Tag: knowing

  • If you don’t know…

    I heard Wayne Dyer speak of what we know, and the comparrison to what we don't know and yet how we live in the small place believing only in what we know.

    As I heard him talk about moving out of the small space of knowing into the mystery of unknown and live from there, it is exactly as I did with my daughter yesterday.

    Somehow, in my mind, I believed that I had to know what was best…and then give my advice in how to get there.  When in actuality, it is just a mind game, a place of believing you know, while the unknown is really alive and moving.

    When I fully embrace that I can't know, I am free.  It is only when I feel I am supposed to know and it is impossible to know, that I feel out of control.

    Yet if I fully embrace the out of controllness of unknowing I am free.

    Not sure if I can articulate this correctly, but the feelings inside are completely different.

    As a mother who FEELS she should know, and it is impossible to know, I feel anxiety and stress.

    As a mother who FEELS she can't know and doesn't know, she is totally at one with the mystery of the unknown.  I love that I am not supposed to know.

    I was okay not knowing where I was going, but somehow the mother part was still plugged into believing that I know, as far as my kids are concerned.

    It seemed like a careless mother to not know.  So much for the phrase, "Mother knows best…"

    What advice can you give if you don't know?

     

  • Baton-Less!

    I thought about innocence yesterday and what it is, how is it experienced and do I truly know it.

    This morning it came to me that I was picking up pieces of innocence as I walked searching for truth, and that perhaps truth is innocence, for without truth can there be innocence?  And is it possible to have experienced so much that isn't innocent and still be innocent or be able to return to the land of innocence?

    I had looked up the meaning of innocence and one definition said, "freedom from guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil – blamelessness.  I like this one.

    Being free of guilt…

    I thought perhaps it was impossible to get back a state of innocence, that once you fell out of that pureness, it would be impossible to wipe yourself clean again.

    Innocence dies when you feel blamed.  Innocence dies when you become acquainted with evil… And it returns when the blame lies outside of you.

    If everyone would look upward, toward their parents, victims would dry up…innocence would bloom…like a chain reaction of love flowing backwards through generations; innocence would flourish.

    Seeing the flow of guilt and how it poured downward into small children, you can see the cause…how it forms and why.

    Alice Miller is correct, that the fourth commandment has really messed with our heads and psyches, by bringing blame into our selves out of fear of blaming our parents.

    Innocence is being able to stand up and face the truth of what is…not carrying the blame, shame and guilt that isn't mine to carry.  I didn't start this trickle down affect, but I do carry my responsibility to stop it from flowing down into my children.

    If I blame my children for 'making me mad' or 'losing control', I am passing the baton of guilt to my child.  If she reaches for the baton, she will lose her innocence.  Taking the blame for something you didn't start is to lose your innocence.

    Taking back your innocence is to hand back the blame.

    A relay going backwards, is the only way we can heal ourselves from abuse…

    The weight of carrying the wrong baton is where all the issues lie.  

    I remember in the early days of my mental breakdown, the days of discovering that all I thought I knew, I knew nothing….I recall feeling that this mess was much to big for me AND that I can't fix what I didn't create.  

    It took me out of the lives of my parents and siblings and into my own.  My own was a big enough mess and I carried only that.

    I handed the batons of guilt and responsibility back to my parents.

    I handed the batons of guilt and responsibility back to my siblings.

    And only sat with what I was responsible for.  

    In the past, in the present or in my future.  Holding that damn baton in order to keep my parents guilt free, had done nothing to clean them up, but in fact dirtied me.

    I see sins being forgiven the same way.  "Here hold my guilt for me…carry the burdens of my bad choices!"

    Quitting the relay team of guilt has set me free…I carry only me.

    I take responsibility for what I do, what I say and how I act.

    My children don't have to carry any part of me.

    I am a self contained container…a free me.

    Innocence is being free to be me…baton-less!

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    Photograph by Hannah Jukuri….

     

  • The Art of Avoiding Stress.

    "I am not going to look for stress this year…I am going to Avoid it"  Ann Sandberg

    It isn't so much that we don't know what stresses us, but we may not know how to avoid it or feel that we can.

    I go back to what Eckart Tolle said about life, that there are only three ways to be in life. In Enjoyment, Enthusiasm or Acceptance.

