Tag: spiritual transformation

When Only the Moon Howls

On By Just StephIn Metaphysical Mussings2 Comments

“There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.”

~ George Carlin

We’ve all had those nights; nights when logic and reason abandon us to those thoughts that we usually keep locked up deep in the untouchable places of our minds. You know the thoughts I’m talking about.  The kind that we keep locked up so tight that we somehow manage to convince ourselves that we never entertained them.

It’s on nights like these that we wander around the house searching for something; unsure of what it is that we are looking for but finding nothing but frustration and abandoned hopes scattered like overlooked dust bunnies beneath the larger pieces of our mental furniture.

If you are anything like me you wander from room to room; switching on lights, computers, making a cup of hot tea, running a futile Google search (and usually for random phrases that keep running through your mind), perhaps skulking around the yard in hopes of encountering something unusual to keep us occupied, maybe listening to some music or attempting to read a few chapters in your current book until finally you crawl back into bed and close your eyes in hopes that sleep will finally find you.

It is then of course that they come.

But it isn’t sleep that creeps into the silent spaces in your mind.

It isn’t sleep that seeps into the corners of your heart and congeals in oil-slick pools that make your stomach turn over just looking at them.

It is those dark contemplations; those self-doubts and depreciations and fears that we keep locked away in the daylight; buried deep in air tight caskets like so many vampires relegated to the dungeons beneath our waking thoughts.

For some reason they thrive in the moonlight and bask in the play of shadows that fall across the living room floor.  You can see them slithering along the baseboards and skulking in the darkness under the stairs and worming their way across the landscape of your mind.

The impression of teeth; of claws extending from misshapen hands; hands that are reaching out to tear our self worth into shreds with one swipe and stand growling over the carcass of our sanity like a hell hound bent on tearing our soul right out of its shell. It’s enough to paralyze you; to leave you shivering on the couch with a blanket pulled around your shoulders, hunched against the chill of uncertainty and self-loathing, the tea congealing on the coffee table and every creak and groan in the floors and pipes only underscoring the sinister ambiance.

When these nights come – and they will come – you can either cower in fear and hiding your heart from the despair that they generate, or you can embrace them; pull them into the core of your heart and welcome them with open arms as long lost aspects of yourself.

You see, these unlovely thoughts; these fears and doubts and feelings of impotency and despair are just as much a part of you as the practical and upbeat aspects of your daytime self; the one who always knows just the right words to say and who others look to when they are in need of wisdom and emotional support.  Denying the truth will only give them more power each time that they manage to creep beyond the confines of those deep places to which you have relegated them.

If you embrace them however, if you welcome them as a part of yourself that has heretofore gone unacknowledged and greet them with love you will find a strange thing happening.  Like the early morning mist that dissipates as the sun creeps over the horizon, these dark and loathsome thoughts will melt away in the all-forgiving light of you love.  You will see them as they truly are, and they will lose what power they had over your heart and soul and mind.

 

My Desire

On By Just StephIn Metaphysical MussingsLeave a comment

“They say that love is the fundamental core of the universe.  They were wrong.  It is not love that is the lynchpin of existence.  It is desire.”  ~ SSHenry

Have you ever known desire? Have you ever felt the pure unadulterated yearning; that all encompassing searing of the soul that is the heart of love, the inspiration of creativity and the igniter of passion?  If you have ever truly known desire – real desire then you will understand what I say when I tell you that it is the true sign of one whose heart is fully open to everything and everyone around them; to every experience, and to all that the universe has to offer.

Indeed, in order to love you have to have the desire to love; the desire to open your heart up to the possibility of being loved in return.

It doesn’t matter if the love being returned to you is genuine; temporary; or even a reflection or echo of the love that you have sent out.  It is the loving and the openness to receiving love that is important, and both are possibly only made possible by acting on the desire to love and opening up to being loved in return.

Yes, I know all the movies and romance novels portray desire as something deeply sexual; something that ignites physical attraction and brings the lovers together more often than not against their better judgment.  Either that or they portray desire as the first step to obsession.  But in truth is that while desire can indeed lead to passion of all kinds (physical, mental and even spiritual) that is not all it is, not by a long shot.  And yes, it can lead to obsession if one focuses all of one’s desire on one person or object or experience to the exclusion of everything else.

And it isn’t just love that is fueled by desire, though love is the most powerful of the emotions that desire generates.  Desire also powers the engines of creativity.  You have to have the desire to express yourself before you ever pick up a pen or a paintbrush and create something bigger than has ever been seen or read before.  You have to have the desire to play before you can pick up an instrument and make your heart-song heard.

Oh yes, with enough talent and training anyone can write a coherent sentence or draw a picture or play the notes as they are written.  But only desire can inspire you to express your soul through your artistic medium and to create something that expresses to the world the true nature of who and what you are and to open your heart up to the world in return.

But it is not only artists who use desire in their daily lives.  Every person who opens their heart up to another; every person who loves first without expecting anything back in return; each of these people is using desire  (the desire to be something more than someone who only gives if they get something of equal or greater value back) to make the world a better place.  They desperately desire that love be the underlying factor of their reality and they embody that in every action that they take and every word they speak.

And desire is not partial.  It can be used for good; to fuel love and strength; creativity and passion.  But it can also fuel obsession and greed as well.  Like the Tao it is not good or bad in and of itself.  It simply is.  It is how you choose to use it; how you choose to channel it that matters.

Which brings me to another point; true desire can’t be hoarded, as Yoda said “that way darkness lies.”  Keeping your desire bottled up inside of yourself is a sure way to turn your desire into an obsession.  To be fully functional desire has to be open to the elements and free, not only as something you do (desiring something) but as an experience (being desired) as well.

Only when you are completely open to knowing and being known; to loving and being loved; to desiring and being desired can you truly be open to every experience that the universe has to offer you; to experiencing your full potential as a human being; to being more you than you ever thought possible.

I want that for you.  I want you to have the opportunity to experience desire in its truest and most open form.  I want you to become more than you ever thought possible.  I want you to experience the joy and wonder that comes from opening yourself up completely to experiencing each moment totally; to loving completely and to being loved in return.

That is my desire.

What’s yours?

 

 

 

 

The Big Picture

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series2 Comments

“Sometimes it is difficult to understand why certain things have to happen in our lives.  What may be even more difficult to believe is that everything; no matter how seemingly unfair or painful; is part of the larger picture a picture that is being created by a skilled and talented artist who knows exactly what they are doing.” ~ SSHenry

Have you ever watched an artist at work?  I’m not talking about the painter dude on PBS who whips his pictures out in a neat half hour show while talking to his audience about technique.  I’m talking about a painter who is creating something entirely new; something that has never been seen before; something straight out of their imagination.  It’s slow going and sometimes it is not always clear just what they are trying to do.  In fact, watching them step by step can be confusing to say the least.

Layers of primer and base coat colors give way to blotchy looking splotches which slowly meld themselves into vibrantly shaded backgrounds and open spaces.  Bold, angry looking lines and jagged chunks of seemingly pointless blackness become trees and rocks and valleys.

Sometimes it may seem as if the artist is moving quickly with broad strokes blending colors and creating textures in mere minutes.  But then they may let the painting sit for a long period of time while the layers cure, or they may leave one section of the painting to attend to another, leaving the one watching them in frustration as to how things are going to turn out and what exactly it is that is being created.

Sometimes the artist appears to attack the painting, using metal tools to cut through layers of already cured and dried paint in order to lend depth and texture where there was previously only smooth paint.  Sometimes they look as if they are attacking the painting with their brush; jabbing angrily at various patches where an object is slowly taking shape.  Sometimes the brushes slash; at other times they caress so gently and delicately that you could imagine that the artist is making love to the canvass, and sometimes the artist will use a spray bottle of paint thinner to remove entire sections in order to make room for something else.

Confusing?  Yes.  Especially for the one watching the painting take shape, but imagine for a moment that you are not merely watching the painting, but that you are the painting.

Doesn’t it feel that way sometimes?  Doesn’t it feel as if you are being manipulated by some master craftsman; some talented artist who doesn’t take your wishes into account at all but instead is manipulating the situations, events and people in your life in a way that you can’t even begin to understand?

Shall I tell you a secret?

It’s true.  You are being manipulated by a master craftsman; a master artist.  Your life is a canvass; a work in progress and I bet if you close your eyes you can feel the brush strokes on your soul; the colors coming together in vibrantly rich tapestries of detailed light and shadow.

You want to know something else?  This artist is no stranger.  This master artist is no separate and distinct god who is flagrantly manipulating your life for his own purposes.

You are the artist.

You are the artist and the canvass.

You are simultaneously the paint and the brush; the color and the texture; the light and the shadow.

All of it – all of it is you.

