Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Wholeness

Leave a comment
Feeling a little overwhelmed? It's not that hard to change… a little new energy can go a long way! - Photo by Jan Ketchel.
Feeling a little overwhelmed?
It’s not that hard to change…
A little new energy can go a long way!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel.

We are all seeking our wholeness. That’s why we’re here. Everything we encounter, choose, and act out is part of our greater intent to achieve this wholeness. Everything that bothers us, makes us feel, makes us angry, fearful, bad, good, beautiful and alive is part of the challenge to get us in touch with our wholeness. If we begin to look at all aspects of life as necessary opportunities to aid us in achieving this wholeness, we might begin to view our lives as spectacular experiments.

Life as a spiritual craving for wholeness is not a new idea, but it encompasses more than our spiritual selves. As long as we reside in physical form then our physical bodies, encompassing our emotional, rational and feeling selves everything we do to our bodies, everything we challenge them to do, and everything that happens to them, becomes part of the whole experiment too. We must pay attention to what our bodies tell us.

At the same time, we must not be afraid to live. We must challenge ourselves to take up the cause, to fulfill our spiritual desires in a conscious and constructive manner. Our spiritual/physical vehicle seeks full life. I suggest making a concerted effort to stir up new energy, to pry ourselves out of our slumps, depressions, no-man’s-lands of isolation, our feelings of disconnect and aloneness, ridding ourselves of our ingrained thoughts of despair and self-condemnation, by intent—intent in the form of empowerment.

Do something to empower the self, in some way, every day. Even something small may be the thing to jolt us into a new kind of living, into valuing who we are, allowing who we know we are at our deepest level to emerge more fully into life. This is what our deepest self desires above all else, to be given permission to fully live. It’s the kind of process that involves testing and proving, so make a little effort, each day, to bring out the deeper self. In so doing, in my experience, we will be met in return with the spiritually seeking side of others. You’d be amazed, as one spirit talks to another, how alike, and how tender and loving we all are.

“I promise to do something, each day, to empower myself.” Setting this intent and then choosing one beneficial thing each day is a good way to begin. It might mean pushing aside our ideas that we are too busy, or too shy, or too unworthy to make a phone call on our own behalf. It might mean standing up for ourselves, feeding our bodies and souls with only the most nourishing and healthy foods and thoughts. Changing one behavior or thought about ourselves is the beginning of consciously taking over the experiment of this life, taking our journey to a new level. What are we waiting for?

Jan

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: Your Changing Self

Leave a comment

Here is this week’s channeled message from Jeanne. I asked for a short one, but I got a long one! -Jan

If the world outside of you has changed, you can bet something inside is seeking change as well… - Photo by Jan Ketchel
If the world outside of you has changed, you can bet something inside is seeking change as well…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Know yourself completely and honestly. To your fullest capabilities, allow the self to be humble and accepting of the failures and faults of others, knowing that you will not reconcile your outer relationships until you reconcile your own deepest fears and issues.

Know that you are not alone in your sorrows and your tribulations, but that there is always something or someone to aid you, guide you, and be present for you, if you are open, aware, and willing to receive.

Now is a time of great change, even upheaval. You may see it outside of yourself so clearly, though you may also be experiencing it inside in some form as well. All transformation arises out of turmoil, so do not dismiss the difficulties that now confront you, but push through them to the best of your abilities, with your inner world being the main focus. That is how to enact and use the turmoil of change.

Ask the self: What does all of this mean for me, personally, at my deepest level? What am I really being asked or confronted with? What is my spirit trying to tell me? What am I being shown, for me and my own growth? What revolution is brewing inside me?

When we take our attention off what is going on outside of us—with the world, with the people closest to us, and with what is happening within our daily lives—and focus calmly on our inner world, something important gets revealed. It is that important message that we must pay attention to, striking and even frightening though it may be, perhaps even posing drastic measures. We must ruminate and ponder our deepest knowing of what we are being shown as the next most important battle to wage within the self. Then we must call to action all of our inner resources to aid us in finally tackling that issue.

