Showing posts with label spiritual awakening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spiritual awakening. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Justified Resentments -- Murdering Our Selves


Resentment -- a poison we take, and then wait for the other person to die .....


Anger tells me about my pain and separation -- unpresence -- not about the ultimate truth of what is .... or what should be ....

In unpresence, everything -- every relationship, every life event, and every perception becomes tinged and contaminated by gangrenous resentment -- and shame - unpresent ....


My need is to be constantly improving my conscious contact with my God -- especially when my ravenous disease of humanness is engaged in the self destruction by conscious present resentment and rage ....


For example, Hitler killed millions of Jewish people .... and millions and billions continue to kill themselves with resentment .... maybe Hitler killed more people by having people destroy themselves -- after he no longer had the power to kill their body .... dunno ....


Very sad - grief -- what are we losing in our "righteous indignations" .... justified self murder ..


Sunday, February 27, 2011

I Think Therefore I Am NOT -- Experiencing Daily Inspirations


Two phrases are frequently used in our culture: “I think, therefore I am” (Descartes) and “Think before you act (or speak).” In my experience, both phrases seem to reflect a misguided wisdom.

We “think” with the cerebral parts of our brain – reason, learn, decide, judge, believe – all are cerebral thought operations. And the assumptions are that they are the higher mental functions of our brain, and therefore they are the “rulers” of our neural activity and consciousness. Nice fantasy, but totally contradictory to real life. Alcoholism and addiction alone totally blows this apart – as well as codependency, PTSD, and gambling addiction – and even typical human depression and anxiety. Thought has no significant effect on serious dependencies and emotionalmental disorders.

Yet thought is worshipped as the God of humanity who controls and can control any problem and challenge a human being might face. In the end, humanity becomes severely crippled, injured, diseased, and generally self destructive. At best, thought is a powerful mood altering neurochemical that suppresses and anesthetizes brain pain cells. At worst it becomes the excuse and justification for massive harm and abandonment of others.

Thought operates at the discretion and direction of the primitive limbic brain. The primitive limbic brain does not reason, learn, decide, judge or think anything. Its function is to monitor and control the neural energy levels of the brain as a whole. And it does so in minute increments that have no real consideration of long term consequences. Hence, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results” is really untrue. The primitive limbic brain is only monitoring and controlling on short impulses of time and results. So repetitive actions produces the “desired” and anticipated response. It is not dealing with long term effects.

Relationships are guarded and protected from intimacy and true closeness because it would make the brain so vulnerable to explosions of neural energy – energy- in motion (emotion) – when the intimacy and closeness results in rejection and abandonment. So human brains are attracted to others who have similar levels of ability to be intimate and close in order to protect our brains. Relationships are like xray scanned images of where our brains are and what they are really unconsciously seeking. There are really no mistakes – just cerebrally unexpected and undesirable outcomes.

Perhaps, we could rephrase these phrases as follows:
  1. “I think therefore I am” – I consciously experience my self in God’s Presence and therefore I am becoming more and more my Self.
  2. “Think before you act (or speak)” – I will experience conscious contact with myself and with my God before I act or express myself with others.

Experience involves consciously feeling the energy frequencies that our brain constrictions are causing – numb, angry, scared, sad, lonely, guilty, and ashamed – and connecting with a higher Presence who can bring levels of manageability back to our brains and lives.

When we are tempted to think, let’s take a few deep breaths, and let our God help us experience consciously the emotional and spiritual wholeness of who we really are.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

From the Depths of My Selves -- Rebirth and Daily Inspirations




“Each night a new layer of my “onion” becomes exposed and begins to peel away .... by morning I am consciously experiencing rips and tears within my self – pain and fear – shame and separation – as more of my past becomes current in my present .... fortunately, I am not alone – They are with me .... and each day becomes rebirthing into presence of those I left behind ....” My Journal (October 3, 2010)


Motions –
crisscrossing, repeating,
over and over the surface and depths of my mind –
energies exploding, then rippling upward and across
from the buried depths of what cannot be found or remembered.

Silence creeps unexpectedly across shallow pools
beyond and into deeper and deeper depths of selves.
Waiting , expecting,
knowing that something, someone,
will again touch the hidden triggers –
explosives –compressed, constricted,
volatile energies of selves
forced to remain while others continued forward and beyond.

Darkened depths,
cold currents of fluidly controlled space,
time wandering restlessly the surface above,
dangers seem imminent,
like walking tight ropes
above precipices of racing raging falls –
balance and unbalanced –
waiting for a shifting current of selves
and blinding flashes of sight, sound and feeling,
as more and more of me
rips their way to the surface of my mind.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Removing Movies From My Mind - Poetry and Finding Daily Inspirations



