I M Perfect lady

Tag: God

  • With a body or without!

    Spiritual Education
    “Fortunate is the seeker who has not been led away from the straight and narrow path by diversions and popularized attractions. People spend lifetimes searching for authentic teachings and become sidetracked by the seduction of attractive, glamorized aberrations from truth. These turn out to be fictional or romanticized fantasies that attract the naïve person’s inner child. Spiritual fairy tales abound and impress the credulous for whom anything labeled ‘spiritual’ is imbued with a magical glamour. To go through that stage is routine during initial, uncritical enthusiasm and exploration.”

    “ The primary problem initially is the lack of awareness of the difference between the truly spiritual reality and the astral, paranormal, or supernatural domains. To the naïve, these latter alternatives seem amazing and impressive. This is due to the discovery that there are surprisingly more areas of human experience that the strictly physical, emotional, and mental ones. Consequently, a ‘right-on’ psychic reading is indeed impressive to an erstwhile, naïve seeker or novitiate. It is also easy to become sidetracked by the seemingly astonishing wonder of a whole new dimension of possible realities.”

    “The majority of popular best-selling, supposedly spiritual books is actually fictional, and their average level of truth is a calibrated level 190, as are slick appearing ‘spiritual’ magazines that glamorize fallacious fantasies of ‘other dimensions’, and so on. The paradox is that the appeal is to the naïve seeker who has not yet mastered this dimension, much less other fanciful ones.”

    “There are, of course, other dimensions and ultimate realities that are well represented by adepts, trance readers, channelers, psychics, clairvoyants, shamans, magicians, ‘masters’, deceased celebrities, erstwhile astrologers, throwers of Rune stones, and more. To add to the glamour, many of these diversions have large collections of faithful followers and enthusiasts who are impressed and thereby influenced, as well as seduced, by the magical notion of the unseen paranormal. Also popular are ‘ancient secret mysteries’, UFO religions, primitive rites, magic symbols, crystals, incantations, energy manipulation, and spirits from other realms.”

    “Classical spiritual traditions and integrous scripture do not refute the supernatural/paranormal, but warn “not to go there”. The same advice is also prescribed by all true spiritual masters and enlightened teachers. By conscious calibration research, all such ‘entities’ on the ‘other side’ can be calibrated, as well as ‘fallen gurus’ from other eras who succumbed to the illusory gain of power over others by spiritual seduction. (See Lewis, 2001; Partridge, 2003)”

    “The so-called ‘astral circus’ was at its most influential in ancient Mesopotamia. The expertise of the adepts, many of who are still the same as they were in that era, have perfected their skills over long periods of earthly time. Like an experienced expert salesman, they intuitively pick up on a vulnerability or a weakness, especially proneness to glamorization. If such entities were indeed what they claim to be, they would have long ago evolved on to the celestial realms.”

    “There is no lack of integrous, reliable spiritual truth accessible by ordinary means. Thus, the seeking of the extraordinary is a trap for the unwary. An ego that is ‘out of body’ is actually just the same as an ego in a body, except that it now has the mystification of being physically elusive. Exploration of other dimensions can be facilitated and learned by induced and altered states of consciousness. The primary temptation is one of child-like curiosity. On the other hand, there are some entities on the ‘other side’ that calibrate over 200 but they do not have any information that is not available by ordinary means (e.g., be kind to your neighbor).”

    “Supranormal qualities arise as an experiential reality when consciousness levels reach the high 500s as a consequence of the rising kundalini spiritual energy field. These phenomena, classically termed siddhis, are the normal expression of consciousness levels that are beyond linear. The student is advised to be aware that they are not personal and to merely witness the phenomena. By so doing, it will be evident that the phenomena are qualities specific to the spiritual energy itself; they are not personal because they are not controllable by the person. The phenomena, on the other hand, can be impressive as one witnesses the seemingly miraculous events unfold effortlessly. The reason they appear to be miraculous is because of their being witnessed by the linear mind with is limited perception of cause and effect. The unfolding of the seeming miraculous is merely ‘normal’ from a higher perspective.”

