Shampoo Series – Pavlov

Hi guys,

I was just looking at Steven Sashen’s latest Anti-Guru Blog and was enjoying the current one so much, that I scrolled back to read another, and another, and another.

I was glad I did because I got to re-read this one:

http://sashen.com/blog/26/look-ma-no-brains/

It was a relief to remember that some of the reactions I have are simple conditioning.

You know, some guy tells me he will love me forever, has been looking for me for 32 years, wants to spoil me – and my brain just shuts off, while I go padding after those carrots with my tongue hanging out. Sure, all of that may be true, but then again, who knows? One of us could get hit by a truck today.

I’m paying attention to noticing the part where my brain shuts off.

I just love the honesty of this guy, Sashen.

Yeah, I know sometimes Sashen sounds like a total asshole, but trust me, he’s not. He is just possessed of an extremely acerbic wit. I tend to laugh my ass off around him. He has been known to say, “I don’t play well with others.”  

Neither do I, sometimes.

I do a lot of temp jobs right now to pay the rent.

It’s essentially mindless work – answer a few phones, type something, file something. And it pays enough that I can often get by with a few weeks of it and then take a few weeks off. I like that a lot, a whole lot.

When that happens, I get to sit down of a morning and write these letters to you. I enjoy the hell out of that. (Hmm, that’s the title of Ramone Yaciuk’s book, Enjoy the Hell Out of Your Life. Saw his author talk last night at Borders. Good job, Ramone! www.mycommunicationworks.com )

Anyway, so here I am experiencing brain shut-down on a daily basis and wondering what to do next.

Ah… needing a Next Step. I know how to find those!

So, I get out my Goal-Free Goal Setting meditation.

(Umm, if you want one, go through http://www.advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?af=570391 and get the whole IAM CD set. It is well worth it and there’s a lifetime guarantee and free samples. )

Did the meditation, got the . . . hmm . . . I should get a t-shirt, but that’s another of Sashen’s sites – www.delightenment.com

I haven’t found the exact one I want yet. Actually, I want “Fighting for Peace is Like Fucking for Virginity” in a lovely white script on a pink T-shirt. I just don’t know if I’d actually wear it, so I’ve been hesitating on creating it.

Anyway, I did the Goal-Free Goal Setting for like 40 days on the idea of getting married. Then this guy, Paul, shows up. I have done the meditation once or twice in the last month since he showed up. Today, I did it again and then wondered whether Steven had blogged lately. He has. They are a ton of fun.

I have been feeling embarrassed at myself and how easily I am falling for this sweet talking man while still having some serious reservations about whether we have a life-companion kind of thing here or not.

Then I read Sashen’s blog and remember how much of this is conditioning. I mean, if it took Sashen (who by the way has studied a lot of psychology from a very skeptical point of view) anyway, if it took Sashen 3 hours to shake off a simple, “if you qualify, I can try to get my manager’s approval and show you how you can join us for free,” then I suppose I won’t be too surprised when it take me 3 weeks or 3 months or even 3 years to turn my brain back on when a man showers me with praise and adoration and promises.

And I have promised myself not to act until I’m clear. And if I do?

Lather, rinse, repeat.

*sigh of relief*

And I thought I was slipping.

Love, Ann

“Personalities don’t love. They want something.”

              – Byron Katie in I Need Your Love – Is That True?

http://www.advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?af=570391

Shampoo Series – Taking it Slow?

Some friends of my roommate’s came by last night. She wasn’t in. She and her boyfriend had gone out to dinner. So, they waited about half an hour and made conversation with me. I don’t know Ross & Elizabeth very well, so we just chatted about the superficial obvious facts of life.

Of course, my latest news is Paul.

One of Ross’ first questions was, “So, you’re taking it slow, right?” as if this was clearly the best and most advisable course of action.

It’s funny. My horoscopes for several days now have been advising me to have the courage to break rules. I kinda figured it might have something to do with Paul and I, or maybe with work, but I still wasn’t quite clear what rules I might be advisedly breaking here.