    And in life, there are things we have to do, that we would prefer avoiding, but due to being out voted, you have to do it…so acceptance may be all you can do. 

    The word Consciousness means, "The state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings."  I would also state, being aware of your energy levels as well as seeing your surroundings and knowing what needs to be done and knowing what is reasonable for you.

    I believe that learning how to avoid stress is the answer to all peace. 

    Learning that if you can't be in enjoyment or with enthusisam, you have to be accepting. 

    What I failed to accept this Christmas was my cold or  that my body would be too tired to pull off a big Christmas dinner for 11.

    I failed to ask for more help.

    I failed to slip away and take a much deserved rest.

    I failed to do and ask for what my body needed.

    And in doing so felt stress.

    Avoiding the feelings of stress means being proactive…and not waiting until you are up to your neck in stress, but to never even get to the overwhelming mark. 

    Women especially are used to just piling on more and more.  And I did okay with the mail.  I did okay with the mail and cold, and even to enjoy Christmas Eve, and Christmas Morning.  It all fell apart after that, my level of giving had gone…and I didn't speak up.  I let the doingness overlap the amount of energy I had…and I failed to call for help, so I drowned in doing too much.

    I lost the peace of Christmas…within me.

    I had no energy to do, but I didn't stop…that has to be the meaning of stress.

    To do when you have no desire or energy to do so.

    Avoiding stress is to speak up or stop doing.

    I am betting it was seen as weak or less valuable to ask for help in my childhood.  I somehow have these markers within me…to be viewed as a woman who can do it all.

    When clearly we all have energy levels that max out.

    Knowing when to say when…stopping before you are too extended and frazzled is to gracefully remain in peace.

    I lost my peace because I didn't speak up…and say "I can't".

    I neglected my inner feelings and energy levels, I let them silently become overwhelmed.  This is an old routine with me.  One that I will learn to finesse this year…the art of avoiding stress.

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    Photograph By Hannah Jukuri

  • 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! 

     

     

  • My own formation.

    In the past six years I have been learning new software, my body functions the same, it just responds differently.

     

    My arms move, my mouth speaks, my brain thinks yet they are doing things completely in a new way.

     

    It is like waking up one day and your body refuses to do what it used to do; the inner driving force has switched gears completely, it is all backwards.

     

    This new software has me moving in the opposite direction of my old flying formation, I go right and others move left, I go up and the others go down, I feel totally out of zinc.

     

    I am the lady in a country line dancing row… three steps off.

     

    It seems I didn’t have a slow software exchange, but one day a whole complete system was inside of me.

     

    Like a new me hopped inside and began living my life while still in my old life.

     

    I have to give credit to my husband and children for being able to bring this new me into their old lives, to welcome and get used to her new ways.

     

    As we go forth there will still be more steps I will take that will be out of rhythm with theirs, and we falter and then get used to this unique dance of ours.  Me going one way and them going another in harmony.

     

    We are dancing to the same song but moving with our own rhythm.

    I often feel like the odd duck, but oddly a very free duck.  I fly in my own formation. 

     

  • Pain Free

    "A huge part of our task becomes noticing unskillful reactions and learning to let them go. This is not a denial of some part of our self. It is simply the abandoning of actions that cause harm and suffering (mostly to ourselves). When we pick up a hot utensil on the stove, we don’t have to think about who we are before we drop it, or who we might become if we dropped it, or become afraid that we would not be authentic to ourselves if we drop it—it’s painful and we drop it!Most of us only make such a mistake once. It’s the same in the heart, except that the hot utensil has been in our hand so long, maybe most of our life, that we’ve forgotten what not buring feels like or don’t know who we would be without the burning, we are afraid to put it down. This may sound absurd, but when you think how hard it is to stop being defensive in the face of criticism, or to let go of self-judgment, it makes sense.  But that doesn’t mean easy.”                       Sean Felt

     

    I saw this posted on Facebook, and find that it is the perfect paragraph I was seeking to explain how it is easier to hang on and continuing doing the same hurtful thing instead of letting go and changing. 

    It seems incredibly insane to want to hold near and dear to you things that cause you pain, but if the only ‘normal’ you have ever known feels this way, it isn’t painful it is love.

    Which is why it is so very difficult to get people to drop the burning utensils, for they have become calloused and acclimated and have forgotten what not burning feels like.

