Dear Friends,
When the glamor fades and the complexity is dissolved, the true, the necessary and the important can come forth. We are all like crows, attracted to 'shiny', and like children, sometimes impressed by big words and bamboozled by complex ideas. Disasters often hide some essential truth in their complexity, yet can also bring to light a deeper truth, as in who your friends really are and what matters most. If we can look beyond, not under the rubble, there is some truth that is trying to be born.
It's more simple than the complexity that's trying to hide it. It's less glamorous than many solutions currently offered.
What lies deeper in our current crisis is how we've allowed others to make money off our needs and wants. Our eyes have been bigger than our stomachs, our wants larger than our pocketbooks. We have trusted in the glamor of credit cards and the complexity of loans to 'make' our lives better when they don't really work. We have believed in a system that says you can just borrow and pay it back later. We have done that and now truth comes, knocks on our door and says now we owe more than we ever realized we would.
We are in an energy crisis. We have been trying to get our energy from something outside of ourselves. We've all been taught this so it's not a crime, just something that maybe we're ready to be done with. Maybe it really is time for a change in how we see ourselves and how we can take responsibility for ourselves in a new world that's different than the old. We are trying to birth a new world and the old one is crumbling down around our ankles, catching many of us with our pants down.
All the energy you will ever need is inside you. We have been taught it's outside of us, in another country even, but it's not. It's in us, in you and in me. We are self generating energy machines and we can learn how to nourish ourselves and not feed off of others.
How to even begin? Trust is what can take us to the truth of what we believe. When we really feel into what we believe, we can parse out the falsities and discard the 'shiny' for a more real perspective. It can feel overwhelming and strange, to trust yourself. Each of us will never know everything, yet we can begin to feel what is right and what is true. I can feel what's right for me. You can feel what's true for you. We can respect our differences and our commonalities. We can come clean about our childish whims and act now with greater compassion and responsibility.
We can step into the now and feel out the truth of what's before us, step by step. There are big problems all around us and fear like a hungry wolf stalks us daily, especially if you listen to the news. Yet what lies deeper is a new world trying to be born in each and every one of us. You are the awakening consciousness of the new world. One breath at a time, one day at a time, one truth at a time. This is the only way it can happen. In you are the keys and the opportunity to be part of the present and thus a path to all our future. It's not going to come from outside of us (even if the aliens land!).
We can do this, I can do this, you can do this.
Listen, it's speaking now, like a whisper in the trees.
Blessings,
Laurel
Showing posts with label Trust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trust. Show all posts
Friday, October 17, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Please Change Your World
What a bold title today!
The truth is, I can't change your world. My world is full of it's own challenges, it's ups and downs. I am engaged, present to my own process of acceptance or taking action or letting go, whatever is required in the moment.
I'm there with you, in this fullness of life. Yet what your experience is, is of your own making. I can stand beside you yet you are the only one present for your own journey, just as I am for mine.
You are the the process itself and only by your own consciousness can the world change. Something is not going to happen to enlighten you. It happens in you because you pay attention, because you care, because you understand that no one else can do this for you in the way and depth you can do it for yourself.
We have all wished otherwise. Please someone take care of us. Our parents, friends, relatives, state, government all turn out to be inadequate, it's true. It's a setup really. Unfair even.
In the end it's you. We grow up and begin to look within. We see how our beliefs and misunderstandings color what we see and feel. We struggle with the alluring demons in our heads that tell us falsehoods and we gather the courage to say no, not now and not ever. We come to terms with our imperfections so we are not just walled off from the truth of our humanness. We accept our dominion over our own lives, weeding out the falsehoods and opening to a deeper sense of our place in the world. We let go and begin to see a new truth, one that includes both our humanity and our innate spirituality.
I love myself so I can now love you. I used to think if I could just love and accept you then I would be alright, that my undisclosed pain would absolve. It didn't work that way for me (let me know if it did for you). My self hatred was so deep and pervasive. I was the one that left the garden of Eden, that left paradise and needed so desperately to go home. It was my fault, there was something wrong with me, driven out of the kingdom for unknown but suspected iniquities. The original sin deal. Sorry it's not true. That lie keeps you small so others can control you. That lie allows you to give your power to others. Either way it's not true. You are meant to have your own life, your own dominion over your world.
We don't know if we even want that. It means taking responsibility for whatever happens within us when it's so easy to blame anything and everything on the outside. Our excuses abound: I'm too busy, worried, broke, inadequate, whatever.
We have been trained to look outside ourselves and for someone else to fix things. Magical thinking. We think that we are powerless to change our world because we have been taught that it's outside ourselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. Let's choose to wake up now. "Be the Change". Who you are is your responsibility and your resonance sends a message to everything around you about what you think and feel is true about life. Then that's what you experience. No one else can free you from the lies. Breathe it in and then let it go.
It's all in you.
Inhale and breathe in all the gifts and possibilities of this moment. This is where it starts. Now. Now is here, feel it, embrace it. This is what we have. The fullness begins here, the acceptance starts here, the recognition begins here. Let the lies go and allow yourself to be present. Your life begins anew right now. This is your life, don't be afraid that there's nothing here for you. Allow it to unfold in it's depths and simplicity. Trust life and trust yourself, it's all in you.
Blessings,
Laurel
The truth is, I can't change your world. My world is full of it's own challenges, it's ups and downs. I am engaged, present to my own process of acceptance or taking action or letting go, whatever is required in the moment.
