Empowerment | Linda Chubbuck

December 12, 2020 Empowerment 1 Comment

Samson Was An Onion

Have you ever been lied to?

I have, but it took me quite some time to realize it.

How did you feel when you found out?

Maybe it was deliberate, maybe it was through confusion. But it matters when people tell a lie. Sometimes, it matters a lot.

A number of years ago I was on a small town jury. The charge was (sadly) possession of marijuana, probably with intent to sell, though I honestly don’t remember that now. I was one of 12 jurors.

The trial began. The police officer told of stopping this man in the wee hours of the morning, where the guy pulled into a parking space in town – just a block from the courthouse where we sat for the trial. By the time the officer walked up to the car, there was no pot in the car, despite a search.

Coincidentally, there was a bag of pot right below the driver’s side door, lying there on the pavement.

But, hey, it didn’t belong to him!! Pure coincidence. The defendant had quite a story about the entire situation. He just happened to pull into that parking space, etc.

We jurors were new at this, and confused. We listened to the instructions and went into deliberation. Still confused. After some discussion and some time had passed, I began to think really clearly.

One of them was lying. But which one? Could be the cop – there are dishonest cops. Could be the guy accused of pot sales.

I started laying out the “if….then..” for the other jurors.

If the cop was lying, then these 5 things had to be true (all pretty improbable).

If the defendant was lying, then only one thing had to be true: he dumped the bag of pot out the door or the window as soon as he pulled into the parking space.

Shortly all the other jurors could see the either-or situation, and that one person was lying. Together we agreed the defendant was guilty and he was convicted. (Nowadays I’d hate to spend that much energy and money on a pot charge, but this was in the ’70’s.)

When two people – or groups – disagree completely, diametrically, on what the facts are, there are lies involved.

How do we tell who is lying? FAKE NEWS has become an unfortunate alarm cry. There is fake news. But it’s not always where the fake-news-labelers say it is.

How do we tell?

We are gifted with thinking, with intuition, with discernment. It doesn’t always work perfectly, but when we set our minds to find the truth, it can usually be found. Sometimes the reason truth seems so elusive is that large numbers of people don’t really want to know the truth, and keep it buried with accusations.

Did you ever know of someone whose spouse was cheating on them, having an affair? And lots of people knew it except the spouse? I know a couple of people who had that experience. Digging deeper, it was usually because they didn’t really want to know.

They ignored the clues, they ignored their own intuition, because they were afraid of what would happen if they looked with clear eyes at the truth.

Maybe their marriage would end. Maybe their financial security would be threatened. Maybe they would have to make a really hard decision.

Right now, we are swimming in a sea of both deliberate and accidental lies. It’s enough to make any sane person cynical. It’s enough to make some people get duped by multiple conspiracy theories… we’re talking capital C Conspiracy Theories!

To get out of this cultural period of lies, confusion and polarization, we need to pull all our thinking capacity to the front lines. We need to use our critical thinking, as well as our intuition.

If this is really true, then… these things have to be true. Can that be? Is that even possible, or reasonable?

Do you care enough about the truth to ask for it? Are you brave enough to ask these questions about things that you value? You might not like the answers.

My dad taught us a lot about critical thinking. When we were really young, he started with this one:

Dad: An onion is strong, right?

Me and my brother: Yeah.

Dad: Samson was strong, right?

Me and my brother: Yeessss…. (Where was this going?)

Dad: Therefore, Samson was an onion.

Me and my brother: Wait! What?…what are you talking about?

When we protested, a discussion on the need for careful critical thinking would follow. I don’t remember the details, just the Samson was an onion lesson, which said it all.

I was once in an emotionally brutal marriage for a year. The last few months I was sick and desperate. I thought I was doing God’s will, staying loving and committed. But it was so painful, I was isolated from all my friends and most of my family and cried a lot. What was wrong?

Finally, when none of my other prayers were being answered, I began to pray fervently to see clearly.

Holy Spirit, help me see clearly. I prayed this over and over to myself.

You know what happened? Things got worse.

Yes, things got worse. Day by day, he was more brutal more often, until he finally said, “I hope you get sick from eating that!” as he slammed a plate down in front of me.

My thinking capacity finally showed up, like the cavalry to the front lines. As if cold water were thrown over me, I suddenly thought, “This isn’t right!” A few hours later I left, taking shelter where he couldn’t find me.

How did I feel when I realized I had been deceived, and even lied to?

Humiliated. Devastated. Wrecked.

But I was grateful to still be alive. I had been making mental lists in my head for months – “When this is over, I will apologize to …. ” The list was long. I began the work over the next few weeks, along with crying a great deal and doing everything I knew to heal.

Are you going around declaring Samson is an onion to your friends and family? Have you pushed the snooze button on your thinking capacity? Are you believing lies just because they are loud and repeated over and over?

How will you feel when the truth is finally clear to all?

Remember the voice of God is nearly always the still small Voice within. We have to be quiet and connected to hear it.

You do not have to be tricked into believing lies simply because they are loud and outrageous.

Your thinking capacity – and your intuition – will return if you really want them.

You do have the courage to face the truth.

Samson is NOT an onion.

Linda Chubbuck 2020

July 30, 2020 Empowerment, Love or Fear Post a Comment

The Bindweed Takeover’s Life Lesson

My gardener dad taught me many things. One of the most memorable was how bad bindweed is. I mean, it’s like the end of the world. If you get bindweed you will never get rid of it. It will take over and strangle your garden, your flowers, everything. There’s nothing you can do except poison, and you have to keep poisoning it for a long long time.

