Tag: life

  • 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?

     

  • Free will is outside of the Program.

    "The structure of the human mind has been likened to a computer in that the mind's basic structure is akin to the hardware and its content to the software.  The mind has limited control over the content of the programming; thus, the human is simultaneously accountable and responsible yet innocent."  David Hawkins.

    "The mind has limited control over the content of the programming"…Most of us fail to understand the power of the program that is running inside of our heads.  How it sees for us and has us living a life from its base and that we have very very little free will.

    Our free will is all within the program, but you do not have a choice outside of what is offered there.  It isn't even possible to consider a choice that the program doesn't have.  Our limits are our parents limits.  It is near impossible to reach beyond the confines while in the confines.  The program has a list to choose from, a limited list, we can only select from the list.

    What I believe happened to me, is that my whole program crashed.  I for some reason was able to see the program and then reality.  And how the two did not match.  It is a rare opportunity to see outside of the program.

    My 'mental breakdown' was actually falling out of the program.

    I was the computer and could see the program….instead of believing the program was me.  

    How I was able to see the truth outside of the program, I can't know, or how that happened, but it did…And I believed IT over the long running program.

    Once you see that the mind/program can be wrong, you lose faith in your head.

    My head had stories that didn't match reality.  My head had definitions that didn't match reality.  I saw and felt and experienced first hand how out of sync my mind was with reality.  

    Once you know you have a defunct operating system running your life, you are aware you have a program operating.  

    My 'natural' reflexes were actual reflexes of the program…but not of truth.

    The program seemed to be built to ward off the truth and reality instead of walking hand in hand with it.  And my life was built upon the program and not of my truth or the truth alone.

    For seven years now I have been finding threads of the program, beliefs and thoughts that eclipse my spirit.  

    When the program is running a part of my life, I feel out of control now, and am.  The program is driving me and I follow.

    Hard to articulate this to folks who have never, not once stepped out of their program, it makes perfect sense to me since I experienced first hand how off the mark it was.

    I had believed that I was a program and that the program was of high morals and values, to come and find out it was filled with abuse and lies.

    While it was extremely difficult to see the program in its fully glory, it was the only thing that would have gotten me out.  I am not sure if there was one thread of truth within the whole thing, for if I had the correct word, I had the wrong definition.  Or the right definition but had it placed upon the wrong person or relationship.  There always seemed to be one thing that made the whole thing wrong.

    Very interesting to investigate your self, your program and place it facing the truth to see where you and reality match.

    It seems to me, that unless something huge happens in reality that our program can't handle, we will get left idling along behind the program, content that it is spot on.

    Perhaps restless now and again, or a bit resentful, but not with enough volume to send us completely out.  Life's little bumps are something that the program can handle.  

    We can live with mild to moderate stress with spikes of rage and not get tossed out of the program.  The moments of great tragedy or crisis are the situations that are set up to toss you out…

    I can't know what those are or what programs are running, but what I can seem to tell is where you are compared to reality.

    I can see the justifiable lies of the program, you call you.

    In dysfunctional homes, the justifiable lies are what holds the family together.  Its the glue and the rose colored glasses that keeps you from leaving.

    It isn't the truth of there being love and kindness there, but the lies that it is there.  And while under the power of the program, you can't tell truth from fiction.

    The program is living your life…and calling it a loving family.

    I see folks asleep behind the program…living life unaware;  Not being aware they are accountable and responsible for choices they are making within the program…for there is no part of them that can reach for a new choice outside of the program..that choice is unavailable to them.

    Free will isn't a choice that they have to pick from.

    Free will is outside of the program.

     

     

     

     

  • Be a Surprise

    "I know that over the years, through fear and expectation, my mind has gathered and hoarded places I needed to go, things I needed to have, selves I needed to be.  But here I am, without most of them – the goals and wants all used up in learning how to love."

    "So, try as I do to imagine and construct where I am headed, try as I will to plan and know what this life of feeling means, it is the pulse of what I feel itself that lifts me into spirit.  In truth, wings don't grow any differently to fit south or east or west, and our lives,  no matter how we train ourselves are more fundamental than any direction of worldly ambition.  We, like birds, are meant to fly and sing – that's all – and all our plans and schemes are twigs of nest that, once outgrown we leave."  Mark Nepo

    What I took away from today's reading, is that no matter what we think we need to be doing or where we think we should be, all we can do is live where we are right now and do so fully being with what is.

    It matters not if you have goals or destinations, in order to get there you live.

    You live whether you have lofty goals or not, whether you have intelligent wants, or righteous destinations.  You live.  

    For me the more I concentrated on goals or end games, the less I lived right now, for I was living for a certain outcome. Bypassing this day, focusing on the one over there.

