How to stay sane

I decided that if I were to build a time machine, it would look like this:

I am certain a vehicle such as this could take me anywhere I want to go in the universe.

I’m also pretty sure I’ve time traveled in the bath.

Two things happen in the bath. I am able to quiet my mind and the thoughts I do have are creative, not destructive.

The bath is my favorite place on earth.

I take frequent baths. Several times a week. It helps my joints stay flexible and pain-free, and it helps my mind stay that way too.

Baths help me maintain a sense of equanimity. It’s a place where I can let everything that concerns me float away. Astrologically, I’m a water sign, so it makes sense that I’m happiest when I’m submerged. I feel truly protected in the water.

Consider this bath:

• Add 1 lb. each of sea salt and baking soda
• Place clear quartz crystals that have been cleansed and activated around the edge of the tub
• Bless the water with love and gratitude
• Allow yourself to think or not think as mood dictates
• Request the company of angels (if you are so inclined)

What this bath will do is remove negative energy picked up during the course of one’s day and I can guarantee, it will make you feel like a brand new person when you get out, whether you are in for 10 minutes or an hour.

My relationship with water is special. I find that I tend to meditate in the shower and pray in the bath. I think it’s because I shower in the morning before work and I bathe at night before bed. Both of these rituals are important and contribute greatly to my spiritual life and my ability to stay sane in this chaotic world.

Time does not have to exist in the bath. This is why you can go wherever your mind will take you while you’re in there.

Reboot

Once again I find myself needing to post something just to keep my commitment to posting. It’s not that there’s nothing going on, it’s that I haven’t been taking much time to think about things. I’ve been distracting myself instead. Thankfully the holidays create distraction.

I’ve chosen distraction because, in my opinion, it is preferable to dwelling on things I have no control over. If I indulge too much in that activity, I quickly start spinning my wheels. To allow my mind to obsess over something that belongs in the hands of God, is a waste of my energy. There are a lot of other things in my life that deserve my attention more than the things I don’t like, those things I wish to surrender to the universe.

There is a glimmer of hope in my romantic life. Not with regard to one specific person, the whole process just feels better now. I’ve connected with a few nice guys, gone out a few times with a couple of them, and it’s been okay. No disasters, not even in the comic sense. I haven’t found one yet that I’d be interested in having a relationship with, but it’s okay that it’s taking some time. I want it to be right when it happens. I am going out next week with a guy who has so many quirky things in common with me that the prospect of meeting him makes me feel happy. He’s also very good-looking. That makes me happy…for obvious reasons. Hopefully he’s also a good person. I guess we’ll find out.

I’m hoping for small, manageable changes in my life. Just a little forward movement in the dating world, and maybe a bit more than that in the career world. I’m sorta playing life like a very important chess game right now. Slow and deliberate. Ya know?

For the past couple of weeks I have abandoned almost every comforting ritual in my life. I pray, but not nearly as often as I have at times; I haven’t been meditating often enough; I have stopped reading and writing. I’m never sure why I do this when life feels stressful, but that’s what happens. I’ve taken the giant step of forgiving myself for it. I have finally stopped adding guilt to everything I do or fail to do. It makes the difficult times go by more smoothly.

Tonight I will spend some time returning to my best beliefs–blessing all creatures, entertaining lovely thoughts, and restoring that heart connection with all that is good and right.

What a blessing it is for all of us that the Source is always available when we wish to tap into it.

The thing about time

I think about time a lot. For the past few years I have been especially fascinated by the concept of time. Clock time has not been friendly to me, I will admit. For much of my life I have felt pressured and constrained by the modern concept of time. Oddly enough, going to law school was the beginning of the change in my perspective regarding time.

The reason I find it odd that law school helped free me from the constraints of time as I previously knew it is because law school is an extremely pressure filled experience. There are deadlines, overwhelming amounts of incredibly difficult study and research, and classroom attendance is mandatory. The way the system is set up is brilliant though if you ask me. A law student must show up to class and if he/she is wise, will take a lot of notes. How well that student does at the end of the semester is based on only one thing, performance on the final exam. Being prepared for class each day has no impact on grades. So it’s possible to put off studying until right before an exam. It’s not a very good idea, but it can be done.

