4.30.2013

Veronica: A Simple Action

A Simple Action

Veronica through April and Allen Crawford at Inner Whispers

April 30, 2013

We are often asked how one can make a difference for the better in their relationships.

Many seek a complicated answer. However, a simple action can begin the process of healing and positiveness in their daily life for themselves, and others.

Each day, verbal defamation and gossip ravages many lives. It is often overlooked as many feel there are much bigger problems to solve in the universe. All are having their own unique experiences, and some are damaged by these types of actions.

We would suggest starting to clean up your personal reality of these seeds of negativity. Begin by only speaking good of others, while encouraging others to do the same.

By leading with a positive loving example, perhaps others who are deeply entrenched in speaking negatively will evolve to a more positive approach.

Many larger problems in the world have their roots in personal and cultural behavior.

Be the leader.

Your example may make your life totally different. Rejoice in the change and become the nurturer.

Not that it will be an exodus from all the negativity, but it will at least be a beginning.

Change happens one person at a time.

Remember to speak to the good in another. Perhaps they will be inspired to do the same.

Keeping your positive stance will have an effect. Those who will hear you will be elevated to a new perspective.

Be kind.

Be positive.

Be different.

It does change things.

-VERONICA

4.19.2013

Clearing and Integrating Core Issues, A Personal Tale - Phase II

The discovery of myself caught between the opposing factions of control and defiance I will call Phase I, posted here

Heading into Phase II, I spent several weeks doing not much else (aside from living my normal life) than being diligent with my thoughts, refocusing as warranted. Refocusing my thoughts to empower me when I noticed I was disempowered - either back in or heading toward “the battle of the two me’s”.

When I noticed thoughts appearing in my mind that I wasn’t doing something or another that I should be doing, I would smile internally and let the thought go. It became much easier to see it for what it was - old programming - and letting go was becoming surprisingly easy. 

Eventually these thoughts came less often. Certainly any emotion that had previously been attached to them was gone or essentially nil. 

These thoughts no longer felt like my thoughts, but simply thoughts. As if an innocent child had spoken them and I knew, even if the child did not, that the thoughts had no power. They only gained power when I believed in them, followed them, acted upon them, argued with them, allowed them to persist.

I knew that something big was coming, not only because I wasn’t feeling inspired by any of the things that typically inspired me, but because I had taken a stand that I wanted to, and was willing to, release the last vestiges of who I have been and welcome more of who I really am. 

At some point I was given this powerful thought “Release means letting go.” 

Release Means Letting Go

Well, duh. Of course release means letting go! Textbook definition if I ever heard one. 

But there was a significance to this phrase that I hadn’t seen before. Release means letting go of the story(ies). 

Stories about who we are that we have developed over time and lifetimes. Stories that aren’t the real ‘us’ but only ‘us’ as a character in a play. This play, for instance. The one Earth at this time.

I realized in a flash that I couldn’t release “who I am not” while I’m still holding tight to the story of "who I am". The story of this lifetime in this play. That’s what I had to let go of.

Sounds simple, no? Yes. Simple. Not necessarily easy. 

I had to look at that concept for awhile. It brought up questions: What does that mean, give up my story? Does it mean I’m not a wife, mother, grandmother, friend? How can I not be those things? I AM those things! 

Does it mean I don’t try to control people and circumstances, and I don’t allow myself to be controlled? I could get behind that.

Does it mean I’m a tidy person, not the person with the slob-like nature that I tend to project into my personal life .. in defiance of being told what to do by parties so gone from my life that it’s beyond amazing that I’d still be listening to them? I could get behind that too.

But in letting go of who I am not, is it appropriate to replace one story with another? If I let go that I’m a slob (in my private life, since I am not that in my public life .. and there it is again, that two-headed part of my nature), must I be tidy instead? That didn’t seem right. That smacked of duality. Either/Or. One or the other. 

What if releasing the story means I’m not any of those things? What if it means I can behave in tidy ways, I can behave in slobbish ways, I can behave however it suits me to behave? Does it need to have a label? 

Hundreds of similar scenarios arose to be examined. I pondered them for days. Things like: If I don’t do the dishes after dinner, what am I? Am I a slob or am I lazy or just very busy or a procrastinator? What am I in that scenario? 

Here’s the decision I finally landed on: Maybe I’m not any of those things. Maybe I’m just a human being who .. who didn’t do the dishes after dinner. No judgement, no labels, no story “yep, did it again, left the dishes in the sink just like you always do blah blah blah” ad nauseum. These are ad nauseum judgements that I’ve silently and automatically made for .. well, for all of my life that I can recall. 

What if what I was being asked to let go of was nothing more or less than all those stories? All of them. 

All of them? That’s a tall order. I have hundreds, thousands, millions, uncountable numbers of stories! Let go of all of them? I slumped back in my chair. oh. my. gawd. How in the name of our lovely Gaia am I supposed to do that?

The answer came instantly and powerfully, as they always do for me when I ask a profound question. 

“One story at a time.”

Of course. One at a time. 

This could take awhile.

Becoming Real

I remembered a scene from the Velveteen Rabbit that has always held great meaning for me:
“It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse.

"You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.

But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
That’s where we each are right now, in the process of becoming Real - becoming the Who We Really Are.

