Posts Tagged ‘transformation’
The Process of Becoming Human
September 23rd, 2009 | 
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For someone who is known for her “spiritual” work, I sure have spent a lot of time preaching to folks about embracing their humanity. “Divine Human” is a phrase I have used many times over the years that I have been privileged to assist others in experiencing their personal divinity. But it has been a long process for me of embracing my own humanity.
When I was very, very little, I got the message early that the world was not a safe place, but instead one of pain and confusion. What is normally natural wonderment with the marvel of the physical world in most children became wondering what the hell I was doing here. I remember looking up at the sky and asking “why me?”… Fully expecting an answer, and hoping to be called back up to the safety of my angelic family. I did try to leave several times over my life, but apparently I am supposed to stick around. Due to what I was experiencing in my life, it was not an option to stay psychically open and at ease. Out of necessity, I left my body.
When I started recovery work at age 23, cognitive and group therapies as well as some body work were the next logical choices. In 2 years of therapy twice per week, I learned the names for what was done to me and that the problem was with them, not me…which was a huge awakening because I had always been held responsible for the dysfunction of my family. I look back now on those years as coming to a mental understanding, which was a good place to start for someone who could not access her body or emotions or spirit any more.
The body work I did was with a gentle soul of a massage therapist, Judy, who saw my fragility and brokenness, and treated me with such care. Her work was one of coaxing me back into my body, a little bit at a time, with soft and nourishing caresses rather than deep tissue work. I found her after going to a sports massage therapist, who tried to beat my muscles into submission by digging ever harder with her manly hands; I was not yet in a place to tell her to stop, so endured it and just never went back. Finding solace and safety with Judy was a major beginning in finding my way back to my body.
I went in to therapy for “tune ups” periodically over my life when I felt there was something that I needed objective assistance with; but as I birthed children, I felt my spirit crack open the shell I had put around my heart, and I began reclaiming my spiritual connection in earnest. So, the mental component of awareness now joined with the spiritual awakening that was occurring in my life. I studied several types of healing modalities, read some esoteric material, studied world religions, and started to re-build my communication and cultivate the relationship with my larger self, guides and teachers, and my angelic family that had sustained me during childhood.
In 1998, I met a woman who would become my spiritual teacher for 7 years. Over that time, she helped me learn to meditate, sit still, listen for inner guidance…she gave me names of things I had experienced but didn’t know what to call. Specifically, she was able to tell me the words for all that I had understood about the world of subtle energy and the way energy moves. This was more mental/spiritual understanding and development. Her teachings were to transcend human egoic life and emotion, to reach higher and prepare for “ascension”. The message was the same as all of the world patriarchal religions; earthly life is to be suffered through, and when we die we will get our reward. You may not be surprised that this escape from my body and feeling feelings was a great fit for someone who did not fully inhabit her body. I learned so much from her and don’t regret our time together; however, there did come a day when I realized I had grown past her in her willingness to be in human existence, and we parted ways.
Since that time, I have been on a determinedly physical/emotional/mental/spiritual (PEMS) learning curve. I WANT to be a full human being, feeling the feelings, expressing my emotions, being present to the unique qualities of physical life, FULLY INHABIT MY BODY, all while developing and exploring my mental and spiritual conceptualizations of what it means to exist on an earthly plane. I guess that is part of why I feel compelled to write about it…I am putting thoughts together to help me answer that question I asked myself when I was so young.
Every time I go to that place of trying to explain away my life through high falutin’ spiritual concepts, or detach myself from my physical experience by analyzing myself through my acutely developed inner therapist (mental capacity), I am trying to remind myself that those aspects of me are only PART of me…that my animal body and my raw emotion also need expression time, because they are part of being human, too. While those spiritual and mental concepts may very well but true, there is more to the story.
Don’t get me wrong…all of the time I have spent exploring my mental and spiritual aspects was important, and I won’t dishonor myself by dismissing those parts of myself. In contrast, I will explore those aspects of myself in tandem with becoming more fully physical and expressing my emotion. It is full ON.
Being a Divine Human means being HUMAN. Fully, 100% claiming our human existence….feeling it, living in it, being present in physical life. We ARE spirit, that is what we come from….it’s a given. And we came all this way into physical to bring our spirit into this marvelous, complex, messy playground called physical life, not to escape from it.
Sure, we can learn and play around with mental or spiritual concepts about how we got here and what goes on “at a soul level”…there is value in those awarenesses….as long as we don’t do it to the exclusion of our physical and emotional experience, ‘cause we came to experience those, too. Otherwise we could have just stayed up there in the clouds playing non-physical bocce ball with our angelic friends (hmmm, wonder how you play ball with no ball?)
We wanted to come here to experience what it felt like to be in a body. IF we don’t allow for that in our lives, we might be missing the whole point. This is an aspect of the journey I am on, and will continue to write about.
I am currently doing “rage work” now (finally-it was suggested by therapists over the years, but I was too scared to allow myself to feel those awful feelings of powerlessness I had buried deep within my body memory).
The things I am learning from my body as a result of this work are pure revelation. I am learning that emotion is a message that must be heeded- it is energy in the body that is feedback from a physical experience, and it must be expressed or it will be trapped in the cells of the body and create havoc. I am learning that it is never too late to express emotion, even if it has been trapped in your body for 40+ years. I am learning that when I get brave and actually FEEL those feelings and scream or beat up pillows or yell at the top of my lungs, it frees up space inside of me to live more freely, to be more ME. It feels like alignment, like things coming together that have been apart. I am learning it takes energy to hold parts of myself apart…and that when I surrender, they will go back together.
This is a good thing-my creative self is coming out to play, I have more energy available to get things done, my focus is getting sharper, I feel as though I am coming into the life I was meant to live….but the big payoff is that I am joining the human race. My further embracing of my humanity is changing who I am in the world…and I think, for the better.
Posted in licia's observations | 
Tags: change, healing, humankind, integration, spirituality, transformation, trauma | 
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Observations on Nature and Change…the Cheyenne Way
Starburst 1 by Peter Berry www.peterberry.us
The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. –Charles Dubois
With all that is going on in the world these days, it seems the one constant is change. Of course, change has been happening since the beginning of…well, All That Is. But it seems to be more intense now, with change happening on top of change happening on top of change. People are afraid, sad, angry, anxious. As a family that feels energy patterns and cycles deeply, we can feel the waves of movement that are occurring, even when it appears that nothing is going on….it is movement under the surface, in the depths of the collective psyche.
Change is in inherent in Nature…and we are part of nature. All we need do is remember playing outdoors as children and feeling that first hint of fall in the air after a long, leisurely summer. Was it a certain smell, or the way the light seemed to be sharper? Was it the first leaf turning a slightly duller shade of green into yellow on the favorite tree? Or was it a sense of inner knowing that the age old dance of cycles was at its work again? We knew that something was changing, even before we had all of the science knowledge or the words in our heads…we could just feel it.
Change is the way nature works…and since everything is part of Nature (I challenge you to show me one thing that is outside of Nature, just as I would challenge you to show me one thing that is outside of God), everything changes. We watch the seasons and come to expect those changes, even to look forward to them. We watch as animals and land forms and weather patterns and plant life evolves over time on our planet, and expect that, too. In the human realm, our minds change, our bodies change, our beliefs and emotions change, our circumstances change. But these we don’t allow so gracefully as when we observe the changing of the leaves. We somehow expect that we humans should be exempt from change, unless of course we consciously choose it.
Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death. –Anais Nin
Since we are part of something much larger than ourselves (and thank goodness for that, I say), we are also part and parcel of the larger energy cycles that move through our universe, keeping the balance of order and chaos that invokes creation. Since we are not separate from the molecules that make up the matter, and the intelligent energy that holds everything together, we are also not separate from the waves and tides that lap at the shores of all existence. And since the universe is infinite and constantly expanding, the changing will never stop. This means we are ALIVE.
Many of us are struggling with the changes that the last months have brought us; as a fellow human, I understand and empathize. Our family has certainly been through its share of changes, too, and many of them quite challenging to deal with. Perhaps I am fooling myself, but I believe that things change in order to bring a better order. In other words, that what begs to be released from our lives is something that we no longer need, even perhaps is unsupportive for our soul-filled life. Keeping this perspective helps me have a better attitude about changes; I feel that I am surfing the wave instead of being clobbered by it, being subsumed by it, a victim of it.
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. ~Author unknown, commonly misattributed to Charles Darwin
One of my favorite native teachings is of the Cheyenne way. It’s said that if you have a cup of water, but the water is no good to drink, pour it out on the ground. Seems pretty straight-forward, doesn’t it? But many of us keep carrying that cup of dirty water around with us, whether it be a relationship that is hurting us, a job that is toxic, emotions that are unexpressed, beliefs that are limiting our life to a small fraction of what it could be. The Cheyenne way is to unapologetically pour the bad water out on the ground. There is no guilt in releasing what is not nourishing you anymore. It’s bad water. Just pour it out.
In the end, change is what runs through us like threads run through a tapestry….there is no escape from it. I do believe change is the one constant. And since there is no reprieve, we must choose how we will relate to change. Will we resist and suffer, railing against the tidal wave, trying to hold it back? Or will we let the cleansing storm take all the loose and unneeded cargo, and bravely lash ourselves to the helm and steer the best we can through the rushing waters, being our most alert and discerning selves, keeping our eye to the horizon line when we lose our faith?
In the end we can only keep moving forward, honoring all experience, blessing what we must let go of in our lives, and keep living.
It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. –Alan Cohen
Posted in licia's observations |
Tags: change, energy dynamics, humankind, Indians, Nature, spirituality, transformation |
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A Reminder
“First, the greater portion of our energy must be directed toward cohering the newly emerging butterfly organism, as the caterpillar seems to be doing just fine in deconstructing itself. Secondly, if we are going to have a look at the darkness, the most helpful thing we can do is to shine the light of love and laughter on it.”
-Swami Beyondananda/Steve Baerman
I know so many of us that are getting caught in the fear of the transformation that is occurring in our world right now…people who have been training in consciousness for years and who KNOW better than to let themselves be pulled under the wave, rather than to ride on it, are struggling to keep their heads above water!
I want to appeal to you all….those of you who knew that this transformation was coming….we have been readying ourselves for it forever! It may not look like the way we thought it would, but it is HERE and the time is NOW to put our skills into play. There is no time to entertain fear….it is time to be the master, the good inner grown-up, the Wise One Inside, and to say NO to the media and fear diet.
I am not suggesting that we put our heads in the sand; it is important to acknowledge what is true and see it with neutral eyes. But we cannot afford to let it carry us away; our focus must be on what we want to create in this world.
THE TIME IS NOW