Wow. I could see what it did – take over whole areas he was trying to garden in, filling the bare spots, climbing up the tomatoes and peppers. Yikes!

Years ago, gardening in Central Kansas, I got a load of horse manure compost from my neighbors. I was so happy about the rich bonus and we spread it over the garden.

But by late summer, the first bindweed I’d ever had appeared in my garden. Oh no! It was apparently in the manure – I was freaked. I was gardening organically and had no idea what to do.

Eventually I moved. Problem solved.

Fast forward – years later, gardening in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, bindweed appeared next to our fence. All my fears and memories of bindweed came rushing back. I hoed. I pulled. I asked Stan to do the same.

Still it expanded. It climbed up all our raspberry bushes and strangled them. It crept up the back fence. It wound itself across the grass and into our regular vegetable garden.

The bindweed exhausted me. I was discouraged and despairing. I didn’t want to move to escape this pestilence.

But I didn’t want to give up my entire garden to the Bindweed Takeover.

In the absence of a remedy, I just kept plugging along. One day I came across a book, called Weeds – Control without Poison (Charles Walters). It’s a weird book and a radical concept for sure. But I read parts of it, including what it said about bindweed.

Come to find out, bindweed is an opportunistic weed, Mother Nature’s clean-up crew, sent in when the soil is poor and or the ground is bare. Suddenly I had childhood memories of barren soil driveways leading into fields – thick with bindweed. I read further.

I learned that certain plants are Nature’s remedial crews, which over a few years, provide the organic matter and processes that impoverished soils need. When their work is complete, they die out and are replaced by other plants which do better in richer soil.

Wow! I thought about this for weeks, replaying garden and weed interactions from my past. Is this true? Then my mind skipped over into Life itself… is there a metaphor here?

After I pondered this concept for several months I convinced Stan to help me make major changes to the garden. We removed the strangled raspberries and replanted some of those roots (carefully cleaned) to a new bed free of bindweed. We put grass – tough grass, thick grass – where the bindweed was the thickest and got it going, then simply mowed regularly. In the garden, where the bindweed had intruded, I vowed to compost and enrich the heck out of the soil, making the bindweed unnecessary and unwelcome.

All this we did. In addition, once the thick field of bindweed roots and plants was no longer flourishing, we rigorously pulled and hoed EVERY SINGLE ONE of the isolated plants that would pop up. Yep, there were a lot. But we removed a lot also. We are still doing it every time we visit the garden, but there’s not a lot to do.

This summer, about 4 years after the major changes, I have an asparagus patch to die for. Lush. Extravagant. Prolific. Spreading. Right where the bindweed used to live. I can barely find any bindweed at all there anymore.

And the rest of the garden is the equally clean. We still have to pull individual plants, but it’s not taking over anything.

What’s the metaphor?

Remember Field of Dreams, “If you build it they will come”?

In the same way, if you un-build something, things will disappear.

When I spent lots of time focusing on how bad the Bindweed Takeover was, I was stressed and discouraged, constantly trying to beat it.

But when I began to understand, appreciating the role bindweed was playing in my garden, and creating a space that didn’t invite bindweed – then it subsided, almost to disappearing.

Yes, I did have to pay attention and root out the single plants popping up. I had to be consistent about that. But, my reward is a rich and sumptuous garden, right where the bindweed used to be. So worth it!

Are we too focused on fighting something that seems huge and overwhelming and monstrous? What if we make an environment where “it” is no longer welcome? What if we join forces, learn and understand, and make “it” outdated and unwelcome?

Yes, we will still have to face and eliminate isolated instances. But we can change the habitat, and the species that found it most inviting will go elsewhere.

Lush and thriving asparagus patch in midsummer

Whether the issue is bindweed, or systemic racism, or corruption in politics, or hate crimes… coming together as humans across all kinds of lines, to create an enriched environment where these things are not welcome, is possible.

Is it easy? No.

Is it simply positive thinking? Absolutely not.

But joining hands, and working together to make fertile ground where all of us (all colors, all religions, all cultures) can thrive is not only possible but actually exciting.

When the ground is fertile for healthy and happy living for all people (all beings actually), then it will be easier to root out the “bindweed” that does show up – the acts of hate or violence – and deal with them, eliminate them.

Do not mistake what I’m suggesting as only positive thinking. There’s much more work involved here, and much more understanding.

We have become accustomed to an impoverished environment where noxious intruders are comfortable. When we create a rich, connected, fertile environment those intruders will fade. And we’ll have the power and clarity to deal with them one at a time.

Thank you, Bindweed, for the valuable lesson.

March 25, 2020 Empowerment 1 Comment

Going Viral – A Thousand Tiny Choices

Before all this madness began, I was writing a book. The working title is Connected, about all the thousands of ways we are quite literally interconnected. Biologically through air, water, soil, and matter. Energetically through thoughts, emotions, intentions, and love.

Well – as luck would have it – we are having a global lesson from the Shadow side of connectedness right now. Painful, frightening and deeply transformative.

Sometimes it takes a Shadow Lesson to help us understand something that the Light Side was just too nice to really get through to us. The question is, in a time of memes and funny videos, is it possible for deep lessons to go viral?

Here’s what I see that we – meaning humanity – are facing now.

1. We are all connected. Some of us like this concept and others don’t, or even think it’s a lie. Even those of us that acknowledge it, still judge others, feel separate, etc. despite our best intentions. With COVID 19 we have reached the point where it is obvious that we are connected by invisible forces. Our lives are being altered by the actions of something we cannot see, persons we never met, objects we didn’t know we touched. We are all connected.

