9.24.2010

Toxic Emotions

As you begin to enter into the multidimensional perspective you will begin to see that the most toxic “chemicals” you subject the Earth to are your emotions. The war you create is absolutely devastating. The more anger, fear, and hatred, the more limitation and lack you create. That is far more damaging to the Earth than any chemical you could pump into the air.

Wendy Kennedy, Higher Frequencies, from the article Global Warming.

The idea that it matters what we think, what we feel, what we say, how we behave, is becoming more and more crucial. If it seems I'm spending a lot of energy posting about this topic .. well .. I am! (see my previous post Cleaning Up After Ourselves - Emotions and Empowerment.) But it's not without reason. Time is running out, literally, on our ability to spew emotions without being aware of the impact they have on ourselves, the environment, and everyone around us. Now is the time to be becoming aware of what drives us unconsciously, and bring that into conscious awareness.

That doesn't mean "watch-dogging" ourselves, or putting restrictions on our thoughts, words, or activities. All that's needed is to become aware of what we're thinking, aware of what we're saying, aware of how we're acting.

When we become aware, we automatically begin adjusting. So when you notice a way of being - a thought, word, action, or feeling - that doesn't fit with who you want to be - who you know yourself to be! simply notice. No judgement, no recrimination, no guilt .. just notice.

In the noticing you stop, and like the ball thrown into the air that pauses ever so slightly at the top of its arc before gravity pulls it down, that little stop is all you need. It allows you to breath, to gather yourself together, to stand back from the current situation. It gives you that tiny foot in the door to choosing differently. The future changes in that instant, that tiny instant where you paused at the top of your "upset arc". So simply take that opportunity to choose differently. How would you like your experience to be? Set an intent for that, and let whatever happens, happen.

It might be that you're caught up in a very strong pattern of behavior, so it might take many iterations of noticing, stopping, breathing, and rechoosing before it begins to manifest differently. Be patient with yourself! You didn't set these patterns into motion in one sitting (in fact you might be dealing with lifetimes worth of patterns), they might not clear up in one sitting. Then again, they may! These are amazing times, and like never before in the history of mankind, anything and everything is possible. Give yourself some of that compassion that you give so freely to others. Your "Self" will thank you!

As you begin being more aware of your thoughts, "choosing" differently by directing your thoughts toward what you want and not what you don't want, remember that this applies to the Earth as well. Wendy and the Pleiadians had more to say in their Global Warming article about Earth and how we can help her:

It is important at this time that you begin to look at your connection to all living things and how you utilize the natural resources of the planet. Are your habits in harmony with Mother Earth? Consumption of natural resources is not the cause of a toxic world. The toxicity is created when you are not consuming in balance with other living creatures.
As you question the best method to heal your planet, know that perceiving your world as toxic and working externally keeps you in the 3rd dimensional mindset. Until you begin to see the situation from a multidimensional perspective, you will remain on the treadmill forever striving for a goal that is unachievable. And it is unachievable until you can shift your perspective and see that the Earth is a reflection of you and you begin to heal yourself.

When you understand that Earth is simply a reflection of your inner emotional state as a group, as a mass consciousness, you can change the toxicity of the Earth by changing the toxicity of your own body. Currently, there are many beings on your planet who are quite ill and Earth is a reflection of that. You are holographic in nature. What happens to the microcosm happens to the macrocosm. Or simply put – as above, so below.

It is also important that you begin to see your world as flourishing. She is teeming with new life and opportunity. It is vital that you see her as healthy and in a state of growth rather than something that is ill that must be fixed. This notion of illness can be very detrimental to the psyche of the planet. The more you think of Earth as a toxic world, the more toxic a world you will create. You create that which you are focused on.

9.17.2010

On Integrating Experiences, and Mass Ascension

When you place yourself firmly in the driver’s seat of Creation, you determine what occurs to you. It doesn’t happen upon you. As you hold more light and release fear, those of lower frequencies must match your frequency to be in your presence. Only through a vibrational match will you recreate the persecution*, and in so doing, allow yourself an opportunity to see why you created it, how it was of service, and release judgment thus integrating the experience.

From Allowing Yourself to Be Seen, by Ramshi through Wendy Kennedy at Higher Frequencies.

