healing | 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

December 13, 2018 Healing, Judgment 1 Comment

That S#$%T Doesn’t Work All the Time

When Michelle Obama swore on the Stephen Colbert show and thousands of people shared the news, it hit me at a vulnerable moment.

You see several years back I read Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In and was really inspired by it. Yes I could do it. I could be a mother, and a successful entrepreneur or writer besides. Heck, she could do it. Sure she had a great husband and money by now but she probably didn’t have all that when she started. She was pretty honest about the obstacles she had run into and I was very inspired.

I grew up passionate about becoming a parent. Specifically becoming a parent in a different way than I was raised. I cared so much about it I could not imagine not having children. I did have a career, but was not deeply attached to it and when my first child was born in the mid 70s I stayed home to be a full-time mom for a while.

But feminism was rising. As an educated liberal woman I certainly identified with the feminist causes. Who wouldn’t? But for me I still wanted to raise my children full-time. As the months and years went by, there was more and more criticism from the culture and sometimes even from friends about my choice to stay with my children as opposed to getting a “real job.”

At a beautiful art fair one summer day I ran into a childhood friend who was now active in the state arts commission. I had both babies with me as well as the stained glass projects I had been creating for sale. I was really glad to see him. Until he asked me what I was doing. I told him I was raising my children and doing stained glass.

“Oh,” he said and moved on. My choice to be with my children apparently was so uninteresting to him that he had nothing more to share with me. That was a fairly common response although his was conspicuous.

I refused to give up on my passion for being with my children and for parenting in general. I read books, I learned. I tested out what I was learning on my children who were of course ready participants in my experiments. Meantime I became an artist in a variety of ways and a small business person. These ventures allowed me to stay with my children and to be available while supposedly bringing in some income.

No matter how creative my ideas were as an entrepreneur, however, years went by with none of my projects really taking off as a viable business. Forever the optimist I continued to try new strategies and occasionally new ideas.

A few weeks ago I completed my 70th year on this planet. Sometimes those milestone birthdays get to me. While I still feel healthy and energetic and useful, realistically I can acknowledge that my life is past halfway.

Then, 10 days ago on a hiking trail in a Costa Rican jungle I fell hard on a slippery sloped mud trail and broke my arm. We were in a remote area two hours from the closest hospital. When my son and my husband helped me back up the path to reach assistance and our car, we passed a giant snake on the left as well. Right beside the path.

The combination of all of these factors and the disability that goes with having one arm in a cast threw me into a state of mind that I can only describe as awareness of my own mortality. And with that comes a voice inside of me that is panicking that I haven’t achieved what I intended to in the world.

I haven’t become the superwoman I intended to be. I haven’t written a bestseller. I haven’t made hundreds of thousands of dollars. I do not have a highly regarded career. I do not have my own retirement fund. I’m not superwoman. In fact I feel pretty fragile right now.

I don’t have a real job.

I did my best to lean in like Sheryl Sandberg said but somehow it didn’t work for me. What if I’m approaching the end of the trail and this is all I ever have? Can I look back and say I’m proud of it?

I am deeply proud of all I did to learn to be a good parent. And I’m deeply grateful that despite the financial hardships I spent as much time with my children as I did. I am in awe of the fact that now I have three little grandchildren that I’m able to be present to, to offer unconditional love to, and spend time with.

But… I still don’t have a career. I still haven’t written a bestseller. I still haven’t made a big splash in the professional world.

Perhaps you have no judgment about that. The sad thing is that I do. I judge it myself. For 40+ years, ever since I was a young mother and the feminist movement was expanding, I have believed that I should and could do it all.

But I have failed. I have failed to accomplish what I wanted on one side of the equation. And I think that I’ve spent too much time suppressing that awareness and instead trying harder, harder, harder. I have never quite given myself the unconditional love and approval that I believe in and try to offer to others.

When I put all this into words I end up crying.

If a friend told me all this I would comfort her and tell her that our spiritual practice is about being present and loving – which is what you chose and what you did. It’s not about achieving in the world. So give yourself a break, acknowledge what you have accomplished and give yourself that long overdue unconditional love and acceptance.