    “These paranormal spiritual phenomena are described by mystics and saints of various religious denominations and have been reported throughout the ages. By calibration, ‘sainthood’ represents level 570 and above. The siddhis are indeed somewhat wondrous to behold, and the spiritual energy field may, of its own, transmit to other people so that healings take place in accord with karmic propensities. The ‘miraculous’ is thus not volitional or controllable, nor is it the consequence of any person; thus, there is no ‘person’ who performs miracles. It is instead the consequence of the healing power of the Self.”

    “The siddhis arise of their own and bring about the capacity for psychomentry, clairvoyance, clairaudience, distant vision, and other telepathic types of faculties. They are also unpredictable and evanescent. Some come and go over variable periods of time that may last from weeks to months to a number of years. With forewarning, the student who witnesses and experiences these phenomena can easily dismiss the temptation of ownership and its implied specialness. Integrity and humility preclude claiming ownership of the phenomena and thus being trapped by an illusion. The siddhis are discussed at some length in “Transcending the Levels of Consciousness.”

    David Hawkins – Discovery of the Presence of God

    What I found so disheartening, is that the naïve seeker can fall for the same foolery from the ‘other side’ as well as they can from this side.

    Now, I have no experience of ‘fallen gurus’ from the other side, but I have witnessed the fallen gurus on this side, preying upon the weak and confused, making them more weak and confused.
    I love the line from the Buddha, who says, “If you see a guru along the way, kill him.” Meaning follow no one but your own inner knowing, your own emotional feelings, to set your own compass, to question all things, to seek to be curious, to ask the questions, to look above and below, to be like a child and accept nothing without a question of Why!!!!

    Isn’t it chilling that there are fallen gurus on the other side looking for egos in bodies to gain power over??? Again, whether this is the ultimate truth, I can’t say from experience, but somehow it feels correct.

    Any guru worth his salt will let you keep your own truth, be he with a body or without!

  • Highest Good of All.

    The Will
    “The Spiritual Will is not like the ego’s understanding of will as ‘will power’, which means emotional force with clenched teeth of exertion and increased emotionality. The ego-driven will takes energy and is taxing. It could actually be understood as a form of aggression. In contrast, invoking the Spiritual Will is like opening floodgates and then standing back. The ego/will contextualizes events in terms of cause and effect in which the personal self-will claims credit or blame because it sees itself as a causal agent. In contrast, the Spiritual Will is not personal but is a quality of consciousness that changes context by surrender to an invitation to the power of the Self. The Spiritual Will calibrates at 850, and the personal will calibrates at only the person’s current level of consciousness.”

    “The Spiritual Will, invited by complete surrender is thus capable of performing the seeming ‘miraculous’, whereas the personal will, paradoxically, often automatically triggers resistances, as anyone knows who has tried personal ‘will power’ to overcome even minor habits.”

    “Surrender of the personal will to the Will (Wisdom of God (or Providence, Higher Power) signifies relinquishment of control. One can expect the ego to resist doing so, and it invents excuses, counterarguments, and multiple fears in order to maintain illusory control. The ego’s positions are reinforced by pride as well as desire for specific results. Thus, to the ego, to step back and invite the intervention of Divinity seems like a loss whereas, to the Spirit, it is definitely a win.”

    “Another limitation to the personal will is that it has no knowledge of karmic propensities or propitious timing, nor does it have the wisdom (omnipotence) to comprehend beneficial sequence. The Self orchestrates with an inner knowingness of capacity. For instance, to try to face a certain conflict prematurely may be unsuccessful, whereas, it would have been more successful after a few layers of the conflict had been resolved.”

    David Hawkins – Discovery of the Presence of God

    Playing God in someone else life is very tricky, especially if you don’t have all the plans and the karmic understanding and the souls purpose.

    What I found, after I exhausted myself, is that there was no way my self was able to change people, convince them against their will. But the will I was trying to bend, was perhaps God’s Will.

    I can’t know why they do what they do or go where they go, but it seems that they are preprogrammed, predestined to head in that direction and have an unshakeable resolve and focus on going there.

