I M Perfect lady

Tag: doing

  • I Let Myself Go

    In "Codependent No More," by Melody Beatte, she writes about boundaries.

    ""Set boundaries, but make sure they're our boundaries. The things we are sick of, can't stand, and make threats about, may be clues to some boundaries that we need set. They may also be clues to changes we need to make within ourselves. Mean what we say and say what we mean. People get angry at us for setting boundaries; They CAN'T use us anymore. They may try to help us feel guilty so we will remove our boundary and return to the old system of letting them use or abuse us. Don't feel guilty and don't back down. We can stick to our boundaries and enforce them. Be consistent. We will probably be tested more than once on every boundary we set. People do that to see if we are serious, especially if we haven't meant what we said in the past. As Codependents we have made very empty threats. We lose our credibility then wonder why people don't take us serious. Tell people what our boundaries are once, quietly, in peace. What our level of tolerance, so the pendulum doesn't swing too far to either extreme." Melody

    When we take our boundaries serious, others will as well.  And if you have never said no, no will seem shocking and unloving toward them, for in the past they could depend on your yes or that you would back up and lower your boundary.

    Lowering boundaries, lowers your sense of self. You are pushing your self into being someone you soon will not even recognize.

    Another thing Melody said was,

    "Most of us don't have boundaries. Boundaries are limits that say: "This is how far I shall go. This is what I will or won't do for you. This is what I won't tolerate from you." 

    "Most of us begin relationships with boundaries. We had certain expectations and we entertained certain ideas about what we would or wouldn't' tolerate from those people. Alcoholism and other compulsive disorders laugh in the face of limits. The disease not only push on our boundaries, they boldly step across them. Each time the disease pushes or steps across our limits we give in. We move our boundaries back, giving our disease more room to work. As the disease pushes more, we give more until we are tolerating and doing things we said we would never do. Later, this process of "increased tolerance" of inappropriate behaviors may reverse. We may become totally intolerant of even the most human behaviors. In the beginning we make excuses for the person's inappropriate behavior; toward the end, there is no excuse."

    "Not only do many of us begin tolerating abnormal unhealthy and inappropriate behaviors, we take it one step further; we convince ourselves these behaviors are normal and what we deserve We may become so familiar with verbal abuse and disrespectful treatment that we don't even recognize when these things are happening. But deep inside, an important part of us knows. Our selves know and will tell us if we will listen." MB

    "…compulsive disorders laugh in the face of limits. The disease not only push on our boundaries, they boldly step across them. Each time the disease pushes or steps across our limits we give in. We move our boundaries back, giving our disease more room to work…"

    Who truly knew that our lack of pushing back when they push us is the exact key or in fact makes More room for the abuse to be.  

    While I didn't know it at the time, I can see it plain as day now. 

    It is up to us to set firm boundaries and each time you wobble and get pushed into doing something you don't want to do, you have expanded the area for abuse to play and move and freely be.

    This is the dance of abuse; it pushes and we give up our ground.

    Each time we stay silent, we give up ground.

    Each time we fail to follow through with our threats, "this is the last time…" it wins.

    We are not only playing with abuse; WE are Letting it win.  

    "If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything."

    Usually, we fall for we love that person, we have a long history, a past and a future we want, so we overlook and blink as they cross another boundary, as we lose ground one more time, as we are pushed back into a place where we are without restraint.

    I guess we do this until…  Until we either go so far back that we lose a sense of life and ourself, or we come bounding back fearlessly taking back our lives.

    And when we do, the pusher of our boundaries are in for a shock…where once we were soft, we are now as hard as a rock.  

    My husband said of me, "You didn't draw your line in the sand, but in cement…"

    I am firm now with boundaries and no amount of guilt on their part will back me up.  I am finally standing up strong…

    What is so hard is that you have to begin however far back you have been pushed, in the low spot of no boundaries…and climb up one step at a time.

    Each time you say what you mean and follow through, you gain a boundary…and with each boundary comes self esteem, or a sense of knowing and loving of self.

    I would cheer me on as they would holler and rail against me.  And I knew, they were testing my waters, to see if I was serious…it was even shocking to me to see just how serious I was.

