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Monday, February 28, 2011

War Zones

I wonder how many wars have begun because of religious stands people take, based on the individual's information and belief?  The 'fighting thought' usually sounds like, "Because I believe this as true, you should too.  And, because I act according to my truth 'this certain way', you should act that way too."

There's the 'War Zone'.  Whether outside or inside of us, war zones are created when there are should's levied upon us by another.  In a family, there are War Zones created when the parents levy requirements upon a child that don't fit what is actually there.  For example:  "Be good", when the child is already 'good'.  Then the child has to 'act as if, so they can be judged as 'being good' by the definition held by someone else, and often lose track of their own innate goodness within, by doing so.

When a bomb of 'separateness' is dropped upon a scene that is of 'wholeness', War is created.  When war happens, we are each a victim. 

Judgment

What a power-packed word.  It usually has an emotional impact of sorts when we hear it because we've each experienced being on the 'raw' end of someone else's judgment. That's not fun.  Another meaning the word 'judgment' holds for me is that I have to focus carefully to make sure I spell it right.  I was the winner in a few spelling bees as a child, but I lost the 6th grade championship spelling bee because I spelled the word 'judgement', instead of 'judgment'.  I'll never forget how humiliated I was, because that was the year I had a huge schoolgirl's crush on a boy with black hair in a crew cut, and marvelous green eyes.  I watched him every day playing touch football at recess, trying hard to look nonchalant.  And when I missed the spelling on that last word, I remember wishing I could just disappear into a dark hole somewhere, rather than taking the pitiful honor of receiving 2nd place.

I've come to know the human capability to judge as a gift of the Divine.  The challenge is to use it wisely.  There is a difference between making a judgment call to better our own actions, and judging something as either 'good' or 'bad' in total.  I learned that when I worked as a Drug Addiction Counselor, as I realized that alcohol, in and of itself, isn't 'bad' (nor 'good'), but the use of alcohol is what creates either a 'bad' or 'good' result, depending the need, or the result wanted.  The word 'balance' would be a more accurate descriptor, that 'right' or 'wrong', even 'better than' or 'worse than'.  It's a Taoist principle, really.  Does the use of the thing create a good end?  Or not?  What are the 'fruits' of the use?  One of the perspectives that helps me make wise judgments is to ask myself if the action or tool I choose will be an 'energy add' to life, or an 'energy drain'.  Bottom line, does it go toward life, or death.  Good question.

And then there is the question of when to apply judgment, not just what judgment to make.  What I've found to be true in my own life is that I have not only the opportunity but the responsibility to make judgment in things having to do with my own actions in my own life.  Judgment is mine also to make in situations where something or someone is within my personal stewardship.  For example, when my children were minors, I made the final judgment for them, in their behalf, while teaching them as best I could to make wise judgments for themselves.  They were in my stewardship.  So is my business.  It's the old "The Buck Stops Here' principle.  When the judgment I make is a good one, I get the credit.  When it's not, I get the blame.  It's fair.

But what if you don't know you're judging?  That's a tricky one.  In the past, I've found myself in that situation too many times, so more consciousness in judgment has been my goal.  Because of this focus, and because I've achieved some measure of success at it, I see more clearly now when someone else is making a judgment, and what kind of judgment they are making - often below the level of their awareness.  It's interesting to me, because I can see how our ego defends it's claim on the area of 'I'm right, you're wrong', usually without our even realizing it.  And when there is a conclusion that is reached about something (based on a judgment made), there is no more learning that can be had in that area.  The only thing we can say at that moment (to ourselves or another) is, "I know", thinking we already know what's going on.  There is no openness toward further possibility.
 
For example:  A friend of mine recently used an analogy with me of gardening and nutrition.  Her son likes pancakes, not fresh vegetables, and if it were possible he would much prefer to have a family 'pancake garden', rather than a vegetable garden.  My friend wisely tries to sneak whatever vegetables into her son's food that she can, knowing that eating more vegetable in his diet gives him more nutrition, than a diet of solely pancakes would, no matter how much more he likes them.  This son and his diet is in her stewardship, so she makes judgments about the food she offers him, and continues to grow the family vegetable garden.  When her son grows up and leaves his mother's stewardship, he will have to make his own judgments on what he will eat for his own best nutrition.  He may even find a way to continue eating his preferred meal of pancakes, while incorporating into them other, more 'veggie' types of items.  It has been done.  (Cooked beets, squash, pumpkin, carrots, and grated fresh apples are all great in pancakes!)  So, if his mother kept a hard rule about pancakes being a lesser source of nutrition than vegetables, she may end up mistaken.  But, like most mother's, once we climb on a soapbox about something, making judgment about how things should and shouldn't be, we get attached to it.  Then it's easy to judge the person who is doing something differently than we have experienced as valuable, as doing it 'wrong' - hence, the person is wrong.  Relationships become strained when this happens, and hard feelings ensue.