Stepping across aisles,
another row of seats
filled with memories, the “selves”,
the forgotten ones –
deeply abandoned parts of who I was to become ....
Hidden in the darkness –
the cinema that I believed was my life –
projected images, drama, sadness, silence,
hope, flights of happy relief,
suspended in dangles of questions
and contrived answers.
My life now staggers with Their revealing truths –
the vagueness becomes clearer,
the movies of my imaginary living are ending abruptly
and I must follow Their lead –
deeper and deeper
present with in my self,
Their comforting Presence –
hands, hearts touching,
closeness and beyond closeness,
Their quiet voices introducing me
-- more and more to “me” I have forgotten,
reminding me of Their present love
and my helpless past.
I experience massive waves of regret and fear –
And wonder --
wondering
if the stupor of the screen’s fabricated images
were not maybe a “better” way to go.
So much to re-experience.....
So much remains.
In our Presence together.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

What Do We Really Want? -- Spiritual Awakening and Daily Insprations


“The problem with doing what we want is that we don't know what we want .... powerlessness .... but our Higher Power knows – and Their will for me is what I “really” want – but don’t know it .....what happens is my life today is what I “want” – even if my humanness disagrees – all there is and can be is God’s will ..... right at this moment, my humanness is anxious about today’s outcomes ....How do I receive and accept Their gifts for me today? .... “ My Journal (posted on Facebook Saturday, August 14, 2010)


(Responses on Facebook at end of article. Thanks to everyone for sharing)

The challenge for me regarding what I want is that everything I perceive is filtered through my human brain, which attaches a good or bad rating to each molecule, and each unit of perception ....

Going back to the metaphor of the Garden of Eden, the curse was the perception or “knowledge” of good and evil .... at that point the illusion of good and bad was programmed into the human brain, and when the perceptual question is asked, “are you a good witch or a bad witch?” (Wizard of Oz), the answer will always be we and they and it are bad – frequently disguised in the thought and experience of “just not good enough” ....

In the context of the concepts of wants and needs, I will never be satisfied, because my brain will assert its “knowledge of good and evil” and nothing will ever be good enough – I will never be content or truly happy .... the best I can hope for is to be inebriated on thought or some other brain altering substance ....

The “knowledge of good and evil” is ultimately the foundation of separation from my God .... the temptation in the Eden metaphor was that they would become “like God” – without “needing” God .... and separation from God, from themselves, and from each other occurred – They were “ashamed” --- before there was no good and bad – but now, they were naked, and they experienced the shame of being bad – not good enough – abandoned and separated ... and they damned themselves to suffering and death for their perceived “sins” .... actually there was and is no “sin” – only shame = the perception and reaction of deserved separation and loneliness....

I spent most of my life trying to determine what God’s Will was. My brain – dominated by right/wrong, good/bad filter programming assigned the thought label of God’s Will to what I did and what occurred that seemed to be good or right ..... frequently this was just a judgment based on the results of outcomes .... when others seemed pleased – good or right .... if others were displeased – wrong and bad..... and I would punish myself accordingly .... I have never “needed” a “God” to create a hell for me suffer in....

For me, as all of the Twelve Steps converged on Step Eleven, I began to experience that as my conscious contact with my God improved, I began to see my self, and my life from their eyes .... as that occurred, I began to lose incrementaly the effects of the good/ bad mental programming filter .... with the “knowledge of God’s will for me” came an increasing awareness that all is good, and that my human self, without my God’s conscious Presence could not live that awareness ....

The material world and its inhabitants – including myself -- do not operate comfortably within such a radical “mental awakening” .... intimate Presence with God, for me, must be practiced as a life style, or my humanness will make outcomes appear life and death, right and wrong ... and I will ultimately be miserable no matter the outcome ...... when I have gotten the outcomes I “wanted” I was still restless, irritible, and discontented out of fear that I would lose my outcome and/or that the next outcome would be “bad” – “unwanted.”

“Having had a spiritual awakening, as the result of these steps ...... we practiced these principles in all affairs.”


Responses on Facebook to the original post:

Drollene B: If we need a lot of things to make us happy, we can cut down the possibility for unhappiness by paring down the list of needs and downgrade them to wants. If we have a long list of wants, thinking having them would make us happy, we can cut the criteria for happiness by downgrading our wants to preferences. If we have only preferences, we can always be happy. I think it's something to strive for. I'm not there yet.

Joseph P. Where we've been wrong is in the belief that we exist. At least in some concept of separateness and individuality. Such is the egoic illusion. The space in which this phantasmic self exists is merely holding a place in time and space better used as a channel for God's love, comfort, Light, forgiveness, peace. There is no MY will, only God's will and the opportunity to fall into harmony with it.

Gary S, Keep it simple.

Courteney B. Keeping my need/wants vs want/needs is what i strive for. when we get something we want we may not be ready for it, as it's 'our' will, not gods. we then may have to ask for it to be removed and clean up another mess, been there myself. :)

Drollene B. Okay, Gary, here it is, simple: Need nothing, want nothing, be happy with what comes when it comes.




