9/9/14—Talking About Manifestation

Here's a new radio program from the Three Muses, which are me, Sheila Cash and Mary Phelan. We're talking about manifestation. I think you can download this as a podcast, but I'm not sure how. 

Check Out Spirituality Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with 3 Muses and a Universe on BlogTalkRadio

9/8/14—Living On The Downswing

Truth is, I don't feel very spiritual lately. I haven't for a while. 

My inner peace and Kumbayah-ness has turned itself over to anger, stress and frustration. I know part of what I'm angry about, but much of it is stuff I can't or won't talk about here. But let's just say that, on one level, things usually go my way. I mean that in the sense that the universe supports me in my dreams and aspirations. If I don't have everything I want right now in that realm, it's because I'm not doing my part. And I have good, smart reasons why I'm not doing my part right now. 

But on another level, things really aren't going my way. I have no doubt I bear responsibility in that, too. I just don't have the clarity of mind to figure out why just now. And I'm off-balance. And out of touch with that which brings me peace and centeredness. And it's not for a want of trying. I still meditate every night. I'm still strong in my beliefs. But I'm not at peace. If we're all spiritual beings having a human experience, I've supersized my human experience for the time being.

These are the times people lose faith. When things don't go their way for some time, they give up on believing there's any sort of higher intelligence out there that cares. Like me, they're usually focusing on one or two struggles in particular while most everything else in their life is actually OK. They just can't see it through the pain of whatever they're facing. 

When it comes down to brass tacks, I live a blessed life. I don't have a whole lot of legitimate stuff to complain about. I do think I have trouble reaching out to others, though. It seems like, when I do, people want to share their experiences or advice, when all I want is someone to listen and comfort me. Right now I don't have a lot to give in return and everyone has crap they want to unload, so I'm keeping to myself. Of course, I'm guilty of the same thing. Sometimes I'm a good listener, but more often I'm not. So when I'm really scared, worried or vulnerable about something, I tend to go inside and keep it to myself, because that's where I feel safest. 

Thing is, I've been here before...disconnected from spirit, feeling less spiritual, feeling alone. It's all part of the gig. What I know from being here before is that it's temporary. Everything is temporary. Joy is temporary. Sorrow is temporary. Aloneness is temporary. Connection is temporary. And when we make it to the other side of the downswing, we find ourselves in a better place than before. 

Sometimes we get stuck on the downswing. When you lose someone you love, for example, you get stuck on the downswing because being on the upswing feels like a kind of betrayal. Or we might get stuck because our situation is stuck...like maybe we're unemployed or going through a protracted period of crap. Sometimes the downswing comes because we fought it and denied it so long...saw it through rose-colored glasses for so long that it comes crashing down on use because it needs to happen and be acknowledged. Downswings need to happen for upswings to occur. And even if we try to walk an even path of balance, there are still ups and downs. It just is. 

A lot of us are good boys and girls who try to "do it right". And we have a vision of what "right" is. And that vision is that "right" is always smiling, always connected, always able to withstand the slings and arrows. And that's just not right at all. We are spiritual beings having a human experience and getting pissed off and having emotions that go up and down and feeling happy when we should feel sad and sad when we should feel happy—that's all part of being a human. 

Yet we still beat ourselves up because we "could have handled something better" or because "we're having a good time while our spouse is at home sick" or whatever. We try to control what is sometimes uncontrollable, sometimes god's hand trying to help us and sometimes just life. We judge, like I've been judging, the downswings in our life as "bad" or something to be tolerated, when all of it is part of the journey. Like on a roller coaster when you have to face that tedious first climb before all hell and fun break loose. It's all a necessary part of the ride. 

So that's where I am right now. Actually, though I'm afraid to admit I'm on the upswing, I am on the upswing. There are times in life we just have to remind ourselves that this, too, shall pass and it's here, no matter how it looks otherwise, out of love—love for us and the progression of our soul. It seems like things started to turn around for me some when I just gave in to the crappiness I had been fighting for so long and stopped putting so much pressure on myself to cope or power through....when I gave myself over to my  own powerlessness. Which is not to say I stopped trying to find a way out, but rather I stopped resisting where I was. If you're where I am now, that may work for you, too. 