    Just as within me something would not allow me to be with my old family, nor stay asleep in the old dysfunction, I was being led forward from the inside out.

    A me inside woke up to a new direction, a new awareness, a new pathway, and I simply could not go against it.

    This experience within me, reminds me when it seems like I am tangling with a bull, that their journey isn’t open to what I am saying.

    It isn’t me, it truly isn’t time for them to know more, be different etc, in fact it is the right time for them to do exactly as they did.

    I am also reminded that I needed folks to be the perfect examples of my old mindset in order for me to see the dark blindness I had been. They stood waving flags of dysfunction to show me that wasn’t the way.

    So, if you know and believe and trust that within you is the blueprint and the plan, that your course is set and all you have to do is follow it by how you feel, you literally can’t do anything wrong.

    My life unfolded according to plan, and there isn’t one thing that happened before its time, nor one thing that could be removed, it is all perfect.

    The folks I met that seemed indifferent, should have been, that was the job they signed up to play in my life, they they did so perfectly.

    I can take each person I met and see a reason and a lesson I learned from them, how they showed me how to be a more self aware me, how to bring all my love, peace and joy and feel it inside, be a complete package of one.

    Perhaps what we call chaos and evil, are just people with roles to play in order for us to become aware of the Self inside of us, the one that dances to the cosmic plan of the Universe.

    By seeing who they are and how they believe, how their minds work and how disconnected they seems from Spirit, allows me to find my way. I hold no grudges or resentments; I have faith in the Universal plan, that it is all choreographed for the highest good of all.

  • The territory of God, Reality.

    From David Hawkins’s book “Truth vs Falsehood”

    “The limitations of religion have been analyzed by historians from secular viewpoint and by theologians in their criticisms
    as well as by great philosophers over the centuries. The intrinsic problems arise from the canonization of interpretations of spiritual truth that are the consequence of misunderstanding by the spiritual ego of ecclesiastics. Much is lost in translation of teachings that were not written down until centuries after they were spoken.

    “While the above are well-known limitations (as reflected by consciousness calibration), less attention has been paid to the relationship of the follower to the religion itself. The most obvious error is the worship of the religion instead of God (an error not made by the truly enlightened mystic). While religion provides inspiration, spiritual facts, and important information, it is only linear, time-located body of concepts and not the Reality itself. This results in the commonly observed violation of the essential truth of the religion in the name of religion itself. (e.g. Christian and Islamic Crusades, the Inquisition, putting nonbelievers to death, slaughtering innocent in the name of religion, political piracy of religion by theocratic totalitarianism, and rationalization of nonintegrity in “the name of faith,” etc)”

    “In the manner of speaking, religiosity is a subtle form of idolatry that puts the Church as an institution above God. The current slaughter of the innocent in the name of Allah the All Merciful is the glaring example. A more subtle example is the exaggeration of the external trappings and the ethnic peculiarities of the primitive tribal customs that become the focus instead of the core of spiritual truth. Thus, distortions result in oppression and violation of basic religious premises.”

    “The underlying defect in all the above is the downside of the ego itself, which then utilizes religion to its own ends; pride, control, gain, prestige, wealth, adoration, social image, and narcissistic gain. Religion is the means, not the end; it is the map, not the territory; it is the cover, not the book. Thus hyper religiosity itself, which appears as piety, can and does become an error as exhibited by scrupulosity. The great teachers taught the Truth about Divinity, not religion, which came centuries later. While the veneration of religion and scriptures is understandable it is their truth and God that are meant to be worshipped and sought.”
    David Hawkins

    I found reading this very affirmative, in that my experience of religion wasn’t about the relationship with God, but rather the ‘faith’ in the religion.

    I didn’t know God, until I left the religion, for religion had covered Him up, had danced a variable amount of rules and regulations, of fears and judgments that stood between me and Him.

    I love that religion is the cover, not the book…the map and not the territory.

    I have asked others who have left my old religion what they now have, and many will say, they took the faith. I am not sure what that means, Faith in what?