2. Choices – tiny choices – that I make, that you make, that a stranger makes – are now matters of life and death.

To travel, or stay home. To shop or not to shop. To hug, to touch, to wash. These small choices are quite literally changing the face of humanity of this planet. But wait – maybe small choices always were matters of life and death. We just weren’t paying attention.

3. Awareness can save our lives. We have been admonished for a month now to wash our hands and not touch our faces, as if our lives depended on it. But it’s so hard! Even the health official reading the precautions at a press conference licked her finger to turn her page. My husband wore gloves to remind himself not to touch objects, and not to touch his face. He got back in the car after a quick stop in and out, and put his gloved finger between his teeth to pull his glove off. Aaagh! Humans are creatures of many habits. We want choices on auto-pilot so we can be thinking of other things. This virus is demanding that we be present. We must be aware.

4. We can envision our future. Can you see past the apocalyptic circumstances to a brighter, more connected future? Sometimes I can. But sometimes all I see is chaos and fear. Can we as a species use our great power of love and imagination to hold a beautiful vision of our future through this dire time? Humans have a capacity for imagining the future. Sometimes we haven’t used that capacity very well. This pandemic is bringing that up for us to make a choice again.

5. Life is more than just people. People are dying and surely more will. It is frightening to me, and there are moments I am scared for my loved ones and myself. But a friend said recently, as she was grieving and even fearing, it occurred to her that there are many life forms on the planet, not just humans. In the lessening of human activity, what other forms of life will regenerate and flourish? This can be a reminder that life includes many forms and species.

6. We are more than just a body. We connect through love, not only through touch. However we understand Life and the Universe, many of us know deeply that we are more than our bodies. Something in each of us lasts forever, and at the point of death, we all have to let go of this body that we identify with. In this time when we cannot hug the body of our child or grandchild, remember this truth. Send that child loving energy. Find a way to connect that resonates for the child. That connection is real – play with it, experiment with it. We are not only a body. As my brother said, use this time to get acquainted with the part of you that doesn’t die. The part of you that lives forever.

These lessons, which were not completely unknown before the COVID 19 illness, suddenly show up starkly. Shadow Lessons have a way of doing that.

Can we humans learn these Shadow Lessons fast enough to change outcomes? Can we make a thousand tiny choices that are different from what we might have done a few weeks ago? Can we take into our hearts the reality that – like it or not – we are all connected?

Can we make these love lessons go viral? I’m going to do my part.

***Check out my YouTube channel here.

January 22, 2020 Empowerment, Love or Fear 1 Comment

Sent by God

In 1999 I met a brilliant man. I had led a “sheltered” life the decades prior to that year. First married, then divorced, I was raising my kids in my country home in rural Kansas. Sure I had a college education and I read. But truly, the new people entering my life were rare – maybe one every year or so.

Then J appeared. He was mesmerizing, creative, a great storyteller. I was firmly set on a spiritual path, and he told me he came to me because he was God’s answer to my prayers.

I sort of believed him. Two weeks after we met, he proposed. I said yes. We set the date for two months later. J was charismatic – even my son said he was a miracle in our lives.

Two days before the wedding he blew up at me for my relationship with that same son. I was enmeshed, he said. He threatened to leave, and walked out for a day.

I swallowed hard, apologized, and we married two days later.

That scenario repeated itself dozens of times over the next year. I scrambled to “clean up” my relationships so I could be close to J. I cut out one person after another based on his assessment (judgment). The sudden blowups continued as he judged nearly all of my relationships as co-dependent, enmeshed, entangled. I needed to clean them all up.

J reminded me regularly that he was – literally – God’s answer to my prayers: for a closer walk with God, for improved relationships, for a partner, for creativity.

Yes, he was God’s answer to my prayers. God sent him to me.

As the months went by with J, I became isolated, stressed, and my body began to suffer with mysterious aches and weaknesses. I didn’t know what was happening and I had no one – except J – to talk to about it. Despite his great story-telling, our huge dreams, and our exciting travels, I was increasingly depressed. He was moving out about once every 3 weeks, then back in again a few days later. We changed homes 3 times in one year. All of my belongings (and my children’s keepsakes) were in storage and unavailable to me – jumbled.

My mind was a maze of confusion and fear. My body felt like hell. My life felt like hell. Inside, I was still praying. God, what is going on? God, what do you want me to do? Despite all J’s pronouncements and certainty, this didn’t feel like Love to me.

I have always believed in love. Love as a force. Even when I didn’t believe in God, I believed in Love and in Truth.

I was so confused.

One day, my prayers were answered – again – when a poster in a mall asked the question, “Does anything about your relationship scare you?”

Hell yes. Almost everything.

The poster was an invitation to call the Domestic Violence help line.

I did so. I left with my suitcase the next morning.

So I have a question for you.

Is there anyone you believe was sent by God but what they do doesn’t feel like love? It doesn’t feel like truth? It doesn’t feel like integrity?

I don’t care whether it’s a close up and personal relationship or whether it’s the president of the United States. I don’t care whether it’s a Senator, or a friend.

If you are passionate that this person was sent by God, but what they do doesn’t feel like Love – or Honor – or Truth – or Integrity, think on this.

What if God sent this person to you – or to us – to reveal the ugliness of hatred? To reveal the ugliness of judging others? To reveal the ugliness of racism, and corruption?

I used my free will to walk away from the Man who was Sent by God. I lost much of what I valued in my life. I cried for months. I made apologies and amends to those I had judged and alienated. I prayed and spent time in the ashes of humiliation.

