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Thursday, April 30, 2015

4-30-15 Post: How do you cut yourself off from love?

Question/Comment: “What do you do to cut yourself off from love?”
I have been asked this question. What do you think about it? 

Response: I like to ask this and other similar questions of people in therapy especially therapy groups. The responses can be very revealing to the person answering.  Many people cut themselves off from love with anger and criticizing. It is a self protective mechanism. 

Many of these people were hurt as children by the adults they loved. Adults can be abusive to children by being angry and critical. Some of those children may grow up to behave in the same way to themselves and others.  The hurt child who did not feel loved, may feel unlovable as an adult and by hurting others can assure that they do not receive love and at the same time prove that they do not deserve love.

Many people cut themselves off from love by isolating. This might happen when a person has loved and been rejected or disappointed. By isolating or not allowing relationships with others, they intend to prevent having to feel the pain of rejection or disappointment. These people tend to become very sad and lonely.  As long as the person is isolating they are in a sense continuing to feel the pain from past failed or disappointing relationships and never fully recover.

Other people might connect on various levels with others and experience some types and degree of love but not allow true intimacy. For example, a person with a sex addiction can hook up with numerous people but never experience true intimacy.  Another person may be very busy with work, volunteer activities, family life, classes and so on but be too busy for true intimacy. This is another way of cutting one’s self off from love. 


Receiving love, giving love, engaging in true intimacy requires being fully present with another person. It requires setting ego aside so that genuine, in the moment responses can be given. True intimacy requires being in touch with one’s own feelings, and acting appropriately in the moment. It requires giving, receiving and a positive attitude toward self and others. It requires trust.

Monday, April 27, 2015

4-27-15 post: I am questioning myself on whether or not I have done the right thing with my life. I wonder if I have made the right decisions.

Response: What ever decisions you have made in your life, they were the best you could do at the time. If you consider things like your level of awareness, the information available to you at the time, your maturity, your life situation, and your ability to hear and follow inner guidance, you did the absolute best you could at every point in your life. An affirmation I  learned form reading Louise Hay’s work could be very useful here. “I prosper where ever I turn.”

At this juncture in your life, you can do your best to hear your inner guidance and discern what is best for you.  By considering what information you have and giving attention to what you feel, you can use a mixture of both in making decisions. Add courage and love for yourself and others, to the mix and head down a path. You can always re-decide later. There are many ways to meet your responsibilities to others and to yourself, while still following your path in life.

It is very important to not criticize yourself. It is very important to love yourself as you are and lovingly choose any changes you want to make to yourself or to your life situation. Another very powerful affirmation from Louise Hay is: “I’m in the right place at the right time doing the right thing.” This is an affirmation that I use often much to my advantage.  

Criticism is much too easy and familiar, but it is also destructive. Do your best to treat yourself and others gently and lovingly. By doing this, you set the environment that allows positive change and creativity. When you can gain perspective and look back, you will probably see what your life has been about and how each part led to another part and how the whole came together to be exactly what it was supposed to be.  The key is perspective. This may not happen until you have moved from this life into the afterlife, or you may be able to gain perspective even while living this life. 


Remember we are vibrational expressions of energy and energy never ceases to exist. Lovingly be your expression as best you can at each moment; assist others to be themselves as best they can.  Learn and improve constantly, gently and with pleasure.

Friday, April 24, 2015

4-24-15 post: Fear

Question/Comment: I think fear is a good thing and we need more of it. It is fear that keeps people from doing dangerous things and keeps people from being completely lawless.

Response: Fear can only exist were love and light or enlightenment are hidden. Where there is love, fear is not needed. Where there is understanding, fear is not needed. A person feeling loved and loving cannot intentionally do harm to self or others. Intentionally doing harm arises from a lack of love.

It is possible to practice sending out only loving thoughts toward others rather than reacting with fear, anger or other negative emotions. Acceptance is an extension of love and along with love is what every person needs. The younger the age when a person begins to receive love and acceptance, the less likely they are to live in fear and the more likely they are to be loving, accepting, productive people. 

Fear is often used for control by those who want power. In some religious traditions, fear has been used to make people think and act in certain ways.  A supreme being may be described who has been made into a terrorizing, revenge seeking, power hungry being who does not display love or acceptance. These types of beliefs keep people subservient and encourages people to give all of their personal power to those in control. It is a way to cut people off from direct knowing and entrainment with Source.

Fear is often used in the business and work world. Some examples of this are: people are taught to toe the line without question (no thinking or creativity or initiative allowed), to work long hours or the hours assigned to them, to accept what pay is offered, to work in unhealthy or unpleasant conditions, just so they have the privilege of having a job. Out of fear, people accept conditions that are harmful to them. Fear takes away courage, creativity, and the ability to take action.


If children were given the attention they need and taught to love and respect others, we would not need to teach them to behave just because of fear.  People who learn that they can provide for themselves and who are truly understand the harm they do to themselves and others by stealing, won’t steal. People who understand the pain they cause by violence to others will not act violently unless they have more pain than they can tolerate due to violence done to them.

