7/9/14—Letting Go With Sparky & Goddess

Today's post is from our monthly guest bloggers, Sparky & Goddess. I'll be back on Thursday night with Friday's post!

The Sparky & Goddess Evolutionary Love Chronicles 

ON LETTING GO

Part 2

Sparky - It’s been several weeks since our last blog and by now, just the phrase letting go has taken on the vibe of an inside joke - where attraction and repulsion arise together, resonating with both familiar and new twists of insight.  We ended our last blog with four questions and invited readers to join in the inquiries with us.  One result has been that Goddess and I have felt an energized sense of interest, even community, around this Letting Go topic.  

Goddess – Yes, we have, Sparky!  This quest for going into letting go came about in the first place because that’s the number one question that keeps coming up in my practice and in my own life: how do you let go?  I’ve let go of so much in my own life and I have felt my way into approaches that have served me in the past.  The how seems to be a moving target for each circumstance and certainly for each individual.  We ended Part 1 by asking 4 questions as a way for each of us to explore more about our own relationship with letting go.  Today, we thought we’d share one of our reflections from each of these inquiries.  Of course, these are just perspectives and you, the reader, can decide if there’s anything here that adds to yours. 

The first question we asked was, why let go at all?   

Sparky – The first thing that came up for me was, because it’s a pain to lug all this stuff around!  Then I realized that the statement implies that we’re aware of being in motion, which of course we are in motion, but our awareness of being in motion varies with the circumstances and events in our life.  For a while holding on can be a choice, while still in a role we’re taking on in life or part of processing a particular experience...  And at some point, all roles change and the currents of life tug at us to further process and move back into flow.  Hanging onto roles - life stories and events, as a source of personal identity is always the ego.  We have to engage our authentic awareness, or consciousness, just to tweeze these apart and become aware that we even have a choice to let go, or hang on.  

Goddess – So from this perspective letting go is consciously aligning, or resisting the flow of life.  We let go so that we can move along with, rather than being anchored by, our past.  We let go so that we can align to the present by living a more authentic life!  It’s an ongoing process and really, a personal responsibility.   

We feel this in relationships, where egos can produce static, inflexible lines that are not really boundaries but trip-wires around unexamined and closed-off, inner-spaces.  Instead of a line of respectful agreement, we unconsciously protect these lines and crossing them can trigger a reactive, attack/defend response.  Doing the inner-work of letting go lets us clean out these fortresses which then allows for freer, deeper authentic connections.  In relationships, this feels like a gift of ease and spaciousness because it relieves others from the “responsibilities” of accommodating, tolerating and endlessly satiating another’s ego.

Sparky – The next question invites us to investigate by asking, what’s it like to hang on?  

Goddess – My response to that is S.T.U.C.K. 

Sparky – I once knew a teacher who, when asked how he was doing, would reply, “Tired of living and scared of dying.”  That’s a lyric from the song Old Man River, by Oscar Hammerstein, and it sums up the essence of stuck pretty well, for me… And so did the guy!

Goddess – The poor man…  Sounds like he was hanging on to quite a lot!  

When you’re hanging on so long like that, it can be the worst kind of stuck because deep down, we know we’re our own jailer and we know we hold the key.  No matter what else changes around us, we’re stuck to what and where we’re hanging onto until we can consciously let go.  Sometimes we even know what we want to let go of, and we accept that we’re our own jailer, but we still can’t find the darn key!

Sparky – Oh yeah, and then it’s like you’re Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day, where you’re living the same day over and over and you already know what’s going to happen.  

Goddess – It makes you feel disconnected, isolated and bitter… As if life is what everybody else gets to experience while you get something less.  In your example of Groundhog Day, Bill Murray’s character becomes more and more authentic and present, and he begins to interact in ways that create a different result each day.  He becomes engaged in living each moment consciously/authentically, which opens him up and which becomes the necessary processing itself!   

Sparky – Which takes us right into the third question, what’s it like to let go?  

Goddess – What’s it like?  It’s freeing, opening and exhilarating!  But, that’s only after you’ve actually let go.  Just before that it’s uncomfortable, complicated and even scary!  There’s also that eureka moment where you feel that a way has suddenly formed - a way that had not been there just moments before!