Whatever that issue is, My Dears, if you face it squarely and fairly, if you address it with honest forthrightness, without backing down, your future will be brighter. The turmoil, as I mentioned, must be weathered through for change to happen. Once you are in the energy of that change, then all of your resources and tools must be brought forth to keep you focused and in balance, in alignment with your spirit’s intent.

Is it not better to be in the turmoil of rightful change than locked in a prison? Is it not better to be on the road to freedom, though that road my be difficult, than caught in a trap? Is it not better to be flying ahead than falling backwards? These are some of the situations that must be pondered as you face your changing self.

Reluctant though you may sometimes be, accept your changing process a little more each day. Focus on the glimpses of light ahead that your spirit has already alerted you to. The future is not really that far off!

Take responsibility for the self, for where you find yourself now, and be guided, not by that which is outside of you, but by the honest truths inside you. Only you know what they are, and only you can choose to accept them and deal with them according to your spirit’s intent. And only you know what that is!

With love and compassion for the self and others, move into your changing form. Meet your spirit more fully each day, as you dare yourself to keep going!

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Human Change

Leave a comment
Are you ready to enter the portal of change... To consciously take the necessary steps? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Are you ready to enter the portal of change…
To consciously take the necessary steps?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

All life is subject to definite laws of change. The I Ching or Book of Changes, is a collection of significant archetypal scenarios that highlight those points of inevitable change. However, the I Ching also points out that though change is inevitable, we are free to make choices that set in motion their own flow of changes.

Freestanding water in an uncovered pot will eventually evaporate into the atmosphere. Such is the inevitable flow of change for this substance. I, in turn, could ignite a fire beneath that pot of water and thereby hasten an inevitable change by my intervention.

We are all beings who are going to die, this is inevitable. However, the choices we make in life may serve to shorten or lengthen the duration of our life, as well as determine the quality and fulfillment we will experience in human form.

Our animal contemporaries utilize the deep roots of accumulated archetypal wisdom to survive life on this planet. Animal decisions are rapid and automatic, involving little if any conscious deliberation. The human animal, with its latest development, the neocortex or rational brain, has, at least on the surface, parted ways with its internal instinctual animal knowledge. Google has become the warehouse of and vehicle to archetypal knowledge—one click away for conscious consideration and choice.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico, warn that this neocortex is not to be trusted as a worthy arbiter of decision making, going so far as to suggest its functioning has been commandeered by a foreign installation. We’d be hard pressed to argue that the decision making of the modern brain isn’t under the influence of some aberration, as it has so quickly put us on the brink of destruction!

Perhaps we are at a stage of evolution where our new cog, the neocortex, needs to run its course before it finds its rightful, modest place next to the archetypal wisdom and instinct we inherit largely from our animal selves.

We must also appreciate that life itself spawned this new possibility of effecting change more creatively by growing a neocortex to begin with. Life wants consciousness to participate alongside archetypal wisdom and instinct. We are at the stage now of discovering how to do that responsibly, hopefully before we destroy ourselves.

On an individual level, we are all charged with taking control of our lives with consciousness. We are change agents who must learn about and respect the ancient wisdom we inherit in our bodies—wisdom that guides decision making through image and emotion. To be responsible, we must, with consciousness, discover why our animal selves might react with fear, anxiety, attraction, or aggression. We must face, as well, habits we have fallen into that mollify but don’t truly satisfy our deepest needs.

We are often confronted in dreams by the images of powerful or weakened animals that reflect and communicate the reactions of our instinctual selves to daily neocortex decision making. If we take seriously these reactions from our deepest human nature, and apply them to the decisions and habits of our waking lives, we are free to introduce changes that could realign us, placing us in good balance to hasten boiling the water of our own spirit/body selves and facilitate our own transformation.

Such are the possibilities of human change!
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: How Do You Create A New Reality?

