I M Perfect lady

Tag: time

  • Living on the Blocks.

    Week 9, The Artist Way…Julia Cameron writes,

    “We’re more comfortable being a victim of artist’s block than risking having to consistently be productive and healthy.

    “An artistic U-Turn arrives on a sudden wave of indifference. We greet our newly minted product or our delightful process with “Aw, what does it matter anyhow?  It’s just a start.  Everybody else is so much further ahead…”

    “Yes, and they will stay that way if we stop working. The point is we have traveled light-years from where we were when we were blocked. We are now on the road, and the road is scary.  We begin to be distracted by roadside attractions or detoured by the bumps.”

    And here are a few sentences from the exercises at the end of the chapter.

    “Your choice to block is a creative U-Turn – we turn back on ourselves.  Like water forced to stand still, we turn stagnant.”   Julia

    These blocks are in Life and in Art. And we use them as an excuse as to why we can’t live a better life or create art. 

    And it is only ourselves that turn us around and heads us back to our old vices and excuses or fears.  We keep turning our backs on our truths, our desires, what we love, what brings us peace, our joy…in the good energy flow. 

    I see my life as a river where others lives are rocks cropping up or interests that are not crucial to my pathway, and instead of floating on by, I stop.  I stop my own flow in life.

    We each have specific rocks that stop us and then there are bends in the river, opportunities that float by, but we are too afraid to slip into the flow…or we are so busy doing things that are not important and they go by unnoticed. 

    It is just so interesting that Artist Blocks or Blocks of Addictions keep us from creativity…and they are all our choices.

    It is up to us to stop clinging to things that don’t serve us, that keeps us from living. 

    One big boulder in my life is ‘Responsibility’ and getting my work done first. 

    I focus on cleaning up my space instead of using that time to create.  I put so many rocks ahead of my flow, that my life seems heavy and hard. 

    I never looked at it this way…even though I lived it more often than not.  In fact slipping into the flow of life and playing in the currents and relaxing and letting the river take me, without saying no…is not very common in my life. 

    Most of my life has been spent on heavy rocks and in other people’s responsibility.  Getting used to flowing in my life will take some effort and will mean turning my back on ‘work’.  Who knew that work is a blockage in your life.

    Today, my one day off, and again I am working on cleaning up our house, the sewing machine sits…however, I did make a date with my husband for later on.

    In time, I will be able to discern how much free flowing time I have had and how much I have spent on the rocks, for I will feel its heaviness and know I got lost again living on the blocks.

    "Saying No can be the ultimate self-care."  Claudia Black

     

     

  • Outside of Time.

    While listening to Mark Nepo (Author of The Book of Awakening) talking to Oprah on Sirius Radio, he shared a moment in his life where he had lost his job, had an unknown illness and was going to confront his father he had been estranged from.  He was afraid, in fear or in the unknown in the past, present and future, so he went deeper and sat with his soul. 

    I understood completely, for when my life turned upside down and my past seemed to horrifying to look at,  the future a vast landscape of empty and unknown and the present was littered with my father’s rubbish…I too went deeper and found my soul. 

    I didn’t call it my soul, but now I know that is where I went.

    A place that was untouched by time and events, but it was calm and knowing, a Self I had never met.

    I remember feeling this very deep calm knowing and strength, although I had no idea where it came from in the midst of such a churning moment in my life.

    Everything was falling down around me and I was deep beneath it all learning incredible lessons and seeing things that no one else could see. 

    I get this; I had connected with my soul when my life fell apart.  What I now know is that when your past, present and future fall down, you get left standing in the unchanging part of you, the place that survives all life experiences. 

    I went from living in time, to being timeless.  Time was too fearful to be in.

    What I also know is that once you take your self out of time, or are shocked and flung out of your life, you can see things from a deeper and wider view, prior to that I was tangled up in time and had no deeper perspective.

    I dwelled in the land of time without a connection to the deep well of wisdom, my soul.

    I love that I have this explanation.  

    One other thing he mentioned that really connected with me was that “Surrender doesn’t mean giving up, it means going with the Flow.”

    He explained that you have to flow all the way through whatever experience you are in in order to get the full lesson.  That giving up isn’t the answer, but being in it fully… going in all the way.  Accepting what is.

    Mostly I have heard that surrender is giving up or just letting it be, but I hadn’t heard that it means heading in fully.

    That is exactly how I faced my life situations after my father’s arrest.  I didn’t duck, I didn’t hide and I didn’t deny.

    Instead I walked fully into each moment of time, but I had this wonderful deep intimate connection with my soul, I never walked alone; I was connected to a place outside of time. 