    When I left my old religion, I didn’t take anything from it, for there wasn’t anything tangible to take I had a belief in the map, but not the territory.

    Now I feel that I am walking around in the territory… Of God, Reality.

  • Hide what isn’t there.

    “Speech as opposed to telepathy used by the animals…and the silence of muktas arose due to a need to be untruthful, and have a deeper involvement in material.” Tony O’Clery

    Speech arose due to the need to be untruthful is what I get from this quote, that we use language to deflect the true meaning of our actions or to excuse behavior.

    Immediately I thought of dogs and how we learn who they are by how they behave. A friendly dog acts friendly and an unfriendly dog acts unfriendly.

    What we miss is the excuse or reason an unfriendly dog is unfriendly, we take it as it is for they don’t have the luxury of words to sway us to believe otherwise.

    And we don’t have unfriendly dogs trying to be friendly, by speaking nicely over feelings of unfriendliness.

    Dr. Maya Angelou quote, “People show you who they are, Believe them.”

    Yet time and time again, we will take the words above the action.

    “I love you” will override the abusive action.

    “I am sorry or please forgive me,” is a way to deflect away from the behavior.

    What if we all stood with how we acted each time?

    What if we address immediately the action?

    What if words were used to just speak of actions?

    How often are your words used to get the other person to not believe your actions?

    Owning our actions seems like a really simple thing, but often times our actions alone are untruthful, we go places we don’t want to go, we do things we don’t feel right doing, we go along to get along.

    We get lost to what our own standards are for we get used to doing things for peace and to not be a stick in the mud, to be seen as okay, or a million other reasons.

    Due to this speech thing, we can tell ourselves we are doing something for a good reason, even when the behavior is bad for us and for others, we will find an ulterior motive that makes it okay.

    It is like the Picketers at funerals of soldiers, they feel that their message overrides all events taking place.

    What they fail to see is that their behavior is actually screaming above the signs, their true nature is showing, their hatred and fear arises long before a sign of love.

    They say they are warning us of God’s wrath, what they are displaying is their own wrath.

    The visual of picketers is what I often times feel of people who tell you one thing but do another. That we are supposed to keep our eyes focused on the sign and not see where they are walking and over who they tromp, just focus on the words, like a mad hypnotist of lies they bend us to believe opposite of what is truly going on.

    If you look at the world through the eyes of babies or animals, you would see things differently.

    “Out of the mouths of babes” comes truth, for they have not learned the power of words to hide what isn’t there.

  • You are What you Love.

    “Don’t just make up your mind, make up your heart” Argisle

    I am reading a book, “You are What you Love” by Vaishali, and it is interesting to read that we have two choices, listening to our minds or listening to our Hearts.

    And what you are listening to you love.

    Page 42, Chapter Ultimate Truth & Ultimate Lies.

    “The ego will always direct us towards the limited outcome just like we trained it to do. These ego-based stories, conclusions, thoughts and beliefs are now charged with the energy of our attention, which makes them the wound in the wave. The use of awareness that makes this impression or mark on the psyche is an incomplete action. In Hinduism and Buddhism, incomplete action, or incomplete cause and effect, is called karma.

    We can visualize the impressions as a kind of karmic map of mind. If we want to know our biggest nastiest karma, just look at what our biggest nastiest belief is about ourselves, about life, about relationships, about others and we’ve hit pay dirt. The ego is a lot like CNN but without commercials. If you watch your mind, your wave, it will parade in front of you all the news you have trained it to program and air over and over and over again, ad nausea.

    There is a relationship between unconscious and accumulating karma, and being conscious and burning off karma. It all depends upon what you are doing with your awareness. Let us approach understanding what happens when we are unconscious as the accumulation of incomplete cause and effects. When we are unconscious, we are not in the present moment, we are not accepting what is from an open Heart. When we are unconscious, we are listening to the ego’s limited, tiny version of reality from the head place. This is not what we came her to do with our will, love, service, and life purpose. It is therefore and incomplete action.