I'm there with you, in this fullness of life. Yet what your experience is, is of your own making. I can stand beside you yet you are the only one present for your own journey, just as I am for mine.
You are the the process itself and only by your own consciousness can the world change. Something is not going to happen to enlighten you. It happens in you because you pay attention, because you care, because you understand that no one else can do this for you in the way and depth you can do it for yourself.
We have all wished otherwise. Please someone take care of us. Our parents, friends, relatives, state, government all turn out to be inadequate, it's true. It's a setup really. Unfair even.
In the end it's you. We grow up and begin to look within. We see how our beliefs and misunderstandings color what we see and feel. We struggle with the alluring demons in our heads that tell us falsehoods and we gather the courage to say no, not now and not ever. We come to terms with our imperfections so we are not just walled off from the truth of our humanness. We accept our dominion over our own lives, weeding out the falsehoods and opening to a deeper sense of our place in the world. We let go and begin to see a new truth, one that includes both our humanity and our innate spirituality.
I love myself so I can now love you. I used to think if I could just love and accept you then I would be alright, that my undisclosed pain would absolve. It didn't work that way for me (let me know if it did for you). My self hatred was so deep and pervasive. I was the one that left the garden of Eden, that left paradise and needed so desperately to go home. It was my fault, there was something wrong with me, driven out of the kingdom for unknown but suspected iniquities. The original sin deal. Sorry it's not true. That lie keeps you small so others can control you. That lie allows you to give your power to others. Either way it's not true. You are meant to have your own life, your own dominion over your world.
We don't know if we even want that. It means taking responsibility for whatever happens within us when it's so easy to blame anything and everything on the outside. Our excuses abound: I'm too busy, worried, broke, inadequate, whatever.
We have been trained to look outside ourselves and for someone else to fix things. Magical thinking. We think that we are powerless to change our world because we have been taught that it's outside ourselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. Let's choose to wake up now. "Be the Change". Who you are is your responsibility and your resonance sends a message to everything around you about what you think and feel is true about life. Then that's what you experience. No one else can free you from the lies. Breathe it in and then let it go.
It's all in you.
Inhale and breathe in all the gifts and possibilities of this moment. This is where it starts. Now. Now is here, feel it, embrace it. This is what we have. The fullness begins here, the acceptance starts here, the recognition begins here. Let the lies go and allow yourself to be present. Your life begins anew right now. This is your life, don't be afraid that there's nothing here for you. Allow it to unfold in it's depths and simplicity. Trust life and trust yourself, it's all in you.
Blessings,
Laurel
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Opening a Heart Space
On the last post, I wrote about the heart and the mind and how their perceptions are very different. For most of us, getting out of our minds into our hearts is not easy. We are very used to living in our thoughts and only allow ourselves to feel something occasionally. A feeling may surprise us into tears or laughter. We may even daydream about feeling something strongly but don’t actually let ourselves go there, to feel it.
This was a long road home for me. My Mom was the overly emotional type who was always in tears about something. My Dad, being the practical and logical type, dealt with the world through his head. Being shamed for crying too much, I tried to be like my Dad. It looked easier. Don’t feel, don’t cry, don’t even talk about it. Zip it! Or at least hide until the crying stops.
Yet I was the super sensitive person who felt everything, especially with nature. So I spent alot of time outside, thank goodness, with the flowers, trees and animals. My healing process began when I allowed myself to feel, as scary and overwhelming as that was. There was no trust of what I felt and it was painful and scary to feel I was becoming my Mom. With people I trusted, I cried. I began to feel the dismissed hurts, the minimized needs and unmet wants I’d had as a child. It felt surreal at times and I questioned my sanity. Do I really have to do this? It was a way back, I’m sure not the only way, but because I sat with those who respected my tears and feelings, I began to do the same. I had spent most of my life discounting, minimizing or avoiding how I felt. Sounds familiar?
Culturally, we regard the mind and our thoughts as the supreme answer to eveything. Yet when it comes to some things, it falls so short. I have witnessed this especially in parenting. A 4 year old child asks a question and the parent tells her an answer that is just a mental explanation. Children under seven don’t understand the difference between fantasy and reality and are not cognitively very developed yet. The answer given doesn’t access the feeling level the child lives in so the child continues to ask the question or seek an answer. The parent gives a linear, logical answer to an emotionally based child. You can see the gears spinning in a child’s head as they try to understand what is being shared. You can feel the disappointment in the child’s heart. So a child is taught to process everything mentally (ie safely) as soon as they are able. Children don’t want their parents to feel uncomfortable and learn to suppress, parents want their children to be happy.
This is not an uncommon story, mine or the child’s. Yet nowdays we hear alot about emotional intelligence. How can we raise ourselves and our children to be astute emotionally? We begin by allowing ourselves to listen to what we feel right now.
Let yourself feel whatever you are feeling. This makes sense and sounds so easy, but try it when your mind comes storming in and says if you feel this, you’re going off the deep end, or making a mountain out of a molehill, or you just don’t have time for this right now. The minds’ job is to keep you safe so now it shames you just like your parents did. Intellectuallizing, explaining, shaming, whatever works to keep you safe from feeling that hurt like when you were a child. Now the mind runs riot over you and doesn’t allow you to feel any at all, or just the ‘good’ ones.
