Maybe you prefer travel as much as I do. Well, maybe it’s not really about the travel but more about the wandering. That is what I like. Wandering. I thought it was because there is so much going on in my totally brilliant head that wandering allows the words, thoughts, theories, and projects to drain into my shoes and be absorbed by the ground. Then “ahhh”, I am just me again, rather than a walking balloon-head.
However, what has occurred to me through a TI Reading I did this week is that maybe wandering has less to do with my head and more to do with emotions. Being intensely sensitive to other’s feelings (in fact psychically or clairsentiently so) has the unexpected result of not wanting to stay still – to tune into my pain or others’. In fact, for me, staying still to tune into feelings results in overwhelm, in a Pavlov’s dog sort of way. Habitual resistance to the feeling of unbearable overwhelm reinforces the wandering. And sometimes wandering means interrupting myself – remembering what else I haven’t done just as I get into what I am doing.
As I reflected on this, it then occurred to me unexpectedly, that “expectations” are tied into this cat’s hair ball of associations. Another way to leave the task of tuning into my feelings is to look outward. When I look outward, my filter on the world shows me others’ expectations. What an expert I have become in sensing and exceeding others’ expectations! I can’t tell you what a good business person that has helped me become! When I’m focused on meeting or exceeding others’ expectations, then everyone is happy and I don’t feel overwhelmed – perfect!
Except sometimes I am overwhelmed by trying to discern and meet others’ expectations – so then I wander again. See? On one side of the polarity is wandering, and on the other side is meeting expectations – two ways to avoid the same fear: staying put, grounding, and feeling feelings that are way not happy.
Rather than swing from the sweat of checking the box of meeting expectations to the relief of escaping them, I could just sit quietly, ask those feelings that are not mine to leave my experience, and feel what is mine to feel. Since “God never gives us more than we can handle” and fear creates intensity that masks the simplicity of what are truly only my feelings, I am encouraged…a bit.
But as my mother advises on matters of the self, “Don’t go in there alone.” Grace is the most informed companion which brings with it the courage to look and to accept my own felt-sense of humiliation, fear, self pity, shame, and countless other feelings that can result in self-sabotage. With guidance and discernment of Spirit, I recognize the beliefs that create these feelings, and with self-compassion and mercy, I release the beliefs and the feelings.
Finally, the polarity of wandering and meeting expectations collapse into the paradox of releasing myself from wandering away from the self-condemnation of not meeting my own expectations…and that’s what wandering and expectations have in common.
When I was invited to speak at the Psychotronics Association (http://www.psychotronics.org/) Annual Conference, I had to ask: “Psycho what?” I thought at first they’d found me out and that I was to speak to “my own kind” (psychos) or perhaps I would be fortunate enough to be speaking with other psychics. As it turns out, the audience was mostly superspsychic and very brainiac.
Walking among this crowd was like being transported to a Star Trek production– with all the Galactic Ambassadors present for roundtable discussion.While they offered talks and workshops about the fields of radionics and homeopathy, most were pioneers of leading edge science - who were showing a variety of bio-technologies that utilized electromagnetic frequencies to heal, purify, detoxify, balance, and wash your dishes. OK, so not wash your dishes - but it was more scientifically based than any Whole Life Expo I’ve ever attended. And although I’m pretty technologically savvy, I found myself slowly backing out of some of the main sessions from lack of appropriate prerequisites to the discussion. Then I found out that the underpinnings of all this technology was the commonly held belief that our intentions and free will set into motion everything we do and build. That eased my embarrassment… a little.
Then to my great delight, one of the attendees at my workshop, Ways of Knowing, Fields of Influence, who was a Russian mathematician, recommended this fabulous site: http://www.qwavetech.com/. You can buy DVDs that “effect energy and healing in digital form” through your laptop, even when it’s in background mode. They have free links at http://www.energizingtechnologies.com/ that I am finding them quite potent! Go to qwave first for a bit of an explanation, and then link to energytechnologies. Tell me about your experience with it.
I learned a wonderful metaphor that helps me get quickly in touch with Spirit. It was offered by Dannion Brinkley (http://www.dannion.com/) in a keynote speech and I have embellished here:
Imagine an incubator for premature infants with the gloves attached to it. Imagine putting your hands into the gloves and holding the tiny baby inside. Now imagine that instead of a preemie, all the dramas and traumas of your whole life are inside the incubator. Your focus is very intense! Again, notice the gloves that give you an opportunity to move and manipulate what is inside the incubator of your life. Go ahead, feel into your life. Well, here’s the deal (explained by someone who has died and returned three times):
When you cross over to the other side, all you do is soften your focus away from the contents of the incubator, and then move your hands out of the gloves and return to who you are – Spirit. That’s it… Isn’t that great?
…Uh, except for the part where you then get to become all the people with whom you have ever interacted to really know and understand how they felt…YIKES!
I now use the image of the incubator when I make my life too serious or intense. And then when I’m in traffic or trying to go over my erroneous bill for the fifth time with the customer service representative, I try to remember that whatever I’m dishing out will indeed return to me after I take my hands out of my gloves!
The other day I played the CD Spinning by Claudia Schmidt (claudiashmidt.com). The song was called Here Comes Joy and the lyrics continue, “Let Her In…”. After I played it, my three year old Chinese daughter leaned her head forward from the back seat and said “Mama.” “What. Ana Joy?” I asked. “Mama, Let her in. Let her in, Mama.” Out of the mouth of babes.
The song says Joy is a deliberate destination – that you can’t stumble into Joy like you fall into despair. The song implies that Joy want us. Isn’t that a beautiful notion? Joy wants us. Are we paying attention? Sometimes just the idea of joy makes me think of the plethora of self-help books that have formulas for attaining this compelling state of being. Someone called too much education “the curse of knowledge” because it makes us all filled up with “I know”, leaving no space for curiosity or even “I’m not sure.”
I find meditation gives me the space to breathe… before launching into my “I know” . I sometimes forget that the insights I’m blessed to receive from client readings are only foundation pieces for new questions. What would I do without a three year old to inform me that Aunt Mary’s house lives in Chicago and that Monkey (her favorite stuffed animal and best friend) is from Russia, and that Monkey’s Mama (she refers to herself like this in third person) is from China? She helped me understand that Snoopy is Monkey’s father and that she has no problems with this interspecies family. Such chaos she makes of my ordered reality – the one that thinks it has answers from Spirit. So Ana Joy teaches me that Spirit is pure creativity – a creativity that laughs at our notion of how things should be; what constitutes a gift and what is a challenge; and who is our friend and teacher and who is our nemesis.
Today I promised myself to open, allow, and receive some unruly, illogical, and unsanitized versions of reality so that Spirit can get through my highly knowledgeable and dense head! “Mama!” “What, Ana Joy?” I asked again. “I’m joy, Mama. I’m Joy!” “Yes, you are, honey, yes, you are.”
My journey has been long and unconventional. Here, you’ll find my ever-unfolding reflections born of roles as both corporate consultant and intuitive healer.
A friend of mine, Diane Rossell, once said: “no matter what you are doing, you are always doing your work.” What is the work you are always doing, no matter what you call your role in work or life?
My work is to accelerate transformation toward more inclusive consciousness and love. I facilitate the movement of perceptions and educate people about maps of reality that are different than the ones they hold dear - or the ones that form the bases of whatever challenges they ask me to address. I do that with myself, friends, colleagues, and clients. I just do it. And, as those of you who know me can attest, I’m just that wordy most of time.
I will focus on stories and/or reflections that I hope inspire you and encourage your heart, as you have done for me through whatever relationship we have been blessed to participate. Let’s shape maps of reality that reflect purpose, meaning, and wisdom through the anecdotes we relate to each other.
I invite you to read, connect, comment and help me build a reliable pool of wisdom that will both enrich this space and expand our mutual horizon.