    I began so far back that I was almost gone, and it was a struggle to undo all the years of relationships without borders, where I flowed into their worlds losing me. I reversed the cycle…I came alive in places where in the past I let myself go.

     

     

     

  • It knows and Forgives it away!

    Byron Katie, "Loving What Is"

    "I love thanking these men for sacrificing their entire lives to teach our children how not to live – and therefore how to live – if they want to be free.  I tell them that they are the greatest teachers and that their lives are good and needed.  Before I leave, I ask them, "Would you spend the rest of your life in prison if you knew that it would keep one child from having to live what you're living?" And many of these violent men understand, and they just well up with tears like sweet little boys."  Byron Katie

     

    Imagine using your life as an example of what not to do.  I truly do believe that if they are willing to sacrifice their whole lives so we can see a living example of what not to do, it begs us to learn from that.

    Just as Penn State is a living example of how not to react when faced with abuse. It seems that each person who heard or saw something did the opposite of what needs to be done.  And in doing so has shown us a great example of a huge institution and how one man has the power to taint it all.

    The opportunities of people stopping him are incredible…big guys, powerful guys, guys with clout and intelligence, and all let this pedophile continue to hurt little boys.

    What a shining example of how we deal with sexual abuse.  WE don't.

    If only this was a Penn State problem, but it is a world wide epidemic.  Look at the students RIOTING to save a man who didn't tell.  

    We want to save a reputation of a man who didn't tell.  Oh, he told the supervisors, but he didn't draw a hard line and refuse to work in an organization who protected pedophiles.  He didn't of himself go to the law of the land and say, "this is going on".

    And as Jon Stewart says, "We are not trying to take away your football" or in the FALC's case, your religion…WE just want the ABUSE to STOP!!!  

    Let's use this as an example and begin walking one by one to the sheriff with what you know, names you have heard, tales of horror being done to the children.  I know, IF I know, you know.  

    You know and you will either be an example of doing nothing or doing something…the choice is yours to decide.

    Sadly, It isn't that no one knows…it is that they know, it is just that they too decided to do nothing for reasons personal to them.  

    The church is not what you all think it is…it isn't this pure state of faith, this island in the storm of evil of life, it is the vortex of sexual abuse, that has a bigger tool than Penn State, It has the Forgiveness of sins.  IT knows and Forgives it away! 

     

     

  • To be me…perfectly.

    There seems to be a time in life, where you get off the karmic wheel of your childhood, where you finally come to the end of the road where old beliefs, thoughts and ideas run dry, where you have uncovered, discovered, and recovered all parts of your self.

     

    And you have decided what stays, what goes, what has value or no value, what is something I will use in my future and what is best left in the past.

     

    As each old thought and belief came to surface, I had to replace it with a new one, one more suited for my self and was often less comfortable for the ‘other’.

     

    Most of my replacement ideas, thoughts and beliefs are much more flexible and fit my spirit. They are filled with potential growth and expansion, unlimited space for creation.

     

    The purging of my old self was difficult and painful at times and extremely liberating as well, the dying and rebuilding co-existing, the undoing and the re-doing.  Each loss I mourned came with a new birth.

     

    Just as they flip houses, I flipped myself, changing me from a worn out pattern into a more creative one.

     

    I can’t imagine getting left in the old mind patterns and beliefs, stuck and unable to step out line, locked by fear and unable to shake off the chains of conditioning.

     

    I feel at times I have forgotten from whence I came, and have a hard time remembering the darkness with so much Light, forgetting what it is like to live under the shadows of others, never finding your own spot in the sun…

     

    My thanks all go to the Universe whose wisdom I seen in every lesson, gift and miracle, and who synchronized it all.

     

    As I continue forth with my awareness my artist’s prayer is;

    to remain faithful to the wisdom of my body,

    to always pay attention to the gut feelings,

    to stand with the truth no matter the cost,

    to have faith and follow my own feelings,

    to reach towards new experiences fearlessly,

    to be a student of the Universe,

    to accept all lessons with grace,

    to never lose sight of what is,

    to find my purpose,

    to know who I am,

    to be me…perfectly! 

  • Life Unfolds.

    Well, I quit the yoga challenge. It became more about the numbers and less about me, somehow I got lost behind the counting, the doing and forgot about me.