    Now I just live and an outcome happens.  Often times a surprise destination appears.

    It seems rather careless in a world that wants you to keep in mind your destination and to groom your life to assure you end up where you planned on going…to NOT plan, but live.

    In my past, this moment in time was just something to overlook, for my mind was focused on the goal….tomorrow, when, and If.

    When you live staring at the horizon, you miss what is right here, right now.

    The sights, the smells, the sounds, the people…all the opportunities to be alive and engaged in living.

    It truly doesn't matter where we end up, for there are so many days and hours to live before we get there.  Some how we feel that  when we get there life will begin, when in actuality, living in this day is to live.

    Living in this day has to matter more than any lofty goal in mind.

    If you can't fully live this day, you are wasting days waiting for the goal to appear.

    We somehow have been sold a bill of goods called, goals, dreams etc…that steal our attention from living today.

    Maybe it is when your future starts to shrink, that you can see how fruitless it was.  

    What good is a goal if all the days leading up to it your not living, but counting the days till you arrive.  Imagine all the days spent and passed by, giving up for this goal.  It is like the goal has stolen your everyday life.

    Living without staring at goals or focusing on a certain outcome, will allow you to live and breathe better in this day.

    Imagine how you could live today, IF it didn't have to be a step towards a goal.

    You could be careless and things wouldn't matter if they fit into the 'plan'.

    You could be a live living work of art…where you truly don't know how you will end up when you get 'there'.  Live without a firmly painted goal or pictured outcome.

    Live… allowing the ending to be a surprise.  

     

     

     

     

  • Lies Control You.

    "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty – that is all you know on earth, and all you need to know."  John Keats

    And Mark Nepo writes, "This is "all you need to know."  Beauty, wherever we find it, is the salve that keeps us vital and fresh.  But Truth, in its uncompromised and naked story, no matter how harsh, has a Beauty all its own that is cleansing."

    "This is why we must remember the Holocaust and other atrocities exactly as they were. This is why it is essential to bear honest witness to our own naked stories."

    "Still, as wise as the message he came upon is, there is an equal lesson in how young Keats came upon it.  For only by voicing our tender pains can we find our way to the deeper Beauties and Truths that like ropes and wheels can carry us."  Mark Nepo

    Truth, in its uncompromised and naked story, no matter how harsh, has a Beauty all its own that is cleansing."

    What I love the most about the truth, is that it is uncompromising and in that alone, it cleanses me…it is the most beautiful part of the truth, is that it is unrelenting.  And it is the Truth, and it doesn't need anyone to believe it to make it so.  It just is.

    Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills write about Common Sense, in their book, "The Voice of Knowledge".

    "Common Sense exists in all of us, but we cannot see it with our attention focused on the lies we believe."

    "Lies make everything complicated, when the truth is very simple.  I think now is the time to return to the truth, to common sense, to the simplicity of life itself.  Now we know that the lies are so powerful that they blind us. Well, the truth is so powerful that when we finally return to the truth, our entire reality changes. Truth brings us back to paradise, where we experience a strong communication of love with God, with life, with all of creation."

    "When you release your faith from all the lies, the result is that you free your will.  And when your will is free, you can finally make a choice. The voice in your head gives you the illusion that you can make a choice, that you have free will.  Well, do you really believe that it's your conscious choice to hurt yourself, to make yourself suffer, to reject and abuse yourself?  How can you say that you have free will when you choose to hurt the people you love, when you judge your partner or make them miserable with your judgement?"

    "Just imagine if you really have free will, which is the power to make your own choices. Do you really choose to sabotage your own happiness or your own love?  Do you choose to judge yourself, to blame yourself, to live your life in shame and in guilt?  Do you choose to believe that you are bad, that you are not beautiful, that you don't deserve to be happy or healthy or prosperous because you are not worth it? Do you choose to constantly fight with the people you love the most?  If you have free will, you choose the opposite. I think it is obvious that our will is not free."

    "When you put your faith in truth instead of in lies, your choices change. When your will is free, your choices come from your integrity, not from the program, that liar in your head.  Now you believe whatever you want to believe, and when you have the power to believe whatever you want, something very interesting happens. What you want is to love. You don't want anything else but love because you know that what is not love is not the truth!"

    "When your will is free, you choose happiness and love and peace and harmony.  You choose to play; you choose to enjoy life. You no longer choose drama.  If in the present moment you are choosing drama, it's because you have no choice; it's a habit. It's because you were programmed to be that way, and you don't even know that you have the power to make a different choice. Something else in your head is making the choice, and it's the voice of the liar. Just like the man in the movie A Beautiful Mind, whose visions made the choices for him, your voice is making the choices for you."