If we open our hearts to all of who we are, this is not some fantasy daydream world. This is deep dark soil where the loam of the new you can be born. Born out of the patience and persistence to own all of what’s in you, light and dark, up and down, you begin to piece together the fragmented emotional body. You begin to own a clearer sense of what works for you. You don’t feel everyone elses feelings and not your own. You live in you, not through others. You begin to know how to feed yourself because you know how you feel about what’s in front of you, or know to take the time to feel it out.
Here the mystery is regained; the fullness of trust in self. This is what it takes, step by step, allowing yourself the gift of this next feeling to grow compassion for yourself and thus for others. We all want to be compassionate people yet our minds are often not. Learning to live truthfully and listen to our emotions begins to bridge the way back to the heart. This is a feminine (not female) way. This honors the half of each of us that is now ready to come forward to take a place in the world. This is true intelligence, a clear heart supported by the subservient mind.
Blessings,
Laurel
This was a long road home for me. My Mom was the overly emotional type who was always in tears about something. My Dad, being the practical and logical type, dealt with the world through his head. Being shamed for crying too much, I tried to be like my Dad. It looked easier. Don’t feel, don’t cry, don’t even talk about it. Zip it! Or at least hide until the crying stops.
Yet I was the super sensitive person who felt everything, especially with nature. So I spent alot of time outside, thank goodness, with the flowers, trees and animals. My healing process began when I allowed myself to feel, as scary and overwhelming as that was. There was no trust of what I felt and it was painful and scary to feel I was becoming my Mom. With people I trusted, I cried. I began to feel the dismissed hurts, the minimized needs and unmet wants I’d had as a child. It felt surreal at times and I questioned my sanity. Do I really have to do this? It was a way back, I’m sure not the only way, but because I sat with those who respected my tears and feelings, I began to do the same. I had spent most of my life discounting, minimizing or avoiding how I felt. Sounds familiar?
Culturally, we regard the mind and our thoughts as the supreme answer to eveything. Yet when it comes to some things, it falls so short. I have witnessed this especially in parenting. A 4 year old child asks a question and the parent tells her an answer that is just a mental explanation. Children under seven don’t understand the difference between fantasy and reality and are not cognitively very developed yet. The answer given doesn’t access the feeling level the child lives in so the child continues to ask the question or seek an answer. The parent gives a linear, logical answer to an emotionally based child. You can see the gears spinning in a child’s head as they try to understand what is being shared. You can feel the disappointment in the child’s heart. So a child is taught to process everything mentally (ie safely) as soon as they are able. Children don’t want their parents to feel uncomfortable and learn to suppress, parents want their children to be happy.
This is not an uncommon story, mine or the child’s. Yet nowdays we hear alot about emotional intelligence. How can we raise ourselves and our children to be astute emotionally? We begin by allowing ourselves to listen to what we feel right now.
Let yourself feel whatever you are feeling. This makes sense and sounds so easy, but try it when your mind comes storming in and says if you feel this, you’re going off the deep end, or making a mountain out of a molehill, or you just don’t have time for this right now. The minds’ job is to keep you safe so now it shames you just like your parents did. Intellectuallizing, explaining, shaming, whatever works to keep you safe from feeling that hurt like when you were a child. Now the mind runs riot over you and doesn’t allow you to feel any at all, or just the ‘good’ ones.
If we open our hearts to all of who we are, this is not some fantasy daydream world. This is deep dark soil where the loam of the new you can be born. Born out of the patience and persistence to own all of what’s in you, light and dark, up and down, you begin to piece together the fragmented emotional body. You begin to own a clearer sense of what works for you. You don’t feel everyone elses feelings and not your own. You live in you, not through others. You begin to know how to feed yourself because you know how you feel about what’s in front of you, or know to take the time to feel it out.
Here the mystery is regained; the fullness of trust in self. This is what it takes, step by step, allowing yourself the gift of this next feeling to grow compassion for yourself and thus for others. We all want to be compassionate people yet our minds are often not. Learning to live truthfully and listen to our emotions begins to bridge the way back to the heart. This is a feminine (not female) way. This honors the half of each of us that is now ready to come forward to take a place in the world. This is true intelligence, a clear heart supported by the subservient mind.
Blessings,
Laurel
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Ideas of the Mind vs the Heart- Saturday, July 26, 2008
As usual, my mind always has it’s own ideas about what to write. It can run circles around me that are so impressive. Yet when I sit down at the computer, even though I may have believed that a certain idea would be great to write about, I can’t remember any of it! This is the blessing of my soul to be sure. Yes my mind is occcasionally brilliant but that’s not what I or probably you, what to hear.
Unless I ask for another part of me, I just hear the mind. This new journey calls me toward a resonance deeper in my body, where I sit in my heart and listen from there. This is the challenge, to do this every day, to begin to let another part of me be in charge. In longing for the musings of a deeper clearer part of me, the heart offers it’s own intelligence. Yet the mind says not to trust it, so it took alot of small steps to get here, where something else is leading me. Breathing, listening, following in trust even though results were not guaranteed. Well really, that’s what my mind says, it says the mind KNOWS, so I should trust it. Yeah right!
What I know is I am a lot more me, simpler and clearer, without the mind leading. Here is no fear, just embracing what is, being. Just see what happens when the mind gets to take the back seat. Every moment becomes fuller, more vibrant. Here, here, just here. Yes this is all there is. Here is where my heart sings and I can let go of looking for things to be other than they are. There is really no other truth than the present. This is freedom. Being here shapes my whole day, one moment at a time, breath by breath. In trust, I give up searching , I am all that is.
