It is a wintry day again. For the time being, I have abandoned the riding of my Airdyne in the chilly barn for walking on a treadmill in the warmth of the community room.
My least favorite part of the winter weather is how I brace against it. The whole body tenses up, and the seconds to walk in from the car are endured, rather than enjoyed.
I have never understood that, as I am a January baby I should love winter weather, right?
This morning I read this marvelous quotation from Each Day a New Beginning, by Karen Casey: “We can serve one another best, never by commiserating with sadnesses, but by celebrating life’s challenges. They offer the opportunities necessary to our continued growth.”
One friend said goodbye to her pet bunny rabbit (of 14 years). Friends are supporting their daughter through a recent diagnosis of stage 3 colon cancer. Many have lost loved ones this year. Our own family is celebrating the holidays one brother short. Life has its challenges.
Here is a certain truth for meeting all of life’s challenges from Neale Donald Walsch: Nothing changes the environment like one person deciding to love another, no matter what.
I used to have a “Dinner will be ready when the smoke alarm goes off” refrigerator magnet. This evening the smoke alarm went off here in the tiny house but I was not burning dinner. I was burning a piece of paper in Frankincense and Dragon’s Blood Resin to release an ancient pattern of guilt, anxiety, and emotional pain older than my body.
Most people know of the ancient healing powers of Frankincense. Dragon’s Blood also has wonderful healing properties. It is often used for protection, power, and good fortune, and to dispel negative energy.
The negative energy dispelled tonight goes way, W–A–Y, back. I was first aware of feelings of sheer terror in October 2011 while I was in Europe. I had been under stress for days before the evening in Switzerland when my “resting” heart rate of 103 was recorded for 30 minutes on my HeartMath emWave2.
I have told very few people of my experiences in Europe, but I did spend three months writing about it a couple of winters past. Having heard parts of the writing, one of my Florida writer colleagues gave me this sage advice, “It is okay to go ahead and write it as a memoir, to get the emotions out. But publish it as fiction. People will have difficulty accepting your experiences as fact but they will eat this story up thinking it is fiction.”
The paper I burned today was a representative of all 75 pages of my “Twelve Days in Europe.” I am too practical to print 75 pages to burn. That would be a waste of resources. Intention is powerful and my intention tonight is that everything inappropriate has gone up in smoke.
In the process, charred into the piece of paper was a heart.
The paper became a chimney, not burning but instead funneling the smoke into dancing images that were truly mesmerizing, amazing, and beautiful.
After the resins were burned completely, I lit the paper. The ashes fell neatly into the rainbow abalone shell. After they were cooled, I went out into the cold night and scattered them onto the earth.
The holiday season is a time when we do a lot of giving and receiving. One gift I received was enjoying lunch out with Jane Foster. Jane had 22 malignant tumors on her liver when her surgeon closed her up in 1999 and told her he could not keep cutting on her. He said she needed to, “Find a holistic healer.” I’ve included a link to a video interview with Jane in 2011 at the end of this post. She lights up my life…
Jane has discovered she loves horses and I was blessed to gift Jane with one of Amy Midnite Remisoski’s adorable Pine Pony wreaths.
Jennifer Louden’s Self-Care Minder, Year 2, #29
November 30th, 2001
SELF-CARE MINDER
It’s holiday time. Do you know where your soul is?
Have you asked soul what she wants to do and feel during this month? Can you give her lots of time to respond (a thirty-second check while in line at the bank doesn’t work so well with soul)? And after asking, would you be willing to honor what she has to say?
Here’s an excerpt from the Self-Care Minder written this time last year:
This is such a tender, heart-open-wide time of year. Simple things like the blood orange and lime yellow leaves wiggling outside my window and the sound of our heater coming on bring tears to my eyes. A deep yearning to nest, to deeply connect with those I love, to know soul comfort as well as I know the curve of my daughter’s smile, simmer in me.