In law school you see every kind of time management and personality type. There are those who will never feel prepared no matter how much time they spend studying and will cease living in favor of spending all their time in the library. Later on those are probably the people who never see their families because they’re at work all the time. There are also those who view law school as an extension of their undergrad party life, the ones who rely heavily on commercial outlines and cram it all in right before class or exams.

My experience was trying to find balance. Law school was an extremely social experience for me. I was involved in a lot of things, went to lots of parties with friends, volunteered for things that mattered to me, and found my way to most of the networking and social events. I made several lifelong friends during that experience. And I still managed to graduate with respectable grades and without falling into the bottom half of the class.

My point about law school is that there are a certain amount of things to be done in a certain time frame. How you do that is up to you and your own individual relationship with time. There is a spaciousness in the world of law that is obscured by court deadlines and billable hours requirements. This is where the law and I sort of clash.

Certain cultures are said to view time differently than others. Whether it’s embedded in DNA, I do not know. However, I am Native American and I can definitely say time has always felt different to me to the point where I have struggled to stay in compliance with society’s rules regarding it. I like to exist outside of time whenever possible and that makes me very different from most people I meet.

How does one exist outside of time? One of the biggest ways is meditation. The concept of clock time is a big enemy of meditation. It’s the thing that makes the practice seem difficult. What is meditation but a rest period for the mind? The thing that makes it hard for some people is the idea that it has to be squeezed into a certain time frame and practiced for a certain number of minutes per day or its value is somehow diminished. How restful is that?

It makes sense to me to have moments dedicated to meditation. It also makes sense to develop an ability to enter a meditative state at will. Meditation is a tool to allow us to rest our minds so we do not become overwhelmed with life. It is a gift we give ourselves, the gift of not thinking.

Sitting for meditation presents a struggle for many people. A struggle to quiet the mind. The struggle is unnecessary. Not thinking is not the same thing as not having thoughts. We are not required to have no thoughts in order to rest our minds. If we’re awake, thoughts happen, that’s just how it is. It is focusing on thoughts that makes the mind work. Meditation can happen whenever we are able to sit quietly and allow the thoughts to flow through like a stream. Doing so creates a feeling of bliss and calm, which is what most people who meditate are seeking. I propose it can be done throughout the day and does not require a cushion, loose clothing, or a bell. Those things are nice, but definitely not necessary.

When my mind gets tired, if I am able to do so, I rest it. The key is recognizing the opportunities and taking them. Not everyone recognizes all the time we have available to us. In present moment awareness, the concept of time as most of us understand it, dissolves. Finding refuge there as much as possible can help people escape the pressure of clock time.

At my last job, the days were often very busy from start to finish, but there were moments once in a while when the phone didn’t ring. Sometimes it was only for a few seconds, sometimes whole minutes at a time. At times I would talk to my coworkers, but other times I would sit at my desk and just be there. I would take whatever opportunity there was to be aware that I was sitting at my desk breathing in and out. Whatever other thoughts managed to float through were allowed to do so. When another call came, I would focus on that. These little breaks helped me do my job well. Nearly every conversation I had at there was light-hearted and friendly. There was no reason for them not to be.

Finding ways to exist outside of time is finding oases in the desert of life. It is respite from the onslaught of information that is hurled at us all day, every day. It’s not possible to be stressed or miserable when you are not thinking. It literally requires effort to stress ourselves out and yet it is a choice many of us make every single day.

I wish for more people to take a break from time once in a while. Because what if it turns out that time is not what we thought it was and it is more spread out and less linear? Think of all the energy people waste with worry, much of it the result of time pressure. And think of how we could change the world by reclaiming that energy and focusing it in a different way.

Time is a tool, use it, don’t become its servant.

Mindful toilet cleaning

As I have many times confessed, my life becomes chaotic at times and I lose sight of the things that make me feel better. Things like meditation and mindful awareness of the present moment. When I feel overwhelmed by information or rapid changes in my life, sometimes I start trying to focus on too many things at once. All the things that need my attention compete for time.

When I have many things on my mind at once, none of it gets any quality attention, there are these half-assed attempts to meditate and to settle down and let the answers come to me. And I feel wound up because I know I’m spinning my wheels.

