Equanimity

A while back I had a chat with one of the trainers at the Monroe Institute.  We were talking about the coming event that Robert Monroe and others have sensed is heading our way.  He said that the most important thing to remember, no matter what happens, is to maintain our equanimity through all of the changes that we may experience.

Equanimity is defined as calmness of mind and composure.  Certainly by maintaining this state we will be able to be effective agents for change and stability in our rapidly accelerating reality.  My sense is that to maintain our equanimity, we must also unplug from the busy-ness of daily life and spend some time each day going within for direction and guidance.   

Years ago, one of my shamanic training instructors also imparted a gem of wisdom to me.  She said that there is “my business, your business, and God’s business”.  The only business we have any right to meddle in is our own.  The other person’s business and God’s business will both be taken care of without our interference.  Having this attitude will also help us to maintain our equanimity. 

I am getting ready to drive down to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to teach Quantum Sphere Healing this weekend, so there will be no posts for about a week.  There will be many new insights and experiences related to the class that I hope to share when I get back.  It is always a blessing for me to assist others in their quest for spiritual evolution and healing, and to be able to pass on to them processes that can, in turn, be used to assist others.

Reactions

For some time now I have been very interested in tracking entities that feed off of negative reactions in the physical or emotional bodies that are triggered by substances that we eat, drink or smoke.  In these categories are alcohol, drugs, either legal or illegal, and a whole host of addictive foods.  Prescription drugs fall into these categories because they all have side effects that the body reacts to and that can be quite damaging.   One does not even need to have an addiction to the substance for a reaction to occur, although it is to the advantage of the associated entity for an addiction to be in place.  

There is a whole host of reactions that one needs to pay attention to.  The list seems almost endless!  Some examples are any physical body distress such as digestive issues, any new aches or pains, headache, nausea, dizziness to name a few.  What about energetic symptoms like feelings of being ungrounded or out of the body, blacking out, anxiety, cravings, unusual emotional reactions like anger, fatigue, lethargy or crankiness.

My definition of an entity is a being that is parasitical and that siphons energy from its host.   Entities fall into several categories.  This could be an attached earth bound spirit that wants to satisfy its addiction to drugs or alcohol through its living host, and will do its best to make the host crave what it wants.  Certainly extraterrestrials that are manipulating mankind for their gain and our loss fall into the entity category.  There are many entities that have never had a human form, and are sucking energy from us to use either as their own food, or passing the extracted energy up line to a being higher in the pecking order.  That is, by the way, the reason why I do not engage in network marketing, as these companies are all using this model whether they realize it or not. 

Substances that create reactions in the body all have an entity that takes advantage of the reaction either by being directly attached to the physical body or attached to the patterning of the substance.  I must emphasize here that each person will have a reaction according to their genetic inherited patterns, frequency of exposure to the substance, and the contracts that they came into this lifetime to fulfill.  The contracts could be with the entities themselves or a soul contract to experience the particular addiction or the body’s reaction to the substance.  It varies so much.  The main point to remember is that this dynamic is designed to throw one off their center, thus enabling the parasitical behavior by the entity to take place. 

I’d like to talk about 2 substances that I have tracked specifically.  Gluten and sugar.  These 2 food ingredients have had a major impact on the health of the human body that seems to have gotten much worse in recent years.  All aspects of life are accelerating and the reactions to these foods are no exception.  The negative reactions seem to be more concentrated and amplified.  

When I tracked gluten, I was taken back to a time when wild wheat was starting to be domesticated through genetic selection. The part of the world that I traveled to looked like Eastern Europe or Russia.  Humanity was making the shift from hunter gatherers to living in agricultural communities.  It is my sense that the quality of our food started to go downhill at that point, even though it was a necessary step in supporting a growing population.  An entity took advantage of the manipulation of the wheat and hooked in, perhaps knowing that its influence would take thousands of years to come to full power.  What had been a staple of nutrition for many cultures has now become a toxic substance for those with that affinity.

Years ago, I looked into the issue of sugar addiction, and tracked that one back to the energy of slavery.  This is a much newer entity attachment than the wheat issue, but it is much stronger.  Look at our predisposition to be enslaved by food, relationships, habits, money, beliefs, where we live, how we live, etc.  It is also hard nowadays to find any kind of processed food that does not contain sugar!  I am speaking specifically of cane sugar.  Beet sugar may or may not fall into this category as far as entities are concerned, as it has a totally different origin than cane sugar. 