So sorry, the mind had some interesting things to talk about but really what is more important than learning how to BE. To be in love with my life, to feel all my cells sing, to feel so full it’s delicious. Maybe another time this will be more interesting for the mind. Today it’s an all Hearts day.
Blessings,
Laurel
Unless I ask for another part of me, I just hear the mind. This new journey calls me toward a resonance deeper in my body, where I sit in my heart and listen from there. This is the challenge, to do this every day, to begin to let another part of me be in charge. In longing for the musings of a deeper clearer part of me, the heart offers it’s own intelligence. Yet the mind says not to trust it, so it took alot of small steps to get here, where something else is leading me. Breathing, listening, following in trust even though results were not guaranteed. Well really, that’s what my mind says, it says the mind KNOWS, so I should trust it. Yeah right!
What I know is I am a lot more me, simpler and clearer, without the mind leading. Here is no fear, just embracing what is, being. Just see what happens when the mind gets to take the back seat. Every moment becomes fuller, more vibrant. Here, here, just here. Yes this is all there is. Here is where my heart sings and I can let go of looking for things to be other than they are. There is really no other truth than the present. This is freedom. Being here shapes my whole day, one moment at a time, breath by breath. In trust, I give up searching , I am all that is.
So sorry, the mind had some interesting things to talk about but really what is more important than learning how to BE. To be in love with my life, to feel all my cells sing, to feel so full it’s delicious. Maybe another time this will be more interesting for the mind. Today it’s an all Hearts day.
Blessings,
Laurel
Ripples from the Core of Being- Friday, July 18th, 2008
For days now I have been spinning, trying to avoid this writing, this channeling. I love this and yet there is a little hesitation as it comes from a deeper more expanded part of myself and being oh so human, some days I feel not quite ready. I love the way I feel when it comes on like this, this deep place of connection and love. Yet I resist it. For the last two days I have been trying to do some long distance healing work and when I ask permission to work I get a ‘no’. So I thought I wasn’t supposed to work on that person, but now I’m seeing that I’m not to be distracted from this writing anymore.
I think in my little mind it’s a little thing, not important, secondary. For the little mind that’s true but for the heart, this is the most important adventure of the day or week, to allow who I really am to come forward and be heard, especially by me.
This is what we are to do now, as we move into this new era of consciousness, this new territory. Listen to our hearts, connect to the soul level, the higher self, our innate divinity, whatever it’s called and move from here. Be here, live here, act from here. This place of ‘now’ unencumbered by the past or future, is the only real place to be.
This is the safe space. We think we’re in a safe space when we’re in charge, in control, yet it doesn’t work that way. There is no controlling the flow of life (hence my spinning), there is only letting go and trusting. Oh we want to believe that what has worked before will work now but then we only get what we’ve got before, the same old same old, imbued with fear. Where is the heart? That deep heart knowing place which opens to new potentials of being, which offers a new perspective in an old world that is rapidly fading away.
It’s normal to cling to what we’ve known before, letting the mind run things, as if it knows. It knows nothing real, nothing. There is a material world and then there’s this sacred world that overides it all. Have you seen that? Matter is subject to consciousness says quantum physics. Yet we stand in our little minds and pretend it’s all matter, but really it’s all consciousness. The old rules don’t work and don’t apply. We don’t want what we’ve had before so why do we look to the old ways of being? It’s time to step up to the next level of being, a being with a melded divinity and humanity. A creator, a master of living from the now.
It’s all about trust. You may think you don’t know the place I’m talking about but you do, you always have. It’s always been inside you, trying to wake you up, trying to have a say once in a while when you’ll listen, like when nothing else is working and you let go. An answer appears, the perfect solution to your problem, voila!
When you let go to the big you and stop listening to the small mind, life gets easier. You do not know all the answers yet, but you don’t need all that information and understanding at once, really! What you need is given. You stand in trust and your divine wholeness and listen to your heart. In the sacred space of the heart is the wisdom and compassion for your human self and all the companions who walk beside you. All your answers are within you. The veil is lifting and truth is coming to you. Listen closely and trust your inner wisdom. This is going to be great fun!!
Blessings,
Laurel
I think in my little mind it’s a little thing, not important, secondary. For the little mind that’s true but for the heart, this is the most important adventure of the day or week, to allow who I really am to come forward and be heard, especially by me.
This is what we are to do now, as we move into this new era of consciousness, this new territory. Listen to our hearts, connect to the soul level, the higher self, our innate divinity, whatever it’s called and move from here. Be here, live here, act from here. This place of ‘now’ unencumbered by the past or future, is the only real place to be.
This is the safe space. We think we’re in a safe space when we’re in charge, in control, yet it doesn’t work that way. There is no controlling the flow of life (hence my spinning), there is only letting go and trusting. Oh we want to believe that what has worked before will work now but then we only get what we’ve got before, the same old same old, imbued with fear. Where is the heart? That deep heart knowing place which opens to new potentials of being, which offers a new perspective in an old world that is rapidly fading away.
It’s normal to cling to what we’ve known before, letting the mind run things, as if it knows. It knows nothing real, nothing. There is a material world and then there’s this sacred world that overides it all. Have you seen that? Matter is subject to consciousness says quantum physics. Yet we stand in our little minds and pretend it’s all matter, but really it’s all consciousness. The old rules don’t work and don’t apply. We don’t want what we’ve had before so why do we look to the old ways of being? It’s time to step up to the next level of being, a being with a melded divinity and humanity. A creator, a master of living from the now.