* [or whatever your personal issue is]

In this piece, Ramshi reminds us that none of us is a victim, ever, no matter how much it looks like - or feels like - we are. Whatever "good" things happen to us are because we desired to experience them and allowed them into our lives. By the same token, whatever "bad" things happen to us are because we desired to experience them and allowed them into our lives.

Now why on earth, we might ask, would we invite "bad" things into our lives? Especially at the levels of being that we are becoming? We keep accepting and clearing, accepting and clearing. Why aren't things (life) getting easier?

Because on a spirit level (which if you recall, is the basis of our being) we choose to experience all of what physical reality (any reality really) has to offer. That has been the case since spirit began incarnating as a human species however many millenia ago that started. What's different now is that we're taking this race through ascension - bringing the race as a whole into a completely new level of vibration and awareness, that of the 4th and 5th density and beyond.

The race of man held these higher vibrations at earlier times, such as during Lemuria and Atlantis, but after that our mass vibration lowered, which means that Earth, as our host, was lower in vibration also. Now it's time for Earth to return to a more natural state. Earth's ascension at this time is a cosmic event, mapped out in the alignment of the stars. Which means that Earth will raise her vibration and eventually no longer be a third density planet; that is not in question. The question is, will the race of man go with her?

A favorable outcome to that question was never guaranteed, and indeed for most of our history it looked like it could never happen. If you examine just our relatively short written history you'll see why that was so. What we have done to each other, to our beloved Earth, and to the creatures and things upon her has been - in many cases - unspeakable. Sometimes a third density reality is not a fun place. Nevertheless, it has been humanity's intent to raise in vibration as a mass consciousness. Now is the time we're finally doing it.

That is, in fact, why you are here, at this momentous point in time - to help ensure the success of that intent. Take a moment to let that sink in. If that doesn't give you a sense of how important you are, just in being here, just in being who you are, no matter how paltry you think your life is or has been, I don't know what will.

So although it seems like business as usual on planet Earth - or worse than usual - something very important is going on here, something that most humans don't understand: Never has the race of man raised to higher vibrations from 3rd density. Individuals have done so, but never the mass consciousness. And never in all of creation has a third density free-choice species raised the entire race from third density at the same time as their planet. We humans are doing that very thing, right here, right now. This is a huge big deal. This is cause for celebration around our universe, but we don't seem to get it. We are, in truth, keeping ourselves away from our own party! .. but only because we don't yet remember - fully - Who We Really Are.

There were a lot of perceived negative experiences for spirit-as-human, both individually and as a race, along the road that took us from those high vibrations to lower ones. Note that this is not a "bad" thing. We chose our experiences then, as we choose them now. Still, with our goal of moving up the vibrational scale, those experiences (fear, anger, resentment, blame, guilt, etc. and the actions we associate with those emotions) whether they originated in this lifetime or another, have to be - must be - integrated into our being before the race can move on.

So each of us as individuals, is working - on mostly unaware levels - to become consciously aware of these old thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, patterns, so that we can integrate them into our being. Integration is what many call "healing our emotional wounds". Same idea, different words. I refer to it as "integration" because we are integrating those aspects of our personality that we have pretended did not exist. Pretended them out of existence because we think we can't face them. "No!" we protest. "I couldn't, I wouldn't have done that on my own, they made me!" This is such a hard topic for most people. We all want to believe that we are not powerful enough to create our personal reality. Someone, somewhere, must be doing something to us, because trust me (we say), if I were that powerful I would not create this! Oh but you are. And you do. And no, what we create isn't always pretty.

Why is that? Because we all have a "dark" side. The dark side is just our human word for what we term "negative experience." No being is without "negative" experience. One simply cannot fully experience anything without seeing both sides. We all understand that when it comes to physical things - we know that we don't look at anything and fully comprehend it until we see all sides of it. The same is true of the experiences of consciousness. Facing that we have a "dark side", that we have knowingly and willingly had negative experiences, is part of the process.

So over the many years of human history we had all these different experiences, both as individuals and as a race. Some good, some awesome, some not so good, some truly despicable. All these experiences have to be integrated. The awesome ones integrate pretty easily. We mostly (not always) accept our wonderful experiences and intend to have more of them.

