The Election. It is over

The Election, it is over. 

With bated breath we have been waiting for a President. The last 16 months of churning of the news with raw feelings as the drama of the candidates unfolded into hypocrisy, mud slinging, lies and deceits and skeletons leaping out of closets on to the dance floor. Nothing was sacred. Financial  markets plunged and resurrected themselves. Friends and enemies created as people created camps of "one side or the other" without middle ground. This was not a test of the quality of the candidates, this was a test of our selves. Some passed the test with patience, understanding and lack of de-evolving into sub human behaviors. Others did  not pass the test. Many broke family and friend relationships over these elections. New shadows hidden were awakened as once people who thought themselves as peace loving, simply frayed. Becoming racist, feminist, anti religious, hateful, angry to name but a few, are not traits that come about overnight. They are nurtured sensations from seeds long ago. 

The shadow aspect of many were known. We waited for a President. A leader to navigate the tumultuous seas of economies, world affairs, domestic hostilities and an infinite number of issues that will arise. A leader that is always in the making, and never just standing there ready. A President takes time to make and honor and followed. Some will say " my candidate this or my candidate that...."  Indulge me the opportunity to remind you that "your candidate" does not have the foggiest idea that you even exist nor what your personal problems are  all about and especially  how those problems effect you.  A political candidate only knows themselves as is for themselves. Altruism in politics is still awaited. Been waiting since the first government. It is being human with power. Not necessarily a "powerful human" as that is where the ego changes the whole story. 

This saga that has  unfolded is about none other than You. What lies ahead is about you, me and us. What lies ahead is about choices. Not forced choices, but choices we have to make for ourselves to forge our own evolution and future. 

Whether this President can make the change that is needed is uncertain. As was the case of their opposite running counterpart. Hindsight is always 20/20. So the dust settles, and our social media rants and memes die down to once again return to the normalcy of our days, and our social media selfies, exchanging recipes, ideas and all the precious things that we hold dear to glue our hours of work, family and personal times together.

 I have heard that we will see what history has to say about our future with this President. I wholeheartedly disagree. History is not about one man or woman. History is the record of what we have all done together as a species, as a civilization, as a planet, as One. No singular individual has the ability to change the future for any one individual. We all have the ability to do the same for our selves and in doing so change the future of our world. No matter who you take in history that has done great or terrible things to their fellow man, whether bringing joy or war, life or death to others, it is only because they changed themselves in such a way that they could have the necessary intention and therefore the impact to change the world. Which means you have the same abilities.

It is about the pure intention from the space of your choice within you that will co create the reality that you and I seek. Change is coming. Believe it or not is entirely immaterial. Total change is coming. Presidents come and go. Your candidate will come and go, yet you are still there in the trenches of life. Don't wait to make a difference. The difference we all need is You. And it is now. Your problems, my mundaneness, our  past, your fears, our collective consciousness is on the brink of something so spectacular the likes of which can only be experienced. Gateways are open, and ready for you to run through without fear. Dropping our "mental garbage" is the first step. Seeing no boundaries within yourself is the next. Embracing your destiny in front of you is the next step. And that folks is how WE create history. 

The next 4 years is  not going to be an "OMG" doomsday scenario. It is a waking up period. The alarm clock is ringing.... Can you hear it?

Living with opposites

Living with opposites

The world is made up of opposites.

 Front and back. 

Left and right. 

Up and down. 

Good and Bad. 

Here and there. 

Happy and Sad. 

The list goes on. The duality of it all gives us an orientation but not only in a time and space dimension, yet also in our spiritual, emotional, mental and relationship dimensions.  In each aspect of our Selves there is a duality that is present. We can take one option or the other option but not both. It is in the "in between" that we really dare to live. The space where we choose to breathe and then manifest the choice. It is not the Here or the There, but the in between where we exist. It is not in the mind or the body, yet in the heart space where we feel the essence of creation before it is created. 

We are shifting. Of this there is no doubt. You have felt it. I have felt it. We have felt it. We as a collective of mass consciousness is feeling it. We may not know what to call it, yet we feel what it is. A shift. For the better. We are bombarded with a host of emotions too numerous to feel. Clouded by the fog of judgment we are led by the voices of others in what appears to be a chaotic world. Filled with empty promises we navigate the night blindly with fear. However the fog is the in between. This is where we open up our hearts and senses and make sense of the choices and evolve. We can choose to inhale the fog and breathe out a reality that is manifest with our heart felt thought constructs.

 No one said rebuilding a world is easy . Rebuilding our vocabulary is just as necessary. 

Frustration into tolerance

 Anger into understanding 

 Fear into  Love

Chaos into calm

Ridicule into patience

Things are shifting fast. We are moving from the old paradigms into new programming. We have to take our deep seeded emotions of fear from within and bring them  into the shallow waters to release them. The past gives way into the future but only through the present. There is no other way. We are the in between. Procrastination is transformed into the moment of Now as we convert the unseen into the seen. 

We become no longer the duality. We are renamed as the non duality. 

We are . 

I am. 

This moment.

 No other. 

We can become more than we are and become a trinity of the here, there and the in-between. It is in the embracing of a new identity that we can create from within the fog. It is the thundering of the awakened heart space that calls us in the night, guiding us with its gentle voice and leading us by the hand out into the light. All we have to do is pause and listen.

Do you feel your fog dissipating ?

sympathy and compassion

Sympathy and Compassion 

Sympathy is enabling.

Compassion is empowering.

Let that just sit with you for a while. See how it transforms and starts to apply to all the past experiences you have had. I know I did and WOW what an alarming realization. 

When I am truly connecting with someone as the conversation unfolds, it is actually a compassionate manifestation and never a sympathetic hand hold that is transmitted. 

When I am being sympathetic I am basically saying " yes you have  a problem and poor you ! " By choosing this response I find that I am disabling the person by allowing them to remain wounded. I do not let them grow and evolve out of their unfortunate circumstances and continue to allow them to wallow. 

Sometimes they need to wallow. 

They may need to process their sorrowful feelings, grind out those emotions and come out stronger at the end. Who am I to judge how fast they should do this ? Yet by my sympathetic response to their situation, all I do is essentially hold their head under water for a little longer. 

We grow up and out with a helping hand and not with a hand that bears no grasp. A compassionate response holds space for them to be heard. For them to acknowledge that they are not alone in their plight and help is abound in the form of a listening partner. The out stretched hand will hold strong when it is ready to be grasped. Silence and being still when a story  of woe unfolds helps it to coil out faster.  Like a spring it pounces out of the story teller along with all the rawness of the gut wrenching and resistance that accompanies a person's troubles. 

But it needs space to pounce.

Many a  time I find I oscillate into a sympathetic ear instead of a compassionate one as I find the story similar to my own, or familiar in some fashion and I no longer choose to hold space for my own story as I choose not to heal. And so I dive into the sympathetic "poor you" which is in fact my own identified " poor ME !!" 

Sympathy and compassion are daughters of the mind and heart. Sisters to the same soul. Both are dancers to a unique conversation. Yet despite their origins, competitors  of a different creation.

It is a fine line that is crossed in every conversation when one imparts their open wound for all to bare witness. The process heals faster with compassion and less with sympathy. 

three little words that may be the game changer next time you or I are in a tense and emotionally charged conversation..... " I hear you..."

Senses deprived

Senses Deprived

I had the opportunity recently to go into a sensory deprivation tank. What an experience ! It is essentially a large tank filled with salt water so that one may be buoyant.  I immersed myself into the tank. Lights off, no noise and off I went into a world like none other. In the noiseless dark I desperately tried to use my sense of smell to figure out my environment. Yet there was nothing to smell. In the piercing blackness all around me my eyes remained useless, so I shut them. My ears once submerged under water could only "hear" the still ness of noiselessness. I dreaded to taste the salty water so I did not. I drifted, I floated. Nothing to touch, nothing to sense. All was still. My outward body inactive. My inside bodily organs functioning at a slower easier pace to sustain me. I was going to be fine I told myself. I could hear the laudable chatter of my mind. Shouting, screaming, yelling to be heard. Its voice carried no where. The body could not receive its continuous argumentative  barrages and respond. This infuriated my mind even more. The din was deafening within a vacuum. 

