Category Archives: PathPosts

Where is God?

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I watched an episode of Grey’s Anatomy that was particularly moving to me.  People died.  There was a lot of unfairness.  A little boy got shot by police while climbing into a window of his own home.  It looked as though he was going to be ok, but he succumbed to his injuries.  A woman suddenly died after giving birth.  A young man tried to cut off his hand because his literal translation of the Bible compelled him to do so.

April, a deeply religious doctor, witnessed or was involved in these events.  Overwhelmed, she started to mentally relive the tragedies of her own life.  The husband of the woman who died was a man who April left at the altar, running away in her wedding dress with Jackson, another doctor.  Their marriage disintegrated after she had a miscarriage and, thereafter, became severely depressed.

By the end of the episode, April was emotionally drained and asked, “Where is God in all of this?”  She thought of the story of Job and Jesus on the cross saying, “Why has thou forsaken me?”

I started crying because this scene brought back traumatic experiences in my own life.  I used to repeatedly read the Book of Job trying to find some understanding of my perceived suffering.  At this point in my life, however, I realize that God expresses itself through us and that we do not always well express God. This Spirit that is perfect comes through the prism that is us.  We cannot see our perfection because the pain of the flesh overrides our awareness of our true Essence.

God exists in and through us.  Until we can fully express the Reality of God, we continue to manifest God imperfectly, diluted, and distorted by our own perceptions, by our own sickness, and by our own weakness.

We have drifted far away from our authentic selves.  I know what I’m supposed to do; but, somehow, I get caught up in the world, in the material.  The flesh takes over.  I read about the Infinite Way.  I say I understand it.  I know it.  I want it.  Yet, against my will it seems, I continue to express anger, fear, resentment, and judgment.  I repeatedly fail to demonstrate an assurance of abundance, love, and protection. Continue reading →

I Dream My World

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For the last nine months, I have been an 8th grade special education teacher.  My experience has been another excursion into immense self-growth.

Exhaustion was my primary characteristic during this time.  I was falling asleep while standing exhausted, not thinking clearly exhausted, forgetting things exhausted, and coming home and immediately lying down and going to sleep exhausted.  When I work, I tend to put my all into it.   I don’t have boundaries because I like to do good work.  It’s like cleaning house or doing yardwork.  Once I start, I see so much that needs to and can be accomplished.  When administrators see that a worker bee is competent and reliable, more work is given.  At the end of each 9+ hour day, for which I was not compensated over 6.5 hours, I had no energy or inclination to handle the affairs of my personal life.

I got caught up in the external.  I didn’t have time to exercise, do yoga, meditate, or otherwise work on my inner and physical selves.  Every single thought and action was focused on situations and circumstances beyond my personal being.  I got carried away – again – and became upset when I felt unappreciated, unsupported, and disrespected.  I began to feel resentful and trapped.  My perceptions reflected this state of mind.  I saw other staff members treated unfairly.  Maybe their fates would be mine.

I began to live in fear, which caused me to relinquish my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual stability to a misguided belief that someone external to me controlled my life.

Maybe people like me who allow work to run over our lives are actually running from our lives.  Maybe work is an excuse, an escape.  I don’t want to accept this, because – truly – it’s not how I want to live.  But why do I continue to repeat this pattern?  How is it that others maintain a healthy balance between work and personal life?  They don’t become hooked on the what ifs.  What if I don’t meet my deadlines?  What if I take a day off?  For some reason, balanced people choose self and somehow manage to remain employed.  Could it be that others pick up on their sense of self-worth and reflect it back to them?

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Goodbye and Hello

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On New Year’s Eve 2016, I decided that, in 2017, I would choose me.  I would choose what I want in my life and what I want to do – as opposed to doing what is expected of me.  On New Year’s Day 2017, with purposeful intention, I opened my mind, my heart, and my soul to Flow.  I resolved to get along with people, to not react and respond to what I perceive as negativity, and to learn to see the light in myself and everyone else.

On the last day of 2016, I outlined life changes that I would work on in 2017.  I would strive to be positive and cooperative.  I would let go of how others treated me, what they didn’t give me, or what they could have or should have done.  I accepted that I have the power to change my life and that there is no power that has yet been born that can take away my joy.

More importantly, I saw myself moving forward by any positive and productive means necessary.  Sometimes, we won’t leave our neighborhoods, cities, loved ones, jobs or other comfort zones – no matter how draining or miserable – because of cultural norms, family ties, love, financial dependence, fear of being alone, obligation, and any number of reasons.

I am around many people who live health-based lives.  I am also close to those who chose to live in unhealthy ways and are in denial of the realities and consequences of their actions and ways of thinking and being.  I completely understand the latter because it has been extremely hard to look in my mirror and face the ways in which I have contributed to all aspects of my existence.  Regardless of how I believe that I have been treated and how unfair and wrong the externals in my life have been, I could have reacted differently, knowing that I am complete and whole, and that nothing can stop me from receiving what is for me.

Sometimes, being understanding, supportive, and committed can keep you from your destiny.  When your fullest potential is unrealized, maybe it’s time to step back and away from where you’re placing your primary efforts.  As for me, I got tired of living on the side of a cliff and decided to get off.  Whatever it takes, whoever and whatever I have to leave, I am moving forward, onward and upward.

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Life’s Planks

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It would have been financially great if I had stayed at one job for 30 years.  Those who retire after 30 years can do a lot because they have time and financial security.  I chose to have incredible experiences throughout my younger years.  I traveled annually to many countries.  I followed what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it.  I explored different ways of being in a variety of different environments.

At the time, I didn’t consider future stability.  I anticipated that the diversity of my experiences would insure my marketability.  My life was definitely enriched.  I was open and free, able to meet people and go to places on a whim.  I lived in hostels, jumped off of cliffs, went paragliding, explored nude beaches, swam in foreign bodies of water, and danced all night in clubs that might not today allow me entry.  I’m glad that I did those things while I was young and willing.

It’s a trade-off.  Some people have the money, wherewithal, and opportunity to explore and live an adventurous life and retain financial security.  Others accept that this is the life that we chose.  The experience of living life to its fullest was worth the cost.  I don’t know.  I can’t say one way is right or wrong.  It is what it is.

I have led a very interesting life.  It has taught me to be adaptive, which is helping me during this period of uncertainty.  I still complain and have feelings of frustration, fear, and worry.  However, I consider this period as another change, another adjustment.  I know that I will get through it.  I tell myself, “Bear with it.  Be open.  Be receptive.  Flow.  Don’t be judgmental.  Don’t be rigid.  Don’t have fixed expectations.”  It’s an interesting time.

When I was young, I used to watch this cartoon.  A man would walk on a plank and come to its end.  Right when he stepped off, another plank would rise to meet him and he would continue walking.  This happened repeatedly.  That was the only thing that happened in the cartoon.  Being a child, I liked repetition.  I would sit there and watch this man walk off this plank and on to another one over and over again.

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Flow With Change

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I unexpectedly obtained a job for which I had applied almost one year earlier.  It had taken so long to manifest that I accepted what I called my bridge job, something to hold me over until I could figure out my next step.  While on the bridge job, I realized that I was repeating my old pattern: doing whatever in order to make money.  My heart said to me, “I am tired of doing this.  I deeply want [a list of intangibles].”

Almost instantly, the long-delayed job came through.  I immediately left my bridge job and began the new one the next day.  I felt as though this was fate, God sent, and what I was meant to do.

The new job did not match my expectations at all.

Unbeknownst to me, my supervisors looked at my skill set and decided that I could perform duties that were needed, but not funded under the advertised position.  My role was based upon a need that had nothing to do with what I thought the job entailed.  My supervisors saw something in me that I didn’t even see in myself and thought that I would be perfect for the undefined placement.

My new job was filled with a lot of uncertainty.  It presented entirely new situations with entirely new types of people.

On the outside looking in, I thought, “I can do this.”  Once I got into my new position, the uncertainty made me doubt myself.  My role was not well defined.  Each day I didn’t know what to expect.  Throughout each day, I could be at one place performing certain tasks and I would suddenly be called to go to another location and do something entirely different.

Most of the time, I tried to live up to this unknown thing about me that other people saw.  I tried to live up to their vision.  On the other hand, I was very uncomfortable because my previous positions have been fairly predictable.  I like that.  In my new position, I often had no clue of what to do.  There was no training.  I dealt with each situation as it came up.  Each day I learned something fresh.  I acted on instinct.  I made mistakes.  I don’t like making mistakes.

Even in positions that I didn’t particularly like, I always had certainty.  I knew what was expected of me.  If I hadn’t done it before, I had done something like it and could figure out what was needed and get it done.  In this job, I was in a whole new world.

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Through the Fire

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Sometimes in order for a life to be rebuilt it has to be torn down and torn apart.

Within a two year period, I lost my mom and my source of income.  I stopped seeing my therapist because I could no longer afford to pay him.  Nevertheless, within six months, I completed and self-published a book that I had been trying to write since 1994.  I resumed my exercise and lost 30 pounds.

Then I broke my foot and was in a boot for seven months, which was an incredibly difficult adjustment.  Yet, my immobility caused me to stop and think.  I could do little else but reflect, meditate, and question what was going on with my life, what I was doing, and what I was going to do.  How many people get the opportunity to do nothing?  This is very critical.  As I wrote in my book, we’re on this treadmill and we don’t want to get off.  We think we can’t get off.  That’s what I thought.  What will happen if I get off of this treadmill?  I was very unhappy.  Yet, I kept going.  I kept doing the same things over and over.

After my mom died, my life seemed to fall apart and I couldn’t figure out how to put it together again.  It was a very intense time.  Even today, I become emotional remembering that period.  But I can look back and I see that what I went through was analogous to a building being demolished.  Anything that I no longer needed in my life disappeared.  Some forms of existence cannot remain if change is going to come.

Therapy began a process of critical and immense change.  That process included many births and deaths, beginnings and endings.  I regained my health.  People and institutions left my life.  I started Ancient Seeker.  I didn’t appreciate much of my journey as I traveled along my tumultuous roads.  Change is not always enjoyable.  It can be very traumatic.  Some people don’t endure great changes.  Their lives go along at the same speed.  I experienced substantial changes that were painful and traumatic.  But I got through them and became aware of the benefits.

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Obstacles For Your Good

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Sometimes paths are blocked because they’re not for you.  You want your life to be a certain way.  On your job, you’re not promoted or paid as you believe you deserve to be.  Opportunities are not afforded you. There is constant tension.  You pursue an objective for many years and it doesn’t manifest.  You have specific intentions.  You do every single thing that you can think of to achieve a goal and don’t understand why it’s not attainable.

Maybe all of the doors that you’re knocking on are not meant for you.  One door is wide open; but, you think, “I don’t want that door.  That’s not in my plan.  I didn’t envision that for myself.”

However, if this is the only door that is open, your choices are to stay where you are or to walk through that door.  Personally, I’d rather see what’s on the other side than to keep doing what I’ve always done and to stay where I’ve always been, especially if I feel that my potential has been limited.

For me, it’s about trusting and having faith that, if this is the only door that is open, then this must be for me.  I must have the courage to step through that door and into uncertainty.

Many times we want things that are not for us.  The things that I put my highest effort towards were tangible things.  I wanted a job that gave me a certain amount of money.  When I switched to wanting intangible things, my life started changing very fast.  Opportunities opened that I would never have considered, but decided to accept even though I didn’t know why they were being made available to me.  I decided to just flow and say, “Wow! This is interesting.  Let me go with this.”

Going through that door has not yet given me the money that I want or need.  Nevertheless, I have received intangible experiences that matched my revised intentions: being around fluid, open, and friendly people; people who appreciate me and acknowledge my skills and potential.  When I chased money, I was rarely validated or affirmed.  I suppose I was around other people who were also primarily pursuing money and not really happy.  They expressed their unhappiness.  Being also unhappy, I was a receptive vessel.

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Let Emotions Pass Through

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I realize the efficacy of positive thinking.  I believe that thoughts held in mind produce in kind.  I also believe in not resisting feelings and emotions.  I identify and acknowledge them and let them pass through.  I am becoming less rigid in holding on to one way of being and thinking.

Granted, I’m not completely there yet.  At times, I complain as I am concurrently grateful because a great benefit has occurred in my life in the midst of seemingly intractable limitations.  I am so very thankful for the water even as I look around in despair at the immensity of the desert surrounding me.

As I look with wonder at all that passes through my life, I have an open and receptive heart, and greet the many colors and shapes of my life with immeasurable gratitude.  Yet, I still become irritated, angry, overwhelmed, frustrated, impatient, tired, anxious, and fearful.  Significantly, I no longer remain in these states for long.  I identify them.  I know exactly why I feel a certain way.  I allow myself time to process.  I give my emotions attention.  Sometimes, I try to help them move along.  Other times, I let them stay while I go on with my life.  I acknowledge their presence and state aloud their identities if my feelings need that type of expression.

Sooner or later, my emotions move on to return later at a frequency dependent upon my life’s circumstances and maturation.  I tend to cling to happiness, joy, and fun and attempt to block worry, anger, and resentment.  If I’m happy, I want to stay this way.  If I’m worried, I want what is causing my anxiety to go away.  Both are forms of clinging, the latter in the sense that what you resist, persists.  Attachment and rejection are sides of the same coin.  Both are obstacles to flowing.

The water and the desert, the sun and the rain, the joy and the pain are all vital to life.  Each has a purpose.  The key for me is to receive what presents itself and act or not act according to my degree of motivation, information, analysis, and accepted guidance.

When I look back on my life, I see that I am still here.  Still standing.  Still breathing.  I see that what I thought was unbearable was indeed very tolerable because I made it through.  I made it to now.  If I could have seen the future that is today, I wouldn’t have been so very depressed and stressed out of my mind.  Perhaps I would have enjoyed more happy days, knowing what was to come.

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Sunshine and Rain

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One of my little charges told me that other girls don’t want to play with her and asked me to make them play with her.  I told her, “When you ask people to play with you, they think something is wrong with you.  If you want to play, just play.  Do what you do.  Most people will join you if you look like you’re having a good time.”

Kids are always telling me, “Such and such called me this.”  I ask them, “Are you that?  How does that hurt you?”  I teach them the Sticks and Stones verse: sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.  I tell them to say, “My name is [   ] and I am like the sun.  Nothing can stop me from shining.”  I point to the sky as I state: “The sun shines no matter what.  When you see clouds, the sun is still shining.  We just can’t see it.  Even when it is dark where we are, the sun is shining somewhere.  The sun never ever stops shining.

Sometimes we don’t see the sun for whatever reason.  People can be like clouds.  Think of yourself as the sun.  It appears that clouds are blocking you, but they are not.  No matter what – clouds, rain, darkness – the sun always shines.  If you constantly think of yourself as the sun, you will realize that, no matter what people do or say, the truth that is you and the reality that is you will never stop shining.  If you always believe that, then you’ll always act like the sun and nothing can diminish your brilliance.

The earth rotates around the sun.  Sooner or later, a spot that’s in darkness will always return to being within the sun’s rays.  You have to be steadfast like the sun.  You have to wait until the earth or people or circumstances and events and situations rotate around to you.  You must remember that your brilliance and your joy are always there, no matter what is going on outside of you.”

Because they are little kids, I sing and dance and act silly as I tell them this.  They laugh, but they’ll remember one day.

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Out of the Abyss

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Not long ago, my life appeared at a standstill.  I did not seem to be changing or moving at all.  Things were not going as desired.  At times, it seemed as though my life was going backwards.  Yet, something was moving.  Something is always being created.  We are always evolving, despite appearances.

The tangible things that I visualized for myself in the past are not manifesting.  Nevertheless, what is occurring is amazing.  I feel as though blessings are overtaking me, outrunning me.  It’s not like I’ve won a million dollars.  My life is still full of stressful change, financial insecurity, lessons to be learned, and persons performing as I would not.  I am learning much on the run and through the fire.

I am flowing in a very fast river that is going in a direction that I think will benefit me in the long run.  I am observing my very interesting life that is changing daily.  Because I am not choosing the facts of my situation, I am learning to consistently adjust to new circumstances.  This is how my life was when I was young.  I sought newness.  As an older person, however, I must convince myself to stretch, to get out of whatever rut I was in.  Even though I wasn’t in a comfortable rut, I grew accustomed to doing things within the limitations in which I found myself.

Although I wasn’t happy with my bridge job (the one I took to get me to my next step), I was making enough to get through.  Now, I am working full time and making less than I was making at my part-time bridge job; but, it’s an exciting time.  I am working with children.  I’ve always loved being around children.  I learn new things because children are always in the present.  They see the world as it is today, as it is now, not as it will be tomorrow.  They don’t remember yesterday.  I’m learning to deal with children in different ways than the ways in which I was brought up.  This is an extremely intense learning experience.

I’m learning to say yes because this is a new world.  I’m not tying myself to the ways that I think should be.  I’m having to put into practice all of the principles that I have been writing about for the past two years in Ancient Seeker and the ways in which I’ve been trying to grow throughout the last 20 to 30 years.  There is a big difference in intellectually knowing what to do and actually being face to face with a situation or person and having to take a deep breath and dive in and make mistakes and figure out how to do it better the next time.

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