    The me that needs the yoga, my body, mind and soul. I forgot to view this from me; instead I was outside of me doing the yoga.

    It was a step ahead of me and I was nowhere in yoga.

    I have taken a few days off, to cleanse myself from the doing of a challenge to get back into being a lady whose body loves yoga.

    Whose body needs the yoga to feel flexible and strong, whose mind opens and breathes, and my life has a balance with yoga.

    It is about me and yoga, not yoga and me.

    This is true in all levels of my life.

    I am not sure if I can explain this correctly, but in the past all that I did created who I was, without doing I was nothing.

    I was defined daily by what I did, the doings created me.

    What I have now discovered is if I do something for reasons that are not birthed within me, I am lost from my life and in some foreign land most likely called your business.

    I believe that when my daughter’s life was in crisis, I hopped out of mine and into hers and it way threw off my balance. And during this time the yoga challenge beckoned me daily to join it, no matter my inner state of being.

    One thing led to another and it led me away from me.

    I had fallen out of my life.

    Now I am gathering me back to me.
    Letting my daughter have her life, her choices, her responsibilities and at the same time refocusing on regaining the balance within me.

    I know that my body and my day run better when I take the time at the top of the morning and breathe and work my body.

    I know that I feel best when I stay in my life and live from the inside out.

    I will selfishly bring me to my life and I will selfishly bring me to yoga.

    I arrive and life unfolds.

  • Towing others around.

    Last night I dreamt I was peddling a bike that was pulling a big trailer. On the trailer was my husband a lot of junk. Behind me sharing a seat was an unidentified stranger whose feet kept getting in the way of me peddling, impeding our progress.

    It was sooo frustrating and exacerbating and we stopped and started and started and stopped. The hardest part was getting going again, and I hated stopping.

    I kept my head down watching my peddling feet always alert for those big work boots stopping the pedals.

    It was like that man was unaware of his feet, and I was forever letting him know.

    I am in shock and awe, that I didn’t get off the bike and let the two of them be!

    In another dream a few nights before that I was trying to get my son off the floor, and he was immoveable. The harder I tried the more dead weight he became. And I kept finding him in different places and would try and move him.

    Instead of a rock picker I was forever trying to pick him up and the frustration I felt when I tried to get him to help me, and he cared less! Again, why didn’t I just let him lay?

    The struggles showing up in my dreams seem to carry the energy of me in other’s lives, dragging them around with their un-involvement allowing them to ride my coattails or me totally carrying them.

    It shows me hauling them around, while they sit in a relaxed pose watching the world go by.

    Honest, it was like the two of them were looking for interesting places to stop, and I hated stopping, while I was struggling to keep moving.

    I wonder what this metaphor is all about?

    Am I the big boots getting in the flow?

    Am I dragging others when they could move themselves?

    Am I allowing others to get in my way of doing my life?

    The overview and the feelings of how others can drag you down if you believe you should be dragging them is unreal.

    What an energy zapper!

    And more importantly, how can you live a life of a free spirit while towing others around!

  • Who has Control?

    My expectations of the New Year aren’t about the New Year but rather about me.

    The New Year is neutral, a pile of days linked together, and many hours in which we live our lives.

    What we do within those hours is how our year will unfold, or more importantly how we will emerge on the other end.

    I went back on my blog and read some of my entries in January 2010, the beginning of my first 60-day Yoga challenge.

    It was incredible to read about the beginnings of my year doing yoga.

    Below is a section I quoted from Bikram’s book, and it shows the reality of what we are up against when we strive to make changes in our lives, what we are battling is gaining control over the mind.

    “Without control of mind, you can do nothing. You have something, but you don’t know how to use it. The greatest challenge we face as human beings is controlling and properly using our own minds.

    The mind is the communications system between the physical body and the Soul or Spirit; its primary responsibilities are to control the body and supply the Spirit with immediate and exact information. When the mind instead gives distracted and wrong information, the Spirit cannot govern properly – in fact, it cannot assume control at all. The ego-driven mind has had to rule for itself, and now it does not want to give up its ultimate authority over your life. This is a bitter, perverse fact about human beings, but it is the truth.