    "Why would we consciously decide to have a fight with our parents or our children or our beloved?  It's not that we want to fight. You know, when we are children and we gather with other children, it's because we want to have fun and enjoy life.  When we grow up and decide to get into a relationship – mainly a romantic relationship – is it because we want to create emotional pain and drama?  No, common sense tells us that we want to play together; we want to have fun exploring life together.  But the Prince of Lies who controls the voice of knowledge represses our common sense."

    "Common Sense is wisdom, and wisdom is different from knowledge.  You are wise when you no longer act against yourself. You are wise when you live in harmony with yourself, with your own kind, with all of creation."

    "Right now you have a choice.  What are you going to do with this information?  What happens if you don't believe in lies?  Take a moment to put your attention on your feelings, to feel all of the possibilities for your life if your faith is no longer blind.  If you recover your faith from lies, your suffering is over, your judgments are over. You no longer live with guilt, with shame and anger, with jealousy.  You no longer have the need to be good enough for anybody, including yourself. You accept what you are, whatever you are, even if you don't know what you are.  And you don't care to know anymore. It's not important to know, and that is wisdom."

    "Just imagine that because you don't believe in lies, your whole life changes.  You live your life without trying to control everybody around you,  and your integrity doesn't allow anybody to control you. You no longer jduge other people or need to complain aobut whatever they do because you know you can't control what people do.  Just imagine that you choose to forgive whoever hurt you in your life because you no longer want to carry all that emotional poison in your heart. And just by forgiving everybody, even yourself, you heal your mind, you heal your heart, and you no longer have emotional pain."

    "Just imagine that you recover the power to make your own choices because you no longer believe the storyteller. You enjoy life with plentitude, with inner peace, with love.  Imagine how you treat your partner, how you treat your children, what you teach the new generation, if you no longer believe in lies.  Just imagine the change in the whole of humanity out of something so simple; not believing in lies."  Don Miguel, Janet Mills.

    I have lived completely blind with my faith tucked securely behind the lies; believing in that which wasn't true and it hurt and many suffered because of my blindness.  And for some reason, I was granted awareness to see the lies.  Unless you can spot a lie, you will not be able to see the truth. And when you can't see the truth, the lies control you.

     

  • Words to My Experience.

    In the past seven years I have doubted and felt awkward with my new sense of awareness, of being able to discern my truth, while others it seemed were most intent on hiding theirs; I was undressing my truth like a stripper.

    Once you have awareness, it doesn't leave you.  You can choose not to use it, but it remains inside of you. You now have a sixth sense about you.  You see and feel deeper, and have a knowing that can't be set aside.

    What I didn't know was how I had it and others appeared not to have it.  How it came to me in the middle of a trauma that shattered my whole world.  How my perceptions seemed so completely off compared to others.  I no longer could fit into my old way of thinking and past relationships.  Something seismic had happened.

    I am reading a book by Gary Zukav, "Spiritual Partnership: The Journey to Authentic Power, and he writes about my experience.

    "This is a book about change, the biggest change possible or imaginable – change bigger than the discovery of fire, bigger than the invention of the wheel, bigger than the origin of cultures, the birth of religions, the rise of nation-states, and the impacts on science. It is bigger than anything that has come before and so big that is not possible to envision what could come after or when."

    "This is a book about possibilities.  Experiences, insights, motivations, and creations beyond our ability to imagine only a few years ago now call to us, beckoning us to new destinations and yet more new possibilities. All is new and fresh, like a blank page awaiting words, a canvas inviting the first brushstroke.  In the past others have glimpsed and sometimes explored, these new possibilities, but now everyone is beginning to see or sense them. We have crossed the threshold and there is no turning back. There is now way to turn back."

    "This book is about power. The old kind of power – the ability to manipulate and control – now produces only violence and destruction. This is a real surprise, because the old power enabled us and our ancestors to survive.  Like good medicine suddenly turned bad, it is now poison.  We used to take it to stay alive.  Now we need to avoid it to stay healthy.  A new kind of power – authentic power – has become the new good medicine, and we need it to become healthy, nurturing and whole."

    "Change, possibilities, and power that we could not have imagined are reshaping the entire human experience.  New values, goals and intentions are everywhere appearing like grass in the spring.  This grass is growing quickly, and where ever it grows beauty appears.  With it comes fields of flowers and vast forests.  A new and surprising world is emerging in new ways and surprising ways.  We are all students in a new school, explorers in new territory, and pioneers in a new human experience."

