a bit, and I listened to what was going on within me. It helped me realize how profoundly and unconditionally I loved all of us all along, even when on the surface we may have been squabbling like tantrum-throwing brats, taking one another for granted, and holding grudges.

Death helped me to let go of the stories and play-acts that I was tired and bored with, even miserable in.

One of the gifts of death is that I got so tired of being afraid of death that I went pro-active with it. I explored it. I explored my feelings and perceptions and ideas about it. When old and traditional and religious answers didn't resonate with me, I looked beyond the conventional, and the next thing I knew I was talking with spiritual entities on the other side of the Veil of Forgetting.

Losing a loved one to death also marked the end of each of my own lifetimes--I changed and became a new person because I viewed things differently. Because of the influence of those experiences and people and beings, I started making more consciously aware choices. I got braver about life. I started cutting through the crap layers of hypnosis and getting to the point of what mattered most of all to me.

The Gift of CANCER when I lost my dad was that I quit trying (emphasis on the trying) to be busy and successful, and went home to savor his presence while I could. I actually blossomed spiritually. I watched our entire family do that very thing--we made time to be together, to laugh, to eat, to cry, to enjoy each others company in a manner never done before. My sensual awareness came to life--some of the simplest moments were more colorful, vibrant and meaningful.

I saw how getting a diagnosis can influence a person's expectations and their creation of the reality they each then experience. I saw all of us play-acting out the disease of cancer--we played the parts of patient, family, caregivers, friends, even spiritual guides. We played out anger and manipulation scenes. We played out forgiveness and helping to shoulder burdens. We played with energy feeding. We played out compassion and REAL love. And we play-acted, and we played and we played...

Everyday life got more sensual, down to where I can still feel how frazzled to a crisp, hot that summer was, the cotton-clogged feel in my mouth and nose, it was so fine-dusted dry. In those moments, I could more easily understand how Dad grappled for a good breath. I can still smell my welcome relief  when a rainstorm broke the spell and filled the cracks in the ground, sweetly moistening the air of which I drank deeply, as though it was an elixir.

One day I stood on top of the Big Hill by Mom's grave and I held my arms out and let the wind hold me as it blew my tears and troubles out. I'm generally not very infatuated with the wind, and I can grumble with the best of them when I feel tossed and pushed about by it. But that moment, the wind was my greatest friend and supporter.

Every time I have German chocolate cake, I'm transported to one of those last days with Dad when he was sitting outside visiting with my brothers, and as I passed by on some errand, he raises his fork and calls over to me, "Look, Pen! I'm eating chocolate cake and it's going down good, too!" Swallowing was difficult for him, but his happiness and joy in his kids being with him made all of it easier.

Mom's prior death had us talking more honestly and from the heart with each other, but Dad's cancer diagnosis took it all another leap further. I only recently realized that I never once prayed to a god outside of myself that entire time. Yet I realized how compassionate I was--that I wanted to honor my dad's choices about his own life. That I wanted him to know I (not some other god out there in the ethers) loved and was grateful for him; and that I chose to be with him every step of the way, as far as it was humanly possible for me to go.

Actually, I watched all of us kids and grand kids choosing to honor our individual relationships with Dad--we allowed each other our separate time with him. No one played the favorites game.

And the night Dad and I got into a tiff was one of my greatest gifts of all--because it made me realize that we weren't perfect humans. I finally took the pressure off myself of trying to stay on a self-righteous pedestal that I kept falling off all the time anyway. While a part of me did immediately recognize it as a gift to be able to disagree and fight with my dad, another part felt ashamed of myself for doing it when he was low on oxygen, thus panicked and not quite in his most balanced state of mind.

Yet even that feeling of shame was a gift because that allows me to relate with others who experience guilt and shame and regret. One of my greatest joys was when I realized how to forgive myself my own perceived trespasses--to call it what it was, which was simply play-acting character roles that were not who I really am. We're all pretending to be human, and simply forgetting that we're just playing a Let's Pretend game. When I view the game as a gift instead of a testing and proving ground, I feel a celebration of gratitude for everything experienced because of the compassionate wisdom I gained from all of it, from all of us.

When humans open up their perspective to seeing life as a gift of experiences, then the services of Death and Disease and War become obsolete, and eventually exist no more in our reality. They are no longer needed to force us inward to quiet reflection and profound realization. With every negative experience there are an infinite number of positives mixed in with it--we've focused most of our attention and memory on that one little slice of negativity though, and that focus made it into a mountain in our reality. Open up, forgive yourself for what you wincingly think of as your screw-up--that wasn't really you--and that shift will allow you to see how much more was going on than you realized. That you were more amazing and grand than you were giving yourself credit for by holding onto the pain and condemnation.

