Thoughts and ideas have power. What you hold onto manifests in your life. What are you manifesting? Is it what you want? Can you let an old idea go and open to something new? Can you open to abundance rather than resist its attempts to enter your life? It comes from outside, yet something inside you must let it in and that something is trust. Try out a little trust today and see what the universe presents you with. It’s a heart centered practice. Can you open your heart, just a little, and trust that you will be safe and respected, gifted and accepted? What you want is right there waiting to be let in. Can you? Just a little? You never know until you try!
Let not your big heart close its doors but keep open and exchanging energies, for it is what the world needs now—heart centered goodness. In times of divisiveness look inward and ask your heart for answers to your difficult questions. Without fail it will give you the right answer, for the heart knows. Trust it.
“How did your innocence survive?” Chuck asked me. I reminded him of my childhood mantra: “It will soon be over; it will end.” I think that was my innocence speaking to me, the part of me that was ready to walk away as soon as possible and move on. Innocence gets bruised but it bounces back. “I always had that innocence in me; it never left me,” I finally concluded, “and that combined with my spirit certainly helped me survive.”
At our core resides our High Self, patiently waiting for us to notice… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
My spirit was strong; my innocence was intact. I knew I could trust them. They taught me that no matter what someone did to Me, the real Me, my innocent spirit was unreachable. That part of me resided elsewhere, separate from the physical, in what I now know as the High Self, untouchable and unaffected by everything that happened to my physical body. That High Self was fully available during my childhood.
That High Self held the memories of my abuse, however, and I just wasn’t really interested in them for most of my life, too painful and horrific to go near. So not only did I distance myself from that strong, innocent and knowing High Self, but I cut her off. I moved on. The farther I moved the more distance I gained from my past and my High Self too. I released myself into the world as best I could, but there was always a part of me that knew that I would one day return to that High Self.
Why do some people survive terrific abuse and others perish? Why do some people give up on themselves and others find the means to change and move on? Why do some people declare themselves hopeless and unworthy of change, while others forge ahead no matter their background or imposed limitations? Is it possible to impart a sense of survival to others? Can you really help another person?
There are many ancient teachings, and not so ancient ones too, that teach us how to find and recognize our High Self and how to work with it. And yet for me, it was never a question of finding or recognizing it, my High Self was always with me, always recognizably part of me, a participant in my life. Even when I had kept her at a distance I knew she was still there, waiting for me. Did I have something that others do not have? I don’t think so. It’s not something that’s unique to me; we all have access to our High Self, to the place where our strength and our innocence reside.
I believe we are all born into our present lives with everything in place, that children are fully equipped with language and wise knowing. When I was still a tiny child, perhaps about a year and a half old, I remember clearly thinking in full sentences though I could not articulate what I was thinking; I did not have the physical dexterity yet that would allow me to speak.
When I did finally learn to speak, my mother said that I spoke clearly and distinctly, in full sentences. My own children were the same way. I had the same experience when I learned to speak Swedish. I had lived in Sweden for about six months, daily listening, and when I finally dared to open my mouth and speak the words just poured out, once again in perfect diction. Complex thoughts are present from the moment of birth, I believe, and perhaps even before. Why not? Consciousness doesn’t need a body and neither does spirit.
Just suppose we all come into life from other lives fully equipped as intelligent, wise, and knowing beings. Life in this world is set up to erase our knowledge and educate us in the practices of the world we are born into. It’s as if our fully functioning hard drive is erased during our earliest years and new programs are downloaded into us. If we’re lucky the original programs didn’t fully erase but remain stored somewhere in our inner database, ready to be discovered or stumbled upon at a later date.
In my case, as is the case with many children, I happened upon this original database because of traumatic sexual abuse. Abuse became an opportunity for me to access the wise and innocent High Self who had once spoken to me through my infant’s mind, a voice of familiarity, immediately recognizable as someone I could fully trust. And so when I returned again to her during my recapitulation, I once again found that I could trust her, that indeed she had been eagerly awaiting my return.
With her along, my journey of recapitulation began to unfold in detail and all that I had kept at bay was relived until none of it bothered me anymore, until it was totally resolved and done with. This time I put it away for good. It stays in the recesses of my database, clicked on only when I want to go there. When Chuck asked me that question—How did your innocence survive?—I zipped into that database and recalled just what it was that had not only kept me alive but also optimistically certain of survival and new life.