9/4/14—Making The Big Move

OK. I hope you all still respect me when I'm done saying what I'm about to say. 

I've been watching Big Brother this year. I actually have a very long and checkered history with this show. For those of you who don't know, Big Brother is a show where a bunch of people are locked in a house all summer and they vote each other out, one by one. 

It makes me shudder to say this show has been on for 16 years. I shudder, because I was there for the very first show. Back then, I even watched online. They have cameras all over the house and you can watch 24/7 online. I did that for a few years, I think. And chatted about it on message boards. But online communities were significantly uglier and nastier back in those days, so I gave up...on the show, on online communities, and on reality shows in general. 

So for many years, the internet was only about doing research and work for me. That's it. Then, a little over five years ago or so, I reluctantly joined Facebook at the urging of my brother. And the last couple of years I've peeked in on Big Brother from time to time. But this year I've watched all the way through. But all of that is just background, because the truth is, I have a love/hate relationship with this show. And, in some ways, that's part of the experiment. 

See, Big Brother started out as a kind of sociological experiment. What would happen if you lock a dozen or more people in a house all summer—with no contact from the outside world—film them 24/7 and put them under constant pressure of being voted out of the game? Well, spoiler alert, a lot of boredom happens...haha. A lot of paranoia. And a lot of people selling their integrity for what it, perhaps, the crappiest prize in all of reality television. The winner only gets $500K. That's half of what contestants earn on Survivor or the Amazing Race and these guys are in the house 97 days (vs the 39 of Survivor). 

Another thing that happens is constant talk about "The Big Move". The big move is when you put up a player who dominates or is threatening or is part of your alliance for eviction. Every year there is a lot of talk about the big move. Everyone wants to make it. And, ultimately, it rarely ever happens except when the options are so few that you have no choice. 

Think about that for a second. Isn't that how we approach the big moves in our own lives a lot of the time? I know it's true for me. Over the years you guys have heard me talk about making big moves and some of them I've made without thinking. I started teaching tarot and reading professionally. I wrote my first book and got it published. But then other ones—writing another book and making changes in my career—seem to be waiting until they're one of the few options I have left. 

What often happens on these reality shows is that people put off the big move for so long that it ends up costing them the game. It's infuriating as a fan, because the "big move" often means the underdog you're rooting for will get another chance. But because the big move is never made, the game ends for your favorite player and, often, for the person who didn't make the big move. While real life isn't always so final, it can also have the same results. Someone comes out with "your" idea before you do. You wait too long to take serious measures to improve your health. You stay too long in an abusive relationship and end up mentally or physically devastated. 

The older I get, the more aware I am that there will never be a "right time to make a big move". Sure, some times are better than others, but if we wait for the right time, we could wait forever. There is no way to avoid the pain and difficulty of change, no matter how long you wait. 

Which isn't to say I'm on the verge of making a big move. For the first time in years, I can confidently say I'm not. But I do think I now know why I've been waiting and have a clear progression in mind about what has to happen first. My problem has always been that I try to take on too much at once, thereby stressing myself out of any chance of making progress. It's self-defeating. So I'm not even looking at big moves right now. But I admit I wonder each night as I drift off to sleep if I'll ever make them. 

Big moves, I think, are important to our lives. They're what keep us moving forward. Imagine what life would be if we ran out of aspirations to follow and leaps to take. There seems to a certain friction point we need to achieve with our big moves. We can't just envision them without pursuing them or we'll end up disappointed in ourselves and feeling defeated by life. But if we just knock them down one after the other, never giving them time to develop and tempt us, then that's like eating chocolate without even tasting it. What's the point?

I think I'm ready to make peace with my big moves, which is a big move in and of itself. While the pressure of big moves bearing down on us can propel us forward, it can also paralyze us. My big, big move, which affects my body, career, home—everything—is really just a series of smaller moves. I feel confident that, one day, the big move will be made, because I feel it's part of my purpose here on earth and I knew from a young age what that was and have been working on it all my life. In some aspects, I'm very ready. But in other ways I don't yet have what I need. Right now I have to be right with myself. I need to feel better physically. I need to reduce stress. And I need to stop dogging myself about the big move! Then when I get the energy back to face what's waiting beyond the edge of the precipice, I'll leap. 