It's generally the negative experiences that we don't want to accept. The times when we got hurt and decided we'd never do that again, whatever that was that caused us pain. The times when we abused our wealth and swore never again to have money. The times when we raped, plundered, murdered for whatever (in retrospect) ridiculous reason we decided we needed to do that (anger, revenge, fear, greed). The times when we felt so powerless that we abused our power in an effort to compensate. Or the times when these kinds of things were perpetrated against us, and we decided whatever we decided in an effort to protect ourselves.

Fear, anger, rage, revenge, abuse, greed .. all of these are very natural responses for a human being caught up in a third density "play". Which we were. Now we aren't. That's the difference between "then" and "now", and that difference is huge. Then we were fully engaged in the human drama. And it wasn't always bad! There's a lot to love about a third density reality, for what it teaches us about ourselves. But we're done with that game now, it's time to move on. Time to stand apart from the drama, recognize our experiences as our creation, accept them, embrace them, and let them go. Let them go so we can begin to create consciously, fully aware. So we can create what we want and no longer what we do not want. Our experiences are not who we are, only what we did or what we decided, and that distinction is all important. Until we understand that, we'll be stuck on auto-pilot, endlessly recreating the same old stuff.

So these old experiences, the ones that aren't fully integrated, are visiting us again. In all honesty we are bringing them about. We are creating situations in our lives that highlight these experiences that need to be integrated, and some of them are really unpleasant. Sometimes unspeakably awful. We're driving ourselves crazy trying to understand why these things are happening, without the knowing that sometimes they aren't going to make sense. There isn't a lot of time left on our ascension calendar. We have to get these experiences integrated and move on. As we clear one we grow and our base vibration rises. At the same time we free up space to tackle the next one.

Another great thing happens as we integrate our experiences, one that we mostly aren't aware of: Not only do we benefit as individuals, the whole of humanity benefits. We are all connected. We know that at very deep levels, and yet we constantly forget. So what the one learns, all learn. As you raise your vibration, all of humanity benefits. Never - not ever - think that you don't matter. You do. Enormously.

One of the problems in handling all these experiences coming at us is that we don't get much breathing room between them. Another is that we don't understand where these negative experiences are coming from and why. We often don't understand why we react the way we do. Where and why aren't important - accepting experiences as our own creation is. That is all important. Accept that you created whatever experience you are having, whether you like the experience or not, whether you like your reaction or not. No blame, no guilt, no judgement. "It just is." "I just am." Those are the keys to integration.

So for each incident that has us feeling like a victim "He did that to me!" "They made me do it!" "I didn't ask for this!" "Why me?" "She shouldn't have .." we have an opportunity to - once and for all - accept that we are not a victim at all. We have an opportunity to begin to see each experience for what it is - another chance to recognize our personal powers of creation, to accept and love ourselves no matter what, to recognize that there are still things from our "past" that may need to be acknowledged and cleared. That's what integration is. It's accepting ourselves, and everything that happens to us, without judgement. Embracing "it just is" as the response to every emotional "why" question we can ask.

Tall order? Of course it is, we'd expect it to be. At the higher vibrations manifestation is instantaneous. Having access to manifesting our thoughts and beliefs instantaneously brings a fair share of responsibility, wouldn't you say? But we are all up to the task. We wouldn't be here going through this if we weren't. It just requires diligence and the willingness to be brutally honest with ourselves about our experiences.

Feel what you feel when confronted with your living nightmares (my term for those negative experiences we can't believe we're creating), then step back into the higher heart/higher mind and try to see the experience for what it is. Have compassion for the human being (you) who's experiencing this unpleasant thing, offer love and understanding to that human who suffers. Embrace the experience as your creation, then let it go. Assign no blame, either to another or to yourself. Remember "It Just Is."

There are numerous ways to do this, you may already have techniques that work for you. If not, a teacher that I recommend is Jim Self at Mastering Alchemy. Jim offers a slew of both free and for-cost programs. His basic energy tools, like the Rose Tool, help you learn how to release and neutralize negative energy, something that will help you integrate your experiences and be able to detach from the drama, your own and everyone else's. (Note a change in the Mastering Alchemy website, registration is now required for access to even the free programs.)

After acceptance and integration, then what? The answer is: Choice. Once we are able to stand apart from the drama that is our experience, we gain the ability to choose what to do next. More on that next post. In the meantime, remember always that you matter. That you are loved. And that you are never alone.

9.14.2010

The Habit of Not Listening

I was just thinking the last few days how often I'm so caught up in my own thoughts and activities that I don't really listen to those who interact with me. In looking at that, I began to realize that often I give - at best - about half an ear to those around me. It's become a habit, and one that isn't serving very well.

So yesterday I made a conscious effort to listen more and talk less, and wouldn't you know it, the first thing that showed up was a huge misunderstanding between my daughter and myself. I wasn't hearing what she was saying, and since I wasn't, she wasn't hearing what I was saying. Lots of drama from both of us, very little communication. Oh my, how the universe responds with our lessons when we ask to learn them! It's almost annoying how consistently that works.

Given my recent interest in this topic, I was intrigued today to get April & Allen Crawford's message from Veronica having to do with that very subject. Maybe more people than just me can use the reminder. Here it is:
Listening

In the linear reality many aspire to be proactive in their participation. They gallantly display their energy to anyone who may be near. Seeking the connection to their existence they often speak of the connection of mind, body, and spirit.

It is a habit of those embodied to speak more than they listen. The resonating tenor of their voice makes them feel productive and vital in the physical environment. It is happening everywhere one looks.... a lot of talkers but very few listeners.

We are sure that the many who have much to say are lacking when it comes to hearing the whispers of their own souls. An unfortunate moment since it is often the subtle expressions that provoke the most growth.

We would advise all who aspire to connect with their souls to listen carefully to the breath of a newborn, the song of a grass hopper, and the cry of a kitten as it searches for its mother.

The vibration of your own soul can be heard on a clear evening in the garden. It is the desire to focus on these simple moments that begins the greatest growth.

Be still.

Listen to the pulse of your soul.

The rhythm will sound out a clear message to your heart. If only you would listen the wonders of the universe would be revealed.

Try.

See what occurs.

Listen.

9.06.2010

Cleaning Up After Ourselves - Emotions and Empowerment

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

-Maya Angelou
Memory created from emotional experience is the strongest type of memory that we have. We decide things that affect us for long periods of time - often our entire lives - based on experiences that cause us to feel some way. Very often we make those decisions in imperceptible fractions of seconds, and we mostly don't even realize that we have. I remember once, when I was very little, deciding that big men with white hair and white mustaches were mean and dangerous to be around because my uncle (a big man with white hair/white mustache of course) had yelled at me and spanked me - hard - for something I didn't do. It took me about half a second to make this decision, and half my life to realize why I got agitated and angry around certain types of men, so that I could finally release it.

If the feeling we get from an experience is especially strong, and/or matches feelings we've had in the past that we've made decisions based on, that decision becomes part of our cellular memory. Once in cellular memory it becomes a part of us - we get to drag those decisions around through future lifetimes, experiencing the impact of them on ourselves and others, and eventually, hopefully - if it's a decision that has impacted us negatively - we gain enough wisdom and knowledge to be able to dismiss the decision as the non-truth that it is. If it was a decision that impacts us positively, yay us!, we have a nice, positive trait to add to our experiences. These decisions become the basis for who we are in any given human life. In other words, the impact of our emotional responses can be far-reaching, and very important to our emotional well-being. And our emotional well-being is crucial to our physical well-being.

Being Aware of How People Respond to Us

So Ms. Angelou's observation strikes me as important in two ways. The first is related to how we treat others - being aware that our intent, words, and actions can have a lasting impact on others. For me, it helps me focus my attention on creating a positive interaction with people wherever I go. That's empowerment - we empower others when our interactions with them, no matter how small, leave them feeling better about themselves.

Empowerment, to me, is at minimum a feeling of "I'm ok." It can be so much more, but that's the gentlest good feeling that I associate with being empowered. There are steps along the continuum of negative emotion that lead toward empowerment, and helping people get to these places is a wonderful thing. But for me, the lowest positive emotion that I personally associate with feeling empowered is "I'm ok." I'd prefer that people I interact with come away with feelings like "I'm awesome!" "I'm worthy" or at least "I'm capable" but I'll settle for "I'm ok". It's a dang site better than any of the negative feelings they might be left with.