    When we are conscious we are in the present moment with what is from an open Heart. When we are conscious it is the Flame of Pure Awareness, the Heartfelt wisdom from the feeling place within, that observes with gratitude the perfection of every given moment. Since this level of conscious practice is the highest function behind the design and creation of the physical world, it is what we came here to do. It is therefore a complete action. Witnessing what is from the Heart is the conscious action that burns off negative and incomplete karma, which accumulates when we listen to the ego from the head.

    Incomplete action or duality happening within the wave would look like this: I give my attention to thoughts and beliefs about who and what I am; I give my attention to thoughts and beliefs about who others are, what life and relationships are; I understand myself, life, world and value system through the deeply trained habit of seeing everything from the subject/object perspective. This would appear internally as an inner dialogue that sounds like, “I am a successful attorney, superior to the dregs I squash in court. My power is that I command respect and am a force to be reckoned with in the courtroom, even though I respect no one other than myself. I drive a sixty foot long Mercedes and I live in a multi-million dollar mansion, in case you are interested in seeing my value and worth measured against yours. This behavior and these possessions make the appropriate statements about my obvious superiority and importance.” The dialog could run in the reverse direction, “I am a lowly piece of shit that no one could possibly love or respect.”

    With incomplete action, a person’s awareness goes out into the exterior world and touches an object: another person, house, care, whatever. Incomplete action occurs when the awareness coming back to the person tells them that whatever they perceive is exactly what they think and believe it is. No one came her to listen to the ego’s version of reality; that is an incomplete action. In doing so, we re-create a story of duality; another person with so much power and worth, who in turn affects my sense of power and worth. It is all cause and effect: thoughts and beliefs, which re-creates more limitations. It just keeps spiraling downwards until it is out of control.

    Action is incomplete because it is not witnessed by the aspect of mind we recognize as the Flame of Pure Awareness. The action was witnessed instead by the ego, by the disease of duality. So when action is witnessed, by the disease we are here to get over, it fragments the mind. It creates more duality, which in turn drives every known and unknown disease and limitation even deeper into the wave. We’ve created our own personal hell.

    The action needs to be witnessed by the aspect of mind that has the inherent power to return our mind to a state of wholeness, beyond the illusory grasp of duality, which fragments mind into tiny pieces. This action can only occur when we give our awareness to eternal consciousness for solving our eternal problems, without a thought or belief, because that is an action we came to the rock to complete. That is the sole action that makes the Flame of Pure Awareness the senior witnessing force in our lives.

    The action is made complete only when awareness going out into the exterior world touches something, and the awareness coming back to the person is then run through the Flame of Pure Awareness in the Heart, not through the ego-head filter. The Flame of Pure Awareness keeps the person in witnessing mode. Without it, we would fall immediately back into the limitation of what we think and believe life and self are. The Flame of Pure Awareness is beyond duality intelligence, beyond subject/object orientation. It is in unifying, indivisible quality of authentic intelligence, which reveals, recognizes, and realizes the interior through the process of witnessing it in the exterior.

    The Flame of Pure Awareness is the intelligence that sees and gets real about how the mind is organized by witnessing itself reflected back in the medium of the physical world. “This is what Jesus means when he refers to “those who have eyes to see;” those who see not illusion, but rather the movement of realized love, movement of the One everywhere.

    When awareness realizes itself, it is purified, and that is the action we came here to complete. When mind becomes self-realizing the action is complete. The purpose of all created life, the purpose of a physical world is for self-realization. It is to fully realize we are what we love, and we love whatever we are giving our attention to. Once we realize what we are doing with our love, manifesting either Heaven or hell on a moment to moment basis, then the action is complete. The purpose of being here is realized.