Leave a comment
The energy of change is around us and in us too! -Photo by Jan Ketchel
The energy of change is around us and in us too!
-Photo by Jan Ketchel

Change is constant. It accompanies us through our lives, abiding with us, challenging us, sometimes catching us unawares.

The past few days have brought winter weather—ice, freezing rain, snow. Suddenly the world is different and we have to meet it in a different way. We need heavy outerwear against the cold and wind, and perhaps snow shovels to clear a pathway. The seasons are a marker of change that we can all see and we seem to roll along with them just fine.

Sometimes, when we know we should change, and there is nothing outside of us helping us out, we have to help ourselves. Arleen Lorrance, the originator of The Love Project back in 1970, suggests that we create our own reality, consciously, rather than living as if we have no control over our lives. But just how do we create a new reality for ourselves?

I know a person, who at the age of 85, left the home she had lived in for 60 years, left her friends and nearby relatives, to move to a new town, into a small apartment in a place she barely knew. She challenged herself to embrace a new life. Granted, she had relatives in the same town, but she was going to be on her own. Five years later she still lives there, in a diverse community of people she never would have met, many of whom are now friends.

I know several young people who dared themselves to take on life far from home, in strange cities they knew little about, but they succeeded in getting jobs and apartments, made friends and created new lives for themselves. I know families that have decided to change, to move out of crowded cities into the countryside. Lots of people move every day, seeking a new reality.

Sometimes, however, we aren’t able to change so drastically. We have responsibilities and duties to others. We have jobs and bills to pay, homes to care for. Life goes on and we seem to just go along with it. We can get bogged down in the drudgery of the ordinary, the routines and schedules. We constantly replay the same messages to ourselves, many simply not true, that keep us in old places. Our thoughts get stuck in telling us what we can’t do, that we aren’t enough, or that we’ll never change. But, the truth is, we are changing all the time. Every day we are different in some way, just by virtue of life itself, cells changing, energy shifting without our awareness. Just in being alive we change, but even more empowering is to volitionally change, to take over our own lives. In fact, we can create a new reality for ourselves in some very simple ways.

One way to create a new reality is to create a new inner reality. We can begin by changing what we say to ourselves. We can change how we think. We can change how we view the world around us and the people in it. We can reject negativity and begin giving ourselves only positive words, thoughts, and viewpoints. We can even go so far as to make one decision that we know will be beneficial for us and follow through on it, taking action on our own behalf.

What are we all hanging around waiting for? -Photo by Jan Ketchel
What are we all hanging around waiting for?
-Photo by Jan Ketchel

I use meditation as a means of shifting my reality, training my mind to be quiet and calm so I can leave the rigors and demands of this world for a few minutes a day. The world always looks different when I get up from my meditation seat and reenter life. Dreams do it for us while we sleep. Taking a walk and seeing the world outside ourselves with new eyes can do it too. Simply being open to life can change how we experience our reality. If we decide to accept everything and everyone as beautiful as it/they are, another tenet of The Love Project, we find that we receive and accept on our own behalf in a different way too.

We might do something to beautify or expand our reality—paint our living space, try a new recipe, take up a sport, or do something we’ve always dreamed of doing. There are so many things we can do to create a new reality without moving from our center, though sometimes we might need something drastic, and that’s good too. Sometimes we just might need to give ourselves a kick in the pants!

The final great change that we must all face is death. I know someone who is facing death right now. This person is dying with great dignity. In moments of lucidity, death is being embraced. “Some people, like me, get lucky,” he said. “We have a healthy life, then get sick and die. Other people hang on for ten lousy years hoping they are gonna get better. That’s way worse than physical pain.” He is creating his own reality. Not succumbing to tests, hospitalizations, tubes and treatments, he is creating the death he wants. It’s his final opportunity to create his own reality in this world.

May we all take the opportunity to create a new reality for ourselves, it’s never too late!
Love,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: Energetic Communication

Leave a comment

Today, we present the weekly channeled message, as well as a message to all who knew and loved Jeanne, as well as to those who never knew her in this life. Today is the day that Jeanne died in Heiden, Switzerland, twelve years ago.

