Category Archives: Jan’s Blog

Welcome!

Archived here are the blogs I write about inner life and outer life, inner nature and outer nature. Perhaps my writings on life, as I see it and experience it, may offer you some small insight or different perspective as you take your own journey.

With gratitude for all that life teaches me, I share my experiences.

Jan Ketchel

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Patient Waiting

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From inside the tunnel of self... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
From inside the tunnel of self…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Shortly after I finished college and went to live in Sweden, long suppressed memories began to stir. They came in short bursts, most often as dissociative states. I would suddenly retreat from the world, tunneling down into myself, where I’d view the world as if from inside a telescope.

Such moments could last for a few minutes to a few hours. I had no idea why they happened, but there was something incredibly familiar about them, though fuller memories of my childhood sexual abuse were not to surface for decades. I had never heard of recapitulation nor was I seeing a therapist at the time, but there was a deeper part of me that knew that one day both of those things would become central to my existence.

It was also about that time that I had the clear insight that one day I would have to retreat into a cabin of my own, as I thought of it, and do the deeper inner work that I sensed would one day be necessary.

To combat those disturbing moments of dissociation, I began keeping a list of all the things I would take with me into my cabin. I planned to go for a long time, a year or more. I made lists of foods, water, personal supplies, how much of each I’d need. I made lists of art supplies and writing implements, clothing, bedding, batteries, pots and pans, etc. My cabin was heated by a wood stove, so I stacked wood outside the walls, lining it several feet deep, both for lighting fires as well as insulation during the coldest months. I expected that I would be buried under several feet of snow for months on end, it was Sweden after all.

The lists were long. I’d check them over and over again, adding new things, deleting others that seemed unnecessary. I tried to think of every item I would need and every circumstance I would encounter. I wanted to be sure that I had not forgotten one thing that I would need in my isolated cabin. Whether my imaginings were practical or not didn’t matter; it was a deeper part of me that was making the plans.

Here is the cabin on the mountaintop that I envisioned for myself and drew and painted over and over again... - Detail from painting by Jan Ketchel, 1979
Here is the cabin on the mountaintop that I envisioned for myself and drew and painted over and over again…
– Detail from painting by Jan Ketchel, 1979

My cabin planning became an art piece. I worked on it for months, drawing floor plans, exterior views, picking the perfect mountaintop spot with beautiful views, incorporating it into all my other art works for years to come, getting it just right. Putting the final touches on it, I put it away, for I knew it was not going to become an actuality, at least not then. I would have to wait for the right time, because I was certain that someday I would be going into a cabin of my own, that I would be there for a long time. Once there, I knew I would be ready to finally face my demons, all that tortured and plagued me.

Little did I know that, in a sense, my mental planning would one day prove useful, though the entry into my cabin took a far different route from my early imaginings. In the planning stage, I was establishing a real cabin, but in the reality of my recapitulation, many decades later, I entered a metaphorical cabin, as I personally became the cabin. My own body housed me, protected me, nourished and supported me throughout the three years of my inner journey. It contained everything I needed to do my recapitulation. And just as I had imagined, I did finally face all that had stirred back when I was just a young woman starting out in life. Though I had been granted a taste of what was to come, little did I realize just what it would mean or where it would take me.

I am struck now by the patience of my young self. I seemed to know that when things are ready, they will come. It was a valuable lesson, one that I relearned many times as my recapitulation unfolded. Often I would want to push the process, get it over with as quickly as possible. I remember one day saying to Chuck, “Why don’t we just spend a whole day doing the recapitulation and get it over with once and for all.” Ha! Little did I know that it doesn’t work that way.

There was no point in pushing. Pushing, I learned, only created unnecessary tension and anxiety. Far better to wait. The recapitulations, the memories, came on their own. I didn’t actually have to do anything to trigger them. I had to learn to be available, recognize that I was being prompted, and take the journey that was offered, because that’s what I was being taken on, a journey. My job, if I was to truly get through the memories as quickly as possible, was to consciously let them go through me, in whatever form they came, and learn what I needed to learn from them, both what they offered me in childhood and what they came to teach me again as an adult.

