A Day in a Life: Peeling Away Fear

December 14, 2011 Jan Leave a comment

Each day as I wake up I must face who I am. I am not perfect. I am not special. I am nothing.

These words may sound like negative mantras, but in reality they are extremely freeing. In the context of the world we live in, it may be hard to understand what that kind of freedom means. It means that, as I do my inner work, I slowly free myself from ego, judgments, attachments, greed, etc. I free myself from the desire to be special and, in so doing, I can simply be. Largely, this kind of freedom means facing my fears, for really there is little else that keeps me caught. As I see it, fear is the biggest challenge to overcome in this life.

If I ask myself why I reacted a certain way in a certain situation, I will find that at the root of my reaction was fear. We all suffer from fear. There is fear of what others will think or say about us. There is fear of doing or saying something wrong. There is fear of making the wrong decision. There is fear of getting hurt or hurting others. There is fear of financial loss, of loss of our jobs, our homes, our lovers, and those closest to us. There is fear that we are not enough, that we have failed to live up to expectation, that we are unloveable, bad, not pretty or handsome enough, that we are too fat or too thin, that we are doing everything wrong. And finally there is fear of death.

When we look at all the things we fear we see only negatives; depressing truths or untruths, perceptions or judgments that keep us caught in an endless cycle of suffering. Fear is tied to being inadequate, unfulfilled, unevolved, imperfect. So how do we accept that we are not perfect, not special, that we are in fact nothing, and actually feel good about it?

The Buddhists say that we are here to suffer, that it is how we evolve. That evolution is tied to transcending suffering, but only by facing it. The Buddhist sitting in meditation confronts what arises, going deeper and deeper into the dark space that yawns wide open inside the self as fears arise. What we discover as we confront our fears is that they lead to truths, whether hidden and totally unknown or known and rejected, they all eventually give way to more fears and more truths. Each layer of fear and truth asks to be explored and reckoned with. This is the same process that the shamans engage in while doing recapitulation. Both meditation and recapitulation offer the means of facing fear, the means of finding out why we suffer, and they both offer the transcendent quality of nothingness that we reach as we go deeper and deeper into the self.

As we meditate or recapitulate with an open mind—letting loose those ideas and judgments that I spoke of earlier—we allow what comes from within to guide us. As we mediate or recapitulate with an open mind, we ready ourselves to face each fear and ask, over and over again, “Why do I have this fear?” And then, as we meditate or recapitulate with an open mind, we allow ourselves to explore deeply—until we hear an answer.

Our answers may be as varied as we are, but I guarantee that our answers will eventually lead to just another fear, another thing we are afraid of, lying just beneath the last thing we were so afraid of. As we face each fear, we peel away judgments and perceptions—some self-imposed, some imposed by others—and find a little bit more of Self, a little bit more of who we have the potential to truly be.

As fear after fear gets peeled away and the thick layer of our suffering selves begins to thin, we begin to feel lighter, better, less negative, less attached to the old self. We gradually become more and more intrigued by our process. We want to see how far we can actually go. We want to know what else there is to learn about us. We want to become as free as possible.

In undergoing this process of peeling away our fears we offer ourselves access to what it means to be imperfect, to not be special, to be nothing—and to be totally satisfied with being in this state. In fact, we might discover the joy of being in that state of non-attachment. We might discover that our suffering has a greater purpose; that it has the potential to lead us beyond the confines of this world, tapping into far greater freedom, enlightenment, new life, and wholeness than this world alone can offer.

In facing our fears we face our humanness in its entirety, and yet we also face our immortal, infinite selves, for in doing our deep inner work we face all of our fears, including our fear of death.

It may seem like a daunting task, but facing our fears will lead to the freedom of non-attachment and opening the door to greater exploration of our fuller potential now, while in this life, so that our death becomes just one more seamless exploration of our greater potential.

I am not perfect, I am not special, I am nothing,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: Face Your Fears & Your Joys

December 12, 2011 Jan Leave a comment

There is time now to gather the fruits of your inner labors, to clearly grasp your issues before the next shift comes. It is important to carry forth what you have learned about the self over the past few weeks and months.

If you are aware, if you have been doing your inner work with conscious awareness, your issues have been revealed, are readily available and known to you. You are ready to accept them. Take them now to a new level.

