Beloveds,
I had two days of semi relief, where stressors continued to come up yet I moved through many rings of fear and actually had a lovely day on a field trip with my daughter's class to a lake at about 6500 feet (2200ish meters). I really wanted to go on this trip as for so many in past years I was too exhausted to even consider going. I had signed up to chaperone when I learned the road was too rough for me to feel comfortable driving my car. Due to limited space it seemed I would miss the trip. I offered to drive someone else's car yet considered this rather far fetched. I stayed in surrender and non attachment and at literally the 11th hour was offered a new car to drive. Then I had to overcome my fear of driving another's car on such a rough road and my fear of feeling too depleted to hike at such altitudes I moved through both fears and had a joyous time of gratitude and deep appreciation for my daughter's teacher, the school, the students and the parents This is a group joined in intending the highest good for their children and it is a magical combination for which I feel deep gratitude We actually moved to the area primarily for the school. Now perhaps rather ironically part of my discomfort this morning comes from another aspect of this school and any school which for me can be summed up by saying the mind is valued much more then the heart but I'll leave that for another day.
I woke up today with a pit of fear in my stomach, tension at the base of my neck and across my shoulder blades, intermittent tension at the base of my spine and some negative thoughts from my fav hit parade such as not again, enough, it will never end. Yes, I know how destructive those thoughts are. So I am again taking the medicine of feeling it and loving it, best as I can. I am seeing how so many are now facing their rings of fear. I felt like the lone ranger when i got dumped into a pit of terror overnight in 2009. I knew of no one else facing so much fear and I knew nothing about 5D or ascension or anything else. I know part of my sadness and discomfort is seeing so many face huge challenges, deep fears, big problems now. I see the deer in headlights look often. With so much occurring internally and on the global stage, it is no wonder. It is way easier to deal with POST traumatic stress disorder then on going stress with no end in sight. To live in a time predicted for millennium to be a tumultuous time, to have no escape including death (that leads to its own backlash) what to do? Believe me, i went around the world twice looking for an easier way. It is easy to love this fear when i get immediate relief, to then say of course, yes. But when the challenge remains for decades, finally is released and then reappears at unpredictable intervals, it is a whole other story. This is my dance with anxiety and I know the same is true for many of you dear sensitizes. I wish i had a better answer to offer, something you could try once and be free. Sorry, just not true. I must also share that I experience and witness miracles of connection, love, support,— encouragement, beauty. This too is so much more prevalent then I have ever witnessed before.
Yes, I am totally aware this is a time to bring all limitation and fear to the surface for clearing. Yes, I understand it has gone from an elective to a required course. Yes, I know that untold freedom lies on the other side and yes, i have tasted that freedom too many times to turn back. Yet that does not stop me from landing in a pit where I want out and I don't want to pay the price of feeling it anymore. I really get how there is a violence to trying to let it go, trying to feel better, trying to accept and allow when i just REALLY don't want to. So I will reprint the entire article that gives me the freedom to just stop, stop trying, stop forcing my experience to be different then it is. This for me is deep surrender. I was told by someone i respect and honor that I was still trying. For the love of God. Now i had to stop trying, stop controlling? I have let go of so much and not surprisingly many of the things I let go of are showing up like community. I yearned for community all my life and now it is showing up more then ever and from no effort on my part, just others calling me, invitations. I seem to have moved from social pariah to welcomed guest in a short period. I understand the isolation phase served my soul's growth, brought gifts and was never personal. I truly get that. I also have let go of trying to control the fulfillment of my deep desire for a heart soul, body mate and can deeply trust, without trying, all is well. I get that it is my fear of survival, of making it financially that keeps me stuck in trying/control mode concerning bringing in income. I know there is a huge lesson, gift here. But it is one thing to get it in my head, another to know it in my heart. Since i can't force it (damn it) I will just be with all of the mess and do my best to love that. That i never forget and sometimes I can actually feel it, this vast tenderness and appreciation for myself. More often it feels like an old Catechism lesson being repeated by rote but that is ok. I will just keep loving the part of myself that wants to jettison this dark, gorgeous, beautiful, wonderful, crazy planet and love that aspect of myself in my bah humbug way that is currently the best i can muster. Anybody identify with this? Rereading this I feel the violence of even trying to muster a different response. Ok if you don't cause i know enough to love myself, whether anybody agrees with me or not. I know my challenges are so much more then some born without such a sensitive nervous system and much less then others with more sensitive systems or greater challenges. And that too is ok. I let go of my trying to let go of trying. Oh yea, that's what so this Saturday morning.