A spiritual longing breaks through the surface of my life and catches my heart. It is a radiant song that I can’t quite hear the lyrics to. I want to stop and listen but instead I find myself emptying the dishwasher, sweeping the floor, sorting Aunt Edna’s silver.
Perhaps the barrier between this longing and our daily lives grows thinner during the holidays. All that is required to cross the border is courage and stillness, and perhaps a friend for support.
We are entitled to “to feel ourselves beloved on this earth” as the writer Raymond Carver wrote shortly before his death. Yes, dear ones, we are.
I asked my daughter what she wanted the holidays to look like and she said, “Games like hide-and-seek and sleeping giant and everybody just being together, and you know, I would like just a few presents.”
How strong and sincere it feels to be living soulfully during these days of darkness and glitter, yearning and connecting. What does that mean specifically? To live soulfully, I am: Stopping and pausing OFTEN to ask, “What do I really want to do?” Questioning every “I have to” especially the ones that seem so IMPORTANT. Watching for bodily sensations of feeling hurried, panicked, or pressed upon, and using these sensations to wake me up to what I’m thinking and doing, and is there another choice I would rather make?
Basically, I’m learning there is no real reason to be freaking out over when or where to buy the Yuletide tree. Reminding myself the only thing that really can’t be replaced is time with those I love: my 82 year old Dad, my 7 year old daughter, my sister, my mom, my husband and you know, they just want peace, laughter, and a little sleeping giant game once in awhile.
I’m letting the rest go, gently, gracefully, and with a good guffaw at all my shoulds.
Fortunately we don’t have to wait for a health crisis to discover what our sweet soul wants. A bit ago I received a text message from Jane. “I want to write a book. Because I’ve been on this journey for 30 plus years, I think I can inspire others.”
Like Jane’s, my sweet soul wants everyone to Imagine Healing!
Thanksgiving means different things to different people. This year, I am thankful for more than most.
So many people I love are navigating challenging situations; adult children passing with cancer, living with addictions or with those with addictions, recovering from surgery, and money stress (or lack of money stress). At the root of all of these lies FEAR.
In essentially every situation, fear is not ideal, and religions offer many warnings.
Of course, those who recognize we live in an inclusion-based universe realize that telling yourself not to be afraid can be counterproductive, given that sometimes it is not even your fear.
This week while in Tennessee for Thanksgiving I was blessed to visit with a good friend who is a Nurse Practitioner. She is also a healer. She knew immediately that I had picked up some attachments, and this was the cause of the anxiety-driven elevation in blood pressure I have been experiencing.
My initial exposure to spirit release work was in Healing Touch, through Kathy Sinnett, and a very small book, The Unquiet Dead by Dr. Edith Fiore. Her work was studied and performed (and published) by William J. Baldwin in a very big book, Spirit Releasement Therapy: A Technique Manual.
I was fortunate to be trained by Robert and Caterina Pellegrino-Estrich as well.
One suggestion my friend made is to notice when you are feeling anything other than good. Depression, addictions, chronic pain, fatigue, anxiety. These are all symptoms that might be appropriate for spirit release work.
Caterina says spirit release is the first therapy to be done regardless of the presenting problem. Kathy Zerler says if you treat everyone you meet as someone who is in pain you are probably treating them right. Perhaps this is true about energetic attachments, too.
I work in this field and I had missed my own state of attachment. I certainly feel better today.
What else might be possible as you take responsibility to clear your energy field….
Steps to Spirit Release Work and Soul Retrieval
Opening ritual from Angel Gail Konz:
I am the light
The light is within me
The light moves throughout me
The light surrounds me
The light protects me
I am the light!
Addressing the attachment with genuine love and desire for well-being for all:
You died and you don’t have a body.
Your being attached to hurting me and it is not good for you.
There is no hell. All that awaits you is a wonderful light body.
Look for the light. Beings that love you are welcoming you so we can both be free
We all deserve to be free. You are loved. Go now….