I even envisioned a future happy self! - Detail from a painting by Jan Ketchel, 1979
I even envisioned a future happy self!
– Detail from a painting by Jan Ketchel, 1979

The recapitulation process was invaluable. Painful as it was, I would not trade it for anything. It was the journey my spirit was setting up for me so long ago, letting me know that one day I would indeed be going into a cabin of my own. I just had to wait for the right time, the time when I was ready.

The lesson of patient waiting can be applied to other areas of life as well. If we want something and push for it, it might backfire on us. It might not be the right time or be the right thing for us. But if we wait, if it’s right, it will come and we will be ready for it. This I know.

From my cabin,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: We Are In The Changing Times

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Messages that it's time to change... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Messages that it’s time to change…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I look at what is happening in the world today and part of me is horrified, but there is another part that knows that all new beginnings emerge out of chaos and destruction. This knowledge does not take away the need to be fully aware and concerned, but it points to a far greater reality: the times of change are now, and we are all in it together whether we want to be or not. The other reality that I embrace is that all of us are being simultaneously challenged to go through our own changes so that we can be fully present in a new world. In other words, if we all do something to change ourselves at the deepest of levels, we participate in changing the world at increasingly deeper levels too.

Death is around us all the time; we are aware of it. But it is only when it becomes personal, when it visits our own lives in some way that we must deal with it more directly. Some choose not to deal with it even then, unable to reconcile with endings or grasp at the notion of continued life. If we staunchly adhere to the idea that consciousness ends when the physical body dies, does that also mean that there is no hope for this world in chaos? I don’t think that way at all.

The Tarot card The Tower points to the kind of destruction that we are experiencing now. Society is collapsing all around us. Human life is of little consequence in the eyes of militant and ideological might, the attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris the most recent example. But what about the desecration of sacred lands and symbols of spiritual unity, the rapes of women in India, the shootings in America and other parts of the world? What are we being confronted with? What should we believe? How can our fellow human beings be so cruel and can they be trusted? Are we all hidden terrorists underneath the facades we present to the world? I could go on and on, but what seems most apparent to me is that we have to face that the world is not as black and white, as rational, as we may have wanted to believe. Things happen for reasons that reason is incapable of explaining.

Angeles Arrien writes in The Tarot Handbook that “The Tower is the symbol of the universal principle of healing, renovation, and restoration.” The card looks violent, a good symbol for the world today in fact. But she warns not to get caught up in the horrors of it but to look at it as a symbol of the necessary change and awakening, as all that is false or artificial within our natures must be dismantled before new life can happen. It points to the need to get back to the basics within and without, to reconnect with that which is innate, with spirit and nature inside us and outside of us.

We are all being asked now to do the deeper work that will enable us to start down a new path. We must return to balance, align with nature, with what it shows us about change. We must face the truth that what we have all become is being exposed and reflected in the violence in the world around us. We are all on a path of self-destruction and it will get worse, it has to if we are to change.

There is more to those ashes than you might think... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
There is more to those ashes than you might think…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Sages have been predicting such changing times as these for a long time. Yogananda warned of it as he brought yoga to America. The Tibetans have been expecting it, in fact I see their diaspora as a necessary part of this process, bringing yet another form of ancient spirituality to the rest of the world. It’s clear to me that the hunger in the west for spiritual connection and the search for a spiritual identity has brought these ancient traditions to our shores, the power of intent in action.

Edgar Cayce, America’s most well-known psychic, warned of these changing times. Our own American Indians have been anticipating it. Even in more recent times, since the 1960s, the so-called “new age” gurus and the protectors of the earth have been predicting the decline of civilization as we know it, largely due to human folly. Many of them, however, have failed to speak of the rebirth of a new era. They have left us mired in the collapse with little hope for anything good to come out of it.

I truly believe that those “changing times” are here now, but I do not believe that all hope is lost, that it is too late, as many say. Not a defeatist by any means, I am instead a staunch and pragmatic optimist. The tower may be burning, but we have the power to build a new and better one.