So, my intention is to judge wisely, making sure that my judgment falls within what is actually in my stewardship.  And the rest of the time, speak only for myself, and what I have found value in for myself, honoring another's experience with respect only, free from judgment whatsoever of what is 'better than', or 'less than', what I am doing myself.  When I was a child, I was taught certain belief systems, and sources of 'Good', to which my parents felt the whole world should ascribe to, and follow.  I've found that this type of thinking only creates 'war zones'.  I choose not to participate.  If it's about nutrition, there are many ways to get it.  If it's about becoming 'one with the Divine', there are many ways to get that result too.  And everything else in between. 

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Attending to the things of Life

Last week was 'a wash', as far as 'outer work' goes.  No projects begun, worked on, or finished.  I couldn't seem to 'get it together' enough to do anything productive.  My body was OK, it was just my mind that seemed pre-occupied.  I had numberous memories surface throughout the week, along with feelings, that demanded attention.  So I attended to them.

My father is dying.  My brother tells me of going each day to help my father into bed at night.  They live on the same street, so it's close.  Dear Dad is such an interesting man.  I remember when I was 4 years old, on a hot summer day, my Daddy cleaned out a round, tin, horse-watering tub, and put it in the middle of our front lawn in Lehi, Utah, and my toddler sister Jane and I played in the water.  Two little blond girls, with Mama sitting on the front doorstep of the house, feeding a bottle to our new baby sister Jolene.  There was a huge tree in our front yard - I think it was a sycamore.  I remember thinking my Daddy was so smart for fixing us a 'swimming pool' to use.  Later, he told me that Porter Rockwell had built that house, as one of the houses he built in Utah after having been the body guard to Joseph Smith, Mormon prophet.  To me, it was just my family's house.  We had chickens out back, and I remember corn growing SO tall in the garden.  The neigbor had sheep in the field out back, and I liked them.  Years later, when I was married with five children, I got a ewe who was ready to lamb and kept her in the 'back field' in So. Weber, Utah, where we lived then.  I wanted to continue my efforts to provide my family with the 'natural' basics, I was helping my boys with Boy Scouts, and I thought that a few sheep would be a good project. 

My father was a rancher from Eastern Utah, turned insurance saleman to support his family.  He's 94, and his mind has been sharp until just lately.  He has so many stories of 'the old times', and has been trying to record as many as he can.  I've been helping, by phone, with some of those memories.  And with these memories, as I've been reminding my father so he can write his own, I've had feelings come that have been long 'buried and forgotten'.  I've worked on lots of 'mother/father' issues, and seem to have cleared much.  So what's been coming this past week has to do with the more subtle realizations of 'the water I swam in'.  That metaphor is from the example of asking a fish, "How's the water?"  The fish would simply reply, "What water?"  This past week I've become more aware, through the sharing of both my mother and my father, of the 'water I swam in'.  Their personal struggles, their intentions, their perspectives of should's and shouldn'ts in raising their children.  I realize that I did feel loved, even cherished, but it was not unconditional.  My parents could only give what THEY had, themselves, and neither one had received, nor felt, unconditionally accepted and loved.  I believe it's probably the same for each of us, in a way.  There's no 'ideal' here, no 'perfect childhood'.  How it was for ME was what I got this week.  And how my entire life has been affected.  No big wow's, but so many small, powerful realizations.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Wholeness

As a person in relationship of any sort, job is not to assist another in walking in wholeness, but to walk in wholeness with them. 

In Relationship - Being a helper versus really helping

I've known there was a difference for a long time now. And in my private practice, with clients, I do my best to do the latter.  However, I haven't experienced such a clear difference in my own life until this last week.  I've felt prompted in the last few months to build a friendship with someone I didn't know before.  She is a marvelous person, with gifts and talents 'par excellance'.  We share of the same ideas and feelings, and our bond has grown strongly.  I've also developed a deep affection for her husband and children,... and even her pets,... at the same time..  But there's a problem - a little things that gets in the way of our really 'relaxing into intimacy' so to speak.  (Of course, there are so many more ways to be 'intimate' than requiring taking your clothes off.  You know what I mean.)  The problem? She continues to 'try to help' me. She seems to be so sure I need just the kind of help that she can give.

It's not the sharing of food that I object to.  I enjoy it when someone shares their food creations with me, especially when they enjoy what I share back to them in return.  It's really quite fun.  But it's the attitude I'm being approached with that is getting in my way.  There is this constant, underlying feeling of, "Here, let me help you understand how much 'better' I am than you are, and how you can be that way too, with my help."  She's not said any words to this effect - except when she has, but not as clearly as I just described it.  It's the 'feeling'.  Her words are as if she expects a judgment of some sort from me.  And that's not something that I experience in my own mind and heart about her at all.  I love her dearly.  And when I 'look inside' (and I do), I love her without conditions of any sort.  It's not about that.  I wonder if it's about her own fear of some sort, being projected out upon me.  All I know is that it isn't 'clear' and I feel uncomfortable in the presence of that.

