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- Uncategorized (5)
Life Happens When Your Busy Making Plans…
13/10/2010 by admin.
You know what they say, “the best laid plans…”, “time and unforeseen occurrence”, “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” and like the title says “life happens when your busy making plans”. I felt strongly to write about this, not just because we had some life changing news recently that have altered some of our life plans but, because some ‘spiritual books’ just don’t seem to cover it. As much as I think The Secret, Louise Hay et all are brilliant philosophies that show that thought creates so it’s best to foster a positive attitude – they also don’t always cut it. Yes we can work towards limitless thoughts however by definition of being human we come with restrictions attached. In spirit we are limitless, abundant, all knowing and can live in bliss and harmony so we come to earth to learn. So by definition if everything on earth was tickety boo and a blissful limitless time – what exactly are we learning? I’m not now going to advocate the virtues of ‘beautiful’ suffering as Mother Theresa alleged to but I also want to blow the cover off setting unreal expectations. Do I think you can obtain wealth, have a nice house, meaningful job, fulfilling leisure activities, great car and holidays – yes of course you can work towards and have an expectation of achieving these things. Do I think you can rely on good health, meeting Mr/ Mrs Right or have a great marriage, a happy family, have children or expect healthy children? Hope for it but don’t rely on it. Its right to aim for these things but you can’t expect it to turn out like that. Humans have free-will and set themselves life lessons or challenges, although you may want to or even try to change that, the fact is you can’t. As humans its frustrating to not have control over how life pans out for our nearest and dearest (and sometimes how our health goes) but that comes with the terms and conditions.
I recently read a booklet aimed at parents of disabled children that had a really inspiring analogy. It goes, “I thought I was going to Paris. All my friends were going to Paris and I thought that’s where I was going, too. But I suddenly found I wasn’t in Paris. I was in Amsterdam. I didn’t want to go to Amsterdam. That wasn’t where I’d set out to go. But now I’m in Amsterdam and I’m looking around, and Amsterdam is different to Paris. But actually it’s quite beautiful in its own right.” Life will inevitably throw you a curve-ball from time to time. It’s up to you if you want to make lemonade out of the lemons. As Sandra Bullock said, “I used to be an optimist. Now I know that nothing is going to turn out as I expect, although often its better.”
My advice for the dispossessed, disenchanted or just generally disheveled? You’d be surprised who else is in the same boat - and even if it seems like the titanic know your in good company and that company would like to point out that there are life-boats that some others have missed.
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Reconcilliation of Incarnation
17/05/2010 by admin.
I don’t often get to read as much as I would like to just for pleasure but I did finish a book recently that really resonated with me. It was about a lady who does past life regressions who had one guy in who regressed to alien lives and went in to detail about other ways of living and how the earth was set up and perceived by others. I know not everyone currently accepts the ET hypothesis but it was fascinating and intriguing. What resonated with me the most though was how this man who was her subject felt at the end of the book. It felt like a treatise for the sensitive and mis-understood.
I have first hand experience of this personality trait and remember well the confusing emotions I had growing up and as a young adult. The intensity of the world was quite over-whelming and I remembering feeling like a fish out of water. I felt that I was from a different universe to the rest of my close family (though I’m not claiming any ET origins) and I found the confusion, pace and interactions in modern-day life quite overwhelming sometimes. Up until about the age of about 30 I had always felt apologetic for my existence. I was the black sheep or the quirk. I had such divergent beliefs to my close relatives that I was often ostracised. I found it hard to gel with people in society and became, isolated, confused and cynical. I worked hard to obtain a ‘sensible’ career earlier on believing that was a real job. However I eventually realised that even if job I was doing sounded altruistic that I spent most of my time paper shuffling and achieving nothing profound in life or society terms. So after a lot of challenges a journey of personal discovery, found the benefits of this trait and how to manage its challenges. I finally stopped fighting against myself and found the acceptance I really wanted – acceptance of myself and this life I have chosen.
This led to starting to work this energy a constructive way. I always knew I was hyper-sensitive to energies and could connect to them but I learnt to manage this in a safe way to enhance life rather than feeling I should suppress this side of me because it challenged me. Today I am engaged in spiritual work and what a blessing that vocation is. I have the opportunity to give an insight to help people enhance their journey. Perhaps I’m still not changing the world on a dramatic scale but I still hold the hope that if there are people out there sprinkling light around then the 100th monkey syndrome should at some point lift the consciousness of society to make it more balanced.
For the young man in this book how he felt after his regression sessions compared to before really interested me. It reminded me of the end of the film Trainspotting where the main character basically said yes to life. This insecure, reclusive man who had difficulty forming relationships ventured out in to the world to make these connections. So rather than shying away from life due to fear of rejection he embraced his incarnation. I will quote the part that really clicked with me below;
“Do you think these sessions helped explain where those feelings of uneasiness came from?”…
“Yeah, I think that’s true. I think it explains why I felt the dis-ease and the unfamiliarity. The high ideals I hold for myself, I hold for other people. And it really discourages me to see people being very prejudiced, very short, very… thieving and murdering and killing, all this stuff going on in the world. It used to really bother me. And I would use that as an excuse to say, ‘I don’t want to be here’. Because this is just not the kind of a world that I want to be in. I want something more orderly, cleaner, more stable, more in harmony. what really hurt was that I found I wanted to be like everyone else. And so I would start doing some of the things that I disliked in other people, to appear normal. I always felt I had to in order to fit in. And that only added to my feelings of isolation and confusion and frustration…’
….”Because you were trying to go against your basic character.”…
…” I think I was afraid of myself, afraid because I didn’t know myself. I was afraid to let anyone near me because I didn’t know myself. I was afraid to let anyone near me because I didn’t know what I wanted. And I think I was also afraid of getting hurt. But now, I am starting to understand myself and I am beginning to see that I can find some things about myself that I can like. I don’t have to be afraid or think I am different or odd because I can see that I am not much different from everyone else. My problem was that I was expecting too much out of life. I was expecting it to be here just like it is over there. And I was always disappointed when I would see life not live up to my expectations…’ “I realise that now, I was expecting more out of this life than I should have. Now that I know, it makes the disappointments a lot easier to take because they aren’t so personal. I discovered everyone feels the disappointments. I’m not the only one. This is just part of this existence, just part of being human… I know now that everything’s going to be all right.”
Keepers of the Garden, Dolores Cannon
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Trust
07/05/2010 by admin.
I had a lovely chat with a lady today in which we talked around some of the more spiritual aspects of trust. As a baby we are born with abdominal breathing – you will see a tummy rise and fall when a baby breathes instead of the chest in an adult. This breathing is taught in different modalities are diaphragmatic breathing or pranic breathing etc. There are various theories which revolve around the idea that this is the correct way to breathe- it somehow helps to release stress and bring new energy in to our bodies. So why do we unlearn this positive trait?
As a parent it is all too easy to want to keep our children safe by putting boundaries around them and telling them what not to do. However perhaps this act is what patterns us in to believing that we can’t be safe. We know psychologically that the patterns we learn as children formulate how our worldview is transmitted in adult life. I have found myself as a parent say to my young ones things like ‘all good things come to an end’ when they complain after the ice-cream runs out. Afterwards I then realize that I’m teaching them that good things don’t last - which don’t have to be true. So more and more I find myself leaving things open ended to find balance. Our early experiences and societal influence really contribute to how we disconnect from faith and trust in life from an early age.
With enough faith and trust we can turn the impossible to I’m possible. We have all heard anecdotal experiences of people who have overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to achieve a goal they really set their mind to. Even Jesus said that with enough faith you can move mountains (I’m not of any religion btw but just really familiar with the bible which does contain certain gems). Certainly one of the best gifts we could give to ourselves is a reconnection to the idea that we are an infinite being who can tap in to unlimited resources.
I thought I would also mention some thoughts about the election. The election was cast on the 6th of May. Numerologically 6 is the number of balanced responsibility. So the fact that there was no clear winner and that with a hung parliament there is the prospect of the main parties going to have to find common ground to govern therefore make concessions. This is extremely fitting as power is a big responsibility and works most constructively in balance. So rather than demanding power and imposing will, for the first time in this generation the government may well have to display tolerance and a commitment to work together for the common good.
When I was younger I knew a counselor who introduced a startling concept to me. She told me that I am only responsible for myself (apart from pets and children). So how does that fit in with balanced responsibility and working for the greater good? Again it all comes down to how we project ourselves. If we have a warped or inappropriate world-view we project that on to others. If we are tired, burnt out, depressed, stressed we are unlikely to have the reserves to help others - because we aren’t helping ourselves. When we run ourselves down we are less likely to emanate positivity to others than if we are firing on all four cylinders so to speak. They say if you smile it spreads around to others - the inverse could be true also. After the 10th scowl of the day it’s enough to dampen the most positive mood. By reconnecting to ourselves and becoming more whole we start to see how we put stuff out and how we take on board other peoples stuff. Then we can really see negativity for what it is – a choice. When we aren’t entire negativity can seep in like a sponge.
I recently read a channeled book that included information about how other alien cultures perceived us. It said that this planet had the most fear and lack of trust and that it would be a hard energy for other cultures to be around as they weren’t used to this concept. Some cultures had complete faith and hadn’t experienced the level of disconnection we have. It was a concern that mankind should work on this before meeting other cultures as it could be considered an energetic ‘disease’ that could spread. Fear and lack of trust opens the doors to the issues that we project the fear about. Having the faith and trust that can surmount all obstacles opens the door to that happening too. (Of course this is a bit of an over-simplification but I will revisit this in more detail in another post.) So the biggest favor we can do in these changing times is to believe that balance and positive changes are tangible, possible and arriving fast! Lets elect to create a greater connection as a humanity to this possibility (which is wanted by the majority) in order to bring it in to reality for the greater good.
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Its all a matter of Perception
04/05/2010 by admin.
“He who find what he wants makes in general a good school exercise; intent on what he wants, he often neglects signs, sometimes minimal, which indicate something else than the object of his attention. The real researcher must pay attention to signs which reveal the existence of unexpected phenomenon.”
Louis Leprince-Ringuet 1901-2000
I have recently started making inroads in to a De Bono book that I had put off reading. He uses a good analogy to describe the use of intelligent thinking. Think of intelligence as the horsepower of a car and the thinking is the operator. You could have yourself a Ferrari but if the driver was poor then the driving would not utilise the capability of the vehicle and could possibly be a danger to others. However a profession driver who drives even a under-powered car can get good performance out of it. If you watch Top Gear think of the Stig driving the reasonably priced car round the track. It seemed it was a bit like someone who was an excellent artist but who didn’t realise they needed glasses. How many hues and detail would they miss?
Why is thinking not talked about as freely as popular culture? Many people start eye-rolling when you discuss how people tick or how they project to the world et it so fundamental to what kind of life experience we have. In the De Bono book he also mentions GIGO which in computing used to mean garbage in garbage out. I used to get this concept a lot when working with a particular invoicing system in an office. If I didn’t have all the detail input in a particular way I wouldn’t get invoices out that made any sense. You formulate a viewpoint that seems totally valid based on your observations and yet it could only be half the picture. I remember a lecturer at uni telling me about a study the cigarette company Malboro allegedly did many years ago. The study showed that people who smoked Marlboro had a prolonged life expectancy. How can this be the case? If you take a cross-section of people on a better income/ lifestyle level who smoke against a cross-section of people who are poorer and have an inferior level of lifestyle it who don’t you can make it look like the smokers live longer as you haven’t factored in the environmental effects. Half information can produce contradictory evidence.
When perception is limited we can have flawless logic but the end result of thinking will still be inhibited. This is the basis of many a faux pas! This drew my mind to something I read a few months ago about the Canadian Prime Minister phoning Gordon Brown to commiserate on the death of previous Prime Minister Thatcher. Mr Brown didn’t know what Mr Harper was on about. This was because when one of the delegates at his conference got a text to say Thatcher had died it was referring to a pet rather than the ex-premier!
We base most of our thinking on the critical or judgement framework. It’s easy to see why we do it as a society. Someone has a viewpoint or a way of doing something and we disagree, become critical and destroy their notion with our logic. In the short term it’s gratifying as we get to be right and exert our superiority. We also also get to stay within our comfort zone. The mind naturally seeks out what’s comfortable and safe, which is why it creates patterns, so it can move in a tried and tested manner. Unfortunately this safety net has also entangled many a person who has to move forward in a new direction. Many a business has ended when the market changes and it doesn’t. How often have you met someone with a dogmatic view of how it is who won’t try and accommodate any information that would allow it to expand in to balance? I often ‘let people get on with it’ if I can see they are particularly spirited about some information they are giving me as I realise that the emotion has overtaken the logic so therefore rationalising is out of the question. I once remember meeting some ladies from a baby group for a social event and one telling me that the council estate I lived near had had the roughest families in the
Unfortunately judgement inhibits free-thinking and expansiveness. Its not easy to deliberately direct attention in one direction after another when prejudices have been decided about what you feel about this. Is it any wonder that most light-bulb moments/ epiphanies appear outside of focused thought? Being open minded is less gratifying as it takes longer (if at all) for people to see your point of view & there’s no ego kick of being right or safety of the comfort zone. Some people think that thinking expansively would make everything too open ended. However if everything was the same for everyone we would be a collective not a society. We live in a multi-cultural and multi-faceted society so we are already put in to an opportunity to expand should we wish to. Most the problems come from a lack of meeting in the middle or being able to perceive shades of grey. “When those unaccustomed to speaking are heard by those unaccustomed to listening, then real changes can be made.” (Smith, 1998)
Apathy is the death of creativity. With apathy you can complain about your lot in life but not have to do anything about it. Putting up with an adequate life or a slightly inadequate one prevents taking action to create a more effective way forward. Many are afraid to look for alternatives for fear of the extra hassle that may be caused. When we won’t even look we remain trapped in a self made jail with no choices. Alternatives offer us a key to move forward. Without possibilities we wouldn’t have breakthroughs in technology. Very often the obvious alternative is elusive until someone else suggests it. Also many don’t even realise there are alternatives – they don’t see the wood for the trees until they begin their voyage of self discovery.
Once perception is directed in an area it cannot help but see and once seen something it can’t be unseen. Illumination can only enhance our journey.
Discussion with others may not always provide the insight we need that is learnt in actually doing. With our critical thinking some bright spark will have an idea they want to explore and then people line up to take pot shots at it to ‘warn’ them of dangers etc. Like a parent would tries to keep a child from a nettle patch for their own good are we limiting trying for fear of being stung. One way of looking at this is how do you know what it is like being stung unless you have received one? Perhaps getting the odd sting is worth it to reach the meadow? If it isn’t you will only do it once! I’m sure some people would jump up and down about this notion – and what about playing next to a road I can hear them say. People get caught up in the exception that proves the rule as again it’s not hard and fast. Many want to say your wrong, that’s a given and now I can feel satisfied and go back to the way it was. There are many good arguments designed to maintain limitations. If you always do what you’ve always done you will always get what you’ve always got. The balance is that you need some judgement to discern but you also need the possibilities in the first place to learn.
Some simply can’t conceive without experience and aren’t motivated to look unless they see something better. To be truly objective about our lives and to admit that yes we may not know it all and could be fallible does take a certain amount of bravery. Many people through the mechanism of arrogance or a need for safety will defend rigorously defend their world-view. If you know you are right and can out-argue others who disagree then why explore the matter further? What’s better someone confidently driving down the wrong road or someone who stops to examine the map and plan the route? Why not get in to fire prevention rather than putting our fires as they arise? Next time someone is dogmatically telling you how it is rather perhaps you could see that really they are saying I’m scared and I need a crutch. Even an angry person is basically in fear. Incidentally I have met many a spiritual person who claims to be non-judgemental but aren’t. They often say it isn’t spiritual to get angry. Yet didn’t Jesus get angry when he went in to the temple and made a whip and turned over the tables of the money lenders?
Emotional colouring is often a factor that over-rides perceiving new avenues. People see the world through their own colouring comprised of how they view their past, present and future and how their health is at the time. I would say a depressed person would see the world through grey tinted glasses and sees the darkness. A more optimistic soul sees the light – the fact that every grey cloud has a silver lining. There is always light and dark in this world. Our culture is one that sees things in polarities. This is why people in the public eye are put on a pedestal and later pulled down again. People initially see the light in this person and then when they see the shadow behind it then they can only perceive the shadow and not the light they saw earlier.
I tried out some expansive thinking when some Jehovah’s witnesses visited the other day. I have quite an insight in to their beliefs so I used to enjoy them coming round and being able to unpick their belief structure. This time round even though I talked through their viewpoints and added in mine I still managed to find common ground rather than feel gratified by the intellectual superiority of proving them wrong. As Rabbie Burns said ‘Persuade a man against his will and of the same opinion he will be still.’ The divine is in everyone – who am I to judge the way they want to learn? The truth is ethics and modes of thinking do change over time. Cultures have certain moral codes that are challenged from time to time, defended and then give way to new ways of thinking. There are infinite ways of living and learning and we are but a drop in life’s ocean.
De Bono’s 2nd law – ‘proof may be no more than a lack of imagination’.
Or
My karma ate your dogma.
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Adversity is just truimph working against you!
22/04/2010 by admin.
I’m finally back on blog and thought I’d start on an uplifting note! I know we live in a fast changing society and I once read a book that says “we live in the worst of times and the best of times”. Yes there are great polarities but its also a matter of where you put your perspective today - which radio station have you tuned your dial to? Do you have the white noise of worry about what you or others haven’t acheived or obtained? Or have you managed to tune in to a more harmionous channel where you can start to recogise the acheivements and gains that you and others have made even if its just having the ability to read this ramble! Life can be challenging for all of us sometimes and as my dad used to say its easy to forget that you came to drain the swamp when your up to your neck in crocodiles! But whatever life presents to you a ‘can do’ attitude will open doors whereas pessimism & self doubt will close doors creating obstacles. Perseverance is the key to enlarging abundance in whatever area you are working on. The answer may not appear as you expect, and there may be a sequence to get to the attainment, but there is always a way of creating a way forward if you have enough self belief, grit and determination.
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