Category Archives: External Focus Series

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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Neighbors and Trash

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Knowing what to do and putting it into practice are two very distinct concepts.  For me, implementation remains a continuous and, sometimes, frustrating process.

Case in point:  I continue to grow through my neighbors.  In this post, we won’t even get into the loud music, the roaring cars making screeching circles (“donuts”) in the street, the drugs, abandoned and stripped cars, etc.  Today we will deal with trash only.  I have tried to speak to my neighbors and their guests nicely and explain why I don’t like them to throw trash in front of my house.

I’ve told them: “You’re not doing this only to me.  You’re not respecting yourselves.  This is your neighborhood, your community.  Is this how you want to live?”  It’s like my outer calm infuriates them.  They curse and discard more trash, most likely mirroring my inner turmoil.

I started sweeping the trash in my yard out into the street because I’m so tired of daily picking up other people’s liquor bottles, condoms, cigarette butts, fast food boxes, and other rubbish.  It would take me less than 5 minutes to pick up the trash and then it would be gone.  But the way I do it, it lasts infinitely.  Because I sweep it out into the street, I still see it every day in front of my house.  When it rains, it becomes soggy and glued to the asphalt.  Other people see the trash.  I guess they feel that it’s a dump, so they also throw their debris there.  I then have more trash.  Wet gooey trash.  The situation worsens.

So I started thinking: “what is going on? Why must I live like this?”

My first mind, the part that gets irritated, says: “These people are wrong!  I have a right to be angry and respond accordingly!  Why can’t I have decent and considerate neighbors?  Why do I have to live in a crappy neighborhood?”

The observing and objective part of my mind says: “And??  Pick up the trash and move on instead of letting it linger.  Every time you see the trash you get angrier and angrier.  There are other things to get angry about.  This is not one of them.  Stop thinking about what bothers you.  Think about what you want and how you would like things to be.”

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Looking Back: Connecting the Dots Part II

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Dot Six

In 2013, everything seemed to fall apart.  I had been off work since 2010 and used savings, retirement, and credit cards to pay my and my mom’s expenses.  I had never had a problem finding work; but, after my mother’s passing in 2012, I could not get back into the job market to save my life.  I started work/trade at a yoga studio for classes.  After only a month or so, I was fired!!  Can you imagine?  I couldn’t even keep a free job!!

The next day, I broke my foot.  Now I had no money, no job.  I was immobile.  No swimming, running, bicycling, yoga, showering, walking without crutches, or sleeping comfortably.  Every month I would return to the doctor who would tell me that the bone was not healing.  I was in a boot for seven months!  I wanted to kill myself.  While I was going through it, all I felt was struggle, pain, and horribleness.

Looking back, I realize that I moved to another level.  My journal entries are critical because I wouldn’t remember the details today if I had not documented every emotion, thought, activity, and insight and every angry, hopeless, fear-filled, enlightened, relieved, and joyful moment.

Reading A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield lets me know that I am not the only one to experience a succession of difficulties, mistakes, fear, painful patterns, and dissolution that comes from not having the life I desire, expect, and feel that I should have because of my ego-centered reasons: I earned it, I’m a good person, I’ve done the right things, other people live well and prosper, etc.

As part of my spiritual practice, I used to recite a Tibetan prayer in A Path With Heart:

Grant that I may be given appropriate difficulties and sufferings on this journey so that my heart may be truly awakened and my practice of liberation and universal compassion may be truly fulfilled.

After awhile, I disposed of that prayer.  I had had enough difficulties and sufferings.  Time to move past that.  I couldn’t even remember where I found that prayer until I started re-reading A Path With Heart.  It must be time for me to become reacquainted with it.

Sometimes, going through life’s challenges, we are growing exponentially and can’t see it.  Looking back, the growth that I experienced during 2013 and 2014 would not have been possible without the seeds that were planted between 1994 and 1998.  Those were the years that I got off of my first treadmill and resumed an inner focus that began when I was 19.  The next 15 years were my experiential, living-life years.  That period made me find my dormant seeds and start watering them.

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Looking Back: Connecting the Dots Part I

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Dot One

When I moved to the East Coast as a young adult, I found my element.  New York and Washington, D.C. matched an energy that could not be totally expressed in my hometown.  Everything that I pursued manifested.  I was assertive and confident.  I felt powerful.  Whatever I decided to do became easily within my reach.  I flowed.

Dot Two

Then I made the decision to return home.  Six months after I began my new job, I knew it wasn’t for me.  But I stayed.  I was devastated to realize that I didn’t want what I had put so much time, effort, and expense in obtaining.  Now what?  I felt lost.  I didn’t know what to do.  During my fourth and last year at my firm, I spent almost a month in Hawaii.  There, in peace and free to think, I made the decision to be a writer.