Every decision that you make – or don’t make; every action that you take – or don’t take; everything is part of the grand scheme; the big picture that your higher self is crafting out of your life.

You can fight it.  Of course you can.  You can wail and scream about the unfairness of the knife cutting through your perfectly laid paint layers.  You can gnash your teeth about the angry slashes that are marring up your background or the inexplicable color combinations that don’t go with the decorating scheme you chose for your life, or you can accept that there is a reason for what is happening, even if they don’t make logical sense in the here and now.

Or, you can accept that it is all part and parcel of the big picture.  You may not yet be able to see the picture in its entirety, but you can feel the canvass under your fingertips and smell the oils in the air and trust that you know what it is that you are doing and that as the painting begins to take shape you will feel things fall into place.

As long as you remember that every joy and ecstasy, every misadventure and painful goodbye and heartwarming hello is a necessary step towards the future that you are creating for yourself; as long as you remember that every personally painful experience and heart wrenching moment is adding shadow and depth to a work of art that would otherwise be flat and uninteresting you will be okay.

 

On Awakening

On By Just StephIn Touching the InfiniteLeave a comment

There is a moment; a moment in time when everything falls into place and it doesn’t matter what you believe.  Suddenly you know, and the knowing makes all of the difference.  It all makes sense; all of it.  Everything that you’ve been railing against finally slips into its niche and you can see for yourself why things are unfolding the way they are.

There are people who stuggle all their lives to reach this moment, and there are people who were born knowing.  Sometimes it comes to you in a rush of trupets and buglehorns, or with the happy bumbling of a playful puppy.  But sometimes it comes upon you gently; a gradual knowing that suddenly blossoms like a rose opening itself up in the morning light.  And sometimes; sometimes it steals into your heart like a lover’s kiss and leaves a searing mark on your very soul.

The important thing is that you have finally experienced this moment for yourself, and once you have, it doesn’t matter what anyone says or does, that moment can never be taken away from you.   People can make fun of you until they are blue in the face and you’ll just smile and shrug it off.   They can demand proof that what you say is true and argue their point until the cows come home and you find yourself sitting back and smiling at their enthusiasm.  They can claim that it is all in your head and that you must be suffering from some sort of mental illness and you’ll l augh.T

The knowledge that comes in that moment; that knowing; it doesn’t make you better than anyone else.  It doesn’t make you smarter or more worthy. It doesn’t get you any brownie points with any deity.  It simply marks a rather momenteous milestone on your own personal journey; one that you will wish that you could share with everyone that will listen, but which you will instinctively understand can only be experienced in order to be truly understood.

ON AWAKENING

Somewhere in the space between one blink of your eyes and the next;

When your heart is poised between heartbeats;

It is there that awakening occurs.

In that moment you open your eyes and the world has changed;

completely, totally and irrevocably.

You are seeing everything for the first time and exactly as it is.

And when your heart deigns to beat again

The wonder of it breaks you wide open.

Swish and Flick

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series, My Odyssey1 Comment

THE MAGIC OF MANIFESTATION

Wouldn’t it be marvelous if you had a magic wand?  Some sort of device that – if used properly – would bring you exactly what you want a la Harry Potter?  Just swish and flick and bingo, it’s yours!  Did you know that you actually possess the ability to do just that?

Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, especially when things seem to pile up around you and circumstances (like a broken down car and a crumbling relationship and a pile of bills) tell you otherwise. But what if I were to tell you that you have the ability to control every aspect of your reality; that you have the power to swish and flick that metaphorical wand and create the kind of life that you have always wanted instead of being controlled by circumstances and by those around you?

I still remember the absolute freedom that came the day that I realized that every aspect of my reality was under my control.  That I and I alone was responsible for the reality that I was living.  That there was not some unknown quantity determining whether I would be rewarded or punished for the things I do or thought or said and that everything I was experiencing was the result of those thoughts, feelings and emotions that I had been entertaining.

I’m not going to go into details, not here and now, not yet.  But to suffice it to say that it happened.  After years of searching; after years of attempting to understand how things worked and how some people always seemed to get what they wanted no matter what while others while were always dreaming about it; after reading piles of books and listening to hours and hours of sermons and self-help books and praying to God and charging the Goddess and drawing down the moon, I woke up one morning and suddenly knew.

Talk about totally liberating!  The realization that there is no one that I am required to appease or avoid in order to create the life I had always dreamed of; no one and nothing (but myself) standing in my way; I literally sat down and cried for about a week.  Amazing!  I felt totally liberated.  Simultaneously I had never felt more afraid in all my life.

Yes, it was frightening.

Think about it.  Instead of being able to go ask mommy or daddy or the spirits of the earth or air (depending on your particular religious beliefs) to help make things better or to give you what you want, you suddenly realize that you are both the one doing the wanting and the one who is passing out both the rewards and the punishments.  You are the one who is giving out the gifts and the one who is receiving them.  You are the individual that is dependent on specific needs– and you are the universe that has an unlimited supply of everything and will give to whoever asks you.

This is not to say that there may not be gods or goddesses or elementals; beings that will bring you what you ask for if you ask in the right way or if you do something for them.  Plenty of people believe in them.  My point is that there is something far bigger than any of them; something much larger that contains us all and that we are all equally a part of.

This largeness; this bigness that contains us all is not one entity with a personality and an ego that has to be appeased before it will grant our requests.  It is the power, the source that binds us all together; that gives us life and animation.  It is also the source of creation; all of creation, not just the light and love and purity or innocence, it is also the source of anger and fear and darkness as well and it is readily available for anyone that knows how to tap into it regardless of what they are planning on using it for.  There is just one catch; this power is magnetic.  That is, whatever you create out of it will attract more of itself to you.

Call it Karma; call it ‘cause and effect’; call it the law of attraction; the result is the same.

If I (the individual) dwell on the negative; on the worst things that could happen, then I am going to draw those things to me.  The more I focus on the dark and the negative, the more dark and negative things will be drawn to me. If I dwell on love and light, or on the highest definition of who and what I really am and strive to bring that into my existence, then it will come, bringing more of itself with it; drawing more of the same energy to it.  There’s just one problem.  This source of creation that you or I tap into in order to bring these things into our physical reality, it knows what we are really thinking.

I can’t trick the source (which includes my higher self).  I can talk love and light and happy chirpy birds until I am blue in the face (or until I manifest Snow White, whichever comes first though I know which would send my sanity over the edge) but if in my heart of hearts I don’t believe that it will happen; if I think that it is all a crock; if I am reserving judgment until I see proof, or if (most importantly) I feel that I somehow don’t deserve what it is that I am asking for, then the source, the universe (a.k.a. my higher self) knows it, and since it doesn’t know the difference between expressed thought and unexpressed thought, it will simply give me what it is that I am focusing on the most (either consciously or unconsciously).

This is why mastering everyday mindfulness as well as emotional mindfulness is so very important, because it isn’t just enough to realize that you have the power to control your reality, you have to be constantly aware of your thoughts and feelings and emotions and beliefs in order to bring them into alignment with who and what you really are.

Without awareness you are not in control of your life, but you are being controlled (though not by an outside entity, but by your own beliefs and limitations).  You are not creating situations that will serve you and that will help you to achieve your highest potential and to be a benefit to those around you, you are reacting to things that are happening around you; knee jerk reactions that make you feel overwhelmed and powerless and victimized to the point that you are desperate for someone or something to take the reins and to make sense out of it all.

There is no question about the universe (a.k.a. your higher self) bringing you those things that you are most focused on (whether consciously or unconsciously).  Seriously, take a look around yourself right now.  Take a long hard look at your life, at the people that are in it; your job, your house, your car, your beliefs, your attitude; everything.  Right there at your fingertips you have a snapshot of what you were focused most intently on yesterday, last week, last year or even ten years ago.

If you think carefully about where you were and what you were thinking, you’ll see that I’m right.  You created this reality.  Every aspect of it reflects yesterdays (or last week’s or last year’s) views and hopes and dreams and, yes, fears.

No, I’m not saying that every genetic defect and every illness were called into being by your higher self. We are human animals after all; inhabited by spirits, (souls if you will) but still subject to the laws of physics, of thermodynamics and the impulsive squirts of hormones that our brains get doused in on a regular basis as they respond to physical stimuli.  It comes with the territory and those are things that we do not have any control over but which we have to learn to live with and to understand.

Where we do have the control, however, is in how we perceive the life that we are living and in what we consciously and intentionally choose to experience and those people and situations that we choose to let into our lives.

Yes, I know, it sounds like some kind of new age mumbo jumbo; some sort of psychobabble or, at the worst, like some kind of magic, though in a way it is magic, just not the kind of magic you might think.