    "This unprecedented transformation in human experience has two parts.  Process A and Process B.  Process A is happening automatically, so to speak.  No one needs to do anything to make it happen.  Process A is occurring in millions of individuals, and soon Process A will occur in all humans.  Process B is a different story.  It requires Choice.  Specifically, YOU must choose to make Process B happen or it will not happen in you.  Even if others choose to make Process B happen in themselves, Process B will not happin until you choose to make it happen.  In short (1) Process A is happening to everyone, or soon will, and there is nothing you or anyone else can do about it; (2) Process B is happening only to individuals who choose to make it happen in themselves; no one else can make it happen in them; and they cannot make it happen in anyone else."

    "Let's give process A and Process B names. Process A is the expansion of human perception beyond what we can see, hear, taste, touch and smell.  It is a very big deal.  Process A is seeing for yourself that the world is larger than you thought – much larger- and also different than you could have imagined.  Before Process A occurs, your perceptions of the world are confined to what your five senses tell you about it.  After Process A occurs, your five senses continue to tell you about the world and, in addition, you experience more. The "more" is sometimes difficult to describe to individuals who have not yet experienced Process A, but actually millions of individuals have already experienced Process A or are experiencing it and haven't realized it yet."

    "Process A allows you to know things about others that your five senses cannot tell you, for example, that someone is going to call you just before she calls, that your daughter in another city has been in an accident, that your grandparent is passing on, that you should avoid driving until you check the breaks on your car and so on.  In other words, Process A involves intuition in a big way.  Process A also allows you to experience yourself in new ways, for example, as more than your mind and your body. It reveals your life as purposeful like water calls a thirsty man.  Process A allows you to encounter meaning in unexpected ways, for example that everything is perfect or feeling of connection with a stranger. Process A allows you to see from an impersonal perspective. From that perspective, all of your experiences, even the most painful – serve your spiritual development and the spiritual development of those around you.  They provide exactly what you need to develop the strength, compassion, and wisdom to give the gifts that you were born to give."

    "Process A is an expanded awareness that includes not only the perceptual system of the five senses but also a second system that detects intelligence, compassion, and wisdom that are real but not physical.  This system allows you to experience nonphysical reality in many ways including those just mentioned. Process A is multisensory perception.  This is the great transformation in human consciousness that is currently emerging throughout the human species.  Within a few generations, all humans will be multisensory. They will experience not only the domain of space, time and matter, and duality that has been the totality of experience for most humans since the origin of humanity, but also nonphysical domains and dynamics that affect us and that will affect us."

    "This brings us to Process B.  Process B is bringing that new potential that comes with Process A into your life.  Multisensory perception (Process A) changes your perception, but it does not change you.  It shows you things that you could not see before, but it does not make you use your new knowledge.  It illuminates dynamics that you could not see – dynamics that you can apply to change your life and world permanently for the better – but it does not require you to apply them.  It reveals your creative power, but it does not make you create wisely.  On the contrary, you will continue to create as you have in the past until you choose otherwise.  If you are angry, for example, Process A (multisensory perception) will not make you less angry.  It also will not create different consequences for you than acting with anger has created in the past.  People will still avoid you, still be intimidated by you, still refuse to be vulnerable with you, and you will still be isolated, lonely and longing for meaningful relationships, and angry."

    "Process B is experiencing and changing in yourself the interior sources of your painful emotions (such as anger, jealousy, vengefulness and so on), obsessive thoughts (such as judging others or yourself, longing for someone or something to change your life, and so on), compulsive activities (such as workaholism, perfectionism, and so on), and addictive behaviors (such as overeating, smoking, drinking alcohol, using drugs, watching pornography, gambling, and so on).  It is also experiencing and cultivating in yourself the interior sources of your pleasing emotions (such as gratitude, contentment, appreciation, and awe of Life).  In short Process B is creating the fulfilling and joyful life that is calling to you."

    "This takes work, but choosing Process B can produce almost instantaneous results in your life.  In other words, choosing Process B can fundamentally change your life in a very short time. This does not mean that you become a radically different person the first or second time you engage in Process B.  Process B is not that simple or easy.  However, each change that you make in yourself as you engage in Process B is fundamentally transformative. The first change is fundamentally transformative, no matter how small it may appear.  The second change is fundamentally transformative, and so forth.  Process B is incremental.  It happens choice by choice, and each choice that you make moves you in a new direction toward a new and healthy goal – a personality whose experiences are so dramatically different that you cannot always forsee what they will be."

    "Process B requires you to choose words and deeds, moment by moment, that will create joyful and constructive consequences even when painful or violent emotions roar through you. Process B is changing your life with the force of your own will, guided by your own awareness, with intentions that you consciously choose, assisted by the compassion and wisdom of the Universe experienced in personal and meaningful ways.  This transformation is more than change toward a better or more healthy life.  It is transformation toward the highest, most noble, healthy, and grounded part of you.  That is your soul."

