I M Perfect lady

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  • We no longer follow the truth…

    About Faith, from the book, "The Voice of Knowledge" by Janet Mills and Don Miguel Ruiz.  It is a long post, but I love the information in it.  It explains that it is not what we believe, but what we put our faith behind…that steers our worlds.  It isn't what we believe, but that we believe it.

    "Faith is a force that comes from our integrity.  It is the expression of what we really are.  Faith is the power of our creation because we use faith to create our life story and to transform our life story.  Different traditions have called this power by different names.  The Toltec call it intent, but I prefer to call it faith."

    "Let's see if we can understand why our faith is so important. When we talk about faith or intent, we are also talking about the power of the word. The word is pure magic.  It is a power that comes directly from God, and faith is the force that directs that power.  We can say that everything in our virtual reality is created with the word because we use the word for the creation of our story.  Humans have the most wonderful imagination. Beginning with the word, we form a language. With a language , we try to make sense out of everything we experience."

    "First we agree about the sound and meaning of each word. Then just remembering the sound of the words, we can communicate with other dreamers about our virtual reality. We give names to everything we perceive; we choose words as symbols, and these symbols have power to reproduce a dream in our head. For example, just hearing the word horse can reproduce an entire image in our mind. That's how a symbol works. But it can even be more powerful than that.  Just by saying two words, "The Godfather," a whole movie can appear in our mind. The word, as a symbol, has the magic and power of creation because it can reproduce an image, a concept, or an entire situation in our imagination."

    "It is amazing what the word can do.  The word creates images of objects in our mind. The word creates complex concepts. The word evokes feelings.  The word creates every belief that we store in our mind. The structure of our language shapes how we perceive our entire virtual reality."

    "Faith is so important because it is the force that gives life to every word, to every concept that we store in our mind. We can say that life manifests through faith, and that faith is the messenger of life.  Life goes through our faith and then our faith gives life to everything we agree to believe in. Remember, we invest our faith by making an agreement.  We we agree with a concept, we accept the concept without any doubt, and the concept becomes a part of us. If we don't agree with the concept, our faith is not there, and we don't keep it in our memory. Every concept is alive just because our faith is there, just because we believe in the concept. Faith is the force that holds all of these symbols together and gives sense and direction to the entire dream."

    "If you can imagine every belief, every concept, every opinion is like a brick, then our faith is the mortar that holds the bricks together. The way we start getting these bricks and putting them together is by using our attention.  Humans can perceive millions of things simultaneously, but with our attention we have the power to discriminate and focus only on what we want to perceive. The attention is also the part of our mind that we use to transfer information from person to person.  By hooking someones attention, we create a channel of communication, and through that channel we can send and receive information.  This is how we teach, and this is how we learn."

    "As I have said, our parents hook our attention and teach us the meaning of words; we agree, and we learn a language.  Through language, the word, we start to build the edifice of knowledge. Together, all of our beliefs form a structure that tells us what we believe we are. The Toltec call this shape that our mind takes the human form. The human form is not the form of our physical body. The human form is the structure of our personal Tree of Knowledge.  It is everything we believe about being human; it is the structure of our whole story. This structure is almost as solid as our physical body because our faith makes it rigid."

    "You call yourself a human, and that is what makes you a human. Your faith is invested in your story – mostly in the main character of your story – and that is the main problem. The most powerful part of you your faith, is invested in the liar who lives in your head. Through your faith, you give life to all of those lies. The result is the way you live your life in the present moment because you have faith in the main character of your story.  This means that you believe in what you believe you are without any doubt. The rest is jut action-reaction. Every habit is a setup for you to perform the role of your main character."

    "The storyteller has power over you because you have faith in the story that it tells you.  Once you support the story with your faith, it doesn't matter whether the story is the truth or not the truth.  You believe it; you are done. Thy will be done. That is why Jesus said that if you have just a little faith you can move mountains.  Humans are powerful because we have a strong faith; we have the capacity to believe strongly, but where is our faith invested?  Why do we feel that we have hardly any faith?  I can tell you that it's not true that we have so little faith.  Our faith is strong and powerful, but our faith is not free. Our faith is invested in all of the knowledge in our head.  It is trapped in the structure of our Tree of Knowledge."