    (What a great hour listening to him talk.  I bought his book, but gave it to a friend; I am thinking I need one for me.)

     

  • Don’t Put Time First.

    We cannot waste time. We can only waste ourselves. ~George M. Adams

    I love this phrase. How we think we are only wasting time, when what we are doing is wasting ourselves.

    As you look upon the day, we are asked to make choices by what life offers up to us, we can vote yes or no and that will decide how we used up time.

    I now know it is not a waste to sit by the river, to just be with singing birds, to experience the vast array of nature, but for me, it is a waste to be barraged by negative energies.

    I don’t mind messes and a good crisis, but I do mind people unwilling to change or look at things in a new light, and who are just giving commentary from a mud puddle.

    It isn’t a waste of myself to lend a hand while someone is changing direction, but it is to just watch him or her sit.

    I focus less and less on time and more and more on what I am doing, where I am and how I feel.

    I used to race time on my mail route, for we get paid salary, and it seemed like I was beating the system to go fast, yet I missed the ride, while focusing on time.

    Now I experience the route, the people, the animals, the changing landscape, the weather, I am on the route. I am there in each moment and time passes unnoticed and at the same pace.

    It is amazing how your life will change when you don’t put time first.

  • Go with the Flow.

    United we stand united we fall, divided we stand divided we fall…are two phrases that ran around in my head as I laid my weary brain down to sleep.

    There has been a humming of difference going on in our home, a vague and nagging two party rule.

    This split difference seemed to be two strong individuals doing what they felt was right for them and it didn’t affect the atmosphere within our home, for our individual expressions were directed to those who did not live with us.

    Sure we had awkward uncomfortable moments, but they would only arrive when say a party was to be attended and we both didn’t go…yet we both could please ourselves.

    Me by staying home, and them by going, two drastically different responses to one event.

    It seemed to be this great wide-open free space of self-expression and allowing, and it was.

    What happens if our differences fall into our own home, where a person in our relationship changes and our responses are different?

    It became crystal clear to me that we were at a cross roads, both individually and as a team.

    The individual harmony of our home is tipping and sliding and churning over the way we both deal with actions that go against our moral code.

    My daughter’s changing actions have set in motion and are displaying our stark contrasts, where we are both sitting in a very tight spot.

    A spot that we both drew comfort in and it allowed us to be ourselves, we may be asked to leave.

    What we are being asked is to stand with that sentiment or to reverse and head in another direction; it truly is a turning point in our relationship.

    If my daughter continues in the direction she seems to be heading in, she will also change the direction our marriage, it will be the trigger that goes off and we will then be asked to change as well.

    She is the key that will turn this all.

    Our response is the echo and the reply and what I know from past behaviors, we answered differently.

    Can we form as a team and come up with an answering response that will honor both of us?

    I see the looming bends in our river, the rapids that will require each of us to hold to our course and see not one boat called family, but three different canoes.

    I see how the current in each of our lives may lead us down separated journeys, how the potential for parting is strong, how our differences become stronger not weaker, how their forces propel and repel.

    Within each of us lies our sense of self, our value and self worth and that alone is the motor that steers our choices, speaks our voices, and their clamoring for individual power drowns out the unity we once had.

    It isn’t the direction that they are heading in, or the rapids beneath them, but rather the integrity within each boat, the honesty and character that directs these boats in their direction.

    It seems that the Universe pulls them toward like-minded boats; our separation isn’t what the heart wants, but rather what our actions lead.

    The freedom that I lovingly gave that had us all happy in our separate boats, is now coming to bear.

    There is a fork in the river now, a change in the stream, a curve that bends their lives from mine… what I can’t know for sure is will they take the curve or change something inside of them.

    It isn’t me, but the river of life and how you change or it changes you.

    At the end of the day, I am a lady of my own character who has no choice but to follow where it leads…reality wins only but 100% of the time, it is futile for me set my canoe against it.

    This is what happened last time, six years ago, where my canoe didn’t go where the rest all went, where the river bent, and my character simply couldn’t go with the flow against the river of reality.

    I see my daughter’s canoe swirling lost in the struggle against the rivers flow, not wanting what is and lying to make it right, twirling in the swirling waters going against life’s truth, trying to make something right out of what is wrong.

    I have seen this branch of the river before, I have watched as many family members’ canoes got stuck in the madness of seeing an illusion and following.

    My shouts fall short and are lost in the waters of time that race by, telling them it is useless to fight what is.