It’s more difficult when it’s myself. I feel like making excuses, I feel like a failure, I still want all those success-in-the-world dreams that I’ve had for years.

Here is what Michelle Obama said last week: That whole “so you can have it all.” Nope, not at the same time. That’s a lie. And it’s not always enough to lean in because that shit doesn’t work all the time.

Perhaps if I take her words to heart – the frankness of a woman who appears to have it all – I can find a balm for my heart and my soul.

October 22, 2018 Forgiveness, Healing 1 Comment

Why I Visited a “Horrible” Place

I expected to feel horror.

Yes, there was a little of that. But to enter the National Memorial for Peace and Justice was to walk into a sanctuary of sorts.

National Memorial Peace-Justice Powershot Camera

From the moment we passed through airport-style security, the atmosphere was hushed and reverent. Visitors were coached about photography restrictions and told where water and restrooms were.

We began a long walk, past bronze statues of slaves in chains, naked, awaiting the auction block – which over a century ago was only a few blocks from this now-green hillside memorial. A mother with babe in arms, reaching for her husband, who was chained a few feet away to be sold down the river.

On this bright blue day, the harsh realities of being black stand in front of us. On the wall are historical facts about the racial terror lynchings that followed the freeing of the slaves over a period of close to a hundred years. Here, in the United States of America.

A former president used the term “Shock and Awe” as a war tactic. That pretty well fits how I felt as I experienced the long path up the hill to the memorial. Shock. Awe.

Then we entered the open-sided building itself. We met huge coffin size blocks of corten steel, suspended from above, at eye level. Each contains a county and state name. Below that are the names of people known to have been lynched in that county and state, and the date they were killed.

It is a little like entering a cemetery. Except that all the names are of murder victims. And all the victims were black.

My sense of awe continued, and as we made our way around the steel monuments, I saw the names of four people who died on the same day. They had the same last name. An entire family was lynched together.

I was alternating between sorrow, horror, and dismay. How can humans do this to each other? and why?

Gradually, the monuments above me were higher. I had to look up to see the counties and the names. The monuments were hanging. Just as many of the lynching victims were.

Along the walls, short stories tell of individuals who were lynched and for what (drinking from a white man’s well; talking to a white woman). Some were lynched because they were the family of a man accused who could not be found at that moment.

In the center of the four sided structure, which contains more than 800 individual monuments, I entered a large green courtyard, with the peak of the hill at its center. I walked to the highest point, overlooking the city of Montgomery. There I came to a square wooden platform and a plaque describing a frequent scene at a lynching – the accused was taken to a hanging platform, with a crowd surrounding him or her. The high point, the wooden platform, the surrounding crowd – those images were someone’s last visions before death.

So much sorrow. So much injustice. So much legacy of terror. There finally my shock and awe spilled over into tears.

The brilliant blue September sky over a peaceful Montgomery became filled with a crazed and hateful crowd calling for a death. For a moment, that death was mine and I could feel the terror and the outrage.

Then I walked down the hillside, still alive, still safe.

I returned to the memorials suspended above me. I took in the flowing water over the wall. I saw the glass covered table filled with earth taken from many sites where lynchings have occurred. I read the tribute to the many unknown lynching victims that will never be identified.

I walked through the identical monuments, laid like coffins, that are twins to the hanging ones, with identical counties, states, and named victims. Their purpose? To be given to the counties where the lynchings occurred, to be acknowledged and claimed. Is there one for my county?

Yes, there is.

So, I have friends who ask, “Why go there? What purpose does it serve? Why does it matter now! It’s over and a long time ago.” Or, “It’s horrible. I don’t want to think about it.”

I went there not for reasons of logic, but for reasons of soul. And Spirit. In this challenging time we live in, I feel deeply called to stretch my heart, to expand. To love more, even when I don’t feel like it. To be able to presence pain and sorrow and injustice. To sit with grief when called upon to do so.

That’s why I went. To sit with grief. To be present to sorrow and injustice. To acknowledge the ancestral traumas that racial lynching created that still affect all of us today.

I took photos inside the memorial with my iPhone and with my Canon Powershot. My iPhone reliably adjusted to the light and dark and captured pretty good snapshots. When I got home and loaded the Powershot (RAW) images into Lightroom for processing, I was dismayed to see spots all over the best shot I took inside the memorial. What!? I foolishly forgot to wipe the rain spots off my camera lens and spoiled the best shots. I was upset.

Then a couple of days went by. Looking at all the photos, I realized it had not rained that day at all – brilliant blue sky. I had not used that camera until that moment on the trip. There were no rain spots.

So it must have been dust. But the same location taken with my iPhone is clear. There’s no dust. And further along in the memorial, my Powershot has no dust spots at all.

The iPhone photos of the monuments glow with light. When I look at the photo I feel a presence of Light. The Powershot photo is filled with what many people call orbs. Filled with them. I cannot explain that. Except both accurately portray the sense of Light and Angels that I felt in the Memorial.

National Memorial Peace-Justice Powershot Camera – ORBS

A favorite passage of mine from A Course in Miracles says, “The blood of hatred fades to let the grass grow green again, and let the flowers be all white and sparkling in the summer sun. What was a place of death has now become a living temple in a world of light…. The holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.”

My soul sent me to the Memorial. I’m beginning to understand why.

September 20, 2017 Healing, Love or Fear Post a Comment

Triage for the Soul: When Positive Thinking Fails

Yesterday I found myself in the shadows – again. Verging on despair, I saw lack and pain everywhere I looked. For a few hours, I was living on the Dark Side.

I kept trying to switch to positive thoughts. But it wasn’t working. I felt like someone had flash frozen my outsides, while my insides were spinning and agitated. Happy thoughts were failing me.

An old tub washer made of ice, set on heavy duty, working on a tub full of mud. That was me.

The issues were 1) two fractured neck vertebrae (4 weeks ago now) and the rigid neck brace I wear day and night; 2) poor sleeping because of the neck brace; 3) worsening sleep apnea because of the neck brace; 4) chronic borderline hypertension and possible medication coming up, and 5) ten days of our beautiful tomcat Mr. Kitty gone missing.

My efforts at meditation felt meaningless. My biofeedback practice gave me lackluster results (I can’t get this stuff to work!). Our posters for Mr. Kitty yielded no results. And my positive thinking efforts were met by my inner cynic. I won’t tell you what she said.

Worst of all, trying to go to sleep at night resulted in finally getting drowsy, then as eyes closed, my throat closed as well and I choked. And woke up of course, repeatedly. Until I didn’t even want to try to sleep anymore. My blood pressure was high in the morning because of the sleep apnea.

Yesterday was crappy.

Traumas and Sorrows, to Joy and Resources

I finally set up a phone appointment with my brother, a Somatic Experience Psychotherapist*, for evening.

By the end of the session with him I realized that I had been blocking the real sense of loss and grief I had over the fractures, my immobility, what “could have happened,” and then, the loss of our kitty as well. Lots of tears. But by the end of the tears and the end of the session, I felt thawed out and peaceful inside.

I also was reminded of the many resources I have, and that I don’t have to stay in that frozen mud place. I can move in and out. Even during the ambulance ride to the ER for the fractures, I knew I would be okay. I can go back to that knowing now.

My brother described an infinity sign, like a figure 8 laid on its side, with one of the loops containing the traumas and sorrows, and the other, all the resources I have in my life. We all want the happy side. But the pain and the shadows are also part of us and cannot be long ignored, or we become frozen and joyless.

I can acknowledge, feel, and cry over the traumas – which are real, but not the only thing in my life. Then I can move myself, thawed out, to the Resources. There I find my husband, my friends, my large and loving community, my children, my prayers, my books, my spiritual practice, my songs, nature, and more.

Maybe most important, my own sense of trust and empowerment.

Pain Wants to Change Me

I forget so readily this easy move back and forth, from pain to peace. Each time I try to avoid the pain and just think happy! Sometimes that works.

But other times, the pain is deep enough it can’t be brushed off like a fly. It must be acknowledged and incorporated. It wants to change me, and if I refuse to admit it’s there, it spins faster, freezes harder, and I grow more frantic. (Sounds like hypertension doesn’t it?)

Triage is the intake area in battle or disaster situations, where a quick evaluation is made of the wounded, and patients are then moved into areas based on their traumas and needs.

When things go sour for me, when I am wounded by something, I have to remember to do triage for my soul. How bad am I hurt? Will a little positive thinking lift my spirits?

Or do I need “surgery?” Do I need the deep care that acknowledges and cleanses the hurt before the stitching back together and the TLC?

Gifts from the Dark Side

Both are important. But if you find yourself with a deepening sense of despair and hopelessness, or an inner anxiety that won’t let go unless you self-medicate, then I encourage you to take a Guide with you and visit that frozen mud, that monster inside.

Visit the Dark Side within and cry your tears. Feel your grief, your regrets. Bring the Light of your love into your own shadows. It is Positively Okay to feel sadness now and then.

Then come out into the Sunshine, remind yourself of Light, and call upon your Resources. Make a note not to be afraid to check out the Dark Side now and again. There may be gifts waiting for you there.

* Paul Chubbuck is a counselor in Fort Collins CO who also does online work. You can find him at Releasing the Past .

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

August 1, 2017 Channeling, Conversations with Yeshua, Forgiveness, Healing, Intention Post a Comment

See Yourself as a Novice Buddha Sitting Surrounded……

Client: I feel the biggest issue that I need help with right now is regarding how to make my living. I need at least double what I’m doing now. I don’t know the best avenues if any to make that happen. I’d like guidance about how to find about the ways to do that if indeed that’s what I’m supposed to be doing.

Y. The question has been received and we are giving Linda just a little time to step to the side so that her thoughts do not intrude.

We see you as immensely rich, and at peace. We’re going to give you an image that you can meditate upon. We see you sitting upon your cushion, meditating, surrounded, literally in this order, by gold coins, by a ring of rich and beautiful foods, and by people listening to you, receiving what’s coming through you. And you in the center, at peace, knowing all this is yours.

You have gifts that have come in with you, gifts that you have polished and refined, the gift of a soulful eye which you use with your art, the gift of kindness which you feel and practice towards the world at large and the gift of healing which you have honed by doing your own work.

Add to this the gift of your words, the ability to put all those things into words and you are —truly —gifted.

But we also know that you have old familiar shackles that you still carry with you that keep you from even remembering those gifts at times. They are heavy like a ball and chain despite all the work you’ve done, and you feel frustrated with this at times, is that correct?

C: Yes. And more stubborn to change than I would like to admit. There’s something inside me I feel little control over that feels stuck and stubborn and unwilling to change. Fearful.

(silence)

We are going to ask you to —and we are going to ask you to repeat this practice —we are going to ask to to do something that dis-identifies with your name and personality.

This could be an astral journey, or this could be a meditative practice. But within this we’re going to ask you to pretend you’ve died.

Pretend you have died.

Imagine how you would want to come back? How would you bless this soul that is you with your greatest love? as if for your dearest friend or your nephew or anyone you felt love towards.

How would you want them to come back to the next lifetime? What would you gift them with?

And you don’t have to answer that now but if you have an answer we’re willing to listen. What would you bless them with?

C: Love. Belief in their own gifts.

Would you bless them with a loving family, or a challenging family? And if you don’t know that’s alright. Doesn’t matter.

C: I don’t know. I want to say a loving family.

Yes.

C: It’s been hard without that. Hard to find a place to stand in my life. Hard to believe in myself.

Play with that. Meditate on that. And then, go through a ceremony for yourself. Die.

"Hello Darkness" tall bearded Iris — “Hello Darkness” Iris

Then come back with all these gifts that you already have refined and honed. But you don’t have to live them as You, The Wounded One anymore. You can let him die and you can have a beautiful ceremony, for all the good he’s done and all the hard work that he’s done.

You are a soul. You are not only what Your Self experiences. Do you believe that?

C: Yeah, I believe that, I just can’t quite comprehend it.

Well, let’s imagine for a moment. (We’re taking you out to the edge.) Let’s imagine for a moment that you had received a dire diagnosis last week, and this was perhaps the last expectation of a week with your family.

Everything would be sweet and rich. Even all the pain you’ve suffered in your life, yes?

C: Yes, probably.

And the people that have loved you, and the love you’ve experienced, and the teachers that you’ve had and the joys you’ve had with your cats.

And then, somewhere along in the next few months, you die.

And what happens then? What do you take with you and what do you leave behind?

C: I don’t know how that works. I think I take the love that I have cultivated.

Uh-Hmmm..

C: I fear I also take the challenges and the stuck-ness. And the fears.

Do you believe you have to?

C: I’ve been told that’s the way it works.

You’ve been told you have to take that with you?

C: Well, that that’s the way the cosmos works. We carry with ourselves both the freedom and the stuck-ness.

Well we’re going to tell you that we don’t agree with that. And that you don’t have to take the stuck-ness with you. We’re not saying it’s not real, we’re saying you don’t have to take it with you.

And you don’t have to die to do what we’re describing to you. But you have to go through some sort of death.

C: Yeah. I understand.

Different traditions will give it different names. The tradition that we are in, as Yeshua, we would call it forgiveness, compassion, and complete surrender. In other traditions it might be called the Emptiness. There may be other words for it. What we are suggesting is a complete Death. to everything tangible and everything that feels stuck to you.

Wrestle with, if you need to, wrestle with the part of you that says “You have to take all this with you.”

We say to you that part is the unforgiveness. Unforgiving of yourself, unforgiving of certain others, and we know its there, we get that, but you do not have to take it with you. But you have to use more keys to unlock that since it is part of your belief system.

Death is actually a freedom, a release when a person gets too tired of the patterns, and a chance to start over with compassion, with love. Some people do bring more than others with them. But that’s not the rule. There is no requirement for that.

If you can go through a deep and radical forgiveness you can do it all and keep this same body. It is possible and others have done it before you. If you start watching for those who have left behind a life of stuck-ness, a life of unforgiveness, you will see them. and we say to you, “You can do that.”

And when the voice comes up that says, “No, you’ve been too wounded, this will never work, it doesn’t work for me,” you respond, “When I die, I want to leave behind the stuck-ness. I want to leave with only Love, only Compassion, and hey, while I’m at it, I’m gonna do it before I die.”

Do you believe that’s possible?

C: I believe it, like, I hear the words, and it makes sense and I could see somebody else doing it, I don’t believe it in that I don’t know HOW, I don’t know Step 1 to take that I haven’t already tried a hundred times before. And with discouragement I say that.

Uh-hmmm.

Then the other suggestion we are going to make is this: we say to you this is possible. We say to you, you may want to make that decision in advance of your physical death to burden yourself less in your next lifetime, and we’re saying to you you can do it in this lifetime.

If you don’t believe it, call upon your favorite teachers and say, “Help Me Believe This!”

Any one of them, all of them. And we’re sure you know this, you’ve told others this —you don’t have to know HOW to do it. You just have to have a sincere and deep intention. And then kind of… go have fun.

C: Yeah, I know that. One of the most reliable ways I can get in touch with my open heartedness is I think of the many people who have honored me with their surrender to my wisdom. And have asked me for help.

And most of them received help yes?

C: Yes.

You are no less worthy

C: I can almost get in touch with willingness to change just in order that I might be more available to more people.

YES.

C: I know there are limitations when I am more stuck.

The use of the word STUCK is not entirely accurate. We would describe to you that you, over the years, have certainly changed, you have certainly made progress. But this is a way you describe yourself, and to you it feels as if the soul progress, the soul unfolding, the awakening process is very slow.

So we would invite you to stop using the word stuck, and just say, “I would like to release more, faster, and if that means I need to forgive my mother, if that means I need to forgive Trump, if that means I need to forgive… I’m willing to do anything that’s real and loving in order to get unstuck.”

You may not be able to say that today. But that’s what we invite you to say. And of course, we won’t even try to describe to you what could happen in your life and in your work as you do these things.

We started you out with a vivid image. Instead of seeing you the way you see yourself now, as a stuck curmudgeon, see yourself as a novice buddha sitting surrounded by everything you could have ever wanted. With people listening to your words and benefitting from them.

You are that. And it’s right there for you.

The answer to your question about your work is that the way you see yourself and the way you hold that stuck-ness as a default setting is the first thing that has to change.

You could market and market and market and as long as you hold that stuck energy feeling, you won’t have much more success than you have now. This is the answer that is relevant today.

If you were really facing Death how much do you want to take with you? How much do you think God or the Universe or Karma requires you to take with you? Think about those things. And then, if you choose, do it now, instead of at whatever time you choose to lay your body down.

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

April 25, 2016 Accountability, Empowerment, Harmony, Healing, Shame Post a Comment

The Journey from Shame to Accountability

We are just home from a trip to England, where for various reasons, we rented a car and drove across the southern counties. Yep, on the left side! I was the navigator, Stan was the driver, but we were both involved in safety, directions, etc.

One thing we noticed is that – except for the time when we had a tire blowout and needed help – we never saw a police car. None.

As Americans, we are used to the quick braking when we spot a radar trap or cop car on the overpass, or just over the hill. Where are the cops – or bobbies – in Britain?

Instead we saw road signs with speeds posted just above a camera image. And “HUMP” signs followed by a very large bump in the road – all over, especially around dangerous areas.

After several days we asked a British friend about the no-traffic-police thing.

He told us that in Britain, the belief is that society is best served when police are building relationships with the community, not “policing” the people – rather assisting the people. As to traffic and safety, country-wide speed limits apply everywhere except when marked lower speeds. To enforce the speed limits – rather than radar traps – are a mix of speed “humps” (which absolutely require a driver to slow down or destroy the vehicle), well-marked camera zones, and occasional one lane narrowing where only one driver can pass through at a time. The opposite driver must wait.

Then there are the famous roundabouts, which, after 30 or 40 of these, actually made sense to us and worked well. With only one exception, drivers were polite and safe passing through these.

The license plates are twice the size of US plates, yellow with very large black letters and numbers, and placed on front and back. Easy to read (or photograph) from a distance, when needed. Tickets are mailed to violators, who are held accountable.

How well do these systems work? We cannot say for sure, but we experienced courtesy amid fast-moving but not aggressive traffic. The British traffic system and signage are accountability focused – not shame-based, with an authority figure watching for us to make mistakes.

Shame researcher and author Brené Brown describes the shame cycle this way: the incident, then the loop which encompasses denial, rage, punishment, revenge, resentment, numbing, then repeat behaviors.

Nowhere is there accountability in this.

Stan and I have had many discussions the past year or two about the journey from shame to accountability.

Here’s an example: a 10 year old takes a chunk out of a cake sitting in the kitchen prepared for an event. If shame is the prevailing family dynamic, there is an accusation by Mom or Dad, denial on his part, more accusations and threats, perhaps eventual punishment for him. Shame can settle in with thoughts such as “I’m a bad person, a sneak, a cheat.” With the shame comes resentment and an impulse to alleviate the shame by doing something that “feels good.” Eat cake? Other addictive behaviors? It’s a vicious loop. Acting out, confrontation, denial, punishment, shame, remorse, resentment, followed by another shame-based acting out.

What’s the way out?

The courage to confront behaviors – within ourselves and others – that are wrong or out of integrity, with courage, backbone, and Light. Then to hold ourselves and/or others accountable, rather than shaming.

Here’s how the Cake-Theft incident might go with parents committed to accountability: child takes chunk of cake. Parent discovers and calls him in. Did you take the corner of the cake off? Child denies.

Parent applies pressure with reminder of values – integrity, honesty are more important than lies and escape. Did you eat the cake? Parent may also apply Love and Connection with the child. Child crumbles and admits to doing it. Parent maintains calm and explains what the purpose of the cake was, and presents problem now – for child to find solution. Or at least to be part of solution. There may be consequences as well, but first priority is to solve the issue of what to do about the event the cake was destined for.

Child is left with perhaps a feeling of responsibility, accountability, partnership, and maybe a little appropriate guilt – “I shouldn’t have done that” – that can help resist next temptation.

No shame is applied. Nothing is said that makes the child feel like a bad person, but merely a person who has made a mistake.

Much of what is destructive in our world is locked in the shame-based loop. Unconscious behaviors and acting out. Revenge. Dishonesty. Denial. Rage. Resentment. Punitive behaviors. Numbing (so we don’t have to see this loop). Self-righteousness.

Accountability on the other hand fosters honesty, partnership, integrity, solutions, compassion. Where needed, protection.

The journey in each of us and our world from Shame to Accountability involves maturity, courage, and clear-seeing. We must resist the temptation to shame ourselves, and others, and yet, at the same time, hold each other accountable. Like Britain’s HUMPS and traffic cameras hold drivers accountable.

In ourselves, we must remember to face the consequences of our choices without going into shame. Then we have all the resources of Love and Light to assist us in finding healing solutions that create peace and harmony within ourselves, and the world.

March 5, 2016 Food, Healing Post a Comment

Killing Off the Good Guys – Radical Harmony Food

When I was a child, penicillin was discovered. Soon it became commonplace. The words “wonder drug” were used almost interchangeably with antibiotic.

I took my fair share of that pink liquid, mostly for earaches, sometimes for strep throat. It truly seemed wondrous.

I also lived through the DDT era, where DDT was a commonplace insecticide applied all around me, to the fields and crops near my home. Until Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, and enough people woke up to realize that wonder-chemicals sometimes have a dark side.

Sometimes it’s said, “It ain’t what we don’t know that’s the problem… it’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.” So here’s what I’ve been learning about what I thought I knew for sure.

A week ago, I was attacked by a cat which sent me to the ER where I was prescribed a double course of antibiotics to prevent infection. I was grateful for the medication and took it as directed. But here’s what I know now that I didn’t know a few weeks ago. Because of my recent studies (about food and the microbiome), I was intensely aware of what I was doing to my GOOD bacteria, while I was knocking out the (potential) bad ones.

Talk about collateral damage – that euphemism for “ooops… sorry ‘bout that…”

First – according to a number of sources (verified by Pulitzer Prize winning Politifact) – 80% of the antibiotics created for humans and food animals are fed to food animals. Most of these are the same drugs. Some of that 80% may be used for treating illness, but the majority of it is used – get this – to fatten them up. To cause them to gain weight.

Whoa! There’s a lot of stuff wrong there… it’s known that resistant super-bugs are developing in response to overuse and misuse of antibiotics. That’s one issue. Another is that we are eating meat from animals that were using antibiotics. A third one is – did you notice? – the animals are fed “preventive doses” of the same medicines we are taking for illnesses – “to fatten them up.”

Second – that antibiotic we take – to treat or prevent infection or illness – kills all our good guys too. Yep. It kills off the wonderful bacteria that are digesting our food for us, breaking it down so when it goes into our intestine it’s ready for the next steps, separating the nutrients from the fiber and waste, and creating a healthy nourishment for the body we want. But wait. We just killed many of these good guys…ooops?! Now what?

When it’s necessary to take antibiotics – and I felt it was for me with this cat attack – we deal with it. So all through the course of the antibiotic I kept eating my probiotics and prebiotics both. By the end of the 7 days, however, I’d gained 3 pounds, when my weight been very stable before. And my vision had deteriorated quickly as well.

Evidence? Or all in my head? I’m not sure, but I’m eating everything I know to rebuild my microbiome.

Here’s what Dr. Raphael Kellman (MD) says: “I know it’s challenging to wrap your mind around the idea that there is a whole other ecology within your body, an ecology that is not human but nevertheless an essential part of you as well as a crucial aspect of your health.

“And yet, it’s true. The health of your microbiome determines the quality of YOUR health, and without your microbiome you couldn’t survive. In fact, without your microbiome you would no longer be you, just as you would no longer be you without your brain or your heart.”

(From The Microbiome Diet, by Dr. Raphael Kellman MD)

So what to do? Double – no, quadruple – your vegetable intake. Eliminate all processed/packaged/pre-made foods (make your own). Get rid of sugars (except in fruit) and, for the most part, get rid of grains. (Study it – then conduct your own lab experiments with your body – you’ll see why.) Then add a lot of fermented vegetables and other foods.

Oh, and avoid antibiotics as much as possible. Educate yourself.

It’s worth it to work with, instead of against, this amazing organ/organism that is part of who you are. The microbiome.