One thing I have learned over the years is that I never really figure anything out, not the big stuff anyway. The most productive way for me to deal with the questions life presents is to be still and silent and quiet my mind. The answers just come in those moments. There’s no figuring anything out, it all just starts to make sense.

Focusing attention on only one thing at a time helps too.  That is the problem with letting life run me rather than me running my life. When I’m trying to figure out too many things at once, my attention gets spread out and the amount of attention I am able to pay to any one thing is small and weak. Not enough to accomplish anything.

And then there is the stuff I can’t do anything about. But the thoughts intrude anyway. Anything that has to do with figuring out the behavior of another person is a waste of my time and I wish to stop that kind of merciless, torturous thinking.

“If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying.” ~Shantideva

Something I find interesting is how one’s physical world reflects one’s state of mind. When I am calm my surroundings tend to be neat and organized, which leads to even more feelings of peace and calm. As soon as my mind starts running in several different directions like a pack of wild horses, my bedroom and the rest of my home become cluttered and messy. Not dirty, just not tidy. Once that slips away from me for a day or two, it begins to also feel overwhelming and then my surroundings look much the way my mind feels.

My moment of clarity came today while cleaning the bathroom. I was fully present while I was cleaning. I was reminding myself to stay in the present moment and I was aware of each thing I was doing. There was a tremendous sense of peace that came with it. It reinforces my belief that NOW is the only moment that truly exists. NOW is where transformation happens. NOW is where the present moment meets eternity. And when you are here, you can feel the power. 

The past several days my mind has been in the past sort of failing to accept how things have unfolded, and in the future, trying to will things the way I wish for them to go. When I finally wake back up and recognize the futility of what I am doing, then I am able to bring everything back to the present, where there is never anything to worry about. In any given moment, if I’m here, breathing, heart beating, I’m fine. The moment those things cease…still fine.

I’m grateful for quiet moments and life’s little responsibilities that help remind me that the only thing that is important is right now and what I do with it. And it always boils down to the same question: Do I want to put more love and peace into the world or more fear, worry and chaos?

I think the answer is obvious.

Unjamming the signal

Why do I have to learn over and over and over that if I don’t take care of myself, day-to-day life will quickly overwhelm me? This is one of the things that frustrates me about myself and one of the reasons I feel like I’m still spiritually immature. As soon as I get tired or stressed, I stop doing the things that keep me on an even keel. Meditation becomes a rushed, half-hearted activity, distractions become very, very attractive and I just want to sleep.

The thing that this new job has shown me is that I leave myself way too open to other people’s energy and need to find ways to better protect myself. I am not without resources in this area, I have learned and been taught many ways to anchor myself and how to surround myself in protective energy. When I have a lot of information coming at me I sometimes forget to use the tools I have at my disposal.

As I learn and grow spiritually it takes me less and less time to remember that I am not a slave to my thoughts and feelings, but sometimes it seems like I have to suffer a bit before I remember that I have control over that. I think the reason it takes a while for the message to get my attention is that now, being around a lot of people again, I am picking up so much more information than I ever have before and the energy that is coming at me is overwhelming. One of the biggest things that has come out of my awakening is hypersensitivity. My intuitive power has increased exponentially during the time I have spent in meditation and contemplation the past couple of years.

There is more than one facet to raising one’s intuition. It’s a great gift to be able to know things unspoken, but empathic people need to figure out when it’s time to pull back or let go.

In this past 10 days of working I have been picking up on people’s insecurities, burdens and energy needs. I’ve always been able to sense what people want and/or expect from me, which is helpful. When you grow up the way I did, that ability can make the difference between life and death. I say that without exaggeration.

As this ability has increased in me, I am able to tell exactly what burdens people are carrying in their hearts. That is not a bad thing. I have a compassionate heart and I can think of no better way to use the energy that is flowing through me than to offer a little understanding to a weary traveler. Like a sip of cool water on a hot day.

I am very thankful that I have this gift, but if I want to keep using it, I need to stay connected to the Source. All I need to do is remember I have support. I may not have family beyond my children or friends who are close right now, but there are people who care and there are angels who love to protect and help me. I need to remember I am not alone.

Today is a day of releasing. Letting go of the energy I picked up during the week. Time to take a moment, think of the people I interacted with during the week, bless their journey and let them go. There may be people who become friends out of this experience, but it’s just as likely I will move on and never know them again. Either way my goal is to leave them better off if I can. God willing.

