Tag Archives: suspend judgment

Chuck’s Place: Compulsion

January 27, 2012 Chuck Leave a comment

Photo by Jan — Pulse=Heartbeat=Life force

If we fractionate the word compulsion into its component parts, com-puls-ion, we arrive at its literal root meaning: the condition of being with a pulse. A pulse is generated by a heartbeat. Where there is a heartbeat there is a living thing—a compulsion is a living thing with a life of its own.

When we experience a compulsion we are contending with an independent life force active within ourselves. Our conscious minds are challenged to become aware of the needs, habits, and expectations of this compelling life force we house within us, to cave to it or allow for its influence upon our lives, and, ultimately, to discover who or what it is, why we have it, and finally reach a reconciliation with it.

Long before we discover the who and why of a compulsion, we must deal with its power and pressure; its coursing pulse energetically demanding that we do something for it.

“I want _____!” it demands.

If we fill in the blank it might be that it wants food, wine, sex, objects, a job, activity, thought, feeling, or behavior. The categories are endless, but the common thread is consistent: a compulsion wants something from us; it insists we acquiesce to its demands and spend our lifetime and energy on its agenda.

Our first challenge is to become aware that we are under the spell of a compulsion and then suspend judgment that we are the compulsion or that we are flawed because we have it. Those kinds of judgments drain our energy and distract us from managing this “Not-I” within.

Our first goal is to stand up to the compulsion with the message: “I don’t know who you are or why you are here, but I’m willing to find out and see how I might help you or fit you into my life, but I refuse to be trammelled by your demands anymore! I come in peace, I come with respect, I come to reconcile with you, but I also come with firmness. I will not allow you to take control of my life without my consent.”

Many an author has expressed that the books “they” have written are actually the artifacts, the by-products of a reconciliation with their inner “Not-I;” compulsions that are given life in the stories they need to tell. Often, once the book is complete, the compulsion is satisfied and life, previously galvanized by the compulsion, is released to be enjoyed by conscious goals.

Compulsions may also be the artifacts of our genetic history. Perhaps, at the level of our collective inheritance, we house an artist, a musician, a drunk, a thief, a liar, or a philanderer. Again, we must suspend judgment and suspend victimhood if we are to directly encounter the “Not-I” of our inheritance. Our challenge, with our genetics, is to decide what we will give life to and what we can finally master and put to rest.

Perhaps it is our turn to solve the challenge of an addiction or compulsion that has dogged our ancestry for generations—it’s our turn, our chance, to bring things to resolution and closure. It’s not our fault we have an addiction or compulsion, it’s our opportunity to solve it or finally realize it, as in the case of letting the artist or musician in us finally live.

Sometimes compulsions are, in fact, living parts of our “I,” hidden from consciousness due to traumatic splintering. Often, in this case, the compulsion becomes the voice, the language of a hidden truth, as it pressures the conscious self to recognize it and bring it home in acceptance. This can lead to great confusion for the conscious mind, as it must contend with impulses, interests, and desires it deems unacceptable or destructive. If these influences are decoded as the hidden truths of life already lived, they take on a different meaning and can lead to inner reconciliation through healing dialogue.

Active imagination is a powerful tool that Jung devised to meet and reconcile the inner “I” and “Not-I.” In active imagination we welcome our inner parts—those we house consciously and those we house unconsciously—to meet us in open dialogue. We don’t speak for the compulsion; we allow the compulsion to speak freely, though not act freely. Action is off the table at this point. Action must be a conscious decision, made in sobriety, when all truths have been revealed. This must be the stance of consciousness toward all inner parts: “I’ll listen fairly to anything, but I reserve full decision making power over action. However, I will acquiesce to right action.”

In this circumstance, a compulsion is offered respect and allowed to fully state its case. The final disposition of its needs may be quite challenging and may ultimately find life in fantasy and story, but not in the world of everyday life.

The full realization and reconciliation of all that we are and all that we house is quite mysterious and worthy of a lifetime—a true lifetime achievement award. Compulsions are living forces within us that, when properly understood and reconciled, are major contributors to a life fully lived.

From the beat,
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Going Out Of My Mind & Loving It!

January 25, 2012 Jan 1 Comment

Once, a long time ago, when I was explaining to Chuck how I had gone out of my body, frightened that I was losing my mind, he blurted out with a big laugh: “It’s good to go out of your mind!” Anyone who works with Chuck will hear him say this at some point.