    "The structure is what really controls the dream of our life because our faith lives in that structure.  Our faith is not in the voice of our story, and it's not in our reasoning mind. Just because we say, "I will succeed," doesn't mean that our faith follows the words.  No, there may be another belief that is stronger and deeper, and that belief is telling us, "You will not succeed." And that is what happens.  It doesn't matter what we do; we fail."

    "That is why you cannot change yourself just by wishing to change.  No, you need to really challenge what you believe you are, especially the beliefs that limit the expression of your life.  You need to challenge every belief that you use to judge yourself, to reject yourself, to make yourself little."

    "I remember one of my apprentices asking me, "Miguel, why is it so difficult to change my beliefs?"  And I told him, "Well, you understand the concept that what you believe you are is not the truth; it's a story.  You understand that very well, but you don't believe it. And that is what makes the difference. If you really believe it, if your faith is there, then you change."

    "So yes, it is possible to change what we believe, to recreate the dream of our life, but first we need to free our faith.  And there is only one way to free our faith, and that is through the truth. The truth is our sword, and it's the only weapon we have against the lies. Nothing but the truth can free the faith that is trapped in the structure of our lies. But with our faith invested in the lies, we no longer see the truth.  The lies blind our faith, the power of our creation."

    "Blind faith is a powerful concept.  When our faith is blind, we no longer follow the truth…" Don Miguel Ruiz

  • How we were treated.

    I listened to the book, "The Voice of Knowledge" by Janet Mills and Don Miguel Ruiz, and found this part to hit close to home.

    "When we discover that we are not what we believe we are, the foundation of our entire reality begins to collapse. The whole story loses its meaning, and this is very frightening."

    " I was not afraid in the desert that night. But when I recovered, I felt fear because nothing in my story was important any longer and I still had to function in the world. Later, I discovered that I could rewrite the story of my life.  I could recover the structure of what I believed and rebuild it without the lies.  Then life went on as it did before, but the lies no longer ruled my life."  

    What I too recall is that you are left without a place to put your faith, you no longer can support the lies, yet you haven't rebuilt your life without lies.  

    The difference between a structure of lies and a structure of truth is so completely different…

    You may think of 'the lies' having to be big, but the little ones you park your faith behind are equally as devastating to your life…when you believe them.

    I discovered thousands of lies that I had built my life upon.  He writes about two rules to avoid getting caught up in lies.

    "Don't believe yourself and don't believe anybody else – all of the lies that come from the voices of knowledge won't survive your skepticism.  Being skeptical is not about being judgmental; it is not about taking the position that you are more intelligent than others. You just don't believe, and what is true will become obvious. This is very interesting because the truth survives your skepticism even if you don't believe it. That is the beauty of the truth. The truth doesn't need anybody to believe it.  The truth is still the truth whether or not you can believe it.  Can we say the same about lies? No, lies only exist because we believe them.  If we don't believe in lies, they simply disappear." Don Miguel

    Isn't it amazing that by not believing yourself or others, the truth will rise to the surface, for the truth doesn't need anyone to believe it, it just is.

    By removing your faith in what you believe, you are then putting your faith in what you don't believe…but what is.  I am not certain I can articulate this, so I highly recommend reading this book.

    But, in my own life, there were great big lies that I put my faith behind, and those lies had baby lies that I put my faith behind and I didn't allow any of my faith to be used for the truth.

    It seems we are given only so much faith, and if we invest it in lies, it leaves little faith for the truth.

    When I withdrew my faith in the lies…I had ample faith to then put into what was the truth. 

    He further writes, "Many lies enslave us, but only one thing can free us, and it's the truth.  Only truth can set us free from the fear, the drama, and the conflict in our lives.  This is the absolute truth, and I cannot put it more simply than that."

    "The Voice of Knowledge rules your life, and it is a tyrant. If you refuse to obey that voice, it becomes quieter and quieter, and speaks to you less and less until it no longer controls you.  When the voice loses power over you, lies no longer rule your life, and you become authentic again."

    "The Voice of Knowledge is not real.  Before you learn to speak, your brain is like a perfect computer, but without a program.  when you are born you don't know a language.  It takes several years for your brain to mature enough to receive a program. Then the program is introduced to you mainly through your parents, as well as other people around you. They hook your attention and teach you the meaning of words.  You learn to speak, and the program goes inside you little by little by agreement.  You agree, and now you have a program."