Jeanne, the being I have channeled for the past 12 or so years, in her messages to humanity, as she calls them, has consistently asked us to make ourselves ready for the changing times. Along with many other current day messengers, from many realms and realities, she has not only called for a wake up, but has offered the means by which to prepare for not only the destruction but the renovation to follow. This involves a deep personal commitment to changing the self and how we live in the world, making decisions that are universally thoughtful and protective of our natural resources. We are being asked to let go of our personal greed, selfishness, and overconsumption in favor of less, in favor of a return to local community and commerce, to sustainable activities that not only embrace a new paradigm but enact it now.

In all that Chuck and I do, clinically and in the channeled messages and personal posts we write each week, our message has been consistent: We are all being asked to change, and here are some options and ideas for how to do that: Choose what feels right, but don’t hold back. Your spirit and the world you live in are asking you to break through all that holds you bound to old ideas, emotions, behaviors, to go through the changing times and prepare yourself so that you are ready for the rebuilding times. How can we rebuild, renovate, renew, if we have not first destroyed that which is obviously not working? This means both within and without, of course! Those are our messages.

Each day we wake up and the world is different and a new path appears... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Each day we wake up and the world is different and a new path appears…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

We have offered recapitulation as a means of changing the self, a process of deep inner work, but there are many processes and we know that recapitulation is perhaps not right for everyone. To choose a path is a very personal decision, but from my own experience I can tell you that the right path is not an easy path. Easy paths do not necessarily offer the disruptions and the challenges that signal a new direction, or that something is not right, or perhaps they do in that they become boring, unfulfilling, too comfortable. And so, a good sign that the spirit is urging new movement is when the comfortable becomes uncomfortable. To challenge the self to seek a new path is to step outside of your comfort zones and try something new. It might take a lot of searching to find the right path, but even the search can yield inspiration and insight.

The only real way to change is to take action. Life is full of experiences waiting to happen, but if we do not move ourselves into action we will not have any experiences. Our lives will stagnate and we might even start to imagine that there is no real meaning in life, that we are destined to be stuck forever, that nothing good will happen to us. But this is never true. It’s only true if you decide it’s true. Often at times such as these we are being prodded to wake up, to stop our negative thoughts and do something to change what we are unhappy with. Sometimes our wakeup call is just that subtle a catalyst. If you jolt yourself into action you will discover that life will meet you. Suddenly, life becomes full of new experiences and new opportunities!

So, where am I going with all of this? As we begin another new year, I implore you all to take this time of change very seriously. Seek to reconcile your own life. Seek to find the connection to that which is inside you, both your spirit and your core issues that keep you disconnected and uncomfortable. Confront your weaknesses and turn them into your strengths, into the catalysts that will change you.

Yes, these are the changing times and that means we must all be brutally honest with ourselves in every thought, action, and deed. As we look around at the destruction of the world, at the terrible things people are doing to each other, we have to look inside ourselves and question our own motives for how we think and act, for the messages we give ourselves, and the things that come out of our mouths. Do we really believe the things we say? What will it take for us to challenge ourselves to change so that we too may rise out of the fires of destruction like the phoenix, the firebird, transformed into new life.

Ready to transform? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Ready to transform?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

And so, just as Chuck wrote in his first blog of this New Year with a dire message of the necessity for change, I begin my own year of blogging with a similar message, a message that I not only write but act upon in my own life. Every day, I confront myself, for I am intent upon more fully embracing and becoming all that has been revealed, my greatest challenge now to not hold back. I just have to keep daring myself.

I know that I will die one day and I am intent upon not dying unfulfilled, and so, I dare. And I wish the same for all of you. So please be daring. Take the path of heart and change that is right for you. If you do not seek you will not find, but if you begin the search the path will appear and you will recognize it. It will be tough, but the rewards are more than you can ever imagine.

I send you love and gratitude for daring to take such a journey, as you are part of the greater whole of this changing energy. Know that with each breath you take and each step you take you are transforming.

Not holding back,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Nature, Spirit & The Power Of Thought

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Fog is depressing. That's a thought that has power. - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Fog is depressing. That’s a thought that has power.
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

It’s raining and foggy today. I could be depressed, but my spirit is not depressed and so the weather outside is not having the effect on me that it might once have had, when I was clinically depressed. Back then the weather would have made me feel even more lifeless and given me a good excuse to stay in, vegetate, and feel sorry for myself. Today I take it in stride, knowing that the outside weather will nurture me in some necessary way, perhaps not clearly revealed until later in the day. I am certain that my spirit and my own nature will find the appropriate alignment that will lead to this nurturance.