It’s all about trust. You may think you don’t know the place I’m talking about but you do, you always have. It’s always been inside you, trying to wake you up, trying to have a say once in a while when you’ll listen, like when nothing else is working and you let go. An answer appears, the perfect solution to your problem, voila!
When you let go to the big you and stop listening to the small mind, life gets easier. You do not know all the answers yet, but you don’t need all that information and understanding at once, really! What you need is given. You stand in trust and your divine wholeness and listen to your heart. In the sacred space of the heart is the wisdom and compassion for your human self and all the companions who walk beside you. All your answers are within you. The veil is lifting and truth is coming to you. Listen closely and trust your inner wisdom. This is going to be great fun!!
Blessings,
Laurel
Great Quote- Sunday, July 13, 2008
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
-- Albert Einstein
-- Albert Einstein
Time for the Poetry of Life- Friday, July 11, 2008
Amidst the intensity of the last month there is an underlying knowing that this will pass and what will come forward will not be more chaos and separation but more truth. What is truth? I’m not sure but it feels right deep in my body and soul…I know it when I find it. There is something beyond the external illusion of what seems soooo important which can feel like matter conjured up for drama and posturing.
I know my truth lies deeper and in more stillness and that’s where I often go, especially when people and situations throw up big dramas and long treatises on “what’s important to understand”, that is full of shadow and emptiness. My heart is made up, it doesn’t want to act out others dramas, be in someone else’s truth, go along on someone else’s ride unless it’s headed in the right direction. When my own dramas show up they are big enough for me and they are my responsibility. That’s my job now, to heal what comes for me. I don’t/can’t go looking for others to fix anymore, that’s just the distractions talking, pulling me away from the true work. I used to think I would be okay if I healed/helped others. The answers for others are quick, easy and all in my head. So codependent, so encouraged by the dogmas of churches and consensus.
My own answers are deep, wrenching at times, real and nourishing if I take that ride to it’s finish, telling my truth and asking myself to step up to only what’s real in life, to the trust and love that’s behind it all. This is self-full love. This is the bottom line of what works. Yes, let’s be as kind as possible to our mirrors and our companions. They are doing their jobs too.
Every day in my work I am confronted with disconnection, separation and disassociation in others bodies and minds. I love my work, I am truly grateful that I can be present to shine a light on what hurts and encourage what heals to come forth. I see how hard it is for us to love ourselves, how difficult to see who we really are and to accept fully our bodies and our lives. My clients have taught me so much about myself and about healing. Mostly, how layered, tender and complex we are and how powerfully gentleness and presence works. This world takes us on the ride of a lifetime literally, and to find our ground, our light and true direction is the miracle, but hopefully not the exception.
The universe is conspiring to help us see the truth, to guide us back to ourselves, to throw up so much chaos in our faces, we have to surrender to the truth inside ourselves, to take refuge from the storm of the unreal to the holy temple within, to the heart. The mind will never stop wanting unending answers to it’s unending questions. The story has to stop somewhere so reality can have a chance to grow and bloom.
If it doesn’t feel real, it may not be or at least not for you. Please trust yourself. Let’s go back to something simpler. Forget the story, feel what is real, rest in your breath and body. Walk in nature. You may not know all the ‘answers’ but you will rarely come out confused.
Biggest blessings,
Laurel and the Trees
Comments:
I went to Rockport, MA this weekend, and talked to the sea for the first time. On the pure shores, rocky and stark, the land is just teeming with life. The sea, she has her own way, a mother that knows what’s best for you whether you like it or not. At her edge, I filled myself with the energy of her winds and waves, but she just as readily, she took all that away, leaving me a clean, empty vessel. It was a humbling experience, for one who spends so much time in their divinity. russen
I know my truth lies deeper and in more stillness and that’s where I often go, especially when people and situations throw up big dramas and long treatises on “what’s important to understand”, that is full of shadow and emptiness. My heart is made up, it doesn’t want to act out others dramas, be in someone else’s truth, go along on someone else’s ride unless it’s headed in the right direction. When my own dramas show up they are big enough for me and they are my responsibility. That’s my job now, to heal what comes for me. I don’t/can’t go looking for others to fix anymore, that’s just the distractions talking, pulling me away from the true work. I used to think I would be okay if I healed/helped others. The answers for others are quick, easy and all in my head. So codependent, so encouraged by the dogmas of churches and consensus.
My own answers are deep, wrenching at times, real and nourishing if I take that ride to it’s finish, telling my truth and asking myself to step up to only what’s real in life, to the trust and love that’s behind it all. This is self-full love. This is the bottom line of what works. Yes, let’s be as kind as possible to our mirrors and our companions. They are doing their jobs too.
Every day in my work I am confronted with disconnection, separation and disassociation in others bodies and minds. I love my work, I am truly grateful that I can be present to shine a light on what hurts and encourage what heals to come forth. I see how hard it is for us to love ourselves, how difficult to see who we really are and to accept fully our bodies and our lives. My clients have taught me so much about myself and about healing. Mostly, how layered, tender and complex we are and how powerfully gentleness and presence works. This world takes us on the ride of a lifetime literally, and to find our ground, our light and true direction is the miracle, but hopefully not the exception.