Or perhaps better said, peeling away, releasing, integrating, all that stands between us and who we are really. We're the sculptor removing all that is not the statue. Uncovering, discovering, the treasure hidden inside the stone.

We have been immersed in a process of becoming for eons. One could argue since forever and always.

Getting Outside the Box

But in the most recent play, our becoming was becoming as contained in a box - a box called “Life on Planet Earth”, translated as “life in third density.” In that play we were becoming more of who we are by being a third density human, with all that being a third density human entails - duality, greed, abuse, misery, suffering; power over and overpowered by. 

That old becoming was a fun experience, a grueling experience, every type of experience imaginable. But most of us are now done with that becoming, the becoming inside the box. Not all of us, but most of us. Some are still deciding.

Humanity's Turning Point

We’re at a turning point in our becoming. We are now 'becoming' as an expanded being. 'Becoming' the more we have always been. We are including in our selves - but no longer limiting ourselves to - being human. Shedding the illusion that allowed us to become more than we were by focusing all of our awareness inside the box.

But it’s a turning point that takes awhile. It takes a big ship an amount of time to make a turn, it doesn’t happen instantaneously. This is a big ship, this ship of all humanity. A very big ship indeed. But we are in the process of making that turn.

We do so by starting to release the decisions, the judgements, the conclusions, the logical responses that have kept us immersed in our stories, stuck inside the box. This is when we start realizing that it’s all story! 

Even the parts we enjoy are stories. We can keep those stories, as long as we enjoy them. As long as they empower us. But even then it’s helpful to remember that they’re just stories. 

If something happens inside a story that changes how we feel, remembering it’s all story is very helpful. It keeps us from charging off into powerful emotions that are tied to the story but not to 'us' - to who we are outside of and beyond our stories.

And we release them one story at a time. I am not a slob. Neither am I tidy. I just am. Sometimes I do things that appear slob-like, sometimes I do things that appear tidy-like. What does that say about me? Nothing. Nothing at all. That’s all judgement, all related to the story. 

Stories surround us, but they aren’t us. We create them in order to have experiences. It’s the experience that lives on, not the props or the stories. 

We each have literally zillions of stories. Do we need to examine each one? I can’t answer that. I’ve been examining mine as they appear, particularly when I notice some negative emotion attached. I know that emotion is tied to the story and not to me, so recognizing, releasing, and integrating the story is both doable for me and important to me. It frees me for different experiences, more joyful experiences. Because “more joyful” is what I choose.

When I find myself ensconced in an emotion like “that pisses me off!” I ask myself “what’s the story?” In one case the story is that people should be courteous. When people aren’t courteous, it pisses me off. That’s a story. How should people be? However they are. Some behave in discourteous ways. What does that say about them? Nothing. Nothing at all. 

As I become aware of more and more stories, instead of being angry or upset I often find myself laughing. It really is becoming funny to me how many stories I have, and how deeply I have believed them to be real. “They (whoever ‘they’ refers to in any given moment) are [ fill in the blank ].” No they aren’t. That’s a story. A story that I made up, based on whatever decisions I made for whatever reasons I made them at whatever point that I made them. I added to their power over time by living through similar experiences and not stopping to determine whether the story continued to suit me or not. Automatic. Preprogrammed for my own convenience. Robot like.

A Story Is Just A Story

A story is just a story. The power comes from realizing that I can shift the story or change the story. Or not. My choice. Always my choice. As it is for all of us.

When I see something that occurs for me as a negative, and can see it as part of a story, it takes the bite out it. It loses its emotion and therefore its power. 

The war of the selves, my two-headed way of being, control vs defiance, defiance vs control? Story. All of it. I step out of it when I realize - remember - it's a story. And I no longer need it.

That's the process - separating the story from me, me from the story. I am. The story is whatever the story is. 

I can't imagine life without stories. I can't imagine there'd be much to do. But I don't have to be my stories. I can just be, and play in the story. Or change the story. Or write a new story. 

And I don't need you to change your story to suit me, your story doesn't affect me. Not really. If your story doesn't work for me I can create a new one. For me. I will draw to me, and be drawn to, others who are creating stories similar to mine. That's the true beauty of the Law of Attraction.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

So, one might ask, how is it going for me after all these weeks of discovery and outward non-doing? 

Pretty well. In some ways nothing has changed. I have ups and I have downs, but the downs aren’t so severe, they don’t last as long, and I can identify stories for being stories more quickly and more easily. I notice that I'm far less defensive / defiant in all areas of my life.

Sometimes I can let experiences or emotions go just knowing they’re story. Sometimes I’m not quite ready to release them. 

But the awareness is there, and that’s all that matters to me. From that view a lot has changed, and changed in important ways. I feel like I’ve crawled out of the sludge that Aisha's friends talked about.

One big story I’m continuing to pick through is the story that keeps me from writing. This is a core story, one that has many twists and turns and sometimes takes me to dark places. 

But it’s coming. It’s a process. “All is well in all of creation and all is well with me.” And even that is a story, but a helpful one. Anyway it works for me. It brings me back to my Self. 

And what did I learn over these past weeks? 

For one, that  giving up struggle can be a struggle in itself. But the process works, if we allow it to. Struggle can be interrupted. It can be seen for the old, no-longer-useful programming that it is. 

