Monthly Archives: March 2009

Messages from Jeanne

#462 Finding Your Personal Secrets

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have a message I can pass along today?

My Dear Ones, do not overexert or overstress your natural abilities of awareness, cognition, and the deeper knowing of the interconnectedness of all things. During this time of energy compilation, of stacking of necessary energy for the future, allow your natural abilities to rise with you each morning, to be present throughout your day, and to slumber with you in the awareness of your dreams. I speak today of recognition of your innate powers as being perfectly natural and acceptable to you in your daily lives.

Do not run and hide from what you learn. Do not attempt either to over evaluate or over digest, but simply allow awareness to be present in your life, existing for its ability to aid you in your growth.

I have spoken, recently, of new energies being available for growth, and such energy is ready for usage. Do not worry about having the stamina, nor the presence of physical alertness, to undertake your life issues at this time. There is plenty in store. As you take actions, now, that will further your evolution, as well as your present existence, you need not worry about having enough energy to do what you must. There is plenty of energy to assist you.

Ask and you will be granted assistance. That is the other awareness I speak of today. In allowing the self to trust innate abilities, so must you allow the self to deeply trust the process and the guidance that is available as your steps in life unfold.

Now is a time of action, partnered with the usage of innate abilities of awareness, cognition, as well as allowance of blockages to innocence of self to be removed by the circumstances and synchronicities that come to show you the way forward now. It is a time to dismantle your old ideas of the self, of old issues, and even of failed attempts to influence your self and your situation by use of your awareness. So what if you have failed in the past? What did you learn in your failure? That you tried too hard? That you were not truly trusting and available yet? Perhaps your earlier attempts to move forward in your life were based on the wrong reasons, making your deepest truths unnecessary at that time.

Now it is time to trust and act upon the deeper truths of the self, trusting your innate abilities of awareness, cognition, and knowing to show you the means to achieve growth, to reach your next step, and to reveal your true goal, as you become more trusting of the self. Each step now taken, if taken with innocent trust in the deeper knowledge of the true self, will provide you with life’s secrets.

Do you know what I mean by secrets? I do not speak of the great secrets of life and death upon that earth, or afterlife secrets, though they are equally interesting, but today I speak of your individual secrets. Only in living a life of action, trust, and innocence, based on your own inner truths, will your own secrets be revealed. You may have an inkling of your potential at the core of your deepest desire right now. But the revelation of your secrets will not be presented to you if you do not act upon your knowing and your innocence. Only in action, though you may move forward with trepidation, will your personal secrets be revealed.

Finding these secrets involves your greatest abilities to live a life of meaning, to become more fully aware, and to grow into a being who is loving, compassionate, and non-judgmental in a world dominated by judgments, definitions, and powerless structures that merely hold you stagnant, though they tower over you, exhibiting great strength and great possibility. However, it is not these structures that stand so solidly before you that contain your secrets, for they are but figments of men’s imaginations. They are but crumbling to dust as the years wear on, heavier and heavier in their meaningless dogma.

No, your secrets lie deeply inside you, awaiting excavation. I suggest that perhaps you have been digging for your treasure among the old tumbling structures, among the graveyards of decline, as expressed in your own life, and in the lives around you. When I speak of taking action and proceeding on your journey, searching for your secrets, I speak of turning inward, where everything is contained and awaiting discovery.

For today, look to your awareness of self, of inner and outer self in stable, calm balance, to show you what to do next in your life. Allow your inner self to show you something today that you have always had present and available to you, but you had simply not respected this aspect of self before. In fact, you may have found it quite disturbing or unusual, and so you neglected and dismissed it.

Take a different view of the self today, as a person of awareness, with interest in growth. Allow your self to be present in now, even while you pursue your deeper inner truths, using your awareness, cognition, and knowing of interconnectedness of all things. Find out what those abilities are trying to point out to you as you take your next step toward your inner secrets, with trusting awareness.

Chuck's Blog

#461 Chuck’s Place: Embracing Impermanence

Welcome to Chuck’s Place, where Chuck Ketchel expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences!

