Here is this week’s channeled message from Jeanne, quite the opposite of last week’s dire warning.
Time for a new perspective. -Photo by Jan Ketchel
Regret not where you have been, whom you have been with, what you have done, but look at the passage of time and life lived as lessons in maturity. All upon that earth must grow. It is life itself that sets this tenet, for there is no other possibility once life begins. However, quality of growth is up to the individual. The individual is responsible, once childhood ends, for the path that life takes.
Move beyond feelings of sadness for the self, beyond feelings of shame and blame. Move beyond fear and tension to a greater understanding of life as unstoppable energy. Shift your personal awareness now to this greater perspective that all life is on a journey, evolutionary and fantastic at the same time.
With a simple shift of perception life may suddenly take on new meaning and this is what I advise this week, for too many are stuck in old places with old ideas of the self, long dominant but now no longer applicable. In repeating the same thoughts to the self, one remains caught in old ideas of the self long after they are no longer true.
You are beings on eternal journeys. Keep this in mind. Your current lives are but an instant of your far greater existence. Is it necessary to stay stuck in old ideas today? Find out why. Ask the self the question: What do I have to gain from staying here, telling myself the same old stories? Note that the real question you are asking is: What do I have to GAIN? For there is always something to gain in life’s problems and in the vicissitudes of human existence. So, again, I propose: What must be gained?
I suggest that you ask for clarity today, about one issue of the self that has been needling you. Find out the truth of this one issue. Is what you believe really true? Is there a different perspective that is equally or more true? Is your life not really as you perceive or envision it to be?
There is positive energy afloat today and as opposed to the negative energy of the recent past—which I warned against—this week’s energy is vital, life-giving energy, essential for growth. I suggest a concerted effort be made now to turn the self in a new direction, to snatch up some of this positive energy for the self and use it in a positive way.
It’s time to move on, to move forward, to accept life as it is at this moment, but make the next moment be positive. Shift your outlook on life from negative and dreary, simply by shifting your thoughts about the self. As negative thoughts arise, immediately shift from them to positive ones. It’s not that hard to do. And even if you can’t quite believe the positive affirmations you conjure up, it doesn’t matter, for they are infused with new energy, good energy. And, as I said at the beginning of this message, life has one intent: To grow!
It’s time to take life up on its intent. Let it take you in a new direction. Align with the positive energy of this day, open your arms, your hearts, and your minds to a new direction and let new life come to greet you. You might be surprised what you discover!
You are in charge of your personal attitude, no matter your situation. Don’t just make the most of your life, but let your life make the most of you! Acquiesce to it with maturity, sobriety, and confidence that it will guide you to a new place. Effort on your part is minimal. All it really takes is a shift of the mind from an old idea to a new idea. Begin with that and then see where life, your life, takes you next.
Thank you Jeanne for this most helpful and inspiring message! Channeled most humbly. -Jan
“I tried to die young, boy did I try, but the voice deep inside would not let me succumb…” These words were written by Melanie Safka in a song from her recent album Ever Since You Never Heard of Me. Both Chuck and I have had this song playing in our heads for weeks now, its significance struggling to emerge.
I already know that when I hear a song over and over again like that it usually means something, either to me or someone I know. Sometimes before I do a channeling I might hear a song and so I know it relates to the person I’m channeling for. Once when this happened the person told me that it was the song that was played at her wedding, and it meant a lot to her. In fact, it figured significantly into the process she was struggling to make sense of, and so I trust such things.
In this particular song, of most significance to me are the words: “the voice deep inside.” This is the voice of the other mind that Chuck wrote about in his blog the other day, the voice of direct knowledge, the instinctual mind that knows we are here for a reason, that our journeys are journeys of the utmost importance. We all have access to this voice deep inside; at some time in our lives we’ve all heard it. Whether or not we’ve paid attention to its messages is one thing, but we can’t deny that it exists.
People who’ve been traumatized have direct access to that voice more than most, the voice that says: You will not succumb; you will survive. This is the voice that kept many people alive during the Holocaust, the voice that will not succumb, that will not give in, the omnipotent optimist inside us that will not ever give up. Every one has this voice inside them, but for some reason in some people, as Viktor Frankl suggests in Man’s Search for Meaning, it’s a dominant force.
It’s definitely dominant in anyone who suffered through sexual abuse or other trauma as a child. If you have survived a childhood of sexual or physical abuse you definitely have had direct access to that voice, and if it hasn’t reawoken yet, it will, because it’s the voice that knows everything that happened, it’s the voice that speaks the truth. But that voice goes even deeper, beyond the trauma, to our very soul and this, I believe, is where the answers to surviving the most horrific of traumatic events lie. I believe we do not succumb, because our soul’s journey has a different intent. And so we are charged with discovering just what that intent is. Why did I survive my trauma when so many others don’t survive theirs?