In other words, my goal in interacting with others is that they come away feeling good about themselves in some way, no matter what the conversation was about, even if I'm handing them their walking papers (in other words, firing them). Do I always do this? Not by a long shot! Ask any of the various people who've interacted with me over time! ;)

Yet .. even with the best of intentions, can we control how people are going to respond to us? Of course not. But that doesn't mean it isn't worth trying. As I mentioned, it is my goal that people I interact with come away from those interactions empowered. It's how I would like to be treated. If things don't work out and I walk away knowing that they are less than empowered, I have to ask myself "what was being mirrored back to me in that exchange? (what is there for me to see for myself), and "what might I have done to have it go better"?

Being Aware of How We Respond to Others

The other important thing I see about Maya's observation relates to how we respond to others. Not only when people are directly interacting with us, but how we respond to others as we observe them interacting with each other. Whether I feel empowered from an interaction with another - or from simply being in the presence of others - is completely within my control. I have the ability - and in my mind, the response-ability - to be conscious of my reactions, and consciously choose my responses so that I maintain a feeling of empowerment regardless of what's going on around me. That, to me, is mastering the art of being human - being able to powerfully be your Self no matter what is going on around you. It doesn't mean being right, it doesn't mean always winning, it doesn't mean always being liked. It means being Who I Am, no matter what. Do other people need to understand or accept me? Not at all. That I cannot control, and as much as possible I don't even try .. but as the saying goes "old habits die hard". ;)

Another interesting thing I've noticed is that as we grow along our path we sometimes come to a place where we think that it doesn't matter how we treat others, because they are responsible for their own reactions. Our rationale is that if they get hurt, so be it, there's something there for them to learn. If they get angry so be it, there's something there for them to learn. I cannot deny that that is true, each of us is responsible for our own reactions. But .. does knowing that relieve us of our responsibility in the matter of what we say and what we do?

It's a delicate line that we dance over all the time. Sometimes we are so out of awareness with our own state of being that spewing our emotions is necessary. It serves no one, least of all ourselves, to ignore our feelings or bury them deep inside. Inside they fester and turn into resentment and anger. If held onto long enough, those emotions affect the physical body in unpleasant ways. So releasing emotion is important to our personal well-being, and our personal well-being is important to the planet and to humanity as a whole. But what happens in the aftermath of, say, an emotional explosion? We feel better and those around us feel .. potentially .. a whole lot worse. Certainly not empowered.

When we spill a glass of water on someone's floor, do we just walk away and expect them clean up the mess? or do we apologize, grab a towel, and start cleaning up the mess ourselves? While it's true that the ultimate responsibility for the mess belongs to the owner/tenant of the place where we spilled it, isn't it also our responsibility as the person who made the mess to do something to help clean it up?

Couldn't the same concept be applied to emotional spills? Other people are impacted by the emotional messes we make even more than they are impacted by the physical messes we make. Seems to me that it behooves all of us, particularly as we are moving closer and closer to instant manifestation, to be responsible for the energy that we put out into the world. If we're conscious enough, aware enough, of how we're feeling, we can center ourselves and ground the energy of our negative feelings before it leaks - or blasts - out into the world unrestricted. A worthy goal I think.

But what about when we can't? What about the times when, despite our sincerest wishes and efforts, others get caught in a whirlwind of our emotions? In our upset we don't even notice, perhaps until some time later when we start getting a hint or or clue that we caused a major upheaval. There are options. Please be advised that feeling guilty isn't one of them! Guilt has no place in the life of an empowered human. (For more on this, see my earlier article Learning to Love Yourself - Guilt Free)

If you don't notice an emotional mess when it happens (so you aren't aware enough to clean it up then), or you don't clean it up at the time for whatever reason, it isn't necessary to revisit the event or the people who may have been involved in order to apologize. You can apologize if you desire to do so, but it isn't necessary. For one, that experience has passed. We don't need to go back and revisit every experience and change our reaction to it (though that can be helpful), instead we can create the effect of having changed an experience by changing ourselves going forward. For another, you may not have had the impact on others that you think you did - you could always ask about that, and apologize if it feels right to you to do so.