    Not burning feels like an enemy when it is actually your friend.

    This flipped upside down reactionary response to clutch hurtful things and steer away from cool non-hurtful ones, creates a journey filled with self inflicted pain for we don’t know how to let go.

    As incredible as it seems it is ‘easier’ to hang on than let go.

    It is the only self we know, this painful hurting self, we fear being a pain free self.  

    I have found that it is incredibly hard to let go and drop that which hurts you, when you had labeled hurt love.

    I wasn’t dropping abuse… I was dropping love.

    It seems so silly that you will not release yourself from hurt, but we don’t call it hurt we call it love.

    And in this flipped out state, our reactions are the opposite of what is normal.  Clutching hurt we push away from real love.

    We live as this anomaly, upside down and inside out.

    It’s not easy to change this, it will take Herculean efforts to return your self to normal responses, to reset your reactions to what hurts and what doesn’t, to feel normal while pain free.

     

  • Protected me.

    For six years I have been saying that I have no memory, and I have lied. I have no mind memory, but my body has always had its memory.

    I don’t have actual vivid stories to recount, but I do have the physical reaction within my body’s mass, its nerves and muscles…it knows what I forgot to remember.

    For years I wasn’t pleased with my ‘cold’ body, how it chose not to get close to my parents, how it literally would feel unease in their presence, never the desire to snuggle close or lean in and get into their aurora.

    It was like I wasn’t driving this body, that this body had a life of its own…it craved things and repelled things on its own volition.

    Now with hidden truths and untold stories known, I now am supportive of this living organism that has a beautiful memory, a trusting articulate knowing and isn’t fooled by flimsy masks.

    It never pretended to pretend it always reacted accurately aligning itself to the experiences of its past.

    Me inside was always disappointed in its lack of warmth for my parents, its lack of trust and faith and its inability to recognize and feel their love.

    My body stood strong and resilient to all my longings and childish wishes…it would not give up what it knew.

    It knew my father’s imprint, my mother’s indifference…it never once changed its way, lost its courage or grace.

    It just was…

    An abused body and it knew its source.

    Its memory carried me when I was to blind to see, to wounded to know, It always has protected me…

  • New old natural way…

    I am strong enough to become weak and vulnerable.

    I am now open to receive instead of standing in defense, to look at life with an open chest instead of hunched over in protection.

    As I did yoga today, in the postures that required me to have my arms wide open and breathing deeply opening my chest, I visualized me receiving.

    Opening up like a flower bloom to welcome in the Sun.

    Receiving is something that I have forgotten to do for me, yet inside I feel the urge to receive.

    I am not sure what, for it is different than wanting or desiring, it is much easier… just being open and soft and welcoming.

    My hardness was for self-protection and as I discovered my voice, spoke my feelings and set up boundaries, my hardness began to soften and become supple.

    I was growing stronger and softer, exchanging old tired overworked defense muscles for the unused scrunched up receiving ones.

    In yoga I notice you have to relax one muscle and tense up the other, it is letting go and pulling, that in order to go deeper you relax one set and flex the other.

    Inside I feel strong enough to relax and grow soft, to weaken my hyper alertness for trouble and to heighten my awareness for joy and beauty, to be open to trust and love life in a new old natural way.

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  • An Artist with words.

    I have been going to writing classes, listening as Authors speak of their writing techniques and style, it seems they all know what their pattern is called and how it works, and I have yet to hear one who writes like me.

    My words come barreling out, pushing and shoving each other; they are not at all concerned about style and land on the page happy to be free from my tangled mine.

    They are driven by confusion and fear mostly, and feel much better on a clear white paper, all sorted out and explained.

    My writing starts usually with a thread or a nagging and often times a sinking feeling, and it matters not to me or the words how they look after we are done explaining.

    They are all bunched up in my head, running over each other, truths buried beneath the piles of fearful thoughts, overrun with uprooted beliefs and all are wanting the space to sort themselves out.

    A place where they can line up and be seen and felt, acknowledged and labeled correctly, room for separating truth from fiction.

    They are in a hurry and are reckless, heedless to watching where they land and how. Haphazardly flopped they care less about how they look as long as they are felt properly.

    As a writer I have failed in the eyes of the writing teachers, for I have not followed any proven path, but set out on my own and let my words land as they may, letting them be the creators not I.