I learned that sometimes you just have to live inside the emotion of a thing until you “get it”. Until you’ve felt it so deeply and so completely that you, as your true Self, are willing to let it go. Then the letting go comes easily. 

Accepting Responsibility for My Creations

I suppose this process is my way of releasing a vasana - feeling it long enough and deeply enough that I find completion with it. I'm complete with it when I can accept, appreciate, and honor it as my own creation. Then it easily occurs for me as story and not as me.

At that point the experience becomes integrated into me at the soul level, and thereafter it doesn’t have the power that it once had. I know this because the emotional charge is gone from it. When an experience has been integrated it doesn’t “push my buttons” anymore. When and if a similar situation comes up again I’m able to laugh about it or simply let it be, rather than becoming engaged with it emotionally. 

How many years have I lived inside these paradigms of control, of unworthiness, of guilt, of shame, of whatever story I lived, stories that I focused my power of creation into while simultaneously declaring myself a victim of them? Too many. But on the other hand, exactly enough.

Will the process look for everyone like it looked for me? Will it even look like that for me every time? Of course not, on both counts. 

But that’s part of the beauty and sweetness of the journey, isn’t it? There are always things to discover about ourselves. We are magnificent! even in our imperfection. Potentially because of our imperfection. And in one way or another we are each waking up to that realization. 

The Illusion

It won’t always look like discovering our true selves is what’s going on. Very often it will look like we just got sick, or it will look like we just got angry, or it will look like something ‘just happened.’ 

Very often we don’t know until we’re in some kind of unpleasant experience what there is to be discovered about ourselves. We don’t know how it’s going to play out or how we’re going to deal with it. 

We have free choice always, and we never know ahead of time what we’re going to choose.

Will we choose to discover, to integrate, to get close to discovery or integration, to take back responsibility in the matter of our own stories? .. or will we keep playing the same program, pretending someone or something is 'doing it to us' until we are ready to choose something different?

Discovery

If we think about it, we might realize that our lives are all about discovery. 

For in discovering ourselves we discover something about Source, of which we are all an integral and self-same part. If we did not exist, if our loved ones did not exist, if our friends did not exist, indeed if those we say we loathe did not exist, God would not exist. It’s unfathomable in its ramifications.

Stuck as we have been in the reality of our illusions, our various states of being have become so familiar, and we’ve become so good at labeling them, that sometimes we don’t see that there’s a larger discovery underneath what looks a normal or common experience. 

Sometimes we have to interrupt normal with something different - not infrequently something painful - to allow ourselves the opportunity to see those experiences from a different perspective. 

That’s not a bad thing at all, no matter how uncomfortable an experience might be while we’re experiencing it. They all have value. "It's the journey," as the saying goes, "not the destination." 

And what an amazing journey we are on! Just sometimes it doesn't look like that. Sometimes it looks like "the way it is." When it looks like that we forget that we hold the power to create it "the way it could be." But we always have that power, all we need do is exercise it. And we can do that anytime we choose.

Clearing and Integrating Core Issues, A Personal Tale - Phase I

The Question

A few months ago I found myself ill for several weeks. As I was in the throes of that illness I stopped writing. Writers are supposed to write, that's what we do.

But when you're sick that's different, right? It's ok to not write when you're sick, right? When we’re sick we don’t concentrate so well, we don’t feel good, we often need extra rest. 

I needed and wanted extra rest, but I had other things that required my attention, things that I couldn’t put off. So not writing made perfect sense to me. It was the one thing I didn’t ‘need’ to do. I accepted my fate that I’d have to wait for awhile to begin writing again.

Not writing in my private journal and my own blog was easy, that was all under my control. I wasn’t happy to be essentially ignoring my blog and therefore my readers, but I comforted myself that it was my blog and therefore my choice.

But I had only recently been offered an opportunity to be a contributing editor to my favorite blog of them all, Golden Age of Gaia. What an honor it was (is!) to be offered such an opportunity! “Good people don’t squander such opportunities.” That was the thought I found cropping up frequently in my head. 

The longer I didn’t write the more often this thought occurred and the more insistent it became. I was supposed to be writing. It’s what I do. It’s what I committed to do. Publicly. On what I consider to be the most integral and informative site of its kind. Why wasn’t I doing it? 

The Coming of Guilt

So as my illness dragged on I began to feel more and more badly that I wasn’t living up to my commitment or my potential. I contacted Steve Beckow, the owner of the Golden Age of Gaia blog, to let him know I was sick and wouldn’t be contributing for awhile. 

Gem of a soul that he is, Steve was kind, considerate, understanding. As I expected he would be. I felt better. 

In hindsight, I felt better because what was really going on is that I was feeling guilty and I needed someone to tell me everything was ok; tell me that I wasn’t the bad person I was feeling like I was.

Compassionate guy that he is, and in his own way, Steve gave me the permission that I felt I needed. I honor him for providing me with that freedom. But as it turns out, this was only the curtain rising on a much deeper issue. 

The notion wasn’t lost on me that other people get sick and write anyway. But I could be ok with that; I assumed they must be superhuman and I always appreciated them for their persistence. “But they aren’t me.” That’s what I thought. That’s how I rationalized my behavior. Others get sick and would write anyway, but I don’t and that’s ok. And it is! but not for the reasons I was giving myself.

Time passed. A couple weeks turned into more weeks. I started feeling better physically. I started doing things that I wasn’t able to do when I was sick. 