    When the mind realizes it is looking at itself, the seeds of karma become purified, or roasted by the Flame of Pure Awareness. Then, no karma sprouts up and grows from this action. The action is complete because we go from what it came here to realize. Karma is repeating whatever you need to, until you get it. In future chapters we will refer to karma of an incomplete action as re-creation. Anything born from a limited intelligence, such as the ego, will only have the capacity to re-create what is already here, which is itself limiting. Only healthy God consciousness is unlimited and can therefore create something new, manifest something from nothing. We all came here to create a new response to ultimate lies, to end the limitations we are all here to get over. Eternal consciousness has the power to create a new response to any old or new problem. The ego on the other hand, can only re-create over and over again. It cannot create something new. It is a limited form of consciousness. What do you want from it? If the ego is providing answers to all of your eternal problems, there is only one possible outcome for you. Look up the word futile in the dictionary, if you have not already guessed what that outcome will be.

    Understand what this whole shootin’ match was created for the convenience of your enlightenment. As God consciousness, as eternal consciousness, if there were a better faster way to reach enlightenment, you’d be doing it. You’d already be there. If you do not understand that everything you are experiencing here is the exact, perfect reflection of the relationship you have with your own mind, then you will be destined to re-creating what you think and what you believe it is. That would be re-creating the limitation you are here to get over. This will continue until you realize that what you are looking at is your own mind, and then choose to move on from that place of truth.”

    Vaishali

  • Reality has no Delete Buttons

     

    I am way confused about the applications of religion, the way religion believes that you can hand over your burdens to God, that Jesus will carry the things you don’t want to deal with, that he is a dumping off place.

     

    How can you literally hand the “bad stuff” over?

     

    Like what do you do actually?

     

    How do you take experiences and actions and bundle them up and hand them over?

     

    How do you remove them from your past?

     

    Isn’t it odd that this ‘forgiving and forgetting’ technique is only used for things that are troubling about other people; you never remove the ‘good things’ only the bad things you don’t want to deal with.

     

    It reminds me a huge delete button.

     

    When a person’s action hurts or makes you feel bad, and you don’t really want to address it, you can hit this button.

     

    When an incident happens that changes the original picture of someone, you can just hit the “I forgive you button” and like magic they continue to be ‘good’.

     

    This button will allow the other person not to have the hassle of changing, or making corrections; you are just agreeing to not see them.

     

    Agreeing to not see them does not make them disappear.  You are just two people pretending something is no longer there.

     

    It is like living in a world where hurtful things happen, but you are denying they are there, you are determined not to see/hear and feel them.

     

    I am amazed and blown back that many actually believe this works.

     

    This delete button is in your head; it really doesn’t work in reality.

     

    You simply can’t walk along and hit this button when people’s behavior is unkind.

     

    You can’t create a new version of someone by overlooking his or her behaviors/actions! It simply doesn’t work in reality.  In reality the person continues on doing that which he does and you are just overlooking it.

     

    How supposedly intelligent individuals cannot see this NOT working puzzles me.

     

    The only delete button is actions.

    They have to act different.

    They have to walk a new walk to change their behavior.

     

    You simply can’t forgive and forget enough times to make the other person change.

     

    My mother tried this repeatedly and my father continued to abuse little girls.  Her forgiving and forgetting allowed him to not have to change.

     

    Oh MY God you simply can’t stuff this stuff into a belief in your head and make the world a better place!  You have to deal in the real.

     

    What is so insane to me is I am seen as the one with the issues for I have no delete button anymore!  I am the problem, because I will not forgive and forget.

     

    My delete button is broken.

     

    I am out of my mind and into reality.

     

    Reality has no delete buttons!

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Being Me!

    I heard something today that I know I have never considered, that when you feel whatever it is you are feeling, that is you.  The You is comprised of feelings and so often we try and run from them, but then we are actually running from our self!

    Geneen Roth and Oprah were discussing her book, "Woman, Food, and God" and about feeling discomfort of any kind and how we usually  eat when we feel uncomfortable. 

    I see this like we are getting to know our bodies to be able to read what they are telling us, and if you look around your surroundings, you can usually find out what is the cause of those feelings.

    In my case, the fear was justified from my father, fear didn't arise for no reason, my body was trying to tell me something, and I ignored the sensations within my body.

    In her book, Geneen is trying to reconnect us back with our bodies and in doing so she will reconnect you with your truth.