    "In other words, Process B is finding and changing all the parts of your personality that do not intend what your soul intends, and finding and cultivating all the parts of your personality that do intend what your soul intends. Your soul intends harmony, cooperation, sharing and reverence for Life.  Each time you create with one of these intentions, you create authentic power – a life of meaning and fulfillment, gratitude, vitality, creativity, and joy.  Process B is creating authentic power."

    "Without Process A (mulitsensory perception) happening to everyone, Process B (creating authentic power) would not be possible for anyone.  Process B is aligning your personality with your soul, but your five sense cannot detect your soul.  The sou is an interesting idea to some five-sensory individuals, but it is not experientially meaningful to any of them.  Now millions of individuals are experiencing multisensory perception (Process A), and they are changing their lives because of it (Process B).  You are experiencing multisensory perception or you would not find this book interesting or valuable.  The ideas in it have no appeal to intellects that are informed by the five senses alone, but they call to all hearts that are informed by multisensory perception.  Multisensory perception and authentic power are the two defining characters of the transformation in human consciousness that is now under way.  The first emerges without effort, affects all perception, and reveals new dimensions of experience.  The second awaits your commitment, courage, compassion, and conscious communication and actions to bring it into your life. The first is a wondrous gift from the Universe.  You must create the second.  Multisensory perception does not impair your choice. Multisensory individuals are as free to pursue external power (the old kind of power) as they are to create authentic power, but the choice to pursue external power now leads only to violence and destruction between individuals (at the least), and physical violence and destruction between religions, cultures, and nations. There are no redeeming benefits to the choice of external power. There are no benefits to it at all."

    "Five sensory humans evolve by surviving.  Multisensory humans evolve by growing spiritually. This dramatic difference requires dramatically different relationships."

    "The new type of relationship for multisensory humans who are evolving through creating authentic power is spiritual partnership.  A spiritual partnership is a partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth.  It attracts multisensory humans who are creating authentic power as much as old-type relationships attracted five-sensory humans who were pursuing external power.  The purpose, nature, and function of spiritual partnerships are different.  The dynamics of spiritual partnerships and the experience that spiritual partnerships cocreate are different.  This new type of relationship is as inseparable from emerging multisensory humans who are creating authentic power as old-type relationships were from five-sensory humans who pursued external power."

    "Creating authentic power requires relationships of substance and depth.  You cannot grow spiritually until you have the courage to enter into meaningful and significant relationships.  In other words, spiritual partnerships are a necessary part of Process B. Every encounter provides you an opportunity to create authentic power, but when your encounters include others who are also using their experiences to create authentic power, the potential for a spiritual partnership comes into being. Potential spiritual partners recognize the commitment, courage, compassion, and conscious communications and actions of one another. They naturally strive to support one another in creating authentic power and to receive the support of one another in creating authentic power.  They journey toward the same goal, recognize fellow travelers, and learn from one another.  Evolution now requires you to create a fulfilling and joyful life – to give the gifts that you were born to give – and spiritual partnerships bring you into cocreative interactions with others who are doing the same."  Gary Zukav

    I now can tell those who are going through the changes and those who are not.  I feel great comfort in reading this, for it puts words to my experience.

     

     

  • Seek to Become more Aware.

    Jason Torola put it so clearly, "

    Beth, You'll get the last word. You always do. But know this; I've seen what you wrote. I've seen what you tried to do.

    A wise man told me, "You can fool the fans, but you can't fool the players." Beth, we are all players here.

    I don't have to get the last word, but people usually stop talking and I can't make them talk, so is it really my problem that I get left in silence?  

    His reference to what I wrote isn't something I feel would be beneficial to post on my blog…it isn't my journey…I myself have no problems with airing it…but it isn't mine to air.

    And he is very correct in stating "We are all Players here."

    Yes we are. And how you play the game will define your integrity and your authenticity.  And I love that there are no fans to fool.  For you truly are not fooling anyone…you only look foolish.

    I know what my intentions are and how I personally play the game and furthermore, who I like to play with.

    I am not interested in the struggle of convincing someone to do or say or be a certain way.  I used to.  I mothered that way.  I gave it up five years ago…and in its place granted freedom to all who have a relationship with me.

    You Jason get to be Jason…please do and say and be exactly as you feel.  I truly would not want you any other way. The same goes for the rest of your family and each person and family in the church and out.  

    I have no desire to change a hair on your head.  However, IF it is YOUR desire to change and want a cheerleader, I will cheer you on as you play this new game.