But I didn’t start writing.

This fact began to weigh heavily upon me. I realized that I wasn’t profoundly sick anymore, just a little bit sick. A little bit of the illness hanging on still. More like an annoyance than an illness. No reason not to resume writing. No reason at all. 

And yet .. I didn’t.

I thought about things that I could write about. Those ideas had merit. I even wrote down the title of a few of them. But nothing changed.

I knew that I should be writing. Yet I didn’t.

Why?

We each have a talent - some have a plethora of them! - and all sources tell us what we already know: that we are in our element when we use those talents, share them with others. “What a waste” we’re told, if we have a talent and don’t use it, don’t create with it. That thought kept running through my head, “what a waste”

Guilt was back on my agenda and again I wrote to Steve, giving some excuse or another that made sense and felt quite legitimate to me at the time. As is his way, Steve again responded in kindness. My guilt was satiated. But not for long.

Other thoughts began taking up residence in my head. “I’m not being responsible”, “I’m being lazy”, “I’m not living up to my commitments”. As I thought all those thoughts, the guilt came back in spades. 

All Too Familiar

What I was starting to notice though, along with the guilt, is that these feelings were very familiar. 

I noticed that even though they are uncomfortable feelings, I’ve become comfortable with them. Does that make sense? Like an old coat that doesn’t fit right anymore but you keep wearing it because it’s familiar. You keep putting it on because you don’t really notice that it’s uncomfortable. You’re in the habit of putting it on, and so you do. 

The fact that the familiar old coat no longer fits doesn’t get your attention. It isn’t until the seams rip or you can no longer button yourself up against the cold that you begin to think about the coat at all. 

At that point you realize the coat is broken. This thought is followed by an interesting insight “You know what? This coat doesn't really fit me anymore. In fact hasn’t fit for some time. huh. I never really noticed that before.” At this point, appropriately enough, you replace the coat. It’s easy with a coat.

So here I am, through weeks of time thinking all these thoughts about what I should be doing and why, yet nothing changed. The thoughts were not motivating me. I still wasn’t writing.I failed to notice that this behavior, while uncomfortable, was very familiar. Like the old coat. I failed to notice that I was wearing a coat - a way of being - that no longer fit. 

What I did notice was another, similar, change in my behavior. Besides not writing, I wasn’t participating in the spiritual/metaphysical classes that I’d already paid for. 

Normally I throughly enjoy participating in my classes. These are leading edge human mastery classes. Very exciting stuff! I didn’t care. 

I didn’t care that I’d paid for classes and wasn’t participating in them; didn’t care that the material was exciting and I was missing it; didn’t care that my classmates were raving about their participation; didn’t care that this was a subject my life had been devoted to for the last decade, that my entire life leading up to this time on Earth had been in preparation for. I. Didn’t. Care.

This realization fed into another realization: That I wasn’t reading much.

Ok, that’s not entirely accurate. I wasn’t reading at all.

My typical day this last decade or so has seen me reading copiously of spiritual/metaphysical material, particularly that focused on ascension. It’s been an all-consuming interest of mine. Yet here I was, not reading the books or websites or blogs that I typically follow. 

Each day my inbox would become filled with exciting links sent from wonderful friends, lightworkers, and ascension teachers, material that would typically have sent me off on another journey of discovery and enlightenment. I was ignoring them all. “Meh, not interested” and into the Trash they would go, one message at a time. 

I tossed a few of the messages into a folder in case I wanted to read them later. I did this even though some part of me knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Finally I realized I’d been doing all this - or rather not doing much of anything - for weeks now, weeks after I was for all intent and purposes recovered from my illness. This was a time at which my life “should have been” back to business as usual. But it wasn't.

Why?

A Downward Spiral

Clearly something was going on. This was more than the ascension symptoms I’d just written about at length. Something was going on with me that I didn’t understand, didn’t like, and didn’t want to be participating in. 

But no matter how much I bemoaned and protested my state of being, it wasn’t going away. Nothing motivated me and nothing inspired me.

With this realization my thoughts became more insidious. 

“You should” is what I kept hearing in my head. "You should .. get off your butt and write something. You should .. stop letting illness and ennui stop you. You should .. choose empowerment. You should .. stop hiding and share yourself with others. You should .. use all those tools that would move you out of this. You’re studying *expletive* mastery, what kind of mastery is this?!” 

All manner of “should” thoughts inside my head telling me what to do. 

I knew I was stopped and I didn’t want to be stopped. 

But I was stopped. Something was stopping me. I was on a downward moving spiral and slipping further down every day.

Have you ever been in a downward spiral? I’m sure you have, it seems to be a universal human condition, descending on each of us at some point or another. A downward spiral is an unpleasant place to be. It’s an out-of-control feeling. Like the train of your life is speeding down the track headed for disaster and you don’t know how to stop it. 

I desperately wanted off that train. 

I really did know how to get off such a train, I have many tools. I know how to do deep breathing. I know how to get centered and grounded. I know how to be still and be in the Now. I know how to shift my perspective. I know how to choose thoughts that empower over thoughts that disempower. 

Interesting thing is that I didn’t do any of that. I didn’t use the tools that I have that could have pulled me out of this downward spiral. I stayed ‘stuck’ and some part of me seemed to enjoy being stuck. Seemed to want to be stuck.