This isn’t the kind of magic where you wave a wand and something suddenly “appears” in your life because you said the right words or mixed up the right ingredients in your cauldron.  This is the kind of magic that works on a far more subtle basis.  This magic is the magic of belief; a magic that works its spell on your mind and, through your mind, makes its impact on your surroundings; aligning things and people and circumstances in such a way that a year from now, or a week from now, or maybe even tomorrow, you will find that what you have been focused on has indeed become your reality.

And if you do look around yourself and you don’t like where your focused thoughts have brought you there is a simple solution; change your focus.  It’s that simple.  Mind you, it requires that you be aware of your thoughts and emotions until they become focused on what you want to create in your life, but once the technique clicks into place you’ll find yourself laughing uncontrollably at how simple it actually is.

So much for magic wands!

Swish and flick baby!

The Butterfly’s Shadow

On By Just StephIn Metaphysical Mussings4 Comments

You probably know the story of the chrysalis effect – how the lowly caterpillar transforms itself into the soup of possibilities out of which emerges the butterfly with its capacity to fly.  But every butterfly cats a shadow, for being a butterfly comes with a price.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of butterflies?  Is it of delicate airy wisps with fragile, colorful wings that soar through sunshine and shadow and feed directly on the nectar of flowers?

Well, I can’t blame you if that is your take on them.  They are lovely creatures, and watching them flutter from flower to flower in a garden or lend their grace to a meadow can be peaceful to the point of transcendence; but what of the darker side of the butterfly’s life?

Oh come now, you didn’t think it was all rainbows and moonbeams did you?  You didn’t think that once a caterpillar becomes a butterfly that its worries are over did you?  That all the bad things in its world would automatically dissipate into the mist of ambrosia and enlightenment?  If so, you may want to think again.

Yes, a butterfly has wings.  Unlike its caterpillar brethren it is not earthbound.  It can choose to soar above all of those things which – when it was in its caterpillar form – were insurmountable obstacles.  But this ability to transcend those things that others find nearly impossible comes inexorably linked with the ability to see more of both the good and the bad, and not only to see them, but to experience them fully.

You see, with the change in its body structure comes a change in metabolism and nutritional needs, including the need for more nutrients such as salts and amino acids; nutrients that can only be found in limited amounts in flower nectars, which is why it is not uncommon to see butterflies ingesting the liquids put out by wet soil, dung and even carrion as well as blood and in some cases even the tears of some birds and mammals in order to supply themselves with the nutrients needed to continue their lives.

Let me be clear, this does not make the butterfly a killer.  It can no more kill another creature than a feather duster could harm a washcloth, but in the course of its existence as a creature of the skies with a wider view of reality, it sees more than its caterpillar brethren.

Not only does it see more – it understands that in order to be what it is; in order to continue to bring love and light and understanding to all it interacts with it cannot simply dine on nectar and drift on obligatory breezes.  It also has to be able to stomach the harsher realities of life.  It has to be able to ingest the pain and the suffering of others in order to transform them into love and light.  It has to be able to get its feelers dirty (metaphorically speaking) in order to enact any real change in the world around it.

More importantly, it has transformed itself from a self-absorbed caterpillar whose only goal is to eat enough leaves to enact its own personal change, into a butterfly; a creature that understands that it is but a part of the larger picture; one strand in the web of life that enables the existence of everything that is.

No, not everything about going through the transformational process from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly is pleasant.  The caterpillar has a far simpler and less complicated life.  The creature in its chrysalis state may know pain, but it does not yet have to deal with the pain of others.  But once the transformation is complete, the hurt can sometimes seem unbearable.  But with the price of admission into the butterfly kingdom comes the joy of knowing that when the negative becomes too much to bear, you can choose to open your wings and fly.

 

 

 

©2012 SSHenry

Waiting to Live

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living SeriesLeave a comment

It seems as if I have spent my life waiting…

Waiting for those rushes of energy and emotion, of unadulterated experience that the universe always seemed to throw at me with such reckless abandonment; rushes so intense that I can’t think of anything but what is happening and everything else takes a backseat – almost as if I’m suffering from some sort of cosmic bi-polar disorder.

Athletes talk about being in the zone; about how everything else falls away as they slip into that moment where the only thing that matters is what they are doing here and now.  Musicians and artists too speak of this absorption.  I’ve experienced this myself with my writing.  The words just pour out of me as if someone turned on a tap and later, when I look at what I wrote I am in amazement.  I wrote that? Where did that come from?

I’m sure you’ve experienced those moments too…moments when everything seems to happen at once, and yet it is as if everything around you takes on a crystallized clarity as you focus on what needs to be done and thrill to the feel of the adrenaline coursing through your veins, to the power of the emotions and sensations stirred up in your blood. You have a purpose – you have meaning!  This is LIFE that is happening to you and you want to be fully there in every single second.

And then, when the moment is over, everything seems to STOP (or at least appears to stop in comparison to what you’ve just experienced) and you could swear that every movement you make is like trying to walk through molasses; so mundane and dull does it seem next to the heady rush you just experienced and you could cry at your loss, for after having experienced something so intense, how can you ever go back to living normally? How can you possibly work on the laundry after having just seen the view from the mountaintop?

But you do.  You come back to earth (so to speak) with a vengeance.  Indeed, after a while the intensity of the moment becomes nothing more than a vague memory; an anomaly that you remember with a certain nostalgia – until the next time it happens and once more you are thrown into the whirl of intensity that seems to affect every cell in your body.

And then there comes the day when you wake up and realize that it doesn’t have to stop.

No, this does not mean that you get to live in that cosmic high – in a never-ending rush of adrenaline and focused purposefulness (oh wouldn’t the corporate motivators love to get a hold of THAT sort of motivation for their employees!)

No.  What happens is that there comes a day when you realize that those moments of unadulterated experience are not just some random occurrence.  They are a choice.  They are what happens to you when you choose to bring your physical life into alignment with your soul purpose.  Those are your authentic moments – and they can last you for a lifetime.

You can wake up every day laughing in awe at the realization that each and every moment that you are experiencing contains that spark of awe; that crystalline clarity and sense of rightness.  When you realize this you will find yourself approaching each and every moment (even those that should, by all rights, be the most dull and mundane) with a sort of profound amazement at the potential that it contains; at the promise that it holds.

And it is then that the knowing will overwhelm you.

You are no longer waiting to live.

You are living.

Mastering Emotional Mindfulness

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series2 Comments

Mastering the Emotional Storm Surge:  Five Steps to Emotional Mindfulness

There are moments in everyone’s life when, no matter how mindful you are of your surroundings; no matter how determined you are to be rational; a passionate wave of emotion seems to sweep you away.  Anger; fear; lust bitterness; the emotion itself is not important.  What is disturbing is how it seems, against all reason and against all odds, to take over your entire existence until you live and breathe it; until your very vision is filled with the miasma of its presence; until nothing else in the world exists.

It is usually during this time; the time when reason has abandoned you; when clarity has hidden itself in the closet of your sanity refuses to come out; it is then that there are things that are said and done that you regret for the rest of your life.

Think about it.  How many times have you said or done something in a fit of anger or a jealous rage that you would never have said or done in your right mind?  How many people have you hurt with your words or actions?  How many times have you sat there afterwards, shaking, wondering what on earth had possessed you to say or do something so hurtful?  How many hours have you spent berating yourself for not being able to control yourself and your emotions?  Have you ever wondered if there is a cure for this?  If there is a way to make sure that you can learn to control your emotions and think before you lash out?

Interestingly enough, control isn’t the answer to your problem.  Instead, it is the attempt to control your emotions that leads to these irrational outbreaks.

Does that sound ridiculous?  I mean, come on, we’re taught from the time we’re small children to “control your temper,” to “think before you speak,” to remember that “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”  By the time we’re teenagers we’ve been told so many times that we’re doing things wrong; saying things wrong that we sit there, stewing in our anger and hatred; pissed at the world and glowering at everyone around us because if we say what’s really on our minds we’ll get in SO much trouble.

By the time we’re adults we’ve got it down pat.  We smile and nod and agree with our boss though we’d really like to be telling them off and assure our spouse that “no dear, everything’s okay” when we’re really annoyed with them for being so inconsiderate and soothe our children with “no baby, mommy doesn’t mind reading another story” when we’re really so tired of Dr. Seuss that if we hear about one more wocket we might snap.

But nothing’s changed.  Not really.

Just because we’ve learned to control our emotions and wear a happy face doesn’t mean that the emotions aren’t there.  And no amount of wishful thinking or repetitions of affirmations will change the fact that just under the surface of our pleasant façade there is a roiling cauldron of repressed emotions that is just waiting for the least provocation to burst through our tentative crust of rationality and spew emotional poison over everyone that happens to be in our path.

Does this mean that we should, as some people and even some therapists suggest, give a voice to our emotions or that we learn to “vent” them through various activities?

