Tag Archives: inner work

#761 Conflict Resolution Around the Campfire

Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

I woke to the sound of thunder rolling across the hills. Oh, how fitting for Memorial Day, I thought. The sound of cannon fire, guns, and bombs echoing over the landscape reminding us of how we have always resolved conflicts in the past. My intent has been centered on finding a different approach to conflict, hoping that the leaders of the world will implement nonviolent means of resolution. As I turn to channeling, I ask Jeanne: What message of guidance do you have for us today, as our country remembers the war dead?

Jeanne responds:

My Dear Ones, conflict resolution lies buried within. The struggles in the world are mirrored by the struggles within and vice versa. And just a little deeper lies the answers you seek in your personal life and in the greater world.

On any day the challenge is to remain calmly present within the self. When conflicts arise, rather than emote or express outwardly, the solution that will work best for anyone is to take the smoldering coals of anger and discontent inward. Fan the flames and gain clear insight into just why you feel the things you feel. By the light of your anger and your discontent examine your personal demons. Ask them to emerge out of the darkness and show themselves by the light of your fire within and reveal their necessity.

I speak in metaphor to illustrate the darkness within and the unknown self. The challenge to personal resolution is to fearlessly confront the unknown self, the self who may in fact be quite controlling yet totally unknown.

By gaining awareness of the self, the opportunity arises for change to happen. By studying the parts of the self who engage in the outer world and then the parts of the self who engage in the inner world will give you a clear idea of how you operate physically, mentally, emotionally, how you interact with others, and how and why you tend to treat yourself the way you do as well.

Only in studying and understanding the truths of how you really behave in life, innerly and outerly, will you have an opportunity to change the self. Obviously, I speak of this often because it is the greatest challenge for all humans; to face and learn about the self is the most important aspect of being upon that earth.

You, as human beings, though you are one with nature and must learn this fact, are also equipped with a conscious Self who does not really need to live in a human form at all, does not need to suffer through life upon that earth. But until you discover this fact within the confines of your own life set-up, you will continue to be in conflict, both within the self and without.

In order to change you must allow the self to be explored. You must confront your fears and discover that they are but conjured ideas keeping you from your full potential as a consciously aware being.

Do deep inner work, My Dears. Spend your time in the world, but keep focused on your other job: to evolve. You are on a personal journey that each one of you must accept. You must choose it. You must decide that this life is going to be the evolutionary one. If you do not choose to know the self by accepting all your inner demons as parts of you, then know that you are making that choice and that you are creating the world you live in. Unhappy or not, bitter or not, angry or not, sad or not, you create your world.

You see, My Dears, you are the only one responsible for your life. It is set up specifically for you. So, if you choose to study the self, you may discover exactly why you are in the position you are in today. If you choose to go to your flames of conflict and sit around the campfire of your own dilemmas, you may discover the meaning of your life.

One day your fires will die down, your life understood, your calmness well-earned. When you turn away from your campsite you will see the path revealed that you just could not see before, always right there, the only one for you. And then, with awakened consciousness, you will know it is where to go next. Your inner voice will clearly state: That is the way to go.

Today, while conflict is remembered across America, celebrate your true ability to resolve all conflict by studying the self. The true path to resolution and change begins within. Become a better person. Change your life by changing your relationship to the self. Study the self and elect to do life differently. In so doing you will become a good citizen of a new world.

Thank you, Jeanne!

Most humbly offered,
Jan

#760 Angel & Devil

Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

There is such energy now, energy of change, disruption, and transformation, asking us all to go to higher levels of conscious awareness, as I interpret it. A lot of people are feeling it in their personal lives as well as in the world outside of them. Nature continues to show us just what it means to really change as well, as she erupts from deep within and creates whirlwinds of destruction from without. Nature is showing us that this is really a time of cataclysmic change, meaning, as I interpret it, that we must all really change now too.

In order to do what we’ve all been talking about, in order to fully embrace a new world order, we must all face our challenges head on, allowing ourselves to break with the old world order, in whatever way it takes, and start anew from totally different precepts, or no precepts at all.

This is my question for Jeanne today: I see so many people fearful, almost paranoid in the face of the truth of how things now stand on earth—with radiation embedding itself into the food chain as only one example. Our health and the world we live in are evermore compromised and what we have always trusted in is no really longer trustworthy or viable. How do we arrive, Jeanne, at a new understanding of ourselves so that we can face a totally new future without fear and paranoia?

This is how Jeanne responds:

My Dear Ones: I ask that you all begin anew from a place of calmness, that you start within your own body by listening more closely to the dire truths that you hear being spoken within the self. In order to do this, you must shut off the outside world in every sense. You must refuse to open the doors to paranoid fear and to the rabble from outside that is not truly in balance.

Take a minute to contemplate who you have been getting your information from. Question the truth behind the news organizations, the pundits, the truthsayers, the naysayers, and the soothsayers. Question, question, question EVERYTHING and then push it all aside. Know what is really being spread around the world as the truth of reality. Accept the bitterness of it, but do not attach to its taste in your mouth.

Accept that, indeed, the world is crumbling on many levels. From the highest peaks to the lowest valleys of the ocean floor you are being shown some rare truths. But do not attach to those truths as the only truths available because there are far greater truths, always accessible, that must be adhered to.

The far greater truths have we spoken of many times. They are the energetic truths of the power of all of mankind to effect change associated with the balance of nature.

Get in balance with Nature.

This means: get in balance with the forces of nature that are both calmly proceeding as normal, as well as the forces of nature that are shaking things up, coming with such powerful energy of change that you cannot help but take note.

This is what it means to get in balance: to accept both the good and the bad, the calm and the storm, the pure and the putrid, the beautiful and the ugly, the angel and the devil inside all of you—in your world, in all of energy, and in all of nature.

Can you accept that all of you are part of the world you live in, right down to the grittiest truth? Why do you turn away when I call you on this? Why do you turn from the hard facts of life that you are both angel and devil, that you are of the highest and the lowest, both enlightened being and ugly beast?

Not one of you will change, nor will your world, until you accept these truths. And you will not access such truths until you take the time to confront yourself with them. Take your lessons from outside, but do not attach to them on the outside before you attach to the same lessons on the inside. In order to get in balance with nature you must understand what nature is, both inside and outside. You must accept the disasters along with the enlightened potential in all of you.

You are all capable of rising up to a new level, but first you must go down into the depths of your soul and confront who you are.

You will not lose your fear of the world until you lose your fear of yourself. And once you sink your hands and teeth into your own fears and taste their bitter bite you will realize their significance in your personal life. Everyone must do this in order to change.

What are you afraid of? What do you run from every day? What do you turn from with such disgust and discomfort? What do you find most disagreeable and disturbing in others and in how the world operates? These are the things to face within. These are the guides to your unconscious self, to your secrets. Your fears, your sicknesses, your most painful thoughts and ideas of the self and others, your frustrations and despairs, are your most precious teachers.

The world is showing you that in order to really go to a new level—as Jan asks about today—in order to change the very foundations of life, you must face your most inner foundations and question what they have been built on. Do they truly hold up, or are you supporting an old world inside you? How can you expect the outer world to change if you do not change yourself?

This is the hard task at hand: Slowly and methodically dismantle the self. Pick through the ruins, take only that which is viable and real, and move on to new life basically foundationless, on the wings of your own cleared energy. You don’t really need more than that. Begin anew by becoming a new you. That is where you need to go…into a new you.

Keep your eyes open, your mind open, your heart open. Be ready at all times to observe and interpret with that openness, no longer attaching to your old rules, ideas, teachings, but fully open to new concepts, ideas, and views.

You never know where you will go as you do this inner-world work, and that is the beauty of it and the true beauty of life…that you just never know anything. That is how you learn to truly flow with the energy of nature, never knowing anything, except the truth of your place in that great unknown.

You do belong exactly where you are now, but everything else is completely untrue, non-existent, a great illusion. All that truly exists is the unknown, and that is what you must prepare yourself for every day: to enter the great unknown.

You know how to get there. It’s what we talk about all the time. Do it! What are you waiting for?

Nothing is as it seems— begin there.

Thanks Jeanne!

Most humbly offered from out of the great unknown where I am nothing.
—Jan

Chuck’s Place: What Dream Am I In? Narcissus & Beyond

“When I reflect on the fact that I have made my appearance by accident upon a globe itself whirled through space as the sport of the catastrophes of the heavens, when I see myself surrounded by beings as ephemeral and incomprehensible as I am myself, and all excitedly pursuing pure chimeras, I experience a strange feeling of being in a dream. It seems to me as if I have loved and suffered and that erelong I shall die, in a dream. My last word will be, ‘I have been dreaming.'”—Madame Ackermann quoted from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.

The Greek mythological character Narcissus never engaged in actual life as he could not see or feel anything beyond his own reflection—he never transgressed beyond his personal mirror. The spring flower, narcissus, is named after him due to its narcotic properties, meaning to numb or put to sleep. Narcissus, the man, was unable to awaken from his own very personal dream.

We all share the fate of Narcissus, as our very personal lives are dreams projected upon the people and things on the outer world. Perhaps the greatest challenge in this life is to recognize the mirror we place in front of everything, as we, like Narcissus, live life as in a state of narcolepsy, fully asleep, actively living out our personal dreams upon the backdrop of the outside world.

Interestingly, there is evidence that even on the astral plane, though we might meet familiar others beyond the self, we remain locked within our personal dream, asleep to life beyond the self. We awaken from these encounters completely unaware of where we’ve been and who we’ve been with. Out-of-body explorer, Preston Dennett, concludes, from his own astral experiences as recounted in his book Out-of-Body Exploring:

“Most of my family members do not recall these visits. Only Christy has been able to recall one meeting. However, this appears to be normal. Most people are unable to recall their dreams, much less their OBEs…” [Out-of-Body Experiences]

“Many times I have found my extended family visiting each other on the astral plane. As we are sitting at a table, my mother [deceased in this world] is looking at me. She knows that I am lucid and that I will remember these meetings, while everyone else in the room thinks they are already awake, or they know that they are not at the point where they are able to remember. How somebody can know that they won’t remember is beyond me. However, when I’m there, I know I will remember.”

How does this play out in the world of everyday life—a world where we are utterly convinced that we are interacting and making real contact with others?

Our lives in this world are largely waking dreams interspersed with brief moments of awakening. For instance, our collective world dream of safety now—Osama is dead—lulls us back into complacency. Global warming, environmental catastrophes, contaminated food supply, rampant greed, all slip away into yesterday’s forgotten dreams. Mother Nature will stir us awake again with some new dramatic alarm clock and, in that moment, we will awaken and lift the veil of our collective dream. But, the challenge is whether we will stay awake long enough and remember—hold onto the truth—so we can move into a new, sustainable dream.

On an individual level, our lives are marked from birth, perhaps from before birth with our own personal life dream. Our mission in life becomes one of waking up to the encapsulated dream we are in, to the world outside that dream. Until that time, the world and all its players serve as our personal mirrors, reflecting the drama of our individual dreams.

This proposition may seem preposterous as we reflect upon the relationships we are in, the people we genuinely communicate with and love, the people we touch and who touch us as well. But even our most intimate connections are but impressions on the outer surface of the personal bubbles that encase us. When we touch we are still pressing upon the contours of our personal dreams, our personal mysteries.

Perhaps my dream is one of core inadequacy and unlovability. In that dream, I crave to be loved, to be worthy; yet, everywhere I look, I see rejection and disdain reflected.

The characters in my dream are cruel and abusive. I cannot drive my car without feeling that I am offending someone. Clearly the truck behind me is angry, that I am too slow. I don’t have the right to take up space in this world or even to slow down to make a turn.

There is someone I deeply love, someone I pine for. But I am so beneath her; I shiver to look at her. How could she ever be interested in me? I am utterly compelled to be near her glow in my thoughts, fantasies, and interactions as well, but I know I lack the beauty and skill she would require. I am destined to loneliness.

I am surrounded by men far superior to me. They dismiss me, they don’t even see me. They are reflections of everything she needs, mirrors of everything I am not. In this dream, my golden princess is beyond my reach; at best I might be her lowly servant.

The characters of this dream project themselves powerfully upon the world screen of waking life. So who really are these characters within the self, within the personal dream, that I am utterly convinced exist outside of me?

In this dream, the golden princess is my anima—she who holds the place of my deepest value; she who lures me to complete my dream, to enter a new dream of fulfillment and wholeness. She is projected so powerfully on a character outside of me that I am compulsively attached to HER as my salvation, unattainable that she might be. I am convinced this is not a dream. In this reality she is outside of me, not me. Without her, I am doomed.

The truth is, if I had her, I wouldn’t know what to do with her. I could never trust that she was really wanting me, the unlovable, the unwantable. I’d be terrified; I’d surely enter the triangle dream.

In that nightmare, I am haunted by other men—worthy men, real men who will steal her away. In that dream there is always the third character; he who reflects all that I am not, all that she wants. Am I a real man or simply a boy in the nursery, seeking mother’s comfort, fantasizing about becoming a knight and winning the fairytale princess?

The men in that dream are all mirrors of my personal shadow: reflections of conflicts, complexes, and potentials I’ve yet to discover within myself. Can I awaken to the truth that the real work is in lifting the inner veils of old beliefs within myself to discover who I really am? Can I take full possession of my shadow self, slay the dragon of the nursery, and enter a new dream, individuated, fully owning the gold of my inner princess; perhaps ready to fully awaken from my old dream, to have an amazing relationship with a real person outside my personal dream.

Face the dream, release the dream...dream on...

This imaginary dream is but one in a thousand personal dreams we find our lives encased in. We are all Narcissus, narcotically staring at our reflections in the pools of our personal dreams. We spend our lives fully acquainting ourselves with the dramas of those dreams, painted on the faces of the world. We are all offered moments of awakening: opportunities to discover our truths and our personal myths. Can we claim our full stories, our full selves and move into amazingly new possibilities—new dreams, new lives?

Hopefully, not asleep at the wheel,
Chuck

A Day in a Life: Face the Chaos & Question Everything

We must all make personal decisions that are right for us, but we must also challenge our selves to go beyond our limitations. We must ask ourselves: What is the possibility that I may be getting this wrong, that I am not seeing something? What am I missing? We must all take personal responsibility for our lives, for how we interpret our experiences, and how we ultimately decide to view and live in the world.

During my three-year long intensive recapitulation, I learned how to question not only the reality that I was encountering from my past, but also how I was going to interpret it this time around. Could I really trust that what came to greet me out of old forgotten memories had really happened? How could I embrace the truth of what I was learning about my childhood? How could I take it all in and move on to a new interpretation of what it meant when what I was reliving was often so devastatingly overwhelming that some days I could not even get out of bed?

I learned how to question everything. This was the only way I was going to get through the recapitulation of traumatic events from my childhood that had held me so tightly in their embrace for decades, though I had little or no inkling of this fact. I knew little about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the tentacles of trauma that infiltrate every aspect of a person’s life until finally faced. For the most part, I felt that I was not really living life as I sensed it could be lived, but I did not know why until I elected to take the recapitulation journey. When I began to allow old memories to surface I had to face old judgments, prejudices of self and others, truths and lies that were incredibly uncomfortable to confront, disassemble and release myself from.

The entire time I worked through this recapitulation process I also disassembled the world as I knew it, the outer world as well as the inner world—one could not hold up without the other. As I deconstructed the old self, I found that I could not live in the same world that the old self had constructed. Recapitulation meant a total disintegration of the self I had been. So, as a result, who I thought I was and how I viewed the world all changed as I plodded along, chipping away, day by day, at what I thought was reality.

Some days I would wake up in such pain that I immediately wanted to seek medical advice, but at the same time I knew there was nothing in the conventional medical world that would help the somatic experiences that my body was telling me I had to go through. There were times when I did indeed need to go to the doctor, like the time I had Lyme disease and could not walk or think properly. There were other times when what was buried inside produced real physical symptoms that needed attention, though I knew they originated from something deep inside me looking for a way out, like the time I had skin cancer. I knew it was not related to sun exposure, but to the unknown stuff that was putrefying inside me, needing release. I had to learn to distinguish between these issues by questioning the reality of my situation and determine how to address them, taking full responsibility for my choices along the way.

As I faced some very painful memories, I had to learn how to let myself be taken into other worlds, knowing that I had the power within to face the truth that those worlds were indeed as much reality as the everyday world that was looking more and more unreal to me. As I recapitulated, I learned, by taking one incremental step at a time, how to be an observer as well as a participant in those alternate realities. In strengthening my inner conviction to complete the task my body was laying out for me, calling me to, I found that I had within me more than enough personal power to face the challenges presented and change the way I experienced everything.

I learned to question everything too; from the physical symptoms I was experiencing to the way I thought. I let myself learn, through the process of recapitulation, to perceive reality differently—reality being all the conventions I had been taught and adhered to, all the beliefs and ideas that kept the world in order. I allowed myself to blow apart everything that held me together. In the end it was my salvation. It not only changed the way I viewed the world, but it changed the way I viewed my place in it.

What am I really here for? What is it that I must do in this lifetime? I knew I was not here for a selfish reason, that to be eternally depressed and self-absorbed was not going to cut it in the long run. I knew that I was no longer going to be able to hide, to isolate myself in a private world of make-believe. I faced the deepest kind of isolation and make-believe during my recapitulation process and found that they no longer granted me anything of substance, though at one time they had been the backbone of my entire existence.

In constantly questioning the true meaning of my life throughout the recapitulation process, I learned that the main thing I was being asked to do was to break down, literally. I had to deconstruct my entire being, inside and outside, into tiny pieces that I then had to sift through before finding the proper way to reconstruct those pieces into new pictures. As I broke down the past, I also learned how to break down the present and, in so doing, be open to a new kind of future.

I know that all of this may sound very esoteric and impossible to do in the context of a very busy life, with all that we must encounter each day to simply survive, but it is not that difficult if one is committed to change. From personal experience, I can say that the recapitulation process is one of total reevaluation of self and world, leading to the ability to take full responsibility for both. It means taking on the challenge to committing to change with a conviction that defies all other methods.

Perhaps the most helpful part of the entire recapitulation experience, a simple statement that not only anchored me as I entered the darkest and most complicated issues of self and world, was this one: Question reality. Chuck said this to me on more than one occasion.

One day it came up in our conversation as the most meaningful of statements and the next day I was driving behind a car that had an enormous bumper sticker plastered across its fender saying the same thing in large letters: QUESTION REALITY. I could not ignore that it was exactly the right message. In continually questioning reality, I was able to not only face my darkest moments but re-envision them in the context of a new world, a world that I was totally in alignment with, having allowed it to form out of my deepest inner process.

I wish for all people to have a new world vision, but it can only happen by facing the world that we have constructed. This is what we are facing now as a nation and as a global world, but most importantly, personally. We are facing the reality we have created, trusted, and believed in. But now we must re-envision it. It is time to see it for what it is: a reality of exploitation, distrust, greed, selfishness, with little regard for human, animal and natural life. Are we really so heartless?

How can we re-envision a just and right world for all? In questioning reality as it now stands, breaking down the rules and dogmas we have lived by, facing the truth that we are all responsible for everything that has happened and is happening by our adherence to old ideas, tactics, and habits, we can begin to change.

We must all change. This, I believe, is the only way for us to evolve. But even change must be radically different from the means of change as enacted in the past. It is not enough to reinsert new rules that uphold an old order. It is time to face the chaos. Only in facing the chaos within will we be able to face the chaos without. If we don’t do that we will simply reassemble what we have already discovered does not work. We must indeed question everything about ourselves; about the worlds we live in, and ask ourselves to face the truth of the existence we have constructed.

Why am I really here? Personally, I continue to face that question each day as I read, write, meditate, and break through the conventions that arise. The old world will never give up on me; it will continue to pose its side of the story. But I must face it and ask: Are you the reality I wish to live in? The answer that always comes up is a resounding: No.

Still questioning everything,
Jan

#749 Practice Remembering

Written by Jan Ketchel and including a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

After a couple of weeks of muddled energy when tempers flared and there seemed to be little clarity in spoken words, no matter how concise, I feel a new sense of energy, vital, clearly present and alive. I feel that I am often strongly connected to what is happening in the cosmos, feeling it energetically, though I find it hard to keep track of what planet is in what alignment with what. Just feeling it is enough to realize that a time of shift is necessary, whether I like it or not, and I know I must accept the push to attend to personal issues. This has been the case lately.

Now I feel a shift away from the volatile and into the simmering and, as we begin a new week, I ask Jeanne to give us a message of guidance as we enter this new phase, in the cosmos as well as in our everyday lives on this earth. My awareness warns me not to settle back into an old rut, not to become complacent or lazy now that the intensity has waned, but to remain alert to the truths learned, moving forward with them. I believe we are still in a time of meaningful transition and will be for the rest of our lives. Can you comment, Jeanne?

My Dear Ones: Indeed, it is not at all time to settle back, either into old ways or into rest, but to continue pointing in that new direction that has been revealed to you.

During a time of revelation, as has been the situation among you, it is equally important to carry through once the blazing light of clarity and truth has dimmed or been withdrawn. When darkness descends at the end of the day, that which was revealed in the light of day remains. Keep this in mind as you forge ahead in your lives.

Truths once revealed remain clearly true. Do not lose sight of them, but keep them close to your hearts. Carry what you have learned forward now, whether it be a personal issue, a universal issue, a political issue, a deeply necessary issue of self truth, or even an enlightening process of spiritual worth, not necessarily everyday stuff nor meant for others to share. Whatever your revelation has been, the next step in the process is to keep it uppermost in your attention, allowing it to remain apparent in your awareness. For you all need the light of revelation to guide you as you go into the darkness.

The darkness always returns, but after each time of revelation it is not as dark as it was previously.

Today, I suggest that a practice of remembering be instituted. Call to mind what you have lately learned about the world, about the self, keeping the bitter truths alongside the beautiful truths, and do not forget what has been revealed to you.

Your process throughout your life is to remember. There is much to be recalled, the ancient and unknown not the least of it by far. But even each ordinary day, news is delivered to your awareness and your process is to not only notice it and learn from it, but to assimilate what you become aware of so you can evolve, never forgetting it.

I turn now to a final note: Your main purpose in life is to remember why you are there, and to figure out what direction to go in. You are both looking backward and forward simultaneously, your soul intent on learning and exploring to the fullest. Why you are there, understanding your reason to the fullest requires constant contact with the outer world, for it presents you with your evolutionary potential. In other words, there is much life ahead of you in the world you live in.

Learn from where you have already been, accepting the truths of the self, in order to face and truly explore your future. The doors are always wide open, in both directions, whether it is time to turn inward to explore or outward to explore. It is up to you to accept the terms of your personal adventure. I say, go for it. There is nothing to lose and only joy and truth to gain.

Living fully takes a certain amount of detachment, but that is another subject. For now, accept who you are, where you are, and find out why you are there at this moment, but don’t ever stop changing and growing. That is the challenge all must face. No matter what the energy outside of you is proposing, seek always to remember:

I am an evolving energy being and I elect to fully live!

Thank you Jeanne! Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message in the post/read comments section below. Also check out our facebook page at: Riverwalker Press on facebook. And thank you for passing the messages on!

Most fondly and humbly offered.