Slowly I mended my life. I pondered the lessons of what judgment does to relationships, what self-righteousness does to Love.

If you believe Donald Trump and company were sent by God, I invite you to answer this question – does anything he does feel like Love?

What would Love do? What would Jesus do?

If you believe Donald Trump was sent by God, I challenge you to consider what God might have wanted you to learn from this?

I challenge you to awaken your own conscience. It might just be a Revelation.

October 1, 2019 Empowerment, Intention, Love or Fear 2 Comments

Atheism and the Responsiveness Mystery

I was part of a discussion recently about atheism. A professor was asking the students to provide evidence of the existence of God.

While I would probably fail if the assignment was mine to do, I don’t lack for responses, and it set me to thinking.

Can you provide evidence of the existence of Love?

It’s true, people act like they love each other, but what proof is there? Nothing is tangible. Nothing is measurable. Obviously it disappears sometimes. People say they love each other, and then later they don’t, so maybe it wasn’t there at all. Could you – or I – prove to someone who didn’t believe in Love, that Love exists? I’m not sure that I could.

But I know that it does.

Can you provide evidence of the existence of Gravity?

Of course, things fall to the ground, we all know that. But maybe that’s just the way the earth works. Why does there have to be a force? There is no proof that there’s a force called gravity. Well sure, out in space things are different, but that’s to be expected. You cannot see it, touch it, taste it, measure it, etc. Why do some people think it exists?

Can you provide evidence of the existence of God?

No, I can’t provide evidence of an Old Testament angry God. I don’t believe that God is real, except in people’s minds.

But here is what I know absolutely.

The Universe (which is another name for God) is responsive.

Responsive.

Before I explain further, a little detour.. let’s imagine a young woman who has been traumatized as a child by people who said they loved her – perhaps beaten, even assaulted. Her concept of Love is completely corrupted by what has happened to her. Now, as an adult, she no longer believes in Love.

“Love doesn’t exist. It’s all fake. People just act like they love each other so they can get what they want. Prove to me that Love exists. I don’t believe it.”

What are the chances of her finding a healthy romantic relationship, or even a solid friendship, in the face of her beliefs?

Little to none. Practically zero. Why? Because the Universe is responsive. Her mind is powerful enough to overcome the truth that Love exists, at least for the duration of her beliefs, and perhaps her entire lifetime.

I’m not saying that simple affirmations or statements will bring about something. I AM saying The Universe is Responsive.

Over time, statements, convictions, and deeply held beliefs we have show up in our lives and bring us “proof.” This young woman is quite likely to find herself in similar situations to her childhood dynamics that “prove” to her that Love doesn’t exist.

The Universe is Responsive.

Over time, by contrast, if I am convinced that Love is all there is, and that people simply choose to deny or contradict it sometimes, my life demonstrates that Love. The Universe is Responsive.

In my garden, if I Love and nurture and spend time with the plants, I am rewarded with a great harvest and little surprises.

In my family, if I Love and spend time with my little grandchildren, I’m rewarded with a huge smile a week later from my one-year old, who remembers and loves me back.

In my marriage, if I Love and appreciate and devote time to my relationship, I’m rewarded by a deep sense of connection. No, I can’t prove the existence of that Love. But I can savor it.

Simply put – over time, what we are deeply convinced of shows up in our lives. The Universe is Responsive.

If you are deeply convinced you are isolated and alone, that will show up in your life. Much like an anorexic who is thin to the point of death can look in the mirror and “see” fat, you will ignore the love and connection that is in your life and see only the isolation.

If you are deeply convinced the Universe is a loving place and you are connected, that will show up in your life. You will find yourself in mostly loving relationships and activities, and will find creative and loving ways to navigate difficulties so that more love appears.

God is Mystery. God is Principle. God is Responsive. God is Love.

If you’ve had trauma that convinced you that Love doesn’t exist, or Love hurts, or you are alone, there is help to heal that trauma.

You CAN learn to open, trust, Love, and experience the responsiveness of the Universe from a place of deepening Love. You don’t have to prove it to anyone. Just experiment.

The Universe is Love and and the Universe will respond to you.

I cannot prove the existence of Love or God or even gravity to you. But you can prove it to yourself.

April 11, 2018 Empowerment Post a Comment

The Power of Naming Your Hero

Parker Curry, age 2, was being difficult. Her mama wanted her to turn around so she could snap a photo of her in front of the regal portrait of Michelle Obama. But Parker ignored her, and stared transfixed at the image itself. In that moment, another visitor, Ben Hines, snapped a photo from the side, revealing Parker’s jaw-dropping awe.

Hines posted his photo on Facebook and it went viral.

Parker has now met and even had a dance party with Mrs. Obama. Suddenly the gates of possibility have been opened to her. This little girl’s entire life will probably be altered by her mama taking her to see a portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama.

When I was 13 I went to “town school” for the first time, after spending my first eight grades in a one room school seven miles outside of our small town. I signed up for Chorus and quickly fell for both the music and the teacher, Mr. Secrest. My whole world opened up with music and by my sophomore year I was in the choir and small groups. All my friendships developed out of choir and I felt at home there, if hardly anywhere else at the much larger school. By my junior year I had a new music teacher, also a man.

Because both my parents were college grads, it was assumed I would go to college (even though it was also assumed I would marry and not need to work – it was the early ’60’s and that was still the expectation where I lived). But what was I going to do? What would I major in? I had no idea. Teaching felt really natural to me, but what would I teach? Obviously I couldn’t teach music.. I was female. It never even crossed my mind.

