When all seems to be said and done, there is still more to handle, respond to, and integrate, always and forever! We are never said and done.  We are never completely finished, not in death, not in life, not in work, not in love.

Eternal Love by AmpamukA

There is always more awaiting us when we are ready to receive it, into our knowing.  We are ETERNAL.  We are eternally presented with more of something or another.  Even in the most severely extreme actions taken to end a life, one is never said and done. It is impossible to finish or end ourselves.  We are always with our being whatever dimension we are living in.  This is an absolute truth for all beings, everywhere.

Eventually,  sometime, somewhere we will begin to hear the small  voice of All That Is which is always with us whether we attend to that voice or not.  Even at the end of deeply  destructive action, we come face-to-face with ourselves and we are IT. There is no getting away from us, from our thoughts, words, deeds and actions.  We are IT.

Being Eternal is a forever process.

Our beings repeatedly move from one dimension to another and pick up where we left off.  We still have to face the same heartache, the same sadness, the same misperceptions, the same feeling of disconnection from God and Divine Love.   As above, so below.  As below, so above.  We are the creators of our own lives.  We are the ones who make choices with what we are given.  We are the ones who give meaning and power to the things which happen to us.  We can do the clearing work now or do the clearing work later, the choice is ours but the blocked energy NEVER simply goes away on its own.

We are inextricably part of All That Is, in mind, body and soul regardless of what we have done, what we are thinking, what we are presently doing or not doing or what we will chose to do in the future.  We create our own lives, the good and the bad, for the sole purpose of healing our souls from the separateness we feel from the Greater Whole. Why do bad things happen to us?  Why do good things happen to us?  We are on a journey and each of us will have the precise and exact situations we need to heal our souls.

Upon my return from India three years ago, I experienced 10 days of amoebic dysentery and 4 weeks of a serious, painful knee infection which had me in bed for over 2 weeks and on crutches for another 2 weeks beyond that, affecting all my systems because of the bacteria.

I had been on a spiritual journey to an ashram while in India.  You can imagine my outrage, anger and ranting about having such a thing happen to me when I had “put out” so much to make that trip!  What had I done “to deserve that reaction” in my life?   I was not at this level of outrage on the first day of the dysentery nor even during the first week of the infection but as it wore on and on, I wore out, more and more.  I felt exhaustion, weakness, pain, pain, pain and then anger, fear, rage, blame and finally release.  Ah, the sweet energy of surrender!

I finally saw that the entire experience was for me to GET THE SPIRITUAL MESSAGES of the trip and to integrate that knowing into every aspect of my being, including deep and serious illness.  I am not a super “swifty” in this type of learning!  However, with enough pain and discomfort, I did have to stop railing, begin meditating and praying, and eventually, let go.

Upward by Llima

We cannot heal unless we heal all the way down and we cannot go all the way down unless we go all the way up.  The deeper we want to descend, the more powerful the light we need, otherwise we are eaten alive. … Ultimately, progress is not so much a matter of ascending as of clearing all that obstructs — when we are clear, everything is THERE.   …..When the seeker has had a first decisive opening above, when he has seen the Light, he almost simultaneously feels a battering below, as if something in him were aching.  …And he will have learned his first lesson: we cannot take one step above without taking one step below… As soon as we have touched a certain intensity of consciousness or light, it automatically exerts a pressure on the rest of our nature and brings out the corresponding obscurities or resistances.   *Institut de Recherches Evolutives, Paris, 1996-2003, pgs 235-239.

This extended pain finally made sense.  My confinement and pain was not a punishment, not a “bad thing”, not cooked up for me to suffer.  It was a necessary experience if I was going to really escape all the emotions I had of blaming and raging against the Universe when my body was deeply hurting. Having spent 18 years earlier in my life with debilitating back pain, I was deeply familiar with pain.  However this time, I could see that my body was speaking to me LOUDLY about letting go all blame, anger, outrage and pain.