What you can always do, once you've realized you might have created an emotional mess, is reiterate to yourself that that is not the way you wish to behave. Ask your higher self what might be learned from the experience, if you don't have a sense of it already. Appreciate yourself for having noticed the unwanted behavior, for having examined it for potential learning, for reiterating your intent to be different, then let it go. Send your love energetically to those involved if that feels good to you, but in all cases, let the incident go. If you can't, then examination into that feeling will be helpful.

The thing you really want to avoid is expecting that this behavior will never visit you again. Personal growth doesn't typically occur that quickly, although it certainly can. One thing certain is that the response will keep appearing until it doesn't. What you can expect is that when it does return you will notice it sooner, respond to it quicker, and eventually be able to catch yourself before an unwanted emotional response is released. In other words, you'll have access to the automatic behavior and be able to choose consciously how to deal with the emotional energy yourself, internally, without anyone else being affected.

Emotion is Energy, Energy Impacts Everything

The important thing to remember is that the energy we release, through emotion or any other way, has an impact on the earth itself, and on everyone and everything around us. If you are interested in sending out the most positive energy possible, you can do that at any time, in any place, in any circumstance, in the presence of any thing or any one, even your supposed "enemies". It just takes looking at a given situation from a different vantage point.

Here's something to try: If the work you're doing isn't cooperating with you, rather than swear at it, call it names, and spew upset all over everywhere, why not treat it like you would a respected, even beloved partner? First take a deep breath, center yourself and get grounded. Then tell your work that you believe in it, that you appreciate it (do this in whatever ways and with whatever words feel right to you), then ask it to cooperate with you. Tell it clearly what result you are looking for, and then give it the space to become what you have asked. Begin working again when you feel ready. Be sincere - like a child instinctively does, your work will know if you are simply going through the motions. Be prepared to be amazed at the results!

Then you can use the experience to help you see other situations from a different perspective.

Children

Children are particularly sensitive to emotional energy, and typically have little if any practice in releasing it from their bodies. They may not even recognize that what they are feeling is not their own emotion but someone else's, and they don't need to deal with it. You can help children understand about emotions, help them learn to separate their own feelings from the feelings of others. For example you can explain how sometimes people - even people who love us - say and do things they don't necessary mean to say or do, and that their upset is theirs, it has nothing to do with us. You can let children talk about how such and such a situation made them feel, and help them release any emotional debris associated with the experience. It's worth the extra few minutes it takes to connect with a child energetically and help them process what might be overpowering emotions. Consider the potential decisions they might be making based on that experience!

And don't be surprised if a child walks up to you someday and helps you get through some upsetting emotion. We are in the presence of a new generation of Masters. In many cases we're going to have to paddle hard to catch up with them!

The Future

In times past, that is, those thousands of years before humanity (at the higher self level) decided to attempt to move into a higher vibration, as a race, along with Earth - in other words before "the Shift" - humans were given help in cleaning up their emotional "messes". Protections were in place, and other entities worked with us, to transmute much of the strong emotional energy that we released unawares. While "bad things" did happen as a result of our thoughts and desires, as bad as some things were, there was not nearly as much havoc created as there might have been, due to the help provided through our buffer of time.

For most of us alive on the planet today, that kind of help is either no longer available or in the process of being removed. We are at the point in our evolution where we each have to be responsible for our own thoughts, beliefs, words, and actions. We must learn how to manage our energy ourselves. If we cannot, we will not be able to move into the higher vibrations. Not because we wouldn't be "allowed to", but because we'd self destruct from the attempt.

In the higher vibrations, manifestation is instantaneous. Can you imagine the havoc we could create if we were to instantaneously manifest "I hate you! I'm going to kill you!"? We say things like that, but usually we don't mean them. All something like that generally means is that we are so enraged in the moment that we don't know how to respond to our rage, we don't know what to do with it. So we say things like that. We think it's harmless.

In a protected third-density reality we had a time lag that protected us from thoughts like those. We had time to reconsider, move off of an unwanted intent ("come to our senses"), and thereby not manifest it. As time collapses, the buffer of time - and the protection it brings - diminishes. Soon it will be completely gone. Will you have mastered your thoughts by then? Will you be ready to see your every whim and upset manifest in your reality instantly?

You can be. Simply by beginning now to be aware of the impact that your thoughts and words and actions have. These are fantastic times. More fantastic than most people can even begin to grasp. Teeming with opportunity! But with the opportunity comes responsibility - the responsibility to manage our own thoughts, our own energy.