    It is an amazing journey to look at what you are doing instead of feeling that which you don't want to feel.

    I simply love that what I feel is me.  And I love that I can now voice what I feel and act upon those feelings.  I no longer have to pretend that I don't feel what I feel, in fact I won't pretend to pretend to pretend any more!

    I am now learning when to stop eating or when to eat.  I am getting to learn the signals of fullness from my belly.

    What an exciting thing to learn about you by looking at your body.  She is the one too that says "Your beliefs are how your body looks."  Deepak Chopra says that the mind is manifested in your body.

    The more conscious I am, the more aware of my body, the less influence the crazy mind has on what it does.

    Just as I learned how to navigate out of dysfunctional relationships, I am hopeful that I can learn what kinds of foods my body really wants.  I will have to listen and pay attention to what it feels.

    Learning every day about this magnificent living organism, the human body.  Which goes back to the saying "We are Spiritual Beings having a Human experience."

    I am becoming more aware of both and learning what they both need, to have the best human experience of being me!

    Thanks Geneen and Oprah.

  • The Truth of who we are.

     

     

    Annihilate.

    destroy something: to destroy something completely, especially so that it ceases to exist.

    defeat somebody: to defeat somebody easily and decisively.

    This definition wasn’t what I expected, somehow when people spoke of being annihilated, they were speaking of being put aside, a feeling of disconnection.  Not that they were defeated, destroyed, and that you cease to exist, wow this changes the meaning for me.

    Oprah spoke of feeling annihilated, that her grandmother used to beat her and after giving her a whipping her grandmother didn’t want to see an expression of pain. Oprah wasn’t allowed to express that or show how painful it was.  So she annihilated the experience from herself.

     

    The whippings had to be destroyed or cease to exist and she had to annihilate herself from feelings, to disconnect from the sensations of her body, to not feel what she felt.

     

    Her grandmother also annihilated the little girl.

     

    It is so easy for an adult to do this to a child, to easily and decisively defeat someone that is half your size and to destroy completely their innocence so it ceases to exist, to leave the child annihilated from being a child.

     

    How tragic this application of annihilation is when applied to children who suffer under the hands of confused adults, how they are literally disconnecting the child from its own body, its feelings and sets them upside down with their feelings.

     

    We love and fear and respect those who hurt us for we are not allowed to express what our bodies are speaking.

     

    Annihilation is the perfect word for abuse.  It destroys who we would have been, that person ceases to exist.

     

    We are annihilated from the truth of who we are.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • I Did Not Run Away!

    “I did it,” I said as I completed the last pose, I did it and I felt this accomplishment deep within, I did it.

     

    The overwhelming emotional feeling of victory settled all around me as I was bathed in the feelings of success.  A success between my relationship with my body and I; I had kept my word!

     

    I am learning how to be present,  be aware and to be honest with my body, what I put in my body and how best to treat it.

     

    For so long my relationship has been distant, aloof, uncaring and neglectful and my body displayed that marvelously.

     

    The body is such an incredible living mirror; it can only reflect how you treat it, nothing more or nothing less.  It simply responds.

     

    I am with a body that lived for years and years without a connection with me, for I didn’t want to feel its pain.

     

    Geneen Roth explains in her book Woman, Food and God, “…I tell my students that the greatest blessing of their lives is their relationship with food.  They look at me rather quizzically, but the sentiment sounds so lovely that they are willing to hear me out.  Then I say that we are not going to fix their relationship with food; we are actually going to walk through the door of their eating problem and see what’s behind it.  Instead of using food to avoid discomfort, they are going to learn how to tolerate what they believe is intolerable.”  Geneen

     

    I found out that I loved sweets for their ability to numb my body and make me tired, I am learning that by doing yoga it can wake me up and give me energy.

     

    It makes sense to me that I distanced myself from my body that I tried to shut it down.  It was hurt and abused. As a small child I had to shut it down to survive and I escaped with food that numbed the body so I didn’t have to feel.

     

    As you awaken this body back up, you do have to feel what you couldn’t feel way back when, but you feel more alive than you ever have felt, more powerful and confident knowing you can feel deeply and still breathe!