Well, as good as venting is (and it’s far better to vent your frustrations on your spouse by heading to the gym and taking it out on a punching bag than by waiting till you snap and hitting the person that you love) that is not the answer either, for you have really done nothing more than momentarily quench the fire that has erupted from beneath the surface.  And as reasonable as ‘giving voice to our emotions’ sounds, telling someone you have a problem with them doesn’t fix the issue either.  In fact, it transfers the blame from yourself – to the other person – because now that they know that you really don’t like certain things they do or say or the way that they act you expect that they will take the hint and change for your benefit. Luckily, there is a solution.

So What Is The Solution? 

Would you believe me if I said mindfulness? And no, we’re not just talking about your everyday mindfulness here (though having a grip on everyday mindfulness can help).

When it comes to dealing with those emotions that overwhelm you; those inexplicable and uncontrollable emotions that rise up out of (seemingly) nowhere and take over your life; the answer is in learning to identify those things that trigger the emotions to begin with, those things that start the chain reaction that leads to your emotional outburst.  This is where the concept of emotional mindfulness comes into play.

You see, it is not enough to simply be mindful of the world around you in order to live authentically.   While being aware of the here and now is important, especially for stilling your mind long enough that you can hear your intuition; for giving you the clarity to be able to recognize the voice of your intuition; it isn’t until you’ve mastered emotional mindfulness and are able to recognize the trigger points of those emotional surges; to recognize them and acknowledge them and to choose not to react to them that you will truly start to see big changes in your life.  Indeed, by following these five steps, you can be well on your way to mastering Emotional Mindfulness.

Five Steps to Mastering Emotional Mindfulness.

Step #1:  Become aware of your surroundings.  Like anything else, Mindfulness is a skill that has to be developed and, just as you have to learn how to walk before you can run, mastering emotional mindfulness requires that you have a grip on everyday mindfulness before you can apply what you have learned to finding the trigger point of those emotional surges that sometimes threaten to take over your world.  In fact, the more aware you are of your surroundings – of what is going on around you – of how your body feels and is reacting to those things that are happening, the easier it will be to identify those trigger points.

Step #2: Keep an Outburst Journal.  Does keeping a record of your outbursts seem macabre?  Believe it or not, keeping an outburst journal can help tremendously when you are trying to discover just what it is that is setting you off.  The first order of business is to keep this journal on you (or within close reach) at all times.  I don’t care how ashamed you are of your outburst.  I don’t care what you said or did, as soon as you’ve calmed down enough to realize what has happened, pull out your journal and start writing.  Record everything.  What was happening just before you lost it; who you were talking to; what you were watching; how your body was feeling; what was being said or done; everything. After a while I guarantee that you will start noticing trends; certain people or situations that invariably serve as catalysts to an emotional surge. Being aware of these will be invaluable as you move on to step #3.

Step #3:  Pinpoint the Origin of the Emotion.  This is a bit step and is probably where you are going to spend the most of your time as you working on mastering Emotional Mindfulness. Once you have identified those things that tend to serve as catalysts for your outbursts and emotional surges, the next step is to shift your mindfulness to the exact moment when the emotion you are experiencing surfaces.  It is necessary that you be able to do this in order to move on to step #4.

Step #4:  Isolation. While pinpointing the origin of the emotion is probably the hardest thing to actually accomplish, it is step this next bit that is going to take the most concentration, for in order to master emotional mindfulness you are going to have to learn to isolate the emotion that you are experiencing in order to keep it from erupting spontaneously. If you will, this step is very much like what happens in your body’s own immune system.

Your immune system consists of white blood cells that are the guardians of your bloodstream.  These white blood cells have one duty and one duty only; to identify any foreign body or threat such as a virus or bacteria; and to eliminate it.  In order to do this they surround the foreign body or cell and, in effect, swallow it whole.  Once they have swallowed this threat, they then proceed to digest it using digestive enzymes, rendering it harmless.  But the point is the threat has to be isolated before it can be rendered harmless.

So too, emotional mindfulness works very much like your white blood cells.  If you can pinpoint the threat (the anger, jealousy, lust, frustration etc.) that you are feeling and isolate it; swallow it whole; you will be able to keep it from poisoning the rest of your mind.  But in order to render it harmless, you are then going to have to immerse yourself completely in the emotion.

Step #5:  Immersion. Just the white blood cells, in order to render the intruding emotion harmless you have to digest it, and in digesting it, it is going to momentarily become a part of you.  This can be one of the most painful moments of Emotional Mindfulness, and is one reason that so few people can actually follow through on the mastery.  They have no problem with the first four steps, but this last one is a step that many people just can’t face.

When a white blood cell swallows a virus or bacteria, there is a moment when the virus or bacteria is a part of the white blood cell, when the white blood cell is experiencing itself AS the virus or bacteria.  This is a necessary part of the immune system and triggers the digestive enzymes that will then digest the threat and turn it into something useful.  This is exactly what emotional mindfulness does when it immerses itself in the isolated emotion.

By experiencing the emotion completely (albeit in isolation from the rest of your mind) emotional mindfulness will, by opening itself up to the rawness of the emotion, make it understood – and render it harmless.  Indeed, by this process you not only remove the threat to your psychological well-being, you also break it down into its most fundamental level, freeing up the energy that was tied up in the destructive emotion so that it can be used for something more constructive.

What This Means for You

Mastering Emotional Mindfulness is not an easy thing to do.  In fact, it is probably one of the hardest tasks that you will ever undertake, so be patient with yourself and remember, Emotional Mindfulness does not mean that you are not going to feel the anger and pain; the fear and jealousy.  If anything, you are going to experience them move intensely than ever before.  The difference is, instead of these emotions taking over your life, you will be harnessing their energy for more constructive pursuits.

Indeed it may take months even years to master Emotional Mindfulness, but once you do the rewards are incredibly rich and you will find yourself living with a continual clarity of perception and peace of mind that you never imagined was possible.

 

 

 

 

The Heart Cricket

On By Just StephIn Metaphysical MussingsLeave a comment

There was a cricket in my basement last night. I know, because I heard him singing.

There are spiders in my basement too.  In fact, there are studies that have shown that you are never more than ten feet away from a spider (some studies say three feet).  Luckily I am normally able to go through my day without thinking about that too much, primarily because unlike crickets (and not including the enchanting Charlotte of E.B. White’s famous children’s story) spiders are not a loquacious lot, and they definitely don’t sing.  In fact, unless you stumble across on (or one stumbles across you), you probably won’t even realize that there is a spider in the immediate area. Crickets, on the other hand, are a different story.

Crickets are loud.

Now mind you, crickets can’t compete with even ordinary everyday sounds such as car engines, stereos and the clattering of the trash truck as it makes its rounds through the neighborhood, but let me tell you.   When there is one in your basement in the middle of the night – singing when the rest of the house is silent and asleep – unlike spiders, you know that a cricket is in residence.

And yes, I am aware of the fact that they are not really singing but rubbing their wings together; specifically thick hardened ridges of their wings which cause the more delicate membranes of the wings to vibrate; amplifying the sound.  I also understand that they are not singing for my benefit, but that they are doing so to attract a mate, but that doesn’t detract from the simple beauty and clarity of the sound although it DID have me wondering what on earth a cricket was doing in my basement – in January since the season for crickets (at least here where I live) is long gone.

In fact, I found myself smiling as I listened; remembering one of my favorite childhood storybooks; A Cricket in Times Square by George Seldon; a story where a young boy in New York City finds a lonely cricket in the discarded papers of the Times Square subway station.  He adopts the cricket as the mascot of his family’s struggling newsstand and Chester the cricket (who is from incidentally from Connecticut) repays the family by playing a concert at their newsstand every evening; bringing in crowds of admirers and providing the family with the business that they need to survive.

In the story, Chester plays one last heart-breaking concert before he leaves to go back to his beloved meadow, and for just that moment the never ending hustle and bustle of New York’s Times Square pauses with baited breath as Chester plays his goodbye.

Just like a cricket’s song; the truth – our truth – plays constantly in our hearts. We may not pay it any attention.  In fact, with so much going on in our lives; so much drama and fear; so much angst and anger; with such a mindless chattering of our thoughts, we may rarely hear it.  In fact, the only times that we may hear it clearly is when we purposefully stop our mind’s continual chattering of thoughts; or when circumstances force us to pause long enough to listen; or when we wake up in the middle of the night and our minds are just uncluttered enough and unfocused enough that the song of our heart cricket comes through loud and clear.

And if you lay there long enough; listening; you’ll stop wondering about why it is that you are now able to hear your cricket.  You’ll stop wondering about what it means that there has been a cricket singing away inside your heart this whole time and that you’re just now hearing it.

You’ll stop – and let the sound fill up your head; let it’s sweetly poignant melody fill up your entire existence.

And the truth of it; the beauty of it; will set you free.