Why is it raining? Nature says it’s time for rain. The conditions outside—cloud cover, temperature, humidity, etc.—produce fog, everything working together to produce this grey and rainy morning. We might look outside and wish for some sun perhaps. What we get, however, is nature saying, “no, I need the rain and everything is set up for rain to happen so this is what you are getting today.” This is the spirit of nature, nature and spirit as one, creating appropriate conditions for the planet.

Sometimes nature produces extreme weather conditions, fires, volcanic eruptions, melting ice caps, flooding rivers. Sometimes nature produces aberrant behaviors in human beings, rapists, murderers, terrorists. I can only surmise that nature knows what it is doing, that all of these extreme and seemingly destructive elements and events are actually necessary correctives. I trust nature. I know I cannot control it, but I can study the lessons it seeks to teach me.

We have similar goings on inside ourselves all the time, our nature and spirit work as one too, producing exactly the conditions that we need at this time in our lives. Sometimes the conditions within our bodies are extreme too, such as catastrophic illness, accident, or unexpected deeply emotional situations that send us spinning. Perhaps we also have a terrorist inside us, seeking to rout out some aspect of ourselves that we have not acknowledged or cared to deal with.

How we react to what is going on, both outside and inside ourselves, will tell us a lot about how in alignment we are with our own nature and spirit. Do we ignore the real reasons behind our challenges? Do we pull up our usual defenses, shift right into our ingrained habits and behaviors, the things we normally latch onto when we don’t want to face what is actually happening in our lives? On the other hand, we can turn inward and ask our own spirit and our own nature to come forth and communicate, to tell us the truth, to show us what is really going on.

We can take a scientific approach as well as a psychological approach to any situation we find ourselves in. In fact, viewing a situation from all sides is pragmatic, so that we have all the information we need to make a good, healthy decision for ourselves. Facts might be presented that explain what we are dealing with, alternative approaches to healing suggested, imperatives presented, but then it is up to us to go deeper into what is happening to us, if at all possible to invite our own nature and our own spirit to weigh in. Often, if we are to not only alleviate but fully resolve our inner conditions, we have to go beyond the facts and venture into feelings and emotions, and confront the deeper issues and circumstances of our inner psychological and spiritual makeup that produce our outer symptoms.

If we sit and go inward we might discover something we didn't see before, like the nurturing sage growing right beside us! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
If we sit and go inward we might discover something we didn’t see before, like the nurturing sage growing right beside us!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

For instance, if I’m depressed, my nature and spirit are telling me there is a reason, that it’s time perhaps to go deeper into old feelings about myself that need to be attended to. I take the view that my physical body is my personal planet, and in knowing that my spirit resides in my body I understand that they are one unit. This body unit is my personal “Nature.” Just like the nature of the planet outside of me they are always in agreement, constantly working together to alert me to my deeper issues, offering me the guidance I need to heal my mind and body so that I may take my place in a new and brighter world.

It’s sometimes easier to look outside of us and see how other people are in conflict with their own nature and spirit, but much harder to see it in ourselves. It’s much easier to look to the earth and see how we humans have been, for centuries, slowly destroying the planet we live on, but much harder to realize that what is outside is only a reflection of what is going on inside and that we personally are as responsible as anyone. It’s so easy to blame others, to rant about what they have done to us. It’s so easy to point out how others are so greedy and feel so entitled to take and to destroy. We are above it all, we say, but the world around us is telling us that we are all responsible for the state the world and the planet are in now, just as we are responsible for our own bodies and spirits.

As the rain pattered outside this morning, Chuck and I sat and spoke about our dreams and what we had been reading. The conversation came around to how to begin a process of healing that is practical, offering the most basic of principles: Change our thoughts; change our personal world. Yes, thoughts do have power, a lot of power. Negative thoughts powerfully effect us negatively. Positive thoughts have powerfully positive effect upon us.

Our thoughts set up our natural environment. They bring us rain and fog, or they bring us sunshine. If we say that we are sick, then we will be sick and we must take full responsibility for feeling sick. If we say that we feel great, we must take full responsibility for feeling great too. No one else, outside of us, has the responsibility or the ability to fix us or heal us. Just as we are all on our own journeys—responsible for all the decisions we make in our lives, offered the opportunity to take what happens to us to new levels of growth and understanding—so are we responsible for our own thoughts. And beyond that we are equally responsible for our own healing.

If we have negative thoughts running through our head we should pay attention to them. They are there for a good reason. They are our spirit alerting us to them, asking us to question if they are really true, hounding us to let them go. We will not be left alone until we do. We will suffer depression and inadequacies until we feed our nature and our spirit some healthier alternatives. This is how our nature and our spirit are in alignment.

How we decide to nurture our minds, bodies and spirits is up to us! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
How we decide to nurture our minds, bodies and spirits is up to us!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Are we polluting ourselves the same way we pollute the earth? Are we taking too much, giving too much, overdoing, thinking negatively? How are we using our power? Where are we out of balance in our own lives and what can we do to correct the imbalances?

It’s not really that hard to take the first steps in a healthy direction. But it takes a commitment to really taking up the challenges that are imposed upon us as we face what we need for healing. To bring our own personal planet into alignment we must let our own nature, our spirit and our body, drive us to the necessary balance.

The world outside of us is the perfect environment for our inner process to grow and evolve; as within, so without. In gaining inner balance, outer balance will also be achieved and our lives will advance. A rainy day will not be depressing, but the perfectly necessary environment that it truly is.

Enjoying the fog,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Where Is Our Soul?

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What are we seeking that is not right where we already are?
What are we seeking that is not right where we already are?

The eminent American psychologist and Jungian analyst, James Hillman, once remarked that all countries have ancient roots and ancestral teachings that define the soul of all the people who inhabit that country. Though we Americans may search the world for our gurus, going to ancient lands in the East to find, connect, and reacquaint ourselves with our soul, he suggests, that our true soul lies right here, in the ancient practices and teachings of the Native American Indians. This land that is America holds within it everything we are searching for. Our soul is here, waiting for us to discover it.

As a child growing up, whenever I’d ask my mother what our ancestry was, she’d bluntly state: We’re American. I knew that I was part Swiss because I knew the story of my paternal grandmother, how she came to America from Switzerland as a child of seven with her mother, in search of her father who had deserted the family. He’d gone off to America to make his way, promising to send for the rest of them, which he never did. My great-grandmother set off to find him, taking my grandmother, her youngest child, with her. Though my grandmother tended to embellish her life story as time went on, the story of her early entry through Ellis Island and her uncle’s boarding house on East 22nd street in Manhattan, where she grew up and that her mother took over running, never changed.

It was not until I was much older that I learned that I also had English, Irish, and Welsh blood in me. Some of my ancestors had come to America even before the Mayflower arrived; their blood, sweat and tears are part of this land. My immediate family, however, had no rich cultural traditions, no ethnic attachments.

In the 1970s I lived in Sweden, having moved there when I fell in love and married my first husband. Upon that land I became Swedish, learned to speak like a native, embraced the culture and traditions, learned to eat herring, salmon, potatoes, sour cream and dill, learned what good bread and cheese was, learned to drink aquavit, and supped on tea and open-faced sandwiches every evening.

I so completely embraced the culture that I felt more Swedish than I had ever felt American. When the Swedes would ask me what traditions we had back home, I’d feel lost, homeless, disconnected. I could think of nothing, no special foods or traditions, for none had ever been part of my life.

A memory from Sweden.
A memory from Sweden.

While I was also living there I met a guy who ran a record shop in Stockholm; he’d landed there as a Vietnam war deserter. He had the largest collection of Swedish traditional music in the city. He always bemoaned the fact that all the young people came in asking for American records when they had a rich musical heritage of their own; fantastic stuff that he blared out into the street, songs of love and loss, of sailing adventures and longing for home, for the cool air, the rocky shores and calm waters of the archipelagoes of Sweden. The musical riches are all at their feet, he’d say. I took this to heart and fell in love with many a Swedish troubadour, poets of song that sang to my own soul’s longing for a true home port.