A time of shift is upon you, and, in order to move to a deeper understanding of your life and your self in that life, awareness of the truths that have lately been revealed must be carried forth, kept in conscious awareness and used as guides.

On the other hand, if you have not fully grasped what you have been confronted with about the self, do not despair nor be disappointed, for the inner self and the inner process expand upon and present the needed lessons whether you are fully aware or not. Take forward now your commitment to grow, as you too shift to a new level. The conviction to do inner work, to discover the reasons for the workings of the self, the deeper issues behind actions, thoughts, feelings, etc., has been afforded energy that will lead you to a new level. Seek next greater clarity while simultaneously seeking always new life.

No matter where you are in your process of growth and evolution—in your process of self-exploration on your journey of release from the old and embracing of the new—do not lose connection with you inner desire for spiritual life and balance. This inner desire entails awakening to the creative and conscious growth of the inner self who so diligently alerts you to its existence.

No matter who you are or where you are in your life at this moment, your spirit seeks you out. It asks not just for recognition, but for full acceptance. In so doing, it seeks to guide you to release from all that now holds you captive, freeing you to live a fuller life, a balanced life, a life of love, of kindness, of compassion, full of awareness of the self as part of the whole of existence.

Your troubles guide you to your true path. Know this. Accept this process and be not afraid to more fully engage it. Your life is yet to be fully lived; yet it awaits you eagerly.

Know that a new time of shift is coming. Be open to it and notice how your energy recognizes it first, before your mind catches up. This is something to be aware of. Your energetic self, your spirit, your inner process is usually a few steps ahead of you, leading the way. Once your mind catches up and grasps the lead that your spirit tosses, your only job is to take the lead and go where it wants to take you.

You lead yourself in a process of growth. It is your process alone. Find the guidance you need outside of you to gain clarity inside of you, as you do your deep inner work. But know that within the self resides everything you need to gain awareness, clarity, and the energy to face your fears and your joys alike. Do not be afraid of either.

Facing your fears and your joys is the next step, but that is always the next step. This time take that step with awareness that you are doing so, that though both your fears and your joys may be hidden and unreconciled, so do they exist inside you. Face them for yourself, for your growth, and so that you may reach a new level of awareness within the self, as well as in the world outside of you.

These two worlds, the inner and the outer, seek constant balance, putting you in the position of having to constantly regain your own balance. Know that all that you experience in life is caused by disruptions within the self and all these disruptions are really doing is asking you to face your fears, so that you may one day more fully face your joys.

This is where you all stand now, once again upon the brink of a new self-discovery. At all times, stay connected to spirit self and ego self alike, aware and committed to growing. That’s really all you need to do to live a fulfilling life, stay connected to all that the self presents you with.

Good Luck, as you continue your journeys to fulfillment!

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Practice of Awe

December 9, 2011 Chuck Leave a comment

We are not all that we think we are. There is much to us that we don’t know about or that we find so unacceptable that we really don’t want to know about or deal with. It can be pretty scary to face the fact that there are parts of me that I simply don’t know exist. We utilize some amazing maneuvers to keep ourselves safe from disruptive intrusions from unknown parts of the self. Anna Freud, in her classic book, Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, outlines the variety of defenses we utilize to block, distort, or rid ourselves of unknown parts of ourselves. The important thing to know about our defenses is that they don’t really operate at a conscious level.

We don’t say to ourselves, “I’m going to PROJECT a part of me that I’m afraid of onto my neighbor, and build a fence to keep him at bay so I can avoid that part of myself!”

We don’t say to ourselves, “I’m going to RATIONALIZE how I interpret this situation at work so I don’t have to see some part of myself that I’m unaware of that has just acted out and caused a problem.”

These defenses operate outside of full conscious awareness. They have to. If we were fully aware of our use of defenses they simply wouldn’t work, since we’d be directly confronted with the hidden truths of the parts of ourselves we seek to avoid! And so, it’s important to suspend judgment of our defensive egos. We’ll never get to know who we really are if we hate ourselves for using defenses to avoid scary things! On the other hand, we must take full responsibility for all that we are, even if we don’t know who that is!