In other words, on some level I seemed to want to be in this spiral. On some level I wanted to be the victim, the one who felt guilty for not doing what I felt I should be doing and finding all sorts of justification for it. I wanted to wallow in it, and was doing a right fine job of wallowing. 

As I realized that, I noticed that the thoughts in my head began to shift. 

What had previously been “You’re shirking your responsibility” shifted to “Who are you to tell people these things anyway?” “It doesn’t even matter if you don’t write, no one cares.” “All your life people haven’t understood your point of view, why bother?”

It worked like magic. No longer was I feeling bad or feeling guilty for not writing, now I was justified in not writing! It didn't matter! But I didn’t really believe in that justification, not really. It felt hollow.

War of the Selves

But even in its hollowness the feeling persisted. I was in the throes of an internal war of the selves and the battle raged on. More voices inside my head: “Well if you don’t write, what the heck are you doing to do?” and “Is that who you are, a quitter?” followed by admonitions like “Get a hold of yourself, just do it!”

That was the last straw. “omg, shut up!!” I commanded. “Stop telling me what to do!” Now get this: No one - not one single person in my external life - was telling me what to do, I was telling me what to do. Inside my head. Through the voices inside my head.

And then it hit me - this was one of a number of vasanas present in this experience. It wasn’t the victimhood. Victimhood is not who I am, I can get past victimhood. It wasn’t the guilt either. As strong a player as guilt can be, I can get past that too. 

This particular vasana was the part of me that didn’t want to be told what to do. Not by anyone, not even myself. 

This was the part of me that as child screamed silently “No I won’t clean my room. No I won’t do the dishes. No I won’t shovel disgusting dog poo out of the yard. No I won’t study physics. I hate physics!”

“No I won’t do my homework. It’s boring and monotonous and a complete waste of time. No I won’t stop having fun and come in to dinner, especially when I’m not even hungry. No I won’t eat disgusting mushy brussel sprouts no matter how good they are for me. No I won’t eat that awful liver no matter how many times you serve it to me and force me sit at the table ‘until you eat it.’”

“No I won’t sit down, shut up, and behave. NO NO NO!! Absolutely not! I won’t I won’t I won’t!” 

And yet I always did. 

Internally, as a child and well into adulthood, my head would scream things like “I won’t!” yet my mouth would say nothing. My body would often shake violently from so much withheld rage.

Externally I would smile and do exactly as I was told. 

Because I learned early on that doing what you’re told is how you get along. It’s how people think well of you. It’s how you make them happy. It’s how you stay out of trouble. And the primary rationale for me: It’s how you keep from being hurt. 

Oh yes, I learned my lessons well. I learned how to be a person who does what they’re told. 

It wasn’t all for naught. It’s how I came to be a good student, a good employee, a good parent, a good friend. But I learned how to do what’s expected of me at the expense of doing what I want. 

At least in my public life.

In my private life things were different. In my private life I became a person who does exactly as they please, even at the expense of what others consider to be the right way to live. At home, in my ‘private life’, I do exactly as I please and I make no bones about it. 

“Irresponsible. Independent to a fault” is what people who only see my private life say. “Responsible. Always willing to help” is what people who only see my public life say. Those who see both are .. confused.

Clarity Arrives; The Real Issue Is Identified

One body, two completely different lives. And I wonder why my body protests. Sickness isn’t the issue. Laziness isn’t the issue. Ennui isn’t the issue. The issue is much bigger. The issue - the vasana - is about control.

For as much of my life as I can recall I have felt controlled by my external public world, and I fought back the only way I felt I could, in my internal private world.

Since the technique of control worked so well on me, to me, I adopted it as how I would interact with the external world. My world became all about control, both controlling and being controlled. 

There’s not a lot of freedom inside a paradigm of control, and freedom is very important to me. Quite the dilemma. I have struggled inside that dilemma for years. Many many years.

In my rational mind I know that control is not the way to happiness. Control is also not under the purview of sovereignty, and I whole-heartedly believe that each one of us is a Sovereign Being in our own right. All 7 billion of us.

Hence the struggle. “You’re not the boss of me” versus “Sit down, shut up, and do what you’re told.”

With that realization came the clarity that I had been searching for. This wasn’t about the illness or about being sick. It wasn’t even about not writing or not participating in class. It wasn’t about not reading and researching, or about not using the tools I have that would get me out of such a spiral. It wasn't about not posting to my own blog or meeting my commitment to another blog.

All of that was the stage upon which, at some level, I chose to play out this experience of control. 

Like the old coat, while uncomfortable, this play wasn’t unfamiliar. Over time I’ve given myself hundreds, potentially thousands, maybe even millions, of opportunities to see the ‘war of control’ that’s been going on in my head in two parts. 

One part being good, doing what was expected of me. Not because I enjoyed doing most of these things, but because I was afraid not to. Afraid of the consequences.

The other part being defiance - doing exactly the opposite of what was expected of me. Again, not because I necessarily enjoyed being this way, but because I was angry, resentful, and fighting back against that other part, the part that allowed itself to be controlled. 

Both parts ruled me. Both were programs running at a base level. I just never saw it before, or never saw it with such clarity.

Deviance vs Control

In seeing with this new-found clarity, I realized that I don’t need to give credence to either part of me in this game of control. I have other options.