    But, if you want to continue in the old system of seeking power and control…we part ways.  I don't play there anymore.  And I will not tell you you can't play there.  Play away.  Demand, rage and work to bend and control OR give up your power and people please and play that way…either way it is a game I no longer play.

    It is my goal, my intention to completely take myself out of that old game. Certainly there will be times when I slip and fall and veer off course and find the old me wanting to control, or feeling above others by making them feel less…but it doesn't feel good inside of me no more.  I have lost the taste for that old game.

    It has taken a great deal of work to get out of that game and its cost to my life were way too much…If and when I find myself playing that old game, I quickly work to exit out.

    Jason I was a very forceful player in the old system….and I can certainly see how you can see me that way.  But in the past 7 years I have been feverishly working to remove all desire to play that way.

    I am making choices that are the opposite of how I used to live life. I was completely exhausted and totally without a clue as to how to change and control so much dysfunction….I walked out.

    I gave up control and found freedom.

    I concentrated on my self.

    I began to save only me.

    To control only me.

    To play only for me.

    And it worked like magic…I became a player that no longer needs to find its power by controlling other people.  My power is gotten by being free.

    I truly, truly wish for you and all…the experience of being free.  It was not then or is now my intention to break up families. It would be my greatest joy to see one family make it through this journey intact.

    It wasn't to be that way for me.  It is not now or ever a walk I want for one other soul…but It isn't up to me.  Remember Jason, we are all players…and what we put out comes back into our lives.

    Play well…there is no fooling the fans.  We are aware of the truth, whether we show it or not…it is there.  Each of us will have the choice to follow our awareness or to sit this round out….but awareness is yours to pick up…or yours to ignore.  

    Awareness is the Gift I have discovered…placed there for when you get tired of being in the old game.  It is automatic, you don't have to be cute enough, good enough or wise enough….it is just there.

    It is there waiting for you to glance its way…to begin to see life in a whole new way.  You lose the fight and seek to become more aware.

      IMG_3376

    This is a quilt I titled, "Awareness"  my daughter owns it.  Photograph by Hannah Jukuri

  • Fit into their Framework

     "The Seat of the Soul," by Gary Zukav

    "When a question is asked that cannot be answered within the common frame of reference, it can be classified as nonsensical, or it can be dismissed as a question that is not appropriate, or the person asking the question can expand his or her consciousness to encompass a frame of reference from which the question can be answered.  The first two options are the easy way out of a confrontation with a question that appears to be nonsensical or inappropriate, but the seeker, the true scientist, will allow himself or herself to expand into a frame of reference from which the answers that he or she is seeking can be understood."

    "We, as a species, have been asking the questions, "Is there a God?", "Is there a Divine Intelligence?", and "Is there a purpose to life?", for as long as we have been able to articulate questions.  The time has now come for us to expand into a frame of reference that allows these questions to be answered."

    "The larger the frame of reference of the multisensory human allows an understanding of the experientially meaningful distinction between the personality and the soul.  Your personality is that part of you that was born into, lives within, and will die within time.  To be a human and to have a personality are the same thing.  Your personality, like your body, is the vehicle of your evolution."

    "The decisions that you make and the actions that you take upon the Earth are the means by which you evolve.  At each moment you choose the intention that will shape your experiences and those things upon which you will focus your attention.  These choices affect your evolutionary process.  This is so for each person.  If you choose unconsciously, you evolve unconsciously.  If you choose consciously, you evolve consciously."

    "The fearful and violent emotions that have come to characterize the human existence can be experienced only by the personality.  Only the personality can feel anger, fear, hatred, vengeance, sorrow, shame, regret, indifference, frustration, cynicism and loneliness.  Only the personality can judge, manipulate and exploit.  Only the personality can pursue external power.  The personality can also be loving, compassionate, and wise in its relations with others, but love, compassion and wisdom do not come from the personality. They are the experience of the soul."

    "Your soul is that part of you that is immortal.  Every person has a soul, but a personality that is limited in its perception to the five senses is not aware of its soul, and, therefore, cannot recognize the influences of its soul."

    "As a personality becomes multisensory, its intuitions – it hunches and subtle feelings – become important to it.  It senses things about things about itself, other people, and the situations in which it finds itself that it cannot justify on the basis of the information that its five senses can provide."

    "It comes to recognize intentions, and to respond to them rather than to the actions and words that it encounters.  It can recognize, for example, a warm heart beneath a harsh and angry manner, and a cold heart beneath polished and pleasing words."  Gary Zukav

    In reading about the two different actual types of human beings -those who live secluded in a frame of reference of the five senses, and others with a much broader frame of reference makes all the difference in the world in how you live your life.

