Change - and choice

Hello all –

So I thought I’d completely jettisoned my old self…. but there are some things that are just here to stay… And that was rather the point – to see what remained after all the excess fell away.  Part of the Peace Corps journey was to re-calibrate.  You’ve heard this story before, so no repeating.  In short, I chose an opportunity that would allow me the space to live my work – and not sell it.    I’ve dismantled two websites, leaving behind  sixteen years of history.  I’ve stopped formally teaching the Feng Shui, the organization, dispute resolution, the ADHD classes, intuition, hands on healing.   I began teaching these topics at least a decade before they became mainstream and commercial. I’m glad to say that most of it is now part of the vernacular.  When I started, some of these concepts were only spoken of in hushed tones with trusted friends or others who had experiences that were outside the norm.  Now they are the subject of websites, books, webinars and Oprah.

Suffice it to say, that what remains after all that jettisoning of trappings and overhead, is the spiritual practice in daily life and the essence of that is awareness of what kind of emotion – vibration – energy I am offering to the mix.    Am I a source of light or contributing to the darkness?

Energy – sound – light – matter – emotion: it's is about vibration.  Everything vibrates at its own rate and that makes us all transmitters.  It’s not MAGIC – it’s PHYSICS.    This vibration influences everything around us and is cumulative in its impact.  It becomes and defines the collective.  It’s one of the building blocks  of the principle that thought-creates-form. In Africa, I had the remarkable opportunity to observe the immediate results of the concept in daily interactions.  Here there is so much noise, that sometimes it’s hard to rule out the variables.  

So why am I dragging this out now – after years of hiatus?  Because we, as a nation and as a complex culture, are in a mess - a world of woe.  It’s one we created for ourselves - and therefore a situation that we can choose to dismantle and change before our unconscious actions  or knee-jerk re-actions cement what it now just a possibility into a concrete reality. Regardless of political affiliation, our collective energy has created this atmosphere of escalating divisiveness.   Each political candidate represents the out-picturing of the mass energy – representing in different measures: hope, fear, love and hate.      We have – individually and as a society, allowed ourselves to be distracted by the media’s images of hate, violence, divisiveness and inflammatory rhetoric.   We have either not been paying attention, or often paying attention (aka: giving our energy) to things, thoughts, emotions and personalities that do not serve us well.   But we can change this IF WE CHOOSE.  And choose is an active verb…

Each of us has the ability to change our own energy or vibrational signature if we so desire and therefore calibrate (there’s that words again…) the signal we want to be responsible for sending and TO WHICH we want to resonate. Change the signal - change the path. 

We are creatures of choice and we can choose to be the best version of ourselves or drift along and let others do the choosing.  But what does that mean on a moment-to-moment basis?

In part, it means being acutely conscious of what we bring to every moment, every  action and interaction, every decision about what we re-post on FB, about the stories we tell about others and the worth we hold for ourselves.    In the book The Four Agreements (Miguel Ruiz), there is a quote:

“Be impeccable in your word.”

For me, that means not just to tell the truth, be authentic and honor our commitments. Our “WORD” is actually our frequency – the vibrational  signal we emit.  Sound – as an example of frequency – can destroy or create calm.  Is the signal we emit love or hate, worth or devaluing, supportive or discounting?   We are the tuners of our own devices; we are self-calibrating when we choose to be. 

IFF we want a different world, it means active engagement, but not necessarily in the old ways.  If we choose change, we no longer have the luxury of living on auto-pilot and being asleep to our real value, power or capabilities to shape the world and the relationships around us.  Perhaps we have reached this point of chaos and despair precisely to encourage us to be more aware, more conscious of the responsibility we hold for the choices we make, the actions we take and the words we utter.

Not to belabor the point, but again - we create with every breath, every emotion, every belief, every judgement, every blessing or curse – every word, thought, action (and inaction) – and every FB share!   Frankly, acting from conscious choice all of the time can be exhausting! It means breaking habits, operating out of new paradigms, questioning our motivations – being fully present.

One practice I have found helpful is meditation in general, but I really love doing a walking meditation, whether hiking, walking on the beach or to the store or even driving... it's a good way to focus energies and stay out of my monkey-mind.  Sometimes, it’s a challenge to “sit” and still the mind or to re-frame troubling thoughts and feelings, so I’m sharing a meditation I created for myself, in case it resonates with you or you want to create your own:

·

     

   With every step I take, may all beings walk in freedom 

     May every action I take be one of compassion 

     May every thought I have be in awareness of what I bring to the world 

     May every word I utter be spoken in kindness 

     May every emotion be of love and gratitude 

     May every breath offer a blessing 

     May I see all beings as the divine in form.

Namaste,

Nancy