When I feel that feeling of “being controlled” or “being controlling” I can interrupt it. I know what it looks like, but more importantly, I know what it feels like. I spent many weeks stewing in it, letting the feelings consume me. 

It wasn’t pretty, but - for me - it was necessary. I needed to feel the feelings deeply. Feelings that I’d never allowed myself to feel. Not everyone will process their emotions in the same way that I do. But for me, this was an important part of my process.

Having finally allowed myself to be inside the experience, to acknowledge it, to accept it, eventually to honor it, I have my power back.

Now when I notice that either tape is playing, I can stop and ask “Am I doing this because I choose to, or because I'm either trying to control or fighting against being controlled?” That’s the choice - the choice to stay caught in the struggle, or to give up control and let things be however they are. To be neither controlled nor controlling, but sovereign. Allowing. Choosing.

I spent nearly a week with this new discovery of self, teaching myself how to recognize the signs and signals that were the clues that this pattern was surfacing. “Be diligent with your thoughts” is a phrase that took up residence in my mind. I decided that was a worthy substitute for the phrases that had been there previously.

A Train Headed Nowhere

Big as that realization was, it turned out that it wasn't all that needed to be processed. Emotionally I was doing much better, but still not feeling inspired to write. I also wasn’t inspired to read, or to to get back to my classes.

Instead of feeling like I was on a train headed for disaster, I now felt like I was on a train headed nowhere. The train was continually moving along but without arriving anywhere, and with no destination in sight. Looking out the windows of the train car I could see familiar scenery, but no indication of where I was going or why.

Letting Go Of Control

With my new perspective on control, I decided to just let go and allow the train to take me wherever it would. I know my guides and unseen friends are always with me. I know that they know what my bigger plan is even when the human part of me doesn’t. I know that they are always guiding me in the direction of it, even when I’m not actively listening.

So I let go of needing to know where the train was headed and trusted that wherever it was headed was the appropriate place. In other words, I let go of control.

I didn’t have any idea how long this part of my journey might take. The part leading up to this point took far longer than I might have expected. It certainly took longer that I would have wished. But I knew that something needed to come to the surface for clearing and integration, and I knew that it couldn’t be put off any longer.

I took comfort in this passage from Aisha North and his Constant Companions, from Manuscript for Survival Part 284:
For just as the butterfly, you entered this chrysalis as a humble caterpillar, and you did so with full faith. For you did not know what to expect, you just knew you had to give yourself fully away to this process. And this process is nothing short of miraculous, but it is also a terrifying one.

Because just like that caterpillar, you need to completely dissolve the old being, and let yourself be turned into a sort of primordial sludge, looking like nothing at all, before you are literally reprogrammed and then turned back on again and turned into a completely new being. So from those same cells that constituted the humble caterpillar springs the wondrous, shimmering butterfly. But they are identical, even if they are also a whole world apart. For what made them is the same heavenly dust. And what separates them is the programming that is putting it together.
As well as letting go of any perceived outcome, I let go of any thoughts about how long the process might take. 

It’s not really comfortable to let go of control when you’ve become habitual at taking control. But in a way, I felt that I was more “in control“ than I had ever been, which is a different thing entirely than “being controlling.”

I had a lot work to do, and I still do, to recognize and stop being caught in the cycles of defiance and control. But being aware of the pattern is an all-important first step in realizing the automaticity of my being, an automaticity in this case that wasn't serving me. It needed to be replaced, just like the old coat that no longer fits. The process of doing that I will call Phase II, which I've posted here.

4.08.2013

Current Energies and Soul Level Cleansing

Negative thought forms and emotions are being released from the cells of your bodies that have entrapped this energy for eons. It is ALL coming up and out to be cleared. So much of the rage and anger being played out on your Planet is due to the release of this old, stuck, negative energy.
These words from Archangel Michael through Leslie-Anne Menzies emphasize the very deep cleansing that we are all going through at this time.

There are difficult energetic changes going on with all of us, so don't be surprised if you're feeling things that are uncomfortable at best, generally much worse, and seeing what you might consider to be the worst side of yourself and those around you. Keep breathing, clearing, and integrating; we're making more progress than we know, both as individuals and as a collective!

In her weekly newsletter, Jennifer Hoffman added this helpful piece:
I have noticed that the children around me are extra emotional right now. They feel these energy shifts more than adults do (animals too) so if they are a little weepy or clingy, give them a little extra love.
AAM had more to say about the process we're all a part of:
ARCHANGEL MICHAEL - MONDAY MEDITATION

8th April, 2013
through Leslie-Anne Menzies


Beloveds

Your bodies are working extremely hard at the moment. So many changes to many parts of your anatomy - everything is changing. There is confusion in your hearts and your minds. Your biology is changing rapidly - you notice it in your sleep time, or is that “interupted sleep time.” This interuption is necessary for the internal changes to take place. Just go with whatever your sleep patterns are - all is changing. There is much activity also in your dream states - much of the old, stuck energies that have been stored in your body for not only this lifetime but beyond is now being released and cleared.

Negative thought forms and emotions are being released from the cells of your bodies that have entrapped this energy for eons. It is ALL coming up and out to be cleared. So much of the rage and anger being played out on your Planet is due to the release of this old, stuck, negative energy.