Sparky – Yes, a way forward becomes available!  Your last point reminds me that “letting go” isn’t really so much the act of dropping something entirely, but rather re-processing and re-forming how we’re holding things.  In fact for me, the most significant letting go I’ve ever done has had more to do with dropping unwanted attachments, which winds up transforming my experience.

Goddess – That’s absolutely true for me!  For example, I’ve transformed relationships by immersing into the human condition itself and gaining broader insights and understanding around the issues at hand.  By immersing in the universal perspective, I’m free to see how specific dynamics are happening.  When I’m out of my comfort zone and floundering to align, I’m forced to find the courage to go to higher ground.  

Sparky – That higher ground is where acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude and love all become available.  To stand at that higher ground is to stand in your power and it’s where we do the real letting go.  This is the inner change that is primary to manifesting the external change, which is secondary.  

Goddess – And it’s that inner space of naked clarity and authenticity that the Evolutionary Impulse drives us to. It’s where the ‘Impeccable Imperative” arises as both your path and your purpose!     

  

Sparky – In that spirit of path and purpose, our last question was, what’s just one thing to let go of now?  

Goddess – And that question is going to carry us into Part 3 of what is now emerging as a journey with Letting Go!  

7/7/14—Being Receptive to Magic

I wrote a blog post about being in the now and being receptive to magic, but somehow lost all of it. So all you get today is a panoramic picture from my hammock. Sorry. But it is what it is and I'm going with it. :)

7/4/14—Contemplating Freedom

It's the Fourth of July in the US, which means we're celebrating our freedom. But I'll bet most people don't think too much about being free. It's just a given for us...in the sense that the 4th of July is about. But how free are we really? 

I've mentioned here before about the weird experiences I had when I was 3, 4 and 5 in my creepy bedroom in a house about a mile or so from where I live now. Well, one of the things I remember contemplating there was freedom. I think I must have had a past life where I was somehow restricted, because my pre-school mind used to contemplate the notion that nobody can truly imprison you, unless you let them. What I mean by that is that freedom is a concept that resides in the mind. 

Sure, you can restrict someone physically—put them in jail or chain them to a metal stake you had installed in your basement (not that I would know anything about anything like that.) But, without drugs, surgery or electrodes, nobody can touch your mind if you don't let them. As long as you maintain your mind's ability to go places without the limits of body, space and time, you're free. 

Yeah, I know. It's an odd thing for a 3, 4 or 5 year old to contemplate. What's weirder is that I felt I had to be ready to face the eventuality of being able to find my Zen under any conditions. And, with the exception of torturous pain, I probably can. I don't know for how long, but it's odd that I still think of this so many years later. I have no idea why I thought some of the things I did in that house, whether it was my age, my imagination, some sort of spirit thing or what. But I know I had many sleepless hours trapped inside that creepy room to think about all sorts of things. And, for some reason, this was one of them. 

The way in which we lose the most freedom in our mind is by holding on. We grasp onto thoughts and fears and they become our captors. Maybe we're holding on to the need to be right or the need to control something. Maybe we're holding on to regrets or thoughts of the past. Or maybe we've told ourselves some story about the way things are and we refuse to consider other options. All of these are prisons that make unable to be free.

The bad news is that we're conditioned to hold ourselves captive to thoughts and mindsets that distract us from being in the only place freedom exists—in the present moment. The good news is that we're the people most qualified to save ourselves from this conditioning and experience freedom instead. 

Freedom doesn't come from tossing tea into a harbor or slaughtering soldiers in battle. It actually comes from the opposite. It comes from surrender. It comes from giving up the fight against "what is". It comes from letting a higher power take command of the reigns that hold your life together. And it comes from giving yourself over to a world devoid of preconceived notions and filled with infinite possibility. 

While things like hunger, discomfort and torture make it difficult, the mind is strong enough to transcend any restriction you place on the body. There is a place within you that can't be touched by anything you don't allow it to—it's a seed of God...a chunk of the most powerful force in the universe. And you know it's always accessible, because no matter what conditions people face in this world, there are happy people everywhere, people who transcend, people who are free. As the universe expands, so do we. Freedom is about being present to enjoy the ride. 

7/2/14—Passing the Gauntlet

As I mentioned in my last post, I went to a family event this past weekend. While there, I bonded with one of my nephews—a nephew I'd always hoped to bond with. 

He's either 13 or 14. Not sure which. And, since he was a toddler, it was clear he wouldn't be making conventional choices or walking a conformist path in life. At his young age, he is already set on owning a hair studio and spa. He doesn't shy away from being the center of attention. He has definite opinions he's anxious to share. He's very handsome. And he oozes Sadler charm. He's also blessed with two parents who support his individuality fully. If there's one thing I'm proud of with my brothers and sisters it's that they're all very good parents. 

This nephew is the first of my relatives to show an interest in the cards. I have some relatives who show interest in getting readings, but he's the first who wants to learn how to give them himself. I regret not bringing a tarot deck with me, because that's the system I know best. But I did have a Lenormand deck with me and, within a few minutes of playing around, he was picking up on it quite well. Tonight I will pack up my Keywordy Lenormand deck, my Everyday Lenormand deck and a copy of Rana George's Essential Lenormand for him. Between those three tools, he should have everything he'll ever need. 

Acquiring, then sharing, knowledge is something I enjoy. In a way, that's what my advertising copywriting career is about. I learn about a product or service, then I translate what I've learned into an ad that tells the world the best parts of what I know. It's the same with this blog. Here I'm sharing the knowledge gleaned from the spiritual and internal work I've done and am doing in this lifetime. 

Cartomancy (reading cards) and the psychic arts are something I've been studying for 25 years and I have transferred my style of reading to many students along the way.  But having a family member interested, even if he eventually grows out of it, is kind of like passing a gauntlet. I had never thought of it before, but as a childless person, I don't imagine I'll have many opportunities to start a tradition that goes generations. So many in the cartomancy world are second, third or millionth generation readers and they bear the energy and quirks of that. I'm a first-generation reader and am, largely, self taught. It's interesting to think that someone generations from now may echo my style for no other reason than because that's the way I did it and the way their teacher learned.

Everyone thinks it takes some special talent to read cards or communicate with spirits. The truth is, it doesn't. Some people, yes, are born with a natural talent for it. But I'm not one of them. Whatever I'm able to connect with in the great mystery out there has come through study and practice over many years. In fact, cards are nothing more than tools we use to help us access that inner knowing...in some way they're like really elaborate training wheels that most of will never take off because we like three-wheeling. Most of the readers I know could give people messages without using cards, but the cards help make the readings more detailed, imo. 

I'm grateful to my younger self that I developed a skill outside of my profession that I'm just as adept at as my profession. One day my nephew will be styling Katy Perry's hair by day and reading her cards by night, all while "just knowing" what decision to make next to fuel his life's success. I think one of the most valuable gifts a person can give themselves is to build and develop a strong intuition and a relationship with the divine. For me, the cards have helped me do both. And I can't tell you how much it means to me to help my nephew give himself the same gift. 

6/30/14—Remembering Who I Am

I just got home from a whirlwind overnight trip to Florida for a wedding. The bride was my niece. Her parents used to live near me, so I saw a lot of her when she was growing up. I joked that she's the only niece or nephew I babysat...more than once. It's no secret I have a low tolerance for children, but I always enjoyed being around this niece. I don't know how she went from being a little girl to a woman to a wife so quickly, but that's what happens over a couple of decades, I guess. And she was such a beautiful bride. So stunning. It brought me to tears.

Of course my whole family was there. I'm the youngest of six kids, so there are a lot of "family dynamics" at play when we all get together. This is hard for me, because I normally live my days as a woman who is fairly confident about who she is, proud of the choices she's made, and surrounded by people who think she's pretty darned neat. But when I get around my brothers and sisters, all of that changes. I become less secure. I feel like I don't fully belong. And I find myself wanting a level of affirmation, respect and acceptance that I don't think I'll ever get from part of my family. I think some of them just don't "get" me. Either that or they do and I'm just not their cup of tea. 

These days I don't put a whole lot of stock in the opinions of those who don't see what an all-around fabulous gal I am. But these family things...it's like, inside me, I revert to some version of childhood when I craved affirmation and acceptance from my big brothers sisters and never quite got it. The six of us are only 8 years apart, but we're all so very different it's like we were raised by completely different parents. There's a central core that ties us together, but we all diverged from that core like spokes on a wheel, each of us having ones close enough to our spoke that we can identify with each other, and each of us having ones on the opposite end of the wheel from our spoke. So, in that sense, maybe it's unrealistic to want all of them to really see who I am and agree I'm wicked cool. :D

Someone in my extended family (who shall be protected as innocent) was complimenting me and said, "You're deeper than I thought. I have a whole new respect you for you now. I always used to think you were just a flake." It's a bit of a backhanded compliment, but it got to the crux of how I feel around some of my family...I feel like some see me as a flake or superficial or some other such thing because of the things I believe in and the choices I make in my life. 

Again, normally I don't care what people think about that stuff. When people judge it's usually because focusing on others' shortcomings is less painful than focusing on their own. But I guess something inside me wants the people I grew up with, more than anyone else, to understand me and be proud of who I've become. And right now, I would venture to say that, if everyone was really honest about what they think, I'm batting somewhere around .350 to .400. That's a great average in baseball and maybe even in society, but not so good in family, imo. Even if I AM a flake. 

I don't know what magnifies this insecurity in me so much around family. Maybe it's normal and everyone feels that way. Maybe it's because my parents died when I was still fairly young, so I had never accomplished anything as an adult that they lived long enough to be proud of. Maybe it's because I'm just a sensitive person. Or maybe it's because my biggest support network consists of three four-legged beasts who, of course, never accompany me to these things and I feel more vulnerable—partly because I AM more vulnerable without my biggest cheerleaders in tow and partly because everyone else has their biggest cheerleaders with them...so we're not playing on a level playing field in that regard. Heck, maybe it's all of it. 

For a soul who has dedicated this lifetime to a "solitary" inner journey, family gatherings can be a painful, but valuable tool for seeking out and honing in on any of your unhealed BS—BS you've managed to heal when among 7 billion other humans who don't happen to share your last name. These gatherings are also a valuable marker indicating how far you've come. That can be positive or negative. It can serve both to open and close chasms between you and the people with whom you share common core traits. Those common traits span generations, extending the dynamics and increasing the number of spokes nearest you, as well as the number of those farthest from you. 

When I checked out of my hotel room this morning, I stopped remembering who I was as a kid and started remembering who I am as a kickass woman. It's like I was kidnapped overnight and held hostage at the hands of my old stuff...a power that gets weaker and weaker each time I come into contact with it. And I couldn't wait to get home to my cheerleaders, not so I could bury my face in their fur and cry, but because I missed them. They're my family...the family I chose, my biggest cheerleaders. And, like all family, even though they drive me crazy sometimes, I prefer a life with them to one without them.

6/27/14—Slipping Into Another's Stream

Our last post was about letting go and trusting that what is truly yours will come to you. In it, I described surrendering as akin to letting a river's current take your body. Today I came across an older post of mine quoting Mark Nepo, who describes compassion as "entering the stream of another without getting lost." How amazing is that? Entering into the stream of another without getting lost.

If you consider there's an invisible hand guiding all of us down the stream of our lives, this is a pretty cool visual. And to understand another person is to experience their stream. As the author says, there is a danger of getting lost in another's stream. But compassion asks us to enter that stream without losing sight of our own...to allow their stream to run parallel to ours, but not spill over into ours.

After all, we're all born from the same waters. Someone may do something we'd never do, but that doesn't mean we're not capable of doing it. Compassion requires getting in touch with that part of ourself that understands ourself enough to know there is nothing anyone does or feels that is not somewhere inside us. In that sense, there is really only one stream, but maybe different currents to get caught up in.

There are many who think compassion is only for the "deserving". And someone, somewhere along line distinguishes "deserving" from "undeserving", I suppose. But compassion is for everyone. I've been criticized many times in my life for having compassion for "undeserving" people. In a conflict between two sides, for example, I'll be able to see the pain of both sides and have compassion for both. 

People always say they don't expect you to pick sides. But they do. And the side you're supposed to pick is the one deemed more deserving. Compassion should flow only to that side. And if compassion flows to the other, as well, you're a traitor, playing both sides or sitting on the fence. Well, I'm OK with being criticized for thinking that's a big, stinky load of bullshit. Everyone is equally deserving of compassion. We are all children of spirit. We all have pain. We all feel misunderstood. We are all. Worthy. Of compassion. 

When Mark Nepo says compassion is slipping into another's stream without getting lost, that's the same as saying "feel compassion, but don't bend who you are while doing so". Sometimes I see people willfully hurting others in the act of what they call compassion for another...using compassion for one as an excuse to be nasty to another. That's getting lost in another's stream. Unless, of course, being nasty is part of your stream.

Compassion is not something you have to prove to others. It's not saying "I approve of your actions." Nor is it a weapon you wield by witholding. It's something that comes from the soul part of you—the part of you that recognizes that even those who are considered "evil" are of God, like you, and suffering from their separation, like you. It's the part of you that sees their pain and sorrow, even when it's hard to find. And the part wise enough to acknowledge the thin line that separates "good" from "bad" and sane from crazy, and feels bad for someone who can't keep from crossing over that line. Even if we can't empathize or know how they're feeling based on personal experience, we can nonetheless, genuinely say "I'm sorry you're in such pain right now". Regardless of what we think of them as a human being.

We slip into someone's stream without losing ourselves. And I'd go so far as to say that neglecting to find compassion for another *is* losing ourselves. It's losing sight of our shared soul—the human struggle and the oneness we share as children of God and the universe. When we deem another's "sin" as too ugly to look at or when we fight against it, we're dishonoring that part of us that is universal. We're saying we're so ashamed of who we are that we have to deny it. We are really not all that different.

The more honest you are with yourself and the better you know yourself, the more you can see that the same dark corners exist within you, even though you choose not to bring them to light. But there are other dark corners you DO bring to light, so you know how others struggle. When you have grown to the point that you can own that, then you can see the struggle in others. And when you see the struggle in others, how can you help but have compassion?

6/25/14—Floating on the Breath of God

I came across this quote today while poking around in old posts on my blog. It's for all of us with trust issues or who get held up on wanting to know WHY something is happening. 

I'm going to quote someone who's quoting it, because that's the only way I know the quote. Richard Bruxvoort Colligan* quoted St. Hildegard by saying:

"Hildegard of Bingen said a faithful life means 'to be a feather on the breath of God.'

And what does a feather know about wind?
What does a kite have to understand in order to fly?
How much knowledge of meteorology does a sailboat need to feel the strength of full sails?"

This quote is so great because it captures the essences of trust, letting go and surrender all in a single, beautiful snippet. Personally, I usually visualize letting go and surrender as laying, arms stretched, in a river and allowing the river to carry me to where I need to be. 

The river is God or the Universe or whatever higher power you believe in. If you try to swim upstream, you'll waste a lot of energy and not get very far. That's what happens when we try to control situations...when we fight against what "is". We may make some progress in the direction we think we want to go, but eventually we end up where the universe wants us to be. And, from my experience, where the universe wants us to be is generally a much better place than where I think I want to go. And the more I fight against it, the less benefit I receive at the ultimate destination. So letting go is really the smartest way to get there. 

The quote also captures the "why" aspect. "Why is this happening to me? Why is this happening now?" Have you ever noticed the answers to those questions never come until you've reached—and embraced—your final destination? So the whys are just more wasted energy to add to all the swimming against the current we tend to do. 

Finally, though, this is about trust. It's about lifting all the questions up to the universe and allowing the answers to come in their own time. It's about trusting that you're being led to a place that will serve your higher benefit. That doesn't always look like a winning prospect in the beginning, but my experience in life is that we have no way to lose. If you believe everything happens for a reason, then withholding trust is, again, more wasted energy. 

What's key to know here is that things like trust and letting go aren't necessarily talents you're born with. More often, they're skills you develop. So when you say, "I wish I could be more like you and trust in the future," you can. If you work at it as hard as the person you're admiring, that is. Trust and letting go and surrender are all practices. They're things you work on every day in your relationship with your higher power. 

So when you notice yourself letting fear creep in, stop yourself and visualize yourself floating down the river toward a magical light or soaring through the air as a feather on the breath of God. Just absorbing the idea of floating on the breath of God alone will fill you with the faith you need to weather the storm. Over time, the trusting and letting go will become more and more automatic as you begin to see the wisdom in the practice. 

We don't need to know or understand why things are happening the way they're happening. We just have to let ourselves be taken away by the breath of that which has always looked after us, whether you call it God or Allah or Yaweh or the Universe. It has never failed you yet. And if you think it has, then you haven't yet embraced where you've landed. Regardless of whether you like an outcome or not, though, it is what it is. And you can live there in bitterness or gratitude. That's your choice. I choose to let go and trust. 

*If you want to read the Christian sermon this quote came from, follow this link or the link above (you'll find the links on www.tierneysadler.com.) The sermon goes on to help you with a prayer you can say and it references scripture and stuff. It's a good post.