Shades of Grey? Well, Yes . . . and No

Last week, my mother said a couple of things that made no sense to me, and we have had some interesting discussion that I’d like to share. She was saying the kinds of things that all mothers, all people tend to say in certain situations. But I couldn’t find them. None of it rang true to me.

I made the comment that my friend, Paul, “really cares about me,” to which Mother replied, “That makes it easy for you to abuse him.”

*sigh*

It was as if she hadn’t read a word I’ve written here. I know that at some level she hears me, but sometimes it just doesn’t show up. 

I recounted this to Paul and he was laughing before I even finished the sentence, “Oh, I am so abused!”  He was joking about it, but he knows that no one can ever abuse him but him. Only believing his thoughts can do that.

Mother suggested that we change the subject, saying she thinks we agree, but that it was “semantics.” It’s not, but okay.

I said I was interested to practice the idea that it’s really my stories about Pablo’s appearance that bother me, not his actual appearance. Sure, there’s a level on which it is appearance and we see one thing and find it attractive and another and find it replusive. Still, we do have an innate and often unused ability to find beauty no matter where we look. I’ve done a lot of Re-Pairing the Universe. (See Shampoo Methods on the right.) It is this awareness I was wondering about.

Mother said to me, “Our culture is so loaded with those stories…they come at us from every direction.” (Stories about how people should look, and what is attractive.)

I said that made us sound like victims. I couldn’t agree with that. This led to discussing how I find most thoughts and statements that begin with “they” or “society” or “our culture,” to be pretty much a waste of my time.

This is a very clear, “Whose business am I in when I think that thought?” question.

Not mine, obviously. I am clearly in “their” business.

Thinking thoughts beginning with “they,” society,” and “our culture,” gives me an feeling of helplessness. Well, I am totally helpless about that. It’s not my business!. I’m always helpless when I’m out of my business. Not only helpless, but hopeless. I can’t do anything about “them.” Even what I think isn’t my business.

I find it pretty boring and useless to be talking about “them,” and I’m beginning to feel that way about what I’m thinking. It’s like watching clouds go by. Let them go. It’s a lot more fun and a lot less stressful.

This morning, I found a new email from Mother, that reads:

“Further attempt at explanation:

We view things not just internally but in context. Something that might ellicit one feeling in one context might elicit something entirely different in another context. (We all have examples of that.) My comments about “society” or any such are simply statements about context. Context does not control the inner, nor should it, but it is a part of the big picture.”

My first response was: Mother, I have no idea what this means.

Then I thought about it. Totally in her business at this point, and trying to respond to her email, I wrote:

Truth to tell it sounds like a lot of explanation and justification.

It reminds me of an insight I had a few weeks ago. Someone had tried to use the “shades of grey” excuse for some view they had.  I know it’s wrong, and I couldn’t figure out how to explain it.

I finally got it. 

The simplicity of it amazed me. I have been wrestling with this argument from others for years, decades, really, starting with my Mother.

The “shades of grey” defense is nothing more  than another way to further divide the “is.”  It’s actually more convoluted than the black/white, which is not true either. Truth is a “both” that is beyond any idea of black or white. There is this “whole” place that encompasses all of that.

Things are really much simpler, much truer, and much more peaceful when I stay in my own business and remember to ask, “Who would I be without that story?”

Questioning takes me out of victim/perpetrator, helpless/powerful, black/white, and even out of those mysterious “shades of grey,” into something beyond all of those. That is where I find clarity. It’s quite blissful.

If you want to try it, look at the Shampoo Methods page, linked on the right there. I especially suggest “Re-Pairing the Universe,” Steven Sashen’s IAM Meditation.

What was really cool for me is that Paul got it.  It was good to connect with him on this and other things.

Love, Ann

If you are interested in all of the IAM (Instant Advanced) Meditations (there are over a dozen of them) you can sample two more of them here for free:

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

Shampoo Series – Oh Yes! or Oh No!

(If you reached this blog through a Tag and did not find what you were looking for, please comment and let me know.) 

Which way do you think you’d be more effective in dealing with something?  Peaceful or stressful?

Katie and other practitioners of The Work of Byron Katie ask this question a lot.

Somehow we got it wired up that we’ll succeed if we tense up, ready to spring into action with thoughts like “Oh no!” instead of relaxing with acceptance of what is and thoughts like “Oh yes.” I’d say 99.9% of the time this isn’t the key to success. It’s more likely to be a fight, flight or freeze reaction, rather than a clear, relaxed response.  