DON'T RESIST YOUR RESISTANCE
If you're trying to 'let go' of something uncomfortable in your experience, if you're trying to release it, give it up, surrender it, dissolve it, 'be with' it, accept it, you've probably already unconsciously rejected it!
You are only trying to 'allow' or 'accept' or 'be with' the pain so that it will go away, disappear, die, never return. You are longing for the death of your present experience. There is a violent agenda there, disguised as 'spiritual practice'.
Can you see that your attempt to 'release' this moment is really an act of resistance, a rejection of life, a NO to the moment as it is?
Instead, begin where you are.
Instead, acknowledge that the pain is here.
Validate, honor sanctify the present scene in the movie of your life. Don't try to rush to the next 'pain-free' scene. Get intimate with this scene, the only scene there is right now.
Acknowledge, too, that an urge to be free from the pain is also here. Don't pretend that it's not.
Know yourself now as the wide open space of awareness in which BOTH of these life-movements are appearing — the pain AND the longing to be free from the pain, the discomfort AND the search for its resolution, the burning questions AND the search for the answers.
Know that both the pain AND the longing, both the discomfort AND the ego's resistance to it, are ALREADY ALLOWED in this moment. They are already valid expressions of life, welcome visitors in your vastness, waves in your great ocean. You don't have to 'allow' them in - they are already in. Your allowing or non-allowing, as I often say, is already 'too late'.
You cannot 'do' acceptance when you ARE acceptance. Forget about trying to allow this moment, and simply notice that this moment is already allowed.
Give up trying to give up! Let go of trying to let go! Allow yourself to not be able to allow at all! Accept your inability to accept! Lose interest in resisting your resistance! Surrender your attempts to surrender!
This is the gentle way, the way of no-way, the way of grace.
- Jeff Foster
I had two days of semi relief, where stressors continued to come up yet I moved through many rings of fear and actually had a lovely day on a field trip with my daughter's class to a lake at about 6500 feet (2200ish meters). I really wanted to go on this trip as for so many in past years I was too exhausted to even consider going. I had signed up to chaperone when I learned the road was too rough for me to feel comfortable driving my car. Due to limited space it seemed I would miss the trip. I offered to drive someone else's car yet considered this rather far fetched. I stayed in surrender and non attachment and at literally the 11th hour was offered a new car to drive. Then I had to overcome my fear of driving another's car on such a rough road and my fear of feeling too depleted to hike at such altitudes I moved through both fears and had a joyous time of gratitude and deep appreciation for my daughter's teacher, the school, the students and the parents This is a group joined in intending the highest good for their children and it is a magical combination for which I feel deep gratitude We actually moved to the area primarily for the school. Now perhaps rather ironically part of my discomfort this morning comes from another aspect of this school and any school which for me can be summed up by saying the mind is valued much more then the heart but I'll leave that for another day.
I woke up today with a pit of fear in my stomach, tension at the base of my neck and across my shoulder blades, intermittent tension at the base of my spine and some negative thoughts from my fav hit parade such as not again, enough, it will never end. Yes, I know how destructive those thoughts are. So I am again taking the medicine of feeling it and loving it, best as I can. I am seeing how so many are now facing their rings of fear. I felt like the lone ranger when i got dumped into a pit of terror overnight in 2009. I knew of no one else facing so much fear and I knew nothing about 5D or ascension or anything else. I know part of my sadness and discomfort is seeing so many face huge challenges, deep fears, big problems now. I see the deer in headlights look often. With so much occurring internally and on the global stage, it is no wonder. It is way easier to deal with POST traumatic stress disorder then on going stress with no end in sight. To live in a time predicted for millennium to be a tumultuous time, to have no escape including death (that leads to its own backlash) what to do? Believe me, i went around the world twice looking for an easier way. It is easy to love this fear when i get immediate relief, to then say of course, yes. But when the challenge remains for decades, finally is released and then reappears at unpredictable intervals, it is a whole other story. This is my dance with anxiety and I know the same is true for many of you dear sensitizes. I wish i had a better answer to offer, something you could try once and be free. Sorry, just not true. I must also share that I experience and witness miracles of connection, love, support,— encouragement, beauty. This too is so much more prevalent then I have ever witnessed before.
