Archive for the ‘Mastery’ Category

The Wise Man Said

January 27th, 2011 by Michele

Today a wise man asked me if I was stubborn. I said, “NO!”

Then I quickly backtracked and enthusiastically said, “But I’m willful.” I was trying to be open.

“Well, okay,” he said, “however you want to interpret it.”

I crinkled my brow while he inquired a bit further, asking me, ” Is it hard for you to let go…to be open to new ideas?”

“No,” I said, “I’m actually very open to new ideas; in fact I’m constantly creating new things in my life, shifting and changing it all around.” I looked up to see his face and there was nothing to read.

“Can you easily digest new information?” He asked this curiously.

Hmmm.

Well, I never really answered that question and when I returned home I wrote frantically in my journal about how I was open-minded, though not really open-bodied. Most of my “information,” and please read this with a spiritual tone here, sits between my heart and my solar plexus, quite heavily going nowhere else.

So, he was astute in asking if I easily “digest” information.

Honestly, I do not. My biggest stress point is in my diaphragm, kidneys, adrenals, liver, pancreas, stomach and intestines. The physiology, and its related energy center, is part of our human powerhouse and our ability to distribute energy both physically and energetically. The solar plexus is multi-faceted; channeling energy, oxygen, hormonal information, and nutrients in a neural-vascular-digestive-communication-cleansing-waste management sort of way, right from this point.

There are actually three places of stress in my body, all very similar in nature, and all feel just like I feel in my solar plexus. Interestingly, the osteopathic and cranial sacral model identifies each one of these three locations as diaphragms.

There’s the breathing diaphragm at the solar plexus, the upper lung-collarbone area diaphragm, and the cranial tentorum which separates the cerebellum (lower, sort of old brain) and the cerebral (new upper) portions of the brain. There’s also a pelvic diaphragm, though luckily it’s not stressed in my body.

Well, at least it’s not tight and exhausted.

Funny thing about that lower diaphragm, if it’s not fully awake, strong and elastic, all the other diaphragms work overtime to support the human system. The pelvic floor holds everything in place, creates a foundation and an anchor point for living in the world. This area corresponds to the Root Chakra. Without this foundation, some other “floor” needs to improvise and operate outside it’s natural parameters.

And one of our spiritual anchor points is the First or Root Chakra.

Consider this: if the pelvic floor isn’t doing its job, the breathing diaphragm tightens up to stabilize the body. As we age and or become more wired into that dysfunctional form through normal daily activities, even our organs begin to hold us in place. That really isn’t their job!

Rather than being elastic, expandable and even contractible, our organs become stiff and stagnant, acting like big rocks and boulders blocking the flow, when they really should resemble rivers, streams and oceans that effortlessly carry the “information” throughout the body-being.

Then there’s the neck. Sometimes I feel as though my body is hanging from my neck, it works so hard!

Yes, it’s all quite physiological, even musculoskeletal, yet more important to me is the energetic or spiritual revelation here. The First Chakra even assists us in stabilizing our emotions and maintaining our sanity! And now that I’m writing about it, I know the Root is the root of it in me, and probably in us all to some degree. I guess we had better develop a little more pelvic floor awareness. Our health of mind, body, emotion and spirit depend on it.

“Let’s work on,” and I paraphrase here, “getting Divinity to merge with your divinity,” the wise man said as I left his presence.

“Oh, God; I get!” I said this to myself and that’s when I ran off to write in my journal. Later I shared it with a close friend. We laughed at the irony and the simplicity of it!

The Energetic Connection offers podcasts and online programs to assist you in Opening the Body to Spirit and Self-Mastery.

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Self-Mastery: Amusement & Acceptance

January 26th, 2011 by Michele

“Amusement is the state of being inspired. We channel inspiration only when we are receptive, and receptivity is the essence of acceptance.” Graham Shelley

Dateline: Berkeley, CA 1988

“Close your eyes and ground yourself from the tailbone into the center of the Earth. Bring your attention behind your eyes, deep into the center of your head. Postulate that you’ll release any energy that isn’t yours or isn’t in present time,” the teacher set the tone for the beginning mediation class that night.

“Sit quietly, becoming the observer of your inner world from this place. Is there anyone else in there with you? Yes? Open the door and ask them to leave. If they don’t go, send them down the drain through your grounding cord and into the center of the Earth.” She guided us to take ownership of our space; in this instance, the seat of our wisdom and clairvoyance.