Most of the time it’s pretty obvious that a tense response blocks out information. It’s immediate tunnel vision. That is what a fight, flight or freeze response is supposed to do – focus us in case of an emergency.  What emergency?!

Katie says, “When you argue with reality, you lose – but only always.”

The car broke down.  Oh no!

My boyfriend broke up with me. How awful!

I have a headache. That’s terrible! 

Our culture calls this sympathy. It’s not. It’s commiserating.

To co-miserate means “to join in misery.” Why? Why have extra miserable tunnel-visioned people?

“To empathize does not mean to join in suffering, for that is what you must refuse to understand.”  
 
A Course in Miracles
Text, Chapter 16, 1st sentence, Page 330
 

Or, as Katie puts it:

“You move totally away from reality when you believe there is a legitimate reason to suffer.”

Byron Katie, “Loving What Is” page 288

 

We are taught that we aren’t being a good friend if we don’t join our friends in their suffering. Why debilitate both of us? Why cut ourselves off from our peace? Our knowing? Our power? Our present?

Denying with that “no” or “terrible” or “awful” won’t get the car fixed; it won’t get me on a bus. It won’t help me realize that I only want a relationship with someone who wants me and that there are other fish in the sea. It won’t lead me to take something for the headache or to stop eating or drinking things that may cause headaches.  And it definitely won’t help me see the variety of choices I have available.

A lot of my friends tell me that I’ve got a lot of “courage.” That may be true. I prefer to frame it as perspective. I can’t think of too many things that it would be useful for me to deny.

When we’re relaxed with an “oh yes,” letting the truth of the situation in, we are far more likely to see a broader vision, more choices, and more peace. In fact, it seems to me that I actually have the resources to find more choices in the peace of “oh yes.”

Is there a time for tension, springing into action, and focus?

Of course there is, but it is a brief, limited occasional thing. This response is great if a mountain lion is heading my way. Most of our daily challenges are not remotely like the mountain lion, but we respond with “oh no” and freeze our thinking and our resources. It’s no wonder we stay stuck in our same old relationships, same old jobs, same old life and wonder why nothing changes.

There is no mountain lion.

The previous blog talks a lot about trauma. Many of us are stuck in old  responses, including myself. That’s trauma. We may react to something n totally inappropriate ways out of habit due to some stuck thinking or stuck feelings that we internalized and have never questioned.

All of the Shampoo Methods are about questioning these and finding what is.

I’ve heard people express the fear that if they just accept everything with the “oh yes,” or another open, positive response, that they will succumb to inertia and never get up off the couch.

Is that true?

Far from it. When we do act, it will be more peaceful and more intuitive. We can sit on the couch until something moves us and the next thing we know, we’re fixing lunch or going to the store or calling a friend.

“A healed mind does not plan.” 

A Course in Miracles

A healed mind does not have to plan. Instead of blocking the creative impulses, we just do what’s next.

Love, Ann

A Home, A Job, A Dream – Trauma and Healing and Gratitude

Today, I could write about 5 blogs.

If you followed a Tag and didn’t find what you were looking for, please write a comment, so I know what you were looking for when you got here.

I woke up about 5 am, maybe earlier. I got out of bed about 5:30 am. This is beginning to be a lot of 5’s – a lot of change, the numerologist in me says.

One thing about living with cats is that you often remember your dreams. Why? The cat wakes you up in the middle of them. That’s why. Maybe it is  feature, not a bug.

Because there is so much, I’m will tell you what I’m going to tell you, tell you and then tell you what I told you. It’s an old formula for writing and speaking that can be very useful. While I may be no good at planning or cleaning, I am phenomenal at organizing. It helps me feel safe, so I got really good at it.

Several things play a part in today’s blog.

I’m going to tell you about home: my childhood home, the home I am working in for a temp job and the home I dream to live and work in.

I’m going to tell you about jobs. My first job was working for my father, beginning when I was about 12. This week, and maybe next, I am working in a house, donated to a mental health center and staffed by psychiatrists, counselors, nurses with office support staff to manage all the paperwork. Then there is my dream job.

I’m going to tell you my dreams, both waking and sleeping dreams. 