Resist not evil came hurling into my mind and saturated the pores of my body.  The message was to simply allow and this would pass as well.  It did pass and I had a talk with the Universe to arrange for other means to get my attention if and when I needed such a clearing in the future! I envision an email from God with a clear message, “clean up your act, you need to move on! ” I would hope I would get such a message now and not need more weeks in bed.

Have you gotten any emails from God recently? I had probably gotten lots of  messages which I had not recognized or ignored before my knee episode.  The “big guns” were brought in so that I had to attend to the messages.  May we each attend to the areas of our lives which are bringing us imbalance.  They don’t go away, ever, they just retreat and wait for another occasion to get us to pay attention to what needs clearing and balance in our lives.  As we are eternal through and through, we have all the time we need to learn the lessons before us.

Prayer and Clearing  Suggestion

Open a Sacred Healing Circle as you envision that for yourself.

Say from your heart :  I forgive myself completely and ask forgiveness from all others, where I have tried to hurt or punish myself or another knowingly or unknowingly including the following specific incidents ( _____) through all space and time.   I want to walk more fully in the Light, in Balance and In Harmony with myself and with others.  Thanks be to All That Is.

What happens when an opportunity comes along which we  have not consciously called to ourselves, and it keeps insistently inserting itself into our lives?  This has been my experience of being the executor for my mother’s estate.  It is probably a good thing I did not know all that was involved because I would have probably gone running in the opposite direction. Well, I did run in the beginning!

One thinks of these roles as a few months duration and then closure.  This role for me has been forming and reforming itself for over 3 years.

Yes by diebmx

Now as I am seeing a possible end to this, I realize that I have been given numerous opportunities through this process to say “YES” to the Universe or “NO”.  My major learning is that if I can get into a place to wholeheartedly say “Yes” to the Universe, my life flows more smoothly. If I don’t get into that place, I feel drained, worried, frustrated and disturbed.

When it was clear that my mother was finally ready to move to a retirement center, I kept ignoring what all this would mean to me.  We found a great retirement facility,  lovely apartment, worked out the financing, discussed the move.   We planned out the furniture she would be taking with little cut-out scaled furniture representations for each room courtesy of my husband.  I would be very present with her at her home, then return to my home and stop thinking about it, completely.  I just simply did not think about any of the real consequences of this for me. That worked okay for a while to lull me into thinking, “this will chug along just fine”.

Then I began to get phone calls 3-4  months before the move, such as, “Robbins, I just don’t think I am really ready to move quite yet.  You know there is only so much time and I’d like to spend it here where I am. “  Or another call,  “Robbins, I don’t think this new place is going to really suit me.  Perhaps we should wait. ”   These calls were coming after we had paid a hefty deposit and already set the move date.

No Papparazzi Pleace by its'me'red

It slowly dawned on me that my 86 year old mother could not cope with the move, at all, really. She might be able to work with me on what to take but the idea of really clearing out her home of 41 years, was  simply shutting her down.  At my home, I went ballistic, right into agitated anger, then “I can’t cope” mode,   I am ” incompetent” mode, why me?,  defeated resignation and on alternate Saturdays, begrudging acquiescence.  In other words, I was in a state of resounding “NO”!

I really did not want to go to Richmond (2.5 hours from me) week after week to make this move happen.  I had a healing practice in full swing, for goodness sake.  I had terrible “clearing out” skills myself. Why me?  Why me?

Thus began my daily training and education about saying “YES” or “NO” to the Universe.  All the agitation with the situation and with myself simply made me feel worse. I had not expected to begin my role as executor while my mother was still alive and fully competent.   I felt surprised and really unprepared.  Therefore I tried to control everything I could.  Grasping for control is completely different from saying “YES” to the Universe.

Grasping for control looked like my trying to get clarity and a firm decision from my mother about what she would take to her new apartment,  in one afternoon.  We both ending up frustrated.  Another image comes to mind of my driving on I- 95 South and being detoured by a  three lane accident.  Traffic was at a standstill for 1.5 hours before it moved.  My reaction was to fume.  The more I fumed the worse the situation got.  I eventually realized I was driving in the wrong direction on a secondary road before I got a hold of the anger.  These are just some of the none too pretty exchanges which occurred in my “NO” period.