To do that I need to make sure I have something to offer. I want to present my best self–that’s the one with the power to change the world.

Battery is about 50% recharged. Thank God for Saturday. A day of rest is a holy thing indeed.

Learning the lessons

Now that I seem to be leaving this dark period of intense stress and uncertainty, I have this void in my life where all the worry was taking up space in my heart.  I think the way to fill that void is by figuring out what some of the lessons are.

It’s amazing to have lived as many years as I have lived and have only been learning the big lessons for about 6 years.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned in the past few years is to love as unconditionally as possible and strive to give everyone the benefit of every doubt.  It’s really nothing more than the golden rule.  I treat people as I want to be treated.  I love them, forgive them when they make mistakes, give them space and privacy if they want it and try not to interfere with anyone’s free will.

Part of learning how to love has involved hard lessons in expressing love.  I think sometimes people don’t know what to do with me and all my affirmations and quotes and going on about love all the time.  It’s not that easy to explain to those who haven’t been through what I have been through.  Part of it is just me, I’ve always had a sense of urgency about life that makes me come across as intense, which I am.  But the other part is that I have many years of non-expression to make up for.  Not because I think I was doing anything wrong all those years, I was certainly doing the best I could with what I had to work with, but as one who now understands the power of love, I want to put as much of it into the world as I can before I move on to the next assignment.

Because I grew up in a world of criticism and detachment, I didn’t really learn how to connect with people on a heart level.  It has caused all manner of difficulty in my relationships.  Once I realized that negative criticism is not a proper way to communicate with anyone, all my relationships improved.  I’m not here to judge anyone.  I’m here to affirm all the goodness I see and accept the rest as part of the deal.  Not judge it as negative, just accept it for what it is, something that doesn’t feel good to me.  Right and wrong are not clear distinctions.  There is so much unknown at any given time that the best we can do is know that we don’t know what anyone is dealing with and give them the compassion we would want for ourselves when we are carrying invisible burdens in our hearts.

One of the things I have learned to do is tell people how I feel about them.  Because I feel really happy about most people most of the time.  I think people are beautiful and complicated.  And I want them to know I appreciate them.  There is no way to describe the joy this has brought to my life.  From waiting in line at the post office to nearly every phone conversation I have.  When you look for the beauty in people, you will find it.

I think most people are longing to be seen.  I think everyone has beauty they keep hidden because this is a harsh world and not everyone can be trusted with our hearts.  When we encounter someone unconditionally accepting and loving, the natural inclination is to open like a flower.  One of the greatest privileges of my life is to watch people blossom before my eyes because they know that I see what is true in them.  I think I have always had this gift but I have only been able to appreciate it since learning to be present and aware.

There have been people in my life, especially in the past 5 or 6 years, who have no idea how wonderful they are.  When I show them they are amazed.  Some of them couldn’t handle it.  One in particular I can think of decided some things about himself that are not the truth of who he is and what I saw didn’t match how he saw himself.   So instead of bringing comfort, it brought him confusion and misery.  Sometimes being in the gaze of loving eyes is uncomfortable.  I get that.  I’ve experienced it myself and it can be overwhelming.

It gives me joy when people awaken to their own beauty and greatness because of something I have said to them.  And I am humbled when people express amazement at my ability to do that.  That is a question I have been asked so many times in the past few years.  How I see the good through all of the other stuff.  It takes practice, but it’s so worth it.

The most profound lesson I learned in the art of transformative thinking was from Thich Nhat Hanh.  I was fresh out of 20 years of Christianity and things were in chaos all around me.  My marriage was over, I was in the middle of law school and pretty sure I should have gotten a PhD in history instead, and for the first time in my life I was spending enough time alone to see myself clearly.  There was a lot of garbage in there.  I read in one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s books that everything is in a constant state of transformation.  Today’s garbage is tomorrow’s flower.  We take the garbage, make compost of it, and grow a beautiful flower.  That idea touched me so profoundly that it changed my life and I became determined to make beauty out of everything that life presents.  Between that and learning the most simple meditation on earth, also from Thich Nhat Hanh, my life has been transformed into one of eternal hope rather than despair.

I think the recent lessons have been to remember that if I stay true to love, the only force in the world that is real, nothing can ever really hurt me again.  If love is the motivation for all my actions, I will be at peace.  If I am not at peace then I know that I need to  adjust my perspective and find the love.  That’s all there is.  Life is not nearly as complicated as we try to make it.

“Like a lotus flower that grows out of the mud and blossoms above the muddy water surface, we can rise above our defilements and sufferings of life.”

Impermanence is a beautiful thing.

Angel protection

Once in a while I write about my belief in and interaction with angels.  I’m trying to become more comfortable with sharing my experiences because I doubt anyone who would have any interest in reading this blog is going to think poorly of me because of my view on angels.

Earlier this evening I did a full moon meditation guided by Doreen Virtue, a spiritual teacher who only came into my life about a year ago, but has had a huge impact in that short time.  During the meditation she asked several angels to be present.  The meditation was around letting go of that which no longer serves.  Seems like I’ve been doing a lot of that in recent years and yet always have something to let go of.

I felt the presence of the angels as I was doing the meditation.  It was very comforting and helped me to lay down some of the burdens that have been on my mind and heart lately.  As I have been reporting in this blog, I’m not unhappy these days, but I have still felt burdened by uncertainty and stress.

I’m pretty new to angel experiences, so I don’t know yet how to understand and interpret what’s been happening, but there is something that I have noticed as a pattern that I find very interesting that lends a sense of credibility to what I have experienced.

Whenever I have any experience in which I call on the archangel Michael, something amazing happens.  When I ask this wonderful angel for his protection, I feel surrounded by an energy and can sense what feels like wings enfolding me.  It’s so hard for me to explain this to anyone, not only because it is a new experience for me, but I know that everyone experiences things differently so what I am reporting may not make any sense to anyone else.  Oh how I wish to meet more people who understand these things!

The other thing that happens when I feel the presence of this angel is that I start crying uncontrollably.  It is an interesting sensation because it’s not a bad thing.  Even though there is a sadness there, it’s accompanied by a sense of release.  It feels like I finally have the strong shoulder to cry on that I have needed my entire life.  I’ve never really had any person in my life I felt I could lean on or felt comfortable expressing myself emotionally with.  And what these experiences with the angel have felt like is finally being able to let go of all of the stuff from the past with someone who understands and cares and wants to protect me.

My life is changing.  I am leaving behind the person I used to be, the one who so strongly identified with the past and all the things that happened that shouldn’t have happened as well as the things that didn’t happen that I thought should have.

This blog has a lot to do with this transformation.  The things I have shared here I have only recently told to anyone at all.  I spent so much of my life trying to hide the truth because I felt ashamed of the things that happened to me.  It’s only been in the past year that I have openly shared with people some of the details of the abuse that was a part of my early life.  As a result of writing this stuff, I feel like I am finally letting it go and finally able to move on without the baggage.  It’s over and none of it matters anymore.

I feel like I am going to be a much stronger advocate for people who need a protector than I ever have been before.  I have always felt empathy, but I have never been able to share enough of myself to show someone that no matter what happens to us in life, it can be okay.  We can choose to make it okay and by so choosing it is possible to neutralize the damage from those past experiences.

As archangel Michael protects me and provides me with a safe shoulder to cry on, I seek to be that for others.  And though I am not always confident in all areas, I do know this, I am a loyal friend and ally.  Anyone who has ever met me knows that I am strong and confident in my convictions and determination to help and do good.  And I shall.

May angels surround you, protect you, and make you feel as loved as you truly are.

Spiritual alchemy

I spend a fair amount of time thinking about what I would describe as spiritual alchemy.  Meaning the transmutation of one kind of energy into another, the spiritual equivalent of transforming base metals into gold.  To me, this is one of the most valuable and powerful metaphysical skill sets a person can have.  A person who can change their reality by changing their perspective is a person who can accomplish anything, in my opinion.

I am a student of these practices.  I will always be a student.  Even when the time comes that I am teaching others what I know.  I guess that time actually has come, since I am attempting to share my insights through this blog.

Although there is a lot of room for improvement in my ability to quickly shift my perspective to keep my thoughts at the frequency that will bring success, I get glimpses of my own power sometimes that make me eager to continue growing in this direction.