You will sense this release, maybe seeing or hearing confirmation as well. Immediately begin to call your spirit back from this time in childhood. You might imagine picking a bouquet of flowers or gathering a basket of fruit or any metaphor that allows you to claim all of your own genuine parts. Others can have their own…
Closing ritual:
I release all energy that does not belong here. I release all karmic responsibility and obligation in and around this work, knowing the work comes from our expanded self and God. I give thanks for the many blessings, above all the honor and privilege of serving.
Last evening I attended my brother-in-law’s wedding. He has been a care-giver for many years for the woman who is now his wife. The hospice spiritual care coordinator performed the ceremony. Theirs is not young love, and the decision for them to marry is not something everyone will understand, but it is precious none-the-less. When I crawled into a warm bed last night yoga was the only thing on my calendar for today. As I moved into my day, however, opportunities popped up. Like the pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope, my schedule has kept moving and showing me life and love.
I was able to have lunch with my dear friend and her two young children. Her son will be two in December and her daughter is almost three months old. You can imagine how wonderFULL her life is!
My afternoon was spent sharing with a colleague in the healing arts I met for the first time today. It was tender to appreciate one another and to witness the divine movement that brought us together. She understands the privilege to work with another. As Ram Dass says, we are all just walking each other home.
This evening I will share a letting go ritual with a mom and her adult child who is in hospice care.
As I let myself notice, it is obvious that everything that occurs in our days is an unfolding of the highest interest of all.
This morning I watched a video talk by Mary Reed, author of The Unwitting Mystic. I think I would have noticed the unfolding anyway, but I appreciated Mary’s starting my day with that expanded awareness. This afternoon I also watched a video where Mary led a box exercise about our attention and shifting out of mind constructs. She says to put all of our thoughts (including all of our past, fears, beliefs, memories, etc.) into a box so we can let our mind be in service to and in partnership with Divine Love.
Our precious life can be lived not wanting to be where we are and not wanting to feel what we are feeling. Mary says Mooji tells us to find that place which is effortless at rest within itself and be one with that. It would be marvelous if we can all slip into this place as easily as slipping into a comfortable pair of jeans or listening to a favorite piece of music.
It was raining here again today as I was out-and-about. I observed how I had a choice to resit the rain or just notice that the wet and the wind was cold against my face as I had a judgment: uncomfortable. My body contracted. From my meditation practice I remembered simply to note aversion.
Grateful for that awareness.
Grateful for the opportunities to be present in my own life.
Grateful for teachers and learners.
The phrase, “We are each a single piece of glass in a kaleidoscope” keeps coming to my mind. We are not together by chance. We are not fastened together. Life is not some random shaking of the glass. Purpose and meaning are inherent in everything, and the placement of each piece and the subsequent shifting yields yet another beautiful view.
May all beings come to the end of suffering.
Here is a photo of the sweet little one I was with today:
Some of us are fond of saying “the devil made me do it” when we’ve done something we’re not too proud of.
We might as well say “the ego made me do it” because the ego is our own personal “devil.”
In God’s Care by Karen Casey
I certainly experienced that devilish ego on Friday. I have been privileged to spend time with my nephew as he is stabilizing being a contributing member of society following time incarcerated. Old patterns revealed themselves in unwholesome ways as I pulled tightly his financial reins I had been recently entrusted to.
Casey says, “Sometimes we like to claim that we weren’t in complete control of our actions, that we were overcome by an irresistible urge. We can’t, however, say that with a clear conscience. At one time in our addictive past, maybe, but not now. Now, we can be responsible. An urge can overcome us only to the extent that we let it – only as we give it the power of believing in it.”
Ego would have us believe we (or others) are weak, vulnerable, without what we need. Believing these lies can make us afraid. Ego makes us afraid. I was feeling very afraid.
Even thought I was feeling afraid, I was afraid for him, not afraid of him. Nonetheless, the way I know ego had taken hold and I was in fear not love is that my blood pressure shot sky high.
