The I Ching tells me that it is time for incremental steps to change, that nature has a way of clearing things out and that the human being too, in small steps in the right direction, will eventually arrive in an evolved place. I read that the stars and planets ask us too to take small steps this week; to remain aware and pay attention to each moment and what we are doing, to be clearly aware that everything matters. What guidance do you offer us, Infinity, as we go into a new week?
Infinity answers with the following guidance:
It is logical to want to correct, protest, or confront that which is wrong, unjust, or disappointing outside of one’s self, but, truth be told, it is only in inner work that true change will happen. Change will not come to the greater world in the right alignment with truth until all people upon the earth bravely face their own truths, their own fears, their own disappointments, and the meaning of their personal anger and discontent.
True change, however, rides upon the winds each day. Opportunities abound to notice and act on behalf of the self and thus on behalf of all humanity, and the natural world as well.
A perfect world may not be possible you think? Perhaps it is a pipe dream? There are too many choices, opportunities, and forces to make it possible?
Do not fall into despair, Dear Readers. Grasp instead at the utter necessity of each one of you to resolve the issues of the self, to free your personal energy to explore the far greater meaning of life beyond the self, not as ego in the world, but as spirit energy in the world.
The grittiness of life pushes for change. Take personal steps each day to confront the self as to reason and purpose, as to why and wherefore, as to thought and action. Be proactively self-reflective. On a very deep level find out what matters most to the personal self and then ask why. Go deeper now into the self than ever before and question that which you have settled upon as truth, as identifiable self.
Can you go even deeper? Can you disassemble your set ideas of self until you are nothing but energy, with no attachments or issues? Can you dare to be nothing of importance? To self or others?
That is what all of your small steps of change are leading to. Disassembling the self in tiny increments, facing evil, disgust, negativity, fear and turmoil in the darkness of the self will provide a greater understanding of how others react in the world outside of you.
You are all the same. Face this fact and you will face the truth of life: You are all the same. And in the end you are all nothing but energy.
Some of us are born with physical wounds, readily apparent. Some of us are born with deep psychological wounds. Some of us are born into wounding circumstances. Some of us encounter wounding situations at young ages and some of us do not encounter them until much later. Some of us don’t know we are wounded at all. But, overall, if we are born into human existence we carry wounds that we are challenged to heal.
If we are ready to evolve into beings of higher consciousness and spiritual enlightenment our first challenge is to discover what our wounds are, to acknowledge and accept them. Our next challenge is to do everything we can to face them, to work on ourselves and the situations we find ourselves in so that we can heal and grow.
If you believe, as I do, that we choose the life we are in, then it stands to reason that we also choose the wounds and the work it takes to deal with them. I was born to distant, unemotional parents who lived out their own wounds their entire lives. My siblings and I were forced to grow up under the dominating force of those wounded child parents who were deeply cut off from feelings, with the inability to express love. If you have read my book, you know that shortly after the age of two I entered the world of a sexual predator. To what end, you might ask, did I choose that life? What is the purpose of my life?
I have discovered that in acknowledging and freeing my wounded child self, I have freed myself of a burden that I carried through many lives, that of the sexually abused child. In recapitulating, I have freed myself of my wounded parents as well, and I have freed my own children of bearing this wounding into another generation. Of course they chose me as a parent so they will have their own issues to contend with as they take their journeys, but I feel confident that I am no longer burdening them with my own personal issues by hiding them from myself.
As we ponder our wounded child self we are faced with many possibilities. Is our wounded child self known? Does it dominate us? Is it a big baby, like the 1% demanding everything of us, stealing our energy? Or is it like the 99% begging for a place in our lives, asked to be fairly treated and accepted? Is it angrily pushed away, decidedly evil? Or is it tenderly acknowledged as an integral part of our journey?