    Now this time, the illusion has my daughter in its grips, the fantasy that is but a mirage above the river, and I can’t seem to break the spell that will plunge her back into seeing what is.

    And I can’t know the strength and conviction she has with this mirage and how far will she follow it and for how long, and if she does, what will my husband do?

    Will his canoe ride with her?

    Will his words to fall short?

    Will she hear us as we shout; will she trust the mirage or her old reality?

    Where will these three canoes go? Which ones will fight reality and who will go with the flow?

  • Live in this Moment of Time.

    I think as parents we believe we are riding shotgun in our children’s lives, while in reality they are flying solo.

    Our children are separate individuals doing their lives and we are spectators not operators of their lives.

    New souls in a new body landing on earth and they get to learn how life flows down here.

    It is all new for them, and we as parents are wanting to spare them the pain and suffering, when in actuality it is by walking through different experiences that gives them character.

    My view is much broader and I am living out front of where they are, a trail guide hollering out what is up ahead.

    Yet how can I know for sure?

    It is my challenge to walk besides, not up ahead.

    Our lives unfold as they will, and it takes energy to be in the future while living in today.

    Today, what do I do today?

    What is going on right here right now?

    I will return to living on a short time frame.

    I also learned that if you take care of the people the people will take care of the rest.

    And if you do right today, the tomorrows will also take care of themselves.

    All we are asked is to live in this moment of time.

  • Activating Inner Compassion.

    “The Presence Process” by Michael Brown

    Activating Inner Compassion

    The Intent to re-establish a loving relationship with our child self activates the procedure of learning how to become our own parent. Connecting with our child self calls us to step onto the pathway of self-nurturing, a pathway that is paved with compassion. This pathway invites us to overcome issues we unconsciously have with our own parents by reaching into a place where only forgiveness can take us. Every effort that we make to re-establish a loving relationship with our child self is rewarded with an every-increasing sense of present moment awareness.

    Many of us in this world appear to be very helpful, but when it comes to the necessary ability of knowing how to nurture ourselves, we discover that we are at a loss. We also realize that we tend to feel a deep sense of guilt whenever we attempt to do anything real and loving for ourselves. This is because it is only our unconscious sense of helplessness and neediness that drives us to sacrifice ourselves in the name of helping others. The behavior of running around and trying to help everyone to our own detriment is always fueled by the reflection we see of our own helpless plight mirrored in the world around us. We cannot give away what we do not have, so only when we learned how to truly nurture and unconditionally love ourselves do we develop the propensity for authentic service. Unless we consciously step into the present moment and own our life, our ability to be truly of assistance in this world will remain shallow and ineffectual. The first step in learning how to nurture and unconditionally love ourselves is to understand which aspect of our being is really suffering and needing our attention.”

    As adults, we experience myriad physical, mental and emotional states of imbalance, and when we do, we usually do everything in our power to numb, or distract ourselves from our plight. Or else we run to someone for attention. When we live in a time-based paradigm, what we are unable to see is that none of our physical, mental, and emotional difficulties stem from what is happening to us right now, even though they are clearly reflected in and by what is happening to us right now.

    During Session Four, we were encouraged to allow ourselves to feel all our pains and discomforts without fear or judgment. By allowing ourselves to have this experience, the realization to which we are opening ourselves is that all our pain and discomforts carry and emotional signature. The identity of this emotional signature will be one of the many emotions that arise from the trinity of fear, anger and grief.”

    Throughout The Presence Process, we call this emotional signature “the emotional charge”. We may identify this emotional charge by a variety of names ranging from fear to rage to grief. This emotional charge is an unpleasant feeling that we will literally do anything not to feel. As we progress through The Presence Process, it will become clearer to us that it is the emotional charge crouched behind our pains and discomforts that fuels our compulsion to metaphorically run from the present moment and into distraction. By reacting to this emotional charge, we lunge free Presence to pretence. We sidestep from authenticity to drama.

    We also know by now where this emotional charge is really anchored. We have already been shown how to track it back in time. To recap: if we look back over our life, and instead of viewing our past experiences as physical circumstances we choose instead to see them as a re-occurrence of emotional signatures, we will see a clear pathway of similar emotional signatures extending all the way back into our childhood. This pathway reveals to us that the imbalances that we feel today, be they physical, mental or emotional, have nothing to do with our present adult life. They are merely reflected in it. This pathway shows us that all our experiences of imbalance were initiated by encounters that we had before we turned seven. And so one of the biggest revelations we can have at this point is:

    It is not our adult experience that requires healing: it is our childhood.