Until one day in my senior year.

That day my music teacher, Mr. Miller, brought in a lovely young woman and introduced her as our Student Teacher. Really? I couldn’t believe it. Remember Shari Lewis and LambChop? To me she looked just like the beautiful Shari Lewis… how could she be a music teacher?

The days went by with her observing, until one day Mr. Miller left her in charge. And, we sang. We worked together with her, for her, and I loved her in the same way I had loved my male teachers.

But she opened a door for me that neither of the men had opened. If she could be a music teacher, so could I.

I started college in the fall of 1966, majoring in music and graduated four years later with a music degree. None of that would have happened without Miss Vathauer, who was one of my first heroes (she-roes!).

Unbeknownst to her, she lit a light that I followed and it changed my life.

We are watching as powerful men and sometimes women fall from their positions of power. We see the inauthenticity and outright lies and it’s easy to become cynical. Who could possibly be my hero now?!

In the early ’90’s I became obsessed with Styx’s song “Show me the Way.” “All the heroes and legends I knew as a child have fallen to idols of clay….and I feel this emptiness inside – so afraid, I’ve lost my faith.”

But if we don’t require our heroes and she-roes to be perfect, simply authentic and real and courageous – our lives will be richer for having them.

The Superheroes in Black Panther are affecting children of color powerfully. But if you want a new human hero, follow the stories of the real people – like director, Ryan Coogler. Or Lupita Nyong’o. Or Oprah Winfrey. Or… the lists could go on and on.

Who is your hero or she-ro? Who makes you wish you had done what they have done? Who is a shining light? Let someone inspire you. Follow the stories, paintings, songs, songwriters, authors, actors, entrepreneurs… discover the ones that electrify you. That make you believe MORE is possible than you ever dreamed.

There is tremendous power in naming and learning about our heroes. To focus on your heroes is to turn towards what is possible, away from what is wrong.

And you will find yourself someone’s hero one day.

September 18, 2017 Channeling, Conversations with Yeshua, Empowerment, Love or Fear Post a Comment

A Proclivity for Violence

Conversations with Yeshua. This is channeled material, edited minimally for clarity only. It is personal information given to me and my husband Stan, but relevant to many situations and this is one I am asked to share with the world.

Stan: I’m asking about my body… my body’s kind of structural aches and pains that are becoming chronic.

Would you reword that? Becoming implies future, correct?

S. Yeah.

Can you say something along the lines of “pains that have been with me for awhile and I’m ready to be done with them”?

S: Yeah, certainly.

Can you feel the difference in that?

S: Yes. I’m ready to move forward on healing several aspects of my body and I have different practitioners and different ways forward and I just wondered if there was any guidance.

Yes, we’re glad you asked. So are you ready for some honesty?

S: YES.

The Familiarity of Violence

We believe that you remain unaware of this factor. We’re going to put it into words and ask you to look at it and be willing to heal this first of all. And you will be astonished at how much else heals. That is, you have a proclivity for violence in language, in actions, in thoughts. Because you have matured and grown as a loving being, the damage has been confined to primarily your own body and aches and pains. You have not had a lot of accidents in your life. Violent thoughts can draw to yourself accidents and you have not had a lot of those.

Nevertheless those thoughts are influencing your body. Can you feel the truth in what we say or do you feel resistance?

S: No, I can feel that.

Does it feel extremely familiar to you, that way of being?

S: Yes.

What would it take to have that not feel familiar? What would it take to release that?

S: Well, that overarching love feeling (discussed earlier here: Put Joy and Love )–bringing love to bear at every moment and every aspect.

All right, let’s take a moment and just explore that, with no other concerns about healing right now. Just explore. When we use the word violence and suggest that’s a chronic streak in your state of mind, and you can agree that this is so, can you give us a couple of recent examples of this?

S: I spoke of a terrorist that should be ground into pulp. Quite often I react with anger and violence to cars that are speeding. And there’s no love at all.

And underlying the violence would be… is it fear? Can you take it back a layer? Just peel back the layers and see what’s behind there?

S: Hmmm.. it’s kind of like if I did that I would face certain violence against me. As if I’m saying “Don’t you know that doing this will mean that you will be violently treated — or injured?”

Let yourself explore that for a moment. Just feel it. Any one of the incidents that feels close to you. Just let yourself go there. Let yourself go back.

Love and Violence

Any words, any shapes, any colors, any stories that come to you now, just speak them. If you wish, travel back in time, like you do with Inner Counselor.* There is something in you says “This is the answer to life. This is the answer to difficult, the answer to pain, the answer to problems.”

We invite you to let that unfold..

S: I’m remembering a practice we (my family) had with the dogs and cats we liked — the barnyard cats that were effective, the dogs we fell in love with. We would hold them down and run over their tales with a wagon or a tractor.

How did you feel during that?

S: Very conflicted as a young boy.

What was the conflict?

S: Deliberately hurting the creature.

And calling it Love?

S: Right.

Do you believe it was love?

S: “It’s for your own good.” A phrase I heard a lot. “I’ll beat you now but it’s for your own good.”

Uh-hmm. Let your heart feel that.

A Violent Prescription?

You’ve mentioned experiencing a lack of training, training that leads a young person to a better place. And in place of training was episodic violence.

S: Yes.

And do you see how you have matured into a man who controls that violence? You are not a violent person towards other people. But you also haven’t really healed it.

It’s as if there’s a streak of violence and the anguish that goes with it running straight through your body. Vertically. And it can’t just live there peacefully, it has to be expressed. So there’s this violent edginess, watching for someone that needs a violent prescription.