This is what an astrologer would call a Chiron story, a story of a wounded healer. Chiron is an asteroid only recently included in astrology.  Chiron is one of the centaurs, half human, half horse, just like my Sun, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Midheaven, which are all in Sagittarius – the sign of the centaur. You know the picture. We carry a bow and arrow and are known both for flinging them wildly and for hitting distant targets. I guess Centaurs have very good eyes. We see deep into people and situations. Other people call us psychic, but really, it’s just about looking rather than looking away. If you want to know more about Chiron and centaurs, check Wikipedia or read Eric Francis at www.planetwaves.net.

Back to the story . . .  

Let’s start with the dreams the cat helped me to remember this morning.

Last night before I went to sleep, I read the first 3 chapters of Peter A. Levine’s book, Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body. I’ve known about Peter’s work for about 7 years. Some of the women I interned with during my master’s program were studying his work at a different school than mine. It sounded good to me, and I bought a copy of his book, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. I know I read some of it. Somewhere during the past 4 years of moving from home to home, I gave it away unfinished. Every now and then, I think I’ll try again.

The first dream the cat helped me to remember is, of course, not completely clear. I remember that someone wanted me to go out with him. It seemed like it was Michael, a former friend’s ex-husband. Okay, I remember thinking about him  yesterday. That makes some sense. I also remember being in an office building. It was kind of vacant and the time was early evening, I think. I was meeting my former roommate or at least he was there. Again, I emailed with him yesterday because he’s bringing me a bill of sale so I can register the car he so generously gave me. The last part of the dream, I was asking a chiropractor, actually, he’s the husband of a chiropractor I saw for many years. He rarely practices, but he is trained. I was asking him if I could pay his lowest price for a single adjustment. Single adjustments usually cost much more. He is a Network Chiropractor. I see a Flow Chiropractor now. But clearly the dream was about men, support and healing.

The second dream the cat helped me remember was about my childhood home. I was driving by and realized that the original red brick was back (some insensitive boob has actually painted the rich red brick, and it is now a creamy yellow – yuck). There were bushes sitting in pots ready to be planted. They were ligustrum, gardenia and something I used to call a bee bush, no idea what it really is, but the bees liked the white flowers. The old gardenias were dried and frazzled, but still alive and someone had removed them and placed them in pots. I suppose the nursery planned to bring them back to life.

Mema, my maternal grandmother, was there. She said that Mother still had the house and was refurbishing it. In the dream, I wondered what the rent would be and wondered about living there. I wondered if I could create my intentional healing community there.

I read both these dreams as stories of healing, healing trauma and sexual abuse, which is what this blog is mostly all about.

From my reading last night, here is a list from Peter Levine’s Healing Trauma.

Oh, first, let me say what trauma is.

On page 8, Levine says that after 30 years, it is still a challenge for him to define trauma. He says, “What I do know is that we become traumatized when our ability to respond to a perceived threat is in some way overwhelmed. This inability to adequately respond can impact us in obvious ways, as well as ways that are subtle.”

On page 20, Levine says, “The symptoms of trauma can be stable, that is, ever-present. They can also be unstable, meaning that they can come and go and be triggered by stress. Or they can remain hidden for decades and suddenly surface. Usually, symptoms do not occur individually, but come in groups. They often grow increasingly complex over time, becoming less and less connected with the original trauma experience.”

There are a lot of good lists in Levine’s book. It’s short and comes with a CD of guided exercises for re-visiting trauma and healing the body memories and associated symptoms. 

So, back to the lists I mentioned. You’ll find a list of “Obvious Causes of Trauma” and “Less Obvious Causes of Trauma” on pages 14 and 15. Levine suggests we pay attention to our bodies as we read these and notice any uneasiness or discomfort. I’ll let you get the book and do that.

He categorizes symptoms this way:

1. Hyperarousal
2. Constriction
3. Dissociation and denial
4. Feelings of helplessness, immobility and freezing

Now, here’s that list found on pages 18 – 20:

Symptoms: A Lengthy List 

• Hypervigilence (being “on guard” at all times)
• Intrusive imagery or flashbacks
• Extreme sensitivity to light and sound
• Hyperactivity
• Exaggerated emotional and startle responses
• Nightmares and night terrors
• Abrupt mood swings (rage reactions or temper tantrums, frequent anger, or crying)
• Shame and lack of self-worth
• Reduced ability to deal with stress (easily and frequently stressed out)
• Difficulty sleeping

Then he says some symptoms “can show up later, even years later.” He mentions that we are not meant to diagnose with these lists, just “get a feel for how trauma symptoms behave.”

• Panic attacks, anxiety and phobias
• Mental “blankness” or spaced-out feelings
• Avoidance behavior ( avoiding places, activities, movements, memories or people)
• Attraction to dangerous situations
• Addictive behaviors (overeating, drinking, smoking, etc.)
• Exaggerated or diminished sexual activity
• Amnesia and forgetfulness
• Inability to love, nurture, or bond with other individuals
• Fear of dying or having a shortened life
• Self-mutilation (severe abuse, self-inflicted cuting, etc.)
• Loss of sustaining beliefs (spiritual, religious, interpersonal)

Then he gives another list and says these “generally take longer to develop” (page 19). “In most cases, they may have been preceded by some of the earlier symptoms.”

• Excessive shyness
• Diminished emotional responses
• Inability to make commitments
• Chronic fatigue or very low physical energy
• Immune system problems and certain endocrine problems such as thyroid malfunction and environmental sensitivities
• Psychosomatic illnesses, particularly headaches, migraines, neck and back problems
• Chronic pain
• Fibromyalgia
• Asthma
• Skin disorders
• Digestive proglems (spastic colon)
• Severe premenstrual syndrome
• Depressionand feelings of impending doom
• Feelings of detachment, alienation and isolation (“living dead” feelings)
• Reduced ability to formulate plans

I imagine we have all experienced enough trauma, even mild trauma, that reading these lists make us feel a little edgy.

So, take a deep breath . . . several.

When you’re ready, continue.

There is one last symptom on page 20. Levine calls it “The Compulsion to Repeat.” It is well worth reading the story he tells there. It is an amazingly specific example.

Now, what does all of this have to do with this blog? Or with “A Home, A Job, A Dream.” I think you are beginning to see. Some of you, especially those with similar experiences to mine, see very clearly. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the fact that you are still reading.

Trauma is a clear case of “reality is kinder than our thinking.”

Remember, it doesn’t matter if the threat is real or what is really going on. Thunder can traumatize a baby, says Levine, but there is no real danger. It is the perception that brings on these trauma symptoms. I’m not saying they are not real. Trust me, they are. I’ll get into some of my own symptoms as we go, and I’ve mentioned a lot of them in previous blogs.

But what Katie says is true, “The worst that can happen is a thought.”

Once we re-think the situation, and I feel Levine is right, we need to include the body in this re-thinking, once we re-think a situation, change our perception of it, healing happens.

A Course in Miracles  says “projection makes perception.” (Text, page 445) We project our thoughts onto people and situations, and believe this to be reality. It’s not. ACIM says we live in a dream world, not in reality. The 365 daily meditations in the workbook and the Text and Manual for Teachers are support in changing our perceptions and waking up to reality.

I call The Work of Byron Katie, A Course in Miracles in 4 questions and a Turn Around. It is much faster. I’m not necessarily saying it’s better, though. Time is a godsend when we are healing and taking a year or more to do A Course in Miracles can be very beneficial.

Steven Sashen gives a great and simple example of reality being kinder than his thinking in his Anti-Guru blog.

http://sashen.com/blog/34/rearranging-furniture-in-imaginary-houses/

Read his version. Basically, one element of his therapy for years was the idea that his parents took $42 from him as a child. The truth was much kinder than his thinking.

Steven is a great example of the Chiron archetype. After years of what you might call financial trauma, he woke up. The seminal event had more to do with relationships, and it generalized to everything. Reality was much kinder than his thinking, and he lived to tell the tale. I wish the book were out. Write and ask him for it. (steven@sashen.com)

And ask when he’s going to teach his next seminar, too. He only teaches on request.

The next seminar will hopefully be on the Instant Advanced Meditation or IAM.

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

If Katie’s Work is ACIM in 4 questions and a Turn Around, Steven’s IAM is a kinder reality now. It really is instantaneous.

Again, instantaneous is not necessarily “better.” Sometimes a full Worksheet in Katie’s way is exactly what I needed. Sometimes A Course in Miracles. Sometimes IAM. 

I’ve learned a lot from Steven.

So on with my story.  

I’ve told you about last night’s dreams, which include my childhood home. Let me tell you about a job.

Right now, I’m working a temp job at a place that houses counselors, nurses and psychiatrists who see the mentally and developmentally challenged members of our community. There is also an office manager, a person who helps these clients manage their money, and a couple of other business support staff.

Maybe I work temp jobs because I was traumatized by working for my father and going down on him both at the office and at home. I always knew some day I’d grow up and be able to work some other job. But there’s that compulsion to repeat that Levine mentions. I even had sex with co-workers at my very next job, working for an attorney when I was 16 and just out of high school.