I remind you Dear Ones it is time to be very gentle with yourselves. So much transition is happening within and without. Just look around, see what is transpiring out there and that is a reflection of what is also happening within each of your bodies. Does it not make sense that there is major disruption upon the Planet?

The Love and Light that is being streamed onto the Planet from the Creator/Great Central Sun is here to assist each of you to flow it through your physical vessels, clearing and cleansing as it goes.

Many of the Healing/Clearing modalities work with this Divine Light Energy to clear and balance each being on the Planet.

We ask those of you who are aware of the energies to use them for your personal healing but to also send this energy out to ALL on the Planet for Planetary Healing.

What each of you do affects the ALL. So as more and more souls embrace the simple technique of calling on the energies of the Divine, running it through your physical vessels and then invoke these energies to clear and clense the Planet much will transpire.

Much can be achieved when you become good stewards of the energy. The raising of not only your consciousness but the consciousness of the whole Planet will happen more rapidly. As Lightworker’s this is one of the vows you took to assist at this time of Cosmic Enlightenment. Every day more souls are awakening and their consciousness is connecting into the Grid of Light and activating more of the Cosmic Consciousness.

This is the agreed time, your job is an exciting one. You have all felt the need to stand up and do whatever you are called to do.

That time is NOW Dear Ones, your gifts, your abilities become more available to you each day.

Look to your heart, place your hands on your heart, ask questions as we have guided you to do so many times. The Heart Chakra/Thymus Centre is expanding and growing to assist with the many changes that are coming forward for you.

Look to your Heart - it is the Centre of your Universe - it brings in the energies of above and the energies of below and blends them in perfect unity to assist your every action.

Acknowledge your body, it is morphing the greatest change that has ever been experienced by Humanity. You agreed to be a part of this morphing - REMEMBER your promise to yourself and your fellow beings. Enjoy this transitionery time with the stresses and strains you believe are happening. Turn those thoughts around, see the beauty before you, honour the morphing that is YOU. REMEMBER why you came, REMEMBER the promises you made. Laugh, smile at yourself and each other and enjoy the ride Dear Ones it is indeed a fine ride.

Blessings

I AM Archangel Michael

April Showers!

News from a friend:



Enjoy!

4.06.2013

Slow Money?

Looking out into our future I see a time where we don't use money at all, but instead value and appreciate what each of us has to offer to humanity just by being. I also see that the manifestation of such a concept may take awhile.

There are steps we can take to get from here to there, and "Slow Money" is one of them.

For convenience I've posted the vision of this organization below. You can read more about this wonderful idea, the principles and the people behind it, here.

Slow Money

Thousands of Americans have begun affirming a new direction for the economy. It’s called Slow Money.

Inspired by the vision of Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing As If Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered, published in 2009, the Slow Money Alliance is bringing people together around a new conversation about money that is too fast, about finance that is disconnected from people and place, about how we can begin fixing our economy from the ground up... starting with food.

...

Vision

Slow Money is bringing people together around a shared vision about what it means to be an investor in the 21st Century:

It starts with the soil.
The soil teaches us that we must put back as much as we take out to ensure long term health and a strong, secure, restorative economy. Life in the soil is all about diversity and regeneration, a large number of small organisms working together in a healthy system. When we erode our soil, we erode our social capital, we erode community.

Entrepreneurs are the seeds.
In contrast to far-flung multi-national corporations and financial institutions that are too large to understand, small food enterprises are comprehensible. We live near them. We can connect to them directly. Their entrepreneurs are our fellow community members. They create jobs, promote cultural, ecological and economic diversity, and build robust local food systems.

Investors are the water.
Money can erode. Or money can nurture. Millions of us, slowing just a little of our money down, can begin to create the nurture capital industry—as important to the next generation as venture capital has been to this generation. Looking at philanthropy and investment through the lens of food, soil and place, we will find new ways to rebuild trust and to support millions of small acts of entrepreneurial care.

Saving farmland, supporting a new generation of small and mid-size organic farmers, rebuilding local and regional food processing and distribution, improving nutrition and otherwise remedying the imbalances of a food system that is too consolidated, too global and too industrial—where will the money come from? From Wall Street? From philanthropy? From government programs? From consumers?

One thing is certain: a new generation of entrepreneurs is starting to rebuild local food systems and the capital available to them is insufficient. If we want this capital to start flowing today, this year, this decade, if we share the belief that we don’t have another generation to wait for “them” to figure it out or be pushed in this direction by disruption or collapse, then we have to roll up our sleeves, sink our hands into the soil of the economy and start planting.

You can support this vision by becoming a member, making a donation, attending the National Gathering, or signing the Slow Money Principles.
____________________________
Slow Money Principle III:

The 20th Century was the era of Buy Low/Sell High and Wealth Now/Philanthropy Later—what one venture capitalist called “the largest legal accumulation of wealth in history.” The 21st Century will be the era of nurture capital, built around principles of carrying capacity, care of the commons, sense of place and nonviolence.
_____________________________

4.04.2013

After the Storm

After the storm .. it's a metaphor for how it feels for me right now, having weathered an interesting and deeply personal storm.

Finding my way through hurricane force winds of emotion and frustration is why there's been a lull between posts of well over a month. I needed the time and space to follow my own process. Actually, not posting was an integral part of the process.