Open the energetic lines of communication… and see what happens! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Open the energetic lines of communication…
and see what happens!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Here is the weekly channeled message first:

Let the energy of now take you forward. As your journey unfolds, stay informed of the always-changing self. Allow transformation to take place, and with awareness allow the self to change. In awareness that you are indeed a changing being, in constant flux, allow your life to take you now into new levels of consciousness.

Turn your gaze outward each day, even as you turn it inward. Notice where you life is trying to lead you. Listen to your inner self and listen to your body self. These two selves, your energetic you and your physical you, must become true partners on your journey through life. Think of your energetic self as the gas you put into your vehicle, driving your physical self, it’s trusty companion. Your mind intercepts, cutting off natural communication. Quiet the mind and let the two of them communicate once again, directly. Let your gas flow, without blockage, into your vehicle, as you simultaneously learn to accept your life as an ever-changing flow of energy, signs, synchronicities, and messages. In opening to the existence of such universal communication outside of you, you may find that the mind is not as necessary as you now think.

Thoughts often confuse, but your energetic self and your physical self seek only growth, uninhibited. Your partnership, in alignment, will result in a tiptop vehicle to drive through life in, with your energy flowing nicely within. Keep it always in good shape and it will not fail you. Find out what all of that means for you. Everyone is different; everyone must find their personal equilibrium and balance. Take one empowering step on behalf of that partnership today and every day, devoid of the mind’s trappings and old sayings. Clear the mind so that the channel of communication may always be open and flowing. And then see what new happens!

Here is the rest of the communication from Jeanne, as Jan asked her to comment on the anniversary of her death. Here is what she had to say:

Love…The only true means of communication… - Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Love…The only true means of communication…
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

Although my absence is still felt, those who knew me and were deeply attached to me must not grieve for me, or for themselves and the loss of me in their lives. Life is death; death is life. As I have said many times before, though I do not exist on that plane, I do exist! Take that into consideration as you continue your own lives upon that earth. Sorrow is a manifestation of the mind. If you silence the mind, removing what it tells you from your thoughts, releasing those mind-thoughts from your physical body as well, you will discover your own true energetic form. This energetic self does not exist only in your physical body, but outside of it as well, in eternity. If you can experience this energetic self, even for a second or two, you will know that I exist!

Set your intent to access and experience this self and then you will know the answers to the questions that the mind cannot grasp very easily. Experiences of the energetic self are the means to understanding how I can still exist. Your physical self will grasp this as well, once the mind’s conjuring have been removed. It will “know,” as deeply as your spirit knows. You already know what I’m talking about.

Every night you dream. Begin to dream with intent now. Intend to accept your energetic self and, with awareness, practice using this self more frequently, in waking and dreaming, allowing something besides your mind, and what it thinks it knows, to guide you. Look to your heart, the true organ of communication in each of you.

Energetic communication is what I have been doing, and continue to do. I use my energetic self to communicate and work in all worlds. The practice grows as lessons are learned, as awakenings are explored and accepted. It is a viable means of communication that can be practiced anywhere, even between people upon that earth. It’s called telepathy in some circles, but I prefer to call it energetic communication.

Be open to life in a new way, to the life that lies before your eyes, My Dears. But also be open to life that you cannot so easily see with your human eyes. When doubt arises, ask the self to let it go, to stay with burgeoning awareness, simply for the heck of it. There is no harm in that! Be an explorer! It’s what I am. I explore, try things out, discover how things work, and then I use what I learn to communicate. In the beginning, it can be a challenging and even clumsy process, but over time skills are naturally honed.

I look for you all in energetic form, those I knew intimately in more than one form and those I don’t know yet. I always have been looking for you. Look for me in return. You will know me by my energy! There will be no doubt that it is I!

My love expands upon you all. It’s all that matters, you know, love and loving all beings equally, without attachment.

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR