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.”