In recapitulation we are given the opportunity to shed for good… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Certainly, as a child, I never gave up, though there were some pretty tough times and, as I returned to recapitulate, I would have to say the same, I never gave up, though there were some pretty tough memories to relive and issues to figure out and get through. It’s just who I am. A strong, wise and innocent spirit who never gives up, my High Self, lives at my core. For me the cup is always half full. I don’t think I inherited this trait, nor was it instilled in me, it’s just who I’ve always been. As I said above, everyone has this optimistic High Self, a similar spirit too. Why do some people have easier access to it, while others seem to struggle so deeply with even acknowledging its presence? Why are some people naturally optimists and others pessimists?
Viktor Frankl asked the same questions when writing about the survivors of Hitler’s concentration camps in Man’s Search for Meaning. Those who survived had a certain sense of self, access to a higher self, an awareness of spirit that kept them going, a certain optimism that things would change, that new life would one day come, that ultimately there was meaning in everything, even a worst case scenario.
When spirit is actively brought into participation in life there is a strong sense of never giving up, no matter how low one gets. No matter how ready one may be to die, there is a part of the self that will not surrender, that wakes up, sometimes at the last minute and says, “Stop! Wait!”
In the 2006 film Bridge people who survived suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge related that on the way down they instantly regretted the decision to jump. Does that mean that all suicides regret their decision? I don’t know, but the spirit inside all of us does a heck of job trying to get our attention. It works in mysterious ways, in uniquely personal and poignant ways. It pays to be alert, to learn how to look and listen for the clues to spirit. Not everyone will hear it as a voice. Not everyone will get a clear sign. Optimist or pessimist, however, we are all being prodded to find it. This is certain.
It’s the whole purpose of life, as I see it, to find and connect with our High Self at some time during our many lives and take everything to a new level. If not in this lifetime, at least know that each life is a step in the process. But can we elect to voluntarily move up to that High Self? I believe we can. It takes a little work, perhaps a recapitulation is in store, but first reaching out and paying attention may be enough of an awakening to begin the process.
The first step in the search for spirit and meaning in life might be as simple as putting out a call. Spirit guides are unanimous on this one, they are ready and waiting to be of assistance, but we must ask. Become a trusting child in the asking, become innocent, vulnerable and open. It’s really okay. Let go of self, of ego, of feeling silly and just do it. No one is watching you. You can relax and ask your spirit to come to you, just as you might have asked as a child. Did you believe in a guardian angel as a child, like I did? Ask your guardian angel to come to you if that feels right, or Jesus, or God, or the universe, or ask for Jeanne, the being that Chuck and I channel in our various ways, his first wife. Do whatever feels right.
Learn to sit quietly, as Chuck suggests in his blog this week, Finding the True Heart. Learn to listen to the heart, in the deeper heart chamber where spirit resides. A few breaths may be all it takes. A few minutes of calmness with attention placed on the heart chakra, with mind still, doubt recedes and things can happen.
Get out into nature. Sit on the ground by a tree, a plant, a bush and commune with the living organism before you. Sit calmly and begin to understand it, to feel it’s energy. In calmness communication opens up and you might just find yourself conversing quietly with your selected tree or bush or plant. Plant life can tell us a lot of things we’ve forgotten.
Commune likewise with an animal, a pet, a deer, a bird, a spider, a fly. See what happens as you send your heart chakra energy out to another living creature, as you silently commune from your innocent spirit self.
Lie under the night sky and feel yourself being drawn out into the universe, into infinity. Join the stars for a ride and see where they take you and what they tell you. The vastness of space lies above us every night. It’s mysteries might not be that mysterious once you open up to them, it’s emptiness not so empty, it’s vastness not so vast.
Communication is possible at all levels… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Ask your dreaming self to introduce you to who your spirit self really is, to take you to meet him or her, to teach you how to connect all the time in both waking and dreaming life. Intend to dream an answer to a question and see what happens.
Read some books that inspire you. Sometimes opening a book to a single paragraph might just be the thing to shift out of misery and into the mystical. If you don’t know where to begin, our Store offers a variety of selections.
After asking doubt may come, but that’s par for the course. The next step is to trust. Learn to trust as a child trusts. The innocent infant trusts that it will be taken care of. We must learn to trust that we are here for a reason, that there is meaning in our life and that we will find our way. As Chuck mentioned in his blog this week, once we open up to our spirit, our soul, we discover an expanded consciousness of which we are indeed a part.
We are physical beings, but the greater part of us is spirit, non-tangible and untethered to anything in this world, except what we choose to attach to. Connecting with spirit is the refusal to give attachment the final say.
Like the spreading branches of a tree we are all interconnected… in all worlds. Art by Jan Ketchel
I’ve been channeling Jeanne for more than ten years now. The process began during my recapitulation when she appeared to me and told me to trust her and to trust Chuck. She told me that everything would be okay and that after a three-year-long period of intense inner work I would arrive at a new place, that my life would make sense to me and my purpose be more fully revealed. Everything that she told me then and as the years unfolded has come to pass.
The issue of trust, specifically lack of, was the biggest challenge I had to face. It was at the core of my recapitulation process, the blockage that appeared again and again, pointing out just how deeply wounded I had been by what happened to me in childhood. It had controlled me and every decision and choice I made and I knew I could not let it stay in control. Jeanne pointed this out to me on the first night she appeared to me, stressing that the key to my success would be in learning to trust. She was absolutely right.
I soon discovered that trusting meant learning how to be okay in the world, how to not only trust others but myself and my experiences as well. It meant being confronted with issues of trust over and over again as my defenses slowly chipped away and as I let go, sometimes quite fearfully, of all that had once held me up and together. Without my defenses how could I possibly survive? How could I possibly trust anyone or anything when it had been ingrained in me at a very young age that I could trust no one?
The world was not a safe place; that was a given. Nothing and no one in the world offered safety. For most of my recapitulation I battled my inability to totally trust Chuck, who was by my side, taking the journey with me, and showing only the deepest respect and kindness toward me. Yet even into the third year of deep work the issue of trusting him would arise.
I would hear Jeanne telling me to trust him, to trust my experiences as being real, and to trust that all would be fine in the end. Her messages never changed; she patiently delivered them over and over again, whenever my fears and insecurities arose. Whenever I thought I was going crazy or having hallucinations she would tell me to trust them, that they were meaningful; they were showing me the way to healing. There I was talking to a discarnate being, going out of body while the world was cracking open inside and outside of me, revealing its intricacies and secrets, and yet as soon as I heard her soothing voice I would return to the new normalcy that was slowly constructing, a new life full of trust.
My channeling chair… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Once the recapitulation of my childhood was complete a new kind of trust became the challenge and the focus. I was challenged to trust my channeling connection with Jeanne and to take it forward, first to Chuck and then into the world as we struggled to figure out how best to use it and for what purpose. We sought meaning and value, nothing for ourselves, only the means to pass the messages along so that others might hear them.
Neither of us had read Jane Roberts back when her Seth books were all the rage in the 1970s. I didn’t even know about her and Chuck wasn’t interested. Funny that now we find our way to her through a series of synchronicities. So similar are our explorations to hers and her husband Rob’s, as they interacted with Seth and found the best way to meet him more fully and profoundly, that we could almost be reading about ourselves and this process that you are all part of.
Once again, trust comes into play. Can I let myself be completely open and just see what happens as we explore new methods of channeling? I lower myself into the mystery and wonder of it with slight trepidation, much as I lower myself into the cold swimming pool. I don’t hesitate too long though. I always know I’m going to go in, and so I push myself to let go of my fears, real or not, and join the cold water in a delightful embrace. Just as I throw myself into the cold water, so too am I pushing myself to dive into new explorations in channeling.
Those recent explorations have taken us to meet Saleph, River of Consciousness, the name of Jeanne in her wholeness, all her lives joined. She left it up to us to call her that or not and so we have been channeling Saleph for a few weeks now. Last weekend we had a personal conversation with Saleph that was very revealing. We discovered that Saleph delivers different messages from Jeanne.
We talked back and forth to each of them and discovered that Jeanne, being modern and known, responded with greater insight and connection to this world, while Saleph—whom I had felt was far away—responded with more esoteric responses to our questions. All of this made us realize that not only should we be channeling both of them, but also that I, my channeling self, had easy access to both of them simultaneously. I also discovered that I could switch in and out of trance rapidly and easily and that I too, Jan, could engage in the conversation. I don’t have to just be a channel. Once I realized that, it felt as if I had broken through a final barrier.
These explorations are broadening our understanding of what it means to channel and also how to embody it naturally all the time. This takes trust! I am not so bold or confident, I guess, as some channels. I have had to overcome my shyness and I care deeply that the messages be helpful and meaningful. I would never intentionally cause harm, and so I have been slightly afraid to be so open, afraid of what might come out, but I am trusting that in some way the words will always be right. I also know that I am safe too; I have been well trained to guard my energy and only use it when appropriate.
We are excited by these new discoveries and hope to involve you all in the unfolding process, bringing you new messages from both Jeanne and Saleph, in conversation with us too. The funny thing is that all we had to do was try out a few simple changes and be innocently open and trusting. Trust, it’s that important!
The evolving self will naturally rise to the challenge… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
I trust that all of you, our readers and listeners, will put trust to the test and see what happens in your own lives too. Releasing blockages through recapitulation enables for the process to flow, but keep in mind that setbacks are part of the process and should be respected and taken seriously.
Be gentle and firm, daring to dive into the cold water of recapitulation knowing full well that in that water you too will be safely embraced and given all that you need. In so doing you will learn what it truly means to trust. It’s all about trusting the self, finding safety in the world of the whole self, learning to trust all that you are and all the gifts you are given every day. Whether you view them as gifts or not upon receipt, as life unfolds you will eventually realize that they are gifts indeed! Trust that!
As Jeanne always says, “Everything will be fine!”
Jan
Written by Jan Ketchel and including channeled guidance from Jeanne Ketchel.
When I began my recapitulation journey, a life changing journey, I easily identified Jeanne as a main guide in my life when she appeared before me in a numinous experience that I could not have conjured up, nor fully comprehend, at the time. From that first appearance and as she reappeared again and again, I began to trust the experiences of her, whether in visionary or energetic form. Later I was able to identify other helpers as well, sometimes just unknown guiding voices that spoke clearly and soberly, offering me straightforward and pragmatic advice as I journeyed onward. But what I learned from Jeanne at the very beginning was the importance of continually allowing myself to trust the guidance I was receiving.
It was not an easy process. It entailed not only learning to trust the truth of the memories that were triggered and resurfacing almost daily, but also to trust the universe as a whole, learning that it was all I really needed in order to evolve. This was a major step in both learning how to let go and how to become more aware.
Jeanne says: All wisdom lies within. As a New Year begins it is time to more fully accept this fact, that you alone are enough, that you have within you all that it takes to learn to trust, to learn awareness, but also to learn what it means to truly love both the self and others. Only in learning these things will your wholeness be fully available to you.
She often told me, as I elected to go on a journey of total personal transformation, that all I had to do was trust, be open to the signs that appeared before me, but that to fully trust I had to learn how to let go of the old me. This meant letting go of my need to control everything in my life, in my everyday world, but also releasing control of my thoughts, emotions, feelings, and what came out of my unconscious. I had to learn to let the universe become my guide. This letting go was often as painful as the reliving of memories, but it was equally freeing and necessary.
Jeanne says: In learning to let go of the controlling self—both the known controlling self, the everyday self who acts and sees and relates to the prescribed world, and the unknown, hidden, controlling self who sits upon an inner throne and dictates and directs life as if it were a play—one begins to not only act and relate differently but one begins to perceive differently too. One becomes gradually more aware; aware that in letting go of controls one receives new life and new energy.
Letting go of the old self is part of the process of learning to trust, as I learned from my work with Chuck as my shaman guide in this world and Jeanne as my shaman guide in the world where awareness counts above all else.
Jeanne says: Awareness means being present in an uncommon way, in the form of heightened alertness to the world around you, fine tuning all your senses, but also the innate ones that all of you have buried deeply within. These innate senses are rejected by most Western cultures and thus become dormant, often never revived in a lifetime. In becoming a person of awareness, one asks these innate capabilities to awaken and guide one’s progress through life. In becoming a person of awareness, life will be perceived in a different manner, but this must become acceptable and that is where I stress learning to trust all that comes to greet you from outside and inside. It is only in learning to trust your experiences that you will understand what I am talking about. Life is meant to be experiential. And I do not mean only in the world you perceive every day, but in the worlds that you may not notice except only occasionally.
I learned to trust the guidance I received during the process of recapitulation, over time, as I plodded along one step at a time. I learned, by doing, to let go of preconceived ideas, of judgments, expectations, and really everything I thought was so important, indeed everything I had learned since infancy. I learned to reinvent myself in my own image.
In teaching the process of awakening and awareness, I must fully agree with Jeanne that the most important step is learning to trust your personal experiences, the experiences that life and your body offer, whether they are physical, mental, emotional, paranormal, numinous, psychic; any experience that shifts you, that jolts you out of yourself and your world, that unexpectedly throws you, exposes you or presents you with experiences of the sublime, the magical, the fearful, the darkness, God, the angels, clarity, enlightenment, etc. These are the experiences to pay attention to. They teach us how to trust and how to let go, so that we may have the opportunity to evolve if we so choose.
Another important lesson in learning to trust the universe in a process of transformation is learning patience. “All good things will come,” Jeanne always used to tell me, “just wait.” Sometimes that meant waiting patiently for years, holding onto the truth of time, keeping the inner light honed on moving forward, knowing that eventually everything would work out just fine. “When the time is right, when you are ready, when the universe is in the right alignment you will evolve to a new stage of life.”
As we begin this New Year I am going to be allowing the Monday channeling session to evolve, without preconceived format, to be open to what feels right to offer—conversations, tips, experiences, etc.—as each week brings something new. It’s a New Year, so it’s time for something new!
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