“Journey of Alignment” -Healing (1.4.24)

Copyright Tam Black 2018
Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Guiding Thought

To heal and be healed is to be aware, to understand, and to Know Wholeness.  Thus, we seek Wholeness, Unity, Oneness within our own minds and hearts, and in all our actions and affairs. We focus on uniting the fragments within ourselves, so that we see only Oneness, which is the Truth of our Self. As we Know ourselves as the Oneness we are, this Truth reflects in the world around us, confirming what we Know through our experience and life activity.

Reflection

What are different ways to “unite fragments”? Here are some thoughts:

1. Identify with the fragment (and change it in myself).

Koham?” is Sanskrit for “Who am I?” The answer to this question is “Soham“. “I am That“. Most often the “That” means the Self of the self, the Universal Self, the Christ Self. I am the “That” which is everywhere, and belongs to everyone; the oneness of humanity, Love, the Oneness of All that Is.

But when we are talking about uniting fragments, I must also see myself as the “that” which I may find unpleasant or unsavory–the parts of myself that I am denying, excluding, shunning, or hiding.

I’ve long thought that whenever something “out there” disturbs me, it’s because I have not accepted or integrated that thing within myself; something “in here” is not At One with Itself.

When I feel bothered by something, I ask myself, “How do I do that”? “What behaviors or thoughts do I have that are the same as that”? This takes a lot of honesty, and willingness to see beyond the thing itself to the meaning or symbolic representation of it.

For example, if I feel bothered when I think someone is dishonest with me, I ask myself, “When am I dishonest with other people”? This does not just mean dishonest in the same way someone was dishonest to me, it means any dishonesty. Every. Tiny. Bit. Then I do everything I can to eliminate that behavior from myself. I’ve been doing this for years. This practice really eliminates “dishonesty” and attracts “truth and honesty”. Guess what kind of people I have in my life?

Another example is that recently, I have felt bothered because I have felt that someone is representing something of high integrity and value with very little responsibility. I feel bothered that this person is acting irresponsibly both to the information being presented and to the people it is being presented to (I am one of those people). To counter this, I am assessing how present information, and working at doing it responsibly and with integrity–researching, getting different viewpoints, and offering ideas in a neutral way, not as absolute fact or rigid rules. I am also being aware of the impact that information has on people, and my responsibility to them. If I represent myself as a teacher, friend, mentor, or responsible adult, I have to take that seriously, and act in such a way to deserve to be a teacher, friend, mentor, or responsible adult.

No, this is not an exact science. It’s only about working on myself. This is also a valuable tool to remove blame. I can’t blame someone else for how they behave if I have the same behavior.

2. Aligning pieces. Most of the time when I think about Oneness and uniting fragments, my visual image is something like two soap bubbles meeting and being absorbed into each other to become one bigger bubble.

But recently “uniting” has more to do with “aligning”, and the visual image is more like hitching up a trailer to a ball mount. To do this, the hitch has to be the right height, the right distance, and the right angle (that is–no angle).

This image implies two things that the bubble image does not 1) a much more proactive approach to uniting fragments 2) a more linear process. In other words, with the trailer approach, I am the one who has to make sure things line up. If I say I want a glass of water, then never get up to get a glass and fill it, but still complain because I’m thirsty, it’s only because I haven’t taken the appropriate steps to be and do what I say I want. I’m both the cause and the solution to my thirstiness. If I say I want to learn to heal, but then never explore what that means, never do things that improve my quality of life/mind, then what I say and what I do are not in alignment.

This approach has a lot more trial and error. It also has greater and greater levels of refinement, as I continually figure out things that are out of alignment, then figure out how to get them into alignment. I think once things are aligned, a merging into oneness (like the soap bubbles) happens easily and naturally.

Since the Truth of my Self is Infinite, until I experience All as One, I am on a journey of alignment, actively creating the circumstances through which alignment naturally allows merging.

 

 

 

Journey of Freedom 2017—Afterword

At the end of each Journey, I reflect on “how I did”, assessing how well I met my goals which I set forth in the first day of the Journey.

I had two goals for Journey of Freedom: 1) Keep it simple. 2) Release judgment.

I also committed myself to going as deeply and intensely as I could.

Yes. I definitely kept it simple.

There were times when I found myself trying to complicate things by trying to figure them out, or interpret what things meant. I did a really good job reminding myself that I do not have to figure everything out. Indeed, there are many times when I do not have enough information to figure something out.

Moreover, just this week, during my days of rest, I had a flash of thought from out of nowhere that said, “You don’t have to figure it all out!” Yes, the “voice” was bolded. What was funny to me about this was that I hadn’t been thinking very hard at all about anything—but I could still feel myself, somewhere in the back of my head, trying to figure it out. This demonstrates a huge benefit to the days of rest. That down time opens the space for my inner wisdom to recognize when I have some subtle energy or thought that needs corrected, and then it can scream at me, so I will hear it.

When my inner voice screamed at me, it also seemed to light up the energy-thought forms that were lingering in the back of my mind so that I saw them. It was, literally, like a lightbulb went off in my head, and I saw something that I knew was there, but it was in the dark. I had a full realization of the pattern playing in my thoughts about putting pieces together, making them fit, figuring it all out. And in that moment, I knew: I don’t have to figure it all out. When I told Tam about this, Tam said, “kind of sounds a lot like ‘you’ll be in the right place at the right time, doesn’t it?” Exactly. So I was able to let go.

Yes. I definitely released judgments.

I am very pleased with myself and the effort that I made to release judgments. There were so many times during the Journey when I noticed a mental, physical, or emotional behavior that I was exhibiting and I recognized it as “old”.