Monday, April 20, 2015

4-20-15 post: Satisfaction

Question/Comment: I always have some goal, something I’m striving for. I’m never satisfied.  Is there something wrong with me? I don’t know if I have ever been just happy where I am at any given time? 

Response: Most people are not ready to stop in their tracks and coast for life after achieving some goal.  Goals make life interesting and lead us to create, learn and share.  The urge to find and accomplish a new task would seem to be innate in human beings. There seems to be a welling up within that leads us to pursue a goal. This can take many shapes and sizes.  

A founder of a small social group can be just as driven as a founder of a great charity. A world renown artist and a quiet small town potter can both be just as driven, just as inspired.  I would say, take the time to enjoy each of your accomplishments, large and small. Then let the next project well up within you.  As long as you are taking care of your responsibilities and yourself, why not pursue your goals?


Having a project can help keep your mind active, your creative juices flowing and your joie de vivre in gear.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

4-15-15 Post: Really Listening and Actually Hearing

Question/Comment: I frequently feel as if the person I am talking to is not hearing me at all. The responses I get seem like a “bounce off” from what I said or don’t really have anything to do with my statement at all.  I have wondered if I do the same thing to others.

Response: What you are talking about is very common!  People often really don’t listen to what others are saying.  They may bounce off the other person’s words with a flow of consciousness response or they may wait for the other person to stop talking and then just say what they want to say whether it is related to the first person’s topic or not.

This reminds me of how children play at various stages of development. At an earlier stage of development children do not play together at all. Later they engage in parallel play but don’t really interact. Later they play together but each still have their own theme.  Yet later they engage in group and team activities, but don’t really function as a team. Even later in development, they are capable of functioning as a team, engaging with team effort and team goals being primary.

Most people get a great deal of pleasure from talking and expressing their ideas and opinions.  We often have a sense of needing to win a conversation. We want to be right, or know more than the other person or know that we are being heard. We often feel a need to dominate the conversation. When we can put this type of behavior aside, and really listen, we can get to know another person on a deeper level and find out what they are really saying.  This does take more effort and energy.

Once we are aware of choice in conversation style, we are free to choose what type of listening we want to use. Do we want to know the other person, understand what they are saying? Do we want to give our attention, time and energy to the other person? Do we want to leave the conversation feeling important? Do we want this other person to go away from our talk feeling heard and valued? Do we want to spend time with this person again in the future? How important is it for this particular person to hear me clearly at this time on this topic? We each have to answer these questions for ourselves each time we engage in a conversation. To some degree, we do instantaneously ask ourselves these questions with each conversation from the briefest, “Hi, how are you?” asked in passing without expecting a true answer and without waiting for an answer to the long in depth conversations we have with a new love interest.


You can now ask yourself, which people you really want to listen to and who you really want to hear you. How important is it to you to feel heard and connected? If it is very important and you do not have anyone who will do this with you, you may have to find some new person or people to talk with. Are you willing to give this type of listening as well?

Sunday, April 12, 2015

4-12-15 Post: Mirrors and Entrainment

Question/Comment: I have been noticing that the things I am not proud of about myself, I keep coming across in others. I wonder, is it that prominent in my personality? Is this karma that I face the same things in others that I feel the need to change in myself? I feel sorry for the people who have to put up with me.

Response: Cut yourself some slack. Remember to love yourself and treat yourself as gently as you would treat a young child who is attempting to learn how to navigate life.  If there are things you want to change about how you interact with others and yourself, identify what it is and what you would like to replace it with.  When you find yourself feeling unhappy, angry, uncomfortable, take a look at what you are thinking. This will enable you to change your thought and recreate you situation as you are living it.

I do think that we find life and people and situations mirroring ourselves back to us.  Really, it can’t be any other way. We are vibrational beings call like vibrations to us. So, you don’t like what you are calling to yourself, change yourself...gently and lovingly.

As vibrational beings, we also experience entrainment. That is, when two different vibrations come into proximity with each other, each influences the other to change toward its vibration. They both change and together form a third, unified vibration or chord. Two examples of this in real life may help in understanding.  When two ticking grandfather clocks are side by side with their pendulums swinging at different rates, they will entrain after a while and swing in unison.  When three notes are played on a piano, say a middle C, an E and a G, they are heard as three separate sounds, but when played together, they entrain to form a cord and are heard as a different fourth sound.   

This is one reason to be mindful of how we spend our time, what we watch and what we listen to. Choose wisely.  Know that you will be influenced. Also, be mindful of how you are influencing others. Your thoughts about yourself and your feeling about yourself are also vibrations and will self-perpetuate and draw similar vibrations from outside yourself. So, be gentle, loving and accepting of yourself. Guide yourself gently in the direction you choose.


  

Thursday, April 9, 2015

4-9-15 Post: Worrying

Question/Comment: Is there value in worrying? Is it different from stress? If I don’t worry, how will I be motivated to get thing done? After all, I don’t clean house, pay bills or run errands because it’s fun. So, if I don’t worry, I won’t do anything.