Now I suspect it is that suspicious admonishment to , “Take it slow.”

Can I absolutely know that my life will be better if I “take it slow?”

Nope.

I married Marvin 11 days after our first date and I wouldn’t change a thing. I usually try to put people at ease after I tell them that by saying we had known each other for 5 years, and we had, but honestly? I don’t know what that has to do with it. It just makes other less daring people more comfortable with my life.

If you haven’t noticed, my life has been a lot about doing what feels intuitively right, not about forcing myself to follow standard advice about how to live.

Intuition is instantaneous.

I’m not saying I’m jumping ship this moment and moving in with Paul, though I might.

What I am saying is that I will act when I feel a sense of clarity about what to do next.

Sound familiar?

It should. That’s what this whole Shampoo Series is about:

We get clear and we act from that clarity.

Then something muddies the water.

Lather, rinse, repeat and we do it all again.

Clarity is not something we get and keep forever.

We keep having to clean the lens of perception. Wipe off both the rose-colored and the dusty beliefs, thoughts and misunderstandings. Get clear. Then act.

And I won’t act until I’m clear.

But once I’m clear, I can pretty much guarantee that someone – no, several someones – will be triggered by what I do. Whether I run off to live with Paul or call the whole thing off, the people with the opposite story are going to get their hackles up.

Well, isn’t that what happens in your life?

What do you live by?

Other people’s stories?

Your stories?

Or that inner sense of clarity?

It’s a no-brainer.

Love, Ann

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

               – The Bard, William Shakespeare

Impossible!

Hi,

Just thought I’d let you know that Paul, that’s his name – Paul, the guy who reconnected with me through Classmates.com, will be visiting me here in glorious California at the end of June.

I have a feeling we’ll know by then whether we want to try to get geographically closer and see if this thing flies.

I said it would take an Act of God to get me to move back to the heat of New Mexico – ever. Paul says he’d love to live in California, but his parents are in their 80’s, living in New Mexico in a retirement home, and he may need/want to be near them for a while. He’s been considering moving up there for a while. He has a 13 year old son in Wisconsin, though.So, says I, this is a job for Goal-Free Goal Setting! and its various pieces.

Instant Advanced Meditation – Free Sample & Lifetime Guarantee

http://www.advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?af=570391

I know there is a Next Step that makes sense and resolves all of those factors satisfactorily. I suspect I may spend 6 months (WINTER months!) in California, and see where things are after that.

Zippity Do Dah, Zippity A.
My oh my, what a wonderful day!
Plenty of sunshine headin’ my way
Zippity Do Dah, Zippity A.

Yeah, we both burst into song at odd moments.

So far, I have received the following YouTube love letters:

Shanghai Breezes by John Denver

Peaceful Easy Feeling by the Eagles

A fantastic short summary of the movie “Joe vs. the Volcano,” which we watched together when I visited him on Memory Day Weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh-Zjqa5_ys

And I’ve replied with things like:

Thank U by Alanis Morrissette

and Impossible from Cinderella.

One way or another, we’re making a movie of this. We seem to have a soundtrack going.

Love, Ann

“Impossible! for a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage
And four white mice will never be fourt white horses.
Such folly wolly fiddle-dee-dee of courses!
Impossible!

But the world is full of zanies and fools
Who don’t believe in sensible rules
Who don’t believe what sensible people say.

And because these daft and dewey-eyed dopes
Keep building up impossible hopes – impossible!

Things are happening every day!

Instant Advanced Meditation – Free Sample & Lifetime Guaranteehttp://www.advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?af=570391

Peace Now

Do you know how to find World Peace?

The IAM Meditations are the simplest, most profound and deepest I’ve ever been. Peaceful, not stressful.

Just wanted to share, in case you’d been thinking about it.

http://www.advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?af=570391

I’ve been meditating for 40 years. My mother taught me to meditate when I was a child. I started delving deeply into finding more peace and more spirit in my life very early.

I agree completely with Steven:

There is no reason to sit on my butt in a cave for 30 years feeling like I’m not “getting it.”

http://www.advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?af=570391 

World peace starts with peace in my own mind.

There is no other way.

It’s free to try it.

Love, Ann

“Peace in our minds and in our lives is a cause effect relationship.”

Instant Advanced Meditation – Free Sample
http://www.advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?af=570391

“And I dreamed I saw the bomber death planes
Riding shotgun in the sky
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation

We are stardust, we are golden
We are caught in the devil’s bargain
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.”

                       – Joni Mitchell
                         Woodstock

Cowgirl Interlude – Hunting Girl & Jack-in-the-Green by Jethro Tull

Hunting Girl

One day I walked the road and crossed a field
  to go by where the hounds ran hard.
And on the master raced: behind the hunters chased
  to where the path was barred.
One fine young lady’s horse refused the fence to clear.
I unlocked the gate but she did wait until the pack had disappeared.

Crop handle carved in bone;
  sat high upon a throne of finest English leather.
The queen of all the pack,
  this joker raised his hat and talked about the weather.
All should be warned about this high born Hunting Girl.
She took this simple man’s downfall in hand;
  I raised the flag that she unfurled.

Boot leather flashing and spurnecks the size of my thumb.
This highborn hunter had tastes as strange as they come.
Unbridled passion: I took the bit in my teeth.
Her standing over — me on my knees underneath.

My lady, be discrete.
I must get to my feet and go back to the farm.
Whilst I appreciate you are no deviate,
  I might come to some harm.
I’m not inclined to acts refined, if that’s how it goes.
Oh, high born Hunting Girl,
  I’m just a normal low born so and so.

Jack-In-The-Green

Have you seen Jack-In-The-Green?
With his long tail hanging down.
He sits quietly under every tree —
  in the folds of his velvet gown.
He drinks from the empty acorn cup
  the dew that dawn sweetly bestows.
And taps his cane upon the ground —
  signals the snowdrops it’s time to grow.

It’s no fun being Jack-In-The-Green —
  no place to dance, no time for song.
He wears the colours of the summer soldier —
  carries the green flag all the winter long.

Jack, do you never sleep —
  does the green still run deep in your heart?
Or will these changing times,
  motorways, powerlines,
  keep us apart?
Well, I don’t think so —
  I saw some grass growing through the pavements today.

The rowan, the oak and the holly tree
  are the charges left for you to groom.
Each blade of grass whispers Jack-In-The-Green.
Oh Jack, please help me through my winter’s night.
And we are the berries on the holly tree.
Oh, the mistlethrush is coming.
Jack, put out the light.

Shampoo Series – The “Threat” of Something We Want

Gentle Readers,

One of the reasons for the slow down in my daily blogging of which I was so proud this year, is that a relationship has been taking a lot of my time. Sometimes 4 to 6 hours a day, with phone calls lasting until 2 am. I have finally met a man who can out-talk and out-email me! Isn’t that a trip?

It is.

At the same time, I’m having a stress reaction to that.

http://www.advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?af=570391

We’re both in a lot of Intensity (rather than Wisdom – see Skills Chart on the right), and Romantic Mythology (see Pretenses in the Compatibility Factors on the right), and there’s no telling whether we’ll both relax our Defenses enough to share anything.

We’ve talked about writing a book together, about what a great movie our relationship could make, etc. That’s all well and good, but I can’t live in a movie where everything is action-packed and intense and the ending is all neatly tied up in a couple of hours. That’s not reality.

So, I’ve told Paul I cannot be his girlfriend right now.

Doing so has given me some breathing space. So, of course, what happens next?

We have a wonderful hour and a half conversation this morning and I’m all atwitter with possibilities again.

Ping

Pong

Ping

Pong

Ping

Are you dizzy yet?

I know how to find that space of Spontaneous Right Action within myelf.