Authentic Living 103: the Secret of Syncronicity

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series2 Comments

Are You Looking for Answers?

For those who are feeling the urge to begin living an authentic life, chances are that you are feeling a bit frustrated.  After all, you know that you want something more.  You know that you are ready for the next step in your journey; for your soul’s next big adventure.  There’s just one problem; you haven’t got a clue as to what comes next.

You’ve prayed.  You’ve meditated.  You’ve read book after book about spiritual awakenings; kept journals; taken up yoga, maybe even joined a book or discussion group, all to no avail.  Don’t get me wrong, you’ve learned a lot, but nothing has really changed.  In fact, everything around you just keeps on keeping on.  Day after day; PTA meeting after board meeting after little league soccer game until you’re ready to throw your hands up in frustration and scream up at the sky:  “I’m ready!  What are you waiting for?”

You can rant and rave about not knowing what you are supposed to be doing with your life; about god, the universe, our higher selves or the great flying spaghetti monster not dropping the answers, the clues or the GPS coordinates to where we are supposed to be and what we are supposed to do next into our laps, but the thing is, we already have the answers that we’ve been looking for.  In fact, we’ve probably had them for quite some time and haven’t even realized it.

You see, Spirit speaks to us all the time; every day.  Mind you it doesn’t usually come with a big red stamp on the front saying “message from the universe” or “marching instructions from god.”  No, it’s far more subtle than that.  How spirit speaks to us is through the use of synchronicities.

What is Synchronicity?

For those who haven’t heard the term before, a synchronicity is technically the coincidence of events that seem related but which cannot be plausibly explained as being caused by each other.  For example, let’s say that you start off the day in meditation by asking the universe for a sign as to whether or not you should quit your job in order to run away with the circus.  (I know, I know, this isn’t necessarily a reasonable example, but bear with me, it will serve the purpose!).

So you get dressed and go to pour yourself a bowl of cereal only to be caught by the picture of the circus elephant on the back of the box.  “Ha!” you think to yourself as you gather your things together and get into the car, “that was a cool coincidence!”  Except as you are driving to work you notice that there is a billboard by the side of the road advertising that the circus will be in town this very next weekend.  You get to work and your boss rakes you across the coals and asks you who you think you’re working for – the circus?  To add to the coincidence you get home to put your feet up and the first movie that you pull off the shelf is your old copy of Dumbo (you’d forgotten you even still owned that!).  Then you get ready for bed only to find yourself unable to sleep, so you flip on the TV and what should be playing but Charlie Chan at the Circus.  Then you finally fall asleep discouraged because you still don’t have an answer to that morning’s question.

Guess what?  You have your answer.  The universe all but handed it to you on a silver platter and you patently ignored it.

The key of course is to learn how to recognize synchronistic events for what they are; not random coincidences; not interesting chance encounters, but messages direct from your higher self to you; clear guidance on what you feel like you should be doing next, and the first order of business is to become aware of them at all.

Learning to Listen

You see, unfortunately, most of us go through life barely aware of what we are planning to do next, let alone pausing to recognize the synchronistic connection between our thinking of our best friend from college who we haven’t spoken to in 15 years and suddenly finding that they have sent you a friend request on Facebook; or being concerned over being able to make ends meet this month only to have your neighbor call you up and offer to share a table with you at the upcoming community yard sale, followed by a reminder from your mother-in-law to file the insurance claim for the roof damaged caused by last month’s wind storm; both ways that extra money could be brought into your life.

I see you wrinkling your nose up at me.  You don’t believe me, do you?  Well, try it for yourself.  Seriously!  Pick up a small spiral bound notebook at your local pharmacy and stick it in your pocket or purse along with a pen.  Now, every time that something synchronistic happens to you; every time you find the same word cropping up during the day; the same phrase pops out at you; the same references being made.  Write them down.  Don’t worry, you don’t have to do anything with them yet, just write them down.  Take out your notebook.  Write down the time and the date and the coincidence, and then move on.  Now, at the end of the day, take a look through your notebook and see if anything stands out.

I’m betting you’ll find that more often than not seeming coincidences prove to have been gentle warnings, reminders, or guidance that you simply ignored; brushed aside as just a matter of chance.  Or, as in the case of the circus example, direct answers to the questions you asked the GPS coordinates straight from the source to you.  You just have to know how to operate the machine and interpret the results that it is giving you.

Authentic Living 101: Rediscovering Your Joy

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living SeriesLeave a comment

In today’s world living authentically is quite the challenge.  Part of the challenge – indeed a good bit of it – is in dealing with a society that encourages conformity almost to the point of worshipfulness.

Oh don’t get me wrong, we have plenty of choices when it comes to purchases; to styles and entertainments; to political ideologies and religions and genres of reading material.  We can choose from a plethora of car models or types of furniture or computer software or talk radio stations every day but the point is that if you don’t choose one at all; if you choose not to choose or (heaven forbid) choose something that is not on society’s ‘acceptable’ or ‘recommended’ list; if you don’t toe the line when it comes to society’s expectations for what you should be doing, you run the chance of being ostracized.

It’s an interesting conundrum.  You get plenty of encouragement to express your individuality, but if you don’t choose correctly you run the risk of being ostracized, and heaven only knows that people have a fear of being considered different; of being shunned or ignored by others; of not being accepted, and so they will do anything to fit in; to feel as if they belong.

Worse yet, this is not something that is only put on us by our society.  There are layers of conformity laid down all throughout our culture.  We are subjected to the expectations of our governments, our educational systems, our religions and even our families.  Everyone, it seems, is expecting something from us.

Indeed, the idea of being exactly who and what you really are is not only discouraged by society in general, but most people can’t even begin to tell you where the real ‘them’ begins, because they have immersed themselves so completely in the expectations of others that they have lost track of their authentic self years ago.  The trick comes in rediscovering who and what you really are.

The First Step to Living an Authentic Life

Living an authentic life is living a real life; a genuine life; a life where your physical reality and your soul purpose are in alignment.  It means living the life you were born to live, and even if you have buried that authentic self under layers of expectations and commitments, you can rest assured that your authentic self is still there, just waiting for you to rediscover it, and the first step is simpler than you might expect; it comes from rediscovering your joy.

Do you remember joy?  I’m not talking about happiness here.  Happiness is a choice.  You can choose to be happy in spite of your circumstances, you can also allow outside circumstances to increase (or decrease) your happiness.  Joy is something else altogether.

Pure, unadulterated joy is what you experience when you are doing something that completely and totally engages every part of your being.  It is what happens when you are free of constraints and restrictions and are able to fully experience everything that is happening at this exact moment in time.  It is what happens when you are able to open yourself up completely; so completely that time actually ceases to exist and you find yourself suspended in one absolute and perfect moment of now.

You can see true joy in the face of a small child who has brushed off the restraining hands of an adult and is doing exactly what they wanted to do.

You can see pure joy in the face of an athlete as they hit that moment where everything drops away and where they are completely and totally aware of every cell and fiber in their body working in synchronization with every other cell and fiber.

You can see unadulterated joy in the face of an artist or writer as they become one with their work; in the face of the monk who has slipped into a pure state of awareness during meditation and in the face of a lover as the world around them dissolves into heat and light.

It is in rediscovering your joy that you will take your first step towards living an authentic life, for those things that bring us joy are directly connected to our higher self; to our soul purpose, and by pursing them; by engaging in those activities you will reconnect with who and what you really are.  But how do you begin to find what it is that brings you joy?

Rediscovering Your Joy

The problem is, of course, that everyone is different, and the activity or object that instills joy in one person may not be what triggers it for another, which means that no one can tell you what it is that brings you joy, they can only explain how to find joy for yourself.

It’s actually far simpler than you might imagine rediscovering your joy is simply a matter of remembering those things; those activities; those ideas that completely engaged your attention.  Mind you this may involve go back to when you were young; to when you had fewer obligations and responsibilities; to when you acted spontaneously and without consideration of the feelings of others.  Keep a pen nearby when you are thinking about this and write down those things that come to mind.

Did singing in the choir raise your spirit through the roof?  Did you get chills when you stood on stage and said your lines to spontaneous applause and laughter?  Was it laying on the warm grass on a summer afternoon that touched your heart?  Or maybe it was the wind blowing through your hair as you ran pell-mell down a hill or through a field, or maybe it was the colors of a spectacular sunset that took your breath away.

Write them down.  Write them all down.

Chances are that with some thought you will be able to list a number of things that you can remember brought you joy.  But it is not enough simply to remember those things that brought you joy.  In order to live an authentic life, you have to be able to live your joy.  You have to be able to act from your heart without fear of censure or criticism. Then and only then will you have taken the first step towards living an authentic life.