We have lots of help. An unbelievable amount of help. Our helpers come from places, and help arrives in ways, that most of us aren't even remotely aware of. In some cases wouldn't be able to comprehend - or accept - even if we were aware of it. Suffice it to say that we are under a kind of Divine Dispensation, given in part to help us learn how to manage our thoughts and emotions - our energy. Extraordinary help is being provided so that humanity, as a race, can move into the higher dimensions, so that we can aid and follow Earth on her journey there, join her in her adventure.

Take advantage of the fact that this help exists, and ask for it. Tell the Universe, your Higher Self, your guides, your angels, the Ascended Masters, whatever beings you trust or whatever terms you use, that you wish to master your thoughts and ask for help. Use whatever words or methods feel right to you, but ask. Then listen for the guidance. You can use ceremony, you can use meditation, you can get quiet in your own mind, or you can just .. ask. Your thoughts are no secret to those dedicated to helping you. But this is a planet of free choice, and that means that help cannot be imposed on you, you must ask for it, consciously and with purpose.

Begin now learning how to manage your thoughts, to ground energy, to empower others, and to find joy in everything you do. There are thousands, if not millions, of human teachers/mentors/healers available to help you, if you want help. Like anything, it takes practice, but as you practice you will gain confidence - and pride! - in your ability. Then, when the time comes and you find yourself in a realty in which your every thought is manifest almost before you think it, you will be confident in the knowledge that you are ready.

9.01.2010

What We Can Learn From Hospice

Earlier this year I began spending time as a Hospice volunteer. It's a wonderful program, and after about 9 months of being involved in it you'd think I'd be writing about what an amazing and beautiful experience it has been. And it has! But that's not what has captured my attention.

Even as far back as my initial training for this volunteer effort, I was struck by how much emphasis the Hospice staff puts on treating people with dignity and respect. The focus is on supporting, comforting, listening to, enjoying, appreciating, loving, and honoring the clients and their families. What an awesome way to treat people! So uplifting! I have total permission to go into my clients' home or room - people for whom I am a complete stranger! - and simply love them. The time I spend with them is entirely devoted to them and their needs, to helping ensure that their last few months, weeks, days, hours as a human being are as comfortable as possible, that they are as cared about as possible, and that they leave this earth feeling as proud of who they are and what they've accomplished as they can allow themselves to accept. It's a truly wonderful system.

But it makes me wonder .. why does a person have to find themselves at end-of-life, the end of the road, the place where all of medical science has given up on them, to become entitled to be treated this way? Why don't we treat each other this way all the time? Why don't we support each other, listen to each other, comfort each other, enjoy each other, appreciate each other, love each other, honor each other, allow each other to just be, all the time? Why is all that good stuff withheld from us until we have the least possible physical ability to appreciate it?

I've been reflecting on that question for quite awhile, and I don't know that I have an answer. Maybe we just aren't practiced at treating each other this way. Maybe we don't give each other permission to treat each other this way. Maybe we just don't take the time. Maybe all the rules we've developed to protect ourselves from each other keep us from even considering it. Maybe we don't believe we deserve to be treated this way. Maybe we don't have enough tolerance of, or can't find true compassion for, each other until we know there's no hope left. Maybe it's a combination of all those reasons and more.

Pondering all this has gotten me to see what life could be like if we truly valued and respected each other, regardless of who we are, what we've accomplished in the material world or not accomplished, or what we've done with our lives or not done with our lives. It really doesn't matter. None of that matters. Not in the least. We are all, each and every one of us, going through this amazing thing known to many as The Shift, and we're doing it together whether we are aware that we are or not. Every human being who is a human being today, who has ever been human, who will ever be human, has a part to play in the experiences of the race called human.

Each of us is an aspect of God, in that we are all equal. No one of us is any more, or any less, deserving of the dignity and compassion that we have proven we are capable of giving. And none of us is new to this game called being physical. If we had any clue what we've done in our past journeys on the planet, or in the far reaches of the multiverse, I think we wouldn't be so quick to judge, and maybe a whole lot quicker to appreciate. It seems to me it's in all of our best interests to remember that, and to treat each other with the compassion, love, and dignity that our status as true creators deserves. Spirit does no less, why should we?