Yes, I am totally aware this is a time to bring all limitation and fear to the surface for clearing. Yes, I understand it has gone from an elective to a required course. Yes, I know that untold freedom lies on the other side and yes, i have tasted that freedom too many times to turn back. Yet that does not stop me from landing in a pit where I want out and I don't want to pay the price of feeling it anymore. I really get how there is a violence to trying to let it go, trying to feel better, trying to accept and allow when i just REALLY don't want to. So I will reprint the entire article that gives me the freedom to just stop, stop trying, stop forcing my experience to be different then it is. This for me is deep surrender. I was told by someone i respect and honor that I was still trying. For the love of God. Now i had to stop trying, stop controlling? I have let go of so much and not surprisingly many of the things I let go of are showing up like community. I yearned for community all my life and now it is showing up more then ever and from no effort on my part, just others calling me, invitations. I seem to have moved from social pariah to welcomed guest in a short period. I understand the isolation phase served my soul's growth, brought gifts and was never personal. I truly get that. I also have let go of trying to control the fulfillment of my deep desire for a heart soul, body mate and can deeply trust, without trying, all is well. I get that it is my fear of survival, of making it financially that keeps me stuck in trying/control mode concerning bringing in income. I know there is a huge lesson, gift here. But it is one thing to get it in my head, another to know it in my heart. Since i can't force it (damn it) I will just be with all of the mess and do my best to love that. That i never forget and sometimes I can actually feel it, this vast tenderness and appreciation for myself. More often it feels like an old Catechism lesson being repeated by rote but that is ok. I will just keep loving the part of myself that wants to jettison this dark, gorgeous, beautiful, wonderful, crazy planet and love that aspect of myself in my bah humbug way that is currently the best i can muster. Anybody identify with this? Rereading this I feel the violence of even trying to muster a different response. Ok if you don't cause i know enough to love myself, whether anybody agrees with me or not. I know my challenges are so much more then some born without such a sensitive nervous system and much less then others with more sensitive systems or greater challenges. And that too is ok. I let go of my trying to let go of trying. Oh yea, that's what so this Saturday morning.
DON'T RESIST YOUR RESISTANCE
If you're trying to 'let go' of something uncomfortable in your experience, if you're trying to release it, give it up, surrender it, dissolve it, 'be with' it, accept it, you've probably already unconsciously rejected it!
You are only trying to 'allow' or 'accept' or 'be with' the pain so that it will go away, disappear, die, never return. You are longing for the death of your present experience. There is a violent agenda there, disguised as 'spiritual practice'.
Can you see that your attempt to 'release' this moment is really an act of resistance, a rejection of life, a NO to the moment as it is?
Instead, begin where you are.
Instead, acknowledge that the pain is here.
Validate, honor sanctify the present scene in the movie of your life. Don't try to rush to the next 'pain-free' scene. Get intimate with this scene, the only scene there is right now.
Acknowledge, too, that an urge to be free from the pain is also here. Don't pretend that it's not.
Know yourself now as the wide open space of awareness in which BOTH of these life-movements are appearing — the pain AND the longing to be free from the pain, the discomfort AND the search for its resolution, the burning questions AND the search for the answers.
Know that both the pain AND the longing, both the discomfort AND the ego's resistance to it, are ALREADY ALLOWED in this moment. They are already valid expressions of life, welcome visitors in your vastness, waves in your great ocean. You don't have to 'allow' them in - they are already in. Your allowing or non-allowing, as I often say, is already 'too late'.
You cannot 'do' acceptance when you ARE acceptance. Forget about trying to allow this moment, and simply notice that this moment is already allowed.
Give up trying to give up! Let go of trying to let go! Allow yourself to not be able to allow at all! Accept your inability to accept! Lose interest in resisting your resistance! Surrender your attempts to surrender!
This is the gentle way, the way of no-way, the way of grace.
- Jeff Foster
Whew! Trying to wrap my head around that one. Reminiscent of Tara Brach's "Radical Acceptance" but seems to go beyond that. I'm sure I'm not helping myself by resisting, but is hard not to. (Much easier to say "dammit" than "I love you" or "God bless you" to my pain and/or anxieties. Perhaps the naps help?) But I'm trying....and I so appreciate your sharing!
ReplyDeleteGlad your adventure worked out so well.
Darling, I know it took forever to get this. I suggest first doing it by rote and eventally this deep compassion and sweet tenderness pops in occasionally and oh so delicious when it does. Love the part of yourself that would rather say dammit then i love you. I too love the radical forgiveness and this stuff is slowly sinking into my heart; have to stay out of the story that i am the slowest kid on the block with this wholing experience, i know it is not true, hang in there
ReplyDelete