    My first 46 years I lived pretty much in a five sense body, and in the framework of the FALC.  All questions asked were brought to this network and answered there or dismissed.  Mostly, in my experience anything that would mar the shiny surface of the FALC, were labeled inappropriate.

    Stepping out of that tiny framework, a whole big world opened up.  It was like leaving a boxed in life…to live free.

    Now, when questions arose, there was nothing stopping me from exploring deeper or being fearless of the answers 'wrecking' or damaging the belief within the small frame.

    Living within in a small frame of reference, allows very limited responses.  And tossing out questions and ideas is much easier than pondering why they can't be answered within your framework.

    The 'simple faith' is to remain in a very small framework.

    The saying to believe like a child doesn't ring true. For children are born frame-less and we build a framework for them to live inside.  I believe that children are naturally curious and inquisitive and are fearless as they seek answers, not caring what side of the framework threatens to collapse based upon what it finds.

    A secondary framework is the family, like a box in a box…where there too are questions we don't ask or label 'inappropriate' in order to keep the framework from collapsing.

    Seeing your life as being framed by family and religion, will allow you to see the setting upon which you stand.  

    I didn't know how blocked in I was, until it all collapsed around me.

    As the framework lay on the ground, I was left standing…the part of me that wasn't tied into the framework, my soul.

    The soul me didn't fear any questions or the truthful answer.  It was a part of me that had been covered up and repressed for years….and blocked out by the framework.

    I know that those who can't explore deeply the questions or follow a gut feeling to its end, have way too much of themselves invested in the framework.

    Their point of reference lies within its walls.

    The answers to the questions depend more upon where you are asking them from, than where the answers are coming from.  In fact, some are not even allowed to ask the questions…or ponder their existence.

    Most strict religions work diligently to put their children in the churches framework, and to keep the child separated from their natural curiosity, frankness and Truth, to separate the child from their Soul.

    A free soul does not fit into their framework.

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    Photograph by Hannah Jukuri

  • 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 Gift is in the Present.

    I am in a book club reading Mark Nepo's book, "The Book of Awakening".  It is written so that we read one reading per day.

    Today's reading I love.

    "So often we anticipate a reward for the uncovering of truth.  For effort, we expect money and recognition.  For sacrifice and kindness we secretly expect acceptance and love. For honesty, we expect justice.  Yet as we all know, the life of experience unfolds with a logic all its own.  And very often, effort is seen, and kindness is embraced, and the risk of truth is held as the foundation of how humans relate. However, the reward for breathing in not applause but air, and the reward for climbing is not a promotion but new sight, and the reward for kindness is not being seen as kind, but the electricity of giving that keeps us alive."

    "It seems the closer we get to the core of all being, the more synonymous the effort and its reward.  Who could have guessed?  The reward for uncovering the truth is the experience of honest being.  The reward for understanding is the peace of knowing.  The reward for loving is being the carrier of love.  It all becomes elusively simple.  The river's sole purpose is to carry water, and as the force of the water deepens and widens the riverbed, the river fulfills its purpose more.  Likewise, the riverbed of the heart is worn open over time to carry what is living."

    "All this tells us that no amount of thinking can eliminate the wonder and pain of living.  No wall or avoidance or denial- no cause or excuse- can keep the rawness of life from running through us.  While this may at times seem devastating, it is actually reassuring, because while the impermanence of life, if fixed on, can be terrifying, leaving us preoccupied with death, the very same impermanence, if allowed its infinite frame, can soothe us with the understanding that eve the deepest pain will pass."  Mark Nepo

    What I love so much about this is that I used to live solely in the reward system…and yet the rewards were often times not forthcoming.  I thought that I was giving wrongly, so I gave more and tried harder.  

    What I failed to realize is that the universal system had a logic all of its own…simply called experience.

    I was so focused on my just reward and waited and fretted and worried and hated and judged and stressed, that I long forgot the feeling of the experience.

    I lived, thought and acted all for a future reward.

    I literally gave for love and acceptance.  And when I stopped giving, the love and acceptance dried up.  It was an awful way to be loved…for it all depended upon me giving and they didn't have to give, all they had to do was give me love and acceptance. 

    I have said I was a whore for love and peace…and this is what it literally means.  I gave to get.

    When the justice system failed me and all the girls who were sexually abused by my father, it seemed that the universal logic was broke. 

    Yet our honesty worked supremely well. We got to experience how honesty and integrity feels.  

    If we put our focus on the 'just' reward, we would be sorely disappointed.  If you put your focus on the feelings and experiences of being honest with your past, it feels amazing.

    I can't even begin to explain the difference between living in the system of rewards compared to living in experience.

    To have zero expectations…

    When you remove the reward, all you are left with is the experience.

    And the experience is solely the focus.