And as any blog you have read will tell you, I have the most attachment and intensity myself over relationships. I would love nothing more than to find a happy marriage to a man pretty much like Paul in most ways, and have some compansionship on this journey, a friend to love and work with in the world.

So, back to Work for me!

Honestly, I’ve been so blinded by his attentions and my stress and desires and aversions (ping pong) that I can hardly put down my lies on paper long enough to question them. But I have to.

Anything from “This is the man of my dreams.” to “I’m out of my ever-loving gourd.” From “This will never work.” to “I want this man.”

It’s so funny how easily I see and hear other’s thoughts and then sometimes I hold onto my own delusions like a lifeboat with a major air leak.

deep breath

I’ve been reluctant to go public with all of this, too, to write it here.

That’s usually not a good sign. It means I’m doing image management, not wanting to put out how stupid I feel I’m being. (Stupid? Is that true?) 

“I don’t know” is a hard place for most of us to hold. I’m only human.

“Mr L Prosser was, as they say, only human. In other words he was a carbon-based life form descended from an ape.

– Douglas Adams

as found at http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Hitchhikers/00000012.htm

Thank God for whoever put the immortal Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy up on the ‘net. That is my first choice when I’m confused or depressed. That book has gotten me through more than I can ever say. Thank you, Douglas Adams, RIP.

Anyway, it’s ironic how stressful it can be to be “threatened” with something we want.

I will be posting more as life progresses.

Now, where did I put my clarity? I’m sure it’s around here somewhere.

Love, Ann

Patricia: My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099892/quotes

for more of the Joe vs. Volcano quotes.

Shampoo Series – Eric Francis Thinks Outside the Box! (as usual)

I knew it!

I just knew that Eric Francis had conscious access to more peace and truth than I found in the article I wrote about yesterday!  He does, he does.

As a professional courtesy, I wrote to let him know the article is here. In the course of discussing how The Work of Byron Katie might be helpful to give him some peace about this issue he says “exhausts” him and on which he says he works “not entirely voluntarily,” he sent me the following link:

                http://bookofblue.com/txp/an-ethical-dilemma

In it he poses as an ethical dilemma, a scenario that answers a question that I have been asking my friends and science fiction fans for a month or so now. I’ve been asking, “Where is the science fiction that offers a scenario in which Global Warming is a Good Thing(TM)?”

Eric has answered me:

“Then you have this dream. The glacial phase is coming on late due to human intervention, but you’re told that much of the planet will freeze over again, like it’s supposed to, only a little late. This will occur no matter how much heat and CO2 human civilization creates. It also turns out that the next group species that arise will be impervious to chlorine’s effects, and that the remaining species from this era will adapt. So, in effect, both issues are moot—and you get this for certain. You wake up that morning and you just know.

“What do you do? Do you tell anyone? Do you keep up your struggle? Or do you move on and do something else?”

It’s short. You can read the whole thing here:

               http://bookofblue.com/txp/an-ethical-dilemma

I am totally jazzed that finally, someone has come up with at least the seed thought of a positive scenario!!!

My reply to the ethical dilemma is:  

I tell people. The peace of mind when we let go of struggle gives us FAR more juice for our creativity NOW.

I have the audacity to think that I am pretty good at ethical dilemmas, said the girl with the Sagittarius stellium in the 9th house and the Leo Moon to show it off, and the Pisces ascendant to feel deeply about it.

What could you do with all the free time you would have if you let go of the painful, struggling, even resentful ideas in all of this?

How much more effective can we be when we come from our peace, rather than our stress?

I don’t know what it is about Eric. I have a very deep fondness for him. He speaks for many, to many. I aspire to something like that myself. And he manages to do it with clay feet, just like the rest of us.

You can subscribe to Eric’s site, with these wondrous ideas and more at:

     http://www.planetwavesweekly.com/sales/home.html

Please take a look. He is worth your time!

Love, Ann

“Peace in our minds and in our lives is a cause-effect relationship.”

                                      – Ann O’Johnson