The universe is conspiring to help us see the truth, to guide us back to ourselves, to throw up so much chaos in our faces, we have to surrender to the truth inside ourselves, to take refuge from the storm of the unreal to the holy temple within, to the heart. The mind will never stop wanting unending answers to it’s unending questions. The story has to stop somewhere so reality can have a chance to grow and bloom.
If it doesn’t feel real, it may not be or at least not for you. Please trust yourself. Let’s go back to something simpler. Forget the story, feel what is real, rest in your breath and body. Walk in nature. You may not know all the ‘answers’ but you will rarely come out confused.
Biggest blessings,
Laurel and the Trees
Comments:
I went to Rockport, MA this weekend, and talked to the sea for the first time. On the pure shores, rocky and stark, the land is just teeming with life. The sea, she has her own way, a mother that knows what’s best for you whether you like it or not. At her edge, I filled myself with the energy of her winds and waves, but she just as readily, she took all that away, leaving me a clean, empty vessel. It was a humbling experience, for one who spends so much time in their divinity. russen
Time to Not Think- Sunday, March 16, 2008
Mercury is in Pisces right now, the same place as when I was born. This lends itself to a mercurial space where thoughts are hard to pin down. It’s a blessing really. When I was younger, I would get lost here and commune with other seemingly unseen aspects of life. As adulthood approached, I attempted to grow up, ie; stay in my thinking self and avoid this more fluid place. It is not an easy place to accomplish much.
Now I enjoy the ease of letting go of all that thinking and allow myself to drift around, all the while tuning into my breath, my true ground. As always the breath and my body are my anchors; the feet that sustain me so I can let go into my imagination and daydreams.
Listening from this place to the deeper rhythms of nature and life gives us all a break from the overfocused and linear reality that we too often call home. That is not reality, it’s just a construct to help us feel safe and in control. Reality is something deeper and contains both the form and the formless. Out of the formless all creation is born. This is a great time to tune into the unknown and allow our creativity to bloom by allowing what is to be mercurial and not so pinned down.
Let’s relax the mind and sit in our beingness and call this home. Loving what is, being present in acceptance and appreciation calls us to a new home. Today is a great day to be alive:)
Blessings,
Laurel
Now I enjoy the ease of letting go of all that thinking and allow myself to drift around, all the while tuning into my breath, my true ground. As always the breath and my body are my anchors; the feet that sustain me so I can let go into my imagination and daydreams.
Listening from this place to the deeper rhythms of nature and life gives us all a break from the overfocused and linear reality that we too often call home. That is not reality, it’s just a construct to help us feel safe and in control. Reality is something deeper and contains both the form and the formless. Out of the formless all creation is born. This is a great time to tune into the unknown and allow our creativity to bloom by allowing what is to be mercurial and not so pinned down.
Let’s relax the mind and sit in our beingness and call this home. Loving what is, being present in acceptance and appreciation calls us to a new home. Today is a great day to be alive:)
Blessings,
Laurel
Knowing- Wednesday, February, 22, 2008
The more I live in awareness of my body and breath, the more I realize how much I’ve been missing. This feels real and grounded and though I don’t know much here, what I do know is okay and plenty. The rest I trust will be shown if and when needed.
This is the difference between living in your body and living in your mind. The mind always wants more. Only when you have more, can you maybe feel safe. It’s so hard to let go and trust when the mind’s in charge. There is such an undercurrent of lack and fear and the need for more and more data. When does the mind feel safe, especially since it takes what we’ve previously learned and says, oh no, this is never going to to be okay? The mind wants to know things but that knowing is not grounded in reality, so there is this false sense of understanding that is not based on experience. The mind specializes in the past. My past is not clean and clear, how about yours?
Living in my body and breath, I live here, in the present, with the trees and all the animals and the living earth all around me and I am aware of it! I am present to this fullness that is this miracle every moment. Please join me, this is so much fun!
Blessings,
Laurel
This is the difference between living in your body and living in your mind. The mind always wants more. Only when you have more, can you maybe feel safe. It’s so hard to let go and trust when the mind’s in charge. There is such an undercurrent of lack and fear and the need for more and more data. When does the mind feel safe, especially since it takes what we’ve previously learned and says, oh no, this is never going to to be okay? The mind wants to know things but that knowing is not grounded in reality, so there is this false sense of understanding that is not based on experience. The mind specializes in the past. My past is not clean and clear, how about yours?
Living in my body and breath, I live here, in the present, with the trees and all the animals and the living earth all around me and I am aware of it! I am present to this fullness that is this miracle every moment. Please join me, this is so much fun!
Blessings,
Laurel
Making Ourselves Ready for the New Year- Wednesday, Decemeber 26, 2007
Dearest Friends,
It’s almost the New Year and instead of resolutions, let’s just let go. Let go of our old ideas, thoughts, belief systems and old choices. So much of what happens around us feels like it’s happening to us, not from us. If we didn’t create it we are not responsible, right? Yet we can create our lives if we give up the idea that we are small and ineffectual. We are not!
It feels a little scary to imagine a bigger future and begin to feel what we want in life. We don’t want to fail or do something to hurt others. If we hold a belief that if we have something then someone else must be lacking, it makes us hesitant. Is that true? No! Our success doesn’t equate to anothers failure, yet these old beliefs we were taught as children haunt us in moving forward in our lives.
Life is about making choices, conscious choices. When we choose, we can’t make a mistake. Maybe we learn something wasn’t the best choice for us, so we choose again. Still this is much better than living out others choices, riding along drenched in the ideas of the masses.
Every day we can choose to be present, to listen to ourselves, to express our biggest hopes and dreams. We can chose kindness and love, to accept our creation and make choices to create a better world.
Today, let’s let go of everything and start fresh, breathing in the potentials of our chosing, breathing new life into the world.
Happy New Year !
Laurel
It’s almost the New Year and instead of resolutions, let’s just let go. Let go of our old ideas, thoughts, belief systems and old choices. So much of what happens around us feels like it’s happening to us, not from us. If we didn’t create it we are not responsible, right? Yet we can create our lives if we give up the idea that we are small and ineffectual. We are not!
It feels a little scary to imagine a bigger future and begin to feel what we want in life. We don’t want to fail or do something to hurt others. If we hold a belief that if we have something then someone else must be lacking, it makes us hesitant. Is that true? No! Our success doesn’t equate to anothers failure, yet these old beliefs we were taught as children haunt us in moving forward in our lives.
Life is about making choices, conscious choices. When we choose, we can’t make a mistake. Maybe we learn something wasn’t the best choice for us, so we choose again. Still this is much better than living out others choices, riding along drenched in the ideas of the masses.
Every day we can choose to be present, to listen to ourselves, to express our biggest hopes and dreams. We can chose kindness and love, to accept our creation and make choices to create a better world.
Today, let’s let go of everything and start fresh, breathing in the potentials of our chosing, breathing new life into the world.
Happy New Year !
Laurel
Balance- Sunday, December 16, 2007
Achieving balance in our lives can certainly be a challenge, especially if we live outside of ourselves. What does that mean? Living outside of ourselves means we are looking outside for our energy, our truth and what we should do. It’s training from when we were little to keep us safe and conforming. It’s a natural thing really.
Yet now we are not little anymore and we are still looking outward. Sourcing from within takes a little practice, we do it all the time but we may not stay there, especially in the presence of others. We want to be present for others in our lives, a very nice thing indeed. But where are we present for others if we are not there for ourselves? When sourced from within our lives are grounded and can contain all the wisdom from our bodies, our feelings, our intuition and our minds.
Here is balance, here we are staying in our home, here we are already full. Being clear in taking care of ourselves, we are not looking for nourishment from others, or from the drama of everyday life. Everything we need is within us and isn’t it a relief to get off the rollercoaster.
Yes, do go out and enjoy yourself! Have fun with friends and family! Just live from the inside out.
Blessings,
Laurel and the Trees
Yet now we are not little anymore and we are still looking outward. Sourcing from within takes a little practice, we do it all the time but we may not stay there, especially in the presence of others. We want to be present for others in our lives, a very nice thing indeed. But where are we present for others if we are not there for ourselves? When sourced from within our lives are grounded and can contain all the wisdom from our bodies, our feelings, our intuition and our minds.
Here is balance, here we are staying in our home, here we are already full. Being clear in taking care of ourselves, we are not looking for nourishment from others, or from the drama of everyday life. Everything we need is within us and isn’t it a relief to get off the rollercoaster.
Yes, do go out and enjoy yourself! Have fun with friends and family! Just live from the inside out.
Blessings,
Laurel and the Trees
No Time- Monday, December 3, 2007
It really doesn’t exist, this time, so we’re told. Yet we live in it, in the past or the future, occasionally in the present. When we are totally in the Present we feel out of time, which we are.
Whisperings from The Council last night were about the fallacy of time. The Trees don’t live in time, they are always present. The animals don’t live in time, they too are present. They are always breathing, supposedly they don’t hold their breath like humans do. Maybe this is a clue!
Often when we get upset, we hold our breath, trying to suppress our feelings. I often encourage my clients to breathe in their feelings and tears and anger. Breathe it in, it’s yours. We are mature enough now, we can claim what we feel, hold ourselves in kindness and compassion. We can move from reactive to responsive behavior, treating ourselves as we would have others treat us. The ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ thing again. No love for self, no love for others. We all want to love others and especially to be loved by others so much. Somehow it’s backwards. We think it’s selfish, but it is self-FULL and necessary to clear the traumas of the past and come back into the present. So many tears are based on the beliefs formed by what happened in the past. We wish someone could make it right for us. Someone can- it’s US. Now we can learn to go forward, into the present. We stop manifesting outer dramas when we give ourselves the attention and acceptance that we need.
There is a magic that happens when we get out of time and come into our present. We can stay there when we feel safe and safety comes from being willing to be with ourselves as stuff comes up. No it’s not easy! But it works.
The Trees say get out of time, it’s an illusion. Come into YOUR LIFE, breathe in the presence of who you are.
Blessings,
Laurel
Whisperings from The Council last night were about the fallacy of time. The Trees don’t live in time, they are always present. The animals don’t live in time, they too are present. They are always breathing, supposedly they don’t hold their breath like humans do. Maybe this is a clue!