So, spoiler alert, tonight I'll watch yet another opportunity for a big move to made in the Big Brother house. And tomorrow I'll get to see what, if any, repercussions come of it. But instead of being angry and frustrated about all this talk of big moves that never get made, I'll see myself. Ultimately that's what we're always seeing when we look outside of us and get angry and frustrated with "them", whoever they happen to be anyway. 

And for the ultimate spoiler alert, I'll say this. Sometimes we get so caught up in achieving the next thing, crossing the next item off our lists or caring who's watching us succeed or fail that we don't allow ourselves to simply be and enjoy the experience. I beat myself up way too much over items of ambition. The big spoiler is that everything ends up the way it's supposed to whether we kill ourselves making it happen or not. We simply cannot do this thing wrong. Life is a win-win situation if we allow it to be. 

9/2/14—Hearing The Signs

WARNING: I've had the same song stuck in my head for days now! And I will reveal the song below!

It all started a month ago. In Virginia, your car has to go though two inspections every year. One is a safety test to make sure your brake lights are working and your tires have tread and whatnot. I've failed that one in the past for everything from bad windshield wipers to bad brake pads. Then the other test is the emissions test, which basically ensures we suffocate the human race with CO2 at the slowest rate possible. You can take both tests at the same time, but sometimes, if you fail one or the other, the tests will be offset by a month or so, doubling your joy.

And so it was that last July as my PT Cruiser took its safety exam, I tried to get the two tests in sync and asked the guy to give me both. But I had a check engine light on in my car (anyone who owns a PT Cruiser knows that it comes rolling off the shop floor with the light on) and he said he couldn't inspect it until I got the issue causing the check engine light fixed. But the good news was that I had a month to figure it out.

So anyway, I wait until the last minute to get the car fixed. And, in the spirit of emissions, I take public transportation back and forth to the auto repair shop. And then when I get my car, my mechanic tells me I have to drive at least 45 miles without stopping in order to even take the test. Now, I live in Washington, DC. There's nowhere you can drive for 45 miles at 10am without stopping. It's just not possible. So I try. I get about 20 miles before I hit a backup. But I figure you don't have to be religious about this, so I carry on. By the time I get to the emissions checking station, I've clocked 43 miles. Close enough.

I fail.

So my emissions guy tells me to drive it even more (because, apparently, it takes some driving around on the fixed system before all the sensors in the car catch on.) Now, to set the scene for this, I've had a very busy month at work. I worked the entire weekend before so I could take this day off to do all this crap. In the end, I ended up driving 75 miles over the course of three hours and sat in line at the emissions station twice. So I'm freaking out. If I don't pass now, what am I going to do? I've just paid $300 to have a valve replaced so I can even take this test! So I'm stressed from work, stressed from traffic, stressed from auto repair and stressed from these damned tests.

While I was still out driving, I asked for a sign as to whether or not the car was going to pass and I some lame song, like Barry Manilow's "Looks Like We Made It" comes up on the radio (I can't remember the real song, but that's close enough.) Now, I don't want to be a snob about signs, but I didn't feel like this was a DEFINITIVE sign. It held me over in the moment, but definitive? So I make my way to the testing station, get in line, ask for another sign and, while I'm texting my sister a play-by-play of my day because, god bless her, she has little else to live for*, another song comes on the radio—Bob Marley's "Don't Worry About A Thing" (because every little thing's going to be all right.) Now THAT is is a definitive sign. And every little thing turned out to be all right.

There are plenty of people who will say it's just a coincidence. But I don't believe that for a minute. Both songs came in direct response to a request. And they could have come in other forms...a license plate in front of me or some other natural sign, like an animal crossing the road without getting hit, an overwhelming feeling of peace. Whatever. But they came in the form of songs with a message this time.