    Without proper training, the mind will continue to give you the wrong information and divert your focus from your Spiritual goals. The way it does that so successfully is with fear and desire – its primary weapons. Like a drug dealer, the mind gets addicted to these two opposite but conjoined emotions, and when we are constantly reacting to our attractions and aversions to people, things and situations, we can’t see what really is and reopen the channels of our true Self, the Spirit. That’s why I say that the mind has become our worst enemy.

    To overcome this will not be easy. The weak mind is ever growing, constantly feeding on your fears and negative habits. And as my Guru taught me, the natural human attraction to something negative is NINE TIMES more powerful than our gravitational pull to toward the positive- another inconvenient fact.”
    Bikram

    So if you are endeavoring to make changes in your life this upcoming year, please take note, that what you will be going against is a very powerful pull, 9 times stronger than your thought of change.

    Say your desire is to stop eating sweets; you will have the power to eat sweets 9 times stronger.

    And if your desire is to exercise or do yoga each day, you will be fighting a powerful pull 9 times stronger to stay in bed, lay on the couch, and do nothing.

    What I am most impressed with as I look back upon my year of doing yoga (332 out of the 365) is the sheer effort was exerted in getting to the mat.
    Even though the actual 90 minutes of yoga is rough, it is nothing compared to the struggle to begin.

    The real battle is not in the actual doing; it is in the seconds or minutes prior to the event.

    The fight ensues in the actual debate about whether you are going to abstain or succumb.

    To do or not to do is the where the war is fought.

    It isn’t about the sweets, the beer or the exercise; it is about the seconds of power right before, the space before doing or not doing.

    It is on that edge of time, that second where your life is determined, who has control?

  • Perception is a choice.

    Chapter nine, Perception is a choice, from “You are What you Love,” by Vaishali

    Perception is the magic carpet that either elevates us into Heaven or plummets us into hell. Perception is how we behold the divine in everything and everyone, or how the relentlessly tight grasp of hell demolishes us. Perception is a gift of free will from Heaven. Where we focus our attention determines whether we freely return perception to its rightful place, Heaven, or whether we surrender it to hell. We choose on a moment–to-moment basis.

    We do not choose according to our experiences or what our parents may have taught us. Nor do we choose according to how much money we have. We choose according to our Ruling Love, because it is our Ruling Love that creates our experiences. It is what we are giving our attention to that determines the outcome of what we have learned here. It is what we do with our love that is our true wealth, security, and happiness.

    To illustrate the power of perception, consider the story of two children who grew up with alcoholic parents. One child grew up to be a teetotaler. The other child grew up to be an alcoholic. When asked why they chose the path that they did, they both gave the same response, “With parents like that, what else could I be?”

    Dr. Phil McGraw, on his television program, The Dr. Phil Show, uses and interesting technique while working with a guest. He directly addresses the person’s perception of self. Dr. Phil will walk the person through a complete examination of their perception. One of his guests was re-creating great turmoil within the family due to the deliberate, insensitive overspending of the family’s financial resources. Dr. Phil walked this person through her perceptual trap. He explained to her that when she is driving around, and it hits her to go to the mall and shop, she should stop and shift perception instead to something more life-sustaining, such as spending time with her kids and spouse, or going to the gym and doing something nice for her body. Dr. Phil explains that each person has sovereignty over his/her perception. So if life, relationships or anything else is not working for you, then you and only you can shift your perception to something that does work.

    All of our suffering is held together by our perception or mis-perception of self and what is. Right relationship with perception is an inner event. It happens in the Heart, not the head. Right relationship with perception has nothing to do with the body’s physical visual ability. Perception based on what we think and believe, based on mind the projections of mind we are here to get over, is the basis of mis-perception or polluted thinking. Unrealized waves are coming from the head and not the Heart, so the perception of self and what is becomes highly distorted and extremely limited. All unrealized waves perceive no hope, no possibility for growth, no good faith in life and love in their story about what is.