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Friday, August 6, 2010

What Are Our Choices? Daily Inspirations From Facebook


The following is a very intense Facebook conversation that my self, and my wonderful “ friends” had about “Choice”. I believe that as we listen to each others’ voices, we can begin to recognize our God’s Voice – loving Presence – in our others’ words. God is here …. And trying to reach and love us ….. I have a need to listen, feel, and experience their Presence – without shaming and blaming my self with false beliefs in abilities I do not have.
I am wishing you God’s Presence as you listen to our voices......
Will Wass: FB post: “If we choose to take the wrong path, it's usually our sanity that we seem to lose first…..”
Question: if we have the ability to chose between different choices, why would we deliberately chose the “wrong path”? …. Our culture seems addicted to the illusion of “choice” …. Like in the Garden of Eden, the temptation was that they would be like God, knowing good and evil …. they would be able to make conscious choices without needing a relationship with God …. Maybe -- the offer is still open …. Just bite the fruit of knowledge and engage self-will …. Or maybe – give up the fruit, and our powerless self-wills, and consciously connect to Their loving Presence – become our true and God created Selves ….
Lori C Thanks I needed to read this!

Melanie R I can’t answer that ….I have been choosing the wrong path for 2 years now. If someone knows how to avoid the wrong path, please let me know.

Will Wass Melanie: Maybe --- you haven't been "choosing" .... maybe in our disconnectedness from our God, we have lost the ability to know the truth, and to make healthy sane choices ... Maybe we need to reconnect to our God, and let Them empower us with Their loving care to know and live Their loving and perfect plan/will for our lives .... If we "chose" wrong, maybe we didn't "chose" -- maybe we were powerless ...
Thanks

Craig W One of the main reasons is we as humans are attracted to different things, things dangerous or risky, things that give us the illusion of being better than what we have and more. An example is a man or woman who is married but get caught up in having extra marital affairs, and the ones who leave for another person. You know the old saying
"The grass always looks greener on the other side.” Another thing to remember are those who make stupid choices because of thinking it will make them look better or be liked more all because they have no confidence in their selves.

Tara M For myself I didn't feel deserving of the good. So I would sabotage myself by making the wrong choices. Thank God I don't live my life like that today.

Deborah H low self esteem or a lack of loving self was my problem....before I got to know God had a lot to do with bad decisions in my life....make better decision today,,,, Thank you GOD

Mindy M.W I may not always know what the exact "right" choice is, but almost ALWAYS know what it is NOT. If I can't be sure, I pray, wait until the right answer comes. When in doubt-do the opposite!

Lynda K Definitely I had always been my own worst enemy! Self sabotage...

Nancy D When I have taken the wrong path it has always been a conscious decision; a choice. I have chosen insanity for the freedom of it -- with that came the ability to forget about having a conscience, responsibilities, and any good I had been...

Shanni F Guess the question lies in what is meant by "wrong" path . . . paths may be wrong for me in one way (perhaps in the short term) but right for me in another way (perhaps in the long term). I choose what is seemingly the wrong path sometimes because I am looking for an easier softer way, or because I think I can get away with something, but invariably I have grown and learned things from those journeys that I could not have learned another way. "There are no wrong choices, just different consequences." I have lost my sanity many times only to find that I wasn't really sane before I thought I lost it.

Bryan B I took the path less traveled by and that made all the difference!

Janis D It's not what you know that's wrong, it’s what you know. Laney R.

Will Wass Nancy: perhaps the event was conscious, but the choice was not .... I have observed my self say and do things totally opposite to what I had determined to do and say -- without any ability to stop .... I was conscious but I was not doing what I had chosen to do.... and if we had a choice, why would we chose insanity and pain.... Thanks for your helpful sharing..

Will Wass Shanni: I agree.... there really are no wrong choices -- just unexpected consequences .... My God can take what is perceived as "wrong choices" and turn them into spiritual gifts, if I turn the outcomes over to Them..... spiritual growth experiences .... In our spiritual life maintenance group (Twelve Steps) today we talked about telling a sponsor or recovering friend about our perceptions and reactions so they can actually do our 10th Step inventory for us .... because we can't trust our own sanity in reviewing ourselves .... Thanks for your comments.....

Dave D If we did not have the power of choice we would be like robots. People make wrong choices for a variety of reasons. Consequence is a part of life. God as our Father wants so much be a part of our decision making process but it is our choice rather to listen or not to act or not according to His will!!! The father of the prodigal son is the ideal picture of God. The son made the choice to say give me and the father gave.

Will Wass Dave: I don't believe that I have the power of choice .... it is my personal experience that in the past, I have "decided" -- "chosen" -- to do certain things, and found my self unable to do "it" .... The metaphor of my experience is this: imagine having an electrical appliance that has been properly manufactured electrically to do a certain task .... it is delivered to your house and set up in the appropriate area of the house -- but not plugged into an outlet .... so we come in and begin pushing buttons and turning knobs, and doing what the instructions say we should do to make it work .... but as long as it is not plugged in to the power of electricity -- if electricity is not present -- it has the ability to operate but not the means to operate .... it is powerless ....

We are the same .... the temptation in the Garden of Eden was that they would be like God -- knowing right and wrong -- able to turn themselves on and off at will -- without being intimately connected to God .... and we see the consequences of their delusion, and of the same delusion with mankind .... we have no functional, operational will except to the extent we are intimately connected to our God .... Otherwise, we are tossed about by every wave of emotion -- compelled by instinctive mental forces from our reactions to pain and fear -- to do what ever brings temporary relief -- no matter its health, sanity, or long term consequences -- personal and moral destruction ....

It is my experience that religion has needed a reasoning that allowed it to blame people for their behavior and damn to hell if they did not conform to its rules … control ….and so it created the myth of free will to accomplish this agenda …. I only have an operational will to the level that I am intimately and consistently connected to a God of my personal experience and relationship …. And that begins with disconnecting my self from the tempting fruit of self will, by experiencing – painfully --- that I am indeed powerless …. helpless and doomed without my God’s loving conscious Presence …..

Apostle Paul: “For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not do; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the principles of good. But, now, it is no longer I who does it , but the shame (separation from God) that dwells in me ….” ….Rom. 7 ……. my experience, strength and hope …..

Without God's Presence, we are "robots" being operated by the mental programming of pain and fear -- shame and separation -- doing whatever necessary to avoid the incredible and wretched pain of separation from God, from our selves, and from others .... and without connecting intimately and consistently with his father, the prodigal son was doomed to do it all over again .... powerless ....
Thanks for your response ...








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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Journalling --October 31, 2009 -- Spiritual Enlightenment and Daily Inspirations


Nearly twenty-five years ago, I was in counseling with an Episcopal priest, who gave me an assignment to write a letter to God. In the next session, I read and we discussed my letter and my relationship to “God”. For the next session, the priest gave me the assignment of writing a letter from God to me.

It seemed very strange and awkward, but I was in enough pain to be willing to do anything he asked. At the next session, we processed my letter and my experience and insight in writing the letter. As I was reflecting on my writing, it occurred to me that the amazing experience that I had with this assignment might be “useful” as a daily spiritual activity.

Almost every day since then, I have done this very thing – a “letter” to God about what was going on in my life, my feelings, and what I was struggling with – and a “letter” of what I felt God saying to me. It has been a wonderful and life changing experience of spiritual enlightenment – of increasing conscious Presence with a loving God, whom I have learned to call “Mom and Dad”. I would like to share some of this experience with you here.

October 31, 2009
Mom & Dad,
Good morning! Everything is moving in on me with this cruise coming. I feel anxious, pressured – afraid that I will not have prepared coverage for K’s practice adequately. Please help me and lead me. What do I need to know and do today?

Listening. Always, always learning to listen. We are “hear” – hear and feel our breathing Presence within you.
Your course swings in and out. Questions trigger inner undisclosed wounds – energies stored in stasis chambers (of your brain – near your heart. Connection and separation – swinging in and out – listening for our voices – through the darkened walls of your mind.
The entrance to new places emerges from the debris of old experiences – mangled pieces of discarded selves – like the valley of dry bones (Bible) – and as you stand – open – in our Presence – the “bones” begin to come together and life begins to regenerate inside of you. Living tissue – blood vessels full of spiritual Presence – flowing – throbbing – then beating smoothly – life flowing and beating as you become – alive – loved and nurtured by our caring and unconditional Presence.
Lifeless becomes lifefull.
We are here.
"A merry heart doeth good like is medicine,
but a broken spirit drieth the bones."
Proverbs

(Inspirational life quote from a meditation book):
“Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply points the way.” Florence Scovel Shinn
“We will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us.”
Seems to me that if “spiritual” means higher Presence, then energy from intimate closeness with you fills the mental voids (of my brain) created by past injuries of separation.

As a human, you want to “know” things – clear, dependable, usable information. Nothing that is knowable is real – they are only thoughts – fixed patterns of neural energy within the brain. Thoughts are created out of space and time – which are also, “not real” – only perceptions of the brain.

The necessity and importance of “love” is that in its truth, experience and thought forms -- creates a bridge from thought to our Presence – an emerging consciousness called intuition – spiritual enlightenment, awareness that exceeds the facility and use of words. Words are only as real as the presence experienced through them. Eventually – as you move and become closer to us, words will dissolve into the nothingness that they are – and what will be left is an intimate connection which can be best described from this side as “love”.

Love is greater than faith, because it is the highest level of faith. Faith is most frequently thought. Belief means one thinks a certain statement to be true. Love means one experiences such an intimate connection with us that thoughts and words disappear and all that is left is conscious Presence, closeness, unconditional acceptance and companionship – with us – to others. There are no longer explanations – thoughts and words – because you have transcended matter –becoming spiritually Present – intuitively “knowing” things that your brain can not know or process.

Flow.





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Thursday, July 15, 2010

We Need More Than Answers -- Daily Inspirations


Computers are useless.
They can only give you answers.

Pablo Picasso

Answers are the enemies of spiritual solutions. Knowledge is the enemy of spiritual enlightenment. Intellect disables spiritual experiences. Psychology is the enemy of spiritual Presence and nurturing intimacy.

What do answers, knowledge, intellect and psychology all have in common? They are based on mental thought and not on spiritual experience. So they produce a distraction which gives temporary relief to inner separation and pain. But ultimately it creates more separation – and therefore more pain.

We need something – someone – who gives more than answers – who brings intimate spiritual enlightenment into the darkness of our abandonments – someone whose loving and caring Presence brings spiritual healing to our wounded souls.

WE have this Someone – when we are WE!





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Saturday, July 3, 2010

Inspirational Comments From Facebook -- Daily Inspirations


For me, FaceBook has become a wonderful source of daily inspirations and spiritual Presence. I am very grateful to the wonderful people who share their personal experiences, strengths, and hopes – allowing me to listen to my God in their words …… and in my own responses to their words. My God is always speaking …. It is really helpful –blessings and gifts -- to have so many friends who are willing to be Their messengers….

I would like to share some of my experiences with you …..

Hope – or Not…..


Keli: “Hope is an extension of our Faith that God will fulfill his promises” ~ Givens ( From "The
Dopeless Hope Fiend")

Will: For me, hope can be a preoccupation with a mentally induced fantasy/delusion of what could happen .... like a child who believes in the myth of Santa Claus and is expecting a desirable outcome based on their fantasy .... a mental distraction .... loss of consciousness ….
Or hope can be the intuitive sense of okness, wellbeing and loving closeness that comes from a steadily ... improving "conscious contact with God" .... a peace that passes all understanding .... a joy unspeakable and full of wondrous Presence .... a hope that is not disappointing because Their love is being poured generously and steadily into our hearts ..... a spiritual awakening as a result of these Twelve Steps --- living spiritual principles of hope and healing.....
Where our brains stop thinking and "drinking" …..stops using some mood altering human actions –
here our hearts begin to experience .....Presence..... the ultimate spiritual "guarantee" ..... that all will well in this life ….. and in the hereafter ….



Can You?.......

Michael: “You must do the thing you cannot do.”~~Eleanor Roosevelt

Will: The problem is that we can't do what we cannot do ..... maybe that's why we need a God of our conscious contact and personal experience .... They restore us to an ability to do what THEY can do .... If we could "do it", we would not need Them .... what an incredible loss that would be .... In our weakness we are made strong in them …. we have closeness with them ..

The basis of human shame and spiritual illness is the message and belief that we can – and should – do things we cannot do. Others have held us accountable and responsible for perceptions, reactions, actions -- and outcomes -- that we could not control. I experience that my God looks not at my actions and outcomes but at my “heart” …. And Their perception of me – and others – is that we are special, good enough – in fact wonderful – and unconditionally loveable and worthy of being cared about by Them …. They reprogram my brain to see me and others through Their eyes and “mind”….

Simple … But Not Easy ….


Keli: A simple program ~ The program is simply sharing, working the Twelve Steps, attending meetings, and practicing the principles of the program.
Our complicated lives can be made a lot less complicated if we concentrate on a few simple things sharing our experience, strength, and hope with others, regular meeting attendance, and practicing the principles of the program in our daily lives.
By sharing our experience, strength, and hope with others, we provide a powerful example for newcomers to follow. The effort we put into helping others also helps keep self-centeredness, the core of our disease, at bay.
Many of us pick one group, a home group, whose meetings we attend faithfully. This regularity gives some routine to our lives, and lets others know where they can find us if they need us.
Practicing the Twelve Steps in our daily lives makes the difference between a balanced recovery and simply not using. The steps give us some much-needed guidance in managing our everyday affairs.
Yes, we are complex people. But Twelve Steps programs simplifies our lives, enabling us to live a life free from active dependence. Our lives can be filled with serenity and hope when we live by the guidance of the simple principles of our program.
Just for today: I will remember that, while I am a complex person, Twelve Steps is the simplest way for me to make my life less complicated.
Copyright © 1991-2010 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc


Will: I do a 12 Step Spiritual Maintenance group on Thursdays, and today we were sharing about this subject: the Twelve Steps program is simple but not easy. The reason for this is that the intellectual concepts and directions are mentally "simple" and easy to understand by the cerebral cortex part of the brain. But dependency, and addiction are not located the intellectual cerebral cortex part of the brain. It is located in the involuntary, non-cognitive primitive part of the brain. So we can literally know what to do that is healthy and right, and be totally incapable of doing it or of responding rationally to that knowledge.... Literally, the basics of recovery are intellectually simple --- but virtually impossible to practice .... by me .... That's why we start with Step One: we admitted (and experienced) that we were powerless -- helpless to override the perceptions and reactions of our wounded brains .... powerlessness and helplessness becomes the basis for and beginning of true spiritual experience -- conscious contact with God .... This is my experience, strength and hope ....


We Need to Lose Our Minds ……

Thinus: Sometimes you have to lose your mind before you come to your senses...

Seren: So strange, I was just thinking that. Kind of like "hitting bottom"?
Thinus: Yup that's it.
Seren: Not my favorite memory, but definitely the catalyst for grace.
Nurse Mary: yea and we must always remember our bottoms have a trap door!!
Bronwyn: So that's what is happening to me - and I have so much to look forward to - finding my senses and coming to them! yay! Can't wait!


Will: My experience: "hitting a bottom" was losing my mind .... otherwise, my thoughts would be still anesthetizing my feelings -- my " senses" ..... and I would be convinced that "I can and should handle ‘it’." .... "it's just not that bad" .... thinking is more mood altering than drinking or drugging .... Most people never really recover because they are never able to “lose their minds” ….. and experience the truths of our helplessness without steady, conscious interaction with our God ….

The Need to Fall Down to Look Up ….


Angie: "When you fall down, look around. You may discover something you couldn't see when you were standing up.".......................

Will: If I had never "fallen", I would never have "discovered" – or experienced consciously -- my God's loving Presence .... to grow in Their Presence, I must continue to “fall” ….. from my humanness….
If we are not careful, our brains will use our appearance of success with certain outcomes as proof that we can and should understand and control “our lives”…. The gifts of “failures” are awarenesses and conscious experiences that we are powerless … alone …



Theodore: Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.” --Wilson(via Denise)


Will: My experience: to confront my "dark selves" can be like attacking a wounded and cornered animal ..... dangerous at best .... our dark selves are lost selves who were wounded by separations and abuse ... they need to be loved and nurtured into God's love light, and brought home to be restored to our truest Self .... they don't need anymore rejection and abuse ....
(As I journalled about my dark or shadow selves, I realized that these are parts of me that are the furtherest from conscious Presence with my God … the most wounded, terrorified, enraged – instinctively self protective …. They are not bad – but very, very hurt …. and abandoned ….)


Being Perfect ….


Loretta: The word "perfect" doesn't mean that we have to do everything just right and live without making a mistake. Thank God, b/c we can't to that! It means "devoted" ~ a heart dedicated, loyal and faithful to God. The Word tells us that God shows Himself strong in behalf of those whose hearts are "perfect" toward Him (2 Chron.16:9)

Will: For me: "perfect" is an expression of the attitude of unconditional love and care -- and clarity of perception -- that God has toward us .... They do not see us as wrong or bad ... in Their eyes, we are "perfect" .... They would only like for us to stop abusing our selves with our shame, and self-abuse ..... Perfectionism is the state of being unable to accept that we are already perfect .... at least in Their eyes .... In our human eyes. we generally "suck", never good enough, always wrong and bad – in one way or another ..... Maybe being "restored to sanity" includes beginning to see our selves through Their eyes.... not through the painful separation of our diseases of humanness and dependency .... Conscious intimate contact with out God clears away the unhealed distortions of the past …
Maybe the closest to a mistake we can be is to perceive that we are mistakes.....


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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Problems Are Gifts of Spiritual Enlightenment -- Daily Inspirations


There is no such thing as a problem
without a gift in its hands.
Richard Bach

My brain has two basic categories of life events: what it wants, and problems. It is programmed genetically, socially, and emotionally to avoid problems, and to pursue what it “wants” – to control outcomes. The “belief” seems to be that if everything in my life went as my brain “wanted”, we would be happy and ok.

Fortunately that is not true. If everything and everyone’s being the way I wanted was the meaning and answer to life, I would be severely short changed – and hopelessly lost.

In my experience, I don’t really know what I want – because I can get people and circumstances to be my way, and still be miserable. There is something else – there are “more” – and not more desirable outcomes.

Problems, to me, are reminders that I don’t have what I “want” – and problems are directions toward finding what I am really looking for. They remind me when I am not happy, so I can seek change. And they remind me which path to stay on toward spiritual enlightenment.

My only real problem in life is separation from my God’s higher Presence. When we get separated from each other, I begin to fear, and hurt, and fight what is.

Problems are problems because they bring my pain and fear into conscious experience. Problems are gifts of life – solutions – because they remind me to reconnect and stay connected to my God, to others, and to myself – to find the hope, love, and joy of spiritual enlightenment in conscious Presence.

We need to have “problems” today – undesirable and uncontrollable life events – so we can receive the spiritual healing gifts of spiritual enlightenment, and loving Presence.

Embrace the undesirable. Treat them with daily inspirations and life’s precious moments. They will bring us to spiritual enlightenment -- back to our precious selves.




Comments from Facebook:

Lesa : The times in my life that things have been "my way",I have been happy. The happiness wasn't in having what I thought I wanted but in feeling God cared enough about me to make me happy. Proof a higher power was there and active in my life. Were my desires actually God's will and so I was satisfied and happy when they manifested? I believe so. …Just thinking aloud...

Will: For me, the closest to happiness that "my way" has produced was distraction -- a loss of conscious contact with myself through mental thinking or obsessing about outcomes .... which my brain interprets as "happy"-producing because happiness is perceived as the absence of and relief from pain ..... ultimately it wears off, or I build a tolerance, ... See Moreand I am off in search of more outcomes -- like an addict or alcoholic would be off looking for more "stuff" to consume ..... For me, the conscious experience that my God cares for me has to be disconnected from outcomes .... material outcomes are my mood altering drugs and not expressions of their love and care..... Presence -- a conscious intimate connection beyond words --- although frequently present within the words of others ...... experience vs content .... "Proof" for our brains requires something that can be measured and perceived intellectually in units of perception ...... The proof of my God, for me, "passes all understanding" ..... and is very confusing to my brain .... the "standards of measurement" for spiritual Presence transcends the digital intelligence of my brain .... the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts...... it must be restored to a spiritual sanity that They alone can give…. They teach my brain to participate in the experience, and stop losing itself in thought …..



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Sunday, June 13, 2010

Questions Can Bring Daily Inspirations



Questions from a young friend who is preparing for the ministry …… part of an ongoing “conversation”:
1. What has the power over life and death?
2. What ultimately controls this thing?
3. What can we do to safe guard against using this power in the wrong way?




1. Life and death are illusions created by the illusion of “sin” or the perception of separation from God. We are not disconnected from God – we are just holding our breaths. If we just “breathe” They will be all through us.
2. The illusion of sin separation breeds and feeds on control of outcomes. Only surrender within God’s Presence releases its hold. Only God’s Presence empowers and enables surrender – the end of our instinctive compulsion to control. In God’s Presence there is no control – all is as it is meant to be.
3. We – of our selves – are unable to safeguard against using this illusion of need, and dependency on outcomes -- power. When we are intimately connected to God, we simply don’t try to use it. All is experienced as well – “now and in the hereafter”.


There is the thought and myth of “Jesus” or God, and there is the experience of and intimacy with “Jesus” or God. The Bible speaks of people "crying Lord, Lord", and He would not respond because their “hearts” were far from Him. They were thinking and talking Jesus, but not loving and intimately interacting with and experiencing Jesus’ Presence. And they were doing the best that they could do. They were not consciously feeling their pain and separation, so their thoughts – religion – was working for them…… The blessed feel fear, and sadness, and anger -- the absence of deepest peace -- consciously, and turn to the Person, the Presence that is “Jesus” or God. (Look at the Beautitudes: Matthew 5)……
The rest can only mentally "cry Lord,Lord" and stumble blindly about in the darkness of their brains’ madness.

Addendum:
The overwhelming fear that I have experienced, and seen in others is the excruciating terror that we are alone – abandoned – never to be loved or good enough – shame….. My experience in spiritual inner healing is that we can find the “truth” about our selves by finding and improving our conscious intimate contact with a Presence greater than our selves. There is no magic wand or secret button – it starts by being fully human – experiencing our powerless. And then listening to our God’s Presence in the content of others’ words, in spiritual literature, and in the events that occur in our lives. Spiritual connection begins with content – words, events, things – and by listening from deep inside our selves, we begin to absorb our God’s higher Presence from within the content. Maybe it is like the metaphor of”panning for gold”.

We are not alone. And we must learn to replace thought with God’s Presence, so we experience how special and wonderful They perceive us to be – and we will begin to see our selves the same.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Love Heals - Spiritual Awakening and Daily Inspirations


Love cures people, the ones who receive, and the ones that give it, too.
Karl A. Menninger

“Love” is an interesting word in our culture. People can love ice cream, clothes, movies, TV shows, vacation places – and other people. Somehow the same word does not seem to mean the same in each situation.

And yet, the impression we can get from others is that everyone knows exactly what the word means. Frequently this seems to really be a case of “missing identity.”

Dr. Menninger describes “love” as the cure for people. I agree with his statement, only I believe we have to clarify what aspect of spiritual healing “love” involves.

Perhaps a place to start is with what “illness” does humans have that needs to be “cured” – why do we need spiritual healing at all.

In my experience, all human illness is caused by separation – from God, from others, and most acutely from ourselves. The condition of humanness is one of loneliness, guilt, fear, pain, anger – and sadness. All of these symptoms are directly related and proportionate to our level of our personal separation and sense of abandonment.

So what does love do that can cure our disease of humanness? Maybe “love” is about being intimately reconnected to God, to others, and to ourselves.

My experience is that God interacts with humans by means of Presence – an unconditional availability and flow of “loving” interpersonal energy which could be the definition of “love”.

Perhaps, if we were to interact with others using unconditional attentiveness and companionship, and gifts of caringness – spiritual presence to others -- maybe we would find people who responded to this spiritual treatment, and experienced spiritual healing of their human condition. Maybe like Dr. Menninger said, we would also find ourselves experiencing spiritual healing and spiritual enlightenment as well.

Let’s try and see.





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Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Poem: "Re-emerging Selves" -- Finding Daily Inspirations



My silence pounds walls of repetitive wordings,
living encapsulating in blocks of sound,
flashes of remembering
the unforgotten swirls of past moments –
events and experiences in the “Now”
of my human beingness.
Every object, event, coated
in emotional energy and glistening
with presence and absence – won and lost.
My mind has fashioned,
constructed…
reconstructed…
demolished….
and reconstructed…
so many selves of experience…
into narrow streams of solidified thought….
Dammed by survival…
resisting possible fluidity…
walls of blindness created in desperate silence…
I am….
We are…..
Reemerging…..
from desolation and destruction…..
looking … for what is still hidden…
so deep….
in the presents of the past.
From my Journal: March 5, 2008

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Valley of Deadened Selves: Daily Inspiration Poem





My mind drapes sadly over the fallen corpses --
selves fallen in the service of guarding, protecting the “me”.
I am buried beneath growing swells of rushing raging e-motions
pounding the beaches of my consciousness and thoughts
Reminding, remembering, forgetting yet again.
Protected– a light that rests casually on the edge of my mind
an unravelling of what was never together
exposing the inner wreckage and carnage of my past and dying selves.
I can’t remember where I am – who I was –
another world seems impinging from somewhere
beyond what is for me –
I am present, fallen, and streaming – in realest time –
as light continues to rise – burning alive motions,
somehow, in this dead and dying selves –
as Presence beginning to gently glow and flow within deadened lifeless
veins – and life, a love, sensations of beingness,
Presence begins to beat
where darkened hearts had stopped before.
My valley of deadened selves, touched – restoring -- yet unknown appearing Self – enlightened shadows of what may yet to come.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Spiritual Life Maintenance through Surrender


There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening, we shall hear the right word. Certainly there is a right for you that needs no choice on your part. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which flows into your life. Then, without effort, you are impelled to truth and to perfect contentment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Returning to the Secret Garden of Lost Selves -- Daily Inspirations




I was in a spiritual support group today where the topic was Step Five of the Twelve Steps:

We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs (the nature and symptoms of our emotional illness).


This step is the continuation of Step Four:

We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

In Step Five, we reach out to our God through the flesh and blood of another human being, and together we move away the debris that blocks the door to the Secret Garden... Will W.

For the complete article, click here: Returning to the Secret Garden of Lost Selves.



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Sunday, April 25, 2010

Turn on God"s Love Light -- Spiritual Enlightenment and Daily Inspirations


Every day my eyes would automatically open as the sun began to rise. I’d lie there and not just look at the dawn, the dawn would enter me. The imprint of sunshine – of a new day following the darkness of night – made its way into my cells.
Marianne Williamson

Light – spiritual enlightenment – precious moments illuminating the darkness – experiencing daily inspirations – bursts of God’s Presence – as we spiritually awaken to spiritual healing -- from painful darkness.

I heard of a child who was chronically punished for being unacceptable by being placed in a small closet underneath the stairs. Her mother called it the “Mean Kid’s House”.

The child and her siblings would work hard and sometimes they would be given a little money. When her siblings had a chance, they would buy candy. But the child from the closet would buy candles. The candles were so she could have light in the darkness of her “Mean Kid’s House”.

Darkness is the absence of loving, caring, unconditional Presence – from others, then causing a sense of separation from God, and ultimately separating us from ourselves. Sometimes it is as physical as a closet, but more often it is a dark and sad place inside of us.

We all live or have lived in the “Mean Kid’s House”. Shame, guilt, fear, loneliness, and sadness – mental and spiritual darkness – have surrounded our existence and experience. A conditional world had abandoned us in order to avoid themselves.

Many of us created imaginary friends, selves, lives to fill the darkness with blind hope – actually temporary mental painkillers fashioned in painful desperation. Nothing changed – and we remained hopelessly damned to the empty stale and blinding silence. The only voices were the voices within our brains – and even they became progressively more and more abusive.

To escape, we must begin to find “candles” – sources of light, love and Presence. “Candy” is nice. But loving Presence begins to shatter the darkness with new inner sources of hope and healing. Our lives begin to change – spiritual enlightenment begins to burn – beginning as just a spark, and becoming radiating beams of warming Presence and spiritual healing.

Our God knows the way out. We need to find and follow Their loving Light out of our darkness and into Better Places by Their loving design and care.

The imprint of sunshine – of a new day following the darkness of night – made its way into my cells. And one morning it was as though I heard the voice of God, telling me as I witnessed the dawn that “Such is the work I will do within you.” I too would experience a new dawn after the dark night of my soul. God would give me a new beginning. I knew it then. And as I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep, I thanked Him with all my heart. And my heart was healed.
Marianne Williamson



In the darkness shall be the light, and in the stillness, the dancing.
e.e. cummings





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Monday, April 5, 2010

Spiritual Healing and the Fourth Step -- Doing a Spiritual History




The Courage to Change May 4th
Recovery is a wonderful word. It means getting something back. Today I will try to remember that that something is me.

If a man happens to find himself ....he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life.
James Michener

Isn’t it exasperating to go to the grocery for an item, only to find the shelf empty? Fortunately grocers can correct that situation by taking inventory to learn which shelves need replenishment.
The Courage to Change.

We all wish good things to happen to us, but we cannot just pray and then sit down and expect miracles to happen. We must back up our prayers with action.
Freedom from Despair

Before sunlight can shine through a window, the blinds must be raised.
American Proverb

All progress must grow from a seed of self-appreciation...
The Dilemma of the Alcoholic Marriage

As I worked my way through Step Four, I listed my character traits as honestly as I could. I was struck by a great irony: Many things I had once thought of as virtues – taking care of everyone around me, worrying about other people’s lives sacrificing my own happiness and prosperity – turned out to be the causes of my misery.
The Courage of To Change November 28th


To see article, click here, Spiritual Healing and The Fourth Step.




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