There are also those who say you shouldn't ask for frivolous things like this. I disagree again. Why would our spirits and guides and messengers do it over and over again if it was beneath them? They're not our slaves. They're happy to help us when they can. We can't apply earthly judgments and characteristics to non-earthly things. In fact, I think they're less likely to help us with things that would change our trajectory or our mission here—big things—than little things like emissions exams, which don't matter to anyone but me.

So long story short—we have these resources available to us. And today's post is a reminder of that. But we do have to ask. And then we have listen and observe to catch the sign they're sending us. And then, more than anything, we have to trust. There is a gentle hand there to guide us every day and all we have to do is believe.

*Just kidding. My texting did make her day, but for other reasons. Not because I was boring her with my travails. :)

8/29/14—Letting Go, Part 3

Here's a guest blog I've been holding on to for a couple of weeks. Enjoy!

The Sparky & Goddess Evolutionary Love Chronicles 

ON LETTING GO

Part 3

So tired, tired of waiting, tired of waiting for you. – Ray Davies

I volunteered to write our blog, on my own this time, as Goddess is in the throes of navigating a particularly crowded, complicated and fast paced stretch of life.  Picture you’re in Times Square, late for an appointment and fun house mirrors start popping up.  Bottom line is, she didn’t hesitate when I volunteered to write this one.  I was grateful too, as I had this nagging sense of some unfinished business between me and our ongoing inquiry into letting go.  Against the good advice of author, Anne Lamott who wrote, “My mind is like a bad neighborhood. I try not to go there alone…” I felt like I wanted to scout out this territory solo and report back with my findings.  

At first glance, the inner terrain seemed hospitable.  Thoughts were busy in their usual comings and goings, but nothing standing out around letting go.  I felt clear, alert and calm inside.  The problem, it seemed, was that I really couldn’t come up with anything to let go of!  At that moment, the perspective I was in was uncluttered, at ease and darn near perfect!  I was living the proverbial “good problem” to have, as in there was nothing apparent that I really needed let go of!  And still, there was something under my radar that was softly signaling me, but not showing up on screen.  

What to do next?  I had options.  I could just ignore the bleep and focus on techniques for letting go; or make up a situation and write about it hypothetically, or simply write about what it’s like to have nothing to let go of – just to name a few.  But this topic was inspired by the joint inquiry of our Evolutionary Love Chronicles, and we’d ended our last blog stating that we’d be writing about our own experience with letting go, so I decided to go deeper and walk the talk for this one.

My next step was to set aside some formal meditation time while holding the inquiry of, what can I let go of?  I say “holding” the inquiry, because that’s how I learned to approach a question like this.  Not as a problem calling for a solution – which just keeps me stuck in my head skimming through information and past experiences but as an invitation to be open, curious and available to whatever may arise.  Doing so allows me to engage from a more expanded perspective, rather than the narrower perspective of practical actions to take.  That part comes soon enough but for now it’s all about opening and allowing with nothing to figure out.    

With my intentions set, I waded back into routine life and proceeded to find one thing after another that was more urgent, immediate or desirable than the 20 minutes or so that I’d earmarked for this particular meditation.  It’s worth noting here that I have a formal meditation practice which I plan for at least once and often, twice a day.  All of a sudden, it seemed, day-to-day life was showing up for me with a roar, where background and foreground merge and priorities melt into a muck of indistinguishable slush.  And so I trudged on through that slush for days before accepting that I’d been sleepwalking, so to speak, avoiding my regular practice and the question of what can I let go of?  Once that was fully acknowledged and accepted, I was “free” again to return to practice and to this increasingly curious inquiry.

Eventually, I did fulfill my intention to sit with the inquiry and so sat in silence and slowly opened to the stillness inside.  My mind was resistant and busy, and I was patient, compassionate and remained alert.  As awareness grew, the unruly thoughts began to thin out and fade.  I welcomed the familiar atmosphere of stillness and let it bathe through me.  As one rarely experiences except in meditation, prayer, or other moments of divine love, I was enveloped in the essence of being home. “I home.”  No longer a place, or even separate, the I and home arose together as one.  I don’t know how long I sat in this bliss or more accurately simply sat as bliss, before becoming aware of a thought/form that softly stood out.  Effortlessly, the thought/form became both a statement and resonate question: what are you waiting for?  