Eventually, I left Sweden and the rich culture I had embedded myself in so thoroughly. I returned home, back to America, back to searching for my own home, my own sense of belonging. The funny thing is that my favorite books, books on Native American Traditions, had accompanied me to Sweden, the myths of the Indians, long before the white man ever set foot on the land that belonged to everyone and to no one. I read them while living there, searching for what I knew not, but I had always been drawn to their myths and teachings.

In one of those books, Rolling Thunder, the author Doug Boyd, back from his own sojourns to India, writes of sitting with Rolling Thunder, a medicine man and spiritual leader. It’s the early 1970s. “A lot of things are on this land that don’t belong here,” says Rolling Thunder. “They’re foreign objects like viruses or germs. … A lot of the things that are going to happen in the future will really be the earth’s attempt to throw off some of these sicknesses. This is really going to be like fever or like vomiting, what you might call physiological adjustment.”

“It’s very important for people to realize this. The earth is a living organism, the body of a higher individual who has a will and wants to be well, who is at times less healthy or more healthy, physically and mentally. People should treat their own bodies with respect. It’s the same thing with the earth. Too many people don’t know that when they harm the earth they harm themselves, nor do they realize that when they harm themselves they harm the earth. Some of these people interested in ecology want to protect the earth, and yet they will cram anything into their mouths just for tripping or for freaking out—even using some of our sacred agents. Some of these things I call helpers, and they are very good if they are taken very, very seriously, but they have to be used in the right way; otherwise they’ll be useless and harmful, and most people don’t know about these things. All these things have to be understood.”

“It’s not very easy for you people to understand these things because understanding is not knowing the kind of facts that your books and teachers talk about. I can tell you that understanding begins with love and respect. It begins with respect for the Great Spirit, and the Great Spirit is the life that is in all things—all the creatures and the plants and even the rocks and the minerals. All things—and I mean all things—have their own will and their own way and their own purpose; this is what is to be respected.”

“Such respect is not a feeling or an attitude only. It’s a way of life. Such respect means that we never stop realizing and never neglect to carry out our obligations to ourselves and our environment.”

As I reread those words of Rolling Thunder, so many years after my own sojourns to other lands, I realize that to access the wealth of knowledge of the ancients of our own country, of the Native American Indians, we must take full responsibility for living here. We must learn the first lesson of any novice, to love and respect the teacher, the earth we live upon. We must be mindful of and questioning of every action we take. Am I being respectful and loving toward this land I live upon, toward the earth, toward the Great Spirit—which is all life in all living things—and toward myself?

Am I a good, loving and respectful steward of this land? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Am I a good, loving and respectful steward of this land?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Whether we are of Native American ancestry or not, we live here now. Just as I became a Swede when I lived there, embracing it with love and respect, so is it our responsibility to treat all living things in our own country with love and respect, as we too wish to be treated. As we seek our path of heart, we must remember this.

Our soul is here. In everything we do, we must give back to the soul of the land we live upon. If we are to heal, we must also heal the land.

Respectfully, from our shared home port,
Jan

Excerpts from Rolling Thunder by Doug Boyd, pp. 51-2

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: How To Create A New Reality

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Did our thoughts create this reality? - Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Did our thoughts create this reality?
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

“You get what you concentrate upon,” channeled Jane Roberts on August 28, 1980. This is one of my favorite quotes from the energetic being, Seth, whom Jane Roberts channeled, stressing how our beliefs and attitudes create our world, both our personal world and the world we all share.

In the simplest of terms, Seth is saying, if we focus on something it will happen. If we are negative thinkers, negative things happen. If we concentrate on happy, positive things, we will get happy, positive things in our lives. What we choose to concentrate on can be to our detriment or to our advantage. This may sound simplistic and idealistic, but if we examine how thoughts create our reality we can learn how to change our thoughts to change our reality as well.

If you have a pimple on your chin and stare at it, it soon looms large. It turns red and ugly. It’s all you see when you look in the mirror and you are sure it’s all everyone else sees too. You apologize for it, try to hide it, or even refuse to go out in public. The pimple festers and grows the more you stare and poke and pinch at it. So is it with thoughts. The negative ones fester, causing us to weep that our lives are terrible, that we are unhappy, miserable, lonely, and that life is unfair. The positive ones grow as well. As we open to and accept new positive things into our lives, our lives expand; new experiences unfold as the world meets us on our positive terms.