    "Well, if you are the computer, then the knowledge is the program.  Everything you know, all of the knowledge in your head, was already in the program before you were born.  I can assure you that none of us ever has an original idea.  Every letter, every word, every concept in your belief system is part of the program, and that program is contaminated with a virus called lies."

    "There's no need to judge the program as good or bad or right or wrong. Even if we don't like the program, nobody is guilty for sharing it with us. It's just the way it is, and it's wonderful because we use the program to create our stories.  But who is running our life?  The program!  The program has a voice, and it's lying to us all the time."

    "How can we know what the truth is when almost everything we have learned is a lie?  How can we recognize what is real in us?  Well, it took some time for me to find out, but I found out. Our emotions are real.  Every emotion that we feel is real, it is the truth, it is.  I discovered that every emotion comes directly from spirit, from our integrity; it is completely authentic."

    "You cannot fake what you feel. You can try to repress your emotions, you can try to justify what you feel or lie about what you feel, but what you feel is authentic.  It is real, and you are feeling it. There is nothing wrong with whatever you feel. There are no good or bad emotions; there is nothing wrong with anger or jealousy or envy. Even if you are feeling hate, it comes from your integrity.  Even if it's sadness or depression that you are suffering, if you feel it, there is always a reason for feeling it."

    "I discovered something very interesting about the human mind, something logical and important to understand. Everything you perceive causes an emotional reaction – everything.  If you perceive beauty, your emotional reaction is wonderful; you feel great.  When you are hurt, your emotional reaction is not so great.  But you perceive not just the outside world; you perceive the virtual world you create in your head.  You perceive not only your feelings, but your knowledge – your own thoughts, judgments, and beliefs. You perceive the voice in your head, and have an emotional reaction to that voice."

    "Now the question is this; What is the voice in your head telling you? How many times has it told you, "God, I'm so stupid, how could I do that? I will never learn!" The voice of knowledge judges you, you perceive the judgment, and you have an emotional reaction.  You feel the shame; you feel the guilt. The emotion is true, but what causes the emotion, which is the judgment that you are stupid, is not true; it's a story.  Again, this is just action-reaction.  What is the action? The action is the perception of your point of view, which means the perception of your own judgment. What is the reaction? Your feelings are the reaction, and you react to lies with emotional poison."

    "Let's see if we can understand this a little better.  Imagine that you have a dog. As you know, the dog is just a dog, and it's a perfect dog, isn't it?  But what happens if you abuse the dog?  What if every time you see the dog, you kick the dog?  Very soon the dog will be afraid.  You can see the emotions coming from the dog.  It is angry; it might try to bite you or run away.  Is there something wrong with the dog's emotions? Does the dog's anger make the dog evil? No, the dog's reaction is just the result of being abused. The emotion is helping the dog to defend itself.  It comes from the dogs integrity."  Don Miguel

    What I love about the way he breaks this down is that we are programmed to believe in lies and taught how to act by how we were treated.  

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  • A Journey with your Spirit.

    Yesterday I finally heard the definition of a Spiritual Journey that made sense to me.  Ed Bacon and Bonnie St. Johns were talking about it in a way that resonated with what I know to be true.

    They said it was about sitting with your pain, being aware of suffering and finding out its source…about going into your self, your inner body, to feel emotions and feelings, to sort out the places that are not in alignment with the Universe.

    I understood this meaning of a Spiritual Journey.  

    What I have discovered is that I didn't need to go anywhere, but to become more introspective…to seek to change my perceptions, not to change the situations or others.

    It is a journey of going deeper, not away from yourself and out there somewhere…like Heaven is a place we go when we die.  

    The Spiritual Journey felt to me, like a destination to find the right Master…a journey away from your Self and this present moment.  

    I have heard it represented as not being within you, but rather a departure from your daily life.

    Yet I found that the spiritual journey was the daily life…and the master was your Self.  And depending upon what you accepted or denied granted you a Heaven or a Hell.  There was nowhere to go but to be here now and to feel the truth of this moment in time.

    That is the spiritual journey.  It doesn't lead you away from your daily life, but rather allows you stay there.

    There is nowhere to go, no one to become, nothing you have to aspire to, no teacher to seek.  All you have to be is fully you.  

    To feel your emotions, to discover your truth and to express your life, and that will have you on a journey with your Spirit.

     

  • Like Prison.