Every time he said this, it shook me. Every time I had another out-of-body, out-of-mind experience, I’d hear his voice telling me that it was good, that I should just let it happen, as often as possible. I could hear him telling me to keep training myself, in a shamanic sense: to let go of the constructs of this world by releasing my mind from attaching to them.

I knew he was right, but it took me a long time to be comfortable with letting myself go out of my mind. Now I can’t wait. Each day, as I sit and meditate, I await the moment of release from the things my mind grasps at. Sometimes I’m able to easily free myself, at other times I must sit for a long time as I work through the cogitations of my mind.

So what does that really mean, to lose the mind? In a shamanic sense, it means letting go of our judgments, our critical voices that tell us we cannot possibly be having this experience. It means shutting down our attachments to the known world and allowing ourselves to experience something outside of our body and our brain, momentarily forgetting everything our scientists, our religions, our parents, our teachers have told us is possible. It means freeing ourselves, even momentarily, from all that we perceive as real, tangible, and solid, and just letting ourselves have the experience.

Losing the mind in this way is a very sought after shamanic move, as Chuck always taught me. When Chuck suggested that I lose my mind as often as possible, he was asking me to face the dissolution of this world, this reality, and everything that I had been attached to my whole life. This went far beyond thoughts and perceptions. In fact, it extended even to letting go of the experiences themselves as anything to attach to. It took me a long time to understand this as well. Why wouldn’t I want to attach to those most amazing and transformative experiences?

In fact, Chuck was suggesting that, rather than seek out the experiences themselves, what I wanted was the enhanced awareness they offered. When we allow ourselves to lose our minds, we offer ourselves glimpses into infinity, glimpses of greater awareness. As we allow ourselves to have experiences that are out of the ordinary, we allow ourselves freedom from the attachments that hold us back in our daily lives too.

I had always had magical experiences in my life, but they got dismissed because of course they could not be true. They just could not happen in the world I lived in. But once I learned of the mystical experiences of the saints of my Catholic school upbringing, I had an inkling that in certain circles such phenomena were totally acceptable. But how would I ever be in a position to discuss such things? Even the Catholic Church, though it reveres such experiences, does not do so easily. It was in talking to Chuck about the shamanic view of the world that I finally found such experiences valued. What he described offered explanations for everything I had experienced, allowing me to release my lifelong fears that I was just plain crazy.

Under Chuck’s tutelage, I learned to balance the mystical experiences of my spirit while living in a world of solid objects and solid declarations of reality. In my inner world, I knew that reality did not work the way I had been taught. My spirit had always sought a far greater worldview. It had already experienced a world without boundaries, without limitations, without judgments. However, greater acceptance that such a world was actually a viable reality and fully accessible was not a process that happened overnight. It took a lot of work and incremental acceptance of a new sense of reality, based on my personal experiences.

In learning shamanic concepts, my psychic experiences, my meditation experiences, my magical, out-of-body experiences found a home, in a place of deep resonance. And that is when I learned that the experiences alone are not meant to be attached to, as Chuck had once suggested. For a time they were deeply meaningful—present and necessary to aid in growing—though eventually they wore thin. And then, the only thing that mattered was what came next to challenge me. It was in this manner that I began to understand that it was not the experiences themselves that were important in the long run, but just how open I could be to keep going, to keep changing myself, and to keep breaking through my attachments to a known world.

Every day I ask the universe to lead me, to teach me, to show me something important, to challenge me to let go of my mind, my self-importance, my grasping, needy, ignorant self. I ask that I learn from my experiences, and then I ask that I be freed from those experiences so that I can be open to another, and another, and another, with the intent that I never cease growing.

What am I to learn today? What am I to be shown; what gift of experience will I be offered? And can I accept it? Can I use it to go to a new level of my life on this earth, and enhance my spiritual awareness as well?

The world is now a far larger place, extending far beyond the mind and body, beyond what is real, as I have embraced a new idea of self as energy driven by a spirit that does not want to return to slumber. Real, to me, is no longer restricted to what others have taught me is real, but is open to interpretation. Real is what I experience. And that kind of real is enough for me.

To those who seek greater awareness, I humbly pass on what I have learned, as I ask myself to constantly face my ignorance and continue on this same path of enlightenment: Be open. Let your experiences come to you and, without judgment, release yourself from the cogitations of the mind. Come back to the world you live in more firmly grounded, more balanced in spirit and body, with a greater awareness of the possibilities that exist for you.

Your experiences will be uniquely yours, as mine are mine. But remember, the possibilities in this world are endless. Seek without grasping; experience will seek you.