Embracing impermanence, now that is an oxymoron. How does one embrace that which changes? For me, it is not only doable, but necessary, to complete our reason for being here, in this life. The other night, in a dream, I was at the World Trade Center with a group of adolescents. There was an awareness of soon-to-happen terrorist activity that would bring the towers down. It wasn’t the focus in the dream, merely the backdrop. One young man spoke about his brother’s death, not pausing to mark the obvious grief he held within. I interrupted him, asking him to allow for the full truth of his experience to be expressed. I was asking him to drop his veil of machismo and fully live the truth of that moment. The full completion of that moment was all that mattered. Several moments later, the towers would fall, yet that fact was of no significance. To fully be present, to fully be alive, and to fully complete that moment was all that mattered.

My dream is instructing me on how to embrace impermanence. To be fully present and open to the moment, while fully aware, yet not attached to the fact that in another moment my personal towers will collapse and every thing of this world that I hold dear will vanish, instantly evaporate, disintegrate, resolve, and perhaps become meaningless, as I am thrust forward into new worlds. I know that I am here to master my ability to be fully present and embracing of all I must ultimately relinquish. I know that this is the necessary training to continue my journey in infinity. The shamans view earth as an interrupted journey, yet magical, in the sense that we can so totally be drawn into the poppy field of permanence, completely sold on that illusion. However, this pause in the journey allows us to learn to embrace impermanence.

It takes many lives, really one long groundhog day, to reawaken to the true nature of reality and prepare to embark upon, what the shamans call, the definitive journey. When I reference groundhog day I am referring to the movie, Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray, where his character must relive the same day, countless times, until he awakens, remembers his lessons, and allows himself to move more deeply into the experience of love. (By the way, we are adding this to the movie category in our Store.)

How many times, how many lives, must we repeat before we get it? What does it mean, “to get it?” In a nutshell, getting it is really about relinquishing the big baby who insists upon the security and safety and soothing comfort of sameness. And so, we feed the big baby the elixir of permanence: structure, order, habit, predictability, solidness, definiteness, and rules. Only the adult can face the inevitable toppling of the towers. Only the adult can complete the moment in full awareness.

The training also requires that we experience deep emotions. My young adolescent in the dream tried to avoid his grief over the loss of his brother. If he does not allow himself to feel and release his grief then he cannot complete the moment and move on. He is sentenced to repeat that moment in countless moments and countless lives, one long groundhog day, until he can live that moment fully, in complete truth. Only then will he be able to resume his interrupted journey, freed of the burden of unlived life.

When we recapitulate, we complete all our groundhog day moments. Those moments are undoubtedly painful and utterly vulnerable, at first. Once we can allow ourselves to fully go there and complete those moments, we are fully released, allowed to go forward into new life, new experiences, with full awareness, and love for the journey and all our traveling companions. Embracing impermanence means fully completing each moment along one’s definitive journey.

Until the moment we meet again,
Chuck

Messages from Jeanne

#460 Facing the Breeze or Turning Your Back: Your Choice

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have guidance for us now?

Anchor your selves in your realities, My Dear Ones. Find your balance, your equilibrium, but also your truths. Stare at your known truths, accepting them and the necessity of them in your lives. Do not dismiss what you know is true, nor attempt to disguise it from your self, for in so doing will you only prolong your agony and fulfillment of your destiny. In acceptance of self, at this moment along your path, will you begin your next step from a place of clarity and renewed awareness.

When I speak of truth I do not speak of your inner secrets, at least not yet. What I ask you to accept, as your truths are, first, the truths of that world, that reality. Where are you in your life, right now?

Give your self the opportunity to take a moment of quiet, an evening or afternoon of contemplation, as you spell out your reality in very firm and clear script. Look upon your situation in life as perfectly right and necessary. Look upon it with mature knowing and acceptance, saying: Okay, this is where I am right now. But the next statement in an evolving being becomes: Okay, so what am I going to do to change it, to move on with truth as my guide?

As you take account of your life situation in the outer world, looking at your financial situation, your relationships with those who are nearest and dearest; as you look at your self in the work place, in the grocery store, on line at the bank, ask your self to accept this person of now as the true self, for this moment.

Now connect that outer person to the inner self. Allow the big baby to step down from its archaic pulpit, ask the true inner child to trust you, and allow your heart to speak more clearly to you, as you put aside your lists and figures, and your dilemmas of falling economy and outer despair.

Ask your inner self to speak plainly to you now, as plainly as your outer self has spoken. Beside your outer truths place your inner truths, based on your deeply patient and waiting inner spirit self. Who are you inside? What is it that this inner self is telling you, right now?