Unknown periods of time went by till the mind was summoned to be still. It took a lot of effort. Surprisingly even more than when I go into meditation. My mind was determined to put up a fight, and it did. Silenced, it rested for a bit. In the depths a new sensation arrived unexpectedly. My heart beat. It came out to say hello. I hear patients' hearts all day long but never my own. I never really pause to feel my own heart beat. Its rhythmic drumming. Its palpable echo of kind support without question for every moment I have been alive. I paid it attention for the first time. Its conversation became louder at first and then settled to a more even pace  at a lower tone. I could visually see with my eyes open in the thick blackness of the dark my heart's chambers moving in accordance with divine mandate. Then I felt it. Unassuming, simple. Me. That which was  there since I entered the safe womb of my mother and began my quest on this planet.

 I am not sure who was more surprised to meet whom. Me meeting me or vice versa. The life force, the energy behind this physical form, was at last made known. It had a name. Love. Formless, powerful, complete. We stayed in each others company for a timeless and seemingly endless moment of space. Held together with deep respect for each other by agreements made eons ago. No discussion. No arguments. Just the moment of being was abound. At some point the meeting was to conclude. It was mutual. I returned back into the form of the physical gently and my mind took over its immediate control of incessant planning of the next step. Thankfully, an awakened heart slowed down the process with grace. Less traumatic on the senses I would say. 

I accidentally touched my eye with my hand and the water burned my eyes. Ahhhh! My finger moved the drops of dripping salty water off my nose....Ahhhh again...we can smell salt water. My tongue darted to stop this nonsense from going any further... Ahhhh again the salt water taste. We are on fire all my senses screamed and the mind said " We are outta here" 

Lights on, noises of the crazy mind returned,and  gravity was restored as I stood up. I was back. Back  into the the body I came in with. What an experience. "I would do it again " my heart said. My mind snickered "Not if I have anything to do with it" 

The clarity of thought was pristine. Refreshed recharged, I bid a farewell to Me who I had the pleasure of greeting. Tucked away behind the veils of my insecurities, doubts and fears, I knew that I was still there. The experiencer. The driver. The magic. The forever unchanging. Till we meet again.....

It was surreal how disconnected I was from me all this time behind my senses.  

There is only one message to be delivered to me from this experience and that was...."I am "

Breaking the blocks

Breaking the blocks

Enlightenment. A New Age term to an age old idea sparked since the dawn of time. A path chosen by some. A path desired by all. I am asked by friends about this path, about my journey. Some hear it and believe it is as a long and arduous one. They would most definitely be right. In my opinion,  "Enlightenment " is  not about progressing forward and being all positive, smiley and patting one on the back for achievements far and wide. The pretense of being all positive all the time is really one that suppresses all the turmoil beneath the surface. A broad bandage to cover up a roaring storm of the ego that lies underneath. 

Enlightenment has nothing to do with trying to become happy or sad. It is about the balance of being. Yet the process begins with the much needed complete destruction of old programming. Breaking down the blocks that have held one in the place they are in today. It is about digesting all the remnants of anger, prejudice, fears and older ideas that no longer serve. It is about unravelling the tightly knit wool of ignorance, and yes it is the same wool that will one day be used to build a warm sweater of security in the future. De-atomize, Destroy and Demolish all the unusable fabrics of emotional inheritance. Generational ideologies that were once held together by fears of a few have become the dogma of the many. Century after century these ideas have become towers and beacons of rigid concepts in our minds that serve a single purpose, to keep us chained. We must of course honor the past for all that it is. I am certainly not suggesting that we blow our ancestral heritage to a sour wind. Moreover indulge in the honoring processing of the past as it once served to the present. And all that does not bear fruit for the future, let it go. 

Paradigms, fears, rigid frames of mind, all swiftly brought into the the rubble of a new era.Traditional obedience without understanding is a kin to just standing in quicksand. Enlightenment is the breaking out of the rubble. It is the discerning of the untrue and raging forward. It is the climbing out from under the deepest darkest pile of rocks that have held me for eons with their weight of hate, injustice, prejudicial blinders and old aged lies.

 I climb slowly. I climb fast. I fall back down. I do this repeatedly. I seek out in the dark the edges of my imprisoned chasm. I feel for the rugs on which to hold my footing. I pause. I alter my route many a time. Up, down, sideways. For the longest time sideways and down.  Till one day I make significant progress out of the sharp, razor rocks of my mind's fears and my ego's grasp. I breathe easier and stand at the entrance of my once long dark tunnel in which I had fallen oh so many years ago. I peer into the darkness with a new tool I have carved while stuck down there. It has taken years to create. The tool of love. 

I am not enlightened, yet. But I am aware. I am finally awake. 

Breaking down the blocks, it is your journey too. 

The other is you

The Other is You

Felt that loneliness? 

Felt that longing for something more?

I have experienced that " je ne sais qoi" moment where I could not quite put my finger on what was missing in my life on numerous occasions. The feeling  of emptiness that is in my grasp to fill, yet always alludes me. My personal assistant who is never quite there yet craves for my attention and satisfies all my whims and fancies yet leaving me always for more. I am sure you have felt it  too. It always leaves me with the sense of hollowness that I am more, that there is more, and that "this" cannot be all there is or can be. The feeling of the unknown is a powerful one, yet it may not be just the unknown or what is the "next step" that is the trigger. 

A little exercise that I have tried is simply standing and looking at myself in the mirror. Without judgement, without conversation, without anything. Just stand and observe. Soon the seemingly endless moments are strung together into barely any time. They are transformed into an amazing awareness of what I feel and of what I speak. They are transformed into Me. An embodiment of my heart that I see before me in human form . My personal assistant revealed behind the shadows of doubt, suppressed under layers of distractions. 

I have travelled many paths and many lifetimes to get to where I am at this very moment. Yet this version of me has always been accompanied by the very loyal and very present Me. It has longed for my attention. It has screamed for my acknowledgement by granting all that I have craved. It has manifested every insane hobby and every sensory desire of my mind, simply to get my attention. Once received, all it needed was a warm embrace and immediate justification is manifest, and the loneliness is gone. It is the bridge between the past moment and the future moment.

 It is now. It is me. It is Love. 

The very embodiment of you, the very nature of me , that is waiting so ever patiently to materialise and for our mind and ego to acknowledge is none other that the true you, known as Love. The desperate emptiness is filled. The unclear paradigm is resolved. It was never about the next moment "to do", it was always this moment "to be." The innate feelings of separation since we stepped onto this planet has come a full circle. The painful longing of completeness was never for any one or any thing, yet more for the moment of awakening to the Self. The separation was the void. 

The void has been filled with the knowing of You. 

The other that you seek as you hide away amongst the blanket of distractions is You, known as love

The other that I seek through the eyes of non judgement is Me, known as Love. 

All of my yesterdays

All of my yesterdays

I am. I am here in this moment. I did not get to my present stage of life by chance. I am the sum of all my past experiences. The culmination of the triggers of the past.They were neither good nor bad. They just were. It is only now that I realize where my path has been and where it has taken me. A long winding path of heartbreaks, disappointments, frustrations and disagreements. Thank fully an even longer detour of discovery of joy, happiness and love. 

Triggers of the now that were once long seeded in the past from childhood misadventures or fruitful endeavors. Fears of others slapped onto my sub conscious made into my own.  False tales of half truths disguised as teachings and outdated concepts thrust upon my being, coexisted with all of my own learnings for decades. No more. I have metabolized all that I was. I have put down the heavy bar bell of my jubilations and my equally weighted fears. Dropped down like a rock with a cry of relief at the end of a long arduous workout. 

All of my yesterdays have fortified me to change and move forward in every way of my life. Forgiveness, understanding, and compassion. The unveiling of my worst and best natures as one would open the curtains welcoming to a new dawn. All that I am and all that I am not. Known.  The good and the bad experiences have all funneled into  the present version of me. It has always been my choice of how that facsimile is to be  manifested. It is my choice to embrace all that I am for better and worse and then recreate myself, till one day in the long distance of the future, I can re-look  back at all of my yesterdays and gently reshape myself in that timeline. The process of evolution continues one day at a time. Re evaluate, Re examine, Re shape. 

It is now the silent and resolute bidding of farewell of all that has bound me in crippling fears. All that has kept in my "smallness. "  To unchain old karmic debts, and even older hurts. To smell the air of freedom with unconditional love. To keep my feet firmly in the earth's green thick grass and reach up with outstretched hands to touch the twinkling stars. To harness all that I am, and all of  my dreams and make the unseen into the seen. Unconscious into the conscious. The magic of it all is still jaw dropping as I humbly stammer out the words with flowing tears " this is my life". I own it, I feel it, and it is mine. 

All my yesterdays are here with me right now. Catalyzed and transformed. I let them go.  For now looking forward to all of my nows as they unfold into all of my futures. 

 In the end simply....I am.