Offered most humbly,
Jan

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Life Flows Without Judgment

August 5, 2011 Chuck Leave a comment

Life is a flow of energy. Judgment is a freeze frame of that flow of energy—an attempt to understand and value it—but clearly, judgment is not life. Life flows; judgment is static.

Photo by Chuck — Life flows... and flutters...

Don Juan Matus pointed out that human beings are perceivers, perceivers of the flow of life energy. He hypothesized that human beings went on to become judgers because it was an efficient way to manage the challenging dimension of life energy. Don Juan believed that the ability to quickly interpret and categorize energy in solid form gave our ancestors an advantage in defending themselves.

We can experience this today by simply walking in the road. We might see a flutter of movement in the distance. We then quickly judge that movement to be a skunk or possibly a rabid raccoon. With this in mind we plan our approach. Funny how many treacherous leaves and fallen pieces of bark I’ve encountered as I’ve approached these flutters in the distance—the dangerous jungle of the street I live on!

Carl Jung, like don Juan, agreed that human beings are perceivers who perceive through the functions of sensation and intuition. Don Juan would likely call these functions organs of direct knowledge—knowledge obtained independently of the mind.

For Jung, the ego, or the mind, develops the discriminatory functions of thinking and feeling to decide what things are and what value they have. These are the freeze frame functions of judgment, the solid interpretations of energy that don Juan spoke about. With judgment we create exhaustive categories of what life is, how it works, and also assign all this knowledge a place in our lives.

In the modern world, the judgment functions and their host, the mind, have become so dominant that the channels to direct knowledge are lost, devalued, and even ridiculed.

How often do we ask our bodies directly what they need using our innate sensation function? More likely we must research the latest study or be told by a professional what our bodies need. How did our ancestors ever know what to eat before we had science and Science Diet!

Intuition is vision into that which can’t be seen—a direct tapping into the flow of life energy. Intuition completely bypasses the mind. The rational, judging mind has little use for intuition, as it only deals with solid facts—the freeze frames of life’s flow of energy.

What I observe is that life continues to flow regardless of how we judge it. Life is, forever and anew, approaching us with both challenge and support. Challenge may come in the form of loss and deep trauma and support may come in the synchronicities of guidance and encouragement, presented in signs all around us.

Most of the time, life energy is moving us along in the most amazing ways. Unfortunately, because we are dominated by the judging functions of the mind, we miss the magic always active in our personal lives.

I constantly notice how bogged down we become in feeling bad about ourselves. We miss how the daily events of our lives unfold in such a meaningful and helpful way. Even more amazing is how we are continuously supported in our growth and evolution, in spite of the negative judgments we daily place upon ourselves.

Life continues to both challenge and support us regardless of how brutally we judge ourselves or how low our self-esteem. The real problem is not in our flow of energy but in our judgments. Often our judgments are so fixated that they refuse to take in the reality of the life we are actually living. Our judgments generate a negative interpretation regardless of the facts.

It seems as if we fear that if we truly accept ourselves as acceptable to life, we will invite the wrath of some higher power to level us. The fact is that bad things happen to good people and bad people alike. Life happens as it will. Energy will flow regardless of our judgments.

Judgment has no control over life. Judgment does, however, have control over what we allow ourselves to see and know about the lives we are actually living. Judgment is the ultimate spin-doctor.

If you judge yourself to be bad or a failure today, life will still bring you supportive energy tomorrow. Life is deaf to judgment. The real question is whether you will be able to be aware of the wonder of the day and the amazing gifts being offered. All that judgment does is fog the screen, but beyond the fog life continues to both challenge and embrace without judgment.

Can you suspend judgment and show up for the real show? And, even if you can’t allow yourself to get too close to the real show yet, life continues to challenge and embrace you anyway. The truth is, you are wanted by life to live and explore fully. It’s why it brought you here, as the eyes and soul of ever-evolving infinity.

Without judgment,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Present Without Props

June 17, 2011 Chuck Leave a comment

The female cohorts of Carlos Castaneda would laugh mysteriously as they described Carlos’s romance with knowledge. He would lie down and cover his body with books, literally absorbing knowledge through their many points of contact with his body. Carlos had released the prop that reading must happen through the eyes only; he suspended judgment and opened to new channels of learning within himself.

Oftentimes, during recapitulation, people begin to experience all kinds of physical sensations at different places inside and on the outside of their bodies. These sensations can be so unexpected and powerful that many times medical consultation is sought. Once cleared of medical etiology another possibility may be considered. Perhaps the sensation is an active communication of knowledge from some other point on the body self. Perhaps the recapitulation has opened the channels to knowledge that may have been stored by the body self some fifty years ago. Perhaps the body self is inviting us into the full knowledge of the experiences of our life lived through direct sensorial experience.