    It truly puzzles me how they can know ahead what the words are going to need, how they can have in mind the structure that they will use to express themselves, like map writing, they seem to know where the words are going.

    My words are like vagabonds wandering around or riots of revolting feelings; it would be nearly impossible to know ahead of time where they are going, let alone draw a map ahead of time.

    Perhaps my words and self-expression have been tied up in the dark for too long; guarded, restrained and held in strict beliefs and ideas, that we are not willing to succumb to lying down nicely, instead we run wild in expressive freedom.

    Maybe I am not a writer at all, but an artist with words.

  • Meet your Truth.

    Remember playing with magnets as a child, and how they would either click together or be repelled apart?

    I was reminded of magnets as my friend talked about situations we get into in relationships, where we are going along with mutual attraction and then somehow we get flipped around and now are being repelled apart.

    I recalled the magnet’s inner wisdom was much smarter than our strength, no matter what we did; they knew when they matched or when one of them was turned the wrong way, in order to click together they had to be facing the right way.

    And it was fun to feel the push away from these seemingly innate objects, like they had a mind of their own.

    The image of my friend’s hands and how they moved to resemble magnets stayed with me as I looked at my husband and myself and how we seemed at odds, and how we trying to realign ourselves.

    It seemed his truth and my truth didn’t match, and our bodies knew, repelling replaced our old attraction.

    My body has a magnet of its own and the flesh is just a covering on top and beneath my skin is this energy field that knows things my wandering mind misses.

    And my mind has learned that by faking it or pretending to be okay when the body is not, is fruitless for what I seek most is for the body to teach my mind.

    I listen and receive signals of distress or of peace.

    In the past I was the opposite; I turned away from the signals and bull headedly marched on, heedless to the discomfort my body screamed.

    My mind that had been taught what to believe, what was right and what was wrong and it neglected to seek counsel of my body. In fact the body, I was taught, was full of sin and it had the devils magnetic field that would pull us asunder.

    You would go to Hell if you followed your body; Heaven was to be gained by following your mind.

    Your body was your greatest enemy.

    As I write this, I know that my childhood religion was threatened by the wise wisdom of this knowing body.

    Imagine the wonderful creation of God, this highly functioning self-healing living breathing body being the devils property?

    What the religion was teaching was to go against the magnetic pull of my own body.

    With this being my background I as accustomed of turning away from my body, of shunning its desires and passions and neglecting the wise inner gut feelings and focusing instead of following the masses, the church leader and listening to what he and they felt was best for me.

    Stepping away from my body I lived disconnected and out of touch…I worked religiously against my own magnetic pull.

    Imaging going against your own truth!

    It is incredible to me that we all have these wonderful magnets that are infused into all our cells, and they know what is true.

    If you use your body like this big lie detector or treat it like a magnet for truth that it is, your life will be less complicated.

    I watched my daughter and how she appeared physically in our world while she lived a lie. Like a diseased plant she began to fail.

    What I notice about my body is it likes it when I speak the truth, even if the truth sounds bad, it cheers.

    When I was on our local school board and the president of the board lived in another city, but was on our board, it made sense to my body to say, “You have a pretend house in Chassell, so you can be legitimately on our board.” I told him, a man who pretended to live here and who had a fake home in our town were directing me on the board.

    My body felt better being there with the truth hanging out. And I knew better than putting trust or faith in a pretending man.

    So, even if you can’t make moves to get out from beneath the lies don’t lie about your situation; give your body the full report.

    It is not the actual reality that distresses the body, but us telling the body it isn’t really there. It likes to have a well-balanced reality accounting sheet.

    I love that I am aware of my body’s magnet and how its preset to the truth, how I can rely on it subtle and not so subtle readings, how it vibrates at a certain note to gain my attention, letting me know when I am not seeing or being in truth.

    My Universe and this magnet are connected and both dance perfectly in harmony with reality.

    My body thrives best in the reality of truth and I speak reality’s harshest truths with great courage for I now what happens when I don’t. I get repelled away from peace, love and joy.

    My magnet is set uniquely for me and I get anxious and scared when lies pile up and truth seems far away…

    Namaste, means the Spirit in me recognizes the Spirit within you…what I believe maybe more beneficial is my truth wants to meet your truth.