Combine these two plain speaking selves. Allow them to nestle together in the footsteps of your path and, with combined effort, take your next move with this energy of clarity as your motivation. Use your truths to motivate you. But I speak of your pragmatic outer truths balanced with your deepest inner truths of character and spirit. I do not mean to imply that you have not been acting from these truths, but I fear that you have not been acting from them with awareness.

To be on your path is a process that is most necessary to recognize as perfectly appropriate and right for you, though you may feel that you are stuck on the wrong path. Only your awareness of the truths of the self will allow you to accept the necessity of the path you find your self on, and this is what I speak of today.

Are you ready to accept your current situation and your current process as the most meaningful path for you to be on, at this very moment? Stay in the moment as you observe your self. Stay in the truth of the moment as you look at your self with eyes that do not lie and eyes that soften with compassion for the self. As you look at your self in this manner may you find that what you strive for is already present in your life.

All the tools have been given. All the knowledge is present. All the abilities have been taught and learned. The only thing that is lacking is action, action based on the truth of your reality. This is the place to awaken to, and not only gain clarity on, but to fully acknowledge that it is so in order for you to be available for your next action, your next step, based in reality.

I ask that you allow your self to accept your stumbling, faltering, and weary self, as you would accept any tired traveler. But I also ask that you accept full responsibility for your journey, for your reality, and now use your combined spirit potential and your truths to lead you forward.

It is time for action now, action based on truths as they have been revealed by your inner and outer selves in consultation and decision making, based in reality. Only in basing your actions in true reality will your movements now have impact in your life.

The energy now is of such force that if you do not hold fast to your reality you may end up smothered by your fantasies again, and that is not what you want, although it may be what you need.

Contemplate that, as you go now into the current energy and into the currents of this powerful energy that has the potential to both reveal truths and to cover truths. But it depends on where you stand, facing the breeze or turning your back on it? Your choice.

Messages from Jeanne

#459 Your Judgment-free Self

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have a message of guidance for us today?

Yes, My Dear Ones, I do. Continue your efforts to reach not only enlightenment of spirit, but remain focused also upon your path in that world of education, as you plod and skip along in your lives. It is not meant that you ignore or by-pass anything that life offers, but that you fully accept and document your time there as your greatest teaching ground, enabling your later leap forward into energetic composition.

I encourage awakening to that life, as well as to your spiritual being, for without awakening to both aspects of self will your journey be incomplete. I am sure you are aware of this, for I do not believe you would want to forfeit any of your proposed tests and challenges! Am I right? I jest, but at the same time I am quite serious. I do not like to leave any of you wallowing in your old attitudes or your old sadnesses, for then are you left behind to re-live upon the earth, once again renewing your acquaintance with such issues. You will find that they become quite well known, familiar, and even boring after a while, and your wishes to move on become your greatest friends and capacities.

I speak of truly awakening now, of no longer asking the same questions over and over again, but of truly asking the self new questions in order to jar you out of your ruts. A new time of new energy is now upon you, urging for consideration of life from a new viewpoint. Are you not ready for such newness? I believe that you are indeed!

If you remain attached to your old ways, attached to either the big baby self or the denying adult self, so will your awareness of what this new energy offers be hidden from you. Your desire for change must now outweigh your fears and your reluctance to do the work involved in actual participation in change. There will be no progress, no matter how many books you read and ideas you grasp, if you do not become an active player in your changing world.

So this is what I now propose to those of you who are working on your growth, your balanced growth: It is time to put the big baby to rest, to take up the staff you have left by the doorway, and to walk out into the world, each day, fully clothed in your compassionate adult self, with eyes and heart open to a new experience of life as your greatest teacher and each step as an awakening, as well as progress toward fulfillment.

With this intent, to not only observe life differently, as your guide and teacher, but to actively participate as an adult, full of compassion for self and others, may you now begin to travel differently. Or perhaps you will find that what you once thought so important to seek now becomes less so, as new things come to your attention.

Compassionate adult travel entails a great deal of shedding and releasing, and although you may at first consider this to be too challenging, so do I say: Give it a try anyway! As you open your door on your first day of newness, leave your old ideas and judgments behind in the crib with the big baby. Allow old worn out lives to remain behind and carry forth true openness with you. For your adventures will be quite enlightening as you look upon others with the same eyes that you too wish to be looked upon with.

As you let your old judgments of self go, do the same for others, dropping your initial thoughts immediately as they enter your head, and instead look around inside your spirit self for more compassionate understanding, and give this your energy.