Another quotation from, In God’s Care, “We have a choice. We can listen to the voice of our ego or the voice of God. How can we tell the difference? By how we feel. The ego’s urgings always leave us with some misgivings. God’s guidance assures us.”
To help me begin to listen to the voice of assurance, I put my feet in some warm water, grabbed my earbuds, and tapped through her Surrogate Tapping Meditation with Jessica Ortner.
(Note: If you are new to tapping or want a reminder, the locations you will be rotating through with each phrase as you tap along with Jessica include: (1) the karate point on the side of your hand, (2) the point where your eyebrow begins, (3) the point where your eyebrow ends, (4) under your eye, (5) under your nose, (6) on your chin crease, (7) along your collar bone, (8) under your arm, (9) and on the top of your head.)
Please only do this when you are sincere about saying, “I infuse this situation with love… I let go of my need to control… I infuse this situation with hope… I have faith that there is a greater good behind this situation… Nothing needs to be fixed… Everything is working in a greater order… This person has inside what they need… As I see their gifts and power, they begin to see that themselves… This is a blessing in disguise… As I laugh in the presence of darkness, we are brought into the light… As I smile in the presence of darkness, we are all uplifted… Even though I perceive this situation as a bad one I have faith that there is a greater good behind this… I live in my truth… The truth that I have the power to transcend any situation… The truth that others have the power to transcend any situation… Even though I have judged this situation, I deeply and completely love and accept myself… This person has what they need… I have what I need… I have faith that this person I love will do what is right for them… The outcome is greater than I could have ever imagined…”
I am breathing myself into the present moment as I wait further news of the journey of my nephew, David. This morning something happened at the house in Allegan and he may not be staying there after tomorrow. He already has permission to go back to the Mission in Holland where he knows he will be safe. (See Google Maps and 70×7)
Needing to breathe yourself into the present moment may be new to some people, but it is definitely not new to this recovering disembodied spiritual bypasser. I need to regularly remind myself, “My breath in my body, my body on the ball, my fingers on the keyboard (or in the car or on the bed).”
From The Dharma of Dogs: Our Best Friends as Spiritual Teachers:
I noticed how unselfconscious she was—steeped in the present moment, attentive to her surroundings and needs—and, of course, how she acted instinctively. If she wanted something, she went for it. If she didn’t like the vibe, she walked away. If something startled her, she shook it off. If someone approached her too fast or broke her (or my) boundaries, she growled at them and guarded me. She didn’t second-guess herself. She didn’t temper her natural responses or worry what others might think. She did what she did. She was what she was. And if other people or dogs didn’t like it, so be it.
These were vital teachings for me, not only because I was a disembodied spiritual bypasser—someone who uses spirituality to escape the human experience—but also because I was a good girl, ultra-polite, a people pleaser.
I mentioned Tina Williamson’s blog 5 Masks We Wear and Why We Should Take Them Off in a sermon given at St. John UCC in New Buffalo, Michigan, on Sunday, October 29, 2017. The Mother Teresa mask is the “Nice” Persona. Think about this as the instruction on airplanes to put your own oxygen on first in the event of an air incident. Honoring your own genuine needs is the only honest way to truly love and be there for others. You are no good to anyone if you’re drained and depleted. Taking off the Mother Theresa Mask is the beginning of self-love and it is within your reach. We break the people-pleasing habit, one moment at a time, breathing into the present moment.
Dogs and cats (and all of nature) are essentially grounding our energy fields. Pet’s are pure, positive energy. I am a huge cat person, rarely meeting a cat I can’t love, as you can see in these photos of me with Zeus.
Today especially, I am grateful for grounding into pure, positive energy.