I’ve been blessed to be supported by boyfriends and husbands for several periods in my life. This has allowed me to go to school, write, teach and work towards doing something with my background that might be healing for others and continue my own healing in the process.

That’s the job I really want. Well, more truthfully, that’s the job I really have.

So, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, I’ll bet you can put some pieces together and understand how it is that I have tried many major leaps to see how they would go in my attempts to create my dream home, which is my dream job. I moved to Georgia one year to see if I could build my dream there. My dream is how I came to go to Ireland last September. It is what I dreamed of doing with Audrey’s home. It is why I jumped in feet first to see if Paul was the partner I dreamed of who would work with me and complement my talents of writing, teaching and counseling, with his talents in storytelling, sales and money management.

When something looks like the Next Step toward my dream, I take it.

A Home, A Job and A Dream – Healing Trauma

It is my dream to live in an intentional community where I work with like-minded others teaching, writing and counseling.

Maybe I’ll post the latest version of that as a Cowgirl Interlude.

I would love to find others who share that dream with me, living and working together.

In fact, let me put that as a request.

If you feel moved to live and work with others who have experienced life paths of trauma, healing trauma and sharing with others about how to heal trauma, especially the perceived threat of sexual abuse, comment on this blog. I will reply to all serious inquiries.

We need funding, a location, a business manager, an editor, a book publisher, a computer geek or three, as well as teachers, healers, counselors and writers.

So that is my story of my childhood home and jobs, my current home and jobs, and how they relate to my waking and sleeping dreams.

It’s almost time to go to the temp job, so I’ll post this and I may edit it some over the next few days.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Love and many blessings, Ann

Shampoo Series – Spiritual Enlightenment – What If?

What if . . .

Think of the things you complain about, dread and dislike in your life. Make a list.

Now, what if your happiness, your peace, your “spiritual enlightenment,” depended on having exactly those things in your life?

We have this idea that if we achieve these concepts of happiness, peace and spiritual enlightenment everything will be some kind of “All Bliss, All the Time.”

Well, check.

I was at the Gathering for the Work of Byron Katie, when someone said that she couldn’t follow her spiritual calling unless she had the freedom to move out of state, something she cannot do with her child, by divorce decree.

Steven looked at her and asked, “Nelson Mandela was in prison for how long?”

We all laughed.

“And the Christian saints and martyrs? They were free to move and travel about all the time, right?”

Er…

I added, “and Ghandi got around really well while he was fasting.”

No, he could barely lay on his pallet sometimes he was so weak from fasting from what I have heard.

For myself, incest in my childhood, the exciting and exhilarating journey from grief to gratitude, were all part of following my spiritual calling. The story is in this blog.

So, the next time you have a complaint or some stress you think is keeping you from . . . anything . . . check. It might be merely the next step in following your spiritual calling.

Love, Ann

Shampoo Series – “In my defenselessness my safety lies.” Lesson 153, A Course in Miracles

There is no incompatibility between me and Paul that total defenselessness wouldn’t solve. That may be true with everyone, of course. There is only One of us here.

“Defenselessness is strength. It testifies to recognition of the Christ in you. Perhaps you will recall the text maintains that choice is always made between Christ’s strength and your own weakness, seen apart from Him. Defenselessness can never be attacked, because it recognizes strength so great attack is folly, or a silly game a tired child might play, when he becomes too sleepy to remember what he wants.

Defensiveness is weakness. It proclaims you have denied the Christ and come to fear His Father’s anger. What can save you now from your delusion of an angry god, whose fearful image you believe you see at work in all the evils of the world? What but illusions could defend you now, when it is but illusions that you fight?”

The full text of this lesson is found here:

 http://miraclevision.com/acim/wbk/pc/workbook153-1.html

 The terminology of A Course in Miracles is very Christian. I like that.

Katie says, “Defense is the first attack.” 

Can you find that?

Think of 3 ways you can prove that thought from your own experience and understanding.

Love, Ann

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

                                               – Ann O’Johnson

5 Minutes to Deep Peace on Thursday 9/13

You will be entertained at the very least and enlightenment is an option.

http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2095310

Thursday, 9/13, there is a teleconference call where you can learn more about this. There will be sample meditations and a chance at a free gift worth $400.

http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2095310 

Trust me. You want to try this. The IAM Meditations are the product of the fertile mind of Steven Sashen who is also responsible for much of the Shampoo Method we talk about here every day.