    As Eckhart Tolle says, there are only three ways to experience life…Enthusiasm, Enjoyment and Acceptance….He says nothing about reward.

    I love that there are no rewards in living…that the gift is in the present!

  • Loving For Me.

    "I wonder, Why you stopping talking at Mom for long time?You need be forgive in your past and let go angry for some reason? You never to know if Mom is gone and you might feel guilty for real. I did forgive what my dad did and time to move on. Please do not waste your time for angry or hate on her. Remember, no one is perfect and you need learn a solve problem. It not hard? Right? Today is new day and do not looking a past.  If you keep emotional, that is not good health. I want to see my family be happy and love anyone!"  Jay Huhta writes on facebook last night.  

    A few entries of my sisters line up beneath…directed at him.

    "you are wise 🙂 Remember Jay, everyone thinks differently and all we can do is respect that….You are sweet Jay, I love you….You are all heart, love you."

    Interesting exchange, it is like there are two conversations.

    And my dialogue would make it three…

    The questions and guilt are always directed at me.  Love and kindness to those who forgive and forget.

    She isn't asked a thing.  

    Nothing is expected from her at all, she is granted all things due to her title, "Mom".  

    Our broken relationship is all my problem; I broke the family pattern, I stepped out of the cycle of abuse, and I am wrong.

    Assumptions are made that I am angry and hateful…that unless I am loving towards abusive people I will feel guilty.

    I used to feel that way, I used to be locked into a frozen stance where no matter what, the only emotion I was allowed to use was love and forgiveness; forgiveness in the abusive sense, of forgetting the abusive actions of changing the past and wiping out the bad things.  Returning that person back to nice.

    My actions are seen as negative, for I will not let go of the past.  I will keep the past as it is, pristine in all its glory, changing nothing.

    I will keep a full image of my father and of his wife and of all they have done to me.  The good, the bad and the very ugly. All of it stays in my book, I will rip no pages out.

    It is written down in the truth of the universe, and you simply can't change what has been done.

    It works beautifully for them to not add the negative things, then you get to keep a kind loving mom and dad.

    My refusing to subtract the hurtful behaviors has my view of my parents totally different that of my siblings.

    The label "Mother and Father" has them capitulating…and I refuse.

    I refuse to go along with allowing abuse.  I know they hate to hear that, I know they want me to believe that they too are taking a tough stand against abuse, that they too will be vigilant. 

    What they want is to have both.

    Standing against abuse and have a happy loving family.  

    Impossible.  

    It literally is not possible when the father is a pedophile and the mother blesses his 'sin's of rapes and fondling away.  

    In a family where abuse lives, you can't stand against it, Unless you stand against the abusers.  It is not my choice that the abusers happen to be my father and mother.  It isn't my choice that those who supported them, happen to be my sisters and brothers.  I stand against abuse, no matter who is wearing it.

    What they call love is to capitulate for abuse; to surrender the facts, the truths and keep a happy loving family.  

    And if you don't forgive and forget you will feel guilty.

    I won't.  

    The only guilt I have felt is for all the years I went along with the abusive family, for supporting her and forgiving him. My guilt is for the first 46 years, and my actions to keep silent about abuse.  I have no guilt about my last 7 years.

    No regrets, none. 

    All my behaviors were perfect for me.  Perfect for someone learning to walk away from abuse. In my confused backwards state; all the actions I took were exactly as they should be.  

    My journey away from abuse began in a state that the abuse had put me in.  Mental, upside down and backwards, with defintions of love completely wrong, disassociated from feelings and emotions and a sense of self.

    I did my best in the state I found myself in.

    I am proud of my last 7 years…it is a huge accomplishment of healing from abuse.  While I see this as a positive, my family still back within the 'loving' confines of family see it negatively.

    And they should.

    We haven't seen eye to eye on this for 7 years.

    Our eyes are focusing on two different things.

    Seeing abuse from two drastically different vantage points.  

    One is to see what my parents need, and the other what the abused child needs.

    My vision cleared and I was able to see the child's needs.

    Mine.  Where in the past, I too could only see what was best for my mother, my father and to keep a family together.  And in doing so, I failed to speak up about abuse and abuse ran through our family into the second generation…for 40 years.

    For 40 years I didn't see me.

    Now I do. 

    And I feel no anger or hatetred nor do I feel guilt in seeing me.

    When I see the abuse in me, I can see the abuse in others.

    When I love myself.  I love myself enough to walk away from abuse…even if it is wearing the label dad/mom.

    Love of self and being in that family were impossible to do.

    I feel very blessed and full of grace that I was able to finally see me.

    I found me in a battered and broken state, but have walked myself into a place that is totally loving for me.