Ah well.  In the past I would have been a bit heartsick about this, because I hadn't found 'the connection' I'd sought, and put time and energy into building.  I may have even blamed the other person, or circumstances, for it.  But now I just feel a bit sad.  I still love her, and that will probably never change.  She's on her own path, as I am on mine.  I'll probably see her from time to time still.  But there will be no more effort on my part to share 'of the spirit' to the level I have before.  My experiences seem to be deemed as worthy of judgment of being 'less that', even 'wrong', that I might be 'fixed', and brought into some sort of wholeness by her.

I know that each of us has our lessons to learn, and it requires certain situations, with certain experiences, to do that.  Hence, this situation, now.  In the face of this, I'm learning how to set my own boundaries even more clearly, without judement, without blame, without irritation of any sort, but acceptance.  Even the sadness wanes now as I 'have it' more fully, knowing the loss of something I'd hoped for, wanted, yet was unable to really relax into, thus really enjoy.

What I know about myself is that I go for a quality of intimacy in relationship that is not always easy to find.  What I realize more fully now is that each relationship will not dip as deeply from that well of spirit and trust as another does.  And I'm learning to accept that.  It's not always easy.  Just simple.  And my heartache?  What I really want is a certain quality of intimacy in relationship with every being.  I used to make it my fault that I was not worthy of that.  Not at all.  It just doesn't happen.  It's just that I want that quality of intimacy with everyone I care about, because that's really 'fills'.  There's the fullness of joy.  Nothing short of that fills the bill.  My friend wants something other than thant (self validation?) more than she does the intimacy.  It appears she wants to needed by me.

We all address neediness issues, but it doesn't fill the need to reach down and pull someone else up.  That just feeds our ego.  Issues of neediness are often still in the way.  They need to be cleared for there to be an equal and honoring exchange of validation in relationship.  Then there is no need, just sharing.  That's what I want.  In my practice I facilitate others in clearing those base issues so that they may have the kind of relationships that really fill - equal, honoring, true intimacy.  These relationships are truly healing.  And the process begins with a quality of unconditional acceptance of self, and other.

Only when we have a solid ground to build upon, our castles of sharing and love in relationship are built.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Lucid Dreaming again. No, Co-Dreaming

I had an experience years ago when I was personally studying with a woman who was well-taught by a White Mountain Apache medicine woman.  At one point during my first year of study with her, while she was coaching me in dream work, I shared a dream I'd had the night before, with her in it.  She stopped me mid-sentence, and finished telling me about the dream.  We'd approached the dream subject from our own unique perspectives, had our individual experiences, but it was the 'same dream', essentially.  I've never forgotten how amazing that was.

Well, a few nights ago (years later, a totally different cirsumstance) it happened again.  As I was sharing a dream from the night before with my friend Marcia, and that she'd appeared in my dream, she suddenly got looked very pensive.  When I was finished, she told me of her own dream, and the unmistakable elements where we had shared the same dream.  Again, amazing.  It reminds me of when I was teaching some lucid dream workshops during the mid-1990's, and we'd end the class by saying, "See you in the dreamtime'.  I had one distinct experience then of sharing a dream with someone, where we both walked toward a blazing bonfire on the beach, conversed for awhile, and then went our separate ways.  Since it happened during the Friday night of a Friday and Saturday workshop, we were able to share the dream the next day.

Being a 'closet scientist', I wonder if there have been any scientific studies done on what the Australiam Aborigines call Dreamtime?  I wonder if, when people sleep together in close quarters, their brain waves come to be more in sync with one another?  Similar to women's menstrual cycles becoming in sync when they live together in a group?  And, because the brain wave of natural sleep is different than when someone is in hypnosis, what may the difference in the brain waves of one who is dreaming, and/or lucid dreaming, and/or co-dreaming? 

Body temperature changes,.... Still

Today is the first day in a week that I've had to wear my fingerless mittens during the day to keep my hands warm.  Even then, I only wore a glove on my right hand, not on my left.  Odd.  My hands and feet have been so cold since my heart surgeries, and it's been hard to keep warm generally.  But this last week was different.  No mittens during the day, and when I went to the grocery store, I took off my heavy winter coat while I walked around shopping because I got too warm.  That was a first.

Before the surgeries, I was always toasty warm, even sweating, most of the time, no matter how cold the weather.  I don't even fog up the inside windows of my car very much anymore.  It's like I have another body, in a way.  Osteoarthritis in hips and knees still, but my general system is so much better.
 

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