This is no longer who I am. I don’t need this anymore. I’ve grown out of this. At least, I want to grow out of this. It’s a little scary. I can see there is a different behavior in front of me. But it’s scary. I’ve never done this before.

This applied particularly to my thoughts and feelings (which translate into behaviors) about how money flows, and how I need to behave to make sure I have enough.  Where an old pattern popped up and said, “Oh! No! you can’t spend money on that…you don’t know when you are going to need that money…you need to keep it, not spend it….keeping it keeps your money, and you, safe”, a new pattern was saying, “Let it flow…Let it flow!” Yes, it was in the tune of the Disney song. No, I did not instigate that; it’s one of those tricks my inner Self sometimes plays on me; it brings humor to my panic (letting go of my old pattern), to let me know that everything’s going to be alright (yes, Bob Marley…you see what I have to put up with from my Inner Self? I Love You, Inner Self, I’m just kidding!)

So, here’s what I did when I found myself in such circumstances as releasing old patterns and embracing new ones. First, I recognized that I was having an “old pattern” moment. Awareness is key. Then, I assured myself that there are lots of ways to be in the world, to play with money (or whatever) in the world; there are lots of people who do not keep their money for a rainy day, and they get along just fine. Then, I reminded myself of what I want, of what the new pattern is that I want to embody, which is: trust, flow, circulation, believing that everything comes to me when it’s supposed to come to me, that God is my Source, and that I am taken care of and provided for.  Then I just shifted. Sometimes I had to breathe a little bit, but basically, I just decided to embody the new pattern, and all it entails. And I moved on.

The one thing that I would like to do better on the next Journey is committing myself to going as deeply and intensely as I can.

I think in some ways, there was a conflict of interest between keeping it simple, and going deeply and intensely. For me those two things may have felt mutually exclusive on this Journey. This is something I am going to have to be more aware of for future Journeys. Keeping it simple does not (necessarily) mean keeping it superficial, but I think the concepts were conflated in my head for this Journey.

For next Journey, I am going to focus again on deep and intense. Quality. Getting at “it”.

I look forward to seeing you tomorrow for the beginning of Journey of Peace!

Love and blessings to you.

 

 

“My Spiritual Nerdism: Consistency And Intensity”: Journey of Worth 2.0 – Day 35

Copyright Tam Black 2016 Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Copyright Tam Black 2016
Designed for susanwithpearls.com

Guiding Thought

There is only one Will. That Will is Love. That Will is my Love, your Love, our Love, together. Only when I will in Love is the outcome assured in Love. Only when I will in Love do I know the results are truly beneficial to all, including myself. Only when I will with Love am I Free and I affirm with certainty “All is as it should be”.

 

Sharing

“On a scale of 1-10,

how intense am I today?

how focused am I today?

how loving am I today?

how patient am I today?

how attuned am I today?

how balanced am I today?

how much do I feel in the flow today?

how connected to Divine Love do I feel today?

how clear do I feel today?”

These kinds of questions are always going on in the background of my mind. I am always checking in, doing a self-assessment. Thinking about where I am and where I am going. I’ve thought about keeping track of my numbers and then graphing them; that’s the kind of nerd I am. I really would do this (okay, I’ve even started it a couple of times).

I consider 5 to be my own personal neutral, normal. It takes some time to become accustomed to one’s own “normal” with these questions–everyone is different, and only you can decide what your “3” or “5” or “10” is.

 

Most of the time, I am a 5 or higher (pretty even overall) with moments of “better than normal”. There are of course, days like yesterday, when something happens and I just get all out of whack.

The goal is for your normal “feel good” to shift a bit higher up that 1-10 spectrum; your 5 becomes a 7 or 8, 90% of the time, a new normal “feel good”.

To do this, you have to first know how to get yourself “up”. You have to know what you can do to clear and balance yourself, how to get yourself into a flow, how to transmute disruptive emotions into peace, love, and harmony. You need to work at figuring out how to get yourself from a 3 to a 5, or from a 5 to 7.

Here are a few things that other people have suggested along the way:

Exercise

Yoga

Prayer

Prana/breathing

Reiki

Meditation

Walking the dog

Taking a bath

Painting or creating something artistic

Writing

The point is, there are things that people do, and when they do them, they just feel better. People do these things, for example, when they are at a 3, in order to get to a 5 (“I am really stressed out, I need to go for a run”).

People who do things consistently that make themselves feel better, are constantly walking around feeling better, because they are being pro-active to stay feeling better.  And if that is the case, if they did just a bit more, they could conceivably raise their “normal” to a higher normal by simply adding enough activity to make themselves feel that much better.

Why am I even talking about this?

Oh, yeah…because…I have been thinking about my intensity, especially that of my intention, this past week. I feel like I have slid back a bit on intensity, and am at…maybe a 3. I’ve heard stories about musical performers who go on tour, performing the same songs day after day, week after week, and they have to bring the same (very high) intensity to every performance, otherwise they will let their fans down. But where do they come up with that kind of intensity day after day, week after week (that’s not drug or alcohol induced)? It’s that kind of intensity I am talking about.

I expect myself to be thoroughly in it. Completely involved, intense, focused, attentive doing these Journeys. But, I am not there yet, not at a point where I can do that. I still deflate. There still comes a point that feels like I’ve had too much, and my brain shuts down, literally, it’s like my brain cannot lift itself out of whatever quagmire it’s in.

There are traditions and practices which require attention  24 hours a day, thorough immersion, unfailingly. In these practices, one is engaged with the practice with every breath, in every thought, in all speech and action. I strive toward that. And I know I am getting better, after all…I’m doing a 40-day Journey every 52 days; that is not the activity of a slacker! But I do wonder about my overall progress, and if I am moving up the scale toward 10 being a new 5.