Right now, I'm experiencing the gift of physical pain. I love gardening on balmy spring days. I love clearing out all the old, dead plant matter, smelling the earthy aromas, reveling in the bright lime green of new growth emerging, of youth and possibility. So I got outside a few days ago and cleared out a bagful of debris from my flower beds. I only worked for a couple of hours, and I quit long before I wanted to, all because I chose not to push things so as not to make a night full of pain out of something I enjoy.

I still managed to do enough to bring on a couple of sleepless, throbbing, aching days and nights. It hurts to walk even. I don't do medications of any kind anymore--they don't work at all with me. Heck, even a cold compress doesn't seem to do much, and that used to help reduce the swelling a bit. None of the old methods work--I just feel it, and wish I could bawl it out like I used to do so easily. Once in awhile, I have asked my husband to deeply massage a spot--and that can get painful enough to make me squeak out a few tears--but I don't often do it because he's going through all these body of consciousness transformations, as well. He's exhausted and sore, too.

Lately, I just seem to feel the jolts and observe myself in the moment. I know I'm alright, and I actually tell myself, "You're okay, Pen. Just breathe it in and blow it out. It'll pass. I'm okay." I'm not afraid of it. It's just kind of a pain right now--pun totally intended--AND...I know I'm okay, no matter what happens. I could even die in pain, but I'd still be okay. I still, and always will, exist.

So where's the gift in all of that, Pen? Well, all that pain is helping me to let go of "trying to worry over and work at a living." Taking on a job is out of the question. It doesn't take much right now to exhaust me because I have so many layers and levels of change and transformation going on with me, much of it which can't be seen with the human eye. Yet, it's all very real to me.

I DO KNOW deep down that my reality creates itself around me and in me according to the consciousness I radiate out. I know that if I'm radiating out that I need to suffer and work hard at creating the reality and existence I desire, then the energies serve me by delivering me a life that I have to really sweat at and sometimes bleed for.

I've experienced a plethora of physical symptoms (many of them unpleasant) in the last couple of decades--and it's all been connected to my awakening conscious awareness of my own Divinity and to my current embodied realization of what it's like to be a Divine Human. I'm changing from the old ancestral and karma-created biology into a Light Body, and that has been one hell of a ride. I know my life is infinitely and inherently, naturally abundant--in other words, I don't need to work for a living. But I'm in a human body that's had lifetime after lifetime where we humans have accepted the programming that life is just a lot of angst, work and worries--"That's just how life is--survival of the fittest. Make do with it."

I often think I have a difficult time being still and just allowing life to come to me, but I look around me at all those other busy humans rushing around through life, trying to get ahead and be somebody to someone else, and I realize I'm actually doing better at allowing myself to receive in grace and ease than I was giving myself credit for. I finally actually like me, and because of that, I'm better with everyone else than I was in the past.

And I also realize that it's not easy being something of a consciousness pioneer in the midst of so much hypnosis and mental programming. It's too easy to judge oneself as being "lazy" while in the midst of so much hustle and bustle. But I keep going back to being quiet and content with myself because the realizations and being at peace with myself are so worth it. The freedom is worth it.

When I chose to look at the Graciousness of Life instead of fighting with anything and everything in it, trying to survive it--it changed my life. I began drawing to myself, more and more, gifts and a life that I actually enjoy. Do I still have tough days? You bet I do! And still I always know I'm okay. I'll always exist, even if Penny dies.

It's all a gift...look deep and wide, and you'll see it is so...and so it is.

Victim--Love Your Enemy

Victim, love your enemy--you created that monster. And you're the ONLY ONE who can CHOOSE to let that story be released from your reality.

Have you heard it said that we're each our own worst enemy?

If it's in your life, YOU put it there.

You created your monsters--every single one--but you created them unconsciously.

You were unaware that you created your reality every single breath, every single moment.

You were unaware that you, the pinpoint and source of consciousness of your own bubble of human reality, were radiating fear, that you had protective barriers and guards and weapons erected all around and within yourself--and that that armor was actually distorting the energies in service to you.

That consciousness armor was saying, "I don't trust myself. I don't trust others. If I let my guard down, someone or something will attack me."

So the energies, in loving service to you (the script-writer of your reality) match that guarded consciousness radiating from your center, and they attack you, they give your guards a reason for being in place.

Karma is for the unawakened creator. It was a balancing mechanism put in place for ensuring that we had a fullness of experience, a range of experiences along a duality spectrum with polar opposites of darkness and light. It was so we didn't get stuck in one polar experience, lifetime after lifetime.

If you're being abused in any way in this lifetime by a specific person or group, most likely you played the abuser for them in another lifetime. This is why self-forgiveness is so important. When you forgive yourself, you naturally then forgive all others. You see the beauty of this gift of experience that we call Life on Earth.

When you choose to let go of the past, you choose to release yourself and all others in your life from Karma. You've chosen to release all the actors from re-enacting over and over again the same old script, the same old story. You start your day brand new. You start each day of the rest of your life fresh, free and clear of the sleepy past. When you CHOOSE to AWAKEN from the limited human consciousness state, Karma then becomes obsolete, unnecessary. You simply CHOOSE to release yourself from Karma--and so it is.