    From the moment we turned our backs on our childhood so that we might become acceptable in the adult world, our child self has been using physical, mental, and emotional states of imbalance to attempt to attract our attention. Our child self has been attempting to attract our attention so that we can consciously and compassionately attend to the unintegrated emotional state in which we left it. Until we consciously attend to the unintegrated experiences of our childhood, our adult experiences will continue to be an unconscious unfolding “effect” of our unintegrated childhood.

    In “time”, our adult experience is an echo of our childhood.

    Until we integrate our childhood, our adult life will continue to be an seemingly chaotic and disconnected experience sewn together with what appears to be randomly occurring physical, mental and emotional imbalance. It is crucial at this point in The Presence Process that we understand that an unbalanced adult experience is “an effect”, not a cause of anything. It is crucial that we understand this because it is futile tampering with an effect of anything, as it is only at the point of cause that any real change can be initiated. The only value our adult symptoms of imbalance is that we can use them as clues to successfully navigate our awareness to their childhood causes. Unless we embark on such a journey, we remain ineffectual.

    The pursuit of happiness, in other words, the drive to control and sedate external circumstances so that we can feel at ease within ourselves, is nothing more that a behavior that stems form attempting to fiddle with an effect to adjust the cause. This is impossible. Such behavior leads us further and further away from our inherent joy that is already available and waiting for us within our child self. The child self is our harbor of innocence, joy and creativity. When we ignore its state of imbalance, we trade our inherent innocence, joy and creativity, and instead invest our energy in attempting to be happy by “making something of ourselves”. And so we are faced with another major revelation:

    Unless we are prepared to reach back through time and space and rescue our child self by bringing it into the safety of the present moment, where we can give it unconditional love and attention it is calling for, we as adults will never experience authentic peace.

    The intention to metaphorically reach back and rescue our own child self can be thought of as a form of time travel. However, this form of time travel is not science fiction. It does not take place “out there”, and its purpose is not to visit other far-off places. It takes place within us, and its Soul purpose is for us to compassionately reconnect with a particular attribute of our own Being from which we have become separated and alienated. This is an inside job that consciously connects our present moment with our past. It invites unconscious behaviors triggered by our past experiences to the surface of our present life so that we can consciously attend to them right now. If approached with commitment, consistency, and sincerity, this inner work releases our child self of its pain and discomfort. The unfolding consequences of rescuing our child self is that our present adult self will gradually be released from the emotional charge that is the source of all our distraction and imbalance. In other words, it is our child self that is the caretaker of our emotional charge. Emotionally it is in charge.
    Michael Brown.

    One more paragraph….

    If we have not done work with our child self prior to this moment, then it is important to realize that our relationship with our child self right now will be similar to that of a parent who has for many years abandoned their own child. At about the age of seven, most urbanized humans begin preparing to enter the adult world. This requires a willingness to turn around and walk away from our childhood. As the years unfold, it is very unlikely that we choose to look back or even consider the state of the child we once were. In most cases, we lay a blanket of forgetfulness over that aspect of our Being and openly admit that we cannot remember much of what happened when we were children. We can no longer see our child self, yet it sees everything. We seemingly no longer feel its pain, yet all our adult pain is a mirror of its unresolved feelings. We may ask, “Why must we now go back and deal with the past? Can we not just leave it alone and carry on with life?”

    Our unfortunate predicament is that the pain and suffering of our unresolved childhood issues follow us as an emotional trail of imbalance that pollutes our adult experiences in an ongoing patter that is as regular and punctual as a time piece. And this timepiece is not neutral, as the mechanical watches we wear on our wrists. The ticking of this childhood timepiece and the effects it has on our present life is what maybe thought of as “emotional time”. Wearing a watch and using it as an instrument to navigate the present moment of our life is different. It is a conscious experience. We can choose to remove the watch at any moment and no longer be exposed to its influence. However, the debris of “emotional time” is constantly invading our present moment and distracting our attention. For years, we can sedate and control the effects of the childhood debris which leak out into our adult experiences, but sooner or later it will rear up like an angry snake and challenge the very fiber of our Being. It is not necessary to get to a crisis point in our life before we begin paying attention to it, but sometimes a crisis is exactly what it takes for our desperate abandoned child self to harness our attention.

    Yet the moment we turn inward and start sincerely attending to our child self with the unconditional love, compassion, and the devotion it deserves, our physical, mental and emotional states of imbalance gradually begin subsiding. This is the real work, and it realizes very real consequences. Once our child self comes to peace, so do we. It is that simple and that powerful. If we are not at peace, it is our child self that is in conflict. There is nowhere else to look, and there is no other solution but to compassionately reach inward and lovingly attend to this precious part of our Being. Only when we begin to accomplish this task, we will be able to truly understand what it is meant by the words:

    “Only when we become as children again, can we enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 18:2-4)

  • Who has Control?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Tiny Little Wave that Arrives.