    Once again, that is why the third rock from the Sun is here, so that we can as spiritual creatures have a place to come to practice right relationship with perception. This is the place in the universe to come and practice realizing what you are dong with your attention, because this is where we feel it. Having to feel the quality of our perceptions is the lesson we came here for. Most of us re-create very confining perceptual stories that keep us living narrow and severely restricted lives, compared to our potential as God conscious made manifest. Most of us live our perceptual lives within “the box” of duality. Perception is like a stamped envelope. We could perceptually live on the envelope that has the potential to go anywhere at anytime. But instead we choose perceptually to live on the stamp, and we let the “stamped perception” define our value, power and worth and tell us where we can do and when. How does one free oneself from the limiting perception that one is not even aware is holding them hostage?

    The following is a delightful story about an old frog who lived in a dark well, who is visited by an old frog who lived in the ocean. This story is from Sogyal Rinpoche’s book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying?

    “Where do you come from?” asked the frog in the well.
    “From the great ocean,” he replied.
    “How big is your ocean?”
    “It’s gigantic.”
    “You mean about a quarter of the size of my well here?”
    “Bigger.”
    “Bigger? You mean half as big?”
    “No, even bigger.”
    “Is it…as big as this well?”
    “There is no comparison.”
    “That is impossible! I’ve got to see this for myself.”

    They set off together. When the frog from the well saw the ocean, it was such a shock that his head just exploded into pieces.

    We are just like the old well frog. We are so familiar with living in the dark hole of our perceptions – that we are the body, money, experiences, thoughts, and emotions, all things limited – that when confronted with the truth that we are in fact love, that we are in fact God consciousness realizing itself, our head just explodes into a million pieces.

    The good news is that it is not up to the government, it is not up to large corporations, it is not up to your family or co-workers to create a life worth living from the power of right relationship with perception. It is up to you. No one can eat for you. No one can sleep for you. No one can breathe for you. And no one can watch your mind for you. No one else can shift your perception from temporal to eternal, from lies to truth, except you. You re-created all your limiting perceptions. Therefore only you can create an end these limitations. It is up to you, and what you are freely giving your attention to on a moment-to-moment basis. No matter where you go or what you do, you cannot escape the truth: you are what you love and you love whatever you are giving your attention to.

    Perception is as unique and imaginative as whatever you are giving your attention to and choose to love. You cannot change your life for the better without changing your outdated illusions. You cannot change your outdated illusions without changing what you are giving your attention to. Perception…Change…Growth. They are all perceptual choices. The illusory perception tree produces only illusory fruit. You will find nothing life-sustaining there, only the un-ripe fruit of greater disappointment.

    We have all experienced the magical healing qualities of perception. Everyone has met someone for the first time that initially did not appear very attractive. However, over time you see and share their Ruling Love, and you grow to deeply love the person as authentically beautiful. Historically speaking Quasimodo and the elephant-man were perfect examples of this.

    You also know the opposite. You meet someone who appears in the temporal world to be very attractive. But over time you see their Ruling Love. They are strongly loyal to hell and inflicting pain. When this happens, the initial illusory perception falls away and the other person is then seen for the true ugliness that they give their attention to. It is then that we honestly perceive the deformed nature of the other. It is the Ruling Love of each wave that ultimately determines our perception of ugly or beauty in ourselves and everything and everyone around us.

    You are your perception. Not just physically or mentally, but emotionally as well as metaphorically. The ultimate goal of all self-witnessing, and the purpose behind all of the created reality is to master clear perception. Divine intelligence has given us all free will in our use of perception. You choose your perception and you are One with your choice. Due to the divine law that you are what you love and you love whatever you are giving your attention to, everything in this world is going to continue to go out of its way to keep you honest about what you are doing with your love. Contemplate this the next time your perception informs you that you have no value, power or worth. Not exactly a program you want repeated on the “inner syndicated” airwaves.

    To establish right divine relationship with perception, look back to Swedenborg. When he was alive, people would ask him, “What do you do to be such an actualized person?” Swedenborg would tell them, “It has nothing to do with doing. It is not a doing thing.” It is a remembering to give attention to truth, and forget everything else, it is a perceptual thing.

    To Be or Not to Be in the Present moment.