I am not sure who the spiritual teacher was that first told me whatever message you receive for another, realize the message is for you first. That message or lesson or truth also applies to the other, but it is for YOU. Perhaps it was something learned in Ryan Elliott’s L-O-N-G intake form for hypnotherapy. I do recall hearing it from Angel Gail Konz. This morning I had opportunity to remember it again!
“Don’t we all want to be needed?” It was a rhetorical question via text. A follow-up to a our earlier conversation.
“Maybe not,” I wrote back. I could instantly see it related to Sunday’s sermon coming up. I recall how clear I was that this week’s talk was to be new: I was not to give the one I had recently shared in another church. “Let’s talk after dinner,” I responded before sending her this:
The Recovering Hero Proclamation
I have no need to save others.
I have no need to rescue others.
I have no need to outshine anyone.
I have no need to out-think, out-perform,
out-produce anyone – including myself.
I do not need to know anything.
I do not need to be an expert.
I do not need to fix anyone, or any change anything.
I do not need to dazzle, impress, or inspire anyone.
I do not need to be the hero of my own story.
In truth, I am organic, evolving, and fallible.
I allow things to unfold naturally, and I trust the flow.
I joyfully accept and experience my humanity.
I need nothing.
All already is.
Blessed be.
~Aaliyah LivingWell
aka Gina Dawn Gavaris
GeneratingLove@aol.com
www.GeneratingSolutions.org
I kept working on the sermon, adding this teaching from Aaron:
A more wholesome attitude might be rather that an initial ego intention, ‘I’m going to save the world,’ we start with the loving intention to see how we can dance with others and with the Earth and with spirit to co-create deeper peace and well-being for all sentient beings. We invite ourselves to be open and listen, to be guided, rather than having the ego dictate, ‘No, it should be this way.’ When you do this you find there truly are no limitations.
I looked again at the original writings on the Drama Triangle and added this to the sermon notes:
In 1968 Stephen Karmpan wrote an article about the Drama Triangle. On this triangle are three interconnected roles: Victim, Rescuer, Persecutor.
A Rescuer often gains great satisfaction by identifying with their care-taking role. They are generally proud of what “helpers” and “fixers” they are. Often they are socially acclaimed, even rewarded, for what can be seen as “selfless acts” of caring. They believe in their goodness as chief caretakers and see themselves as heroes.
Behind it all is a magical belief that, said out loud, might sound like, “If I take care of them long enough, then, sooner or later, they will take care of me too.” But, as we’ve already learned, this rarely happens. When we rescue the needy, we can’t expect anything back. They can’t even take care of themselves – much less be there for us!
This morning, an extended time in meditation allowed me to bring to mind the opening line I had keyed in for the sermon: People want to be helpful, to be useful. We have ways of being helpful and useful that are more wholesome than others.
F!A$#
Something clicked and I could see how hard I had been pushing her to experience something other than what she was experiencing. I had been doing the same thing I was trying to get her to stop doing.
Forgive me, Dear One.
When others seem to me to be in internal conflict or when conditions are difficult or “others” are caught in effort rather than trust, I am being lovingly invited to totally trust God in all of life. As I remember that grace moves through all of our days I am able to relax and breathe and let go.
As my fingers fly across the keyboard right now a dear friend is meeting to set up hospice care for her mother. My friend has had a history of white-coat syndrome—she has been very fearful of all things medical.
This is part of an email message I sent to her:
What comes to mind is that hospice is not-hospital, and not-medical, as it is truly more spiritual. In the way of loving release, the information and the service is about how to keep your mom as comfortable as she can be for as long as God gives her. Even with everything I knew (and all of my first-hand experience with people passing), the morning my mother-in-law was dying I asked Hospice to send someone out to help guide and support me.
God was so involved in all of that. The hospice nurse that came was named Stacey, the same as my daughter. Stacey was kind, she was competent, and she was explicit in explaining things to me in a way I could understand.
Once I knew what I needed to know (the physical signs and processes of the soul preparing to leave the body) I was able to help the rest of Mom’s family be at peace with what they were seeing.