Dot Three

I mostly wandered for the next year.  Tried to find myself.  Meditated.  Explored.  I travelled.  I tried to start my own legal practice.  I kept getting thoughts that this was to be a period of rest and rejuvenation and that I wasn’t to worry about future income.

At one point, I asked God, “What is my destiny?”  I went over my past and asked why I had gone to law school and accepted employment at a corporate firm.  It hadn’t seemed to accomplish much.  The answer I received was that law school and the firm enabled me to return to California.  I wouldn’t have come any other way because I wanted to retain my income.  California was where I needed to be in order to be with my father during his last year of life, to resolve my differences with my family, and to move beyond where I was on a spiritual level.

I then asked, “Why did I start my estate planning business?  The answer was that I needed to get away from the firm.  I needed a reason to leave.  In addition, it was practical, as I would need to plan for the distribution of my own estate and my mother’s when she passed.

Reading this many years later made me realize that most of what appears externally is not the essence, the reality, the why of what is occurring.  If we could see the larger picture, we wouldn’t worry and become fearful and despondent.  We would know that all is for our good and everything will work out ok.

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Retraining the Mind

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Retraining the Mind

I repeatedly refer to The Infinite Way by Joel Goldsmith.  Whenever I feel that I am not sufficiently progressing towards the spiritual awareness I desire, I find passages that let me know that I am being judgmental and self-condemning.  Enlightenment is not a static condition, a place where you arrive and remain in eternity.  Life in all its forms ebbs and flows, dies and is resurrected.  The nature of existence is change.

Joel Goldsmith states: “Spiritual illumination may be attained by living constantly in the consciousness of the presence of perfection, by the continual translation of the visible picture into the reality.  We are being faced with discordant appearances all through our days and nights, and these must immediately be translated through our understanding of the ‘new tongue,’ the language of Spirit.

Translate the pictures and incidents of daily existence into the new tongue, the language of Spirit, and consciousness will expand until translation occurs without even taking thought.  It becomes a habitual state of consciousness, a constant awareness of Truth.”

Many mornings, I wake up worried about my finances.  How will I pay my bills this month?  It is challenging to keep my mind stayed on Reality and not be distracted by the Illusion of my daily visible pictures.  Utilizing various tools, I analogize a given situation to the suggestion for monitoring alcohol consumption at a party: one glass of water to one glass of wine.  As I worry, I replace anxious thoughts with exercising, reading, listening to inspirational music, writing, meditating, or stating a mantra “This isn’t my Reality” or “As the Principle of Supply in action, it is impossible for me to have any needs or unfulfilled desires.”  The latter is taken from The Abundance Book by John Randolph Price.

Worrying can become so constant that it becomes an unconscious normal state of mind.  Thus, I have to incorporate new habits of thinking throughout the day with every activity.  While driving, when I think my car is overdue for maintenance that I can’t afford, I switch to giving thanks that my car is still running, getting me to and from where I need and desire to go.  As I walk, instead of focusing on all of the undone items on my to-do list, I am thankful that I am able to walk unassisted.  I revel in the beauty that surrounds me.  Thank God for my sight!  When I hear a song, I think of happy memories associated with it.  I change the station if a song is not pleasing to me.

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Be Aware of Distractions

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In the process of moving toward your passion, be aware of distractions, which can be a way of dealing with fear.

Fear of success is usually not conscious.  Obviously, most of us want to be successful.  However, our minds and bodies respond to fear, even that of which we are not consciously aware.  Therefore, we must become aware of obstacles that are self-imposed.

One subconscious fear may be that your life will change if you are successful.  Even though you want to be more, you know the characteristics and boundaries of where you are.  The unknown is usually feared.  Most of us do not want to go out of our comfort zones, even as we clearly and emphatically don’t want to be there and would not call “there” comfortable.  But if you are not content where you are and you are not actively taking steps to change your situation, then you have to examine why.

Societal norms don’t encourage us to take the time to reflect and to really look at ourselves and our lives.  We don’t listen to our inner voices anymore.  We don’t respond to our gut feelings; therefore, our guts stop guiding us.  They stop warning us when we are going astray.  Fear can keep you from moving forward into uncertainty.  It will keep you right where you are and prevent you from making a first step or that next step.  Right now, you may have enough to survive.  You tell yourself that you’ll wait until you have a safety net to take that leap of faith towards your destiny.

We rationalize our acceptance of the status quo: “I am not stressed. I’m fine.  Everything is fine.”  “Doctors say two drinks per day are ok.”  “I need this job.  I have loans, a mortgage, bills, tuition, my car, shopping, my hair, nails, the kids’ soccer games.”  “I know I need to lose weight, but I’m too busy to exercise or cook healthy foods.”  “My job requires me to travel a lot.  I have to eat out all of the time.”  “I don’t have time for relationships/ kids / vacations.”  “When I retire, when I quit this job, when the kids are out of the house, when I don’t have to take care of my parents, when the easier future comes, then I’ll . . .”

You may take the steps toward your passion, but discover that certain friends and associates want to use your motivating energy to support their needs and desires.  Because you like the company of friends and family and you want to help and be a good example, you change your schedule, your consistency, and your style to adjust to theirs.  You don’t feel comfortable saying no or “I’ll address that concern tomorrow or next week when I have time.”  The next thing you know, you’re not progressing.  You diverge from your planned routine.  You lose your momentum and your direction.

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Are We Blind?

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I had recurring dreams, the interpretations of which repeatedly stated that I “was not seeing what was before me.”  I was confounded, sad, and confused.  What was I not seeing?  I couldn’t figure it out.

The memory of these dreams re-surfaced when I was around people who, in my view, clearly were not seeing what was very apparent to me.  I saw myself in them.  I was so dismayed by the message my dreams were sending me that I had a strong desire to become aware of what I wasn’t seeing.  I wanted to cure my blindness.

In my quest, I read, listened, meditated, attended workshops and seminars, and saw a therapist.  I had no proof that any of this would help me to see, but I was willing to try anything.  I was open to whatever was available that might open my eyes, my ears, my heart, and my mind and allow me to see the clear manifestation of reality.

Most people are adamant that they perceive the reality of what is before them.  They become angry if another interpretation is presented.  This anger disguises a lack of openness.  It is a tell-tell sign of resistance to knowing truth.  One can disagree with the expressed opinion of another.  However, an intense emotional reaction to that expression indicates that an arrow has hit its mark.

For example, someone might say with concern, “You look tired all of the time.”  Perhaps the comment could have been more skillfully made; however, you blow up and scream, “Why are you always so critical?”  You could have laughed it off.  Your response may indicate that you believe there is something about you that is worth criticizing.

When I react with intense emotion, I ask myself, “what is the truth within me that my reaction is pointing to?”  I may need to develop better ways to react to my stress and that of others.  How can I stay calm in the midst of turmoil?  What techniques can I learn and practice to enhance my inner and outer peace?

Sometimes the issues are deeper.  Many of us don’t want to evolve.  We don’t even recognize our resistance to growth.  Human beings have an inherent need to move beyond our present circumstances.  The inability to do so expresses itself in unconscious mannerisms – commenting enviously on the upward mobility of others, sensitivity to benign comments, irritation at inconsequential incidents, general feelings of discontent with no known reason, mental and physical fatigue, and the aforementioned intense emotional reaction.

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A Passionate Life

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I identified very strongly with the Grey’s Anatomy character Christina Yang.  She always chose herself, except within the first three seasons when she chose Dr. Burke.  But that was because she admired him.  Although a junior resident, he gave her special opportunities to learn advanced heart surgery skills.  He provided a path to her continued expansion.  More importantly, Burke was like Christina.  He had a passion for infinite growth.  He had confidence.  He took risks.  He was exceedingly skilled and knowledgeable.  Christina couldn’t help but love him.  He was a male her.

The difference between me and Christina is that I didn’t identify within me something about which I was so passionate that I would give up everything.  My passions were externally focused.  I sacrificed all for my jobs, my family, and my mom.

Because my passions were for other than me, my efforts frequently ended in disappointment.  I facilitated the needs and desires of others.  Yes, I enjoyed what I did and gave; but, my accomplishments ultimately benefited them more than me, which was predictable because I supported their dreams and goals.

Grey’s Anatomy was the first television series in which a key character left and I wasn’t mad at the producers and writers.  The season of Christina’s departure explored all of the possible life-changing scenarios that Christina could have chosen.  The one that I wanted for her was to stay with Owen and have babies.  In her vision of this choice, she was pregnant with their second child.  Owen was immensely happy while she regretted giving up the possibility of her greatness as a world-renowned surgeon.

Every possible ending that fans would have wished for Christina involved her compromising her passion and dreams for herself.  In each, she was happy for and pleasing to others, but unfulfilled and unaccomplished in the ultimate manifestation of her gift.

In the season finale, Christina was offered and chose a position that allowed her to be unlimited in her potential.  Importantly, it also showed how much she knowingly gave up – proximity to the man she loved, her best friends, and the opportunity to be reasonably successful in an environment surrounded by supportive co-workers.  She could have settled and been beyond ok by most standards.  Instead, she chose to reach for the stars and follow her unflinching passion.

Christina chose the means and opportunity for limitless mobility.  She chose the power to determine and actualize her destiny.  That is my desire for myself.

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Perceptions of Our Minds

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Being dependent on everything external allowed me to feel happy and fulfilled.  Being stripped of many material supports is teaching me to clearly see and comprehend the True Source of all that is; that everything that I had, have, and will have is but an expression of that Source; and that I am one with all that is – not better, not less than, but one with.

This concept is very hard for me to put into practice.  I think I’m getting better.  At least I’m aware.

We are all that we can be at this very moment.  It is good to strive to be and do more in order to move towards our promise and destiny.  However, being happy with the miracle of whatever is happening now can help create a happier tomorrow.

Temptations of the flesh are difficult to resist and overcome.  By temptations, I don’t only mean lust, greed, envy, or other such attractions.  I mean perceptions of the sense body.  We look at the material world as the source and end of everything with little or no regard to our spiritual origins, our command of energy, and our dominion.  We allow material existence (persons, places, and circumstances) to have power over us because we have forgotten the reality of our Higher Selves.  We have forgotten who and what we are.

We can become so involved with and drawn into the dramas and traumas of our loved ones, jobs, community, society, and world that we drift into negativity, forgetting that we are Spirit – clear, free, and unlimited.  In our essence, we are like air.  We forget that we are transcendent, that only the perceptions of our minds can entrap us, hold us, and imprison us.  That is the ultimate temptation of the flesh body.  We let the material world make us blind and deaf to our true nature and, thus, become bound to the earth.

The more status we give to tangible things and people, the more we forget that the Infinite even exists.  We drift further and further into anguish and hardship.  The day of reckoning always comes.  Judgment Day comes in different ways and times for each of us.  Cumulatively, all of our unhappiness makes it difficult for the great healers of the world to survive in physical form and help us through this medium.

Great joys come from being in the body.  However, the suffering of human existence becomes quicksand from which it seems impossible to emerge.  Constant struggle grounds one increasingly into the material and away from the reality and source of our being.

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Allowing

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I worked for some time on “I am worthy.”  Then, I decided to work on “Allowing.”  Allowing people to be how they are without me having to conform to or be affected by whatever that is.  I decided to practice simply allowing and saying ok.  I am not advocating submitting to abuse.  I refer to an alternate response to the many perceived slights, irritations, irrational demands, and drama that we get pulled into.

Allowing is related to self-worth.  When we feel unworthy and powerless, we feel the need to argue, defend, justify, explain, and comment when listening is all that is usually necessary.  If no inquiry is asked, no response is needed and, usually, is not welcome.  It’s like giving unsolicited advice.  People who want your opinion will ask for it.

If others say, do, or require what is not in line with what you want, don’t argue or complain.  If productive, state your concerns.  Otherwise, remove yourself or make plans to leave.  I knew a woman who lived with her philandering boyfriend and calmly expressed her feelings of betrayal.  After no change in behavior, she quietly saved her money, found and put a deposit on another apartment.  One day, he came home from work and found her and all of her belongings gone.  There was no fighting, no drama, and, apparently, no lasting hard feelings.  They worked together on a professional level for many years thereafter.  She allowed him to remain the same while she chose what was best for her.

The key is – do you know what you want?  Most of us know what we don’t want, which is why it is easy and common to express our discontent.  If we know what we want, almost everything becomes very clear.

When we give power to others to manifest our desires and expectations, we can become upset when they don’t act as we would like.  When we feel powerful, we know that we can provide for ourselves what we want.  Then, if a person, place, or situation is not supplying or is preventing access to what we need, we can identify and move towards a more productive place to blossom.  That power and awareness of choice allows us not to be so tied to the closed door temporarily in front of us.  There is no need to become angry or frustrated.  We stay calm and look for or create a door that is open and welcoming.

Allowing is acting with the knowledge that there is always a better place.  You can, thus, ask yourself before responding, “How important is this to me?  Is it worth getting hot and bothered about?  Will focusing on the irritation and engaging in tense-filled discussions take me away from what I really want to do?  At the end, will I be further away from where I want to go?  Is it worth the distraction, lost time, and energy?”

Allowing enables me to focus on changing me instead of the external person or situation.  If I don’t allow, then I must confront, which creates tension, which causes a reaction and a responsive reply, leading to a battle.  Resentment ensues, along with grudges, payback, and days, weeks, and months of bad feelings.  All because I didn’t allow.

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