    The world at large values, even worships doing. The world perceives doing as the highest purpose of all created life. We reflect that perception back to ourselves in our language. We ask children, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” The first bit of information we get from people we meet for the first time is, “What do you do for a living?” We have a bad habit of measuring our happiness by what we can and cannot do. We perceive advancing age with great fear of all the things we may lose the ability to do. We as individuals, as a nation, as a planet, loving giving endless attention to doing and the value of doing. Anyone who has ever spent more than five minutes in America knows that American worships productivity. In America if you do not work unrealistically hard at doing something, if you are not producing, you are dead weight. Goals and quotas are the name of the game, and your worth is only as good as the last thing you produced.

    Being Simple – Simple Being. – Argisle

    The Eastern perception of mind, Ayurvedic psychology and Taoism, suggests a completely different perception on doing. These masters suggest that being is a higher state of mind than doing. Being in the present moment with an open Heart is the very purpose and nature of mind dreaming itself in a material arena. We are human beings not human doings. Nothing will ultimately work for us until we surrender to being here now. These ancient philosophies indicated that there is a way to stop all the problems and limitations, struggles and suffering. There is a way to simply end these in our lives. There is a way to create a final resolution to the on-going drama. How? To be. The instant we are willing to be with what is in the present moment, we are in a the feeling place, the Heart, not the doing place, the head. This is a self-corrective place, the place where the human and the divine become One.

    Ayurveda and Taoism warn us that all of the most menacing acts against life and love happen in the name of defending what we think and believe, and in the name of doing. Why did Hitler do what he did? To become the next world leader, of course. Why did Charles Manson do what he did? To lead what he thought and believed was the next Cultural Revolution. Why do large corporations squeeze the lifeblood out of their employees, and then fire them when their bodies can’t keep up with the pressure? Why do they replace these loyal workers with someone half their age at half the salary? It is done in the name of productivity – becoming more work efficient and cost effective. That is all that matters. It is truly an ugly attack on equability. This vicious cycle of ignorance and pain will unendingly feed upon itself until doing perception is broken.

    We have discussed at length the disease of duality. This disease infects our perception. Once the disease enters mind through the doorway of perception, it then immediately infects the frontal lobe with deep loyalty to subject/object orientation. I am over here- the subject. And everything not me is the object. A wave must be giving attention to duality; it must love subject/object in order to develop such a strong and abiding love for doing. In order to do there must be a you to start the action, and an object in order to for the doing action to become complete. If there is no subject/object, no duality, there would be no love for doing or doing to become. Instead everything would simply be about being here now.

    No wave can serve two masters. A wave cannot be giving attention to being and doing at the same time. The Eastern studies of mind say that being is One with eternal consciousness. Doing is one with the ego. The ego wants, needs to do. Without doing how could the ego tyrannize you with not good enough, and did not do it right? Doing is how we define our value, power and worth. Doing is the camouflage we wear to distract us from how we are treating other people. After all, isn’t getting the job done more important than how we treat others and ourselves in the process? Doing is the doorway to hell that comparison and judgment charge right through. We have trained the ego that we will rely on doing to define our identity. The ego will decide according to when and how the doing gets done what value, power and worth we are allowed to accept, if any. Doing gets more attention than sex. There is something just not right about that.

    Doing to become is our very most beloved demon of destruction. If the purpose of life were doing to become, then every workaholic in history of mankind would have reached enlightenment by now. But as we have all noticed, it does not happen that way. No one could produce enough temporal anything to evolve their way into an eternal place like Heaven. We did not come here to do things in our mind. We came here to be with our mind. We did not come here to do things to our relationships. We came here to be with our relationships. It is in being with what is in the present moment with an open Heart that true enlightenment is realized. Jesus did not come to the planet to model doing for us. He came here to model being with what is in the present moment with an open Heart. He came here to model an inner space of complete innocence form any thought or belief.

    In the life of the historic Buddha, when he left home, he scaled the walls of the palace leaving behind his wife, children and his parents, the King and Queen. The Buddha set forth upon a path of full awakening. The journey he set upon had nothing to do with doing. That is what he left behind. That is the false king he would not serve. This is the first thing he separated from his attention. The Buddha’s path was bout being fully awake, not doing to become fully awake. The famous Tibetan Buddhist master Sogyal Rinpoche says it like this, “When you realize the nature of the mind, layers of confusion peel away. You don’t actually ‘become’ a Buddha, you simply cease, slowly to be deluded.