OK to be me

One of the phases in the evolution of a soul is the one where other people's needs take precedence. It is an important phase, because it marks a transition from self interest to the interests of the whole. However, it brings with it certain loops of behaviour that can be hard to break out of.

One of those loops is the idea that what everyone else wants takes priority, and that our own wants are not at all important, because we are somehow not deserving. Now, this particular loop can be expressed in a huge variety of different ways, but it all boils down to the same thing.

People in this loop might always criticise their own actions, looking for their flaws and trying to overcome them by fighting against them.

They might always give in to a more dominating partner, and then feel guilty for having been "in the wrong."

They might apologise for expressing their views, or feel the need to be silent about something they would dearly love to speak about.

They might do things they don't want to do, because they deem themselves to be at fault for not wanting to do them.

They might try to conform to what "normal" people find acceptable, and end up feeling like more of an outsider than they did when they started.

They might do any number of things, the common underlying theme of which is, "I am not good enough as I am."

Now, I'm not saying that the right course of action from this place is to have the attitude that everyone else is wrong, or that our own interests should take precedence over everybody else's. That would be a retrograde step. But to move forward, perhaps deciding that it is OK to be me might stir the person out of the loop she has fallen into.

Deciding it's OK to be me takes a leap of faith. Changing any belief takes such a leap, because we are venturing from the known into the unknown. For a dove to fly, it must first jump into the air.

The ego responds to leaps of faith by trying to pull you back to the ground. So it may respond by heaping all manner of different sensations of guilt on the person. Circumstances in her life will conspire to "prove" that she is wrong to make the change. People might get more upset with her, feeding her fear of conflict, or her fear that she doesn't conform, or isn't acceptable.

Resistance to change comes from within and without. The body may go through unsettling sensations as old anxieties rise to the surface. And other people may cling to the status quo, making life uncomfortable.

It's important to remember, whenever we allow ourselves to evolve, that the truth is out there. We may not be able to see it while all the turmoil is in the way, but it is there, throughout. And the truth is always that you are OK to be you. Always. The "improvements" come through greater acceptance of self. Always. It is always OK to love yourself. It is always OK to accept yourself as you are, even if everyone around you has a different view.

Sometimes, when we make a change in our lives, the changes that are stirred around us can feel uncomfortable. They can make us reach for the old habit, because it makes sense to us. But the old habit will only serve you as far as keeping you stuck. A new habit, one of self acceptance, will never imprison you. It will only set you free.

The dove can only stay airborne if its wings are unencumbered, and nothing encumbers a set of wings quite like the decision that it is not OK to be me.

The problem with religious texts...

When we try to read spiritual and religious texts literally, we get into all sorts of problems.

I was talking to a friend last week about the Bible, and about channeling. Channeling works through the co-operation of two sets of energy: the energy of the channel, the person on this Earth, and the energy of the guides in spirit who transmit the information. The two sets of energy vibrate at very different levels, making direct communication very difficult. The guides who work with us light up circuits in our brains, delivering meaning, but using our brains as the medium for that meaning. So thoughts come through and we speak those thoughts, and the more we learn to trust the process, the more we are free to express the thoughts that come through.

However, the instrument through which the thoughts are expressed - the channel- is a human being and subject to all the conditioning that human beings are subject to. The more we can overcome our conditioning, the purer we channel, but we have to be aware that there may be a blind spot we just don't know is there.

The people who channeled the books of the Bible had a certain understanding, borne of their education and conditioning. They had a number of prejudices about how people should live that came from the culture they lived in. And their education took them so far and no further. They had vocabulary for certain things, but not for others. They had no vocabulary for evolution, and yet, if read without the tyranny of a literal interpretation, Genesis describes the process of evolution, from dust through the things that creepeth and crawleth and on to humans.

If we place all our faith in the literal interpretation of a religious text, we are limiting ourselves to an attempt at understanding something through somebody else's understanding. If we learn to read a little more loosely and allow the meaning to come to us through contemplation and meditation, then we'll find our own understanding.

If we go down the route of seeking our understanding of things through other people's understanding, we can end up in all sorts of bother. The most extreme outcome occurs when fundamentalists of any religion commit acts of violence against people who don't share their beliefs. For if we believe something because we are told it, and not because we have built our faith - our own direct connection with the divine - from within ourselves, then any challenge to our belief may seem devastating. And that's when violence ensues.

The people of pure faith don't go round bombing or maiming other people. They're way too busy loving them.

Trouble meditating?

I seem to have had a lot of conversations this week about meditations. The common theme seems to have been that a busy inner voice implies "having trouble" with meditations.

I'll agree, those meditations where the inner voice is quiet often feel very wonderful. But the ones where the inner voice keeps chuntering away are just as useful.

When we meditate, we raise the level of our consciousness, which means that we are shining a brighter light on ourselves. When we shine a brighter light we see what's there more clearly. If what's there is a jumble of thoughts and feelings, then those are the things we will become aware of. Shining a light on them helps them to be resolved. It draws them out and frees us up. The more we practise, the less we will engage with the thoughts, and the more we will be able to let them go.

So each meditation is valuable in helping us to make progress spiritually.

Yesterday I noticed I was being a bit snappy and angry. Today my meditation was busy and noisy. And now I'm not snappy or angry.

If we judge our meditations we do ourselves a disservice. The very act of meditating is helping us to evolve. Sometimes they'll be peaceful, sometimes they won't. Either way, they are helping to heal and resolve things.

Knock, and the door will be opened. Seek and ye shall find.

Judge not thy meditations!

A muse on yearning

When we yearn for something, we put a lot of energy into longing for something we haven't got. The longing not only takes us off balance, it also reinforces the notion within us that we haven't got what we long for. It makes the lack a self fulfilling thing, which feeds itself through more lack.

The only way out of this self perpetuating cycle of lack is to let go of the need for the thing we are yearning for. And the way to do that is to develop faith in the all rightness of things just as they are. If we can take ourselves, even for a brief moment, out of the thought pattern that says, "I need...", then within that brief moment, we can create space for wellbeing. The more we create space for wellbeing, the more we can dissociate ourselves from the notion of lack.

Then, perhaps, we might direct our attention to the thing for which we were yearning, and see it differently. If it is still something that we find we want, then we can use that faith we have so carefully built to direct our attention into the belief that it is coming our way and, crucially, that if it doesn't come our way that's because there's something else out there which will serve our purposes better, but which we haven't yet encountered.

When we create with our thoughts, and our thoughts tell us we lack, we only create more of that thought. It is a much more powerful starting point to know absolutely that we are just fine as we are and to believe in the benevolence of the universe to create greater levels of wellbeing.

Changing from one mode of thinking to another takes practice, patience and persistence.

But then, doesn't every skill that's worth acquiring?

Belief and emptiness

We have a tendency to fear silence - to fear emptiness. The only reason for this is that, if we really experience emptiness, we discover that many of the beliefs we have clung to are just illusions. Because we associate our beliefs with ourselves, the idea of discovering they are illusions is frightening.

But what might these beliefs be? And would it be such a hardship to be without them?

For example, one such belief might be that we are not somehow up to the grade. This is an illusion shared by many, even if the focus of it varies enormously. Some people doubt their abilities in a work setting, some as a lover, some doubt their looks, some doubt their likability, some doubt their intelligence, etc, etc, etc.

If we tackle our self doubt by trying to be confident, we are in danger of wrapping it up in more self doubt. The energy that created it doesn't go away by denying it.

Lasting self confidence is not achieved by talking ourselves up. It isn't achieved by getting praise from other people. It isn't created by telling ourselves over and over again we are confident, or by wearing that particular outfit that feels good or any of these things. These only lead to a temporary sensation of relief from the hell of the inner voice who, frankly, doesn't like us very much.

Lasting self confidence comes when we look at our self doubt and recognise it as illusion.

This is so powerful, because when we can do this, we discover a self confidence borne of emptiness. It is the knowledge that is left when illusion is taken away. It is the realisation that there is nothing to prove, to anybody, because there is absolutely nothing wrong with us in this moment - that we are exactly where we need to be.

And what stands in the way of us recognising this?

Self doubt, usually.

Illusions don't serve us. They distract us. It is in remembering that they are merely illusions that we allow our true selves to emerge.

Why be grateful?

It's really interesting how we manage to turn things that help us into things that hurt us. I see this a lot with healing clients, who tell me very seriously with a slight sigh in their voice that they've been being grateful all week and nothing's happening.

Somehow the notion of being grateful, creating, as it does, more of the things that we find positive in our lives, has become seen as a chore. A penance, almost. But it doesn't work that way.

Why be grateful? When a burst of gratitude comes over us how does it feel? Does it feel restrictive and hard work? Or rather, does it just feel good?

If we turn from looking for things that go wrong in our lives to things that we are grateful for, we start to see the things we are grateful for more clearly, which brings about the bursts of joy that accompany true gratitude.

These bursts of joy in turn bring more light to bear, which helps us to see more clearly, which ultimately leads to a clearing out of negativity in our lives and to more reasons for joy.

It can take practice, to keep letting go of the notions we carry that cause us pain. But when we develop the skill of letting go, it only helps us. Gratitude is one of the ways we can help ourselves in this. By consciously choosing to shift our focus away from harm onto all the ways we are blessed, we can shift our energy fields and bring more light into our lives.

No chore. No hardship. We're not being judged for it. Thankfulness is its own reward.

Creating space

If we feel always under pressure, then the chances are the problem is coming from the mind. It is the mind, after all, which tells us we have to keep up with other people, or be fitter, slimmer, smarter, prettier, more approachable, more mysterious, better, more successful, more productive, more wealthy, less wealthy, etc, etc, etc.

The mind listens to a set of beliefs which we have picked up somewhere along the way. That set of beliefs tells us what should be and rarely listens to what is.

But there is only what is. You are precisely what you should be at this moment in time. You are perfect, just as you are. What should be doesn't even come into it.

The only way we can free ourselves from the tyranny of that word, "should," is to create some space in our minds and allow other thoughts to enter. And the only way to do that is to first see these recurring thoughts that purport to be improving us for what they are. They are just recurring thoughts. They have no power, because if they did, they would have succeeded in changing us to what they claim we should be. They are just circuits in our brains that get activated through over-use.

Once we step outside of them and observe them, without judging them, but simply let them go, we gain something valuable. We gain space. Space in our minds creates space in our lives. And space in our lives gives us the opportunity to express who we are. It is that expression which leads to the fulfillment of our wonderful potential - for each and every one of us.

But listening to the tyrant in our heads and feeling like we're not measuring up? That only leads to more feelings of inadequacy and dissatisfaction with life. And that way lies the hiding of Self, not the free and true expression of it.

It's logical, isn't it? We can only really achieve something special if we allow ourselves the freedom to do it, to the best of our ability. Surely the best of our ability will only come from following our hearts and doing what comes most naturally.