    "When you are unaware of your choices, you remain in fear. When you are aware of your fear, you are able to choose differently.  You are able to inject consciousness into an otherwise unconscious process and change it."  Gary Zukav

    The very basic level of any or all dysfunction is the place we stand called No Choice.  

    We are being controlled by the simple fact that we are not given a choice.  It isn't so much where we are  or what is happening, but the fact that we don't have a choice.  Fear to me means having no choice.  

    My night terrors had me frozen unable to move.  To me that is the ultimate fear, unable to freely move my body, let alone control my own mind.  

    As I look back upon my childhood; it stripped away all my choices and had me living as a good follower a choice-less being.  I did that well…and then worked to take the choices away from my children…continuing the legacy.

    I believe, no matter what situation you are stuck in, it is because you have not given your self the option of options. 

    What I grew to do, was to find peace and acceptance and learned to enjoy the spot of no choice.  

    In some ways, it is an easier way to live and truly is a blameless state for your self.  You are free from being responsible for your own life. Response Able….you are unable to respond or even know that there is a different way.  You just simply put up no resistance to being without a choice.

    Not a hard way to live….you only have one way of being in the world…and are not even aware of the land that has two choices or multiple choices.  

    I was taught or led to believe that this one choice way was the only way to heaven. It was a peaceful life…or is peaceful UNLESS you try to bring in a new way, another choice.  

    Fear truly is being unaware of your choices.  My intentions now are to live in the land of choices.  Perhaps I can now visualize how the wild horse must feel being put in the land of being powerless, without a choice…it looks like prison.

     

     

  • Find Their Way Here.

    "If I had experienced different things, I would have different things to say."  Mark Nepo

    I loved yesterday's reading…I know what he means.

    "So often, I have felt troubled and guilty bearing witness to my pain, and yet, not to make things worse.  Somehow, in saying just what Mother had done in her cruel need to be the center, or just what Father couldn't do out of his fear of facing my mother; somehow telling the truth as I know it makes me feel like a bad person – as if I'm making my pain up, as if I'm hurting others by saying bad things about them."

    "But the unshakable bottom of all this is that I'm not making things up.  If I have unkind things to say, it's because I have experienced unkind things. And so, my only guide in this witnessing is to be accurate and honest.  While I am not a victim, I didn't ask for certain shaping experiences to happen to me.  I didn't ask to be slapped or ridiculed as a boy or to be mistreated by lifelong friends later in life.  In truth, If I had experienced different things, I would have different things to say."

    "What is most healing about bearing witness to things exactly as they are, including my own part in my pain, is that when the voice of pain fits the pain, there is no room for distortion or illusion.  In this way, truth becomes a clean bandage that heals, keeping the dirt out of the wound."

    "To voice things as they are is the nearest medicine."  Mark Nepo

    I was raised, "If you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing at all."  That not nice things were not to be talked about.  Which leaves the abuse out of the picture or any negative experience.  

    Where then is it okay to talk about unkind things? 

    I had a profound visual with two blogs by one person.  How one blog only had the "Nice things to say" while the other seemed to delve into to unkind behaviors of others…like there is a need to keep the two blogs separated.

    It brought a clear visual for me to see how my mother kept a clean and kind blog, while behind the scenes unkindness happened, but it never made it to her blog page/life.

    That our unkind treatment from our father had no place in my mother's idyllic life.  It would mar the otherwise beautiful large family picture she was painting.  Where my father was a hardworking provider for his family, who never asked for nothing.

    If you are silent about the Unkind things, your blog/life would look picture perfect.  

    My mother's life had no room for any negative talk about my father. Which left us no place to go. Our wounds did not fit into her picture perfect family. His negative treatment wasn't allowed, let alone hers. 

    I know that my mother kept separated our sexual abuse, it belonged on another blog, not the every day blog, but a special one that was rarely visited and you didn't want to stay there long and it was 'private', you didn't air this out to everyone.  Abuse doesn't go on the every day blog…it is to be hidden off to the side.  So hidden that no one talked about it, ever.  Until someone broke the rule and spoke up and said, "unkind" things about an unkind experience with my father.

    His and her negative blogs then were revealed.

    I had lived my whole life working for her daily family blog, not realizing that she had a secret, that I had a secret abuse blog going on as well.  And my life actually made sense when you blended the two.  

    I became totally normal when the two blogs collided.