Face the fears
We are further challenged to become the proper adult figure in the lives of our wounded child selves. We must treat them fairly, without judgment, but with compassion and a firm approach. We must become a parent, loving and accepting, yet release the wounded child from its captive role, allowing it to take its own rightful place. We must thank our child self for bearing the wounds that are our evolutionary task, and we must find the means of integration, so that we may become wholly adult, all aspects of self in symbiotic balance, kept well-attended and nurtured, yet fully known.
If we are ready to release ourselves from our own traumas and face new possibilities for life we are more compassionate and appreciative of the challenges that others must face as well. We find that we are detached in a new way, having discovered that, as we recapitulate and face our personal challenges, we energetically free so many others. In freeing myself from my past I not only free my children, but I remove my negative, depressed energy from the world as well.
I believe my purpose in life is the same purpose as all other humans: to become as spiritually evolved as possible by knowing myself in the deepest way, freeing myself from repeating many more miserable lifetimes with the same wounds festering. In facing my wounded self I faced eons of wounded selves.
I understand now what it means to be deeply wounded and to really heal. Healing is what life is all about, finding the means to heal so that the world around us can heal as well. In our present lifetime it may be difficult to assess just what healing the world will look like, for it presently looks quite dire out there. With so many issues arising and coming to a head, the festering wounds of humanity now pose perhaps the greatest danger ever.
Triage is called for on a mass scale, but I still believe that each one of us must do personal triage first. We must go innerly and face the wounded self, healing the wounded child within so we can be fully present as integrated adults. In so doing we may just discover that what the world needs now is not really that much. We may discover that we don’t really need this world to be the same anymore, in fact we don’t want it to be the same because, as we recapitulate, we discover that what we once found so comforting is sorely lacking in comfort. We discover that our earthy needs are really very simple.
We really just need the world as our mirror, to keep us focused on changing our outlook on ourselves and others, to keep us focused on turning inward. We need the world to reflect back to us the real reason for being born into the life we are born into.
Achieve healing and freedom
Find out why you are born so wounded and then find the means to heal. First heal the self and then heal the world by staying deeply, introspectively connected to a healing journey of constant course correction. By living a life of deep inner reflection, intent on healing, we take full responsibility for our wounded child self and we shift our energetic configuration from one of deep sadness, regret, and woundedness to one of power, grace, and freedom. Such inner work will change all of us: our selves, our families, our communities, our world.
In the Readers of Infinity blog on Monday I noted that Jeanne once again gave the same message: Learn to listen. I am struck by how often she speaks of training ourselves to pay attention to what is going on inside us. Listening is the key to doing inner work, to finding the reasons as well as the answers. In learning to listen to our wounded inner child we must be a good listener, but we must also be a good guide.
In recapitulating, or doing any kind of deep inner work, our adult self must be alert and aware, able to flow with what comes without judgment, fear, control, disgust, or dismissal. Each time we face our wounded child we must go deeper, beyond what we think, to what we feel and truly know is right. It is a process of constant readjustment, of learning to view ourselves and the world in a different way. We must all begin to envision ourselves as evolving spiritual beings, rather than human beings stuck in endless personal misery.
I challenge everyone to approach the wounded child self with compassion and love, listening to what the issues are and what the proper approach to resolving those issues might be. The answers for how to do this are available, but we must each decide that it is the journey we want to finally take. We must decide that in this lifetime we are choosing to free our wounded self to evolve in a new manner, both immediately now and in the lifetime to come.
Find solace in quietude today, for it is only in inner calmness that the deeper self may be realized. There is need for such inner seeking of self and not only now during the times in which you live. This is a truth for all times. It is only through experiences of the deeper self, the spiritual self, that humanity will realize the eternal connection that all human beings possess, not as a gift, but as a reality of being human.
In moments of quietude seek the deeper self, the universal self, and ask for guidance of this deeper universal self, which is the source of all knowledge.
Your guidance will come from within the self, though your outer reality will signal your way. Your direction in life and the necessary steps to discover the deeper meaning of your life will be in alignment with your outer reality.
