It’s All Good

I got the oddest message from my ex-husband, Marvin, on that last post about “Every Time I Turn Around Something Goes.” (And Marvin, it would be a joy if you would post such things here on the blog as Comments.)

I say “odd” but I guess I should have expected it. It’s the same stuff he’s been telling me since we met in about 1985. Marvin lives in Florida with his new wife, Paula.

Here’s the note:

Healthiest mindset ever on the blog!
Can you implement & stick to it?
Or will we be reading about some terrible thing next month?
 
You are right about a game; one with specific rules to master.
I recommend Brian Tracy CDs.
I’m also sure you will find his process foreign, boring, etc. & that is exactly why you need them.
He can teach you business culture & language.
 
Love & blessings, Marvin”

Let’s look at this.

That first sentence is sweet. I know it is intended as a compliment. Just for fun, I went back and read one of my blogs about being homeless, jobless and carless, just to see if that one came across in some way that would trigger this idea that the current blog is “healthier.”

I don’t get it. Sounds really healthy to me. I am pretty sure he reads most of these.

And, on the other side, how do we know that it is quote “unhealthy” unquote to cry and sob and pound our fists on the floor? Or to have “unhappy” times? It is certainly built in to the system. Show me a single human being who doesn’t and hasn’t had these times!

I realize some people make some kind of constant joy or some imagined better future into their dreamworld gotta have it, can’t have a negative thought, oooh watch out!  There went another negative thought, gotta stop having those! Can’t get enlightened with those hanging around!

What absolute crap!

These are what we call “Statistically Impossible Goals.”

That is to say, that if anyone anywhere ever managed to achieve this imagined future bliss bunny state, they would be the first (and only) human ever to do so. Something like what?  200 BILLION humans have walked the planet and we have never read an account of a single one of them who didn’t have “negative” thoughts.

Let me just counter the Jesus Freaks and Buddhist Bunnies first.

Remember when Jesus got so pissed off he ran through the temple yelling at the moneylenders and knocking vendors wares off the table?

And Buddha – everything he did was based on the idea that he had to make up some imagined better future. Don’t tell me he sat down under the Bodhi tree and got up without his “negative” thoughts. No. It’s more that he finally stopped arguing with the reality that he was going to have those times – just like everybody else!

Okay, all of that and I’ve only covered his first sentence. Let me breeze through the others. Marvin, Beloved that he is, next wrote:

“Can you implement & stick to it?
Or will we be reading about some terrible thing next month?”

I had to reply. I mentioned the “Homeless, Jobless, Carless” post, which was mostly about gratitude and bliss. I said that if he read that and thought these things were “terrible” he missed the point.

But let’s go back to “implement and stick to it.”

Implement what, first of all? I find nothing in my blog “Every Time I Turn Around Something Goes” to indicate there is anything to “implement.” It’s rather the opposite. Thinking there is something I need to “implement” is READ MY LIPS:  STRESSFUL!!!

Steven helped me with this when we were talking about “purpose” the other day. While it is intuitively obvious to me now that any idea of a “purpose” is inherently stressful, I was a little confused about how some people try to tell me it’s peaceful. I don’t know what their experience is, so I didn’t argue, but I had to wonder.

He pointed out that many people confuse “peaceful” with the adrenaline rush of excitement.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God, that was a revelation. No wonder! And no wonder so many of us are so fucking confused!

I’ve done that! That’s how so many people sold me so many seminars and tapes and books before I knew the difference between peace and adrenaline! I used to get so pumped up thinking this one was going to “fix” me, the problem, my husband, etc., that I literally could not think straight. Sure, there is a temporary high at first, but nothing changes. Well, things are always changing, but it’s not a reliable method. There is no reliable method. It’s FAR more peaceful to … hmm, A Course in Miracles quote works here, “Seek not to change the world. Seek to change your mind about the world.”

I’m doing a little questioning on ACIM, too, as I noted in the last blog. It is peppered with some ideas I still think are true and am checking, but the whole thing about how bad the ego is and how we aren’t “there” yet and stuff – well, that has obviously got to go. If I get industrious, I will sit down with the Workbook and question each of the 365 lessons sometime.