Self-forgiveness is simply realizing that that abuser is not, and was not, an awakened human being. They were dead asleep in believing that they were simply a Little Human just trying to survive in a cruel world. They're most likely re-acting, or re-enacting your story together over and over again, simply because you're both afraid--and most of that fear is of one's own shadow. Neither of you trusted yourself, much less anyone else.

In the past, I knew simply saying "I forgive you" to someone else wasn't enough if I didn't sincerely CHOOSE to do that in my own heart. I did a great deal of soul-searching prior to those words, so I could say them and mean them with all my heart and soul. I CHOSE CLARITY, and I ACCEPTED FULL RESPONSIBILITY for my created reality. Accepting full responsibility meant that I did so with infinite SELF-COMPASSION! There was no room for blame or beating on myself--that's like beating on someone because they're simply in a coma.

Are you an Old Game Player, 
or are you a Game Changer?

The choice is yours.

"God forgives you" or "God loves you" didn't cut it for me, because saying it that way was a roundabout way of actually saying, "I don't forgive you" or "I don't love you." And frankly, we can all spy pasted on smiles, fake, and mush from miles away. It's a waste of breath and time saying those words without meaning it, or without at least having the sincere desire to mean it. Having a sincere desire to mean it at least indicates that I've chosen to open the door to real forgiveness. And all we have to do is open up--open a door and invite it in.

Forgiveness is yours when you make it your own, instead of looking for some idol outside of you to do it. You're capable of unconditional love, infinite compassion and forgiveness--all those things humans used to believe only some higher-god-being outside of themselves was able to do. In fact, your soul, your Divinity, is always already doing that very thing.

Self-forgiveness is realizing that monster act that I played in the past was not really me, nor is the monster abusing me the real you. Those were scared, all-alone and insignificant-feeling Little Humans sound asleep in the midst of a terrifying nightmare. Panicked and frightened Little Humans do bizarre and crazy, crappy stuff. We created and acted out a play together based on that limited state of consciousness--and, yeah, it was ugly and repulsive to experience. The only way to get free of it is to choose to let our past scripts for ourselves, and each other, be released. To clear the script.

Don't be afraid of being honest with yourself. Don't be afraid of letting yourself be honest with the monsters in your life. You do know, it doesn't make sense to try to talk honestly with someone who is inebriated--alcohol and drugs get used as an excuse to be assholes and to do atrocious things. But if you feel safe when someone is sober, and you actually want to change the dynamics between the two of you, then open the door to speaking your heart with them. You can clear the air and change your relationship simply by MUTUALLY CHOOSING/AGREEING to talk honestly and openly with each other all the time. You can choose to create a SAFE and SACRED SPACE together.

Don't expect someone to read your mind about your desires--if you're truly done playing the Victim/Abuser game.

Love sets boundaries--you don't allow someone to harm you. That's where the victim plays the part of abuser. I've actually told someone who was ridiculing me, belittling me, that what they were doing was no longer acceptable for me. "You don't treat me like that. I won't allow it anymore."

Love lets go--so if you're afraid for your well-being in the scene that you have playing--please leave the scene. Get the heck out of the picture. Take the loved ones who need protection with you, and don't poke the bear. Don't stay in the same town feeding the gossip, taunting your created monster with your presence and the old story. Until you get that clarity and a true heart-felt feeling of forgiveness and trust of yourself--stay away. That's called giving oneself SAFE and SACRED SPACE.

Give yourself the TIME and SAFE SPACE to get clear about the story you have in play. 

Give yourself the chance to choose true FORGIVENESS of self, and thus, all others. To realize that wasn't the true you. 

Give yourself the chance to DROP the ARMOR, to open up that closed-in energy field. 

Give yourself the chance to RADIATE new SELF-TRUST to create a CONSCIOUS REALITY--a life you actually enjoy living.

Take some deep and conscious breaths, bless the experience for the compassionate wisdom gained, and then let it go. Believe me, when I SIMPLY CHOSE let the past go that I used to feel so ashamed of myself in--it returned to me in a much grander perspective. I chose to FORGET the PAST, and in doing so, I set myself free. I realized so much more was going on within and around me than I gave myself and others credit for in my old limited Victim/Abuser consciousness--in that fight for power over and control of things and beings outside of oneself. I saw the true loving and compassionate being that I was and am--and it's a gift that is still expanding to this day and beyond. I found myself thanking all us actors for all parts played, whether right or seeming wrong. I finally experienced the joy of letting LETTING HUMAN JUDGMENT go.

All these years, I've personally had the sense that forgiveness wasn't complete until I had felt true GRATITUDE for all, in all ways. I'm happy to say, I actually do feel gratitude for everything and for all my experiences in this gift of play-acting together called My Life on Earth. It sings in me...

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Overcoming  the Victimhood Addiction