What are old judgments? Well, you know what they are for you. Each of you has plenty of judgments about the self and others. Everything, from what you first say to your self in the mirror every morning to what you first think about the person beside you, may be considered judgments. Your judgments may be inflated, or they may be questionable, but, most likely, they have kept you bound and stuck to old ideas and old places.

Who are you really, and who do you wish to evolve to? Your dreams of evolutionary growth and change will not be realized until you begin some serious changes in your outer world, as well as your inner world. Your interactions must begin to shift from desires and wants to openness and emptiness of any desires. Your judgment-free self does not need anything in return. You see? This self is perfectly happy and contented to be open to the energy of the world and of life in general, which is your greatest guide and your greatest teacher.

Begin your new life, today, by shedding each thought that arises in reference to others. Do not judge as you are used to doing, but look upon each other now with empty openness, and allow a new door to spring open. I recommend putting the babies safely to bed, they will not be harmed or fettered with any more issues or burdens, for they have already done their work. Now it is time for the new adult self to live and to discover what it means to venture forth on a new judgment-free highway, freed of old ideas and open to the road ahead.

Messages from Jeanne, Questions for Jeanne

#458 Be an Evolutionary Parent

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Today, Jeanne answers a question asked by a Reader. When this question came in last week Chuck was in the midst of working on this week’s essay for Chuck’s Place, Healing or Possession? We had also decided to do another audio session with Jeanne based on the second chapter of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, titled, On Marriage. We hope you will enjoy the combined insights of these three works, today’s message, the audio message, and Chuck’s essay, all based on similar subjects of relationship and inner work.

Dear Jeanne,
For years I have been striving, as I am sure are many others, to re-parent my hurt inner little girl. I have been led to and stayed in many an unhealthy relationship trying, of course unsuccessfully and inappropriately, to get her needs met. Lately, I have been struggling in my present intimate relationship not to pull on my partner to meet my hurt inner child’s needs. I have difficulty discerning whether my hurt child is leading or if I am with a partner who obstructs my child’s healing, as my partner and I are in such constant conflict and defense with each other. I would appreciate any clarity or guidance you can offer.

Blessings,
NS

My Dear One, I must say that your dilemma is a common one, but first must you conclude that children do not belong in an adult relationship, at least not unhealthy children. By that, I mean that in order to be a consolidated adult so must you work on your child self outside of a relationship. A lost child self will remain not only lost but also confused if brought into an adult situation that requires maturity, openness, trust, and honesty. First your child self must trust you, the adult self, and allow you, the adult, to engage in relationships in the adult world you live in. The question of the inner child is both complicated and broad in scope, with so many aspects to consider, that I may not cover in one session, but here we go:

Most important is your resolution of your child self, independent of any type of relationship, whether lover, partner, children, business, or outer world interactions. Your inner child must relate to you, the adult, as mature and enabled. Your inner child is not meant to come along with you on your journey through life, but is meant to fully merge with you, and these are two different things. If you simply bring her along, then are you burdened with her, but if you resolve your inner issues stemming from her earliest experiences, enticing her to accept them as her journey, fully realized for its truth and meaning, then may she accept her place in your past and recede in your present life. For only in fully accepting her place in your life can she allow you to proceed, fully knowing that you are not deserting her, but only that you have fully accepted her as well, and your journey is now merged as one contiguous journey, rather than two that will continue to do battle until resolved.

Your question also encompasses relationships. In my understanding of a true relationship, so do I invite you to consider your adult self separately from your child self. If your adult self is ready to embark on a deeply trusting relationship with a partner who is also ready for such compatible travel, so must you understand that trust, openness, and honesty must also be at the basis of this relationship. Your inner little girl or boy must be comfortably and safely asleep, merged in full recapitulation and acceptance, for a truthful relationship to ensue, with innocence and trust of each other, at its core. To fully trust your partner, must you have had the greater experience of fully trusting the self. You see?

In order to engage in an adult relationship, that will be more than just a struggle, must you and your partner be allowed to have access to each other’s innocence, and fully allow your own innocence to participate. By innocence, I do not mean your hurt, wounded, or unresolved inner child. I mean your fully merged and resolved child, your energetically present child who is contented to live life with you, present, trusting, and available when appropriate.

I fear that many people do not fully understand who their inner child self is. Is she or he someone you left in the past, confused, dazed, and unclear as to her or his role then, and equally confused as to her or his role now? A confused child is a heavy burden to carry through life, for that child does not understand the journey being taken. If you have not been truthful and perfectly honest with your inner child self, so will there be no resolution of conflict in your outer life, for that inner child will appear quite often, in order to remind you that you have not been honest, and you have not taken care to reveal the truth of the world as you now know it.

Many people prefer to placate the inner child. This can take many forms, such as buying it nice things, feeding it and serving it whatever it asks for, giving it unconditionally for what you consider its earliest lacks of attention and promise. Yet is this the wrong method of attention. Such attention will merely attach that child self more firmly to an old idea that cannot work in an evolving premise. In order to evolve must truth and honesty be, first and foremost, a part of your interactions. The first truth is that all must grow up, mature, and move into adulthood. Some people do this very well, but yes, they often leave their child self behind. The first truth in returning to the child self is to reconnect in a new way, as the adult who fully accepts the truth of the child’s existence, knowing, above all else, that every encounter in early life was necessary for growth of spirit.

In order to fully merge with this child self, I suggest a very deep process of confrontation as the child emerges in the process of your everyday life. Is this child self, who is present in your life, carrying old ideas of the self based on old roles, old rules, old critics, and old patterns of soothing? As the adult, must you not only parent, but you must be an evolutionary parent who is capable of swiping aside all the old ideas of the self, bringing in a new perspective. You are not on a rescue mission. You are not on a mission of placation, or tending to the needs of a big baby. You are on an evolutionary mission of truth and acceptance, based on new rules, new truths of life, to guide the self through these times of difficulty.

Once one is accepting of life as a journey and views all aspects of life, past, present, and future, in the context of life as a journey of necessity and growth, so then is one ready and available to accept the truths that one holds so deeply inside. The child self holds many truths too, in spite of the many untruths that keep it in a state of frozen regret. A child self holds the keys to innocence, to spirit connection, and to your adult self, in truthful and honest living, as well. Once your child self is allowed release from the past, so is your adult self free to move forward, unburdened too.

In case of archaic possession, it is up to the mature adult self to find meaning and explanation for such possession. I contend that there is possession of one kind or another involved in most people’s lives, until confronted, recapitulated through investigation and questioning, and until finally released through acceptance, with truth and maturity as the basis for life. Only in acceptance of self as a journeyer taking a journey of self-discovery in order to grow beyond the old methods of doing life, repeating the same mistakes and habits, will evolution be achieved.

You see, you must be able to allow the hurt inner child to scream aloud or sit and pout in archaic possession if that is what that aspect of child self elects to do. But know that there is another aspect of child self, innocence, that is not interested in such possession, but instead desires release into life as a trusty companion, offering the balance that your hard working mature adult self needs, in order to fully live.

I speak, most certainly, of your process as a maturing adult, fully capable and reliable. Your process is individual and must be acknowledged and dealt with on an individual level. Your journey, although intertwined with the journeys of others, must not be confused with or by the journey of another. Your ability to detach the self from the relationship must continually be explored in order for partnership and relationship to prosper. Who are you separate from your relationships? Each of you in a relationship (parent/child, lover/lover, employer/employee, etc.) must determine your own issues, even as you may see them mirrored in your partners, or triggered by your partners, or foreshadowed by your partners. These are the signs and triggers inviting you to absolve each other of the difficulties of the inner self. These are the moments of retreat and self-investigation, of ownership of your inner dilemmas, and confrontations with the truths of the self.

It is a difficult process. First must one confront the truths of the self, for only then will one be in a position to determine if the partner and relationship meet the needs of the true self, or if they hold the self caught in old places of inner struggle.

If evolution of self is your truthful quest in this lifetime, then that must be present in every aspect of your life. Only in being truthful with the self can you be truthful with others. For if you cannot accept who you are, then who can? Only in self resolution, and learning to love the self for the journey taken, will you achieve love of others for the journeys they also have taken and must take. Often are our journeys interwoven so that we may learn something important about the self, and this is true for both partners. Maturity is required in order for partner growth and partner acceptance to become part of a continued journey, with the mature adults leading the process, for only with such evolutionary guidance will progress be made.

I hope I have offered some new ideas for your adult self to work with, My Dear. May your child self be allowed out of the closet, and may her innocence be acceptable to you. For that is what you, as the adult, are looking for. It is what she is hoping you will find acceptable, and it is what must be released for a new kind of merger to happen, so that you may proceed fully balanced, with truth and love of self at your core.