Get right within the self. Rather than turn outward, looking at others to blame or to dismiss as getting it wrong, doing it wrong, or having failed in some way, look to the self. How have you gotten it wrong? What are you doing that isn’t right? How have you failed? Turn inward and investigate the self on many deepening levels as to your personal state. Can you accept the truth and deal with it in an inner way rather than an outer way, with all your feelings and emotions on board and part of the process? It’s time to turn inward and get the self right. As you do that the world outside of you will begin to get right again too. As within, so without. And don’t forget, do so without regret or resentment. Do it out of love, loving the self for all that has transpired and loving life to come. Do it with love.
Hold firm to your intent even as you grapple with that which comes to dissuade you, to pull you off course, to conquer you once again. Stay convinced of your own goodness and your intent to change. Take a firm grip of the line you have thrown out to your future self and pull yourself along it, one step and one day at a time. You can do it. Hold firm and carry on towing the line. Eventually you will arrive at the other end and realize that this journey too has transformed you and that you did it, that even the long and circuitous journey could not thwart your intent to change. Hold firm to your intent and carry on. You are worth it!
The inspiration for this blog comes from our neighbor Joseph McMoneagle’s book, The Ultimate Time Machine. His reflections on the relativity of the past, as a “reality” largely based upon interpretation, coincides neatly with the Shamans of Ancient Mexico’s experience of the Wheel of Time.
Changing the past allows completion of the labyrinth…
Recapitulation is an ancient shamanic practice that enables one to change the past. As McMoneagle points out, the past is largely defined by our interpretation system, which is mostly determined by our socialization by significant others since the moment of our birth. Thus, memory is largely colored by a feeling tone and cognitive understanding based on socialization.
When we recapitulate we relive the actual experience of the past with the consciousness of fresh eyes, or a point of awareness from the future, now, that affords a different view. From that new perspective, the past indeed changes. Yes, certain events happened that are the focus of the recapitulation, however, the interpretation of those facts is wide open to change.
Beyond actual interpretation is the feeling experience of the object of recapitulation. A traumatic event of violent proportion may at first be experienced as more physically and emotionally intense than actually previously remembered. This in and of itself changes the past because one is allowed, perhaps for the first time, a fuller experience of what actually happened.
The intensity of sensation and emotion emanating from a past event frequently shifts in recapitulation, to the point that remembering the event actually results in a neutral reaction. This is not the result of suppression or dissociation. The formerly traumatic event truly becomes a content of personal history that no longer casts a trigger shadow over present life. In fact, some horrific experiences in life can actually become transformed into objects of humor.
These are genuine examples of changing the past. The change is in having a much broader experience in all that happened in a way not possible when we first experienced it. We were limited by the level of our abilities at that stage of our development, as well as by the defenses our body and higher self brought into play, such as fragmentation and amnesia, as we simply were not ready to take in and make sense of the event as we experienced it. Now we are freed to know it and be with the past in a whole new way.
Recapitulation, then, is a valid technology to change the past, resulting in a fuller energetic presence in life now. In shamanic terms: we retrieve fragmented energy, parts of ourselves previously frozen in a “past” not fully known. This energetic retrieval is possible, as the past can now release it from the bondage of incompletion. The past is changed and the present is enlivened through this change in the past.
So, yes, change in the past can definitely change the present. Practice recapitulation, see what happens!
Don’t get so down on yourself. You may not be getting everything right, but you’ve been around long enough and you know yourself well enough to know that you know some things and that you are talented and skilled in many ways. Acknowledge your good traits and let go of your perceived bad traits as if they did not belong to you. Embrace the knowing that you are fully capable of doing life. Love life a little more each day. Embrace it as you would a lover so that in turn it will embrace you back in like manner. Become a lover of life. Give it your all, and see what happens!
At the dawning of each new day allow a new internal dialogue to light the way… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The internal dialogue is the Energizer Bunny that never quits. Where would we be in these unraveling times without the incessant voice within that constantly reminds us of who we are, as it judges and organizes how we see and feel about everything, especially ourselves. For better or for worse, this voice provides us with a consistent sense of self, and other, that gives us a secure basis upon which to hold together as we approach every new day in this life.
The Shamans of Ancient Mexico acknowledged the magic of the internal dialogue. They saw it as the core technology that generated a consensual reality, which in fact our world really is. On a collective level we all share in an agreed upon interpretation of energy that molds that energy into the physical world we live in. Without such agreement, as dictated by the internal dialogue, our world would lose its cohesion and disintegrate into energy without definition.
The Shamans of Ancient Mexico also pointed out that the single most limiting factor in our accessing the full breadth of our inherent potential is the internal dialogue. It fixates us in a narrowly defined closed system that restricts exploration of our fuller potential. This was why Carlos Castaneda repeated endlessly, and taught, the technology for expanded awareness: Suspend Judgment.
The internal dialogue then, like everything else in our world, has dualistic properties. On the one hand, it shapes and protects our world. On the other hand, it locks us in, keeping us from the freedom to explore our fullest potential.
The fiery energy that sweeps the globe presently is the byproduct of the splitting apart of agreement upon the basic tenets of our consensual reality. For centuries humanity stalked the heart center as its moral guide. The technology that supported this was reflected in Christianity’s technology of sacrifice. The animal in humanity was restrained for the sake of its rising spirit. As today’s newspapers once again report—this time in parishes in PA—the shadow of this technology, sexual abuse, has been acted out widely, with impunity, upon the young and innocent.
Politically, we find ourselves in Gotham City, surrounded by archetypal characters of all persuasions freed to express themselves and enact policies that fly in the face of a heart-centered consciousness. The primal energies of sex and power are freed, with impunity, in a governing elite that has lost its moral compass. The external dialogue of leaders is governing the internal dialogue of many whom are reveling in the possibility of generating a new world more to their liking.
In actuality, evolution has required that we take stock of the illusion we have been living; it’s wearing too thin to house all that we are. We are sexual beings. We are power driven beings. We are spiritual beings. We are energetic beings. The splitting apart we are now undergoing reflects all these released energies acting out in disconnected ways. This disintegration was inevitable. No blame. Every time we lock into a definition, we live in illusion. They may be necessary illusions for a time, but ones that must give way if we are to evolve.
On an individual level, it’s time to examine the myth we have personally lived by. A common example: “I am unworthy of love.” For many people this is the deepest tenet of the internal dialogue. It molds the perceptions of self and other to fit its definition. It delivers a consistent sense of self and protects the self from the potential dangers inherent in stepping out of that reality, thus generating a self-fulfilling reality.
Accessing Carlos Castaneda’s tool, to suspend judgment, we suspend the internal dialogue’s judgment of unworthiness. We study it and appreciate its protective functions to deliver us a consistently reliable sense of self, protecting us from rejection and being hurt.
We acknowledge the true self, held in restraint for so long as it upheld that limiting illusion. We allow ourselves to gently stray beyond the boundaries of that familiar unworthy self. We feel love for the being we are, for the life we are in. We allow ourselves to validate our right to be in this world. We allow ourselves to take in nature, in its myriad of forms, speaking to us, validating our existence.
We allow ourselves to become sexual, powerful, spiritual, and energetic beings, whose new internal dialogue brings all these parts together in a balanced way. This is the internal dialogue of our future consensual reality, one that allows a fuller expression of all that we really are, in a truly balanced way.
Take up the challenge on an individual basis, the tallest of orders indeed. Let this time of disintegration serve your personal individuation by daring yourself to step beyond the limiting beliefs of your familiar internal dialogue. Bring in a truer dialogue. Be empowered; love yourself. See what happens as your new internal dialogue remolds your old consensual reality into a far more fulfilling life.