 

‘Tis the Season

On By Just StephIn Metaphysical MussingsLeave a comment

Christmas is in the air. The houses are decked out with twinkle lights and the stores are packed with shoppers scrambling for last minute Christmas gifts. There are ornaments on the trees and wreathes on the doors. We talk of Santa and reindeer and sleigh rides and serve up eggnog and fruitcake to our guests while we enjoy Christmas music on the radio. But what are we doing? More to the point; why are we doing it?

There are those who celebrate Christmas purely as a secular holiday, a time to get together with friends and family and exchange gifts and go to parties, and then there are those who celebrate the sister holiday of Hanukkah, which is the Jewish celebration of lights in honor of the re-dedication of the second temple in the 2nd century B.C.E. and still others that celebrate it as the time when Jesus Christ was born; when Mary and Joseph went to answer the call of Caesar to be counted and Mary gave birth to her son in a stable because there was no room in the Inn.

You have to admit that the Christmas story of Jesus being born in the stable and worshiped by Sheppard’s and wise men is a wonderful story; a bit inaccurate as to timing and details mind you (temperatures in the Middle East can be extremely cold during the winter and shepherds kept their flocks tucked well away in sheep pens or folds during the nights of the coldest time of the year, not to mention the fact that there is historical evidence that Jesus was actually born in September, not December) but still wonderful for all of that; a story full of hope and inspiration as is the old Pagan celebration of Yule, the twelve day celebration (from whence we get our “12 Days of Christmas” stories) whose focal point is Solstice Night, the longest night of the year; the night when the sun (in the form of the Oak or Sun King – the Giver of Life) is “reborn” and grows day by day to fulfill the promise of life-giving warmth.

When Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire it only made logical sense to adapt local holidays and give them a Christian twist so that more individuals would be brought into the fold. Hence the rebirth of the Oak King became the birth of Jesus, the evergreen branches used by the Celts to represent the eternal aspect of the Divine in each of us became the Christmas trees and wreathes that we bring into our homes every December and the Mistletoe which in Christian lore represents the love the conquers death was to the Druids the seed of the Divine and a necessary part of the ritual to re-birth the sun and the candles of Hanukkah work their way into the festivals of light celebrated in Christian Churches.

Everywhere you see the symbolism; the connections between the old traditions and the new. But one thing that the Pagan and Christian and Judaic traditions have in common is the fact that all of the mid-December traditions celebrate a time of rebirth and renewal and a time to celebrate the year gone by and prepare for the year to come, and what better way to do this than to rid yourself of all of the negativity that has accumulated in your life over the last year?

Take a look at your life; at those physical objects that you have incorporated into your world for whatever reason. Look closely at those ideas, beliefs, traditions and relationships that have become a part of you and ask yourself whether or not they reflect the highest representation of who and what you truly are; if they serve to help you live a soul-full and authentic life. If not, use this next week; this Yule week between the Solstice and New Year’s to purge your life of everything that could possibly be holding you back.

So regardless of whether you celebrate Christmas or Yule or Hanukkah, or simply view this as a nice holiday and a chance to take some time off of work; why not take advantage of the season? Go ahead, claim the promise of rebirth and renewal in your own life; in your own heart; and as the days begin once more to lengthen, celebrate the year to come and everything that it has to offer.

Rediscovering Your Personal Power

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series1 Comment

We are all have personal power; we were born with it. It is our right, our heritage as spiritual beings; as individuals with a direct connection to our divine self. So why is it that so many of us suffer from a lack of personal power?

First, let’s get something clear, by personal power I am not talking about the amount of charisma you have; the amount of power you can exert over others in getting them to do what you want them to do or in any sort of position or social standing that you can hold up and use as a guideline or definition of power.

By personal power I am talking about the power within; the power that dominates and controls your will; the power that motivates you to continue to learn and grow and become; the power that fuels the knowledge of your right to exist; that reinforces the fact that you deserve to be heard and, most importantly of all, the understanding that you deserve to be happy.

Ha! Caught you out with that last one, didn’t I? No, I don’t want to hear it; I don’t want to hear your excuses about happiness being dependent on the happiness of others or what you can do for someone else or your current situation.

By happiness I’m talking about YOUR happiness; doing those things that make you grin from ear to ear, listening to the music that makes you want to dance, using the colors that make you warm inside, reading those things that fill your heart with joy and being with those people who make you feel expansive inside.
You can know that you have the right to exist, you can understand the fact that you have the right to be heard, but how many people truly believe that they have the right to be happy?

Think about it. I’m not talking about content people here; calm people; people who have come to grips with their lives. When I talk about happiness I’m talking about those people who glow; whose happiness is such an intrinsic part of their lives that you can hear it in their voices and see it in their eyes. Their vibrancy; their love of life comes through in every aspect of their being.

Chances are you can count the truly happy people you know on one hand. But why is that? Could it be that we live in a society where it is a standard part of our culture to use self-sacrifice and powerlessness as a means of fostering social cooperation?

In fact, a person who believes that they have the right to exist and that they have the right to be heard can fit in with others in a society with absolutely no problem whatsoever, but the moment that individuals attempt to follow their own definition of happiness, they become deviants; social outcasts who are looked on with a general distaste because they do not fit with societal norms of what is acceptable and pleasant.
Every time that we ‘give in’ to family expectations, societal demands or religious dogma simply to keep the peace and make things more pleasant for everyone, we are signing away a piece of our own happiness and, more importantly, a piece of our own personal power.

Think about it, every two year old understands their right to existence, their right to be heard, and their right to be happy. They not only understand it, they demand it. Unfortunately the acceptable response is to train the child into submission and docility in order for them to become “acceptable” to society in general. We are taught to “submit” to the demands of our families, our communities, our churches, our governments regardless of whether those things that we are expected to do fit in with our definition of happiness or not.

For over two decades we are taught to put aside our own hopes and dreams and instead to give in to the expectations of society and, while some of us may have our bouts of adolescent rebellion, chances are by the time we hit our mid-twenties we have learned our lessons all too well and one morning wake up to find ourselves in a dead-end relationship with a job we hate and are saddled with beliefs that we no longer can claim as our own.

Unfortunately, by the time we wake up to the pointlessness of our lives and to just how we’ve been manipulated by our system the chains are firmly in place. We have children, bills, obligations and responsibilities all of which are tapped deeply into our reserve of personal power and that serve as tethers or anchors keeping us firmly in place; that keep us doing the ‘right’ thing out of fearing of losing everything that we have built up.

So how do you break the cycle? How do you regain your personal power; admitting not only the right to exist and to have your voice heard, but the right to pursue your own happiness and, even more importantly, to live your own happiness? It starts with one word – acceptance.

When I speak of acceptance I am not talking about submission; about giving in to the demands on your personal power. By acceptance I am talking of acknowledgement.

In order to regain the full-strength of your personal power, the first thing that you need to do is accept or acknowledge the fact that you are NOT happy.

That’s a hard one, because we have been taught that our happiness is dependent on our status or social position or what other people think of us or how much we own or are able to produce or what job position we hold. We’ve forgotten all about those things that bring us joy; those experiences that leave us full to bursting with wonder and mystery and a feeling of rightness deep inside your soul.

Once you have accepted the fact that you are not happy the second step to reclaiming your personal power is in getting back in touch with what it is that makes you happy; the things that you do that you do with passion; those experiences that make you joyful and those people that touch the very core of your soul.

Of course it is not enough to simply admit that you are unhappy and to get back in touch with those things that stir up the happiness inside of you, you then have to reclaim your personal power by putting it to work in your life; by living authentically and bringing your life into alignment with your soul purpose. Then and only then will you have rediscovered your true personal power and will be able to take your first step into the life that you were always meant to live.

Who You Are Choosing To Be

On By Just StephIn Metaphysical Mussings1 Comment

Anyone who has been exposed to modern spirituality for any length of time is sure to have encountered the phrase that “you are making your own reality.”

I’ve spoken with countless people, who support or argue as to whether or not this is possible and I am always fascinated with their interpretation of the phrase.  The complexities of their reasoning astound me whether they are for it or against it, and while I’m not here to argue the validity of the statement, I am here to explain in a little more detail just what, exactly “creating your own reality” means to me.

From my perspective, the phrase “creating my own reality” means that I am continually, by thought word and action choosing the circumstances that come into my life.

In other words, today’s thoughts, words and actions become tomorrow’s experiences and reality; the ultimate example of the law of attraction at work in daily life.

If I choose today to be angry and judgmental, then I have no reason to complain when tomorrow I am confronted with angry and judgmental people.  I have, by today’s actions, drawn those people to me.

If I chose yesterday to live in fear of all the horrible things that could possibly happen to me or be suspicious of someone’s attitude or character, then I should not be surprised when today something horrible actually does happen, or someone whom I was suspicious of decides to act in exactly the same way that I “suspected” that they would.

This may seem like it is a no-win situation, that yesterday’s fear generates today’s bad circumstance and will lead to more of the same tomorrow, but that isn’t necessarily so.  You CAN break out of this cycle simply by changing the way that you react to a situation.  And yes,   this works even if the initial fear or circumstances were generated by someone on the outside doing something bad to you (such as what happens when the victim is a child or other vulnerable individual), for even though you did not choose the initial circumstance but had it forced on you, you CAN choose to react differently.  This is how it works;

Instead of reacting to today’s negative occurrence with more fear and suspicion; with more judgments and anger, you can choose to change how you respond to a circumstance.  You can choose to see that circumstance as an opportunity to break out of your cycle of negativity and act from the highest expression of who you choose to be.

Do you WANT fear and anger and negativity?  Then by all means continue to act and react in the way you have been acting and reacting, but if you truly wish to make YOUR world (not anyone else’s world – just your own world) a better place, then you can change the way that you view your world.  You can change the way that you react to negative occurrences and in doing so you can create a far better world for yourself and those around you.

It takes time.  It takes practice.  And most of all, it takes attention being paid to every thought and word and action to ensure that you don’t revert back to the habit of reacting negatively to negative circumstances.  But sooner than you can imagine, you’ll begin to see your life begin to reflect the highest expression of who you choose to be.

The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge

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Full Moon Meditation; The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge

You come to me; filtered through the branches of my apple tree; a silvery orb of forbidden fruit that fills my soul with wonder and leaves her clarity on my tongue. Fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil could not be sweeter or more energizing and, some would say; more dangerous.

Just look at some of the names that you have been given; Mictecacuiatl; Man-Eater; The Queen of the Living and the Dead; as if you would bring danger into the lives of those you touch. Danger? Really? I don’t see danger. I see introspection maybe; introspection that leads to self-awareness and self-understanding perhaps, but danger?

Ah yes – I see. I suppose that sort of knowledge and understanding could be considered dangerous; especially if it threatens to upset one’s status quo; to pull the rug of complacency out from under one’s feet; to make one realize that all of our best laid plans and hopes and dreams are nothing if we do not submit to the pull of that tide that would have us be who and what we really are.

To some, I suppose, that insidious pull could be a threat; a malicious plot to strip us of everything that we hold dear and leave us naked and bleeding at the feet of the Dark Queen; subject to your mercy and the beck and call of your commands as you makes demands on us that we are unable or unwilling to comply with; demands that go unfulfilled and so leave our soul stained with the fear of retribution.

To others you may very well be a goddess figure; divine protector who offers up her care, asking only that we meet those conditions that she asks as an acknowledgement of our gratitude for all that she has done. But is this any better than the Dark Queen? Does Agea or Andromeda or Artemis or Hekate ask less than the Dark Queen, or do they only ask differently?

The lengths to which humanity will go in order to avoid what is right in front of their eyes is truly amazing, for if you strip away the layers of myth and controlling fears and expectations; if you slip past the Dark Queen and the Divine Goddess, you find that they were only a shell; only a projected image; for at the center of the fruit you will find only your heart; bare and unadorned and vulnerable.

And when you see what resides there; at the center of the fruit of knowledge, you will understand that there were no demands; no expectations to be met in order to fulfill your end of the bargain. You will see that those things that are asked of you were asked BY you; by your heart, and your heart would never ask us to give anything that we are not willing and able and ready to give. She would ask nothing else. She CAN ask nothing else.

Any perception of demand and expectations and demands of acknowledgement are simply illusions; illusions generated by the all-too-human ego-self in order to keep us from opening ourselves up to the seeds of the fruit; to the possibilities that come with introspection and self-awareness and self-understanding; qualities which, when swallowed, take root in our soul and fill our lives with the kind of peace and awe and wonder that most can only dream of.

The Abyss

On By Just StephIn Metaphysical Mussings2 Comments

You! Yes you, there, the one standing on the edge of the abyss!

No, don’t look over your shoulder, I’m not standing behind you. How could I be? There’s a sheer cliff face behind you.

No, it doesn’t matter where I am – would you knock it off? It doesn’t matter who I am, it really doesn’t. I just need you to be quiet for a minute and listen to me.

Why? Did you actually ask me why? Oh please! You’re the one standing on the edge of an abyss, a sheer cliff at your back, and nothing but bottomless emptiness in front of you, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, not a clue as to what to do next and you’re asking a disembodied voice that’s trying to help you as to why you should listen to it?

You know what I should do? I should just leave, right now. Leave you to your contemplations of the horrors that may or may not lie in wait for you should you jump or fall or be pushed off your precarious perch, how dreadfully dangerous the winds that are buffeting you are and how you’re afraid that you may loose your grip accidentally, or how hopeless your situation is since the cliff face is sheer, offering no toe-holds to climb back up, and you haven’t been able to get the attention of anyone at the top of the cliff who could help you.

But I’m not going to leave, even though it aggravates me to see you trembling there in indecision when it is perfectly clear what’s going to happen. But I forget, you are so wrapped up in clinging to your ledge that you’re not taking time to see the big picture. I understand how being on a ledge as you are would be distracting. But what I can’t understand is why it is you actually seem to be enjoying your predicament.

Well, you certainly talk about it enough, how scared you are, how nervous you are about what comes next, all the things that influenced you to this point, how uncomfortable you are, how much your cuts and scrapes hurt, how you managed to end up here….ah, that one is the worst! I mean, look at you! It’s obvious how you got here. You left your normal, everyday life, picked up your backpack of hopes and dreams and struck off up the mountain of possibilities and followed your spiritual path until it led you here.

Yes, you heard me right. The path you chose to follow led you here. You and no one else, is responsible for where you’re standing right now. I don’t care how many maps you consulted. I don’t care how many other people you asked for directions, or how many people you followed or how many detours you took to get here. And don’t moan and groan about how it must be the path’s fault that you are in this precarious position. You are the one who was walking it. You’re the one who took that final step – the step that sent you over the edge.

You still remember it, don’t you, the moment when the path crumbled in front of you and you felt yourself falling over the edge of the cliff. But then you caught yourself, just barely caught yourself, a bare toe-hold here on this last ledge of sanity.

And so, here you stand, your back pressed against solid rock, the reality of what you’ve experienced so far, what you’ve encountered, as unarguably real as the stone beneath your fingers. In front of you the abyss awaits, its unknown depths holding unknown joys – or horrors, and the winds of change and circumstance keep threatening to loosen your hold on this last shred of reality. What’s worse, your hands are starting to sweat with nervousness (or is it excitement?) and you find your grip slipping by centimeters.

I bet you’d give anything for a rope right now, wouldn’t you?

And who knows, maybe if you wait long enough you’ll be able to get someone’s attention and they’ll send down a rope to help you up. Of course you might be waiting for a very long time.

And even if they did, where would you be? All the paths lead to this abyss – there’s no way to go further up without crossing it. You are to be commended actually, for having made it this far. So many people only follow the path until they find a comfortable place and then leave it to take up permanent residence.

You could, provided you are offered that rope, go back up to the top of the cliff and retrace your steps back down the mountain, or at least far enough down it so that you feel safe; undoing all the work of months, or years of searching. Or you could stay there at the top of the cliff, within view of the abyss. You could stay there and invent a nice reality for yourself, something that sounds probable, about how this is really the top of the mountain, or at least as far as we can expect to go in this lifetime.

Of course you could choose to remain where you are, teetering on the edge of sanity, worrying yourself to death about what is going to happen when the inevitable happens and you loose your grip and go plummeting into the depths.

Or, you can jump.

You can let go of your desperate finger hold on reality and step off into the unknown, trusting that the universe knows what it is doing or it wouldn’t have brought you here.

I guess what it all boils down to is one question:

How badly do you want it?

How badly do you want to know what lies at the summit?

How badly do you want to see the view from the top?

How badly do you want to remain trembling here on the brink, clinging to your last shreds of sanity and wondering what comes next?

So, you can wait for help.

Wait to fall.

Or jump.

Modern Day Messiahs

On By Just StephIn Metaphysical MussingsLeave a comment

If I told you what it takes to reach the highest high you’d laugh and say nothing that simple, but you’ve been told many times before messiah’s point you to the door though no one’s got the guts to leave the temple.
~Pete Townshend

Saving the world is a thankless job. Ask any messiah and they’ll agree that it’s thankless, especially when no one believes in you.

They usually don’t.

In fact the level of their belief tends to fluctuate in direct proportion to what they want (or don’t want) to hear. So the belief level is especially low when the result of your deliverance is a vicious rearranging of their environment, beliefs, or thought processes.

In fact – they can get downright nasty when they think that you’ve worsened their situation or brought unnecessary chaos into their life.

Now here’s the rub…if you look at the word “messiah” what does it mean? Translated it literally means “deliverer” or “one who is expected to deliver.” But deliver what?