If we can successfully suspend judgment—the shame of not knowing, the shame of feeling bad and unacceptable—and instead become archeologists and anthropologists of the soul, fascinated by and curious as we excavate, discover and trace the origins of the self, we arrive at a place of fuller knowing, accepting, and integrating all that we are. The shamans would call this a Practice of Awe: Awe for the Awesomeness of what is.

A pragmatic process to support a practice of awe is meditation. In meditation we learn to be in stillness and calm as we are confronted with the cogitations of mind, emotions, sensations, and truths that come to greet us as we place our awareness on our breath. In meditation we return again and again to simply observing our breath entering and leaving our nostrils. We notice our awareness being taken to thoughts, reflections, feelings and sensations—hundreds, thousands of times. And each time, we simply acknowledge what has come to greet us, without judgment, without further attention or attachment, and gently return our awareness to our breathing, over and over—hundreds, thousands of times—without judgment, in gentle calm.

There is no failure; there is no success in a practice of meditation. There is simply being with and accepting all that is. As we practice we notice more of what we are. We withstand the knowing; we are not wiped out or thrown for a loop by what comes; we let emotions flow through us; we shift back to our breathing.

Judgments are released as we shift constantly to our breathing, as we become observers of ourselves, in command of our awareness, in full acceptance, in awe of the awesome. We become curious travelers into the deeper self, no longer needing to defend an illusory self, because we have discovered instead, all that we are—perhaps for infinity!

In calmness, in awe,
Chuck

A special note on a special day: Today we honor Jeanne on the 10th anniversary of her departure from this world into the awe of infinity. Sending her love, as she continues her most amazing journey.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: I Am Here

December 7, 2011 Jan Leave a comment

I focus on staying present. I am doing yoga.

“I am here,” I say. “I am here in this body, in this moment.”

“I am me,” I say. “I am me in this body.”

“I am this body,” I say. “I live here on earth in this body.”

“I am here,” I say. “I am me.”

As I move and breathe, I bring my attention back again and again to the moment, to being present in my body. I thank myself for giving myself this healing time and I thank the universe for providing the paths I took to get to this moment of this day. I take each moment as sacred, as ritual.

I take a moment to write down my thoughts of awareness of being, of being in my body, of being in the moment of doing yoga somewhere in the world, a small speck of awareness in the universe, one small speck of knowing that I am alive, intent on being fully present in my body.

Sometimes I am pretty aware of being present in my body, but most often I am not. Most often I am somewhere else, my body along for the ride. But in this moment, I am aware that my body is my natural environment, my beingness resides in it and depends on it, needs it, trusts it. I am in the moment, present and enjoying the rituals of doing yoga, of breathing, and of being consciously aware.

After I do yoga, I carry the wood from the woodpile. I build a fire and light it, another ritual. I am aware that this is a ritual performed by millions of others. Since fire became a part of human life this ritual has been important. As I carry out the steps of making my fire, I am aware that I am partaking in an ancient practice of firemaking for the same reasons that eons of people have made fires. I do not cook over my fire, but I seek warmth. I am part of an ancient ritual today as I make my fire. I honor the ritual and I honor myself in the process of partaking in this ritual. I honor all who have done this before me.

I take time to notice that I am present. I am me. I am in my body, present in this moment doing this ritual. In the next moment the fire is burning well. I can turn to other things now, back to my writing, back to preparing for other rituals that come throughout the day, if I care to see them as such.

I remind myself to slow down and take the time to feel myself in my body often throughout the day, present in the moment and in my awareness of being, as often as possible. I remind myself to remain aware that my daily activities and chores are part of my ritual life too.

I remind myself to invent new rituals as I go along, making life sacred, simply because it is and it deserves to be lived in sacred fashion. I deserve it, the earth deserves it, all creatures—man included—deserve the honor of sacred ritual. If we all slowed down and made our personal lives sacred rituals, if we all invented our own personal rituals—honoring and thanking ourselves, our bodies, others in our lives, the universe—perhaps we’d end up with enough pauses full of calmness and peace to temper the otherwise busy and fast-paced world we live in.

When we slow down enough we realize we don’t really need that fast-paced world. We discover we don’t really want to live like that. When we slow down we discover that we, by our very animal nature, are more connected to the earth and the sacred ritual of a simple life than we realized. When we slow down we walk and breathe the pulse of the earth and it calms us and nurtures us beyond anything else we might have available.