Response: There can be value in worrying, if it is used as motivation and if it leads to positive action. Constant worry without relief and without action is not generally valuable. I suppose if a person wanted to torture or punish themselves then constant worry could be used for those purposes. If a worry comes to mind and the person takes action to alleviate the problem, or sets on a course of thought, research or exploration of how to make the worrisome situation better then the worry served a useful purpose.

Sometimes all it takes is writing a note to self or others about what action needs to be taken at what time. Then the worrying can be stopped. Of course, the note needs to be followed and the action it suggests needs to be taken so the next time a worry arises, the action of writing a note can alleviate the worry.

An example, of how a note can help a person stop worrying is: if someone awakens in the night and remembers an important action that must be taken before an important meeting the next day, writing a simple reminder note and placing it in a shoe that will be worn the next day can lift the worry and the person can go back to sleep. 

An example of taking action to alleviate worry can be as follows: if a person is worried about having enough money in life, then the person might begin thinking about what job or career can provide the necessary money. Once a career has been targeted, the person can research how to become qualified for that career and set on the course of obtaining those qualifications. The goal is reached one step at a time and each obstacle or hurdle is handled as it arises or can be projected to arise.


Practical action with follow through is always how to address worry. Using worry to spur a person on to appropriate action is a good way to make use of it. 

Thursday, April 2, 2015

4-2-15 Post: Paradigms

Question/Comment: I am really tired of people telling me that it is my own thinking and expectations causing me misery in my life.  I think I was born angry and anxious and no one can fix me. How can my thoughts cause a guy to yell at me on the street when he bumped into me?  How can my thoughts cause me to be over looked for promotion when the guys or a younger woman have all gotten promoted? How is my thinking causing my boyfriend to cheat on me? My father never got promoted at his job and he cheated on my mother all of their lives. This is just the way the world is and I don’t see that changing the way I think is going to fix it.

Response: We all have our belief systems, standard viewing stances, or patterns we use as a template for life. In other words our paradigms. We base our world views of those beliefs and every thing we experience is filtered through those expectations. Are people basically good? Are we generally liked? Do we think life is enjoyable? Do we appreciate the people in our lives? Are we grateful for our pets, our possessions? Every experience including every thing we see, hear, and feel is interpreted through the filters of our paradigms. Every reaction we have and even what we notice in life is at least influenced by if not determined by our paradigms. What we have called into our lives so far and what we are calling into our lives now and for the future is determined by our paradigms.

It may be in our best interest to notice our expectations, thought habits, and beliefs.  What is your feeling when you awaken in the morning? Do you feel comfortable, happy to be in the world, grateful? Do you look forward to the day with ease or with great excitement? Do you feel you have plenty of time to do what you want to do during the day? Do you want to do what you have planned? Do you have a plan for the day? Does the day include play?   

What do you expect of people? Do you know who you will see, talk to, work with to accomplish a task? What do you think it will be like? Will the other people enjoy your company? Will you enjoy their company? Do you expect to be able to accomplish intended task? Will you feel satisfied, relaxed, happy when you finish the task? 

Just notice who you are and how you go about functioning during the day.  How do you present yourself to others? Are you honest about how you feel and what you think or do you hide your true thoughts and feelings from yourself and others. The answers to these questions are a beginning to you getting to know yourself, how you function in the world and what you are calling to yourself. For what you expect is what you will get. Change what you expect and you will still get what you expect.  Only now you can consciously choose what you want in life. 

By getting to know yourself, you have the power to choose and to make changes if you want to do so.  You literally have the power to continue as you are, to make slight changes or to completely rewrite who you are.  What do you choose for your future? If you make a choice, and begin down that path but find that you do not like what you are calling to yourself, you can choose again.  Nothing is “set in stone.”

If you choose to make changes to your paradigms, changes to your life and changes to what you call to yourself, you do not have to hurt others in the process. I am not suggesting sweeping changes in who you interact with, who you have personal relationships with or how you earn your living.  If those aspects of your life need changing, that is for a different forum and if you need counseling, that is not what this blog is for.  Most importantly these suggested changes are not suggesting that you abandon children or people who need you or in any way act recklessly.

The changes being suggested here are about internal change in thinking, expectations, points of view and what you call to you in your life. More than likely as you exude love and appreciation for yourself, your life, the people and things in your life, your relationships and life itself will become increasingly better and happier. There may be some people who will not be able to tolerate your happiness, success and gratitude. But, if you go about your self improvements quietly without bragging or trying to force others to change as well, others may not even notice or may only see that you are a happier, healthier person.  Then if someone asks how you have done it, you may choose to share your process with them, but only as long as they want to hear. 

It is important to not spend your momentum or scatter your focus by telling people what you are working on until you become very adept at the new style of thinking and changes you are making to yourself.  Keep your focus on your task, seek out teachers or therapists who can help you on your path and keep on keeping on no matter what. Use any situation in your life as impetus to continue and view everything from your observation point. Notice how are you reacting, what you are expecting, what you would like to keep the same and what you would like to change? "The game is a foot" as Sherlock would say. Enjoy!