Tag Archives: energy

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: When Suffering Is Appropriate & Taking Back Our Energy

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There is beauty in the darkness too... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
There is beauty in the darkness too…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

It can sometimes be difficult to know what to do when someone we care about deeply is suffering. We want to rush in to help, to fix or to alleviate the suffering in any way we can. We often have a clearer perspective, looking in from the outside, and so we might want to advise or prescribe what we think needs to happen. It’s hard not to judge, criticize, or blame others and think that only we are right. In some cases, however, it’s pretty obvious that help is needed, that immediate attention is called for, and it is appropriate then to give it, but more often than not our input rarely helps. This is a hard fact to accept.

How many times have we told so-and-so that if they don’t stop their destructive behavior they are sure to suffer irreparable damage, even death? Have they really listened, taken in our advice, and changed in any way?

How many times have we been confronted by the dear one who can only whine and blame others for their difficulties? Does it really help to point out to them their own part in creating their suffering situation?

How many times have we sent a needy individual money, only to be called upon again and again with increasingly unrealistic reasons for the monetary need? We have to wonder if we are only enabling them, keeping them in a state of infantile entitlement for our own purposes. We might find it hard to let them fail, but in so doing we are holding them back from creating their own fulfilling life, far beyond anything we could ever provide.

When we rush in to help we often alleviate only our own discomfort and in the process take away from the loved one the full responsibility for taking control of their own lives. We take away their joy in accomplishing what once seemed impossible, what they dream of. We take away their opportunity to encounter what lies deep inside them too, the issues that produce their difficulties and their suffering, what they must face to become mature beings in the world.

Doing the busy work of taking responsibility... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Doing the busy work of taking responsibility…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

If we attempt to solve or fix the lives of others without their full participation, we take away their own responsibility for creating their own lives and taking their own journeys. Often they will fail to fully launch into life. They will remain dependent and needy and thus in our rush to help we have in fact done them a disservice. We deny them the opportunity to experience and face their own troubles as we have had to experience and face ours, for these are the things that help us mature into responsible human beings.

In looking back over our own lives we can track where we too had moments of suffering or crisis and how in dealing with them maturely we have moved beyond them. We had to learn the hard way that if we face what comes to greet us each day, with maturity, sobriety, and pragmatism, we learn that we can handle anything. And that is empowering!

In reality, we are personally better off letting others sit and contemplate their own dilemmas until they get to the moment of decision and determine their own course of action. This can be a tense time, but pretty soon all of our patient waiting pays off.

We might notice how life itself tends to the issues at hand in a most natural way. This natural process may arrive as a perceived disaster, but as things unfold we see that what once was thought of as disastrous is actually the very thing that offers the biggest and most lasting change. How many times have we heard people say that their worst experiences have led them to their most amazing experiences: to the meeting of their true love, to the discovery of their true profession, their true talents? Often our most painful experiences are our most enlightening, leading us into previously unimaginable new life.

If we remain stuck in our role of enabler then our energy remains stuck too. In serving others to the extent that we become energetically depleted, we allow them to take priority over ourselves, and that is not good business nor a good position to be in. If we are drained we have little to keep us going and even less to give. Our spirits recede, our involvement in life decreases and our motivation dies. If we are to remain vital, active, and fully participatory in life, we must take care of how we use our energy.

Energetically freed to really bloom! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Energetically freed to really bloom!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

As we free our energy from perceived duties—duties that we have given ourselves for whatever reason—we are free to live our own lives. If we free our attachment to people, places and things that are no longer useful or important in the life we live now, our energy is returned to us in abundance.

In simplifying our lives by clearing ourselves of both inner and outer encumbrances, we also free others from having to be encumbered by us, by what we think they need or want. And then we are all freed to take our journeys to fulfillment!

There is always some energy-freeing to be done!
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Life As Art Form

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I seek to achieve balance, all the time... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
I seek to achieve balance, all the time…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

As an artist and writer I fully experience my creativity. When I am creating something I am totally focused on what I am doing; I am in the zone. Everything else slips away and life is just me and what I am working on. Creative energy runs through me and I willingly go along for the ride.

I have a deep need for creative perfection, but I’ve also learned over the years to recognize when a piece is done, to instinctively know when it’s time to stop, to put down my tools and release myself from the creative surge and to also let go of my attachment to the work I have done. There is deep satisfaction in both the creative time and the release from it; there is balance.

I recently listened to a segment of The Moth in which a New York Times reporter ventured to Afghanistan after the ouster of the Taliban in 2001. He went in search of art. All forms of art had been banned while the Taliban ruled, everything from painting to poetry and music. For five years no one was allowed to produce art, to sing, to act, or even own a musical instrument; to do so would have meant arrest or even death.

By a series of synchronistic events the reporter met a man who was painting miniatures in the traditional style. He asked him why he wasn’t painting something new, expressing the energy of now and the future that was looming before him and his people. The artist told the reporter that he could not paint the future until he had completed the past, that his people were not free to move forward if they did not fully know their past. It struck me. The artist knew the value of recapitulation; only in fully knowing where he had been could he go forward with any sense of release or contentment. He knew he had to recreate what had been, as perfectly as possible, but he also knew that a time would arrive when he would leave the past and move on.

I have recently been pondering my own process of creativity. I notice how that need for perfection is so honed that it takes over. I become totally focused on what I am doing and often the rest of my life goes unattended. I do the minimum, but only what absolutely needs doing. I am often reluctant to stop at the end of the day, to have anything interfere. There have been times in my life when I was able to totally live the creative life, but as much as I loved it I now know that it was a life out of balance.

Needling thoughts that I must attend to the piles of clutter, to the unattended that gets forgotten after a while, had been stirring all through the winter months. I’d look around and tell myself that I had to attend to this pile of stuff and that pile of stuff. When I’m done with this, I’d say, when I’m done with that. Now it’s almost summer. I’ve been making inroads into clearing the clutter, into clearing also the energy stuck in that clutter, making a concerted effort to get rid of what I no longer use or need and to organize that which has value so that my life can flow better. My need for perfection is seeping out of the dedicated creative time into all the time now. Life, I have decided, is my new art form.

I still seek a certain kind of perfection, not to be perfect because I know I am not, but to achieve the impeccability that I have mostly assigned to my creative endeavors. Where before I might leave dishes in the sink to do later while I head off to do something creative, I now finish the kitchen clean-up before I turn to something else. I do it with impeccability. I want to walk into a beautiful kitchen later in the day, to feel good in my home, to experience a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that is energetically fulfilling. In so doing I learn the value of completion of one task before beginning a new one. This is what the Afghani artist was telling the reporter; one must fully complete if one is to be fully energetically available for new creative endeavors.

I saw this heart shape in the floor tiles, an almost birdlike and beelike form flying past like freed energy... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
I saw this heart shape in the floor tiles, an almost birdlike and beelike form flying past like freed energy…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I’ve noticed that even in clearing out my cluttered closet I achieve a sense of renewal. The more I clear, the more space I create, space in which energy can finally flow freely and naturally without obstacles or blockages.

In clearing, I create a new reality for myself, more balanced and in alignment with the energy of the universe. Each time I clear something I feel myself become more energetically alive and available for what life has in store.

Try it; it really works,
Jan

The story I heard on The Moth: A Time of Hope

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Multidimensional Living

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Here is Chuck’s blog for this week. The dreaming Soulbyte we published this morning on our Facebook page reflects one aspect of aligning with our multidimensional self!

We must strive to bring our multidimensional self together... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We must strive to bring our multidimensional self together…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I pause in this moment to connect with my multidimensional self. The sound of energy is steady in my ears. High pitched vibrational tones deepen and intensify as I give it my awareness. I intend it to spread. The vibration begins to radiate throughout my entire body, a unison of sound and vibration.

I reassert my physicality with a deep breath and notice my musculature at rest. The vibrational state recedes from my body at large but intensifies in my inner ears, reminding me of its ever-presence. At night the situation is reversed. The physical body goes increasingly dormant to a state of catalepsy, a temporary paralysis, as the higher vibrational self lifts off to worlds of adventure and discovery.

We are multidimensional beings with a variety of energetic possibilities. The physical world is the outer crust, the densest of our energetic possibilities. In that world our senses govern our experience. This is “in-body experience,” the full presence and sensory awareness of being in our body.

The mind is the energetic experience of abstraction. The mind operates in the field of thought, a non-substantial subtler energy that constructs its own world separate from the physical world. We indeed can find ourselves lost in the stories of our thoughts, worlds apart from the world of our physicality. Even thought completely focused on the physical world is still a mind of abstraction, creating models to approximate the denser physical world it observes.

Emotion is another dimension of our energetic being. Emotion is a magnetic energy that attracts and repels. It draws us to deep union, keeps us in seclusion, or mobilizes us to change. Emotion is a world of energetic intensity, the fuel of rapture. How often the world of emotion can misalign with the physical world! Emotional worlds of extreme intensity are often projected onto others who feel nothing in return. In this case, we are fully enraptured in our own emotionally vibrant world, devoid of actual connection.

Our evolutionary challenge in this life is to align with and deeply realize our multidimensional self. It is our higher vibrational self that journeys into transpersonal realms.

With intent we can extend our dreaming awareness, training it to stay present during those nightly journeys into infinity. When we write down our dreams upon return, we open the door to recapitulating those infinite journeys, good practice for future adventuring.

When we practice mindfulness in the waking state of the physical world we extend our awareness to be fully present in the journey of our physical everyday lives.

When we meditate we teach the mind to be calm, to allow for thoughtful presence that we can extend into other worlds, rather than stay encased in abstract stories.

When we bring our awareness into full alignment with our emotions, we allow ourselves the richest experience of life’s intensities. However, adult presence is required as we must learn to ride the waves with both awareness and detachment. Here detachment means being open to the fullest experience yet separate from it at the same time. We must become the observer who will not get overly attached to anything.

We burn from within... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We burn from within…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The common thread to deepening and aligning our multidimensional self is the intent of awareness. We must intend our awareness to be fully present in our physical body, as well as fully present in our thought body, emotional body, and ethereal body simultaneously. Once in alignment, we are set to fluidly experience the fullness of multidimensional living and we open to being fully present to our evolutionary journey as well, both in this world and beyond.

True multidimensional living is really all about preparing for the definitive journey when all of our energetic bodies consolidate for the last time, at death, and leave the physical realm. Death is the unifier of all those energies. As we take the journey into infinity we “burn from within,” as the Shamans of Ancient Mexico say, all our energy combining in a single energy of fire. On to new life!

Happy Beltane!
Chuck