We desire our vacations by the ocean, a lake, in the calmness of the mountains or meadows because we are animals who crave nature’s slow pace and the beat of our heart knows this. By establishing our personal rituals we automatically slow to the beat of our heart, and automatically our perception of our personal place in the world shifts too. We actually become one with nature, connected and aware of being in the moment, in our bodies, in the right place: in total beingness.

Photo by Chuck — The Sacred Beat of Nature

No matter what is going on around us or inside us, when we slow everything down and take a sacred moment we are at peace. Even if only for a moment, it is enough.

Tomorrow I will build a different fire, but the ritual, the process, will have the same ancient energy in it. Whether I focus on the ritual of it or not, whether I am as aware as I am today, I will still be tapping into the energy of ancient ritual. I know this energy of infinity, as ancient as the tapping of my own heartbeat. It is as ancient as the tapping of your own heartbeat, one pulse, beating for eternity. The ritual is already present. We just have to make ourselves available to it and tap into it.

As humans we have so much available to us. Our creative energy begs us to pause and pay attention to its insistence that we are not so modern as we might believe. We are ancient energy and we know instinctively how to connect with it and what to do with it.

Find sacred ritual in life, in nature, in self. Be in the moment. Be present in the body self. Breathe with awareness. That too is ritual. Be thankful to the self and the universe and then pause and listen to its reply. In the calm beat of your own heart you will hear its resonant beat.

Present in the moment, in calmness, in beingness,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: Patience

December 5, 2011 Jan Leave a comment

Continue the process of inner work, recapitulating the deepest aspects of self, utilizing patience as a means of slowing down the energies of turmoil and rigidity that seek to dominate.

It is time to fully accept all aspects of self as valid and necessary, to allow the inner process to become the means for outer change. Seek not change outerly, for such change will have no lasting effect. Only inner change will have potential. However, use the outer world to gain stability and anchoring.

Be responsible for the self in all aspects of life, as it must be lived according to where you are in your life. Accept that certain needs must be met, certain requirements upheld, and that many issues will need attention. Such is the case with the outer world, but do not let the outer world overwhelm you. It is merely a tool to inner growth and evolutionary advancement.

In addition, your inner world must be handled in similar fashion as the outer world, for you are equally responsible for and must meet the needs of what comes from within the self as well. Balance but also deep awareness of both of these worlds as necessary must be accepted.

Consideration of the self as a journeyer on a deeply challenging and truly evolutionary journey must become acceptable but also the intent of every human being upon that planet. There is no time to waste in blame, regret, or victimization. In a sense you are all victims of the world you live in, of the life you lead, and of the decisions made by others, but that is only so that you may seek a deeper meaning for life, self, and world.

It is not a time to wallow in self-pity, even as you accept the truths I speak of. It is a time of accessing the deeper knowing and purpose of life in general and your own life specifically. Although it may not be clear where you are heading with the work you do in resolving the issues of the self, it is perfectly clear that it is the right road to take. For in your release of self to take the journey of change, you have, each one of you, experienced the glory of changing moments. You know the feel of shift in your bodies, your minds, your psyches, and your spirits. Each one of you, no matter how sad and dire your circumstances, no matter how deeply engrossing your process, have experienced something new.

Patience must anchor you now. The world around you asks for it. Steady pacing, tending to all the details of life, and attention to the truths that arise, calling for the self to accept them, means that progress will be made.

Anchor in patience. Pull up this anchor of patience repeatedly as you keep moving, but resettle in its stillness as you feel your way through everything that arises to challenge you over the next few days. Nothing is too much to handle when you sit in anchoring patience. Everything will become clearer and you will know what is right.

Let actions come from the rightness of knowing that is achieved in patient anchoring. This is the next step. You already know it. Now is the time to work it. It’s right and it takes so little to enact. In patience comes clarity.

Riverwalker Press

A Day in a Life: Peeling Away Fear

Readers of Infinity: Face Your Fears & Your Joys

Chuck’s Place: The Practice of Awe

A Day in a Life: I Am Here

Readers of Infinity: Patience

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR