Anne
I’ve just finished reading Broken Open – How Difficult times Can Help Us Grow, by Elizabeth Lesser, a co-founder of the Omega Institute – the world’s largest center for spiritual retreat and personal growth. The book is a collection of stories about people going through change and transformation arising out of those deep and painful times.
Broken Open came into my hands just in time. I’d received a copy of my sister Louise Nayer’s soon to be published memoir, Burned, about our early and difficult childhood. It’s been a very emotional experience for me and I’ve been happy to have Broken Open to help me stay awake during a difficult time.
“Fiasco and failure visit each one of us, as if they were written into the job description of being human. I’ve seen people crumble in times of trouble lose their spirit, and never fully recover. I have seen others protect themselves fiercely from any kind of change, until they are living a half life, safe yet stunted.” – Elizabeth Lesser
There’s a third way to deal with fearful change and painful loss, which she calls The Phoenix Process, named for the mythical bird who remains awake through the fires of change, rises from the ashes of death and is reborn into his most vibrant and enlightened self.
That’s what I’m after! I want to rise from the river of tears that have been unleashed, looking back. We have all gone through change and have been very afraid. We have all experienced the loss of a loved one, a job, a relationship, a pet, a home. We have drowned in tears and sucked it up and carried on as if nothing happened.
This time around, I want to do something different so I’m going to see my sister’s book as an opportunity to put the phoenix process into action in my life.
As I read about myself as a child I know that I could say, ” water under the bridge, everything worked out, stop crying” and not dig deeper and finally feel those painful feelings. I can see how not feeling them has kept me stuck.
I’m excited. I feel like the phoenix process will open my heart, make me more expansive, fuller, better able to be there for myself and others – with love.
I’ll keep you posted and appreciate your comments.
Frog Prince at night
Prodigal Frog Prince
I went out on my deck one might last week and glanced under a small round table to see a big fat frog half hidden under a broken piece of cobalt blue pottery. He was a fine specimen: prince material I thought, smiling. So much so that I got my camera and took a couple of close ups. He didn’t blink an eye and sat stone still.
A couple of days later, I was cleaning the deck and threw out the little pool of slimy, green water. And then I thought “Oh No! that little stagnant pool was probably his HOME and I just destroyed it! He could have happily eaten the green slime growing in that mini pool. I felt badly that I had totally not been thinking of the frog.
Which made me wonder what and who else I am totally not thinking of right now or anytime. Not because I want to add more pressure to my life, but because I’d like to expand my vision to include all this cool stuff (like frog princes) and become more sensitive to how my littlest action can have such a big impact.
We are such clumsy beings walking the earth now that the dinosaurs are gone. Every time we take a step, or dig a trench or clear land or even dust, we are impacting and often destroying some ecosystem that we can’t even see, aren’t aware or don’t think is important.
We clean up our kids’ rooms not realizing that we have ‘cleaned up’ some little universe in progress. We say something without stopping to think and everything changes. We are bulls in the china shop that is the world. There is always a ripple effect and once we grasp the impact we have with our littlest actions (and with our thoughts), we can intervene. When we realize we are not being mindful, we can breathe, pay attention and move forth with wider eyes, more listening ears, a softer touch and a compassionate heart.
I was happily surprised this morning when I went out on the deck and saw that my Frog Prince had returned. He has taken up residence in his spot under the piece of blue pot and, because it has been raining, it is once again filled with water. Welcome Home.
Under The Boardwalk – The Drifters (click here for your listening pleasure while you’re reading this post!)
I just finished “Live at the Beach” my 4 part teleseminar. The Hot Topic this week was “Under the Boardwalk – Love and the Law of Attraction. I wish you could have been there – great conversation, high energy and lots of aha moments. Putting it together helped me be clearer about the main ingredient of a harmonious, loving, successful relationship.
Even though it’s hard to stop blaming the people, places and things in our lives for derailing and keeping us stuck – it is so much more liberating and productive to stop being victims, to take back our power and make changes on our own internal hard-drives.
First we have to become aware of and clear our negative beliefs about relationships. These beliefs (ex: long term relationships NEVER work out, he’s only wants one thing, she only wants one thing etc…. fill in the blank with your own limiting belief here_____________….) make it unlikely that our relationships will be happy and successful.
We so often look for another person to ‘save’ us, think they will complete us and make our problems vanish. Especially when we’re not feeling so great, we look outside for someone to make us feel better.
Abraham reminds us, “It is never possible for another person to behave sufficiently or consistently enough to keep us in balance. That’s our job. If you can accept that when you do not feel good, that it is no one else’s responsibility to bring you back to feeling good, you will discover the freedom that is essential to your maintenance of personal joy.
Wow! I’m all about personal joy and spreading it around and getting plugged in using my law of attraction tools and processes. I want to be all about tapping into my inner guidance system as a navigational tool. I know that how connected I am to my own source energy (God, higher power, intuition, gut feelings etc..) tells me how connected I am in my relationships with others. How we treat others is how we treat ourselves.
When we have our own power sources and we come together with another person who is plugged into their power source, it’s for the purpose of co-creation. It’s not about fixing one another but of creating something new.
So the paradox is that the main ingredient of a happy, healthy, loving relationship is our own connection with source energy. It’s an inside job. If we can get lined up inside, the outside will be a grand reflection and it will be good and make us all smile from the inside out.
Obstacle filled street in Greece
Pave the road smooth. See the bumps, potholes and mirages “interesting.” Check them out as if you have never seen them before, as gifts. Go slowly. It is truly astounding how we create our own obstacles to enjoying the journey. The rock in the stream (the difficult boss, the physical limitation) is not the obstacle. It’s how we fear them, paddles around them, panic, crash and burn, spurn and spend ages beating ourselves (or the rocks) up.
Such intractable creatures are we. We’d rather lug around our overweight baggage and live within the templates that we have accepted as “us”. We make excuses as we go, “That’s just the way I am.” “I’m always a basket case when it comes to (fill in the blank)…” “I always have a hard time…”
I have come to see dithering and worrying as a colossal waste of precious time when we could be enjoying or, at least, not resisting what is going on.
Sometimes I get a glimpse of how things might look from a broader perspective. I smile, shake my head and am bemused. We bumble along, tumbling toward happiness. It’s hard for us t grasp that, like Abraham says, ”we’ll never get it done and we have all the time in the world.” We might as well relax and enjoy.
See obstacles as opportunities – even if it’s the opportunity to sit, down, hydrate and have another look/see.
We all love it here - Tompkin's Sq. Park on a Sunday summer afternoon
“Your life is right now! It’s not later! It’s not in that time of retirement. It’s not when the lover gets here… Your life is right now. It will always be right now. You might as well decide to start enjoying your life right now because it’s not ever going to get better than right now – until it gets better right now!” – Abraham
We all suffer from the “when my ship comes in syndrome.” We live in a goal oriented, insurance run world that keeps selling us on futures, convincing us that we’ll be happy once we buy or achieve this, that or the other thing. Our happiness is often short-lives as we proceed to wanting somethings else, as well we should. Desire is what makes the universe expand – it’s what we were put here to do.
How can we enjoy our “now” when things are not ideal ( the bank account is low, we don’t like our jobs and aren’t happy with our relationships) ? How does enjoying ‘Now” set us up for the fulfillment of our desires? A paradox?
The only reason we ever want anything is that we think it will make us feel good. And the best way to be a vibrational match for something that will make us feel good is to FEEL GOOD NOW.
Appreciation and gratitude are fail proof tools for feeling good and flexing our manifestation muscle. They are to manifesting what curls are to bi-ceps.
Last summer I went on a pilgrimage walk in France. I walked for 11 days and stayed in a different hostel each night – all as unique as the villages, hosts and fellow pilgrims I met at each spot. My friend and I developed and cultivated a mantra that we said upon arriving at each new place: “WE LOVE IT HERE!” And we did. We looked around and found things to love – always. I have continued the tradition and this summer when I spent 10 days in NYC (my home town) and 10 days on a little island in northwestern Maine – I said I LOVE IT HERE, everywhere. And I did.
When “I love it here” where ever I am, I know that wonderful places will be the geography of my life. It’s another version of “I am on good terms with my now” (Eckhart Tolle). It’s the best way I know to ensure that I will continue to invite and allow the fulfillment of my desires. My enjoyment of here and now sets the stage for life to continue to flow abundantly, full of all I hold dear. BE HERE AND NOW!