     

    When you numb out the bad feelings you also take the good ones too.  I didn’t know this. 

     

    I felt the rush of victory and accomplishment I did it! 

     

    I stayed with my body for 120 days I did not run away! 

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • How I Treat My Body.

    “There are many ways to deprive yourself:  You can deprive yourself of cookies or you can deprive yourself of feeling well after eating them.  You can deprive yourself of feeling your sadness or you can deprive yourself of the confidence and well-being that come from knowing you won’t be destroyed by feeling it.”  Geneen Roth

     

    It really struck me that we are deprived one way or the other, and you get to decide what you want to deprive yourself of.

     

    I love that there are two choices, which you can either feel good or not feel good. 

     

    When I do yoga I feel good, that I am taking care of this body, moving it and stretching it, and making it stronger. I am depriving myself the opportunity to beat me up.

     

    I have begun to also be aware of what I am putting in my body, most of the time.  When I eat whole foods, I deprive myself of feeling bad about myself.

     

    Here is another section that caught my attention.

     

    “My mother had spent years telling me I was selfish, and it was upon that nub of information that I built a monument of deficiency.  But as I widened the myopic gaze on I-me-mine, I saw my mother at age twenty-five with two small children, a loveless marriage and a desperate need to have a different life.  With the little information she had, and doing the best she could do, she called me selfish for wanting more that she could give.  And since I would have died for her, and since every child needs her parents to be right, I took myself to be the sum of her limitations.  I saw myself through the eyes of a lonely, depressed, troubled woman – and never questioned my loyalty to her vision.  And then there was my father who saw me as a ditzy dumb blonde. Add ditzy dumb blonde to “selfish, fat, and unlovable” and you have who I took myself to be for almost fifty years.

     

    Psychologists and spiritual teachers alike call this learned version of our selves “ego” or “personality” or “false self”.  It’s false because your idea of yourself is based on who your mother took you to be, and her idea of herself was based on who her mother took her to be, which was based on who her mother took her to be, your idea of yourself – the person whose feelings get hurt, who takes offense at being criticized, who is webbed to her opinions and preferences or ideas- is based on those of someone who’s never met you.  Your self-image is refracted so many times – with learned inferences and memories and conditioning- that it is nothing more than a hall of mirrors.

     

    Talk about a hoax.  You are not who you think you are.  Hardly anyone is.  Because although kids come into this world with an implicit understanding of who they are, they have no self-reflective consciousness.  They know who they are, but they don’t know that they know.  And the only way to find out is by seeing themselves in their parent’s eyes.  We become what and who are parents saw.  Figments of their imagination. 

     

    Then, as my teacher Jeanne says, we spend our lives following instructions given to us ten or thirty or fifty years ago by people we wouldn’t ask for street directions from today.”  Geneen

     

    In my experience my whole self was designed from my mother’s point of view and how my father treated me.

     

    Here is more from Woman Food and God,  “The obsession will end when you love discovering your true nature more than you love being loyal to your mother or father.  The obsession will end because you care enough about yourself to stop damaging yourself with food.  Because you love yourself enough to stop hurting yourself.  Who doesn’t want to take care of what they love?

     

    If you pay attention to when you are hungry, what your body wants, what you are eating, when you’ve had enough, you end the obsession because obsessions and awareness can’t co-exist.  When you pay attention to yourself, you notice the difference between being tired and being hungry.  Between being satisfied and being full.  Between wanting to scream and wanting to eat.

     

    The more you pay attention, the more you fall in love with that which is not obsessed: that which is blazing itself through you.  The life force that animates your body.  Food becomes a way to sustain the blaze, and way of eating that keeps you depressed or spaced out or uncomfortable loses its appeal.  When that happens, you slowly realize that you are being lived by that which is God and you wouldn’t have it any other way.”  Geneen

     

    I love how she writes this, for it is exactly true in my experience…. Once I had redefined myself, I then began to treat myself better to the point I love myself enough to take care of how I treat my body.