I have a whole series of posts to share about that, but right now it's all one big long jumbled mess. I sent it to someone I admire and trust for comments, and it was soooo big that even they declined to tackle it. heh. So I guess it needs to be broken down and organized before I post it. That may take some time.

In the meantime, I'm going to provide an insight into the energy of who I am as a spirit-human, which is the only way of being human that I currently consider. Where once I thought that this body, this person, was all that there was to me, now I know this aspect is but a tiny part of a much larger entity. I don't diminish the importance of this human aspect in any way. I know that it's an important and crucial part of all that I am. But it is far from all that I am.

As the human that you are is far from all that you are!

We are all spirit-humans, far more spirit than human, and it's extremely helpful when we acknowledge, accept, embrace, and honor that much much much greater part of ourselves. I think it goes without saying that the world would be a gentler, grander place if we lived our lives as primarily our greater selves instead of the very limited human aspect that we have been pretending to be. That human aspect knows lack, knows loneliness, knows pain and hurt and longing. The whole of us knows of those experiences, but doesn't accept them as reality. Huge difference there.

Truth to tell, I do believe that that is the primary goal for all of us at this time - to live as the greater us while embodied as human. To bring forth all that we know and have experienced in the greater realms and create a world that's the envy of our Galaxy. To build heaven right here on Earth.

The best summary of what makes up this aspect of me was written recently by Jennifer Hoffmann. Had I realized early in my life that this is who I am, it would have made life a lot easier. But I suppose, as with all of us, I had a function in life and to know what it was might have limited my effectiveness.

The one description that Jennifer gives of what I will term a "Crystal Elder" that doesn't apply to me is martyrdom. I must have worked through that in other incarnations because the one thing I am not, is a martyr.

In providing this information I hope not only to show you a bit about who I am, but perhaps open a doorway to allow you to see where these qualities appear in yourself, or in others that you may know.

May you enjoy your own adventures as you continue to uncover and discover who YOU really are!
Do You Have Crystal Energy?

Jennifer Hoffman
March 25, 2013


Crystal energy is a profoundly spiritual, highly empathic energetic imprint that has come to the forefront with adults born in the 1950s and 1960s and the younger generations born after 1976. The early Crystals brought a highly concentrated form of the Crystal energy to the planet, preparing it for the children who would come later.

Crystal energy is thoughtful, sensitive, highly intuitive and very spiritually connected. This energy does not integrate well into the third dimension and having it can be burdensome, especially in a world that is so materially focused.

Crystals are highly empathic, which compels them to stay out of the mainstream because they simply feel too much. While Indigos are rebels and action oriented, Crystals are more quiet, patient and while they are not as aggressive as Indigos, they are no less persistent. They prefer to act when they feel the energy is right for them, rather than leading the charge.

Crystal adults began the spiritual movement in the 1970s and 1980s, writing about topics that no one knew about or understood, but persisted in their efforts, content to stay in the background, knowing that eventually what was once considered ‘weird’ would be mainstream, as it is today.

Crystals are here to create spiritual balance, to teach us how to integrate our spiritual and material aspects, to live in Heaven while on Earth. But the increasing polarity of the Ascension process has been hard for them and they felt that they entered the Earth’s energetic space long before it was ready for them. They are more comfortable in an inviting, welcoming, gentle, and highly spiritual environment and what they encountered feels like anything but that. They can feel like they are living in two worlds, the quiet, safe world of their own energy and the outside world they feel doesn’t understand or appreciate them.

Being energetically sensitive can create a false sense of fear as they don’t often know how to separate their energy from that which they feel is around them. Being natural healers compels them to rush in and heal energy, rather than stepping back and applying healing energy at a higher level that they are more comfortable with.

More than others, they feel today’s powerful energy shifts and releases, and the fear that many people are going through at this time. Because they are so empathic and have such strong healing potential, they must work hard to not integrate the negativity around them and try to transmute it themselves, which can create depression, anxiety, physical distress and illness, and energetic burnout.

Crystals feel like old souls, wise in spiritual matters, but often very child-like when it comes to matters of the material world. Their biggest life challenge is to stay grounded, focused and within their energy, but not exclude the world and retreat into their own safe energetic space. By balancing their empathy with detachment, setting strong energetic boundaries and using their healing abilities from a point of empowerment, rather than as martyrs, they offer solutions to many of the world’s problems and can help others find empowerment from within their own spiritual centers. Without detachment though, they can easy lose their focus, become ungrounded and float through life in a sort of energetic limbo.

Crystal and Indigo energy work together to offer a complete solution to the world, identifying challenges and providing transformational alternatives. Given time, space and encouragement, Crystal energy enlightens, supports, guides and directs profound transformation of the most dense energy into its highest octaves. The Crystal message emphasizes healing and Unconditional Love, when they can stay focused on the value of their gifts and use them to uplift the world around them. Their gifts lie in the arts, music, sharing information, teaching, channeling, empathy, compassion and healing at a soul level.

Encouraging the expression of Crystal energy in yourself, your children and others creates energetic openings into a world that is being birthed as the old world is dying to create the powerful transformation of Heaven on Earth, emphasizing empathy and compassion, and finding spiritual balance in a materially focused world.

Copyright (c) 2013 by Jennifer Hoffman. All rights reserved. You may quote, translate or share this message as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website. All other uses is strictly prohibited.