was fun and intensely hard work. Our goal for this stage of putting together the summer camp curriculum was to nail down the details of the craft activities for the camp and so we spent two days in the dining room area of the lodge surrounded by paint, glue, beads, crayons, markers and the results of our labor: wild masks, colorful tambourines and maracas, jewel toned treasure boxes and beautifully woven God's eyes. Anyone seeing us laughing, chatting and madly creating would have a difficult time believing that our activity was work. However, when I awoke yesterday morning back here in the Valley I felt as though my 'juice' was seriously low!One of the problems with one's 'juiciness' feeling dried up is that the energy running through our personal web of attitudes toward living becomes weak and in my experience, this is exactly when less than pleasant old beliefs and feelings often surface. I was quite aware of this reality yesterday when in my tiredness I found myself focusing on anxieties and worries rather than blessings and goodness. After half a day of feeling lethargic and 'poopy' I realized that it was time to not only take some time 'off' but also to use that time for an attitude re-adjustment.
Attitude: one's way of thinking and reflecting one's way of thinking. Very simply, it is our attitudes which create the 'web' of energy around us which then creates our experience of living because attitude is the energy we use to engage life. Whatever we engage is what we will manifest. When I first began this blog I said that the most commonly recognized word for announcing that magic is occurring is the word 'abracadabra' meaning: as I speak, I will create which is precisely how our day - our life - is created: by the words I use. When I speak, the topics I choose, the words I choose to express my feelings, all express my inner attitude.
One synonym for the word attitude is demeanor: one's bearing in life reflecting the sense of orientation. Our attitude will in fact orient our emotional direction of the moment, the day or eventually our life. We will engage what we have oriented ourselves to encounter.
Our topics of conversation and the words we use while talking all create the energy that orients our emotional direction.
The tricky part of engaging and manifesting attitudes for creating the web of our life is knowing - being truly conscious of -what beliefs live at the center of our web. Sometimes living in the center of our web is an belief from childhood that has been there so long we are not even aware of its existence or, we may be aware of the 'tip' of the belief but like an iceberg, the manifested 'tip' only indicates something very big going very deeply. Paradoxically, when our 'juiciness' is weak is often when old and inaccurate beliefs often pulsate with life. The good news about this strange phenomena is that we are actually able to 'see and feel' it when it is pulsing stronger than our normal juiciness; the bad news is that when our juiciness is weak we are often not in the mood for such insights!
If we are willing though to 'listen' to the pulsations of our old belief and not reject it because the 'music' frightens us {old attitudes often do this}, or run away from the anxious feelings it may induce {again, this often happens} or respond with self-righteousness as in 'I have the right to feel this way, or do as I was tempted to do yesterday in my tiredness: poke my fingers in my ears to not hear any 'music' at all; if somehow we are graced with the ability to simply sit and listen we may learn something that can change our life.
I had a life altering experience about a year ago when I actually 'heard' a very, very old belief pulsating and creating an unpleasant web of energy in my life. The belief was from my childhood and the core of it was a very powerful lie. To make a long story as short as possible, at the time of this awareness I was taking a class that required about four hours a week of directed reading, question answering and essay writing. The class was intense in both its content and the work required to explore the content. One week, having completed the reading I was writing answers to the questions in the workbook and found myself writing that I was unworthy and unacceptable. When I saw the words - in my handwriting - I was stunned because if you had asked me if I felt unworthy and unacceptable I would have responded that I had spent years working through issues as well as decades devoted to mindful quiet time and believed myself to be both worthy and acceptable. My pride took a hit on that one!
Nonetheless, despite what I thought, the words were written quite definitely as my response. Rather than brush away their significance out of either horror or shame at seeing them surface, I decided right then to sit quietly and ask myself "why do I believe myself to be unworthy and unacceptable?" I remained very still and shortly, I 'saw' a scene that had occurred about twelve years before. The scene happened during a time I was very, very vulnerable because of major changes in my life. In the scene, an acquaintance, said some very hurtful things which in blindsided me with both their nastiness and the unexpectedness of the experience. I was also blindsided because this person was an acquaintance rather than a person close enough to know me.
As I sat with the revelation in this scene, I wondered, 'how could this one incident have such power in my life?' Again, I asked the question and deliberately remained as quiet as possible so as not not fill up the space with my own explanations. As the quiet grew, I became aware that her words of nastiness had lodged so deeply into my heart not only because my vulnerability at the time had 'softened' my defenses but also because the was already a space in my heart that contained well-tended 'soil' for her words to land in and grow.
This well-tended soil had been created in the religion of my childhood where before receiving communion the words "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you" were uttered aloud. Abracadabra - as I speak I will create. When one speaks a phrase - particularly a phrase of belief - literally thousands of times not only is a web of attitude created, but it is a very strong web. The person's words from that fateful day - hurtful and untrue as they were - simply activated a part of myself that had inadvertently been quite well nourished.
In all likelyhood I was given the words for receiving communion as a means of acknowledging what that religion believed to be my inherent 'sinful' nature and as a means of warding off more sinfulness. Possibly the intention of those words was not meant to create a deep sense of unworthiness and unacceptability for receiving the abundant blessing and goodness of life. And yet, that is exactly what they did for any words of attitude uttered over and over in our talk will create a web of energy composed of 'nature' of the words we use.
Do you know why spiders spin webs? To catch food. The web of attitude woven from our words and the topics of our conversations, creates an energy web that 'catches' the food of our life. Remember, we manifest what we engage. If we engage resentment we manifest hostility {which may be seen as either self-pity, arrogance or pissiness}; engage fear and what manifests is rage: irritation, fits of temper, lack of caring about the viewpoint of 'others' {or if shoved down and denied, rage often manifests as melancholy or depression}; engage love and kindness and manifest goodness, blessing and the ability to experience joy; engage beauty and manifest creativity; engage creativity and manifest newness of life. The list of engaging and manifesting in terms of attitudes and behaviors is quite long in possibility.
How though do we eradicate an old belief in order to stop 'catching' attitudes that we do not want? We feed, feed, feed the attitude that is desired. First of all, do not scratch at the scab on the old belief: put on gloves, grab some tweezers and pluck that nasty thing from the web and treat as toxic waste - burn it or bury it - get rid of it. Whatever you do - and this may be tempting at times - do not drop it into a jar, screw on the top and display it on your bookcase as a trophy of how you 'overcame' or what was done to you in the past. Whatever you have plucked is not a trophy - it is done and over and if you desire something new you must be willing to let go of it.
Plucking the destructive belief out of your web will leave a hole in your psyche, especially if this is an old, old belief. This 'hole' must be filled with a new attitude and if your psyche is to be persuaded as to the validity of the new belief you must choose to deliberately attract and beguile the new energies. The necessity for being deliberate and choosing means that you will need to set aside some time each day for a couple weeks or so to nourish this new energy. Being aware of this fact, when I 'discovered' that old nasty belief in my web and plucked it out I committed myself immediately to being willing to do whatever was needed to feed the new attitude.
Acquiring a new attitude using the old formula of hear it, see it and do it over and over again until the seed of the new belief sends out roots and becomes a seedling. This is the step of 'growing' which is often overlooked because the process of 'hearing' the music of the old belief, listening to what it is saying, choosing to respond by reflecting upon it and then choosing to put on those rubber gloves, pluck it out and dispose of it {possibly after wavering a moment over a trophy jar}, seems like a big accomplishment that required a lot of work! It was and it did. And now it's time to grow what you choose to replace it with.
From the experience I just wrote about, I wished to grow a sense of worthiness and acceptability for receiving the abundant blessing of life as well as being able to live and share from this abundant goodness. Who doesn't desire this? Anyway, to this end I initially chose two actions. The next morning when I got up and began my quiet time I lit two additional candles: one in thanksgiving for the new awareness and the second as a flame of forgiveness toward both the stupid learning I had be taught as a child and toward the person whose words had wounded me. Did I feel forgiveness when I began this ritual? Not at all. But I was willing to and before that pillar candle had burned completely away in a couple weeks, I no longer was angry or resentful which was a nice start.
Journaling is a tried and true method of exploration and declaration for me and was my second action. Soon after my discovery I decided that I wanted to journal about it. As I began writing the entry, I said to my HP 'please direct my thoughts and writing.' Next thing I knew, I was 'hearing' the directive: write the phrases 'I am worthy. I am acceptable.' over and over until you feel in your gut that it is time to stop. I must tell you, I felt kind of foolish and like I was ten years-old again but I did as I felt I was being directed. I filled three legal-size pages front and back with those phrases. As I wrote the words, I also said them aloud: see it, hear it and do it - each a form of action needed for new learning was right there on those pages.
Writing the words out like that may seem silly but I can tell you that it was a wonderful beginning for showing myself - and my ego - what I was willing to do in acquiring a new attitude to fill that hole in my psyche. I continued to nourish this new attitude with some reading on the topic. I also found a couple affirmations/prayers that supported what I was 'growing' and I wrote them out and put them where would see them and be reminded to say the words a few times a day.
The trickiest part of this process of removing the old and growing something new is to focus on the new and truly let go of the old: do not engage in the telling of the old stories attached to it with the blaming of who, what, where, when and why; do not scratch the old scab. It is tempting to scratch at the old because it is so familiar and I'll warn you that it can be easy to give up on the new because it takes a while for that seed of the new to crack and sprout and so we can easily 'disbelieve' in what is yet to show itself. This is why when I am doing new planting I always find reading that supports the growing process and gives me a 'picture' to hold in my mind while I am waiting for the new seeds to grow and bloom.
Abracadabra! I grow in my mind and trust that as I do this and nourish the new little seedling, it too will bloom in life.
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