As a child I heard that voice deep inside a lot. It came to my rescue when no one else did. It instructed me in how to survive. It gave me access to tools of survival that could only be fully realized because I was being brutally abused. Had I not been sexually abused as a child I might not even now have such direct access to that voice. I might not trust it the way I do now. I might not have direct knowledge of out-of-body experiences, of the innate abilities we all have inside us. I might not be so sure of what happens when we die, if I had not been traumatized as a child and had direct experiences of leaving the body, of leaving the thinking mind behind as my awareness left my body and went elsewhere. In addition, since I had direct access to that inner voice deep inside me from a very young age, it got plenty of exercise and it strengthened significantly so that today I’m very comfortable with it.
In fact, I feel lucky now that the voice deep inside was actively present in my life. I cannot deny it nor the access to a greater awareness it brings me. And so I would even have to say that in many ways I’m lucky to have been sexually abused as a child; I’m lucky I found that voice at such an early age. That voice helped me to survive, but it also taught me that there is more to life than meets the eye. It gave me direct access to my soul and the knowledge that I am on a journey of the utmost importance. Even if that journey is only partially completed in this lifetime, I am aware that in my next lifetime the work I am doing now to fulfill that soul’s journey will have great impact and significance.
That voice deep inside continues to teach me every day now, as I meditate, as I channel, and as I go about my day, hearing songs playing in my head, asking me to go deeper, to pay attention. And as I continue taking my soul’s journey, one day at a time, I can’t help but wonder how far I can go, who else I might become, in this lifetime or the next.
At one time I was a victim of sexual abuse, mesmerized by trauma I could not access, yet my life was severely limited because of it. Then it all came back to me and I became a survivor, strengthened by the knowledge that if my child self could survive what she had gone through, then certainly I could survive the recapitulation of it. Now I’ve advanced beyond survivorhood, for staying there held no appeal. Once I was done with reliving the trauma I had no need of it anymore. Except as a teaching tool it has been put to rest. I became interested only in facing life, life as I had never been able to envision it before. Having taken the diamonds out of the blackness that once was my life, all I wanted was to live among those diamonds, in a world that was aglitter, alive, vibrant and exciting.
All I’m interested in now is looking forward into life, wondering what other gifts I’m going to receive, what other songs I’ll be hearing, what other experiences I’ll have. I live from that place deep inside every day. I don’t have time or inclination to do otherwise. I wake up each day and that voice pipes up and happily asks: I wonder what this day will bring?
It is my sincerest wish that others find and trust that voice deep inside themselves. Trauma gave me access to it, as it has many others. There are diamonds hidden in the darkness of traumatic memory. Listening to that voice inside leads right to them. For those who have not had the gift of trauma to find that voice, it may just be a matter of listening a little more closely, paying attention in a new way.
It’s the dreaming voice, the sober voice of truth, the voice that acts on our behalf and shows us its ultimate gift—the power of the human spirit to transcend the body—that our awareness exists outside our human form. It’s the voice that acts on our behalf unbeknownst to us. Perhaps not until our traumatic event is over do we realize we’ve been aided by something other than what our brain or our will could conjure up. It’s the voice that says, “No, that’s not the choice you should make,” but do we listen, even when we know it’s right? It’s that mystical something, unexplainable by the rational mind, that just will not let us rest back in an old world once we’ve experienced it. We might even want more or it!
Once we’re in total alignment with it—the voice of our personal truth—we’re right in alignment with our deeper, spiritual self, taking our soul’s journey. Paying attention to that voice deep inside is what got me started, my spirit calling out to me, asking me to heed its call, and I did pay attention, and boy did it take me on a journey of a lifetime.
And I’m still going!
Love,
Jan
Thank you to Melanie for all the songs and for her voice deep inside that keeps her singing! Thank you to Viktor Frankl for having so deeply investigated the human condition.
Sorry, forgot to mention that once again we have changed things up and you are offered Chuck’s blog today. Jan’s blog will appear on Friday this week. Enjoy!
Ever since we left the Garden, we’ve had to rely on stories—be they myth or fairy tale—to provide us with a description of reality to orient us on how to be and behave. Prior to the Fall, as unthinking beings, we had the surety of our animal instincts to guide us with direct knowledge of the way things were and how to act appropriately. After the Fall we became beings of 2 minds, split into the mind that knows without thinking and the mind that thinks incessantly, generating newer and newer myths and stories—descriptions of reality to live and act by. The dominating myths of our times are created by Science, with its descriptions of reality that are believed to be objective and true.
The Shamans of Ancient Mexico went so far as to call the thinking mind a foreign installation, an actual entity that has taken up residence inside us for its own nourishment. Like all descriptions of reality, this description too is a story, the foreign installation a metaphor highlighting the impersonal nature of our chattering minds. That foreign installation has generated its picture of the world based on stories inherited and constantly generated by the internal dialogue within us.