    What is so key, is that the truth lies in both blogs, but the two blogs shall never meet each other. This is a great visual of disassociation or denial…or in my experience the FALC way. 

    The unkind things go to the blog called, "Forgiveness of Sins"…you speak of it , and then segregate them to another space.

    When she forbid us to bring abuse to her daily blog, she left the real me out.  I wasn't able to be myself in her world.  

    What I have been determined to do was to combine both blogs and make them me.  That is the true representation of me.  

    As I look upon this blog, it is mostly about the things my mother kept hidden…I speak of abuse, of unkind experiences, the things that usually are kept off the daily blogs…find their way here.  

     

  • “Take Back the Night”

    IMG_7441
    I created this quilt with the theme, "Take Back the Night".  I was trying to depict the weight of fear and how it bends you down…in comparison to taking back your power.  Dancing under your full power.

    IMG_7443
    I met with Detective Rosie and An-gel from Dial Help on Monday. The three of us are forming a connection…coming from different angles, working to find new answers to old problems.  I enjoy our meetings greatly.  The meeting was about the event planned for April 24th, "Take Back the Night".  Rosie and I will be there…An-gel is one of the organizers.  

    IMG_7444
    If this quilt isn't used there, she will go to the Ed Gray Gallery. 

  • Without you asking, “Why?”

    Gary Zukav writes about intentions in his book, "Spiritual Partnerships; The Journey to Authentic Power.

    "Intention means different things to five-sensory individuals that it does to multisensory individuals.  Five-sensory individuals think of intentions in terms such as "to get a new job."  Multisensory individuals go deeper.  They ask, "Why do I intend to get a new job?"  One reason might be, for example, "to make more money" (other reasons might be to have more prestige, work closer to home, or have a greater sense of meaning), and they keep asking until they find their real reason.  Their quest for the deepest Why leads them to their actual intention.  For example, a parent may intend to make more money in order to send her child to college.  Beneath this intention lie deeper intentions.  One parent may intend to send her child to college because she feels obligated, her family expects it, or her neighbor's children are going to college.  Another may intend to expose her child to languages, cultures, and disciplines that will stimulate her creativity and passion.  These are different intentions, and they will create different consequences."

    "The Why beneath the Why (and sometimes the Why beneath that, etc) is the intention that creates the consequences.  That is the Why that determines the experience of your life.  The parent who sends her child to college to make her (the parent) feel better about herself, as a good as her neighbors or to avoid family disapproval is concerned about herself. The parent who supports her child with the gift of education is concerned about her child.  One is taking and the other is giving.  One is motivated by fear, and the other is motivated by Love.  Both parents set into motion the Universal Law of Cause and Effect and the Universal Law of Attraction and therefore, create different consequences with their intentions. The first parent will experience the pain of discovering that someone she loves is using her for his or her own well being (Universal Law of Cause and Effect) and will attract to her people with hidden agendas (Universal Law of Attraction). The second parent will experience the joy of being cared fro without conditions (Universal Law of Cause and Effect) and will draw to herself people who are concerned for her (Universal Law of Attraction)."

    "To the five-sensory perception, these actions are identical – a parent sends a child to college.  Without knowing the intention beneath the action, however, it is not possible to know the consequence that the action will create.  When I first learned to ski, I would carry my skis on my shoulder with the short ends in front of me and the long ends with the tips behind. However, I soon learned how dangerous that was because I kept forgetting how far the tips extended. When I turned, they swung around fast, causing people to duck and lunge out of the way (and complain).  Not knowing your intentions is like carrying long skis on your shoulder into a china shop. Every time you turn, something behind you breaks and you can't see what caused the damage, but you are responsible for it." 

    "Using your creative power without knowing your intentions is like driving a car with a windshield painted black.  You travel, but you do not know where.  You expect to arrive at a destination, but when you get out of the car (or the car crashes into something), you discover that where you thought you were going and where you went are different.  If you have a need to please people, for example, you will be surprised (and probably have been many times) to discover that they eventually push you away.  When your intention is to see a smile or be appreciated in order to feel safe and valuable (this is the pursuit of external power), you will always feel the pain of rejection when you see a frown instead or your efforts are not appreciated. Eventually (or immediately) you will feel abused.  Your compulsive efforts to please have a price, and when it is not paid, you become angry.  You expect to arrive at appreciation, but your arrive instead at rejection and anger – a very different destination."

    "Most people drive with their windshield painted black, for example, the husband provides his wife with home and security and then becomes angry when she does not provide him comfort and sex on demand.  Like my friend who thought he loved his dog but became enraged when it failed to meet his expectations (hidden agendas), the husband reached a different destination (frustration, anger and pain) than the one he anticipated (domestic bliss).  If you think your windshield is clear, ask yourself how many times you have felt angry, or at least miffed, when someone dismissed a gift that you gave, or there it away. (Another sweater? I've got one already and you know I don't like brown.") Those experiences always signal the presence of an intention that you were not aware of, one that is different from the intention you thought you held."

    "This is a common misconception what the healthiest intentions is to "feel good."  The addict in the ally injects heroin because it makes him feel good, but it is not making him healthy or even getting him out of the alley.  On the other hand, the alcoholic who has just stopped drinking is in excruciating pain, but is becoming healthy. The healthy intention is never to pursue external power. Intending to get attention, for example, with a fast or opulent car, gorgeous spouse, beautiful home, expensive jewelry, ideal life (or anything else) because you feel inadequate, invisible, and powerless without it will not take you where you want to go when your destination is a life of more meaning and less emptiness, more joy and less pain, more love and less fear."

    " That life is the potential, and also the evolutionary requirement of, multisensory humans, and all humans are becoming multisensory or soon will be. The casual connections between us are more than physical. We influence another and all of Life with our choices of intention, with our choices of intention we transform our experiences from fear to love (or not), and our world from brutal  to compassionate (or not). We are each ultimately responsible for the well-being of all that is.  The pursuit of external power is the set of initial conditions that always creates harsh weather. the more we think of ourselves as invisible or powerless, the more we wield our creative power irresponsibly. (and create painful consequences). The more we blame others for our experiences, envy them, or rage at them or ourselves, the more painful consequences we create.  The emergence of multisensory perception is a dawn unlike any before, and the rising sun is illuminating a new set  of initial conditions that always and everywhere creates the best of all weather." Gary Zukav 

    What I didn't know is that there were many levels of Whys behind the surface intention or action. That there are literally piles of Whys we need to ask to get to rock bottom. And the rock bottom is covered up, unless you ask "Why?".

    However, you could really work this backwards and see your destination.  If you don't like where you are, it means the why beneath your intentions drove you there without you asking, " Why?"

  • Being Raised not to Follow.

    I met my polar opposite yesterday, the opposite end of the spectrum, a woman who left her childhood completely empowered.

    Two completely different upbringings and their outcomes.  

    Her parents made choices that gave her power and kept her mind free of fairy-tales and lies.  Mine was deluged in illusions.  We had to live out their intentions.

    The two of us…one trained to follow and give up her mind, the other was groomed to keep it clear, wide open and self discerning.  A huge and profound impact on how we entered into the grown-up world.

    Between the two of us, who would be more susceptible to grooming and luring of predators?  Which one had a firm grasp on her self and self confidence?

    I didn't even know I was allowed to be a self…I was a part of a bunch. Take the rest away and I didn't know how to move on my own.  My actions always visited the churches beliefs first, my mother second, my husband third and or someone, before a choice was made.  I didn't know how to make one on my own, for my Self…She had no church to appease or others, and was made to think on her own.

    She mirrored to me just how confined I was by her total freedom.  I can appreciate her wide open upbringing and wonder can she even visualize mine…to even gain a morsel of true understanding.

    Can you even know what it feels like to be whittled down to zero if you have always been given wide berth to be yourself? Can a wild horse appreciate the confines of a barn and fence?

    I have had the privilege to have lived on both sides…to experience the differences.  Yet somehow I can see how she has been 'offered' the choice to go into the barn and has refused…preferring the open space.

    Seeing the two of us, one raised as a wild and free person and the other with someone holding my reins, steering me, and using me for their use.  A work horse and a wild free one.

    I ran away into the land she was raised in. 

    And yet didn't know how to roam free.

    Just has hard as it would be to get her acclimated to the barn, it was equally hard to become accustomed to having no reins.

    She wasn't introduced to religion until she was 16. She had to take a college course on religion to learn about them all.  She then saw them with a well defined sense of self and reality and they were seen with a much clearer eye than say mine….I was introduced by being submerged into it, never having lived outside of it.  There wasn't a choice.

    Can you imagine introducing a 16 year old to religion; to take away their free spirit and put it in a barn?  Imagine if it was illegal to speak to children about religion until they turned 16.  Religions would dry up…and spirituality would bloom.

    Not only was I kept on a short leash, but abused.  It was like my course was powerlessness, while her's was empowerment.  I had to fight my way to the place her parents kept her.

    Just as she didn't have a choice but to follow her free spirits, I had no choice but to live in the barn.

    Yet somehow, I believed I wanted to be in the religion that it was my choice, when in fact, I was born in captivity. It was my comfort place, and the lands outside the barn were places to fear or at the very least seemed foreign and uncomfortable.

    Interesting we both felt at home on opposite ends of the spectrum…and I would have lived there forever, If something within me didn't begin to get restless….yearning for something, I just didn't know what.

    It was as if the land of wide open mind space was calling me. And I am not certain I would have made the leap, if my barn if you will, didn't explode.  If my illusions were not exposed…everything collasped and I was left standing in an open field.

    And it took me many years to find my way, my self, and my power.

    I just get left with the total different mindset our parents had…to empower or keep powerless.  Her life was lived completely different based upon the intentions of her parents. 

    Two different journey's of empowerment…one was taught from birth and one was discovered when the illusion fell apart.  Her parents never lied to her, and mine lived out their lies…raising me in a non-reality based childhood, while hers was the total opposite.  It was an amazing encounter…I had never met anyone raised so free.

    Imagine being allowed to be yourself or actually be forced to be yourself, find and live your own truth! Being raised not to follow…

     

     

     

     

     

  • Being Raised not to Follow.

    I met my polar opposite yesterday, the opposite end of the spectrum, a woman who left her childhood completely empowered.

    Two completely different upbringings and their outcomes.  

    Her parents made choices that gave her power and kept her mind free of fairy-tales and lies.  Mine was deluged in illusions.  We had to live our their intentions.

    The two of us…one trained to follow and give up her mind, the other was groomed to keep it clear, wide open and self discerning.  A huge and profound impact on how we entered into the grown-up world.

    Between the two of us, who would be more susceptible to grooming and luring of predators?  Which one had a firm grasp on her self and self confidence?

    I didn't even know I was allowed to be a self…I was a part of a bunch. Take the rest away and I didn't know how to move on my own.  My actions always visited the churches beliefs first, my mother second, my husband third and or someone, before a choice was made.  I didn't know how to make one on my own, for my Self…She had no church to appease or others, and was made to think on her own.

    She mirrored to me just how confined I was by her total freedom.  I can appreciate her wide open upbringing and wonder can she even visualize mine…to even gain a morsel of true understanding.

    Can you even know what it feels like to be whittled down to zero if you have always been given wide berth to be yourself? Can a wild horse appreciate the confines of a barn and fence?

    I have had the privilege to have lived on both sides…to experience the differences.  Yet somehow I can see how she has been 'offered' the choice to go into the barn and has refused…preferring the open space.

    Seeing the two of us, one raised as a wild and free person and the other with someone holding my reins, steering me, and using me for their use.  A work horse and a wild free one.

    I ran away into the land she was raised in. 

    And yet didn't know how to roam free.

    Just has hard as it would be to get her acclimated to the barn, it was equally hard to become accustomed to having no reins.

    She wasn't introduced to religion until she was 16. She had to take a college course on religion to learn about them all.  She then saw them with a well defined sense of self and reality and they were seen with a much clearer eye than say mine….I was introduced by being submerged into it, never having lived outside of it.  There wasn't a choice.

    Can you imagine introducing a 16 year old to religion; to take away their free spirit and put it in a barn?  Imagine if it was illegal to speak to children about religion until they turned 16.  Religions would dry up…and spirituality would bloom.

    Not only was I kept on a short leash, but abused.  It was like my course was powerlessness, while her's was empowerment.  I had to fight my way to the place her parents kept her.

    Just as she didn't have a choice but to follow her free spirits, I had no choice but to live in the barn.

    Yet somehow, I believed I wanted to be in the religion that it was my choice, when in fact, I was born in captivity. It was my comfort place, and the lands outside the barn were places to fear or at the very least seemed foreign and uncomfortable.

    Interesting we both felt at home on opposite ends of the spectrum…and I would have lived there forever, If something within me didn't begin to get restless….yearning for something, I just didn't know what.

    It was as if the land of wide open mind space was calling me. And I am not certain I would have made the leap, if my barn if you will, didn't explode.  If my illusions were not exposed…everything collasped and I was left standing in an open field.

    And it took me many years to find my way, my self, and my power.

    I just get left with the total different mindset our parents had…to empower or keep powerless.  Her life was lived completely different based upon the intentions of her parents. 

    Two different journey's of empowerment…one was taught from birth and one was discovered when the illusion fell apart.  Her parents never lied to her, and mine lived out their lies…raising me in a non-reality based childhood, while hers was the total opposite.  It was an amazing encounter…I had never met anyone raised so free.

    Imagine being allowed to be yourself or actually be forced to be yourself, find and live your own truth! Being raised not to follow…

     

     

     

     

     

  • Nothing to Hide.

    Today's reading from Mark Nepo's book, "The Book of Awakening"

    "I often think of Nicodemus, the one Pharisee who secretly believed in Jesus and who would meet with him anonymously at night to have deep spiritual conversations, but who would never acknowledge his questions of spirit or his association with Jesus in the light of day.  Of course, this did nothing to the essence of Jesus, but traumatically thwarted and plagued Nicodemus for the rest of his days."

    "This story shows us the quiet pain that comes from not honoring what we know to be true, even if all we know to be true are the questions we are asking.  It is even more useful to realize that we each carry a Jesus and a Nicodemus within us; that is, we each have a divine inner voice that open us to truth and a mediating social voice that is reluctant to show its truth to others."

    "The famous British child psychologist D.W. Winnicott called these aspects of personality our True and False Self.  it is the True Self that lets us know what is authentic and what has become artificial, while the False Self is a diplomat of distrust, enforcing a lifestyle of guardedness, secrecy, and complaint."

    "In everyday terms, this means that each time we experience a change in reality as we know it, we must choose whether to declare or hide what we know to be true. At such moments, we either need to bring the way we have been living into accord with that shift of reality, or we need to resist the change.  Thus, in daily ways, whether we live in our True or False Self depends on our willingness to stay real.  And so, over time, staying real becomes the work of keeping our actions in the world connected to the truth of our inner being, allowing our True Self to see the light of day."

    "Very often, we continue, out of habit or fear, to behave in old ways, even though we know that the way of things has changed.  Time and time again, I have found myself at this crucial juncture: having to admit that what was essential is no longer essential and then needing to summon the courage to make the act of living essential again."

    "I know that every time I hear or see the truth but hold to the old way – of being or thinking or relating – I am giving my life over to Nicodemus in me.  And in doing so, I embark on a divided life, in which I listen to the divine inner voice secretly at night, but deny it day after day."

    "But this moment of inner embarrassment, when we catch ourselves in the act of split living, is also the recurring chance for us to honor once again what we know to be true. For anyone, no matter how wounded or distressed, can in a moment of truth let the God within show itself out here in the world.  However small or fleeting, this one repeatable act can restore our common and vital sense of being alive."  Mark Nepo

    This is exactly as I have witnessed myself and others.  I too used to hide from the truth, instead of declare it. I too used to not have the courage to align myself with the voice of truth within me.  Until my truthful life became too big to hide.  My false sense could not create a shield big enough to hide behind.

    What I have experienced since bringing my truth to the light of day, is seeing my old self.  Seeing how others say things to me in 'secret' how they reveal their deeper self, but then are unable to walk with it in the light of day.  I totally feel how that is. 

    Somehow we are more afraid of the truth than living a false life.

    When I began bringing my truth to the light of day, it became a way of being.  In each situation I would be asked to declare or hide.  And I knew that in the past, my hiding from the truth didn't prevent it from hurting me.  For eventually I had to face it…so I declare now, rather than hide.

    I also believe that we are in the midst of a great change, where it will become impossible to live a false life.  That our awareness will increase and you will see the how hopeless it is to pretend.  

    And, that even if you can't display your truth, others in your families will….and in turn take down the closet door, leaving you exposed against your will.

    Each of us know inside of us what the truth is by how afraid we are of being found out.  The higer the fear, the more we have to hide.  

    If only I could impress upon anyone who is living this divided life, the ease and peace you will gain by becoming one…

    It will be hard to extricate your self from the false life you have built, but in the end, you will be standing as one self with nothing to hide.

     

June 2026
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