Category: Uncategorized

 

While listening to Dr. Peter Holmes, this came up in a discussion about losing weight or exercising more.

"The first thing is to not do anything, do not diet"

"The first thing to do is to maybe sit down and ask yourself, What eating that food  symbolizes for you? If you find yourself eating a lot or eating unhealthy food, is that a way for you to cover over anxiety or depression or loneliness.  Begin to ask if there is some meaning to that activity."

"So, you don't try to fix it, don't try to do anything with it, you just listen to it."

"What might happen.  Let's take a fictional example. Somebody feels they are eating unhealthy and they are not exercising. And by thinking about it, they realize actually that's something they were taught when they were kids. When they were really young, their mother or father, or their school, they had this idea that they had to look a certain way, and they had to be thin or whatever. And, then they realize that voice isn't my voice. I have internalized an external voice. That is step one, they realize Oh, that's not me that wants to get fit and go on a diet, that is an internal voice of some other."

"But, then the second step, is they realize actually they are protesting against the voice unconsciously. So the fact they are eating a lot of unhealthy stuff and not looking after their bodies is actually a protest against that voice.  They are actually protesting legitimately against something that is bad. Which is this voice trying force them to do something good."

"So, then what you do in the third stage is to exorcise the voice. Get rid of it.  Try to get rid of that voice. Now here is the really interesting bit. If you are able to get rid of that internal voice that's telling you to exercise more and be healthier and not eat bad stuff. You also get rid of the protest, that fights against that voice, that stops you from eating healthfully and stops you from exercising."

"So actually you find that you are much more able to eat better and to exercise. So you get rid of the very voice that is telling you to exercise and eat well, and actually that helps you exercise and eat well. And that is what is called grace by the way. Grace is where you realize you do not have to do anything. And in not having to do anything, you exorcise the voice, that tells you have to do it and therefore you are able to change." Peter Holmes

 

I found this idea extremely insightful and helpful.  For it appears that we as adults should know better, in what is best for our bodies, but it does seem like we are in active protest against ourselves. But, what if, we are actually in legitimate protest against our early teachers?

What if, it isn't about us at all?

But, we are just protesting unaware.

What I love more is that if you can get rid of that old belief or voice, your protest will die as well. There will be nothing to rise against if the voice is gone.

So, it isn't about exercising or dieting but about exorcising a voice that isn't ours.  One that we rail against.

The voices in our minds, that want us to move and eat better, is more the problem.

My life has been built upon protest much more than what I personally want for myself.

I have spent more time in protest than I have in doing what my own voice wants for me.

Who is my other internal voice that I am protesting and what is it saying?

Is it a society voice and expectation that cute girls are skinny.

That you are bad if you don't eat well.

How very interesting to see the thing we actively protest against.

And, how we are legit protestors!

So, then…when I do get out, is there a deeper part of me that feels I have joined the team of the internal 'other voice'? A betrayal against Me the Protestor?

I truly love, that it isn't about the food or the activity; but rather about the dual between two inner voices.  Mine and the external voices of culture and rearing.

It will take the untwisting or releasing of the other voice…and the protest dies.

This makes most sense in the battle of diets and lazy being.

It has nothing to do with taste, control, or how we move in life.

Instead it is our very valiant effort to protest!  

What a good protestor I have been!

I will now be asking who am I protesting against and then release that voice into the ethers! 

If I no longer believe that voice, there is nothing to protest over.

I love that there was actually a legitimate reason for what I was doing. 
A protest seems better than just being out of control.

I am going to rid the voices and free myself from the act of protesting.

 

 

 

I think the more you see insanity, the more you are required to act sane.  When the outside changes, the more you are asked to look deep within. Look upon your own insane thoughts and beliefs.  What part of reality are your refusing to accept?  And, what was your part in the creation of this insane world?

It is easy to expect others to do things differently, IT is much harder to ask yourself to change.  Not only ask, but literally do it!

While it seems that the whole world is in a tailspin, it actually could just be the natural evolution towards personal revolution.

We all need to be nudged to grow.  Some of us need a harder shove than others.

Regardless, the more you are excited and agitated by the news and its implications, the only place you can create change is within your personal life.

When my father's abusive nature came to light.  I wasn't able to do a darn thing with anything about that.  Not him, the courts, the family and its legacy.  But, I could be the one small kernel of change.

While it was a tiny piece in the big machine of abuse, it was very impacting on me and those around me.

If we can all stop the outward agitation and outcry and do something empowering within our own lives, it will eventually change our planet.

I became a spokesperson for speaking out, for women in new directions.  I would not have done this if there hadn't been an interruption in my comfortable denial.  If, I had not been forced to look at what I had contributed to promoting of dysfunction.

I was not innocent.

When we look at the imbalance, we all are part of this big equation.

If we are not upset by the new rules, we are the ones who are used to privilege. And with that specialness, we have allowed others to suffer due to their lack of specialness.

My father was an abuser.  I was in denial of it.  I played a part in letting the illusion of family continue.  

If we don't stay with reality and our place in it, we will be promoting fake realities.

Perhaps our president, is only showing us the dark side within all of us.

The power we wish we had to push our own agenda.

Making other people change in order for us to be less fearful.

To me, the more insane it appears, the more real it actually is.

I think, we are all half asleep to the realities that surround us.

We are all guilty of not wanting to know the realness of many.

It would be shockingly horrific to know, that what we see on the news IS the belief of many.

What I know for sure, is that the insanity that I witnessed within my own family and their beliefs and denial was being played out in a million other places.

When reality isn't accepted, we are all part of the insanity making.

We need most, to look deep within our own lives to see what we don't want to see.

To feel, to express and to act our own truths and to be with our deepest fears.

And, walk with them.

Fear, literally is courage walking. 

It is easy to push hard for others to behave, so you don't have to change your world.

If only others would do this and that, so your fears would die down.

What about you?

What are you willing to do to have peace in your own world.

What fears are you willing to sit with and explore?

What are you willing to change?

What beliefs that you hold dear, that leave others powerless?

This is a wonderful opportunity to explore our own beliefs and how we are who we are.

What makes you you?

In order for you to go to heaven, who gets sentenced to hell?

How are you different from the power we see today?  His agenda, may not be yours, but does yours allow for free will and self empowerment?  

What changes do I need to still make so that others are allowed to be free, loved and equal?

 

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Can a narrow minded person see their own narrow mind?  I just don't think you can see that which your mind has been trained not to see.  The beliefs of the mind are stronger than reality.

We often think we have to change reality; when in fact, we need to open and broaden the mind.

I am not so sure an outside force can alter the inner beliefs and thoughts of a person.

I know, that a person is 100% caught up in what their mind believes, and in some cases will kill you for that thought.

As I watch the exchanges from both sides of an issue, it is to see a closed mind doing battle with an open one.

There, is very little common ground, for the closed mind is rarely standing on reality.

How can you fight illusion?

I come from narrow mindedness. I used to believe that which I was taught to believe, not what I was taught to experience.  My center of the universe was in my mind; not on the ground.

I had irrational thoughts about rational things.

I would get nervous, anxious and afraid when the facade was rattled by common sense. I could feel, even if I didn't know it, that my center piece was in danger of falling.

What I am always surprised is how often we try and justify realty and rarely challenge the beliefs of a narrow mind.

Trying to prove the innocent, more innocent.

Rarely going after the beliefs of the narrow road.

We look deeply and long at the immigrants; not the ones who are building the walls.

What are their beliefs about humanity at large?

Can a person have open boundaries with a narrow mind?

I don't believe so.

My narrow mindedness could only see so far and made up stories about the rest.

Fear of my beliefs falling, kept me from exploring beyond where my mind feared to go.

To even look at my own narrow mind, was an impossibility.

I was the narrow mind.

I had no other self beyond that.

We are challenging the small self that lives in non-reality.

Reality will destroy it.

It needs enemies and wrong folk to thrive.

I don't know how we can undo the mental narrow mind.  All I know, is that one day, I found myself outside of it. All the false centers of mine crashed.

I was left at ground zero.

No me.

But, no narrow mind to block reality for me either.

A huge open space of awareness, consciousness and the brilliantly tragic reality.

The flow of the universe was open at last to me.

Nature at its best and I then could see where I had been.

Although I saw myself more clearly as I continued to dialogue with those still under the rule of that narrow mind.

So, as we discuss and toss around what is good for America, remember you are most likely dancing with a mind who has very little touch with reality.  They live, as my brother use to say, "In the smallest darkest parts of their mind."

Can you see what you believe?

What are facts and how do they impact your world?  How many facts have you tossed out due to their content or perhaps that go against your ideals?  Are there more than one set of facts? Do we each get our own and do they have to match anyone else?

How many relationships end due to the fact that we don't agree on the facts?

Who gets to decide the validity of facts?

It seems life is made more complicated by the facts or perhaps by the fact we don't all accept the facts.

Not only not accept them; but live a life unchanged by them.

What does it say about a person who can hear a new fact, that changes the character of someone, and it doesn't create change in their world?

In the conversations that I have had with my family about my father and his crimes, is that most agree on the facts, and yet most did nothing to change their lives after.

It was as if the fact itself had no real power.

That something was stronger than the facts themselves.

However, in my life the facts carried the ability to upend my whole life.

Why, remains the million dollar question.

I lived my first 46 years without the fact that I was abused by my father, that my father was an abuser, that my mother knew and remained married, faithful to him and her religion.  A religion that blessed away his sins of crime.  Yet, I was dumb to these facts.

Without the facts, my life was in direct conflict with the facts.

That is denial.

Just because I didn't have the facts, it didn't mean they didn't exist.

Can you bring in life altering facts and be unmoved by them?

Isn't that in itself denial?

I am watching the exchanges about facts and ponder the fact, that if you yourself haven't embraced all your truths, can you be a discerning person about truths.

Truths of all kinds.

I looked up the definition of facts.

"a thing that is indisputably the case." 

Synonyms are Reality, Actuality and Certainty.

What happens when you play in life without facts?

When they come in and have the power to destroy what you love, can you merely turn them away?

I am a recovering person of denial.  My wellness, or peace, depends upon accepting all facts, regardless of their content to upset my world.

Anxiety to me, is to live a few steps from reality.  I want to walk hand and hand, step by step with the facts, no matter where they lead.

So, as people discuss this fact or that fact, I am more interested in how they themselves live out the facts of their lives.  Can you really see the truth in others, before you know your own?

I think you can see, or not see, at the same level of your own personal blindness.

And, that has nothing to do with the facts themselves, just our ability to truly see them. Let alone our ability to act in kind.

What happens when you find out you were abused by your father?  Do you keep the relationship or let it go?  What is more important, the fact OR what you do after the fact?

Just as marriages often crumble after affairs, what happens to the reality of your relationship when a new fact arrives; one that is directly opposing love, trust or respect?

If you continue on, regardless of the new fact, do you get a relationship of value?

What changes; the fact itself or you?

Oddly, I became stronger for accepting what is, and allowing the facts to change my life. They allowed me to define my boundaries and self-worth.  Even while knowing I was abused by my father, I grew in self-worth, when I set the boundary against him.

My self-worth grew each time I set a boundary with the arrival of new facts.

For, I truly understood, the consequences of discarding facts – denial.

Denial of me, and the facts that made me.

My actions Are the facts of who I am.

They are my reality.

My old self was undefinable. She was unchanged by facts.  She withstood an onslaught of things that insulted her soul.  But, no more.

Facts matter, and your response to them, matters more.

 

 

 

In listening to the different sides, opinions and views, it strikes me how it often seems impossible for the other side to see what you see; to be heard or understood.  It almost seems like we are experiencing life it two drastically different realities.

Is there more than one reality?

This mad dance is so reminiscent of my dialogues between myself and my family.

Where it almost seems that there is a blindness to wrong doings.

A man's moral character is held up regardless of his actions.

And, that those of us pointing out the shortcomings are the 'bad' ones.

Finding the ground zero in these conversations feels like insanity, where we are left defending ourselves when we have done nothing wrong.

The women's march for women's rights, are wrong and not that our country has been okay with the less than equal rights. 

Even that some don't feel its injustice, makes it less unequal.

That it can only be unequal IF ALL women feel it is so.

This goes back to the dysfunctional family, where a family is okay, unless the majority call it abusive.

I don't have answers for this. 

I just find it hurts my head trying to find the words or language to speak to those who see reality so differently.

What I am finding it isn't even about morals or values, but that the facts are set aside as if they don't matter.  

If you don't bring in and hold tightly to the facts, then you can actually have a life you want, not one that is there.

How can you have a conversation where someone lets truth be a fact that can be taken in or released based upon its potential to change a life?

How easy it is to be less resentful, if you can release a fact.

Kinda like forgiving a sin in the old church's way of forgiveness. To live as if that action never happened.  Forgive and forget – to keep sweet.

It almost feels that if one side doesn't see the victims, then there is no inequality…or visa versa.

Pretending or acting like there is a equal and balance in our humanity, that race and gender are not an issue, that there isn't a dominating white male overtone, IT will not be so.

Do we need people to believe it to make it so?

Are we more a belief based culture than fact/truth based?

I know there women who truly believe that they have free will with their bodies, while having none.  

They believe it, regardless of the facts and rules of their religion.

They are free in mind only.

The facts are, they do not own their bodies.

They don't even see who does own them.

I know this, because I was one of them.

I had no clue that the church owned my body.

It actually owned my mind, in a way that I wasn't even aware of that I wasn't free, let alone equal to any male.

How can you have a cognitive conversation about freedom and equality with someone who is in bondage and being treated less than, AND they don't know it…

It is like a prisoner talking from behind the bars of how there are no jails in the land.

This blows my mind and interests me immensely.

The land is seen from two minds. 

Or, perhaps the mental mind and the awareness of one who resides in reality. 

 

 

Today there are many marches, to decry inequality.  

Today many will gather in solidarity and with diversity. 

Marching for their rights within humanity.

Marching against the ideals of many who neglect to see them in their perfection.

Will the march awaken or stretch the narrow minds?

Will the millions be enough to change a mind?

"A mind convinced against its will is of the same opinion still."

Do they know the mind they are marching against?

It is like a program that has been indoctrinated into them since birth.

A landscape that excludes many; but saves them.

They don't see the exclusion; only what saves them.

All that truly matters IS their entrance into heaven.

The indoctrination is very deeply imbedded into their whole lives.  There is no part of it that is untouched.  This belief that separates them from others is built upon fear and hell will be their reward if they deviate from the program.

They will lose their place in heaven IF they allow women rights to their bodies, or same sex marriage, etc. It isn't about you, it is about them, and the God and Jesus they believe in.

While you march to be seen, they march blindly towards their unearthly goal.

The Marches will not hurt.

Gathering with others whose experiences match yours is empowering.

I don't know the tipping point, where there will be more open minds than closed, where it will be only the fringe with the narrow mind…but, the numbers are growing.

We can march each day in how we live.

In what we let our lives reflect.

Who do we present to the world and in the places we gather.  

Are we an open mind or a closed one?  

Do we entertain critical thinking and inclusion?

Are our minds the same as when we were young?

Are we just a tool in the same narrative that has been handed down for generations?

Who is in our circles; who do we include or exclude?

What evil do you allow due to family connections?

March today, and march tomorrow. 

We all March either with an open mind or a closed one.

We either march towards equality and inclusion or against it.

What is funny, is that those against equality already have it. 

The privilege will find no need to march.

Which is telling.

Yet, some women have willingly given up their rights to their own bodies.

And, do so in the name of God.

That to me is so scary.

They also hate, fear and exclude in the name of God.

A mind that has turned on humanity.

Attacking its own, as well as its self.

My march has been to reclaim my free mind.  I have lived on both sides of this march…the blind and the seeing.

My old God would have stopped me from being free…and was judging and denying those who were not like me.

I march now with a new God.  

A loving God.

Open and including all…God.

Imagine a world minus the religious mind?

This song comes to mind.  Let it play today, as the millions March!  I am cheering you; march on being YOU!

Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace, you
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world, you
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one.

 

 

 

 

 

As I broke trail today while snowshoeing, I thought of how easy it is to follow a path, to repeat what you did yesterday and how much harder it is to veer off and go a new way.

Dogs intuitively learn to go where the going is easier; and we do too.

Mindlessly and effortlessly we step where our feet have already stepped.

 

Until you are aware of where your path is leading you and it isn't how you want your story to end. Then, you have to step in a new direction…off the beaten path of your comfort zone.

I lived for 46 years on a well beaten path that excluded deep personal truths.  

The silence that sexual abuse demands, left me stepping in the footsteps of my mother.

Forgiving the truth along the way.

Accepting less and doing more.

In the past 12 years, I have taken a new path.

One where the truth is followed; no matter what.

What came to me yesterday is how life is so complex when the truth is ignored or hid.

When it is silenced to stay on the path of belonging.

To belong many will twist it around to make it fit into their spiritual journey.

For raw truth is hard to live by.

But, very easy on the mind, body and soul.

It just is.

Accepting the truth is very rare.

Many will look around it to be loved.

A path of truth always breaks new ground.

Goes where few will follow.

It is personal.

To you.

Like great art; there is no pattern to follow or script to repeat. 

You walk it organically as it rises to meet you.

Solid

One song.

or voice.

Universe.

Each path is uniquely you…when you know your truth

and follow.

My life has become more alive, and I, more present, when I meet reality as it is.

We are dancing off the path and patterns. 

It can be harder to travel off the beaten path, but its returns are so much greater.

Self-worth, confidence and empowerment are strengthened when you dare to follow what is true for you.  

What is important to me, is walking the path of truth.

No matter what that looks like.

What parts are broken, ugly and damaged.  

To walk down the truthful path, until you understand how it came to be.

Most are walking a path blind to where it came from and where it is going.

They are on it, because their parents walked it.

It is all they know.

Fear is the wide open field of awareness.

A place that I seek.

Once you leave the well trodden path of unbroken cycles, it is impossible to return.

For, once you know, you can't not know.

Where I was blind; now I see.

Blind to me, is not living the truth.

How many are really living their truth fully?

The dark secrets exposed?

Rare is the individual who will break trail with their truth.

A path that leads you to your authentic life.

 

 

I don't think you can expect Change from a year.  Yet, so many have 'hopes' that this new year will deliver better. 

A year is just time passing. It is the blank space we reside in.  It doesn't have the power to change how you live; you do.

To passively hope for a better year, is to place the power of your world in the hands of time.  An innocent bystander who is waiting for you to use your free will.

Time is time.

It equals the same for everyone.  

I listened to a podcast on Ted – "How to gain control of your free time" by Laura Vanderkam

She spoke about the 168 hours we have in a week, and how we use them?

Change will happen when you use them differently.

How we spend time, decides how our year will look upon its completion.

When you say, 'it was a bad year' you are blaming the passing of time.

Changing the way you see yourself and the relationship with time, will create a different view of a year.

As I sat here this morning with a new calendar day, everything seems the same as yesterday.  I have zero expectations of the year giving me anything.

I expect that I will engage in my life with heart, mind and soul.

I will accept what comes and that I will know how to manage it.

I will dare to try new adventures.

I will make plans and follow through.

I will be the one who determines how my year flows.

My year, the passing of time awaits for me to dance upon it.

It is the gift of life, the present.

How I engage with it, is up to me.

It simply cannot give me a better year.

It is just minutes, that grow into days, and weeks, months and a Year.

How I spend the minutes, will add to the contents of this year.

To expect pure happiness isn't realistic.

We will have pain and sorrow.

We will have struggle and hardships.

A good Life isn't just living with positive feelings.

The wealthiest of lives, is to live the full spectrum of our emotions.  To feel deeply and express freely all that we are.

I want to be more me, deeper, fuller and more complex.

Our character continues to have opportunities for becoming.

Worry less about the passage of time and more about the opportunities that define you.

Maybe we should be saying "Happy New You!"

What wonderful new things will be added to you this year?

I am excited to see how life unfolds this year and what it will change in me.

Happy New You!

 

A year ago when a snowshoe was suggested, I asked how difficult, how long, and was very apprehensive about whether I could complete it.  Understandable.  I had no gauge at what I could or could not do.  Each adventure was to test my ability – I was starting with nothing, so I was timid when it came to a new trail.

Would this trail be too much for my physical strength and agility?

How would my body respond?

How painful would it be to push muscles I hadn't used in years?

Now, after a year of tromping up and down hills, on snowshoes or hiking and biking, my skill level isn't what first comes to mind.

I no longer feel that I am too weak to tackle what the trail has to offer?

My confidence in my physical body has changed.  

I love how far I have come in one year!

 

Instead I am looking forward to what we will see, where we will go and to breathe in fresh air and hear the quiet of nature.

To spend fun times with ladies as we move, stretch and challenge our bodies!

Oh, and the great sights we see!

In one year, you can change how you see yourself, life and each new adventure!

The hills haven't changed, I have!

What will this next year grow in me?  

I felt the release from expectations this morning; that today could just be today.  It arrived as a blank slate and wasn't expecting anything from me.  The expectations of Christmas that held me prisoner were dropped.

I just don't believe Christmas ever intended to hold us hostage; but we have been taught to do certain things on Christmas.

The very expectations of christmas can ruin christmas.

What are these expectations and who designed them?

The reason I may have noticed this yesterday, was we had a non-traditional Christmas, due to family members not making it here or working.  It left the day partially used up by Christmas and the rest wide open.

 

Now what?

For the past many years, Sundays are without expectations too. I can be and do what I want all day on Sunday.  Expectation less Sundays!

Our different Christmas had me unprepared for the wide open spaces.  I didn't really know what to do with them.

So, I went out on my snowshoes. 

Then it felt like a regular day.

Too regular?

Am I not supposed to do Christmas things?

What are Christmas things, when the family exchange and sharing of food has passed?

Today, I thought, I should have treated it like my usual Sundays.

Do what I love.

Isn't that the spirit of Christmas?

Love?

If so, I have Christmas all year long.

It was good to experience the feelings of expectations and how they steal your freedom.

IF I hadn't known it was Christmas, I would have filled my day doing things I wanted to do.  Non-Christmas like things.  Things that others don't typically do on Christmas.

Maybe the biggest gift I received was the freedom from expectations.

Knowing I was the one who gave it power.  

Expectations are thoughts in our heads.

Not real, 

not love,

not free to be me.

The spirit of christmas is giving.

I am giving me the freedom from expectations on holidays.

Taking my power back.

To be non-traditional.

Releasing Christmas from the expectations that don't fit the present moment.

Stop trying to conform to an idea or image…a thought.

Letting me do what inspires me in the moment.

The Art of Celebrating what IS.

Children don't try and fit into Christmas; they just naturally fit.

I will too.  Doing what I love to do!