Usually the word is applied in the context of a person who is expected to do something to better a situation for a person or a group of persons, and has been adopted by the religious world to mean someone who delivers the world (or at least a group of people who adhere to the tenants of that particular religion) from evil.

But if you take it literally – a messiah could be anyone who takes you out of one situation and propels you into another – be it a better or worse one. Hey – they’ve delivered you from your situation, right? Who said that it had to be an improvement on your previous situation? They delivered you. End of story.

In some circles these people are called catalysts – because they bring about (or bring together – or attract) circumstances, people and even situations that bring about change (be it good or bad) in the lives of those they come in contact with.

It’s still a thankless job, for it still means change, and very few people welcome change so profound that it turns their world upside down. In fact, they will fight this change with every ounce of energy that they possess. They will struggle with their last breath to maintain the status quo; to keep themselves safe from the dangers of the unknown and when they go looking for a scapegoat; someone to blame their present set of circumstances on, a catalyst makes an ideal target, and believe me, there is more than one way to get crucified.
You find catalysts in the strangest places, and most often where you least expect them to be (that’s the whole point of a catalyst after all, to take people by surprise and shake them out of their routine). In fact, it takes most catalysts by surprise that they are catalysts. They can go for years (even a whole lifetime) without realizing who or what they are and may just assume that their life is naturally full of drama or chaos and that strange situation just gravitate to them for some unforeseen reason.

If you are a catalyst – a modern-day messiah -if you tend to attract those people, circumstances and situations that tend to change people’s lives, then you probably already know that you don’t really have control over who you influence; those people show up in your life whether you asked them in or not. You don’t even have control over the circumstances or situations that occur to enact the change. There is, however, one thing that you DO have control over, and that is how you view the kind of change that you enact.

If you keep a positive attitude and view those circumstances, situations and people that appear in your life in a positive manner, then you will tend to propel others into positive change (though they may at first view it as negative – since it IS a disruption of their status quo). If, however, you maintain a negative attitude and view the seeming chaos and disruptions as something to dread, then you will tend to propel those around you into anger and fear.

Of course in the end, it is the decision of the person you are affecting that will decide how they take the changes that have come into their lives; what they do with the things that they have learned. You could have been as upbeat as it is possible to be, and they still let the disruption to their way of life pull them down into despair and hopelessness at what they have lost.

Whatever you do, resist the urge to become attached to their decisions. You cannot help being who and what you are, and it is not your fault if the ones you influence decide that they cannot handle what you have shown them. If you’ve kept a positive attitude and tried to explain the changes as best you could; if you’ve shown the changes in the best possible light; you can rest assured knowing that no matter what the outcome, you did what you could.

And sometimes, for a modern day messiah, that has to be enough.

Fighting Spiritual Obesity

On By Just StephIn Metaphysical MussingsLeave a comment

We are a society obsessed with calories regardless of whether they are nutritional, intellectual, or spiritual.  We have diet soda, calorie free snacks, lite beer, thought free entertainment and substance-free beliefs.

Instead of choosing those things that hold the most nutritional value, most people pick what tastes good or has the best packaging or is the most convenient to warm up or that can fit into their schedule or into their lunchbox, or into their life.

The result, of course, is a crises of physical and spiritual obesity combined with mental anorexia; flabby bodies, bloated beliefs and weak minds; all suffering from a lack of any real substance; from the ingestion of too much convenience food; too many processed and chemically or genetically altered  beliefs.

Do you think you’re immune?  Do you think that just because you adhere to a particular belief system, have a college degree or practice a specific sort of physical exercise that you are spiritual, physically or mentally fit?  Think again!  In fact, chances are that if you adhere to one belief system, one way of looking at things intellectually, or one type of exercise that you only have the illusion of fitness.

Let’s take a look at diets and religions.

Religions are like the exercise programs and diets that you find in the self-help books.  You’ve seen them; the age defying diet, the muscle builder’s diet, the tummy fat diet, the pregnancy diet.  All of them specialize in one particular area, and they are good at what they do!  But they don’t address all of the issues.  They leave a lot out and, while by following the program you’ll feel a bit better; more in control; none of them teach you how to tone your whole body, and no religion addresses all of the issues, though each of them is good at what they DO teach.

But just like following one diet will get that part of you in shape, so too does following one religion address one particular aspect of your spiritual needs.  Look at them!  If you are Islamic, the main issues are pride vs. peace.  For Christianity it is sin vs. salvation, for Confucianism it is chaos vs. order, for Buddhism it is suffering vs. nirvana, for Judaism it is exile from god vs. return to god, Hinduism is endless misery via reincarnation vs. spiritual liberation, and in Taoism it is lifelessness vs. life.

Each will tell you that by following THIS path you will find hope, peace, salvation or order just as each diet out there tells you that you will obtain the body you’ve always wanted by following the guidelines in THIS book.  But there is one thing that every religion and every diet fails to take into consideration, and that is the fact that every individual on the planet is unique, and that each needs a different approach not only to nutrition, but to spiritual sustenance as well.

This realization of individuality when it comes to nutrition as well as mental spiritual substance does not mean that you simply pick and choose those diets or religions or ideas that taste the best, that smell the best, that you enjoy eating or thinking about.  This does not mean that you choose the exercise of least resistance; diet that is the easiest to stick to; the religion that makes you feel the best about yourself, and the entertainments that provide you with the most mindless entertainment.

No, what this means is that it is time to go beyond the ‘recommended daily allowance’ beyond the self-help books, beyond the ideas and beliefs that are dished out as “healthy” by our governments, societies and religions.  It is time to stop simply following a way that we have been told is right and instead get to know our own bodies and minds and spirits. Listen to your body; to your heart; to your inner essence; to that core that speaks to you in the language of the soul.

Listen and then follow its direction, even if it takes you in directions that make the flabby and out-of-shape part of you feel uncomfortable; even if it challenges ideas and beliefs that you have always held to be right.  LISTEN.  Find out what your body needs, what your heart desires and what makes your soul sing.  Listen to them and create for yourself the person that you were meant to be and the life that you were meant to live.

 

The Chrysalis Effect

On By Just StephIn Metaphysical Mussings1 Comment

There comes a point in the life of certain caterpillars, when they have eaten enough; when enough nutrients have been stored, then the caterpillar reaches begins to spin a silk pad on a leaf or twig and proceeds to hang itself upside down from this pad.  Slowly it begins to molt its outer skin, leaving itself encased in its green chrysalis.

The creation of the chrysalis itself is an incredible process, for this is not just some special substence that the caterpillar excreets for the job; what it is is the caterpillar’s own skin transformed into this hard green shell.  The caterpillar willingly unraveles itself so that it can allow the change to occur.

Inside the chrysalis an amazing transformation takes place. The caterpillar’s body does not just undergo a complete and total physical transformation; its body completely breaks down into a “soup” of cells which, over the next few weeks reconstruct themselves into a butterfly.

The caterpillar doesn’t resist the pull of change; the instinct to stop eating and begin the next stage of its journey. It doesn’t lament what it will lose by ceasing to become a caterpillar, nor does it try to justify why it should continue its existence as a caterpillar when its heart is telling it that it’s time to let go. One other thing a caterpillar does not do is to worry about helping other caterpillars to recognize and listen to their own instinctual pull.  Instead it simply acts on its instinct and trusts that this is the best thing that could happen at this particular moment in time.

No, the caterpillar does not resist.  It simply stops what it’s doing; no matter what it’s doing.  It stops with no fanfare mid crawl; mid bite; and begins to spin its silk pad, letting everything it was dissolve into nothingness, trusting that the universe will take care of the details, and proceeding to move on to the next state of existence. It surrenders to its heart and in so doing begins the most important transformation of its life.

So too does there come a point in the life of every individual when they are prompted by signs from the universe; indeed by the urgings of their own heart to simply stop being who and what they are; to surrender themselves to the transformational power of their inner-being.  When they do heed the signs they begin to undergo an incredible transformation; a spiritual evolution that will turn their world upside down.

This transformation is not always pleasant.  In fact, sometimes it can be downright painful, for the changes involve breaking you down; stripping you of every thought, every belief, even those relationships that you associate with being you.  It will strip you of everything; reducing your ‘self’ to a protean soup of possibilities, and then will reconstruct you into the ‘you’ that you were always meant to be.

But here is the amazing thing, instead of losing your ‘self’ during the transformation, you emerge on the other side more ‘you’ than you could ever have imagined being, and with an understanding and a perspective that would have been impossible in your old way of being.  Suddenly you can see what it was that you were missing; why it was that your old life never seemed completely satisfaction.  And once your wings have dried in the sun of understanding, you will shake them out; spread them wide; and begin to fly.

 

©Stephanie S. Henry 2012