I did finally get that I was making myself and most everyone else miserable AND that I had a choice in the matter. I began to call for the clearing of my anger, my fear of failure, my fear of not being competent to help my mother, fear of screwing up the legal process, fear about resenting the time I needed to spend in Richmond and a few dozen other fears as well.    As each one of these fears was named and released over a few weeks, our time together got easier and easier. Surprise, surprise!

Freedom by Guille

I went for 2- 3 days a week regularly and we began by setting up systems for addressing the “stuff”.  I remember being quite thrilled at about 6 weeks into this process, when my mother called and said that she had actually gone through a desk by herself and cleared it out as well as a chest of drawers.  She was very  pleased with herself.  This was the first time ever, in all the years I had known her that I remembered her doing this of her own volition.  So, confidence was growing for both of us. As I was increasingly going with the flow,  saying “YES” to the Universe, amazing things were happening.

We actually laughed a great deal as we were plowing through boxes from our lives in Holland, which had not been opened in 41 years.  We spent one afternoon remembering all the clothes my mother had made for me through the years.  This was aided by still having ever single one of the patterns in the basement and many actual material scraps of outfits themselves to aid our memories!  I began to program my IPod for the trip on I-95 South and by playing my own music, the trip seemed shorter and shorter.  We went out to dinner just the two of us which had hardly ever happened as we were always with other family members.   Such truly precious times, all from saying “YES” to the Universe.   I came to realize that this was a supreme blessing for me on every level,  one I had not called for myself but one which the Universe had presented all on its own for me.

Try saying “YES” to your Universe in your life.

Say Yes by teemow

There is likely to be a delicious blessing past the anger, frustration, need to control, fear of failure and fear of having to do something you don’t like doing.  My husband laughed with me as I began to come home each week and delve into our own piles of stuff, clearing, sorting and giving away.  I became determined to de-clutter and clear out so as to never have to face a 40 year stint of accumulated possessions of my own.  Another opportunity to say “YES” to the Universe. Happy affirming to you.

Prayer can be more than tepid thoughts, fear filled words or memorized prose. The purpose of prayer is to actualize the Divine Presence in all aspects of our lives.  We may strongly feel the need for “help”, “healing” , “relief” for another or for ourselves but our strong sense of need does not charge a prayer, nor necessarily make it happen.  This is because all that is needed already exists in the Universe.  All That Is really means All That Is.  So, what is  praying with power?

What are we praying for? by Silverlinedwinnebago

When we charge our prayers with determination, envisioned wholeness and balance, we draw on Infinite Power.  Powerful prayer brings form to the Universe of Divine Love that is all around us waiting to be actualized in daily life.  When we  see, sense, or envision, the Presence of Divine Grace for another, or for ourselves we are praying in power.  When the envision wholeness we give form to prayer so that the energy of Divine Love which is all present, all knowing and all powerful can be “harnessed”, “directed” and “focused ” for another.

We are working in the midst of Love Energy all the time. That Love Energy can be activated or not, focused or not, directed or not.  If we plead, beg or seek to inform our Higher Power we are essentially giving credence to a “God” separate from us and manifesting a world view of  “in-completion, loss and need”.  Even if we don’t fully get that we are One with All That Is and that we are made of the same substance as the Divine Energy itself, we can pray in the power of this energy and have our prayers be filled with direction, power and focus.

Prayer 1

Dear God,  I hope you will hear me.  I really, really,  want you to help Nancy because she is in so much pain. She desperately needs your loving touch, care and attention. She is suffering terribly and needs healing.  Help me with my deep sadness. I don’t want her to suffer and die.  Please heal her and don’t let her die.  She is a great mother and doesn’t deserve any of this. Her children really need her.  I hope she does not die.  Thank  you so much for your help.