    The hardest thing to do is relax in the midst of what feels like a rough day, and it is if you clump it all together, but if you can break it apart into little tiny moments, of just doing this moment, stay with this breath in time, it works out much better.

    As I walk into the Post Office and survey the mounds of mail and packages, it seems overwhelming. And then add on the weather, the fluffy blowing piling up snow, plus dressing for the winter beauty, and then moving around all that mail, I could sit down and sob.

    Each second of time by itself isn’t overwhelming, but if you try to live all the seconds at once it is.

    When I get ahead of myself, when I am sorting and worrying about the roads, if this driveway will be accessible, will they all fit in the jeep, will I find it when I need it, will I finishing sorting in time, will my body take another tray of mail…and on it goes.

    But if I stand with the one letter I have, and find its place…If I stand with this one mailbox, this one package, this tiny part of my day, I am successful and its being successful a million times a day, that my day is complete or a success.

    I even have piled up all the days between now and Christmas into one big ocean, instead of staying with this wave in time.

    “I can do this second” is what I have to remind myself, and to stay with it, that if for some reason I can’t, it is then that I can start to worry, but not a second before.

    And maybe I am successful at failing to deliver!

    What I have learned most is that when I get ahead of where I am, I feel overwhelmed, if I stay in the present I am okay.

    Breathe and do what needs to be done in this second.
    And when the next second comes, live that one.

    Life isn’t one big ocean of time, it is this tiny little wave that arrives!

  • This New Day!

    The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.
    ~Joseph Campbell

    Yesterday the thought came to me how we live on the scales of worthiness, how time, and the days of week are all measured with a preset of one being more than the other.

    Mondays are way down on the scale, and Fridays pretty high, with Saturday and Sundays out weighing them both, yet if we didn’t have a calendar, if we were not taught that each sunrise came with a name we would embrace each day equally.

    Can we truly know as we scan the week in advance which day will be the most valuable? How is it possible to know ahead what will happen, what each sunrise has to offer us?

    The days don’t have a chance, for we already tagged them in a certain category, no chance to be an individual, for every seven days Dreaded Monday appears.

    The seven day cycle keeps things organized and in line, keeps the chaos back, but it also keeps back living in the moment of time, allowing each day to rise like a brand new wave, one we have never seen before, one we have not experienced before, welcoming it being brand new.

    How awful to be a Monday day, to rise and be greeted with groans, before you even had a chance to display your hours, you have been tagged, weighed and judged, all your gifts go unopened.

    Imagine living life unaware of the names of each sunrise, to live in wonderment of what possibilities await, living in the present allowing each new sunrise its own individual day.

    An individual day, unique, separated, not to be re-lived ever again, it comes but once in your lifetime.

    Hard to believe we are unaware of the special ness of each day, that it only greets us once in our lifetime.

    Once.

    So, how can we possibly know it?

    Each day is brand new it has never arrived to see you before, ever. Say Hi to this new day!

  • What you do in time.

    “Time is the most indefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of lightning, at once exists and expires.”   

        ~Charles Caleb Colton

     

     

    My brother wrote about time, its fleeting quality and the fact that the mind gets caught up in it or rather the mind and time go hand and hand.

     

    What is time?  Can you see it and does your body know what time it is on the clock, or does your body simply feel its way through the day?

     

    We are taught to eat by the hour hands on a clock and go to sleep by time, and not body’s physical feelings.  We expect certain things from children in time with little allowance for individual growth.

     

    Time seems to take priority over individual self.

     

    Time slips away we say or is life slipping away?  Is it that we allow our selves to watch time instead of seeing what we are doing?

     

    The more I am aware of what I am doing, how I am spending my time and with whom, the less time seems to matter.

     

    Maybe it isn’t about time at all but instead about being aware of your feelings at all times.

     

    Feeling your feelings in time.

     

    We somehow feel that by spending time, we are sharing ourselves and many times we are just sharing time.

    Doesn’t that remind you of school, taking up space and time?

     

    Life is so much more than taking up space and time in another’s life.

     

    Yet we some how feel it is okay to waste time, but what you are really doing is wasting your life.

     

    Your life has value minute by minute. 

     

    We add its value, with feeling and action; we add the content to time.

     

    You are what you do in time.