Marvin was married to me back when I thought Rebirthing BreathWork and NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) were going to not only fix me, but fix the whole rest of the world, too – just as soon as I explained it to them! His new wife was in my class. They may still believe that junk.

I’ll bet Marvin still says, “cancel, cancel” when he hears or says a quote “negative” unquote thought whatever that is. That comes from elsewhere, but along with the lie that it takes 21 days to make or break a habit (about which there is NO supporting evidence or research, NONE – see http://sashen.com/blog/59/you-give-me-21-days-and-ill-give-you-three-weeks/)  This one of the ideas I got from my NLP teacher – while all pumped up thinking she could fix me, show me how to fix myself and how to make a million dollars fixing others.

Thank God in Heaven I got over that. (Who? In where?  I don’t know that there is any such thing. It’s just an expression.)

I can’t begin to tell you how much time and energy was freed up when I started realizing, by simply questioning, that there was absolutely no truth to any of that!

Now certainly I had release and bliss and stuff happening when I did all those workshops, but it was unpredictable and unreliable – and what do intermittent rewards do?

That’s right!  They keep you coming back for more! And paying for it!

If what they are teaching was predictable, constant and reliable, people would learn it and GO AWAY AND GET ON WITH THEIR LIVES!  Oh, unless they happened to end up friends with the teacher or something, I guess.

Check into the real lives of these “teachers.”  I have had the good fortune of hanging out with someone who knows many of them personally and by extension knows people who know the story-behind-the-story on a lot of these best-selling bullshitters. Among the things I have heard there are men and women who work 80 hour weeks, never see their children, take drugs, have ex-wives or ex-husbands with very different stories about how “enlightened” they really are. And, just like everyone else, they all have money problems, relationship problems and health problems.

The health problems are a fun one. One of my favorite questions in The Work, which Steven asks sometimes is: “What if (fill in health/relationship/money problem here) was required for you to be enlightened or happy? How would you see it then?”

The funny thing is:  it seems to BE REQUIRED!

How do I know?

Show me one, just one, person who hasn’t had money/relationship/health problems. You won’t find them. I could offer to give a million dollars if you find one, and rest secure in the knowledge that it is Statisticaly Improbable (read: IMPOSSIBLE) that such a one exists.

Oh sure, we make up stories about all the gurus. But check. Really check. Really do the homework. And you will find they had just as much “misery” and just as many “terrible” things in their lives as anyone else.

Alright, where was I?

Oh yes:

“You are right about a game; one with specific rules to master.
I recommend Brian Tracey CDs.
I’m also sure you will find his process foreign, boring, etc. & that is exactly why you need them.
He can teach you business culture & language.”

First, let me tell you that while my ex-husband was never bad with money, he was constantly stressed about it and still is, as best I can tell. He was always telling me how I should and shouldn’t handle money. In fact, I happen to know that one of the most stressful things in his life last time I checked was how his current wife, who is quite well-off by any standard, how she spends money. If he could only RELAX! She’s fine. She has money to spend. HE could relax about it and . . . well, that’s his business.

I went and looked for this “Brian Tracy” web site. I had heard of him. His photo alone was enough to get me to click off that site, and fast, but I looked around. I’ve never seen such density of clickable stuff to make the site owner money in one place before. Nothing wrong with that. But clearly he has Marvin sending him money for things, too. I wrote Marvin this morning that I’d listen to one BT CD if he wanted to send one, on the condition that I could keep a barf bucket at the ready, just in case I could contain myself no longer.

So, briefly:

“specific rules to master”    STRESSFUL

“foreign, boring, etc. & that is exactly why you need them.” 

Is that how he sold them to you?  Thanks, but no thanks.

Alright. *sigh* I told Steven I wanted to read the blog about one paragraph in his blog http://sashen.com/blog/62/you-can-have-anything-you-want-not/

“I can only hope that in the end you can enjoy the truly magical thing about the universe, that it’s WAY beyond our ability to comprehend, let alone control.”

I saw the look on his face, and immediately said, “Well, I guess I could write it,” he grinned and pointed back at me in that “you got it” kind of way.

Well, this isn’t that blog. But maybe next time.

Love, Ann

Every Time I Turn Around, Something Goes . . .

Right!

This is Me-Who-Does-Not-Write-at-Night doing it yet again!  That’s all Nat’lie’s fault! I swear that woman could get words out of a turnip. Speaking of words, did you know she said she doesn’t use the word, “spiritual?”  Interesting, isn’t it?

Well, the writing at night is partly to Nat’lie’s credit, but the lion’s share of the thanks for how I notice that Every Time I Turn Around Something Goes Right goes to the Anti-Guru, Steven Sashen, www.sashen.com/blog, for teaching me some really stupid obvious questions and thought-experiments and IAM Meditations, and stuff I call “The Shampoo Method – Lather, Rinse, Repeat.”

A lot of things have been changing for me this past month. I don’t remember ever being quite this clear or asking myself quite this many questions in quite the same way.

I’m asking questions about things I thought I’d never.

So far, I have questioned the following and found big whopping lies:

• Feng Shui
• Astrology
• Something can be “meant to be.”
• I/we/people are here to “grow” or “learn.”
• I/we/people should have a “purpose.”
• I/we/people can “do it wrong.”
• I/we/people have “blocks” we need to “overcome.”
• Anything Eckhart Tolle wrote.
• In fact, most spiritual books I ever read are full of lies just like the ones above.
• Even . . .  drum roll here . . . A Course in Miracles

Now, the books all brush past the truth in one way or another, but in order to sell, they seem to all include so many ideas that just don’t hold water.

In a slightly more personal vein, I’ve discovered that, contrary to prior (sometimes very loud and insistent) advertisment to the contrary . . . I am someone who . . .

• Writes at night.
• Has money in the bank.
• Knows how to “make” money.
• Can create a business.
• Can market herself and her services.
• Can wisely choose when to spend and when not to spend.
• Doesn’t need a “support group” or a “teacher” to know what to do.
• Doesn’t need to “talk before I know what I’m thinking.”
• CAN think in spatial terms and doesn’t always have to convert pictures to words. (That was a huge . . . something . . . I started to say “shock,” then I tried to say “surprise,” then I realized that it had been obvious all along and I’d been totally missing the obvious.)

In fact, let me take that out of parenthesis.

IT HAS ALL BEEN VERY, VERY OBVIOUS!!!

In addition, I . . .

• Moved out of a home I wasn’t comfortable in.
• Moved into a home I am far more comfortable in.
• Sold a car that was difficult and uncomfortable.
• Am in the process of buying a car that is easy and comfortable.
• Not in a relationship right now, which is far better than being in one I don’t want!

Now please don’t imagine there was anything “wrong” with my prior home, car or relationships. Paradoxically, there’s not. I loved that old 83 Toyota Corolla – green astroturf dashboard and all!  I loved the old roommate, the house, the cats, the times I had there. And I most certainly have loved all my relationships prior to now.

I cannot explain what this feels like. It’s a You’d Have to Have Been There. But that’s why I’m writing this. Piggy back on my experience, get a taste of this reality, try the Shampoo Methods. Read the Page on “Shampoo Method Instructions.”

Some of you reading this, whether you know me or not, are thinking, “Yeah, so?”

Well, that’s true. At the same time, it has changed everything.

I’ve been RePairing Opposites left and right. Err . . .   😉 (If you don’t know why that is hilarious, read the technique in any of the blogs or over in the sidebar under “Shampoo Method Instructions.”

Seriously. For example, I RePaired “going after things” vs. “things coming to me.” And now, nearly every time I think “I can’t  . . . blah blah blah” I have to check the other side of it, “I can. . . . blah blah blah.”

I’ve noticed that the following Turn Arounds are TRUER than my original lies (which I leave to the reader’s astute guesses):

• I’m a person who can start a business.
• I don’t get paid any more for being stressed while I’m working.
• I can do math in my head.
• I can tell what to spend my money on (This doesn’t mean that it always has a predictable outcome. It just means I can make a choice in places I was very, very unconscious.)
• Astrology disconnects me from my intuition.
• I don’t know how much money I’ll make this year, starting today. . . it hasn’t happened yet!

As far as money (and a lot of things) goes, I noticed that it really is a game!  God, how many years have I been reading this and thinking I understood?  That is not the same as understanding! For me, it’s like I haven’t been making straight A’s in something when all I have to do is go to do the homework. It’s not hard!  It’s easy!

I feel like I’m Teflon to lies and misperceptions, and I’m kinda blissed out on it.

Try it. You’ll like it. Or maybe not.  🙂

Love, Ann

“Success is a side-effect of clarity.”

                     – Steven Sashen, The Anti-Guru, www.sashen.com/blog

PS – Check this one out:  http://sashen.com/blog/44/we-are-in-the-matrix/  or any of the others!

 

 

Every Time I Turn Around, Something Goes . . .

Right!

This is Me-Who-Does-Not-Write-at-Night doing it yet again!  That’s all Nat’lie’s fault! I swear that woman could get words out of a turnip. Speaking of words, did you know she said she doesn’t use the word, “spiritual?”  Interesting, isn’t it?

Well, the writing at night is partly to Nat’lie’s credit, but the lion’s share of the thanks for how I notice that Every Time I Turn Around Something Goes Right goes to the Anti-Guru friend of mine, for teaching me some really stupid obvious questions and thought-experiments and IAM Meditations, and stuff I call “The Shampoo Method – Lather, Rinse, Repeat.”

A lot of things have been changing for me this past month. I don’t remember ever being quite this clear or asking myself quite this many questions in quite the same way.

I’m asking questions about things I thought I’d never.

So far, I have questioned the following and found big whopping lies:

• Feng Shui
• Astrology
• Something can be “meant to be.”
• I/we/people are here to “grow” or “learn.”
• I/we/people should have a “purpose.”
• I/we/people can “do it wrong.”
• I/we/people have “blocks” we need to “overcome.”
• Anything Eckhart Tolle wrote.
• In fact, most spiritual books I ever read are full of lies just like the ones above.
• Even . . .  drum roll here . . . A Course in Miracles

Now, the books all brush past the truth in one way or another, but in order to sell, they seem to all include so many ideas that just don’t hold water.

In a slightly more personal vein, I’ve discovered that, contrary to prior (sometimes very loud and insistent) advertisment to the contrary . . . I am someone who . . .

• Writes at night.
• Has money in the bank.
• Knows how to “make” money.
• Can create a business.
• Can market herself and her services.
• Can wisely choose when to spend and when not to spend.
• Doesn’t need a “support group” or a “teacher” to know what to do.
• Doesn’t need to “talk before I know what I’m thinking.”
• CAN think in spatial terms and doesn’t always have to convert pictures to words. (That was a huge . . . something . . . I started to say “shock,” then I tried to say “surprise,” then I realized that it had been obvious all along and I’d been totally missing the obvious.)

In fact, let me take that out of parenthesis.

IT HAS ALL BEEN VERY, VERY OBVIOUS!!!

In addition, I . . .

• Moved out of a home I wasn’t comfortable in.
• Moved into a home I am far more comfortable in.
• Sold a car that was difficult and uncomfortable.
• Am in the process of buying a car that is easy and comfortable.
• Not in a relationship right now, which is far better than being in one I don’t want!

Now please don’t imagine there was anything “wrong” with my prior home, car or relationships. Paradoxically, there’s not. I loved that old 83 Toyota Corolla – green astroturf dashboard and all!  I loved the old roommate, the house, the cats, the times I had there. And I most certainly have loved all my relationships prior to now.

I cannot explain what this feels like. It’s a You’d Have to Have Been There. But that’s why I’m writing this. Piggy back on my experience, get a taste of this reality, try the Shampoo Methods. Read the Page on “Shampoo Method Instructions.”

Some of you reading this, whether you know me or not, are thinking, “Yeah, so?”

Well, that’s true. At the same time, it has changed everything.

I’ve been RePairing Opposites left and right. Err . . .   😉 (If you don’t know why that is hilarious, read the technique in any of the blogs or over in the sidebar under “Shampoo Method Instructions.”

Seriously. For example, I RePaired “going after things” vs. “things coming to me.” And now, nearly every time I think “I can’t  . . . blah blah blah” I have to check the other side of it, “I can. . . . blah blah blah.”

I’ve noticed that the following Turn Arounds are TRUER than my original lies (which I leave to the reader’s astute guesses):

• I’m a person who can start a business.
• I don’t get paid any more for being stressed while I’m working.
• I can do math in my head.
• I can tell what to spend my money on (This doesn’t mean that it always has a predictable outcome. It just means I can make a choice in places I was very, very unconscious.)
• Astrology disconnects me from my intuition.
• I don’t know how much money I’ll make this year, starting today. . . it hasn’t happened yet!

As far as money (and a lot of things) goes, I noticed that it really is a game!  God, how many years have I been reading this and thinking I understood?  That is not the same as understanding! For me, it’s like I haven’t been making straight A’s in something when all I have to do is go to do the homework. It’s not hard!  It’s easy!

I feel like I’m Teflon to lies and misperceptions, and I’m kinda blissed out on it.

Try it. You’ll like it. Or maybe not.  🙂

Love, Ann

“Success is a side-effect of clarity.”

– Steven Sashen

PS – I wrote this 8 years ago. No idea why it wasn’t published then.

Dear Natalie

“I don’t write at night,” I told my friend as we left the Natalie Goldberg book signing a while back. But I was buzzed, high, tripping on having met Natalie Goldberg, the famous writing teacher and author of Writing Down the Bones, Wild Mind, Thunder and Lightening, The Great Failure,  and more.

“What Would Natalie Say?”

Yeah, I can hear her in my head now, just like I do with all the teachers I adore. I once totally gave up some jealousy I had been hanging onto for 5 years, just because I asked, “What Would Steven Say?” I’m sure the Anti-Guru hates that, and Natalie proably will, too. But they can just deal. Steven does and Natalie lives in New Mexico.

I know I am a teacher’s pet, a suck up and a total fan when it comes to teachers I love.

If Natalie Goldberg can stand in front of a room and tell us how she found herself at the end of a book tour, in a hotel, barely able to remember her name or where she was after all that traveling, petting a book, then I can ask “What Would Natalie Say?” God knows I’ve petted a lot of books myself. (Lately, World Without End by Ken Follet. Go to the bookstore and pet the pages of the hardcover copy and you’ll see why.)

I try not to be obsequious, but I fall totally in love with my teachers. Some would say it’s because words are my favorite love language. Unless you are talking to me, I do not know you love me.

Natalie said so many priceless things tonight. The shortest and pithiest was , “Go!”

That was always preceded by brief, outlandish instructions on a topic for writing practice. If you want to know what I mean, read Old Friend From Far Away. Go!

“I don’t write at night.”

“What Would Natalie Say?”

She’d say, “Talk about how you never write at night. 10 minutes. Go!”

Taskmistress.

That’s okay. That’s why we love her. I could not think of anything to ask that she had not already answered in her books. I don’t know if that’s good or bad and what’s the difference anyways? In fact, she cut most questioners off with “I know what you’re going to say” and proceeded to answer their question . . . correctly. Or to tell us where she answers that and in which book.

Jesus, if I’d been writing for 20-odd years, about writing . . . well, I don’t know, but she has earned that right. She can interrupt me anytime. But I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to ask about memoirs with incest in them besides hers in The Great Failure, but I can find those on my own.

She said, “I lost the whole Zen community over that one.” She went on to say it was painful and that she came through it as her own authority.

Somewhere in there she mentioned the phrase “loving what is,” and “inquiry,”  and made me wonder if she’s a student of The Work of Byron Katie. I don’t know. She talked about how through writing and through reading difficult books, we grow up. She talked about how a book can kill us.

Do you know that it was Natalie, and the writing practice she designed and popularized that got me writing these blogs? Go!

That and Tama Kieves, who offers supportive writing practice at her Freewriting Fridays in Denver, Colorado. Only with her, it’s “20 minutes. Go!”

God, you’d think they had the same mother. Oh, wait. They do. In a sense. They’re both of Jewish heritage.  Hmm.

I picture their potty training, their mothers looking at them on the toilet, “5 minutes. Go!” 

Here, from page 238 of Old Friend From Far Away:

“Tell me what is your anchor, what you trust and can come home to over and over in your writing? Go. 10 minutes.”

It’s 10:15 at night.

I’m writing.

I’m nervous about my upcoming move, but not that nervous.

What would Natalie say?

“Go!”

Love, Ann

Quotes from Natalie’s Book Signing Talk:

“I don’t use the word spiritual. I practice.”

“When people are in denial, they stay in denial. They’re not going to come out and read your book.”

“Build a spine.”

“You have to be willing to be disturbed to be a writer.”

“Cut through that. It doeesn’t have to do with other people’s needs. It has to do with how you live your life.”

Shampoo Series – Kabbalistic Marriage?

Good morning,

Jason Shulman, in Kabbalistic Healing, writes of the work of transformation from the perspective of briatic consciousness:

We need to think about this. We need to be brave so that we can go through to experience this God-given state of being that allows us to do the work of true transformation for ourselves and others, now seen for the first time as separate and not-separate simultaneously. We need to be able to invite Yichida, the unique, Intimate One, into our hearts and be fillwed with the glow of the undivided consciousness that God gave us to have and hold, married to it with our bodies and minds.

So began my morning.

Wolf, the man to whom I feel so married, whom I married in a labyrinth in October, and have been seeing ever since, has been incommunicado since Tuesday night. Friends and relatives are all worried about me, concerned, asking if I’m okay.

Good grief, Charlie Brown. I’m fine!

When I told Wolf, beloved that he is, that I would feel married to him even if he was in India with a harem, I meant it. This includes feeling married to him when he has not been in touch by phone, email or in person for 3 days. It didn’t suddenly change.

Shulman writes, also:

When you have a relationship with a husband or wife or partner, and both of you are completely devoted to this awareness, this holy work, then you are going to watch carefully the hologram of that relationship, and you will find that everything you need to know is there.

Yes!  So it is.

These are, in Katie’s terms, the Turn Arounds.

This is a link to Steven’s detailed instructions for Turn Arounds:

https://annojohnson.wordpress.com/turn-arounds-a-how-to-from-steven-sashen/

Here are some thoughts I have had about Wolf:

Wolf is distant.  Turn it around?  I am distant!  Well, duh.

Wolf is not speaking to me. Turn it around? I am not speaking to me.

   In what ways am I failing to communicate with myself?

Is there another turn around? (Of course, there are always several.)

I am not speaking to Wolf. 

Boy, did I find that one. At the time he hung up on me, I was not really speaking to him, I was upset and more speaking at him. 

Other stories I have been telling myself are even more interesting, just wait –

Wolf is having an identity crisis. I overwhelmed him with the Quantum Wealth worksheet on Sunday. I am a catalyst for him. Wolf could be dead or in a coma. He could be having a death and rebirth experience.

Turn Arounds include, but are most certainly not limited to:

I am having an identity crisis. I overwhelmed myself with the Quantum Wealth worksheet on Sunday. He is a catalyst for me. I could be dead or in a coma. I could be having a death and rebirth experience.

I have been up since very early this morning feeling into what these Turn Arounds mean for me. What is this situation showing me about myself? Where am I shut down or failing to communicate? Where do I think something is “too much for me?”

Death and rebirth are old friends. Is there anything to be afraid of? Well, no, and sometimes I don’t know that. If I have the thought Wolf is afraid of me, afraid of our deep connectedness and intimacy, what do I find in that Turn Around? I am afraid of Wolf, afraid of our deep connectedness and intimacy.

Well . . . duh.

I am afraid of me (Who else is there?) I am afraid of my deep connectedness and intimacy (with myself, with God).

I can find all of that.

I know Wolf and I have affected each other deeply. He is a catalyst for me, at least as much as I am for him. In sharing David Deida, A Course in Miracles, Quantum Wealth, The Work of Byron Katie, IAM Meditations, all of the things I discuss in this blog, I am re-learning it myself, re-membering it, bringing it more deeply into my awareness as I “teach best what I most need to learn.” (Sondra Ray and others)

God, I love Jason Shulman! I am blissed out after reading only a few pages of that book again.