This is very often the case in recapitulation; a united effort by the body self to fill in the blanks in our memory of life already lived. This experience of recapitulation, whether intentionally sought or unintentionally triggered, asks us to drop the prop of our rationality that tells us that the body neither stores memory nor communicates independently of the mind.

How terrifying it can be to stay fully present and absorb this body of knowledge! The body generally “speaks” through direct sensorial experience that can range from pleasure to overwhelming pain. Often, if we allow ourselves to take the sensation journey with our body, channels may open to smells, temperature, and sounds, as well as triggering images, scenes, and eventually full movies of forgotten experience. The overall experience can range from subtle to riveting—the roller coaster of a lifetime.

Intimacy, in relationship, might also be defined as staying present without the props. How deeply might we allow ourselves to stare into each other’s eyes? How accepting might we be of sitting with each other, fully present, in utter silence? How long before the mind provides a thought to be discussed, a prop of distraction to create conversation, abstraction in place of presence? Can we not do the routines that have formed the crust and definition of our relationship—the props of habit—and open ourselves to new truths of who we are or who our partner is?

Finally, can we be fully present with ourselves, occupying the seat of the observer? Can we let go of the props of music or voice at the ear, computer or TV in the eye, food or drink in the mouth, book or cell phone in the hand?

Can we simply be present without judgment, unattached to thought, experiencing sensation and energy as it flows in the body? Can we notice the sound and vibration of energy? Can we allow it to deepen? Can we journey with it, uninterrupted by props?

Let’s see what happens!
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Crow Energy

March 9, 2011 Jan 1 Comment

I set my intent a long time ago to become psychically aware, not to become a psychic per se, but to become aware of the signs and synchronicities in my life that were showing me things I might not have noticed without this intent uppermost in my process of transformation. Today, I write about the significance of the crow as a sign of this intent manifesting in the world. As Jeanne mentions in her message on Monday, we must use the outer world to the fullest in order to grow, and I have found this to be one of the truest statements and especially useful in doing inner work.

In his book Animal Speak, Ted Andrews says this about the crow:

“The first noticeable characteristic about this bird is its striking black color. Sometimes it will have hints of deep blue and purple on the feathers as well. Black is the color of creation. It is the womb out of which the new is born. It is also the color of the night. Black is the maternal color and thus the black night gives birth to a new day. Although the crow is a diurnal or daytime bird, it reminds us that magic and creation are potentials very much alive during the day. The crow, because of its color, was a common symbol in medieval alchemy. It represented “nigredo,” the initial state of substance—unformed but full of potential.”

As I wrote about last week, in recounting our experiences with the death of our dog in On the Wings of the Crow, a crow made repeated passes over the house, a sign I noted as the energy of our dog moving on to new life, the transformation from one state of being to another. Had I not been deeply immersed in the process of my original intent—to become more aware—I might have missed the opportunity to round out the experiences of that day in such a satisfying and transformational manner.

The crow has continued to show itself. In fact, in our rural neighborhood, crows are some of our most vocal neighbors, posting themselves as sentinels for other crows and birds, but for their human neighbors as well. I have learned to pay attention to the noisy crows. More often than not, if I hear a racket of crow energy I can be pretty sure that something of interest is happening in nature. If I am alert, I know I will be treated to a little magic. Paying attention to the crows has become one of my personal educational processes as I seek to train my awareness, so it was not unusual for me to take note of the cawing crow outside the window on the day of Spunky’s death.

It was lovely to have the warmer weather over the weekend, rainy though it was. The twenty-four inches of snow still covering the ground, having accumulated since last December 26th, melted away as we watched the winter weary lawn reappear and the first green tips of the daffodils peak up from the cold ground, letting us know that spring was not far off. It was drizzling a little on Saturday, though warm enough to be outside for a nice long walk, but then, on Sunday, it rained—torrentially. The wind blew all day and all night, and then the rain changed to freezing rain and then it started to snow. In the middle of the night I heard the loud cracks of branches breaking in nearby trees and ice crystals pelting against the windows. Up at five-thirty we were astounded to see the ground covered, blanketed in snow again, our hopes of an early spring dashed.

Once again I armed myself with my trusty snow shovel and headed out late in the day on Monday, after a full day’s work, to clear what snow remained on the driveway and pathways. It was still cold, only the top layer of snow had melted during the day and I was left to remove the thick layer of ice I had heard falling through most of the night. I was not feeling especially happy about undertaking this task yet again, now getting quite tiresome after a full winter of weekly snowstorms. But the sun was shining and when I looked up into the branches of the oaks and maples the late afternoon light coming through their ice-covered branches was beautiful against the still blue sky. Squinting into the light, the glistening branches turned into thin fingers of refracted light and rainbows of color danced before my eyes, and this lightened my mood considerably and the work wasn’t so hard after all.

A big black crow flew overhead, cawing loudly, as I shoveled and I noted its presence and once again thought of our dog Spunky and an incident that happened just a few days after her passing. I had gone to the woodpile to get a load of wood for the woodstove. Stepping out the basement door I heard something scrambling on the other side of the woodpile, out of sight. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it sounded big. I thought an animal was most likely rooting through the compost pile, taking frozen bits of food scraps, scrounging for something edible. I surmised it had been a hard winter for the animals with the thick frozen snow cover and so I did not want to disturb whatever might be feasting on whatever our frozen scraps could offer.

I quietly crept up to the woodpile, but whatever it was must have heard me coming, for I heard a quick scurrying. Not knowing what to expect, a little wary, I waited to see what might appear. Suddenly, I heard a heavy shuffling and a loud bark, as a large crow spread its heavy wings, staggered off the compost pile, and flew into a nearby tree. It landed on a branch, turned and looked back at me, cawing loudly, almost barking, its body bobbing up and down, looking and acting very much like a dog vigorously barking an excited greeting.

“Oh! Hello there, Spunky!” I said, without hesitation. “Nice to see you again. I see that you are well.” The crow responded with more happy barking caws as it watched me load up my wood sack with logs and, as I turned and headed back into the house, I noted that one of Spunky’s favorite little outings was to sneak off to munch at the fresh compost, rotting banana peels one of her favorite treats.

As I shoveled the driveway, I noted again the large crow, and acknowledged its presence as that of the energy of Spunky: energy transformed, still viable, still present, still seeking connection. I also noted that I no longer feel doubt creeping into my experiences as I did in the past. For the longest time doubt was the greatest petty tyrant and I was forced to deal with it again and again. In my interactions with Jeanne, in my personal encounters with phenomena of energy and magic, it would immediately sweep in and hurry me back to the world of solid reality, asking me to test my experiences against the rational mind, what the seers of ancient Mexico call the foreign installation. It took a long time and many battles against the foreign installation, against the world of solid objects, before I was able to suspend judgment and fully release my attachment to an old perception of reality and fully embrace a different reality, different means of perception, and finally to release myself from my ego’s embarrassment and dismay at the birthing of my psychic abilities.

Now however, after having dealt doubt so many deadly blows, it rarely creeps up on me. Now freed of its heavy depressing cloak of reality I can fully enjoy the magic of the world I elect to live in, the world of all nature. I can look into the magic of light dancing through the ice-covered branches of the trees and hear the barking crow and connect to the energy of all things, myself included.

Every time I go outside now there seems to be one large black crow calling more loudly than the others. I greet its energy and thank it for showing me once again that my intent to notice is working for me, my desire to understand the interconnectedness of all things is being given priority within that intent and that desire, and I thank my innocent self for taking the journey that has allowed me to get to this place. For I feel free now, open to life in a very different way. Without the petty tyrant of doubt I am indeed free to experience the magic, but I am also free to keep taking it one step further, into deeper awareness.

Open to learning more about how the world of energy works, I look forward to each moment of each day, taking note of what I read, what I hear and see, and how in alignment with nature I am becoming. In noting how synchronicity works, in paying attention to what comes to greet me, I continue training my awareness, my psychic abilities; the ability inherent in all of us.

I take the sign of the crow as meaningful and I listen to what it has to tell me. As Ted Andrews also writes about the crow:

“Wherever crows are, there is magic. They are symbols of creation and spiritual strength. They remind us to look for opportunities to create and manifest the magic of life. They are messengers calling to us about the creation and magic that is alive within our world everyday and available to us.”

Be open to the magic, and without doubt embrace your own psychic abilities; take note of what life presents, and without fear embrace the energy of interconnectedness.

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below. And don’t forget to check out our facebook page at: Riverwalker Press on facebook. And you might also note the synchronicity of the quote for the day on our facebook page that Chuck selected, quite in alignment with what I have written about today, unbeknownst to both of us. Synchronicity in action!

Thanks for reading and passing these blogs on to others! Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

NOTE: Animal Speak by Ted Andrews, and many other books of interest are available for purchase through our STORE.

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR