Acts of Love - 3/6/19

Last year I had a realization after one of my shamanic journeys. It went like this: “I can either consciously treat people with love or I can treat them like crap.” But the Universe was telling me that I was now conscious enough to know that I am hurting them if I treat them like crap. And if I do consciously treat others like crap, I do have a chance to give a gift of love by offering a sincere apology. So the Universe was telling me that it was my choice, but from know on either choice was completely conscious.

One month later I had another realization. It went like this: “Treat people with love. No other choice.”

Now I have found that even though I am only to treat people with love, my upbringing has taught me ways of interacting with others which I think are loving, but are actually not so loving. So the Universe was telling me to always act with love, and if I run a pattern that is not loving, I am to immediately recognize to that and make a sincere apology which is an act of love.

This means I have to be in the moment, every moment when interacting with others (or myself) and watch the impact of my words and actions on others (or myself) to see if they are (I am) responding to me in an empowered way or a disempowered way. I have to take responsibility for this impact, not God, not Spirit not whatever, Me. The Universe is asking me to grow up and be an adult. I get it, too. If I stray my heart immediately tells me that something is amiss and I do my evaluation and apologize. It’s pretty simple and yet for most people it’s the hardest thing in the world.

Why? Because to apologize in our culture is seen as a sign of weakness, that we are bad, not good enough, flawed, less than, when in actuality the ability to sincerely apologize takes tremendous courage, strength and vulnerability. It puts you front and center for evaluation from others which is pretty scary. What if they don’t like us anymore? It doesn’t matter. Being true to your heart and your self is all that matters. Be brave. Be loving. And if you can’t be loving, apologize. Humble pie never taste so good.

Alternative Facts - The Mind Only Holds On To The Truth – 2/22/19

I don’t listen to the News much, but when I heard the term “alternative facts” it resonated with me. Not because I think it’s a way to live as an authentic human, but because I realized how my I tell myself alternative facts every day: “I’m not good enough.”, “I’m not lovable.”, “I’m not worthy.”, “I shouldn’t cry because I’m a man.”, you get what I mean.

We blame these internal attacks on us as coming from our “inner critic” and find ways to shut him or her down typically by numbing ourselves to Reality. But is the critic actually doing something wrong? I mean it, why is the inner critic saying all these terrible things about us and to us?

As I’ve mentioned in the last blog when we’re born we have free expression of our feelings, emotions, physicality, whatever, but as we grow these aspects, these qualities of ourselves become an annoyance to those around us and society in general. So we have to shut our unique qualities and essence down so as to conform to the family and society. If I continue with the free expression I get chastised or shamed, so instead of having others tell me these things I start to tell them to myself. All this shutting down closes off our hearts which feel too vulnerable and tender at such an early age to bear the brunt of this external denial of ourselves.

So we tell our mind to create ways to protect our hearts – we close our hearts and give control to the mind. Now the mind is very creative so it says to itself: “Hmm, Jim wants to protect himself from accidently bringing his unconditional love out into the open, so I’ll develop some defense mechanisms that 1) push people away when they want his love; 2) distract him from searching for that love, and 3) I’ll repeat in his mind that he is not lovable.”

This is a lie, this is an alternative fact, but it was necessary for my survival. The reason I know as an adult it is a lie is because I have to keep repeating it. The mind only holds on to the truth. When it experiences the truth, it makes it a visceral/body-felt experience and is there when I need it. Repeating a phrase over and over again needs to happen otherwise the mind will drop it. It does not represent truth, but we haven’t told the mind to stop doing it, so it continues to play the same loop of dialogue over and over again until I realize it’s not the truth. Unfortunately the mind isn’t designed for this type of control and over time it fractures and we become insane.

How do we work with these alternative facts? Listen to what they are saying. If the critic tells you that you are unlovable, then you should realize that you are hiding your love from the world – a beautiful quality of your Being. The words are there to remind you that you are not supposed to go to your love. When you begin your inner work though you look at the words and say, “Wow, I’m hiding my inner love from the world. Thanks Mind for keeping me safe, but I think it’s time we let my love come out again.”

The hard part about this is that typically a huge emotional charge was placed with the original shutting down and the defense mechanisms, so now you’re going to have to go through some emotional discharge. As a child this charge was so huge that you thought you would die if you expressed it, but as an adult you realize that that is also an alternative fact. Every time you release “the lie” you gain back your inner authority, your energy, your essence and it’s one less thing the mind has to keep track of. Trust me, the mind doesn’t want to be telling you lies. It would rather use its creativity in more constructive ways.

Self-Love is the Path - 2/21/19

As a culture in the West, we are trained to hate ourselves from a very young age. The training is sometimes very subtle and others time hugely traumatic, but hate ourselves we do.

How does this occur? Our parents and society have no idea how to nurture the authentic essence of children. And because of this they demand that we, as children, conform to certain rules and regulations – thousands of them – which are determined from outside the child. They tell the child to deny their internal authoritative referencing and because we want our parents love, we have to deny the information that receive from our own bodies in favor of that of their parents or society’s dictates.

So we spent the rest of their lives trying to deny our own inner urges which is painful for the Soul and try to live someone else’s conception of Reality which is completely impossible. So we, as a species, are mainly frustrated with Life.

Realizing that this is how you are living is the first step. The next is to begin to accept who you are regardless of what others think of you. This doesn’t mean you treat others poorly, it just means that you are your best source of information for how you’re doing and you really don’t need someone else’s opinion about it.

This is self-love – honoring who you are in every moment, honoring what your body tells you in every moment and realizing that the way humans learn is by making mistakes. Mistakes don’t make you a bad person, they make you a more well-rounded person - a person capable of solving problems and thinking for yourself.

Try a little self-love today. Take a nice bath, sit down with nothing to do and just be with yourself, read a fun book, honor the fact that you’re a nervous wreck and need so “me” time. The path to enlightenment is paved with self-love. It’s messy, emotional, requires great vulnerability and crazy as hell in a good way, but at least it’s authentic.