It’s completely safe. I’d trust this guy with my life.

This feeling, this is what we have all been looking for our whole lives. It’s like coming home.

Love, Ann  

Shampoo Series – Handling Criticism

Say I told you that you were a 500 pound green alien?

Would that bother you? No.

You don’t believe you are a 500 pound green alien. You don’t even think they exist.

But if I told you that you were too fat or too dumb or a failure or whatever your own pet insecurity is, yes, it would bother you a lot.

It would also bother you if you thought I was fat or dumb or a failure, but I’m sure you could care less if I were a 500 pound green alien, other than you might want to capture, study or talk to me.

Why?

Because you believe it of yourself.

And you don’t like it.

In other words, you agree!!!

And you don’t like that in yourself.

Do you see the way out?

Would you like to reduce the stress and enjoy it the next time someone criticizes you/agrees with you?

Try saying this: 

“I can see that. What do you suggest?”

Try it. See what happens. 

Many thanks and much love to Steven Sashen who taught me this much truer perspective on annoyance.

Love, Ann

Cowgirl Interlude – Thank U India – Alanis Morrissette

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1ZVV09vTU8 

How about getting off of these antibiotics
How about stopping eating when I’m filled up
How about them transparent dangling carrots  (!)
How about that ever elusive kudo

Thank you India
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence

How about me not blaming you for everything
How about me enjoying the moment for once
How about how good it feels to finally forgive you
How about grieving it all one at a time

Thank you India
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence

The moment I let go of it was
The moment I got more than I could handle
The moment I jumped off of it was
The moment I touched down

How about no longer being masochistic
How about remembering your divinity
How about unabashedly bawling your eyes out
How about not equating death with stopping

Thank you India
Thank you providence
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you nothingness
Thank you clarity
Thank you thank you silence

yeah yeah
ahh ohhh
ahhh ho oh
ahhh ho ohhhhhh
yeaahhhh yeahh

Cowgirl Interlude – Time of Your Life (Good Riddance)

“Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)”

Green Day

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time
It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it’s worth it was worth all the while

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

Shampoo Series – Broken or Just Not Yet Blooming?

I started this blog over a month ago and I still feel like I’m fumbling with concepts that have to be experienced to be understood.  I have trouble thinking anyone can read this blog and “get” what I’m talking about.

I was thinking about Paul, about how we don’t seem to “meet” in most of my worldview and concepts. I mistakenly gave the impression that I felt he was “broken.” I was driving along one day, thinking about that, and wondering what would be a better way to say it, and I decided that it was closer to say he just wasn’t in full bloom. Maybe.

Then last night at a Gathering for the Work of Byron Katie, Sashen talked about cause & effect in terms of a rosebud.

What Sashen was saying is that we do these “non-technique techniques” and think that we caused something, when actually, if we threw the rosebud in a closet, it would still bloom.

Most likely, when we came back to find the rosebud in full bloom, we would think that our “technique” did it, when actually, the rose would have bloomed had we done nothing at all.

I used to think no one could have these “blooming experiences” with words. I was wrong. I’ve had some really amazing experiences from “just words” since then.  

“Which words?” you may be thinking.

The ones I write about here – The Work of Byron Katie, Instant Advanced Meditations (IAM) by Steven Sashen, and Jason Shulman’s book Kabbalistic Healing are my best examples.

But Steven is right. These are not “techniques” the way we usually think of them. And furthermore, when we use them to get some predictable outcome they don’t “work.”

Counselors & healers seem to think people are “broken.”

That’s part of why I have never worked as a counselor in an agency. The DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Volume IV) is just a big storybook about how people can be “broken.”

I don’t buy it and I certainly can’t sell it.

Of course, what I do buy can still be used as a way to “help,” “heal,” or “fix” things.

The minute we do that they don’t “work.”

It seems to be when I just play around with them to see what happens, some of the most amazing things “happen.”

Sashen, Katie and Shulman, and come to think of it, David Deida’s “opening as,” and Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now are all word-based things that seem to create some kind of “experience.”

I used to call those experiences “healing.”

But that would imply I was sick.

Was I?

I don’t think so. I was just doing what humans do.

Hopefully, Steven’s monthly IAM Chit-Chat tomorrow call will shed some more light on this . . . and how to talk and write about it.

Love, Ann

PS – I know Paul and some of his friends read this blog. Would you mind dropping me a comment or an email to say whether this is clear to you or not?  Thanks!