Relax your mind. Relax your body. Relax your hold on thinking you have to do everything. Relax the tension in your muscles, and then go deeper than that. From your toes to the top of your head, and everything in between, relax. Life is not out to destroy you but to support you. Life is not out to stop you but to push you. Life is not out to punish you but to encourage you. Life is full of lessons, but the biggest one may be to learn to just relax and wait for life to show you what comes next rather than thinking you have to have it all figured out ahead of time, or that you have to direct it. There may just be another approach you haven’t thought of. Maybe you just need to relax, let down your guard and just experience it. It might be that simple. Indeed, there may just be another way after all.
It’s not that hard to calm the central nervous system. Look at a beautiful picture, and breathe deeply. Imagine a place that is special to you, and breathe deeply. Close your eyes, and breathe deeply. Sit in the light of the sun, and breathe deeply. Take a walk, and breathe deeply. Sit beside water, and breathe deeply. Gaze at the night sky, and breathe deeply. There are so many opportunities in a day to get calm, to take care of yourself for a few moments, and to align with your own spirit. Just do it, just breathe.
Beware the tendency to forget what is best for you. Pay attention to what your mind knows, what your body tells you and what your spirit inspires. Body, mind and spirit in alignment work as one, not as three separate entities with their own agendas but as one unit with one agenda. That unified agenda is your wholeness, your unified self that knows, acts and inspires you to maintain balance and equilibrium.
A unified self is both a satisfied self and an eager self as well, a self that is happy and contented yet is open to more of life. Remember this and seek the balance of unity and the inspiration of more life to live.
Why are so many people afraid of public speaking? Simply put, it’s a situation of one person against many.
A mass of people wield a higher power than that of a lone individual. Talking to a group is thus experienced as a direct, terrifying encounter with a God!
How can a mortal stand up before a God without disintegrating? How could the offering of a mere person be worthy before an audience of a God?
Our subconscious minds are programmed to interpret and respond to reality, based on what Jung called archetypal images. The image of a terrifying numinous energy hovers over a public gathering. This is the same image behind agoraphobia, the Greek word that literally translates as fear of the marketplace, a place of public gathering.
Archetypal images are preformed interpretations of energy that assemble and generate the reality we live in. They define what Robert Monroe called local traffic, the roads we travel in waking life. Monroe also discovered the interstate, roads that lead to the subtler energetic states of non-ordinary reality. The shamans of ancient Mexico call these different locales, alternative positions of the assemblage point, which generate real but relative realities.
Carlos Castaneda’s teacher, Don Juan Matus, was clear that we are solid beings in a solid world but that we are energetic beings, or spirit beings, first. Ultimately, archetypes are illusory and must be transcended to allow direct communication and relationship, as well as the freedom to navigate without the limits of preformed emotional reactions that inhibit genuine connection and expression.
When ego encounters archetype it experiences terror or ecstasy. The archetype behind attraction is, again, the energy of the divine. To be captivated by the beauty of another is a royal encounter with a prince, princess, God or Goddess. Fear and trembling hinder approach to one’s divine object of desire.
Archetypes can be helpful tools of interpretation, but they are projected images from within the psyche, not actual facts. Beneath the attractive person is a mere mortal being. Beneath the powerful uniform of a police officer or doctor is a flawed mortal, like all mortals. Uniforms serve to stir archetypal images, commanding high respect and trembling.
Often, individuals protect themselves from numinous archetypal encounters by staying safe at home. Others may take pharmaceuticals to regulate the anxiety activated by these projected archetypal images. Although these strategies may protect one from becoming diminished by the power of these images, they also reinforce the interpretation of these images as powers greater than the self.
The better course of adaptation is to withdraw the archetypal projection upon the outside world, neutralizing its overwhelming emotion of divine encounter. Projection, however, is not a choice, it simply happens to us: an object is encountered in the world and an archetypal image is activated to define it. However, the ego can take actions to master its ability to go into the world, speak publicly, and approach a person of interest.
Ego must first become humble and accepting of the self as it is. To inflate or deflate the ego to adapt to an archetypal encounter is merely transient survival. Ego should do the work it can do to improve itself. If you are going to give a speech, practice it many times.
Ego can practice biofeedback and neurofeedback to gain mastery over the emotions activated by archetypal images. This will allow the prefrontal cortex to remain online, granting access to one’s prepared talk. The subconscious can be instructed, through self-suggestion, to check the activation of archetypal images, thus enabling one to approach a person of interest as an ordinary human being.
Regular meditation and pranayamic breathing serve to ground the ego and invite higher spirit entities to energetically join with one’s intent. Ego’s ability to align with Spirit’s intent brings one’s greater wholeness to bear upon the ability to remain fluid during a numinous encounter.
Mastering archetypal images leads to true human interaction, perhaps the essential ingredient missing from the world stage at the moment. That work can advance on an individual level, as we each are free to free ourselves from the tyranny of archetypal misinterpretation.
In every life a chain of events can be revealed as showing the unfolding of life. Circumstances do not suddenly appear; they are, more often than not, expected. When one looks back at how things unfolded this is seen to be true. To be aware every day of the unfolding in process is to be in alignment with life, aware of the signs and synchronicities that bring change. Become alert to your own life’s unfolding so that you are prepared for everything, at least in the intention to go with the flow rather than to be overwhelmed. Things do not happen, they unfold.