What to do about all of this?  I will leave it up to each individual to decide.  Partake with your awareness activated, and minimize or eliminate exposure according to your reactions.  The entities that are using your reactions to the substances are not going to go away but we can “starve” them of their food. Your goal is to maintain your balance and hang onto all of your own energy.  

Problem-->Reaction-->Solution

Let’s take the toxic triangle from the previous post one step further.  I call this problem, reaction, and solution.  The perpetrator causes the problem, the victim reacts, and the rescuer provides the solution.  On the conscious levels, this pattern seems to be very straight forward. 

Here’s an example.  A building catches on fire (problem).  Someone sees the fire and calls the fire department (reaction).  The fire department comes and puts out the fire (solution).  No one dies, minimal damage is done, and everyone is happy.

Now let’s suppose that there is a twist to this scenario.  What if the person who starts the fire, the perpetrator, is the same person who comes to put out the fire and is the rescuer?  How could this happen?  Perhaps this is how he gets ego gratification by being a hero.  He may have a personal reason for doing damage to that particular piece of property.  Maybe there is a political reason, such as an impending vote to downsize the fire department.  Or he gets turned on by seeing a building burn, and there hadn’t been a big enough fire in his town for a while.  In other words, the perpetrator creates the problem knowing what the reaction will be so that he can achieve his desired goal, which is his solution. 

Here’s another example that may have happened to you at some point.  Somebody says something to offend you.  You react by getting angry and defending yourself.  The person who started it all then throws up their hands, points the finger at you, and wants to know why you are being so mean to them.  They have created the end result, or solution, of you being the bad guy, or perpetrator.  This may have been their intent all along, or this can be just the way that they make themselves look good, and you look bad.  This is another example of how the toxic triangle can rotate around.

These are personal examples, but this dynamic plays out every day in government and politics all over the world.  It’s like a giant multileveled chess game.  With the hidden and also the obvious moves, it’s hard to keep the whole thing straight.  Keep in mind that the problem would not be created if the person or group creating it did not know what the reaction would be.  The end result is the achievement of their desired goal.

Look at how our world has changed since the 911 attack, with assaults on our personal rights each time we take a trip on a plane.  Was this the intended outcome, or did someone take advantage of that event to achieve the goal of reducing our rights and freedoms?  Look at the attempts to restrict gun ownership because of the recent mass shootings, even though gun crime has been steadily going down in recent years.  Are we looking at manufactured or manipulated events designed to achieve a “solution” that fits a certain person or group’s agenda?  You be the judge.

The Toxic Triangle

In the next few posts, I will be writing about various energetic dynamics that might be considered shadow work, as these patterns can be hidden until you bring your awareness to them.  These are all patterns that, when triggered, will cause you to be thrown off of your center or become ungrounded.  In these times of chaos and uncertainty, it is vitally important to remain balanced and centered if one is to be the calm in the midst of the storm so to speak.  That can be very difficult depending on the circumstances.  Yesterday, the huge mega tornado hit near Oklahoma City, and I can only surmise that those who can maintain their composure and balance will be most effective in dealing with that disaster.

The concept of victim, perpetrator and rescuer was introduced during my shamanic training with the Four Winds Society.  In our west direction class we worked with 3 ancestors and 3 of our past lives that fit into these categories.  The goal was to transform these patterns in our own lives.  Unfortunately, the way this was taught created the belief that the “negative” patterns were the victim and perpetrator, and the “positive” pattern was the rescuer.  After a lot of work with this in subsequent years, I came to the conclusion that all of these were dysfunctional shadow patterns that everyone embodies from time to time, and I named this energetic pattern the “Toxic Triangle”.

Personally, I worked with this energetic dynamic between myself, my sister, and our mother.  My Dad passed away in 1995, which left the 3 of us until our Mom passed in 2008.  Boom!!!  The toxic triangle became activated big time!  Not that it hadn’t been there before, but it really became amplified at that point because my Dad was no longer present to be the recipient of my Mom's chronic displeasure.  My sister and I were pitted against each other, gossip and innuendo were the order of each conversation, and energetic attack ran rampant amongst the 3 of us. Our mother perceived herself to be the victim, and in her eyes, the two of us flipped back and forth between the rescuer and the perpetrator depending on the circumstances.  It became so bad that my sister and I agreed to not carry tales from our mother to each other.  To the best of our ability, we stepped out of that dynamic. 

The toxic triangle consists of the perpetrator, the victim and the rescuer.  In a relationship between 3 people, each may take on one of these roles most of the time, but what is important to remember is that these roles rotate around amongst the participants.  This is where we also see the shadow at work.  One may feel victimized and will go on the attack as a result, becoming the perpetrator.  The rescuer may have been victimized in some way in early childhood, and is projecting that status onto others that they feel need rescuing.  A perpetrator will act out the unresolved anger at not having been rescued or taken care of adequately as a child.  If the rescuer does not do a good enough job at rescuing, they come under attack, and take the victim stance.  No good deed goes unpunished.  Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.  The list goes on and on.  Of course, these dynamics go on between 2 people, but when a third is introduced, the toxic triangle is activated. 

Remember also that because we have a shadow aspect, the opposite of the behavior that is being openly displayed is going on in the person’s subconscious.  Thus, the sweet innocent put upon “victim” undoubtedly has a lot of anger inside.  This person may need rescuing frequently, or will use a passive aggressive attack mode to get what they need  The drive is to balance out their own inner toxic triangle. 

Coincidentally, the triangle is the most stable of the simple geometric forms.  Its shape cannot be distorted by pushing on one of the points.  This has to tell you how strong this pattern can be, and how hard it is to break if awareness is not brought to it.  If you look back on problematic threesomes in your life, you will see how this dynamic has played out.  You may have been part of a twosome or a foursome that through circumstances shifted to a threesome.  How did this change the interactions between you?  I definitely saw a difference after my father passed.  My sister and I actually had a conversation recognizing that without my father as the buffer, we were going to be directly in our mother’s sights. 

So how does one resolve the toxic triangle?  Consciousness awareness is the first step.  Work your issues as they come up and do your shadow work.  You can also simply step out of the dynamic of the threesome and deal with the other two on a strictly one to one basis.  This is what my sister and I did by disengaging the side of the triangle that joined us and also by dealing with our mother without dragging the other into the mess.  This worked most of the time, but was still a kind of disconnected and isolating way of dealing with things that did not really satisfy anyone. 

We are here in this reincarnational cycle to resolve our polarities and come to a center point, transcending issues.  This center point can be in the middle of the energetic triangle, but that is still a position that can be pulled over to one of the 3 dynamics too easily.  I prefer to rise up above the triangle and take a position at the apex of a newly formed 3 sided pyramid.  This is the observer position that is achieved by doing one’s inner work and it also creates an extremely stable geometric shape as a result.  The trick is to actually do your work and not put yourself in that position as an avoidance strategy.  You will know that you are making progress when you are pulled into the toxic triangle less and less and are able to hold your center and inner balance more and more.

The Shadow Knows

One of our tasks as spiritually evolving human beings is to raise our awareness levels.  This is actually the first and most important step to resolving issues, but can be the most difficult if one does not have the tools to go about recognizing what is hidden from us.  This is commonly called our shadow.  Everyone has a shadow aspect and this part of us exists as a result of dropping down in vibration into the realms of polarity where we now focus our attention.  So we have a conscious aspect and an unconscious aspect as well. All shamanic practitioners, myself included, are well trained to ferret out the hidden aspects of their clients.

What is in our shadow?  It is quite loaded with stuff and can appear to be quite complicated.  Anything we would rather forget, consciously or unconsciously, can be stuffed into our shadow.  These are life’s traumas and embarrassing moments.  Soul loss can be a result of experiencing a trauma and is the psyche’s way of protecting us from continually re-experiencing that trauma.  Our inherited genetic patterns for dysfunction and disease, and past lives where we have been maimed or died badly are a part of the shadow.  So also are many belief systems, pre-verbal childhood experiences, soul contracts, problematic emotions we would rather not acknowledge having, needs we do not know that we have, issues around abandonment or not being seen as a child, and the list goes on and on. 

I do have to say here that our shadow is not all negative.  We also have a positive shadow of wonderful talents and attributes that have been stuffed because we cannot or will not embody these aspects of ourselves for a variety of reasons.  Low self confidence or self esteem would be a reason for this.