Prayer 2

Spirit of the Living God, I open a sacred healing space for Nancy.  Nancy, beloved child of God, be healed.  Receive the healing energy of the Great I AM in all areas of your being, thought, emotion, spirit and body.  I call the Divine Healing Energy which is all knowing, all p0werful and everywhere present.   Come Divine Healing Energy of All That Is.  Fully actualize in Nancy’s being.  I cast out all blocked energy in Nancy’s field which is now manifesting as pain and imbalance.   I call in the Presence of emotional (mental, spiritual) and physical peace.  I see Nancy as whole and balanced in all ways.  My thanks for the Love of the Divine Wholeness/God/Universal Oneness.  And so it is.

The first prayer has a pleading tone and sees Nancy as lacking something, suffering and in need of  something to happen to make things “right”.  The prayer is informing God of Nancy’s pain, her mothering skills and her need for healing,  as if God does not know this intimately.  The person praying gives form to his/her own fears and sadness, rather than to the vision of balance and wholeness for Nancy.  This prayer sets God apart from the person praying.  This person praying thinks that Nancy is being punished because she doesn’t “deserve” this treatment.  On every front, this prayer is leaking power and energy.

The second  prayer affirms the limitless power of All That Is in all directions.  It is full of commands, be healed, receive, come and fully actualize.  The commands affirm the energy of WE ARE ALL ONE, even God and I.  This prayer is calling the formless energy of God/Eternal Oneness  into actualized form in Nancy’s energy field.  This person sees Nancy as  “whole and balanced in all ways”.  The pray-er is  giving form to the Divine Energy at the human level by envisioning the wholeness which is already there.  There is also recognition of the need to call out blocked energy Nancy is carrying which keeps keeping her from manifesting wholeness at the physical level.

The way the first prayer is conceived drains it of its power before it is even spoken. When we continue to see ourselves as unworthy, small, insignificant and separated before God, we are essentially turning away from our own true power, denying what has been give to us, that which is our birthright.   Our relationship with God is nothing like our relationship with humans, though many of us continue to view it with just the same limitations we might have with our sister or a friend.  There is no power in the first prayer because the person praying has not claimed that power which is there but for the asking.  It is not charged with the Knowing Of All That Is.  It is riddled with pleading, fear and the energy of being separate from God.  The words are said in love and desire to help but the source of the prayer comes from a sense of lack.

picture by gethiroshima

To pray with power, we have to claim the power that is waiting for us.  We have to try out a new vision of  partnership with All That Is.  We have to use all the goodness we have to see the Blessings of Wholeness and Balance for another.  Understanding that we are giving form to the unformed energy of Divine Infinity, we need to claim the Highest Good for ourselves and others when we pray.

Use these steps to infuse your prayers with power.

1. Address the power you are recognizing

2. Open a sacred healing space

3. Command the state of wholeness for self or others

4. Call the Divine Energy to the person or situation

5. Cast out all blocked energy manifesting imbalances

6. Give thanks for the Love of Divine Presence

7. Command that all that has been said is so.

Thoughts and feelings can balance us or unbalance us.  Where we place our attention and give our power determines whether we move towards greater balance or greater imbalance.  When we are out of balance energetically, it shows up somewhere.

How does imbalance affect us?

MB Balances Rocks (by aeu04117)

It can show up in disturbing dreams, inability to sleep, imbalances in eating habits, impatience, “down days”, arguments or colds and infections.  If we have been out of balance a very long time, the immune system can become compromised.  We can begin to show patterns of recurring colds, chronic pain or infections, high blood pressure, depression, anxiety or even osteoporosis, cancer or diabetes and everything in-between.  We may have recurring patterns of unsuccessful relationships, jobs, financial investments or failure to generally thrive due to being out of balance.