What are you waiting for?  I held the words like a child might hold some astonishing, mysterious something seen for the very first time.  It was a wondrous, miraculous thing to behold!  I repeated the words in thought many times until a smile was lifted deep inside and spread through me like a clear, warm sunbeam.  How perfect, I thought.  Waiting… I’ve actually been waiting! 

Then it came as, waiting again…  Ego had seized it and now it took on a personal dimension followed by a story.

My awareness of and personal relationship to waiting goes back many years.  At one pivotal point in life, I found that my day-to-day life experience was diminished through a perspective that life, for me, had become a pattern of one rote reaction after another.  It saw it in my work, at home, and in my most important relationships with family and friends.  An unsatisfying life of reacting had emerged through a broader context which I eventually identified as waiting…  Waiting for certain changes to occur before “my” more authentic life could begin.  Waiting for things like more money, more time, more love, and more freedom.  Waiting for other people to change, to “see the light” and be somehow different so as to better fit into “my” world.   I recognized this waiting perspective as a place from which I judged other people, current circumstances and events, myself and my life, and saw all to be insufficient and needing some future improvement, some change...  Perhaps you can relate that this was not a very happy or empowered place to experience life from?

Armed with this new awareness, I felt clear to begin to make the changes that I could, and to let go of those that I could not.  Through various daily practices, I became more alert to the alternatives to waiting and became more present and engaged with life.  The result has been transformative!  Being present, which by its nature transmutes waiting, has become my chosen way of being in the world.  It is a foundation for all of my relationships and the core essential of my relationship with Goddess.  Heck, even my profession is about this stuff – I often help others to recognize their own limiting patterns, get present and take clearer choices… And still, an unintended perspective had formed in me and waiting crept back into my world! 

I won’t go into dissecting all the why’s and how’s I engaged in re-forming this recent perspective of waiting.  Certainly it was not a conscious choice, that is to say, I wasn’t aware of it as it was forming.  I’ve come to see it as a by-product which forms when wanting a particular outcome – like wanting to be in a closer, day-to-day relationship now, and that day-to-day relationship not being immediately available.  This is the current status with Goddess and me, so a seed of waiting was planted.  Add in a few unrelated challenges; like our adult children coming and going this summer, my son unexpectedly taking off a semester and moving back in with me, Goddess’ plans to prep and ready for market her home of 25 years, our plans to re-brand/re-invent our independent career paths together, future travel plans, budgets and projections, and voila… I went into auto-pilot and began coping with the present moment, instead of experiencing it!  

Waiting, for me anyway, is much more than something you do – it’s an attitude and eventually a way of life that no one would knowingly accept.  I can now see how it spread, like a virus, into practically every aspect of my life.  Waiting found its way into my work, personal habits and even my most treasured relationship.

  

If, as the saying goes, holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die, then holding onto waiting is like a slow drip, numbing you to life, while expecting life to catch up to where you want it to be.  Of course, life won’t “catch up” since we’re not separate from the life that’s ever present, and ever changing.  Seeing this, I can let go of waiting and choose presence instead.  I’m grateful to Goddess and this inquiry, and feeling newly inspired to being more present with life… where waiting, is once more, just a concept waiting for me! 

8/25/14—Checking The Fence For Holes

The whole section of fence behind those trees is missing and nobody noticed!

After a two-week rest, I finally have something to say. 

Some of you may know that my fence has been undergoing a two-year long rebuilding at the hands of my neighbor. He didn't use pre-fab anything. He built it all one rail at a time. Last year he rebuilt the span between our properties and recently he built the shorter front span...the part with the gate. 

Last weekend he had two guys out to set new posts about three feet in front of the existing front part of the fence. That way, I'd still have the old fence to contain my pooches and he could build independently of worry about them. At one point last week, my neighbor removed a section of the old fence, so essentially, six feet of the old fence was gone, offering a possible escape route for the dogs. In reality, everything was locked up tight. But I thought for sure that the dogs would see the missing section of fence and run into it, checking out the alleyway between the fences for critters, sniffing the new fence and hunting for possible escape routes. But they didn't. 

At no point in the week that this fence opening existed did Kizzie or Mystic even approach the opening. The only reason Magick Moonbeam went back there is because I was so shocked that nobody was checking it out that I picked her up and placed her in the alleyway. In fact, even odder, when my neighbor was working on the fence with the dogs out in the yard, Mystic and Magick would run to their usual peeking holes in the old fence to see what they could see—peeking holes that weren't 6" away from the six foot opening that they were, for some reason, not acknowledging was there! They could have run right up to my neighbor to check it out, but they stayed inside the fence they knew.

I've been thinking about this all week. It's not uncommon when people are held captive that they begin to identify with and trust their captors. This is known as Stockholm Syndrome. Alongside this, some of these kidnapped girls we hear about say there were opportunities for escape and, because of fear or conditioning or whatever, they didn't take the opportunity. So I started thinking...where in my life have fences been torn down and new avenues built yet I, nonetheless, stay within the confines I've always known? What opportunities for "escape" am I letting pass me by because I've resigned myself to a situation?

The more I thought about this, the more self-limitation that was revealed to me. I'll bet you could find at least one—if not many—ways in which this applies to you, too. We get so used to the roadblocks, limitations, obstacles and, let's face it, excuses that bind us, that we don't recognize salvation when it comes.  

At my age I know a lot of people who worry about ageism, so they stay within the confines of their current job, fearing that nobody will hire them at their "advanced age." While some of this may be true, some of it's not. In fact, if you look at statistics, the lowest unemployment rates exist in the 45-54 and Over 55 categories. And the rates in those categories have dropped over the past year. In fact, the 45-54s realized the sharpest drop in unemployment of all the groups in the past year. So someone is hiring the old farts! What you don't want to be is 16 going on 17 or a new college graduate. In fact, a surprising aspect of the Bureau of Labor Statistics findings is that the very people we worry about taking our jobs—those 25-34 years old—seem to have more trouble finding work than anyone else over 25. So this is an example of how the fences we build around our lives aren't really as confining as we think. http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea10.htm

Today, the old fence came down in my yard and the dogs went to to explore their new reality. They were unimpressed. They have a few more feet in which to play. But for them, there's still a fence...one with fewer peeking holes. Nothing significant has changed. They're still trapped in mommy's evil little web. But at least they finally explored the possibility of a different outcome.

Where might there be an opening in your life that you haven't noticed? What is unsatisfactory enough that you would look again for an escape route, even though you've decided none exist? And where might you find that the only obstacle to progress in your life in your life is you? Sometimes the routine feels safer than change, even if you hate the routine. But that doesn't mean it's the best choice for us to make. 

8/11/14—Taking a Sabbatical

IMPORTANT BLOG NEWS!!!

I've done way more with this blog than I ever thought I'd do. When I first started, I promised to do it for a year. I've kept it consistently for about four years now (including many months of pre-blog blogging, just on Facebook). For three of those years, I wrote six days a week. This year, I've done three days a week.

The long and short of it is that, for now, I'm burned out. I need a break. And I don't know what this means...whether it means this blog will slowly die or whether it means I just need a break. One thing is for sure, it has really been a fulfilling ride for me, filled with all sorts of personal and professional growth. So I'm hoping that, after a week or so, I'll miss it or have something compelling to say. But after more than 1000 posts, I feel fresh out of things to contemplate for the time being...haha.

Anyway, for now I'm just taking a week off. That week may stretch longer. I've always worried if I didn't do it on a regular schedule that I'd lose my momentum, so I guess we'll test that theory. For those who automatically check in every few days, you might want to join the mailing list at www.tierneysadler.com. That way you won't have to check the site if my postings become more erratic.

It's not often that you do something in your life that is met with only positive feedback. This blog has been that for me. Not once in four years have I heard anything but supportive, kind words. I thank you all for that. It means more than you know.

I don't know where we'll go from here. Maybe I'll just snap right back into the routine after a break. Maybe I won't. But I plan to leave my blog URL up indefinitely at this time, so the posts will always be here. You can pick one at random or put a keyword into the search box and find something to read whenever you like.

Until we meet again!