We create our reality, the good, the bad and the ugly, 100% of the time.  Remember that this is for our experiences and learning on Planet Earth.  So you say, “Why would I choose to be beat up, abandoned, maimed or killed in a nasty way?”  For the same reason that you would choose to be a millionaire, good looking or a talented musician.  This is so that your totality throughout all time and space can experience everything!  In one sense, we are playing here with everything that the earth school has to offer so that we can graduate and move on to the next stage in our evolution.

Keeping a part of ourselves hidden away wouldn’t be much of a problem except for one big reason.  We are creating our reality from our conscious awareness day by day, but also from the hidden aspects in our shadow.  A simple example is this.  You are in a relationship and your daily intent is to treat your partner with loving kindness as often as possible.  After all, you value this person and the relationship that you have.  In spite of this, every once in a while, the other person does something very innocently and without negative intent that triggers you and you fly into a fit of rage.  Or you withdraw into sullenness.  Your behavior bothers you, and yet you are clueless as to where your response came from.  Your shadow of course!  In the mean time, the relationship suffers as a result. 

Because the shadow is hidden, it cannot be worked with directly.  If you acknowledge and accept that you have created your reality from many levels of your own consciousness, and that everything around you is an aspect of your creation, then you can own what is going on and take steps towards bringing the problematic issues to full consciousness so that they can be resolved. I encourage you to take a chance and own your part in whatever is going on.  That is the only way that a shift can happen. Allow the feelings to rise up without stuffing them. At this point I will refer you back to the post entitled "Working Your Stuff" for methods of doing this. 

Any time you have been triggered into an out of balance emotion, belief or attitude, your shadow has brought an issue to your attention.  This can be very subtle, so pay attention.  If you find yourself pointing the finger, turn that finger around, as an aspect of yourself has just been mirrored to you. A client recently told me that he does not like to do shadow work, as he feels that it focuses too much on the negative aspects of life.  Since we live in a realm of polarity, every dark cloud has a silver lining.  With shadow work, that silver gem within the difficulty can be released and embodied for your benefit.  I say, relish the difficulties in your life.  You have created them to show you something about yourself.  There is no better feeling than when you have realized the “Aha!!!” and really gotten it.  

Consider, too, that because we live in a world of polarity, if the light is emphasized, the dark, or hidden is equally emphasized as a result.  So emphasizing the positive of any situation creates an out of balance effect and feeds the shadow.  The shadow gains in power and will act up at some point.  When that happens, it can't be overlooked! 

The recent difficulties with my former friend has provided me with several avenues for introspection, self discovery and healing.  This is as it should be as I do my best to walk my talk.  I also suspect that the matrix programming of the synthetic universe is all a part of the collective shadow of mankind.  It will be quite a challenge for each to weed through all of that, and in future posts, I will do my best to give some of my own insights.

Gratitude and Appreciation

We have been experiencing a very unusual weather pattern here in SW Colorado for at least a week now.  It feels more like the annual monsoon, which normally does not start until the beginning of July.  The days start out clear and sunny.  Then the clouds roll in after noon, sometimes bringing much needed rain.  It has snowed in the mountains, which will give us extra water in our reservoirs.  Spring was very dusty and windy this year, and the added precipitation is helping to clean the air.  Each time I am out hiking, taking a walk or even doing yard work, I feel the joy of the plants and animals as they are birthing, growing and blooming after a very cold winter.  Nature is singing and the countryside is greening up.  I am grateful to be here.

This brings me to the title of this post.  One cannot help but feel gratitude and appreciation for all that the Earth Mother has provided for us.  I use these 2 terms interchangeably, but there are slight differences.  Feel free to use whichever one resonates with you the most.

Feeling appreciation for each and every aspect and event of your life is essential for the health of the body, the psyche and the spiritual path.  I do mean everything here, and not just the perceived positives of your experiences.  Remembering that since you formulated a plan before you incarnated, even the most horrific events were created by you and should be honored and appreciated for the experience that they provided.  This can be tough if you don’t take this particular viewpoint.  I think you will find that life runs along more smoothly and you will not get stuck as often if you are grateful for whatever comes your way. 

Gratitude and appreciation are feelings, not thoughts in the mind, so the body should have a reaction when you are working with these attitudes.  A great place to do this is when you are out in nature and away from the distractions of every day life. Start with recalling a person, place, or event that generates these feelings and then really embody the gratitude or appreciation, feeling your body sensations shift at the same time.   Most likely, you will feel a warmth and a welling up in your chest.  You might even label this sensation “love”.  as you sit or walk along, appreciate every tree, flower, or critter that you encounter.  This is easy, as nature is benign and easy to appreciate! 

These sensations can then be transferred over to other people or situations, whether they are problematic for you or not.  The native people call this walking the “Beauty Way”, as you go through your day regarding all as truly beautiful in your eyes.  Others will feel this energy emanating from you and will respond positively in kind.  Animals will feel this, too.  Negativity will shift as you honor these aspects of your personal plan. 

I like to use the attitude of gratitude or appreciation when I am expanding my core essence.  To do this, first start with the basic core expansion exercise.  As you continue to expand your core, feel either gratitude or appreciation, whichever resonates with you, and hold it while you expand past your physical body.  You will find that your whole core essence will be filled with a higher dimensional energy.  The process will be smoother, easier and more expansive in addition to feeling really good!  If you have been struggling with expanding your core essence, adding gratitude or appreciation to the mix will make things a lot easier. 

The next time you are having a particularly difficult interaction with someone, stop and take a moment to appreciate them for the learning experience that they are sharing with you.  Feel the feeling, whether you say something or not.  I guarantee that your interaction will shift for the better. 

Karma and Contracts

Over a week ago I had a major falling out with someone who was a friend, student and client.  Not only are we no longer associated, but Sue (not her real name), has let me know that she has totally given up the spiritual practices that she developed as a result of taking my classes and attending sacred activities that I have offered to the community at large. 

Especially shocking to me was the fact that she dismantled her mesa, which is the shaman’s altar or bundle of sacred medicine stones that had served her so well over the past several years.  The mesa is created through many hours of processing and healing of personal issues, transforming them into aspects of empowerment, and is the shamanic gateway to the transpersonal self.  For one to give that up is a drastic step indeed.  The first thought that came to mind was what does this have to do with me as her teacher?  In actuality, nothing, as the shaman mentor has no ownership over anything in the student’s mesa.  Unfortunately, Sue attached me as a teacher to the spiritual and shamanic work, and threw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak.

I have no desire to rehash all of the issues involved, as they go back to the very day when we first met in 2004.  I would like to however address the matter of karma and contracts between individuals.  I do believe that if a strong attraction or connection is experienced by 2 people upon meeting, that there is also strong or heavy karma to be resolved.  With heavy karma, there are always contracts in place. 

Several years after I had met Sue, I realized that I had been “hooked” into a friendship with her.  Of course, our meeting was no coincidence, as this connection was destined to happen to resolve old issues.  What followed, especially after she moved to my area, were repeated requests to visit her property and house, have lunch, walk and snow shoe on her land, go hiking in the area, etc.  I did this just a few times before realizing that we were not that compatible, and I did not really enjoy her company all that much. Several years ago, when I become clear about the hook, I promptly removed it.

We did continue a more professional relationship, with her participating in my shamanic and spiritual trainings and events, and with me supporting her artistic endeavors.  This is where things continued to get sticky as I took on more of a mentoring role.  I am sure that this is where the contract for me to do so came in, but not in the way one would think.  Much effort on my part was expended on Sue to help her evolve and grow in spite of her resistance to change and an ongoing inability to grasp many new concepts.  The more I pushed, the more she resisted, until we came to an impasse last week. 

I don’t miss much, but I missed this one big time, mainly because Sue put in a decent effort with the work and kept coming back for more until she had had enough.  I believe that our contract was not for me to mentor her, but for me to push her into coming into her own power within the friendship.  Whether this has happened for her now, I cannot say for sure because of the disconnect. 

So this is where I can do my releasing, albeit a bit too late.  Anyone can do this in a general way by intending to “release all karma, contracts and agreements” with someone you are connected to, especially if there are ongoing difficulties.  This can be an intent done every day, or you can be more specific if you are aware of the exact karma or contract.  Karma is generated from an imbalance carried over from a past life.  This is shadow work, and can be hard to get to if that is not your particular skill.  Contracts are set up with the other before you are born, and are for the learning and experience of both of you. There is a plan for all that is formulated before birth, and Sue’s soul and mine made sure that these events would eventually manifest to fulfill upon that plan.  For more information on how to recognize and release contracts, please refer to my book "Traversing the Infinite Now". 

A friendship is lost, but big lessons learned.  When the dust settled, I actually found it quite exciting to be clear enough about what had happened to take advantage of the growth opportunity presented.  I had been experiencing a similar dynamic with my dance teacher.  The difference is that my eyes are wide open to the “hook ‘em and reel ‘em in” energetic patterns going on with her.  I have cleared the karma and contracts and can continue with the classes if I wish without the distorted entanglements that had been taking place.  It is interesting that since I woke up to what had been happening, the interest in the ballroom dancing has waned very much.  That is the normal outcome when the karma has been cleared! 

Solo Launching

Our local launching group is taking a break for a few months, but that does not mean that we need to forgo our journeys.  It’s a little trickier launching yourself alone, but it can be done.  

Launching in the way I will be describing expands one’s higher dimensional energy body and sends one’s focus of attention out into the cosmos to experience, explore and gather information.  That is the version that is easiest to comprehend.  The core essence is expanded in all directions through the breathing process at the start of the launch, and through intent, one’s focus of attention then rests on the “bubble” of their expanded core essence at a certain location in a higher dimension.  There is really no way of knowing exactly where this location is.  This is a sacred process which also generates feelings of well being and the re-membering of yourself as the great cosmic being that you truly are.   

When we do this as a group, everyone assists the person launching and holds space for that person.  The launchee chooses the number of minutes (usually from 4 to 6) that they would like to spend on their journey.  At the end of this time period, the group assists in bringing the energy field and consciousness focus of the launchee back into their body.  Then a report is given by the person who just took their journey.

Here is the way you would do this on your own.  First, it is very important to have a proper place for your launching.  I recommend that you lay on some sort of padding on the floor, like a yoga mat, and have a light blanket nearby in case you need it.  Any physical distraction like hunger, any ache or pain, or a room that is too hot or too cold might distract you from your journey.  Do not lie in bed, as you do not want to be so comfortable that you would fall asleep.  Your space should be very quiet and without distractions.  Ear plugs may be needed if there are noises that you would not be able to block out.

Once you are set up, decide on a general intent for your launching.  There might be something out there that you would like to experience or information to be gathered.  Try not to be too structured.  Leave room for your spirit and higher self to provide the experience that you need in that moment. 

Your next step is to expand your core essence to its fullest, following the guidelines in the core essence post.  It is extremely important to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth while you do this.  That will put you into an altered state and also in contact with the quantum field at the same time.  Take as much time as you need for this part. 

When you have expanded your core essence bigger than your body, and keeping in mind your intent, use one last big blast of exhaled air to send your focus of conscious attention out into the cosmos like a rocket.  At this point, it is extremely important to keep your focus of attention away from your body and trust that you will travel to where you need to be.  Have no expectations about what you are experiencing, and just allow yourself to glide along and see or sense your surroundings.  Take what you get without trying to change anything.  Your intent will take you to where you need to be. 

You will return from your journey when you are ready, so don't worry that you will get stuck out there and not be able to get back.  If you received some good stuff, you might want to write it down, as one does when keeping a dream journal.  Remember that if you experience it, it exists.  There is nothing original in the universe and you will not be making anything up, no matter how unusual your experience may seem.  Most likely, what you will experience will be symbolic, like having a dream, and not very literal at all. Some further interpretation may be necessary. Feel free to refer to the posts on previous launchings for examples of what can be experienced.

This is an exercise that may need to be done repeatedly as you become more comfortable with launching yourself.  Your skill levels will get better the more you do this, too.  Do not give up if your results are not the greatest at first.  Our local group has been launching for about 18 months off and on now, and each time we meet, we can see improvements in each other's levels of expertise with the process. 

Our natural state is that of the cosmic explorer.  We just happen to be anchored in a human body right now and also subject to the “forgetting” that we all agreed to before coming here.  It is time to pierce those veils and start to venture out into the realms that we will return to once we have completed our sojourns here on Planet Earth. Have fun!