Today was one of those glimpses.

My car is currently parked and not working.  It’ll be fixed in a couple of days and really, if I had to pick a time to have my car out of commission, this is one of the best.  It caused me some distress on Friday because of some things I had to cancel that I didn’t want to, but other than that, there is no need in my immediate future that can’t be accomplished walking or by public transit.

I’m a car person.  I got my first car when I was 16 and have had one ever since.  I think nothing of getting in the car and driving to places that are within walking distance.  It just doesn’t even occur to me to walk.  And yet I know that walking is not only good exercise, but is an amazing way to meditate.

Walking meditation is something I learned from books by Thich Nhat Hanh.  It’s really not different from sitting meditation except that it is moving.  It’s all about being present in the moment and being aware with each step.  Basically it’s acknowledging with every step that you are walking and breathing in the present moment, and doing your best to hold that thought to the exclusion of other thoughts that want to take over the mind, that chatter that many people aren’t even aware is the background of their existence.  The problem with the chatter is that if you slow down long enough to pay attention to it, it can be horrifying to discover the negative self-talk that makes up the majority of the noise in our heads.  So any break from this is for a person’s ultimate good.

The concept of meditation is simple, but its practice requires discipline and an internal fortitude that many find difficult, even those with experience.  I’m totally willing to admit it’s difficult.  It takes a lot of effort for me to focus for more than a few seconds at a time most of the time.  I actually find it easier to meditate while walking because there is a certain level of present moment awareness that is required to keep walking that is not required for sitting meditation.

So knowing what an amazing gift walking is, seems like something I would be doing all the time.  But I haven’t been.  Because of the car…and habit…and being in a rut.  Having one way of doing things and never considering another way.

Earlier today I decided I wanted to cook one of my favorite comfort foods for dinner.  But I was lacking a couple of ingredients.  I could have called someone I suppose, but I didn’t really want to.  After some of my recent walks to and from the repair shop where I took my car, I have been looking forward to walking more.  So I did today.  And it was a pretty magical experience.

As I walked my mind started to wander, but I decided this would be a good time to exercise control over that.  So I just kept bringing my attention back to my breath and my steps.  And the result is that I started to notice everything around me, in very vivid detail.

The world looks very different to a pedestrian than it does to a driver or passenger.  That alone starts the shift in perspective that can bring about a change in attitude that can ultimately lead to a change in reality.  Bring awareness to it and walking turns into an exercise in transformation.

I saw garbage, a pair of gloves and a pot holder on the ground right by my house.  I heard birds over the whooshing of the freeway.  I stopped to look at a community garden and I observed people hurrying to get to super bowl parties.

If I had been driving I wouldn’t have seen any of those things because I would have been one of those people rushing.  And not because I was going to a super bowl party.  I would have because I could.  Walking caused me not to be in a hurry because it was going to take me a while anyway, plus I have no agenda today, so it just didn’t matter.  And the entire trip took less than an hour.

On the walk home I realized that not only am I not trapped, which is how I have been feeling without my car, I am absolutely liberated.  Not having  a working car only stops me to the extent that I refuse to think of other options.  I was limiting myself by thinking of my car as my only transportation and was therefore causing my own misery.  By choosing to walk, I felt empowered in a way I would not have if I would have asked a friend to drive me.  And I realized that I am only stoppable if I let myself be.

When I had the epiphany of my own freedom, it brought a sense of joy that was so lovely.  In that moment I knew that I changed my reality by changing the way I was choosing to look at the situation.  And I knew that if I can continue this practice, there is nothing I can’t accomplish.

So it turns out that having the car break at this time under these circumstances provided me an opportunity that I would not have had if it had broken during a time when I needed to go to work or to an interview or something.  I do have time for this right now.  This is fine, there is nothing wrong in this picture.  That is very different from where I was even a couple of days ago.

And I find it poetic that the thing that brought about this realization was me being forced to deal with the reality of my situation because I wanted my favorite comfort food for dinner.  I found comfort today on so many levels that tonight’s dinner may be the grandest feast I have ever prepared, out of the simplest ingredients.  Both literally and metaphorically.  How lovely is that?

It is my wish to share all the joy I find for myself with the world.

Many blessings.

Cheryl