Including yourself.

Do you see how difficult it is for your body to be completely at ease, completely healthy? With that streak very present?

S: Yeah.

So think of any animal or child that you love without reservation. Who comes to mind?

S: Oh… Max.

Alright. Now put him in your arms, in your heart. Would you run over his finger to keep him from doing something that he should not?

S: No.

Why not?

S: It’s a bad lesson.

What would you do instead?

Can Love Be the Teacher?

S: I would talk to him. Explain things. Give him examples. Let him practice the right behavior.

And if he failed?

S: I might try it in a different setting.

Do you think love itself can be a teacher? Love and experience and wisdom? Or is violence a necessary part of teaching?

S: It’s not.

We invite you to revisit your own lessons in violence and your own tendency in that direction and put them side by side with Max. And consider if you are wiling to let them go.

This may have to happen over a period of days or weeks. You may even want to have a ceremony of release. You’ll find that when you do this, when you allow yourself to become aware and then choose to release that habitual reaction— that your body will heal so quickly you will be amazed.

A Love Brigade

S: I see a vision of a very strong rigid hedge post somewhere down the middle of my body.

Yes.

S: And a kind of a love brigade of composting organisms that are starting to turn it into valuable material by slowly digesting it.

Yes. You’ll need to make a commitment to catch yourself because these violent thoughts are aimed at the world at large, at drivers and others, at yourself. They are random grenades that are thrown off. Your awareness is the first medicine.

You have to make a choice that this thought is not useful. It’s not coming from love and it’s not the way you want to live your life. Once your’ve made that intention and decision, your awareness will increase, and then it’s a matter of just breaking those habits.

Have we given you enough of a road map to find your way into healing from this?

S: Yes.

Catch all of those thoughts and bring Max into the picture. Ask: “Would I do this to him?”

S: Right. And everyone is beloved of God.

Yes. Alright. We are glad you come to listen. We’re always glad to connect. We are always present, but an intentional connection is different than just vague awareness.

Have a blessed day.

* Inner Counselor is a process developed by Ann Nunley, MFA, Preceived September 9, 2017

July 3, 2017 Channeling, Conversations with Yeshua, Empowerment 1 Comment

People Find You When You are Shining Like This

Client: I wonder if you have any comments about my writing. Last night I had an experience stimulated by a discussion with a friend who was very troubled. I thought the discussion went pretty well and I was able to support her, but then in the middle of the night I lay awake for more than an hour with this kind of as-yet-unwritten blog post. Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that this level of wisdom is coming through me. That it’s really trustworthy and it’s not just my ego. This applies also to my poetry. I feel kind of in awe of these things that come to me, and yet sometimes I don’t really honor them by writing them down.

That’s very well put. It is a condition of being human. Some people are gifted with this wisdom from early in life, and some open up to it as they mature and lessen the grip of the ego. Human artists are gifted with wisdom that is unique to them, but comes through many of them with a higher level of understanding, a higher level of awakening than they are ready to live.

This is the normal state of humanity. If you honor that gift and choose to grow with it by writing it down, you still have the freedom to be the Censor. You have the freedom to say, “Well, that one’s not going out into the world!” or “Man, that’s good!” and get feedback by sharing it.

If you commit to doing that, the gift you get is that gradually you have your own coach, your own wisdom, your own counselor. All you have to do is make some effort to open your eyes, and to benefit from what’s coming through you.

You have experienced that people respond to things that have come through you that seem very personal to you, and that to some extent you don’t even feel you have completely got yourself. You’ve stated that you can coach a young person and they will get it and here you are still struggling with the same issue.

C. Yes.

This is not uncommon. You can receive wisdom through you that is a higher level of awakening than you can sustain. That’s the irony. But the benefit is that if you continue to work with what’s coming through you, as your gift to yourself and to humanity, you almost inevitably will grow. It’s very difficult to keep bringing this material through and stay asleep.

C. Well, I’m doing the best I can. I understand.

And so, if it seems worthy, put it down. You still get the right of censorship. But you’ll see, as you did with your poetry book, that there’s value in it, to others and to you. You could read through your book of poetry every few months and let it zing you.

C. Yeah.

“Oh my gosh… I didn’t understand that back then but now I do.” This is normal for humans. It may not be talked about much, but it is normal.

Artists don’t want to say “I didn’t really understand that when I wrote that book or that song.” And then some of them gradually begin to live into the wisdom of what they’ve been putting down. But it is there for you. It’s also there for others.

Even if it seems foolish, when you have a strong urging to write it down we encourage you to do that and then decide later what is its fate.

C. Well it doesn’t seem foolish, it seems amazing. I’m kind of fascinated by the ideas that are coming. So far I’ve not had the time today to sit down and type it up.

This is how Linda experiences the channeling. It was 23 years ago that we first made contact with her. It’s only been the last couple of years that she really considered the possibility that this connection might have gifts for herself and for the world— in what comes through her. We ask you to consider: if you were to regularly write when something comes to you that seems amazing, whether it’s a poem or a concept or a blog, that you write it down, soak it up, and share the ones that seem appropriate.

Can you consider how over the course of a few months or a year, that your life might change because of it?

C. Yep.

This is truly available to humans. But the reason it seems so extraordinary is that so few humans choose to listen. Your sense and Linda’s sense of amazement and shock are multiplied many hundreds of times over in ordinary humans… not that you are not ordinary humans but you understand what we mean. You are both, to some degree, listening.