The reality is, both negative and positive aspects of our lives are things we create for ourselves. They are our intentions, brought to us by our beliefs and attitudes—unconscious as well as conscious—that we decide upon and set for ourselves. For instance, does illness really exist or is there a part of us that has created it for some reason that we are perhaps unaware of?

There are definitely real reasons for illness. Aside from obvious diseases or injuries there might, however, be other reasons for the illnesses that plague us, for chronic pain and depression, for mental and emotional imbalances. Not everything can be fully healed by physical methods alone, but a more holistic approach offering psychological and spiritual attention as well might do the trick. The entire biological organism that we are must be taken into account, both that which is seen and that which is unseen. Some aspects of our reality are created unconsciously and thus need consciousness to bring them to healing.

We are a whole lot more than meets the eye... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We are a whole lot more than meets the eye…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

If we take into consideration that we are actually a whole lot more than we can touch and see; that we are energy as well as substance, ethereal as much as flesh and blood, we might begin to understand how powerful our thoughts, beliefs and attitudes really are. They are without form, so what else are they but energy? If we energetically create our own realities then we can energetically change them as well.

Perhaps our beliefs tell us that we are miserable and that we will always be miserable. Is that really true? Or is it only true because we think that way, because we have accepted that attitude? Did any of us really come into life intending bad things to happen, or to lead a miserable life? Were not our infant selves innocent of all that happened to us?

In fact, the lives we live have largely been created by what we’ve learned, believed, been told and continue to tell ourselves, or by what has been done to us. If we remain in that creation then indeed our lives will not change.

In truth, we are largely unaware of how we constantly retrench ourselves in our own predicament. It’s easy to blame others, and yes, others do cause great harm, but blame also keeps us stuck in negativity and there is little resolution to be found there. We become powerless victims of our circumstances, helpless and depressed, as we spin deeper into our darkness. In a sense we become our own worst enemies, our own abusers.

We all get to the point where we have to make a decision about how we want our own lives to unfold, and face that if we want positive experiences it’s up to us to give them to ourselves. No one else can provide what our spirit needs. It’s at that point that we might be ready to try something new. The simplest thing might be to change the ingrained, negative mantras we constantly repeat to ourselves, aborting the usual thoughts, inserting new positive refrains.

I had learned, at an early age, the devastating consequences of not acting on my own behalf, and by default the value of seizing an opportunity. I’d learned that one thing would lead to another, that things would happen, doors would open. Sometimes those doors were not the right ones, but as I grew up and made my way into the world I learned that behind some doors there were good people. I learned to accept that good things could happen and that good experiences were out there waiting for me to find them. Positive things happened when I took a chance on myself; things changed. My own lessons in creating a new reality for myself meant stepping out into life in a new way, navigating away from the old negative world, venturing into a new world of my own choosing.

There's always a door waiting for us to walk through... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
There’s always a door waiting for us to walk through…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

If we are to create a new world in which we can all live in harmony we must get into harmony within ourselves. We must all face what might be behind the doors that appear in our own lives, all of them necessary, and all of them leading us on our healing journeys.

Our role is to take responsibility for our own lives, to heal ourselves as much as we ask others to heal us. We can do this by recreating our own world, fashioning it with positive intent, even as we face what pains us the most, even as we open yet another door that might not yet be the good one. We must do it anyway, concentrating always on the one that we know lies ahead, the one good door that will be the one that will finally lead us out of our old world of worry, fear and negativity into a more positive light.

If we can each do that for ourselves, then there is hope for all of us. Because, you know what? We are all energetic, magical beings—every one of us.

What is happening in your own current reality? What is it that you concentrate upon? How can you change it? As Seth also said: “Your experience will follow your concentration and belief and expectation. The mind is a great discriminator. It can use its reasoning to bring about almost any possible experience within your framework.” Now that is something to concentrate upon!

Creating anew for me and you,
Jan

Excerpts from The Magical Approach by Jane Roberts, pp. 71-2.