I’ve never met the man, only his book and one of his students, who is my teacher and friend, Steven Sashen, and I feel so At One when I read Kabbalistic Healing. He says in the beginning that his book is a transmission, meant to be read over and over. God willing, I may write like that some day.

I feel deeply connected, married, to myself, and yes, to Wolf, and the world we share – even when we are not in physical contact.

I often repeat to him one of the central ideas of his Thelemic pagan practice: Do what Thou wilt is the whole of the Law.

I mean it, and so does he.

I suspect he knows that I am fine and either he will or he won’t get in touch.

Love, Ann

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

Shampoo Series – Sex, Bliss and Clarity

What if . . .

What if our desire for sex and orgasm is a built-in way to get us to relax and experience bliss, the peace of God and clarity of being at rest in that peaceful bliss?

In the same way that “Zooming in On Death,” the IAM Meditation from Steven Sashen, on which much of my Shampoo Series is based, brings us to a place  . . .

Well, let’s do it first.

Imagine you are dying.

It doesn’t matter how you got there. Could be an accident, a disease, whatever. Find yourself at the exact moment of death, the place of no return. Not one second before, not one second after.

Not when you’re still alive and might still live.

Not when you’ve died and you are seeing some thing that might come next.

Just the very precise instant in which you die.

(Steven describes this very clearly and guides you though it in his IAM Meditation CD’s or online – see the link to the right, if you want the full story and details.)

So, we’re going to “zoom in on death.”

At that instant of dying, what do you find?

Focus in on that, get into the tiniest segment of the tiniest moment of release – you’re dying.

Okay.

If you got some sensation, some awareness, how would you describe it? (Sorry, I’m not going to tell you what to experience. That’s for you to discover.)

Whatever you discover there, isn’t sex like that?

The French call it “la petite morte,” the little death,” for a reason.

Personally, I think Christ had it right, but the Christians, the church, lacking the experience and right-mindedness of Christ, got it backwards. Sex is one of the most powerful ways to find God. Of course, I could go all paranoid and imagine that the church knew this and wanted to keep it from the masses so they’d have the power.

*shrug*  Doesn’t matter. We can find the truth within ourselves in an instant. That’s what Christ taught – “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heavin is  – ” where?

“Within.”

Christ was a mystic – he had a direct experience of Spirit and tried to leave us some breadcrumbs to find that within.

That’s the real “secret.”

Not willfully trying to bend the Universe to our whims.

When you have done the IAM Meditation, “Zooming in on Death,” you may notice that no matter what, you win. Even if you haven’t quote, unquote, “gotten it,” by then, in that last instant of release, you win. You get the prize. You get the peace. You get the clarity.

Often, don’t we feel like that after an orgasm?

Isn’t our sexual drive one of the strongest there is? Isn’t it something we spend days and years of our lives pursuing?

Maybe it isn’t the girl or the guy, maybe it isn’t the marriage or the sex, maybe what we are really after, the thing that makes our sex drive so compelling, so relentless, is that it takes us to that very same place of release, peace, and clarity.

Who thought that up?

Who made it our deepest desire to get clear and peaceful?

What a brilliant fucking idea!

Love, Ann

Shampoo Series – Goal-Free Goal Setting is . . .

… like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.

To summarize, for 5 months, I had Paul proposing to me with every other breath, but marriage was not a good idea. He had had a crush on me for 35 years and I was kind of a rebound relationship for him after a 15-year marriage.

On October 13, in the center of my favorite outdoor labyrinth under the pines in Evergreen and with a stream flowing on the other side, Wolf vowed to love me forever. After the fact, we both observed that our words to each other and the altered space we were in (yes, like that high we get from IAM), we observed that our words were tantamount to marriage.

It wouldn’t matter if I never saw him again, we’d feel each other wherever we are. Now *that’s* a marriage!

What I’ve noticed is that I’m really married to everyone. They just don’t know it yet. (Yes, kind of a Katie paraphrase.)

Fascinating, isn’t it?

Love,
Stacy

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