For most people the sense of immersion in the culture and the status quo are so strong that something that might disturb the status quo is just beyond their ability to see or hear. So the fact that you can both see and hear this is remarkable and you have arrived in a very tiny percentage of the human race. But a very powerful percentage of the human race, as this is where the growth happens. This is where the unconditional love can break through.

People find you when you are shining like this.

Channeling from 6-17-17

June 28, 2017 Channeling, Conversations with Yeshua, Empowerment, Healing 1 Comment

Out of the Rut, Leaving a Trail of Light

Client: I have experienced a great deal of sense of separation and I’ve come to understand that it is separation not only from God but separation from my Self. I’ve had glimpses of not feeling that so much, but I still don’t know how to progress in the right direction of my Self or God. I’m asking for direction or teachings or practices that would help me to feel more connected with my Self and with God.

A very beautiful question. We hear the depth and clarity in the question.

C. There’s a lot of pain in that experience.

Yes, we understand that.

So we are willing to talk around this for a little bit, but the simplest answer is one that you already know and that you find difficult to live. Nevertheless we’ll start there and perhaps we’ll find additional guidance that will help.

The experiences you have had are real, in the human sense, and the pain is real… to the extent that the experiences have been real. But all experiences arrive in this present moment. If you don’t retell or rewind and replay the stories, you are safe and connected.

It’s as if the channel is stuck in a groove, a rut of going back to these stories of isolation and separation and aloneness. And injustice. When the channel keeps going back there you replay the pain, renew the pain. But the You that is now in this moment is not so disconnected as those stories are. For a variety of reasons.

You are sharing with others in your work numerous ways you know to be with yourself to experience life. The moments of sitting at a campfire and watching it are a connection with Self and a connection with both the non-physical world and the physical world. In that moment you are present. In that moment you don’t experience aloneness.

The groove of isolation was worn deep through many lifetimes of this. You have brought those experiences into this lifetime deliberately to bring them into consciousness, and heal them.

And in your healing you have gifts for others. Because many people experience it. Many people may not have gone as deep into the aloneness as you did, but they know what it is and they fear it. Your poems are like nuggets of pain wrapped in beauty that you can give to the world, that loosens the grip of that pain for others.

You are reasonably compassionate with yourself. But what is needed is if you can pull yourself into the Light, pull yourself into your own consciousness. Just like an addict who has struggled repeatedly, or a slave who has gone through many lifetimes as a slave, or someone who was brutally put to death – you have a deep groove, you have experienced many lifetimes of isolation and loneliness.

Now you are here, in this lifetime with tools, education, awareness and circles of comfort — resources to find your way out and in so doing leave a trail of light for others to follow.

So as you talk to yourself about all of this — if you say “there’s something wrong with the world, there’s something wrong with me that I had to experience so much desperate loneliness” then that’s part of continuing to make that groove deep. But if you say, “there are mysteries about being human on this planet and somehow I experience a lot of aloneness. But here I am, in a lifetime of healing and empowerment from that, and the more that I remind myself of that, the more that grip loosens, and the more nuggets and tools I have to help others as well.”

If you say that, it’s a different story, it doesn’t deny your pain. But it gives you a different story and a different meaning to it.

C. Well, your image of leaving a trail of light moves me…I feel so humbled that I do see myself doing that. And so grateful that I’m well enough to do that. But I still haven’t found a whole lot of relief in my own consciousness. There’s still just a lot of pain, a lot of loneliness, not very much companionship, not very much love and I’m just in a lot of fear. And I don’t .. I’m not very good at comforting all that.

What we would say to that specifically is that there are many physical circumstances for humans on this planet that seem to create suffering, and the suffering seems inevitable. When the pain comes and you say “I’m so alone, I don’t have companions, I don’t have a woman that I want,” and you want to say that to yourself because it seems true. And what we will tell you is that as difficult as it sounds, that the answer is… you can speak back to That Voice – and say “I do have friends. I do have people who love me. I don’t have so many friends or I don’t have someone to live with, but I do have people.”

It’s almost as if That Voice is a bully in your psyche, in your Self. And it’s up to you, the Conscious One, to respond with whatever measure of truth you can generate and believe. We know there’s a voice in you that’s screaming “But that won’t help!” and we’re saying that after you do that — respond — for awhile, you’ll realize that you do have more of what your bully was trying to tell you you had none of. And we say — That’s Not Nothing.

That is a way to improve (as Abraham says), to improve your vibration. With yourself you must be sensitive to the fact that you will fail if you say to yourself “I do have the ideal woman. She’s in my life and I’m married to her…” you will fail at that. Because you are not ready to believe it.

But if you instead speak back to That Bullying, Intimidating Voice that says, “You’re always alone. You don’t have anybody. You’re a loser,” and if you say, “No I do have friends. I have my buddy that I can call most anytime. I have G. I have T. I have my Circle.”

Declare the truth about what you do have, as a shield against the accusations, and your energy of being loved will expand. Your energy of being Loved and being part of a community, however small, is ready to grow. But you have to help it grow.

The voices from the pain of the past, the Pain Body, as Eckhart Tolle calls it, wants you to hurt more and forever. And the You that is YOU has to talk back to that voice and to notice what you have, and act on what you have. And what you have will flourish. We won’t try to tell you what could happen or under what timing, but anything that you lovingly tend… flourishes.

C I hear that.

We understand how diabolically tempting these stories of pain are. But we also know that you have a great deal of wisdom. It’s almost like you have to see those stories as the Pain Body, you have to see that Voice as the Devil that Sits on the Shoulder. You have to find your own way that makes sense to you to respond back.

