Human Spirituality
April 16th, 2010 | 
Author: Being deep on a spiritual path is entering into the moment of the unknown. I don’t know why many things happen in the way they do. We don’t have a blueprint to life, only a road to follow. I believe our spiritual path is very personal. Being here at this time, on this planet, is very human. Being in a body is part of the spirituality of this existence, whereas many people would like to leave the body and make it unholy. But the earth, the body is very spiritual. Things happen to us in the body that we cannot make sense out of, only respond to in the best way we can; understand and keep finding the message that evolves and heals us…sometimes we are supposed to just rest and take care of ourselves and sometimes it is to take care of others. Learning to be human is most the challenging adventure there is. Most people want to forget they are human and disregard the human experience. But around us is this beautiful earth with many types of people, cultures, races and perspectives…when we can fully accept that there is no one thing, one way, but many different ways, then maybe the human race will stop fighting each other.There are many wounds to heal on this planet…going as far back as many generations for most. We carry in our cells our ancestors pain and love. We cannot live in the past, but we cannot forget it either. Forgiveness is a process of healing…for me, life has been an emotional challenge every day…and I see that in the people I work with. Our emotions are a key to understanding who we are and what we need and want. It is a road map to our hearts and bellies. But sharing personally is an intimate experience that takes time to develop with others. I believe that knowing how to communicate from the deep places, where our hearts are vulnerable, is spirituality. Not some universal Pie in the Sky… t is very much inside of each person…and the need is always to be loved. We want to be loved not for being perfect, but for simply being.
Ask: Where did my family come from? What is their heritage?
What didn’t they feel or talk about?
How did I grow up and what beliefs did I take on from that up bringing?
What still pains me now?
What stops me from being fully vulnerable and expressive?
How does my heart hurt and love?
What do I struggle to change?
When you ask the question, see what part of you is answering. How old is he/she? What does she feel and want? Have a dialog with this part of you. Embrace the answers. Find out what it is you need to reveal to yourself and act upon…
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Giving my heart back to myself
A mystery. A pain of heartbreak
My heart has been shredded, torn, abandoned
How do I give my heart back to myself?
So many telling me who my heart is, and what it should do and feel
But my heart is broken.
I don’t know how to give back a broken heart.
In tiny shattered pieces…what do I do with it?
Paste it back, glue it, staple it?
It will never be the same.
I am like a vampire that stalks the night
I look and look to fill the emptiness my heart aches to be fill.
But it is so broken it can’t receive.
People say, “Look at the moonlight”.
I say, “So what? That does not heal my broken heart”.
Flesh and bones and blood and tears and
Hands holding each other in desperation
Ready to jump off a mountain
That will heal my broken heart.
I fall and fall, catch, reach out to my heart
There I am the small child, she is handing it to me
But I can’t receive it.
I can’t!
She doesn’t know what to do, she is relying on me
To receive this heart. It’s pounding and pounding
Waiting, and waiting.
How do I do this?
I can’t feel love for myself
I’m so hard on myself…so controlling and protective.
I don’t want anyone but my little girl and to heal my heart.
I hate the advice and the sermons and the “we are all one in unity with”.
I don’t feel it.
My heart wants something simple.
Like my daughter said tonight, “I am so tired I need someone to just kiss and hug me”.
That is giving my heart back…to kiss and hug my daughter…
Feeling, Expressing, Receiving, Time, Touch and Attention
Feelings are a tricky deal. Many times we THINK we are feeling but we are in a story or description outside of our own true experience. Clients I’ve work with protest, “But I have been feeling my sadness and anger all my life, it won’t go away.” My reply is, “You have been repressing your feelings and sadness and that is why they are stuck.” When we go into our bodies, the connection to feelings are more intense and direct: anger, grief, sadness, joy, excitement, hurt, love, fear, terror. Emotions are energy. They need to move. These direct feelings, primal feelings, are felt in the body and have a primal energy of movement. When we talk about our feelings, give descriptions we are usually not in our bodies, but in our heads. It is a difficult journey to identify, locate and access a true emotion in our bodies. Most times we are reacting with feelings to another’s behavior, not directly feeling our own emotions in response to ourselves and what we feel and need. Communicating a feeling in a healthy way does not come from blame, judgment, attack or manipulation. It is clean and direct. Our feelings heal us when we stop trying to make them go away, dump them on another or fix them.
Intimate expression comes from our hearts and souls. Inside our bellies are feelings that tell us what we want and need. Most are afraid to directly say, I feel, I need….they are afraid of rejection or criticism. So they disguise their emotions and needs and try to manipulate the other to be heard and seen. When we trust ourselves we able to directly feel and ask others for support and love; or express our hurt, anger, sadness and all feelings in ways that do not attack others or collapse us into a depression. Movement of emotions helps prevent stress, illness and chaos in our lives.
Receiving goes beyond listening with our ears. It is the opening of our heart, soul and every cell to allow ourselves to fully open to the other. When we stop, breathe and take in what another is saying and feeling without judgment we then can respond from our truth back to them. Receiving also is a practice in order to have self-love and self-acceptance. When we receive ourselves we are fueling our body and soul with the life force energy. If we shut down,and say NO to life then we cannot grow or be guided in life. Receiving is surrender, not a giving up or submission, but an allowing of each moment to be exactly as it is so we can learn and grow. It is a lifetime practice to receive and stay present. Daily meditation can help us learn to receive.
Endless number of stars can add up to the infinite number of souls that live in timeless space. Time is limited in our human existence, but endless in our spiritual existence. If we pay attention to the moment, then our whole life can reveal itself to us. So many people take time for granted. Then one day they look back and have regret. Why didn’t I enjoy that vacation? Why didn’t I enjoy my children? Why didn’t I enjoy my youth? Why didn’t I go after that career? Why didn’t I put more time into my marriage or relationship? Why didn’t I have more patience? Why didn’t I take better care of myself and slow down and just be thankful I am alive? Time is precious. Time is the container for intimacy, creativity and joy. How you will spend your time today?
My first Psychology class in my undergraduate work the professor showed a film of monkeys who were “touch deprived.” They separated the mothers from their babies at birth. The infant monkeys were aggressive, depressed and self-mutilating. It stunned me. I had never realized that touch deprivation was so prevalent in our society. So many clients I work with remember that they were rarely touched as a child. Touch is as important as air and water. Affection, stroking, holding, hugging and other intimate ways to show love, not just sexual, are part of the emotional food that we need in order to thrive and feel joy. It is also important to touch ourselves with inspiration, spiritual juice and simple ways of self-care; massage, yoga and meditation. How do you allow for touch in your lives?
It is human to need to be seen and heard. But how much do we listen to our own inner voice, feel what our bodies are telling us, embrace our needs? If we don’t follow our intuitions, believe in our heart’s guidance and follow through on our desire, then we will hunger for constant unhealthy attention from others. Healthy attention is mutual compassionate and passionate communication. However, we need to first locate what we feel and need, then we can know what form of attention we need from others. Stop, listen and breathe. What type of attention do you need? Physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual? It takes time to allow ourselves to feel we deserve attention. It is only human to feel we exist and have value.
Questions for Self Inquiry
Once a woman makes the decision to go within to reclaim her authentic self she journeys deep into the unknown. She will wander about in the underworld facing her demons, foes and obstacles. The powers of the feminine will guide her through her dark sojourn into this mother void. It is an important part of her instruction and achievement to gain her knowledge through first hand experience. The feminine archetype of the heroine is not to conquer over as her male counterpart, but to conquer within. This inner reflective state is a sacred withdrawal that is necessary in order for her to rebirth, heal and reinvent herself in the images of her own guided visions and insights. It is important to commit to building her strength to ward off any outside influences and manipulations. She becomes the sacred warrior. A woman in charge of her own destiny.
While she is on the journey she will need to learn discernment. The following are questions that will begin help to guide the journey. To ask and reflect carefully on the following question will help you give permission to go within and speak her truth.
Questions
1. Who were you taught to be?
2. Who do you want to be?
3. Who listened to your feelings, thoughts, ideas, opinions?
4. What parts of yourself do you cover up?
5. Did you ever feel something and ignore it?
6. What part of your routine life are you afraid to give up?
7. What part of your power are you afraid of?
8. How do you conform?
9. What shall live? What shall die? What shall be woven in?
10. What have you repressed sexually, emotionally, creatively?
11. What do I crave in the pit of your soul?
12. What will satisfy your soul hunger?
13. Do you express what you feel when you feel something?
14. How does one live in transition before hatching?
15. Whose life are you living?
16. How are you out of sync with your deeper beliefs?
17. What circumstances in life stop you from feeling more deeply?
18. Do you have a choice about going or staying?
19. Am I of this world or another? How do I live in both?
20. What do you know in your gut that you hide from?
21. What is in your life appears to be something it’s not?
22. What has been killed in you and lies buried?
23. What wounds have been left unattended?
24. Where are you going?
25. Is your life moving at a comfortable speed?
26. How are you progressing?
27. What is your motivation for seeking spiritual healing?28. Have you felt out of control?
29. What are your commitments and intentions?
30. What wounds, trauma, abuse holds you back? What voice are you not listening to? What keeps reoccurring?
31. What do you want to create?
32. Do you or how do you feel connected spiritually, sexually, creatively, emotionally, mentally?
33. What is your attitude about your life?
34. How much time and space do you create to experience yourself?
35. What is your solitude?
36. What are you grateful for?
37. Are you disciplined? What distracts you? What excuses, dramas, rationales and beliefs stop you from staying on your path?
38. What needs, wants, and values do you disregard?
39. What dreams have you discarded?
40. When was the last time you wrote a night dream down and talked to it?
41. When was the last time you meditated with a tree?
42. Do you embrace your intention fully?
43. Are you focused? Do you eat when you want, sleep when you want, etc?
44. Are you curious? Do you fantasize? How often do you follow through on your dreams?
45. What can’t you say no to? say yes to? How do you set your boundaries and standards?
46. Do you meditate regularly? Pray regularly? Visualize regularly? Listen to your inner voices regularly? Set visions regularly? Clean out the old regularly? Keep the faith?
47. What doubts stop you? Fears? Do you experience your wounds fully? Do you trust your grieving?
48. What are you willing to do to get what you want?
Women’s Group: Part 2
Women’s Group, Part 1
Universal Laws
Universal Laws
In doing our deeper soul work, each individual needs to understand their unique family history and personal psychological dynamics that cause them to develop their personalities. However, the personality self we have developed can limit our human potential and squash our spiritual longing if we are wounded in childhood – We are all wounded in some way.
To choose to become conscious to our unlimited self means our commitment to know ourselves, intimately, through our mental, emotional, and spiritual selves. In learning the intimate details of our lives, we can become the masters and creators of our life and fulfill our purpose and destiny. To walk this path of conscious choice is to go through the process of living. To live we must discern between our false self and our true self. This is a quest. It takes wisdom, courage, and tenacity to recover our authentic selves. And…we must grieve the loss.
This is why we cannot leap over the mountain, we must climb to the top. This is the human way. The loss of our true self is an experience of great pain…we need to learn compassion, self-acceptance, and non-judgement in order to heal. This grieving process is what teaches us unconditional love…and it starts with where you are at…it starts right now…in present time. We cannot beat ourselves into change. We cannot “should” ourselves into change. We cannot compare ourselves into change. We cannot rationalize ourselves into change. We cannot become like others in order to change…we must go within…and feel, express and receive life. We need to learn to treat ourselves with loving kindness, nurturing, persistence, patience and have great respect
for the unknown. We don’t get rid of the past through coercion, we accept our past and let it gently move us toward healing and change.
Change is a detox. A detox from crazy-makers in our lives, crazy-making behavior, crazy-making jobs, crazy-making schedules. We need to simplify everything. We need to slow down in order to examine what is really going on inside of us and our lives. Then we can begin to experience ourselves. Then we can really feel what we are feeling, instead of numbing out and pretending we are feeling. All of life is what we experience.
Experience comes from what we feel through our senses and in our bodies. Whatever you don’t feel becomes trapped in the body, in our cells, in our organs, in our minds, and in the mind/body as repressed energy. This is when disease and mental illness can occur. As humans we don’t know how to have compassion for our pain. We just want an easy way out. So we use the Mind to deny what we feel in our body. The Mind is very tricky. It is the Houdini of the human experience. It can function without you feeling at all…and you won’t even know it! It is called a hypnotic trance. We hypnotize ourselves with words, ideas and thoughts, and shut down to what is real for us. We can even use meditation to numb ourselves out. We create from our numbness instead of our aliveness. If we do not know we are numb, then we cannot really change anything. We can think we have changed and just be acting like we have changed.
When this trapped energy in the body has not been resolved it will sabotage you in unknowing invisible ways. Like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Now you see it, now you don’t! Hello! Have we met? Who are you? Our society is so addictive and hypnotized most people don’t even know what is real and what is not real. We are influenced by external ideas of things in very subtle ways. There is no way that consciousness looks, acts, or behaves…it is total freedom.
There are no steps to consciousness, or healing or awareness. There are no rules…there is only YOU AND YOUR EXPERIENCE.
Here is how the cosmic mind works:
Law of Attraction:
Our beliefs are created from emotional experiences, pleasant or unpleasant. Emotions that are held energetically in our bodies, conscious or unconscious, attract people, experiences and situations that reflect who we are and what we actually believe, not what we say we believe. This Law can give us a lot of information about ourselves, give us insight to thoughts and feelings that we are unwilling to look at from our conscious minds. The Law of Attraction forces us to observe…just watch how you behave, how you feel how you react…WATCH YOURSELF! Become conscious! Our images, visualizations, affirmations and thoughts just match our deeper feelings in order to attract what we need and want. Therefore catharsis, releasing and body work is essential. But…
Law of Surrender:
A hard task for most of us humans. Once we go through this process of feeling, releasing, grief, making new choices, creating new thoughts…we must let go…surrender…have faith or we will create resistance, force, coercion. The universe doesn’t always give us what we want in the way we want it. It will always show us what needs to be fulfilled before we can manifest what we want. If we do not do the work of releasing past traumas, eventually our hidden emotional
agendas will defeat us. Our judgments and control of thoughts and feelings will transform into illness and chaos in our lives. As we go through the process of healing and creating new realities, we will come closer to our purpose. Often we do not always know what that is. At times we think we know, but are fooled by the universe when we are taken in directions that we did not plan to go in. When we surrender, our inner wisdom, guidance, faith, trust, and ability to receive takes over. Allow, accept, receive. This is very hard to do because we are human and as humans we want to control everything.
We are not bigger than God, we need to surrender and allow God’s will to channel into our will. Pray often, affirm your intentions to know your own personal truth which is your purpose. If you do not receive what you are asking for then maybe you are not aligned mentally, emotionally and spiritually, or it does not meet your highest purpose, or you are in resistance, OR, the universe has other plans for you.
Law of Creation:
This is a constant journey to achieve. We need all of our natural tools: visualization, focusing, multi-sensing, imaging, affi rmation dreams, visions, emotional awareness, releasing, going within, meditation, and…allowing time to love yourself as you grieve the part of you that is broken hearted.
Ponder this: We focus all the time. We feel all the time. We visualize all the time. We create all the time. We are not fully conscious to what we focus on because all of our denial and unresolved emotions. So…we run into walls. We try to hide behind smiley, happy faces, underneath feeling truly needy and wanting to be loved…all the time! We just can’t admit this. We are so mixed-up and create out of this mix master of thoughts and feelings. We create intentionally some of the time when we are clear. Other times, we struggle, then we judge. When we judge, we reject ourselves and life. When we reject, we need to merge with others in unhealthy ways in order to feel alive. We believe life is such a bitch. We complain and manipulate to try and get what we want
All we can do is live the endless journey of creating our own unique experiences until we find our own self-acceptance. It is only through our acceptance can we be truly free and fly. God has never, and never will create any two things alike. That is God’s gift to us…our individuality and the power to create through our free will. She is an omnipresent source of endless Mind, Passion and Creativity…and so are you!!!
So, let’s get real…If we are to work with, co-create with, hang out with Universal Consciousness we have to be willing to strip ourselves naked, be willing to start from the beginning, before school, teachers, careers, religion, family, before time…then we will be free to be deliberate creators.
It is so big, so huge, so beyond anything that we need to start with just looking…seeing…being…living…taking a few steps back.
BE AN OBSERVER; WATCH, WATCH, WATCH
Your actions
Your thoughts
Your feelings
Your situations
Your reactions
Your responses
Your experiences
…and live your life until it all merges, blends together into one big continuous
Try This…
Let’s begin to go in…think about something that is challenging you in your life right now—A relationship, a goal, an adventure you are wanting, but cannot seem to manifest.
Focus. Bring your consciousness inside of your body. Breathe. Deeply. Allow your thoughts to wander. Notice what is happening in your body. What sensations do you feel? What images are you seeing? What emotions are fl oating about? Stay with this until you begin to feel uncomfortable. Notice if there are any bodily symptoms: Tightness in the chest, dull headache, nausea, sweats, heart palpitations…anything. What is the feeling in this bodily disturbance? For instance: is it hurt, anger, fear, sadness…let this feeling guide you. Tell you a story. Take you on a journey. Keep Breathing. As you focus into the feeling in your body, let yourself go deeper and deeper, expand with the feeling, breathe, open to the resistance. Let go of any judgment on whether the feeling is good or bad, right or wrong, you have to feel this way or that way…it’s just about being, and from the simplicity of being will come growth. As you grow into the feeling, let whatever images, thoughts, memories, sights, sounds, smells and dreams to emerge. Allow yourself to stay with it all, until you have an emotional release, (cry, scream, kick, laugh, etc.) See what limited beliefs of yourself are held in this feeling. Bring this feeling into the present. How can you best nurture yourself at this time? What will bring you harmony, or peace, or safety? Allow yourself to share from your deepest honesty what you are needing and wanting. Honesty is the building block to intimacy. Honesty and intimacy can only be shared in the moment, like a child, responding with giggles as a butterfly flies by, or when a child screams in pain when she falls off of a swing, or is hurt by a friend’s harsh words. Use all of your feelings to become conscious of your truth in the moment. Know who you are on all the levels of your consciousness.
God – awareness – integration of the male/female
Spiritual visions, psychic, dreams, altered states, purpose
Communication, creative self-expression
Heart center, nurturing, nourishment of self and others, heart’s desires
Intellect, power from within, self-assertion
You in relationship to the community, world, culture, society
Foundation, beginning, primal sexuality, sensuality, tribe, physical self
Caution!!! You will not be perfect in expressing your true feelings in the beginning. Sometimes you might seem selfi sh, controlling, and slightly unrealistic…you will still have expectations, demands and assumptions that everyone will understand and give you what you want. Also, you might think you are sharing a feeling and what you are really doing is telling a story, making an interpretation of others actions, making comparisons, and basically coming from co-dependent feelings of limitation and fear. That’s OK as long as you can be aware and own what is happening in the moment. The process is always to keep processing. To keep living in what is happening to you. To keep moving towards what is your bliss. The ability to sort through this is complex.
Unconditional acceptance can only come from yourself to yourself fi rst. We might have to let go of relationships (family or friends) and create a space for the new life to be born. Our time of grieving, our time of sadness, our time of tears is healing and cleansing.
Exercise in Recovery
Try This…
This time, close your eyes, breathe deeply, relax. Put on some meditative music. Drift,?drift, drift off into the clouds…fl oat and relax. See in the horizon a white light. Let?yourself be drawn to the light. In the midst of this light is a Temple. Float toward the?center of the Temple. Let yourself sink into this experience. Let yourself open to the?sights, sounds and smells of the heavenly environment. Ask to see your guide. Have and?intention, or question you would like your guide to make clearer for you. Stay as long?as you want.
You are the source of your power. When you see yourself through the eyes of people?who want you to continue to feel “less than”, you are delaying your recovery. These are?the people who will always make you wrong, can never give or receive an apology, can?never give or receive a compliment, can never be supportive to what makes you happy.?They want you to stay unhappy and bonded through pain. “Misery does love company.”?They will tell you that you do not care about them if you do not live up to their?every demand of you. They will say you are the toxic one and never look at their own?toxicity. To stay in relationship with crazy makers is to continuously kick your wounds.?WE allow ourselves the time to mend and heal from a car accident, surgery or any?physical problem, but we do not believe our emotional and mental recovery deserves?the same time and care. An emotional trauma is as important to create time and space?as a physical injury. Give yourself the time to heal.
Imagine you are from another planet. You speak a different language. You dress differently.?You eat different foods. You have different morals and values. Write about who you?would be. Give yourself permission to completely go beyond all your boundaries and?shoulds.?Find a comfortable place to relax. Close your eyes. Breathe. Create an intention to have?a meaningful experience that will give you the guidance you are needing and wanting.?Float above your body as you breathe. See yourself below, breathing and relaxing.?Now, start to envision yourself shrinking. Become smaller and smaller until you can?place yourself in the center of your heart. Bring your consciousness into the center of?your heartbeat. Begin to travel through your inner body. Each organ. Heart, stomach,?bladder, kidney, liver, spleen etc. Do not imagine or visualize. Feel yourself sliding in?and out of each part of your inner self. Enter into each organ like they are a room in?your home. What do you feel? What do you see? Where are the edges in your body? Can?you feel them? Give each organ a color, a sound, a texture. What emotions live in each?organ room? When you discover the feeling, give each one a color and a shape.?
Happiness…color, shape?
Sadness…color, shape?
Fear…color, shape?
Joy…color, shape?
Anger…color, shape?
Jealousy…color, shape?
Love…color, shape
From Right Use of Will
“Lost energy, lost power, lost love, lost anything is the result of denial…non-acceptance…denial is held in place with judgments and emotional control…if instead of accepting your experiences, you judge them, you lock the energy into that rigid pattern of perception.”
Another from Ram Dass’ Grist of the Mill
“If you get over the value judgments you can listen to what it is you need to do without getting caught in all of the social pressures about marriage or no-marriage. The true marriage is with God. The reason you form a conscious marriage on the physical plane with a partner is in order to do the work of coming to God together. That is the only reason for marrying when you’re conscious. The only reason. If you are marrying for economics, if you’re marrying for passion, if you’re marrying for convenience, if you’re marrying for sexual gratification, it will pass and there is suffering. The only marriage contract that works is what the original contract was—we enter into this contract in order to come to God. In fact that is what everything you’re doing is about.“