Often when we get upset, we hold our breath, trying to suppress our feelings. I often encourage my clients to breathe in their feelings and tears and anger. Breathe it in, it’s yours. We are mature enough now, we can claim what we feel, hold ourselves in kindness and compassion. We can move from reactive to responsive behavior, treating ourselves as we would have others treat us. The ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ thing again. No love for self, no love for others. We all want to love others and especially to be loved by others so much. Somehow it’s backwards. We think it’s selfish, but it is self-FULL and necessary to clear the traumas of the past and come back into the present. So many tears are based on the beliefs formed by what happened in the past. We wish someone could make it right for us. Someone can- it’s US. Now we can learn to go forward, into the present. We stop manifesting outer dramas when we give ourselves the attention and acceptance that we need.
There is a magic that happens when we get out of time and come into our present. We can stay there when we feel safe and safety comes from being willing to be with ourselves as stuff comes up. No it’s not easy! But it works.
The Trees say get out of time, it’s an illusion. Come into YOUR LIFE, breathe in the presence of who you are.
Blessings,
Laurel
Loving Yourself Part 2- Saturday, December 1, 2007
I was sick for a few days, the typical runny nose, stuffy head, sneezy thing. In the last few weeks I have received many messages from the Council of Trees, seen a Bald Eagle and felt like I was at school all night while I was supposedly sleeping. So at a deeper level I feel I am shifting again to a deeper understanding. This is not the easiest path. Learning to love and trust yourself is the hardest thing we can ever do. But it’s the only thing we ever need to do and that we can do.
It’s so easy to focus on the little things and forget who you are. Last night my mind’s going on about what I hadn’t done because I was sick and how I shouldn’t go to the party tonight. I was also lazy and fat and whatever! I hadn’t really been paying attention until it hit me with that one, then I’d had enough lies. So I took a deep breath and focused on that place of knowing and truth within me. It was there, in the background, waiting for me. It is always there when you look for it, just beyond the minds ramblings. The mind always has a story for you to live. You have your LIFE to live. Don’t be fooled, breathe and pay attention.
It’s normal to get emotionally attached to the story. It’s what you’ve used for so long to get by and it’s filled with history and memories, some good and some not so good. Most people are just going for a bigger, better and more expanded story. Your stories are also a weight that slow you down in your expansion process, keeping you safe. They are the framework you live by so you may not want to let them all go at once. But little by little you will come to see that alot of them aren’t so true and are just fed to us to keep us small and safe. Many are overlays of mass consciousness, ie women are less than men, we are here to suffer, you have to work hard to make it, etc, etc. There are so many you are not even conscious of! Stop believing someone elses truth. What is yours?
You are the master and creator of your life. Choose your truth!
Blessings,
Laurel
It’s so easy to focus on the little things and forget who you are. Last night my mind’s going on about what I hadn’t done because I was sick and how I shouldn’t go to the party tonight. I was also lazy and fat and whatever! I hadn’t really been paying attention until it hit me with that one, then I’d had enough lies. So I took a deep breath and focused on that place of knowing and truth within me. It was there, in the background, waiting for me. It is always there when you look for it, just beyond the minds ramblings. The mind always has a story for you to live. You have your LIFE to live. Don’t be fooled, breathe and pay attention.
It’s normal to get emotionally attached to the story. It’s what you’ve used for so long to get by and it’s filled with history and memories, some good and some not so good. Most people are just going for a bigger, better and more expanded story. Your stories are also a weight that slow you down in your expansion process, keeping you safe. They are the framework you live by so you may not want to let them all go at once. But little by little you will come to see that alot of them aren’t so true and are just fed to us to keep us small and safe. Many are overlays of mass consciousness, ie women are less than men, we are here to suffer, you have to work hard to make it, etc, etc. There are so many you are not even conscious of! Stop believing someone elses truth. What is yours?
You are the master and creator of your life. Choose your truth!
Blessings,
Laurel
Death- Sunday, November 11, 2007
I woke this morning with whispers in my ears about death. Here in the piedmont of North Carolina we are in a severe drought. The weather forecast shows a possibility of rain about 2 weeks from now. My shrubs and trees need water and I need more buckets to catch shower water. But the death of something deeper is happening.
As we walk through our life we are constantly breathing in the new and being given an opportunity to leave behind what no longer works. If we breathe in the truth from the core of our being, our inner wisdom, we access a layer of knowing about who we are and what we are here for. As we stand in the knowing of our infiniteness, we walk through the pain and letting go into a new life each day. This is the life we are meant to live, a life full from the breath of divinity. We don’t have all the answers but the presence of knowing we can trust ourselves in the moment we are in. Walk through fear and doubt. Take it to the other side. Breathe in all of you.
Today allow all the little deaths that are necesary for you to step into more of who you really are. Embrace them, breathe into them, then let them go. The trees slow their growth during a drought and need less water, you also can adapt to lifes changes, breathing in and letting go of anything you may not need anymore, especially those doubts!
Blessings,
Laurel
As we walk through our life we are constantly breathing in the new and being given an opportunity to leave behind what no longer works. If we breathe in the truth from the core of our being, our inner wisdom, we access a layer of knowing about who we are and what we are here for. As we stand in the knowing of our infiniteness, we walk through the pain and letting go into a new life each day. This is the life we are meant to live, a life full from the breath of divinity. We don’t have all the answers but the presence of knowing we can trust ourselves in the moment we are in. Walk through fear and doubt. Take it to the other side. Breathe in all of you.
Today allow all the little deaths that are necesary for you to step into more of who you really are. Embrace them, breathe into them, then let them go. The trees slow their growth during a drought and need less water, you also can adapt to lifes changes, breathing in and letting go of anything you may not need anymore, especially those doubts!
Blessings,
Laurel
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