Perhaps your outer reality signals a direction that will lead you to a new level of awareness or perhaps your outer reality signals that it is time to take a new direction. Your outer reality will approve or disapprove of steps you are considering. You will be offered choices that may or may not be right. How do you choose? How do you know what to do next? How do you know if one step will lead to growth or to disaster?
Inner quietude will bring the answers you seek. The trick is to know just what such inner quietude feels like for you. Seeking inner quietude as often as possible will train your awareness to know what to do. Eventually, you will feel this inner resonance immediately arising upon questioning. In inner calmness you will learn that all the answers lie waiting within.
Often the answer may be accompanied by discomfort because it will, of course, be challenging you to change, to choose something out of the ordinary, to perhaps greatly disrupt the life you have been leading, daring you to face a new direction. Discomfort-in-resonance is perhaps the most challenging inner place to be.
Be aware that such moments are evolutionary ones, the moments when you are fully aware that you must change, that you are being challenged to go beyond the present self. They can be frightening moments, but if you stay firmly attached to the resonance of the moment—the clear voice of your spirit calling—you will find the strength and guidance you need.
Training the self to listen and act on your spirit’s call to change will lead to greater awareness of your spirit’s ways and means of guiding you and you will also have learned a new step in acquiescing to your journey.
Pay attention to your spirit calling you. The call today may be for you alone, a call to grow, but in the future it may lead to the growth of others as well. As we all evolve upon this earth, as we all listen to the truth of the spirit’s call, a greater sense of ourselves as interconnected beings, all desiring the same things in life and in spirit, may arise as a new reality of being human. This is already a known truth: that we are all just struggling to become more than we are; that, in reality, we are all on the same journey, but as humans we become so wrapped up in our personal woes that we forget that we all suffer.
Do not forget that each one of us is on a similar journey, the point of which is to grow in awareness of why we are here. And that is why inner quietude is such an important tool in both our spiritual practices as well as in our lives in the world. Through inner quietude the two worlds may merge and we may begin to flow through our lives more seamlessly each day.
Find inner quietude, heeding the spirit’s call, as often as possible. Find the calm self and the calm mind and let the knowing mind of this state of being human guide you. We are all readers of infinity and our training is in our own lives, in the circumstances that make up our realities and the choices we make.
May you find quietude and make a decision based on your spirit’s call today. Even if it is only a small or seemingly insignificant shift in self-awareness, such a step may offer more than you can imagine. It may release you from the place you now find yourself so caught in. Change the inner self and find how easily the outer self grasps at the opportunity for a new and different life as well. If we are hungry for anything, truly that thing is change.
What needs to happen today for me to become more of me? To me, life is all about shedding: shedding roles, shedding skins, cloaks, crusts, and predicaments to reach the true essence of self. Think of a fruit surrounded by a tough skin, a bitter skin, a sour skin. If we did not remove the skin we would not be able to enjoy the delectable sweetness of the fruit within. Shedding the skin and figuring out who we truly are takes work. In my case it took a full and deep shamanic recapitulation into my very soul, into the darkest self where I met my enemy and went to battle against what had been living inside me my entire life. The process was one of shedding the fearful enemies that hid so well inside. No one but I really knew of their existence, no one but I dealt with them daily, no one but I kept them imprisoned inside me.
I continue my shedding process every day as I ask myself: What can I shed today?
A long and difficult journey in microcosm
Last week a very subtle inner shift allowed me the freedom to become a little more of the me that I have been allowing to emerge and live. This is autumn, a time of great shedding and most meaningful change and transition. Synchronistically, in the news, Amanda Knox, a young American woman convicted of killing her roommate in Perugia, Italy four years ago, was released from prison. After a long and difficult period of truth-seeking a simple reversal of the decision made four years ago—guilty or not guilty—sent her back home to Seattle, a free woman. Though that decision was deeply meaningful and simultaneously controversial, when it came down to the verdict it was one spoken word that set her free. I see this case as a metaphor for our times, underscoring the need to make decisions that allow for drastic change. These times ask us all to question deeply, ourselves and our world, to find out the truth and to act on it. I have no idea what her truth really is, no one will ever know except Amanda Knox herself perhaps, but we can all learn from her story.
The other day, someone, in a rather accusatory tone, questioned me: “Why are you so fabulously happy all the time?”
“Well,” I said, “I’m done with despair and besides, I spend most of my time with one foot in this world and the other in the ecstatic, why wouldn’t I be happy?” It was all too much for my questioner to fathom.
I didn’t just wake up one day and find myself straddling these two worlds; not at all, I had to go through the deepest, darkest despair to arrive at this place of light and balance. But it was always my choice to take the journey that led to this place, in a gradual yet intentional process of shedding the old self.
So that brings me back to my declaration of independence from Jeanne as teacher and guide that I so boldly declared last week and have, since then, experienced in so many ways. I find that she taught me well. In finally taking her up on her insistence that I could do it on my own, as she so often urged me, I find that I have freed myself from yet one more self-imposed imprisonment. I freed myself from a role that in reality only I was attached to. And all it took was months of inner struggle!
We do tend to imprison ourselves: in labels and declarations, in our student-of-life roles, in our promises that we made a long time ago. It was only in shedding promise after promise that I was able to evolve into someone who is “so fabulously happy all the time.” Although those promises were made when they were extremely necessary, they now no longer serve who I truly am. I don’t mean to imply that I don’t get sad or depressed, but I’ve learned to face the truth with a different outlook now. I take in the broader truth, the long-term perspective that I am a being who is going to die, but also that my life is a never-ending journey. I now, constantly and consciously, focus on urging myself to take the next step, subtle or otherwise.
Who, indeed, can I become today? It may take only a tiny shift in perspective, in action, in thought or inner perception, but it may be a life-changing decision on my part, in the end capable of catapulting me further than I ever thought possible.
As we head into deeper autumn now, as we notice what is happening in the world around us, such as the case of Ms. Knox, can we ask ourselves the same questions that were asked about her? Do I deserve imprisonment for the rest of my life or do I deserve to be set free? What role do I want to play: that of the prisoner or that of the free spirit? The main question, however, is: Where do I imprison myself?
Most of us do keep ourselves shackled to old ideas of the self when, in fact, we’re actually being urged to change, to keep taking the journey of the evolving self.
Who will I become today? If I pay attention to the synchronicities and signs in my life, those that resonate both inside and outside, I may be able to let go of despair, shed an old skin and release the sweetness within, bursting with ripeness.
I face my own shedding process each day as I question myself and ask myself to shed my self-importance or my fear of my evolving spirit, as I once shed old feelings, during my recapitulation, of unworthiness that I did not deserve to walk upon this planet. I take another step each day upon this earth as I wander my path, asking to be guided, knowing that I do indeed deserve to live just this life upon just this planet.
Yes, I fully accept that I am a changing being and that I am a being who is going to die, but before that event I intend to fully live, “so fabulously happy,” as is my choice.
I dare to evolve, to take the next step. The reason I am writing this blog today is that my personal next step involves what I have been writing on this website, as myself and as a channel. I have been in training, as I see it, for the past ten years or even more, depending on how you look at it. I accepted what was presented to me and began a journey of a lifetime, which has led me through the past several years where I communicate with an entity and publicly post her messages, that entity being Jeanne.
Over the past month or more I have struggled with intense restlessness. All of my personal inner work has been focused on achieving balance between my two selves, my inner self and my outer self, and getting them in better alignment, fully accepting who I truly am now and being always open to who I might become. It’s a lifelong process as I see it, leading always to deeper experiences and deeper meanings. Why am I in this life and who am I supposed to become? This is a question I ask myself constantly because, as I see it, I have so much more to do.
I’ve always expected to live a long life. The women in my family live into their nineties, in full mental awareness, and I expect I will too. That means I have thirty plus years still to live upon this earth. My question to myself every day is: What am I supposed to do with those thirty years? Many answers have come through. One of them is that I must clarify who I am and continue to evolve to my fullest human potential, which involves evolving to my fullest spiritual potential as well. So that is what brings me to this day in my life when I declare that I am taking the next step on that thirty year journey.
Steppin' out
My recent period of restlessness has led to a breakthrough in my personal inner work. I have discovered that my spirit has been pushing me to take the next step in my spiritual development, daring me to go beyond the place I now find so comfortable. Yes, this is all about allowing restlessness and discomfort to guide in an ever-evolving process leading to fulfillment of greater potential. Here is the present challenge: Can I accept the role that I find myself in, as spiritual guide?
Jeanne and I have had quite a history together. She came to guide and teach me. The first thing she taught me was learning how to trust, which involved challenging myself to let in what was appearing in my life: people, signs, and her own guidance. I elected to pay attention and that was my first big lesson in understanding the universe, infinity, and the greater interconnectedness of all things. Throughout that process I learned to detach from the old and allow for the new, old worlds, old habits, old expectations of self and others being shed along the way. Jeanne’s position has been one of master teacher, mine as student.
Jeanne told me, about a year ago, that I didn’t really need her anymore, but at the time I still felt quite dependent on her guidance. I also felt that I had to uphold the expectations of others, many others, by being her channel. In essence, I was upholding an old world, one that I knew would have to change.
She told me that when I was ready I would let her go, that the time would be right for both of us and everyone else involved as well. I’m electing to pay attention now to what Jeanne told me last year, my spirit in alignment with her prediction that I would, in essence, go solo, take the solo journey as a spiritual guide.
This is not an ego thing, I have very little ego invested in what I do. I am bent on finding ways to use what I’ve learned to help others, and that’s why I’m daring myself to declare this personal challenge publicly. I’m not leaving Jeanne, nor is she leaving me, but I am facing the challenge of mergence now, moving more fully into being a reader of infinity without needing the master teacher constantly by my side. I am electing to take the next step alone. It’s what we all have to do.
I have already long been practicing this merged self. When I meet with clients for hypnosis or just to talk, as many request, I don’t go as Jeanne’s channel, though I have also done that in the past. I go as myself and seamlessly flow with what comes through me; whether it comes from one entity or another makes no difference.
The master, Jeanne, has been waiting for me to take up the greater challenge of becoming me, a spiritual being who is fully aware that she has access to infinity. It’s what she taught me to understand and practice so well. It’s what she dares me to accept now and fully live. I feel that I have no time to waste, thirty years or not, it can all go by in the blink of an eye.
This is an evolutionary thing. And I say that because, as readers of this blog, you know that we are all readers of infinity. This is what Jeanne has taught us all. It’s what don Juan taught Carlos Castaneda and his cohorts. It’s what anyone with a spiritual practice or bent on having experiences beyond the body discovers: We all have access to everything, ancient wisdom, and the ability to read the present and predict the future.
If I am in fact going to live upon this earth for thirty more years I must, because I am me, keep evolving. I must leave the last vestiges of an old world and an old self behind and find out what else I can do. I want the next thirty years to be as spiritually driven as possible for reasons I have yet to discover, but I guarantee will be pretty exciting as long as I keep challenging myself. I also know that, by my example, others may dare to challenge themselves to live lives of meaning, spiritually seeking greater possibilities for themselves and others as well.
We all have a voice. We must discover how to use our own voice to change the world. That’s where I’m challenging myself, declaring myself as an evolving spiritual being capable of reading infinity, just like everyone else.
So, in the future there won’t be messages from Jeanne posted on the website. Instead I’ll be taking over in a new blog called Readers of Infinity. I’m accepting the challenge. I look forward to taking all of this to a new level. Let’s see what happens!
On behalf of Jeanne, I want you all to know that she is there for you, just as she is and was for me. Call on her for help anytime. She has not left any of us. She’s carefully watching as we take our first steps.
Love to all of you as we take those next steps,
Jan