I reminded my friend the focus of today’s meeting is not her but her mom, and not about her mom’s dying, but about her mom’s living as comfortably as possible for as long as possible and then going to Heaven.
Many have shared similar stories of the wonderful state we call “Heaven.” Many have told of angels who guide, support, and protect us.
Heaven is beautiful and one thing you can be sure of—the universe is friendly. If you need more proof of that fact, let me know if you might enjoy listening to a talk I gave at Pilgrim Congregational on October 15, 2017: “Universal Recovery.”
I wish we had recorded the last song. Imagine arms waving in the air singing….
It has been a truly amazing week. Put yourself in the backseat of my vehicle last Friday as I left Saint Joseph before dawn, and drove to Holland to pick up my nephew. We then drove to Allegan, from Allegan to Grand Rapids, from Grand Rapids back to Holland, from Holland back to Allegan, and then I drove back to Saint Joseph. I was reminded of how we would go for walks in the neighborhood with grandson Bradley when he was little. We made everything an adventure. We were not just walking, we were celebrating life.
Last Friday, my nephew and I were not just driving, we were sharing moments and making memories.
I have been thinking a lot about the gifts we get when we give.
I have also been thinking about the gift of our vulnerability.
My nephew and I ate apples. “Honeycrisp are my favorite,” he cooed.
We munched on almonds. “Oh, I love almonds,” he announced.
We crunched Chinese cracker/cookies and he compared them to the texture of pork rinds. “Do you like pork rinds?” he asked.
If you have never seen it, you may want to watch Brené Brown’s TED talk “The Power of Vulnerability.” Here are some of her words:
There was only one variable that separated the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging and the people who really struggle for it. And that was, the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they’re worthy of love and belonging. That’s it. They believe they’re worthy. And to me, the hard part of the one thing that keeps us out of connection is our fear that we’re not worthy of connection, was something that, personally and professionally, I felt like I needed to understand better. So what I did is I took all of the interviews where I saw worthiness, where I saw people living that way, and just looked at those.
They fully embraced vulnerability. They believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful. They didn’t talk about vulnerability being comfortable, nor did they really talk about it being excruciating — as I had heard it earlier in the shame interviewing. They just talked about it being necessary. They talked about the willingness to say, “I love you” first … the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees … the willingness to breathe through waiting for the doctor to call after your mammogram. They’re willing to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out. They thought this was fundamental.
We were so long at the Secretary of State we were late for his doctor appointment, and while we were not successful obtaining his license at that time he has it now! We knew we were going to be late, so we called. When we got there I explained everything we had been through that day to get to the doctor and why my nephew really needed to be seen that day. I also told them I know how difficult it is when someone is not able to be on time. I asked them to please do what you could.
As we waited, we watched a baby.
We were late for that, too, but after my nephew saw the doctor we made it to his job interview! He is still in the running for that job, and we are grateful and also for a couple of other solid opportunities.
We finally got lunch at 5:05 pm. I know exactly what time it was because we missed happy hour at Arby’s by five minutes. I splurged for a Jamocha Shake anyway. As we ate, we marveled at all we accomplished that day and how much fun we had together.
Brown observed another significant aspect of those who were willing to be vulnerability:
And so these folks had, very simply, the courage to be imperfect. They had the compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others, because, as it turns out, we can’t practice compassion with other people if we can’t treat ourselves kindly. And the last was they had connection, and — this was the hard part — as a result of authenticity, they were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were, which you have to absolutely do that for connection.
Tomorrow morning I will go back to Allegan. I will take gifts of bedding and towels and dishes and a coffee pot. People have been generous and we are thankful. We might again go to Holland, I don’t know for sure yet. Where ever we go, it will be an adventure.
This evening my nephew said, “I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”
I told him repayment for kindness is never necessary. I suggested he just hold his gratitude in his body and say, “I am so grateful I can feel my heart full to overflowing.”
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