Lest you feel too challenged by that, know that anyone wanting a physical healing has to do the same thing. Anyone who may be imprisoned has to do the same thing. Anyone who may be desperately poor has to do the same thing.

There are many conditions of lack or limitation to which this is the core answer. Sometimes there are people who are successful in saying “yes, I have the woman of my dreams, she’s here,” and in 2-3 weeks she appears.

But for most people the “all or nothing leap of faith” doesn’t work in chronic situations, and instead there’s this gentle slope: first, “I can believe I’m safe. I can believe there are people who love me. I can believe that there are people I can call when I need to.” Then, “I can believe that I have a whole set of activities, which I can write down, to do, to comfort myself when I feel this aloneness.”

You have to believe it until you’ve created this Swirl of Love and Light and Stardust and Connection around you and then it can begin to grow.

We’re showing an image of you, literally in your living room, swirling, twirling with sparkles around you, of the Light and Joy, of Energy, of Intention.

This Swirl is made up both of people who love you, but also of your own sense that you have tools, you have connections.

We hope you hear that not as an indictment of any sort but as a description.

One more image… you have a garden. To some degree you just leave it alone and it does what it does. Think of your favorite plants, perhaps a couple of heirloom tomatoes. One of them you go out and you love. You tell it how beautiful it is and how much you enjoy it and you lapse into paroxysms of delight when it gives you a tomato. The other one you go out and cry to, and tell it how sad you are that it’s not growing very well.

You can say “But I want More, and I want it bigger!” And we understand that, that’s legitimate. But anything will flourish more under gratitude than it will under lack.

Channeling from 6-17-17

September 19, 2016 Empowerment, Harmony, Intention Post a Comment

Election Harmony (or “Who are you?”)

Moses-Ascended Mater Card by Doreen Virtue

Election Harmony? Well, that seems impossible. Just the title is enough to cause scorn. I have friends who just want the election season to be over because of the angst it is causing them.

Me too sometimes. But I keep asking for a higher perspective. And here’s what is coming:

Mr. Trump has unleashed the shadow side of our people. At his rallies and in his arena it’s okay to hate, to put women, minorities, handicapped and many other groups down. If you are not white and male you are in trouble. Physically sometimes.

I’m appalled. I grew up in the after-shadow of WWII and heard and read stories of the Nazis’ gradual rise to power. I get cold sweats when I tap into the similarities with Trump’s hate-campaign.

I realize many of you don’t like Hillary, and I’m not a huge fan either – too much corporate influence. But I would far rather have a corporate-influenced capable and kind woman, than a hateful, ignorant, trigger-happy man. His platforms have no policy content… just racism, misogyny and lies.

Her, we can work with. Her, we can hold to the fire.

Mr. Trump? Don’t bet on it.

The hatefulness is appalling, but in many ways, that shadow side has been underground in our country for as long as we have been a nation. Now – it’s out in the open.

The shadow coming out into the light asks you – and me – a big question:

Who are you?

Are you the hater?

Are you the scorner?

Are you the “Make America white again” voter?

Are you the head-in-the-sand ostrich?

Are you the worrier?

Seeing the Shadow appear in this prominent a way triggers the Shadow in all of us. Fear. Finger pointing. Judgement.

What I find when I answer the question, Who am I? is my voice. I cannot stay silent. Whatever I care about in this land and this world is at stake.

When I watched the Arab spring via newscasts a few years back I was moved to tears by the courage of the people who knowingly risked – and sometimes lost – their lives for this movement towards freedom and justice. As if, their own personal life was less important than the greater cause of justice and freedom.

We are raised on such stories, as Americans. But are we living it? Don’t make your politics party-line. Pray about it. This is not a year for stubbornness… this is a year to ask Who Am I? What is really at stake here and what am I to do about it?

Personally –

I choose to invite, via prayer, Jesus and the angels to guide each of the candidates and each of the voters.

I choose to stand up to bullies, whether it’s in my personal world, or in the larger world.

I choose to repeatedly turn my fear about this election season over to Jesus, and ask for faith in a joyful outcome instead.

I choose to say – out loud and in writing – you, Mr. Trump and your supporters, cannot take our people back to hate and injustice. I refuse to go and any power I have I will use. I will use my power with respect, but not with timidity.

My hero, Bernie Sanders, fully understands the gravity of the situation. To any of my Bernie-supporting friends I would ask you… if you respect him enough to have wanted him to be President, then respect him enough to take his advice on this choice. He is fully supporting Hillary and asks us to do so, then go on to create and demand progressive policies with integrity.

To vote 3rd party will give Trump an edge that may cost us our democracy and who knows what else. The stakes are high.

The hatefulness that Trump inflames is deeply reminiscent of Hitler. But we, the American people, are not 1930’s Germany.

We are diverse. We are loving. We love justice. We can be kind.

Are we easily led, easily fooled by the media? Are we ignorant and uncaring?

Are you willing to let Mr. Trump run over handicapped people, just because you are not handicapped? To let him ridicule women, because you are not a woman? To let him scorn people of color, because you are white? And more? He already has enough power to create waves of hatred and fear, to command the media. If you vote for him, or let your vote mean nothing because you refuse to acknowledge the system we are in – right now – you are in agreement with his intentions by default. You are giving him more power.

Ask yourself the hard questions this election season: Who Am I?

And please, invoke the angels and your highest spiritual teacher in the name of Love and Light. Choose your words and your vote in the name of Love.

I’m called to speak. Writing this brings me greater harmony. This is part of Who I Am.

—- Linda Chubbuck, September 2016, on RadicalHarmony.com