We are a species addicted to our stories. We constantly crave stories—in books, movies, or oral traditions—to provide us with a sense of security, an identity, a framework, a world within which to grasp and live the totality of what we are. In turn, we are constantly catered to by a worldwide web of stories—news that frames and organizes our world—our dissociated instinctual selves finding outlets in the latest tales on the world stage or the latest thriller in the theatre. The spin doctors weave their tales, like salespeople catering to our need for a story to bring us peace and order, or an outlet for frustration, boredom, and depression.
In the healing field of psychology, clients are encouraged to build new narratives to find meaning in their lives. Unprocessed experience, like trauma, is fit into a narrative to make it more palatable, digestible, as if a new story can put the raw truth to rest. However, not all experience fits neatly into a story.
The fact is, our species is in peril because our stories simply aren’t true anymore. In fact, I believe we are at an evolutionary crossroads that demands that we step beyond the story and into full exposure and reconciliation with what is—without story, without metaphor. Look to the recent exposure of sexual abuse cases of children, and how we care not to know the full details. Instead, we hope they are not true; we hope that a different story will emerge. But healing will only come when we learn to accept what is.
President Obama steps into his second term largely freed of the need to uphold stories, dated myths of who we are and where we are. He can now point to the truth of global warming, the legitimacy of social programs, the real needs of woman and gay people, and the true inequality of our financial system. We need to be a world that can stand in and be with the truth now. We need to allow ourselves to reconnect with our ancient minds, the mind that speaks softly and dispassionately, with dead-on accuracy. This is the mind that can be in the presence of the full truth, that can guide us to healing, without story. In the groundlessness of direct experience, as we face our old stories and myths, the knowing that emerges is not just another story, but a documentary of the truth. In the groundlessness of no story we grasp the real truth and allow it to be fully experienced, fully known, and then finally filed away in the annals of life lived, tension fully released and resolved.
We’ve left the Garden, but… Photo by Jan Ketchel
We have the opportunity to resolve our wounded psyches and bodies in the same groundless, storyless manner. In the case of trauma, we must allow ourselves to encounter what was, as it was, without framework, without the story we’ve always told ourselves. Our present self must be able to stand in the full presence of the traumatic event and breathe through it, without shutting down, allowing the full experience to be admitted, our personal docudrama acceptable for what it truly is. Our knowing mind leads us to full healing as the old myths fall away, no longer needed to hold us together. In the presence of this knowing mind, the adult present self merges in love with all its formerly splintered truths. We evolve into beings no longer needing two minds. We emerge as journeyers of one true mind, fully equipped for the adventure, without the weight of story.
Is that not Buddha beneath the bodhi tree at the moment of enlightenment—a being with full awareness without story—launched? Is that not the Shaman on the precipice of the definitive journey into infinity—a fully recapitulated being without attachment to story, a being with continuity and full awareness, perched for flight? Is that not like President Obama turning back to look out over the crowds at his inauguration, taking in the truth of a sight he will never experience again? Standing in his own truth, while others stream past him as if he were not even there, he releases that story and, having completed his backward glance of recapitulation, turns to face the future.
We all have the opportunity to face the truths of our two minds, to release our stories and stand in the truth of what is. Traumatized or not, it’s time to heal in a new way.
Be careful how you use your energy this week. Be protective of your private space, of your personal needs, and your inner self. Protect yourself from outer energy seeking entry, seeking energy, seeking what it does not wish to generate for itself. Be aware of needy energy from without. It will come searching, its siphon extended, seeking places to plunge its proboscis into, as a hunger arises.
I do not wish to alarm, but only to warn that such needy, greedy, or even naive energy may appear in many forms. But whether subtle, aggressive, sneaky or conniving, please refuse it for your own good. This is universal energy and so you will see it playing out in the world around you, but keep in mind that it is present in your own life as well.
Find a means of attack, approaching it with definite refusal, even while you take in the greater meaning of it—that is, that it is necessary energy, present to create balance. Note where you need balance in your own life and use this outer energy as a sign to go inward and create balance within yourself—physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually—as needed. Only you know what you need.
So, overall, you can expect something from outside to show you what you need to work on inside the self. Pull attention, blame, shame, and fear away from others and take it to task within. Although this outer energy may appear as threatening or intrusive, please do not take it in a negative way. It will only be bothersome if you do not accept it as a message of personal importance and fail to do some inner work around it.
May this energy guide you to know yourself a little bit better. That’s really all that matters.
Use the world around you, the situations you find yourself in, and the energy that approaches you to learn something important about the self. And use this information to change, to move into new life; for the evolving self requests this of you.
Thank you, Jeanne, for this guidance! Most humbly channeled. -Jan
