Author: bjukuri

I woke up to a faint blush in the sky and decided to go out and be with the sunrise.

It was so peaceful, quiet, and beautiful.  Only a few dog walkers and I were witness to this display.

Each time I turned, another artful view I captured.

And, our day continued with more to see, experience and enjoy.

As we were on the Ferry, heading to Madeline Island, my husband said, "It is hard to believe that part of the world is having a hurricane, while we have this.

I agreed and told him I had thought the very same thing during my sunrise experience.

While pondering that thought, it came to me, that we often make our self sad by imagining the hurricane, while being in the opposite. When we are in a place of pure beauty and with someone we love, in complete harmony.  

We interrupt our peace and go into the thoughts of imagining the storms.

I then, thought, it was our responsibility to enjoy the peace in our present. To be joy in this moment of time.  It would not lessen the storm for me to be sad; but instead insult the beauty I was surrounded with.

I was going to be joy. 

Be peace and feel love on so many levels.

In the balance of storms of life, I was representing the joy side. And, I was doing it well.

I soaked up art and nature with someone I love.

We explored an island and sought out things I loved.

I stopped and took the picture.  Got out of the Jeep and got up close to things that excited me.  I visited with gallery and studio owners and artists.  My eyes were filled with so much that I loved!

Sometimes in life, we are in a storm.  Our worlds and emotions are fraught with anxiety and angst.  We learn there.  About ourselves and others. We are often made to choose things to let go of and what to hang on to.  In the moments of storms we grow.

And, when the storm passes, we are more aware of the beauty that surrounds us. Our emotions are raw and in tune with what is.

I know the storm.  And, it has made me more aware of the joys of life.

As Byron Katie says, "It is not my time to suffer."

Yesterday wasn't my time to suffer.

It was my time to be the joy in the world.

The energy I added was infused with love, art, beauty, joy, gratitude and awe!

It would not have served anyone for me to have been sad on my glorious day.

I know, that those in the storm, will be different people when they exit it, compared to the ones who walked into it.  It is my hope that they too will be more aware, in tune with emotions and beholders of beauty.

Life is broken down into our perception and reality.  One doesn't depend upon the other.

Yet, our lives are dictated by our perceptions much more than they are by reality.

More often, we can disregard reality and live a life a few feet from what is.

I am wondering if stress and anxiety arise much more from our perceptions than from what is actually going on.

That in our minds we create a whole world that doesn't exist.

I have been almost void of anxiety and stress since I left my mind.

And, when my body feels anxious and stressful, I am usually going into a pretend world.

Where my thoughts make stuff up.

Things that could happen, or should have happened or what might occur. Rarely am I stressed about what is.

If I am, I am fighting with it.

I have learned the hard way, it is better to live in love with reality.

To stay here now.

No matter what is arising, it will be less stressful than wishing it wasn't happening.

You can't do anything within the walls of your thoughts.

It is an endless loop where no action can happen.

The only place you can make a move is in the present.

You can't unchange the past – nor make creative steps in the future.

There are no relationship movements in the past or in the future or outside of reality.

The mind believes it has a world and choices outside of reality

It does.

But, it is fruitless to live there.

It is a space that is like dreamland.

Where nothing real exists there.

What I wasn't aware of, until I left there, was that it wasn't real or really living.

In that space, in your mind, you are not you.

You are a thought of you.

The real you is sitting in the chair, while your mind takes control of your awareness and makes you believe in something that isn't real.

Something that hasn't happened or cannot happen - because the past can't be changed.

I believe the greatest efforts of control we can have, IS on being here now.

Just not succumbing to the cries of our minds.

To not believe it.

I would never have thought, that the mind was nothing but a over-talker for reality.

That it's job was to keep me away from Me and reality.

"Talk to yourself, instead of listening to yourself," was a line I heard on a podcast.

That one slight change will change your life.

I used to, have zero space between what my thoughts said to me. I was all thought.

Once I was shown in a very dramatic way, that who I thought my life was, and what it really was all about, I went out of my mind.

And, into reality.

I then had to keep working to remain here.

My thoughts often wanted to lure me away, with just one thought. "I wish", or "What if," "He should" "She should" etc.

The difference between my old way of living and believing, is between my mind and reality.

The old way, I lived completely in my mind and under the control of a variety of beliefs.

My new way, is to be in breath of reality.

To be where my breath is.

To bring my mind here and have it see reality.

Instead of having my mind create a overlay upon reality.

My first brush with reality was horrifying for it showed me all that my mind had covered up.

I had years to uncover and get right with, and now I am not inclined to look away from reality – ever.

I feel uncomfortable when my mind tries to lead me away.

Reality is where the action is.

You cannot move in your head – you only think you can.

I am not sure I can articulate accurately the vast distance between mind and reality and the absence of life being under control of a belief.

Religions are mostly made up of thoughts.

Controlled thoughts.

That can overtake your whole mind and critical thinking and leave you floating above reality in another world.

Mothers, will mother from a belief – and their natural instincts are null and void.

A child who doesn't capitulate into the religion, will not be seen, except that they need to come back.  A blind eye is looking at their 'new' life and belief.

Anything outside of the belief is dark and unreadable.

I know this, because I came from a dark narrow hallway of a cult like religion. My whole world view was seen through the lens I was born into.  Once the lens broke, I was free.

It broke when I went out of my mind.

Reality is. 

Religion has to be taught.

Nature echoes reality or visa versa.

In yoga, the practice is to bring your mind back to the body.  Our bodies are always in reality no matter where the mind runs to.  

If you and your mind are with the body, you are in the present.

I am not sure you can teach bringing the mind back to the body. It is an inside job and the willpower or strength will be – between you and your mind.

Try talking to you, instead of listening to the mind.

How do we listen? 

And, what changes within us as we hear words?

Is there a change?

Does it depend upon the subject OR how open we are to hear?

Can you change someone's opinion or beliefs by what you say?

In my experience of exchanging words with folks from my old church, is not so much what they can hear; but what I say and then my expectations.

I think, I thought, that depending upon what I said, it would sway them.

I am wrong.

Completely.

I have changed; but not by the outside, but rather my inside. "Something" within me is different. 

It allows me to hear differently and see things I was unable to see before.

That "Something" can be called soul, truth, awareness, consciousness or Me.

Prior to the "Something" – I wasn't aware that I had a choice, or a voice.

I was part of something; but not separate.

I thought as part of a group.

Moved as part of a group.

Spoke from their position on things.

I wasn't free to step outside and be different.

Afraid to, even.

But unaware that I was unaware.

I didn't know I wasn't free.

I thought I had freely chosen to be part of the group.

Yet, I was born into captivity.

Back to listening. I listened, then to what matched my thoughts and beliefs and disregarded the rest as mumbo jumbo.

Not interested.

At all.

I recall, reading authors and having doubts about the group I was in, and feeling anxious that someone would find out.  Know that I was 'cheating' on my religion.  

When I did something different than my mother, she would belittle my choice, chiding "You think you are better than Me." Mostly in child rearing decisions.

She didn't know I was moving away from the church and family legacies.

"Something" within me was no longer a solid member.

I was beginning to get restless.

When the truth fell, that my father was a pedophile, the separation happened quickly, where I was now outside of what I had previously stood for.

The drastic change in direction from being outside of the circle – was completely mind blowing.

I changed sides.

It wasn't listening to the outside words, so much as listening to my restless self. Giving credence to my doubts and fears, that had softened me up to be able to easily transition to outside the circle.

It wasn't easy to be this new me, but the transition was fast and complete for me.

Being this new me, had me now listening differently. I listened from inside of me and honored and respected Me, where before it was all about the support of the group/family.

What I am now noting, is that we change from the inside out.

No matter how many words I can creatively articulate, I will not change someone's life into a new direction. Gratefully so, they will move from within.

It isn't up to me to change anyone.

Change occurs when the people are ready and not a moment before.

I used to think, that what I wrote, would/could/should change how someone thought of things. Again, thankfully that isn't my job.  For so far, I am a complete failure on this.

IF, I could have changed folks, my family of origin, would have been my first changes.

Just as I don't want others to have the power to change me, I don't want to change them.

Back to why we listen.

I am not certain anymore.

It won't change folks.

And, more often than not, it wastes our time.

I do think, there are folks who can get others under their mind control. Just as I was once under the control of a religion.  It was fear based and I was born into this belief system and taught the ropes of what it believed.  

To me now, I see my early years of being schooled by religion as a journey away from me.

I have seen others become aware and then go back to their old comfortable unconsciousness.

I can't know their journey and/or lessons.

I can write to explain me to me and perhaps for others to see themselves in me. But, I am so grateful my journey isn't one where I change direction for others.

It would be for me to get in front of their souls.

I have too much respect for the spiritual journey to get involved in what is good for their soul.

So, I am not sure what now to write or say to the old members of the church who want to be 'kind' and listen to me. 

To what end?

It will not change me; or them.

Which is equally true for what is going on in the world.

Mostly, what we can do is be ourselves and the best version of that.

Grow and widen our own beliefs and challenge what we have been taught to believe.

The more free we are to make choices, the more we allow others to make theirs.

The more we love ourselves, the more we can accept others.

Listen to your own actions and feelings.

Follow what you yearn for.

Accept our difference as being unique and individual expressions of you.

Listen to what is rising within you.

Only fear marches a protest to change someone else.

When a breech in a relationship happens, we are often left with wondering what happened. 

In one long time relationship I had, we lost the same perception.

In thinking about this, I had to look up the definition of perception.

"the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses."

and, "the state of being or process of becoming aware of something through the senses."

What I didn't know about perception that it used our bodies/senses.

There is also this "a way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something; a mental impression."

Perception is a very personal thing, that may or may not have anything to do with reality.

In the last conversation I had with my mother, she proclaimed that we each had a different perception of my father.

She was correct.

But, were there 2 different men?

How her body sensed him and how mine did, was totally different.

Most of our disagreements come from mismatched perceptions.

How then, can we work to make them match?

What is the practice, or art of relating, that can edge each of us closer to having a perception that meets reality?

What I didn't know, was that the body is as much involved with perception as the mental awareness.

Perception is a body and mind understanding of reality.

And, when you have been abused, and your signals are all messed up, it changes the way each of us perceive our worlds.

This is why it is so hard, at times, to understand, how someone can't see the evil right in front of them.  It isn't that there is no evil; but rather their perception is off.

I had to work really hard to see things.

It wasn't a natural act for me.  

My unnatural abused mind and body read signals incorrectly.  

I had to find reality by almost disregarding my body and mind.  Yet also listening to my body's feelings deep within.

I had to explore deeply into my mind, body and soul to find the perception that matched reality.

Going against my self to find my real sense of reality.

One of the greatest survival tools we use when abused as children is to leave our realities and create a place that is kinder. We literally change the perception of what is.

It doesn't change reality.  

It fakes us out, until we feel safe enough to see the truth of who abused us.

This ability to 'fake us out' is to believe in a perception that isn't true.

And, in doing so, places us in a state of denial.

I know, that it has to be harder to change your perception of someone when that person didn't harm you; but harmed someone you love/know etc. 

It is to be one stepped removed and our senses are not involved.

I guess, you have to be able to sense your child's senses.

As a mother, whose child was abused, she would have to have enough empathy to be able to feel the child's pain, in order to change her perception of her abusive husband.

If not, like my mother, she will hold on to her original perception of her husband; and not see the pain of her child.

Perceptions can change and in doing so, change relationships; when our perceptions don't match.

Seeing eye to eye, is more about sensing life in the same way.  When our senses don't match, we don't relate to reality the same way.

It isn't that there are multiple realities; or I guess there are.  Each of us sees the world with our own senses, and responds in kind.

This so explains the unexplainable behaviors.  

We focus on what we sense; and not so much on what there is to see.

Which is why, your perception of me, has nothing to do with me.  You are in charge of your perception and how it matches up with the reality of what is.

I love this.  

For it explains the many different responses to one reality.

Perception is fickle and unreliable; for it truly lives in the eye of the beholder or in your ability to be aware, through your senses.

What you see or sense about me, has nothing to do with me.  

There are as many different versions of me as their are peoples perceptions.

And, none of them matter, as much as how I perceive myself.

Am I honest with me, and what I feel, and authentic with my actions?

All that truly matters at the end of the day, is am I true to me?

The greatest strength to have is to be able to stand by your perceptions, especially when they don't match others; BUT match reality.