Soon we became aware of crowds making conversation in our heads. As we let go of all the people, we came to the most tenacious hangers-on, those who wouldn’t leave. After all, we’d invited them in long ago and allowed them to take up space for eons.

“Dress them in funny costumes, make them walk the gangplank…kerplunk! Put them in a crib with diapers…watch their arms wobble and their legs wiggle, like babies!” Most of us giggled as we created our own versions of similar scenarios; mine was a bucket of water over the doorframe waiting for the next person to walk through…splash, dunk!

It was all pretty silly, though there was something very amusing about watching people, shocked and soaking wet, looking pissed off, trying not to laugh at themselves…they were caught in my visual scheme. Ahhh, the pleasures of the imagination; I’d found a way to release even the toughest energies, effortlessly!

“Amusement is like a psychic solvent,” our teacher mused. It cuts through the stickiest goop and creates more space for you to be in present time,” there was no pressure in her voice, at all.

“Now imagine you’re transparent, like you have a body of glass. No matter how dense or toxic, everything and anything passes through.” This exercise felt pretty effortless, especially after an hour of amusement to clear energy.

“Next, find a partner and let’s try passing air through your bodies. Close your eyes; sit in the center of your head looking down at your transparency. Your partner blows like the wind while you sit watching as the breeze passes through you. How was that? Did it work?

“Now let’s try the other elements. Observe your body while your partner sends fire and water through your transparency. Did they reach the other side? Now let’s try earth energy. Throw some dirt through your partner. What did you notice? How did it feel to throw the dirt? How did it feel to be the target?

“Okay, let’s make this a little more challenging. What foods do you love? In fact, what foods are you addicted to? Chocolate? Okay, let’s try passing chocolate through your transparency,” the teacher was still using amusement to move energy and we were having a great time, feeling quite successful.

Well, at least until we tried to pass chocolate through our hungry bodies.

“Where did it land?” We all laughed as we watched the chocolate sticking in various places around our bodies. My chocolate was in my belly, though some people watched the chocolate land in their mouths or on their thighs! Still others found no chocolate remnants in their bodies.

“Now you can see where you might have a few preconceptions,” the teacher was teasing us. “Isn’t this fun? So, now let’s put a different spin on this, giving it a sacred quality. Imagine a big red rose in front of your energy field. Pass the rose through your transparent body. Notice where it enters, what path it takes, and how long it takes to exit out the back of your aura. Or, did it stop someplace inside you, sticking for some reason?”

Mostly the roses moved easily through us, with a couple exceptions when people were greedy for the energy the rose provided. It also stuck when someone held a belief that they couldn’t create another rose, or when they worried that they couldn’t create and hold the same rose-like energy vibration inside them.

“Go home and observe yourself. How long can you sustain non-resistance to the world out there? More important, how long can you resist what you call into your awareness so you can grow?” The teacher dismissed us for the week. At this point people were incredibly enthusiastic, feeling light and empowered, eagerly awaiting the last class, and even the next course.

Equipped with amusement and transparency as our tools, we gradually became more aware of our resistance. Words, emotions, people, new ideas, weather, food, cosmic energy, and even resistance to our own resistant natures, all of it inevitably stuck someplace in our bodies that week. It was a really big growth period.

And as we observed through our sometimes-painful experiences, we practiced amusement. The more we practiced, the more accepting we became. Soon we were really good at amusing ourselves, and everything seemed to ease right through us.

“Just take one thing seriously…become more and more alert of your sleepiness. And all my efforts here, sutras or jokes, are nothing but means to wake you. Sometimes a joke can wake you up more easily than a serious sutra because listening to a serious sutra you tend to fall deeper into sleep; it is so serious that you can’t be awakened by it. But a joke is so light that you don’t want to miss it; you listen attentively.” Osho

Amusement is simple. It’s the foundation for acceptance and catalyzes awakening.

The Energetic Connection offers online courses and podcasts on self-mastery. Visit us here to explore practices in visualization, energy in motion, spiritual freedom, sacred space and more.

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Self Mastery: Conservation & Discipline

January 19th, 2011 by Michele

This is a story about response ability.

Can you, just for a moment, imagine the quantity and variety of life experiences you can potentially create? Now can you imagine the numerous ways you can respond to those experiences? Almost unfathomable, isn’t it?

Before we go further, let’s define a few things. After you peruse the meanings of these words, take a look at the questions below, giving them some immediate consideration, and then reflect further as you read the remainder of this discourse.

Responsibility: accountability, ability to respond maturely and consciously

Conservation: preservation, ability to manage and sustain resources

Discipline: course of study or practice; training that corrects, perfects or molds

In what areas of your life are you most disciplined and or conservative? Are there areas where you are more responsible for something or someone outside of yourself, than you are for your own creations? Is this because you seek validation from the outer world, or could it be that you’re just controlling your environment? How do you see conservation and discipline as crucial to a state of full response-ability?

The Bright Side

When we’re fully responsible, there’s no need to react, to fight or to defend in any way because we’re no longer avoiding or expecting anything. Life becomes more about our ability to create, to resonate with, and transmit higher vibrations, while allowing everyone else to have similar personal experiences.

Self-containment is present, coupled with a new sense of freedom. Instead of shooting from the hip, we’re more discerning about where our energy lands and to what it links. Choices come from practice: accumulated sustenance, circulating and reminding us of who we are as creative beings.

At some point our practice takes us into the moment, transmuting our reactions into responses. With great discipline we eagerly confront our tendencies toward lack: success, power, love, clarity. We have a straight shot to the finish line, clear of distractions, because we’ve prepared the way.

On this trail, we explore unknowns with great curiosity; we take risks, even in the face of dangerous new terrain, and we feel pretty good about ourselves, the taste of enthusiasm lingering on our lips. Our accountability activates us, even with the incoming fire of projections. These attacks carry no weight as we interpret things very differently now.

We’ve conserved our energy for more important activities than worry or competition. Our thoughts are expansive; we’re creative manifesters and receivers, upping the stakes of the consciousness game in a positive way. And when we’re ready to jump over the next hurdle, we seek out a mentor, someone who has been down this road before.

Finally we know we’re essentially safe, and the fear of old finally passes through, eventually becoming non-existent.

My Personal Story

I’d like to say that I’m fully responsible for myself and for the life I’ve created, yet it’s not quite true, yet. I’d like to say that I’ve maintained this level of beingness and have clearly graduated to the next. Though it’s not completely so.

Like a master in any training, I have yet to sustain full response-ability.

One of the most challenging times of my life was the moment I realized that all the responsibility I’d stolen along the way was more about control than it was true response ability. I’d been rescuing or caretaking other people, and their issues, my whole life as part of a self-preservation plot and protection regime. I manipulated my environment to have a “nice n’ easy” experience.

Busting the Old Game

Your story may be similar. No matter what your past experiences, your programming and typical reactions have been over your lifetime, you need to come home to your body and begin witnessing yourself from within. Can you imagine how powerful and present you would be if you reclaimed all the energy you left out in the world all these years?

Let’s start now.

Two of the most common roles in our mundane world are caretaker for women and provider for men. Sometimes these characteristics are reversed, and often they exist in diluted or morphed forms. These roles are tenacious and constant in our world, held together with super glue, enticing almost everyone with the potential rewards of being important, loved, supported and protected.

Look here first to see where you are most enraptured by false responsibility.

If you’re a mother, how can you maintain your role and still be responsible for yourself, your needs and your own responses to what you’ve created? If you’re a man in the traditional role of father and provider, how can you remain in your role and allow your true self to emerge responsive, respectful and receptive to the multiple facets of the life you really came to create?

Hidden within these obvious forms, are the subtleties of their lineages. Everyone holds a little piece of the provider or caretaker in all relationships. How do these roles play out in your world?

Some say we’re unable to modify behavior. Some say it’s impossible to change. I say that’s a great excuse for people who want to live inside the construct. True, there are many challenges, though if we’re up for the risk to our egos and comfort zones, if we’re up for more discipline, we can change anything.

Discipline enters, and the self-confront really begins here. Daily we need to focus on freedom; no judgments or expectations, no qualifications.

Create a symbol; listen to inspiring music; open the pineal gland with whale sounds, and listen to our inner voices. Finding our own personal muse of expansion will lead us to freedom.

Focus.

Now step off the stage for a moment and sit in the audience. From here we can see our roles; those within our families, our community, our workplace and more important, within our inner terrain. Watch.

Now focus some more.

the Energetic Connection offers online courses and podcasts in Self Mastery. Visit us here to explore practices in visualization, sacred space, spiritual freedom, energy in motion and more.

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Self Mastery: Trust, Sincerity & Expression

January 12th, 2011 by Michele

Soon after a divorce, one woman buys an estate in a foreign country, envisioning a wedding and family in that house. Another woman leaves her husband, loses most of her money and travels abroad for a year anyway, envisioning passion for life on all levels.

What do these women have in common?

Trust: self-reliance and faith

Both women at some point confront themselves with a similar dilemma, asking, “What am I doing here? What have I done?” Each, in her own way, exposes self-doubt and longing in the moment of crisis, ultimately became clearer about the endpoint than she was before.

How did they find the strength to stand up, keep going and find their way?

Express: to make known, to show or expose

Breaking down emotionally in the metaphorical arms of someone who represented strength and caring, each woman was willing to be totally vulnerable.

Why was it possible, especially for these women, to surrender like this?

Sincerity: honesty, genuine, freedom from hypocrisy

Self-Trust

Many people I meet are in a regular inner debate about whether or not they can trust themselves to respond appropriately or intelligently. Because they distrust, their essence is hidden and suppressed, even repressed.

When they do express themselves, it’s usually because they’re too full, or trapped in the effects of something outside themselves, trying to escape.

It’s interesting to note that people trust what the world reflects to them more than they trust their own sensibilities and inner voices.

The world is in a constant state of reflecting our lowest common human denominator. Think about any city in the world. We could all live on the shady side of these projections, allowing them to entrap us forever, if we chose to believe in their negative reflections.

We can also choose to experience something different, trusting the world to reflect its highest creative potential, trusting ourselves to actually see and meet that expanded creativity.

At this level of consciousness we learn what resonates with us, as opposed to becoming distracted by what we see inside the projections we encounter every day. We begin to know these so-called reflections have nothing to do with us because we’ve already chosen not to be molded by what others think of us.

Seeds of self-trust are planted and then self-trust sprouts.

Going inside for answers more frequently, our self-trust begins to build a foundational. When we trust ourselves, we breed trust in the world. When we find the courage to express our pain or sadness without excuses; find the strength to stand up with softness and emotional availability; that’s when the outer world changes for us.

It’s may seem like a tiny step, yet these types of demands and sacrifices are all-important links to our spiritual maturity. When we ask for what we want, we trust ourselves. With this trust, our own projections into the world change, and we begin to see very different reflections coming back.

Now the little seed of self-trust becomes a garden, we recognize our creative potential and the power we have to shift everything.

Why is it so challenging to express sincerely?

It could be the fear of making the wrong decision, or some kind of attachment to an outcome. Maybe it’s the simple need to control something, to navigate known waters versus traveling freely over those of emotional vulnerability in a much bigger sea.

Maybe we have too much at stake and are somehow afraid of loss or being different than others in our little holograms. It could be fear of loneliness.

There’s a shortage of role models reflecting expansion and creativity through vulnerability. Instead we see people who are apparently solid, identified with their careers, focused on making money and have a lot of security based on that income.

We interpret their certainty and prosperity as a springboard to inner stability, and then finally to trust. Could this succession of qualities work in reverse?

Distrust of our immediate worldly surroundings holds us back from the deeper levels of faith inside us and in something greater. Distrust also breeds insincerity, which compounds that lack of faith. Many religions unconsciously encourage their members to hold the illusion of spiritual faith and abundance by focusing on building an outer container. This protective shield is filled with dogma rather than soul memories of a mature inner temple.

While the illusory nature of this shell is far from being a worthy contractor of self-trust and faith, more people follow these particular instructions than those who follow their hearts, their soul paths.

Sometimes building true self-trust first takes action without preconception or even a thought as to the outcome. Like the fool, sometimes it takes a big dive, untethered to worry about whether anyone is down there to catch us if we miss the watermark.

We can escape the binds of these faltering ideas and dynamics when we find a way to trust ourselves, and consider the reflections. When we’re willing to ask questions and hear the answers; when we are discerning and able to interact with the information gathered; when we can share the depths of our discoveries without holding back or buying in; this is when our veneer begins to crack.

The hardened layers of self-distrust and resistance to the many incredible reflections the world bestows on us every day begin to come down, brick by brick.

Then, we come into present time where sincerity, expression and trust abound, building one upon the other.

The Energetic Connection offers online courses and podcasts in Self-Mastery. Visit us here to explore spiritual freedom, visualizations, energy in motion, sacred space and more.

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Seeds of Creation

January 1st, 2011 by Michele

When we create, watching our seeds flower in another’s backyard…when we create, knowing we may not directly reap the financial rewards and notoriety…when we continue to create with enthusiasm, moving ourselves aside…when we create with gratitude, allowing the seeds of our creations to land and grow where they may…this is true manifesting.

“You don’t have to realize your visions personally to be a manifester,” the voice came in loud and clear.

Two days ago I stood at Skylonda’s Meditation Point where I’d been many times before, looking out through the mist, listening to the water falling below, smelling the rich and soggy earth, breathing-in the lichen-clear air. A stone labyrinth nestled among giant Redwood fairy rings has now made it’s imprint where there was once only dirt and weeds. This has always been sacred ground and many seeds have been planted and sown in that very place, even in a minuscule portion of it’s history–the 20 years I’ve been visiting.

Upon exiting the sacred circle maze that day, I bowed, realizing I’d dreamed-in this labyrinth and everything that surrounded it: a non-profit educational retreat center that catered to consciousness and spirituality. It wasn’t mine, yet I’d helped bring it to fruition. For over 25 years I’d been quietly creating this retreat center and holding space for it’s ever-evolving expansion. It began in 1983 during one of my anxiety attacks. I first wrote my dream on tiny sheets of paper to distract myself from the painful and frightening panic in my body.

Then, the idea of a retreat soothed me and gave me something to look toward in an otherwise fearfully existential time in life.

Nine years later I read about a resident hiking center in the Redwoods just south of San Francisco in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was my dream actualized, a fruit bearing tree, my plan and personal vision in real time. Back then I called immediately and asked for a tour, telling them my story. I could see their smiles through the phone, though I wasn’t hired immediately because they’d just opened the doors officially two months before and didn’t yet have a lot of business. Forty days later I received a call to fill in for someone who would be out sick during the upcoming busy Christmas week.

Eventually I gave up my personal clients and two other part time massage jobs, and I didn’t leave that beautiful place for three years, working inside the brilliance of my vision. It was my muse and a dreamy job, that’s certain. I hiked, I talked to the guests and the trees, I taught yoga, stretching and consciousness, and I danced over people’s bodies, massaging, relaxing and escorting them on a week-long journey into their unknown inner worlds.

I was definitely in heaven.

Over the last 15 years I’ve revisited the idea of a retreat center business, motivated mostly from a frequent longing for my old job. I’ve actually spent quite a bit of time modifying and giving much consideration to my original dream and the desire to open my own place. An option I’ve held for so long it’s like a phantom limb, I recently let go of the idea altogether, knowing it would never become my life’s work. It was a really great dream though, and up until last year, one I regularly brought back when I felt lost, alone, uncertain about the future and unclear about what I might “do” in, and for, the world someday.

I’ve been back to visit Skylonda many times too, watching it move through four owners since its inception, and three very different incarnations. Skylonda is now Stillheart, and I spent three days there this last week, hiking, reminiscing, talking to my Redwood friends, looking around at my upgraded vision, dreaming-in my next incarnation.

I am blessed to have heard the voice at the labyrinth. I am even more blessed to have listened and embraced my next level of realization and actualization. Definitely uncomfortable in my dream’s absence, and feeling a bit like Humpty Dumpty, yesterday I sat atop the fence; it dug relentlessly into my bottom, urging me to jump off its post.

Today, on this first day of 2011, I struggle to embrace the recognition that not all of my dreams and visions are for me to accomplish in the real world. Today I also sit half on and half off the fencepost here, with no identity and no dreams to which I am attached. I’ve only the knowledge that whatever I dream-in will manifest itself in some form of perfection, someplace, for anyone willing to see it, to act on it, and for anyone who desires to participate.

Well, I do have one little thing in the early stages of expansion. It’s a dream I’ve had my whole life and today I’ve just put it into real time. We’ll see how it goes when real time isn’t holiday time!

The Energetic Connection offers a podcast series, Fuel for the Fire, and online courses in Self Mastery. You can take a single session or participate in a full course or program.

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