Our bodies as well as our thoughts, feelings and sense of connectedness to the greater whole are all energy.  Further our emotional, mental, spiritual and physical bodies are all related.  We are one large, completely connected web of flowing energy.  When one area of our life does not flow, we will be given all the chances we need to attend to this.  We always have the choice to attend in the present or put it off until later.  However, as long as there are imbalances in our energy field, these will  show up in our daily lives in one way or another.

Our response to energy may not be the only reason we are manifesting imbalances in our daily life.  There may be environmental factors, situational factors or hereditary patterns which make us more susceptible to certain imbalances in our lives.  However,  if we  couple  environmental or hereditary factors with also being out of balance emotionally, mentally or spiritually, the results at the physical level will be exacerbated.  The more we are out of balance, the greater the chance this will show up in our daily lives in one way or another. This is the most practical reason for attending to our spiritual health that I know of.  Thankfully, though,  we can change how we think and feel if we can figure out what blocked energy we may be carrying and how it is affecting us.

At the park with my daddy! =) (by Photo ChicK DoraliS)

How can we change our thoughts and feelings?

The way we attend to energy directly affects our health on many levels.  Suppose you are having on-going tension with a child.  You may have tried “everything” to clear the air with this child and are having no success. Usually when we come to this place with any relationship, it is time to look inside at our own thoughts and feelings about what is actually going on.  We can affect our thoughts and feelings if we can understand the “unseen” reasons we have specific thoughts and feelings.  However clearly we can see in others what they need to change, we can only bring about such change in ourselves.  Each person has the free will to choose conflict or balance, change or status quo,  harmonious relationships or contentious ones.   When we do decide to release thoughts and feelings which are creating imbalances,  it affects everything around us including the specific relationship we are focused on.

Enter into Silence and open a sacred healing space for yourself.  Ask yourself,  “when I argued with my child, what fears were fueling my thoughts, tone, emotions and words”?  It might be the fear; for your child’s safety,  of your child’s failure,  that (s)he is making poor decisions,  that your child does not respect you,  that you do not have the relationship you want with your child, or another fear.

What do I do if I am too angry to think straight?

If you can’t get to defining fear because of the anger that is present, list the specific anger you have.  Include every type of specific anger you are experiencing.   This might include something like,  I am angry with Kevin because I ask him to clean up his room,  then he doesn’t do it until I get angry and yell at him.  List everything you can but keep your work to blocks of no more than 15 minutes.  More than that can be overwhelming.  Keep returning to this set of tasks in 15 minute blocks until you are finished. When all the specifics of your anger are listed, move on to what is behind the anger that most upsets you.

Anger almost always covers fear or doubt of some sort or another.  Ask, “what is behind the anger I am feeling” ?  Specific fears and doubts cover probably 98% of the blocked energy manifesting in contentious relationships. This is called diagnosing the situation. If you can’t figure it out yourself, go into Silence, be still and ask Divine Knowing for insight around these issues.  Listen to the guidance.

How do I get rid of these thoughts and feelings?

Diagnosis is good.  Clearing the blocked energy is better.  Take the specific fear or doubt you have identified and take it into sacred healing space.   Open the sacred healing space, ask that the fear/doubt be consumed by the Divine Presence.  Call for all core or source energy manifesting now as this fear/doubt to be release into Divine Light.  Call for the Divine Healing Presence to permeate this relationship and give thanks for this experience.  Your taking these steps will be met 100% of the way by Divine Presence/Divine Knowing/Source.  This healing energy is first experienced at the unseen level usually in the form of different feelings and thoughts.   It takes a little while for shifting energy to show up in our physical lives.   Watch for shifts.  Give thanks for the shifts both unseen and seen as they come and eventually the energetic context of this relationship under scrutiny will shift.

You may have to work on other aspects of fear or doubt over several weeks or months to completely allow you to be in relationship with this child, free of fear.  However, each time you undertake this type of healing with the Divine Presence,  you will actually change the energy around you, especially that with your child.  Keep it up.  “It’s good work… if you can get it. ” (Dave Wilcox. “Good Together”, 2002)