The Light Behind Defeat

Dear Fellow Earthlings,

I will be honest. I am still releasing negative feelings and emotions almost three years after my husband left. It is not a constant thing and most days I am quite happy, but when I am silent, I am able to dive deep down into reservoirs of darkness and negative emotions. They are there and I am trying not to be afraid of them, but rather, to work with them for my own healing.

I can't say that I've perfected being a deep sea diver. Most of the time I'm looking for my water wings. I want my noodle, or maybe two noodles, so I can bob effortlessly up and down with the ocean waves. I don't want to go deep down where there are sea urchins, sharks, sting rays and other things that could hurt me. It's dark and murky under there. I don't know what is lurking or what might hurt me and I've already been hurt. Best not to risk it again, right?

I went to a psychic recently. Actually, I am a trained psychic too. I have given many psychic readings, but it helps to also receive them. The woman who saw me confirmed that I am diving deep. So deep that most people would have turned back long ago. I've somehow agreed to do this. Even my former spouse could not go where I was going. Instead of swimming down, he doggy paddled sideways towards another woman who he ended up having an affair with. I think he believed that somehow she would save him or he could lose himself and the darkness by taking up with someone new. But it doesn't really work that way. We can get guidance and help, but no one can live this life for us. Each one of us has to go through it and the more resistance there is the harder it will be. This is what I've found.

Don't be afraid of the darkness, because behind it is a light you can't believe. Skimming the surface will never allow you to catch a glimpse of this light. You can skim through your entire life if you want. No one will stop you.  But there is so much beauty deep down in there.

I also do tarot card readings and did one for myself the other day. In my mind, there are no "bad cards," but ones we can learn from. I recently chose the card DEFEAT.

When you think of defeat, what comes to mind? For me there is a feeling of losing. I've lost something. In sports we lose to the other team. In medieval latin, the word is disfacere which means to destroy, mutilate or undo. Who wants to lose or be destroyed? No one. We are in this life to win and preserve ourselves for as long as we can.

Henry David Thoreau, in his essay called Civil Disobedience, wrote:

The mass of men leads lives of quiet desperation

We don't want waves. We don't want to dive deep and face the darkness. In fact, most of us do everything in our power to avoid the darkness. We'd take boredom and predictability over uncertainty any day.We'd rather have security and know what's what. But do any of us know what's what? I believe there's actually more struggle in holding things together than letting things fall apart. Easier said than done because, for the love of GOD, who wants to open up that can of worms and expose who we really are and how we really feel?

But what if we did let go. Instead of holding tightly to the rope of fear, what if we just let it go. Instead of clenching fists of sand, what if we watched it sift through our fingers in amusement. We are all going to die, this is true, so what is the sense of holding on so tightly?

I'm not suggesting doing anything rash, I'm suggesting to ask defeat (or any other dark emotion) to sit down with you to tea. Maybe you'd learn more than you expect. Maybe you'd see beauty where you never expected to see it.

I let defeat come in. I let it come on a walk with me and the dog I'm caring for out here in Port Townsend. There is some anger in defeat for me. I lost my spouse to another woman. The world that I believed in came crumbling down and so did my identity of twenty years. If you were to lose your spouse, kids, husband, home, animals, who would you be? Do you depend on all these others to define who you are?

I've been playing with "now what?" for awhile. I'm testing out lots of different things. Instead of quickly taking on another identity or putting all my eggs in another's basket, my larger self, or "oversoul" as I call it, is asking me to not hurry to define myself again. It's telling me to linger at the bottom of the ocean for awhile.

And at the bottom of the ocean is a deep silence. A deafening silence. And a light so bright and so warm. I  heard this silence and I saw this light in a cathedral of trees on my walk with the dog. It shone right through the dark thickness of them, inviting me to sit down and listen. This grove asked me to put down my thoughts and stories and to enter empty handed. So I did.

I currently have no home to call my own. But I do believe I'll have one again. It's easy to feel defeated when you've given away all you've got and lost so much. But the other side of that is an unbelievable lightness and joy. There's nothing to carry except the present moment. Behind the swords of defeat there is a bright light. You don't have to die to see it. It's there every moment speaking in a butterfly that flutters overhead or in a thimble berry that begs you to taste it. Life is abundant even in defeat and sorrow. Even in my darkest hour, I feel the sweetness of being alive.

No, I'm not afraid of the darkness. Instead, I feel myself outstretching my arms and asking this uncertainty, sorrow, loss and pain to dance.

Divine Earthly Experience 11: Going Inward

"Go into the core of your being, all your answers lie there."—Katherine Jenkins

Hello fellow Earthlings,

How are you? I'm currently in hibernation. I'm in a gathering state. I thought I'd come back to Facebook and start engaging more on June 8th, but here we are a June 15th! It's been a month and a half since I pulled the plug on Facebook and I see that I'm still not quite ready to "come out."

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I feel like a lump of clay yet to be molded. I could become anything at this point, but I feel like staying here in this unformed state a little longer. There is so much potential in the unformed state. Not having to be somebody has both its challenges and rewards.

The challenges are feelings of disconnection, loss, fear. The questions Who am I? and What is my purpose? have come up a lot. I've asked for divine intervention. I've asked for signs and symbols. I've waited. In some instances, I've grown impatient and even fearful. What if I am nobody in this world? That question is kind of scary, isn't it? Other challenges are not feeling like engaging much, keeping to myself, feeling depressed due to lack of clear direction, etc.

But floating on a vast ocean without signposts or a map has advantages too. In the unknown there is so much possibility. It's easy, in the day to day world, to make definitions of ourselves. We cling to self definitions like life preservers; without them, we feel we'd drown. Words like mom, teacher, construction worker, activist, poet, business owner, spiritual teacher give us a sense that we are somebody in this world and we are doing okay because we have that to rely on. We are part of this community or that community and within those communities is a pecking order and if we aren't in our place or we don't have a title or a role, we are lost. Just like in families, we are the middle child, the eldest, the youngest or the only child. We base our identities on how we grew up and it's true, at least in early life, we were molded by our families, particularly our parents. But clinging to what happened to us in the past is clinging to "a story" and there are many stories you can tell. What happens when you pick up that molded clay and pound it out and form something else or let it lie in a clump for awhile? What happens if you lose your map?

Here are the advantages to doing that: You get to decide who you become, by having no identity you are now open to having a new one, you get to form the rules, direction, pace. While you are sitting here as the unformed lump of clay that you are, instead of filling yourself up from the outside, you get to fill yourself up from the INSIDE and that's where all inspiration comes from. In fact, inspiration means being "in spirit" or going inward. All co-dependency with others is lost in this state of being. You aren't looking to others for your happiness. You are not relying on your place in society to make you happy.  Your sadness is yours and your happiness is yours too. It doesn't depend on other people or outside circumstances. It depends on YOU.

I've been in a Clairvoyant Awareness Program for 10 months at a place called Psychic Awakenings in Seattle. I have to say, it's really hard to hide yourself from psychics! Ha! It's very easy to pretend all is well and you are happy with your place in life, but people tuned in spiritually and psychically can see right through that veil. I have received so much healing from the training and work I've done there. But the biggest revelation I've had is that we are all in this together. None of us are immune to sadness, pain or suffering just as none of us immune to happiness and joy. Once we know how connected we are, it's such a relief. We can be open and share knowing that we all go through the same things at one point or another in life, just at different times. We can feel happy for people whose lives are going great and we can have compassion for people going through a hard time because we've all been there! 

The other big things I've learned at Psychic Awakenings are to ground and own my space. Those are HUGE! And we practice them again and again and again. After years of meditation, I wasn't aware of how important it is to ground or be grounded in life. I was always seeking the next spiritual experience and I won't lie and say that it wasn't fun to ride that wave for a very long time. So much became manifest in my life. Things I could never have imagined. But as high as you go, that far you fall. It's risky business and having a grounding cord connected to the center of the earth is always a good idea.

And it's no secret that I fell hard. My life came crashing down with the end of my marriage. And now, as I sit here in the valley of my life picking up the broken pieces of it, I see an image of myself throwing these pieces into a big pot. It's my own pot or container. I OWN my space. I get to decide how much water to add or not add. I get to decide what I put in that pot and what comes out of it and WHEN it comes out.

I'm not ready to come out yet, but soon. My teacher at Psychic Awakenings taught us to "bring in a golden sun" and fill ourselves up with our own energy. I always felt this was so grounding and validating. Whatever energy that was not mine could not stay in the space when I did this technique. But we were always "bringing in" the golden sun, which works for me, but it implies that it came from somewhere outside myself. Last Tuesday, she said, "Sit in the center of your own golden sun!" Wow! That resonated with me. We ALL have this light inside of us. We get to go inward and sit in the center of our OWN SUN or our own light. For some reason, right now, the song lyrics "this little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine..." are coming out. Each one of us gets to shine our light and the package it comes in, the lump of clay we get to work with, may be different, but all of us have this light inside.

Last night, before I went to bed, I asked for guidance. All of us have different beliefs. Maybe you believe in God or Jesus or you are a Buddhist or you talk to angels. Maybe you frequently tune into Source or maybe you are an Atheist. I'm not here to judge how you make your decisions about your life or where you get your inspiration from. I believe that I'm in a human body which has its own limitations, yet I'm connected to something much greater than I can comprehend in this body. I frequently tune into that energy and I get my direction and inspiration from that place. When I tune in and connect to Source and give psychic readings to people, it's uncanny how pertinent and timely that information is to the person I'm reading even though it may not make sense to me personally as I'm reading. In the end, it's a healing for me and for them. We connected and shared on a much deeper level. I feel that's what I'm here to do. I'm here to connect and share on this level.

So what came from the guidance I asked for, you ask? I got the message, "Go into the core of your being, all your answers lie there." So that's where I am navigating from and will continue to navigate from: the inside out. Going inward is pertinent to hearing divine messages. Most messages, I believe, come from a higher version or vibration of ourselves. If we move around in life distracted and influenced by all that's going on OUTSIDE of us, we never get a clear channel to hear what is going on inside. When life comes crashing down, we can hurry to get our footing again, or we can sit in the center of our own golden sun and see what lies there.

Divine Earthly Experience 9: The Connection of Facebook to Depression and Isolation

"There is also the question of why many users spend so much time online. People who are already mildly depressed or feeling socially isolated may log onto Facebook as a way of connecting with others or to relieve their own sense of sadness. Unfortunately, being subjected to repeated evidence that other people have more interesting lives often has the opposite effect."—Romeo Vitelli, Psychology Today 

Hello Fellow Earthlings,

How are you? It's been a little over a week since I unplugged from Facebook. It's strange. There is even a name for this. It's called "virtual suicide." However, I don't think I fit into that category because I'm here virtually on this blog. I don't miss Facebook or social media, strangely. It occupied a fair share of my time and I see now that I'm glad to have the space to do other things. I had to actually "deactivate" my account because I knew that if I stayed on it, I'd check it somehow.

What is the reason to remain on Facebook or other social media? I guess it's a way of connecting and not feeling isolated. It's a way of saying, "Hey, my life is good!" or "I'm not okay." We can also check in on others to see what they are doing.

A friend at work said she is also thinking about leaving Facebook. She read a study that Facebook can cause depression because people read about how wonderful everyone's lives are and they start to compare and realize that they don't have such an amazing life. It can make you feel like something is missing or something is wrong with you.

I, too, was in the habit of posting photos, etc. of awesome experiences I was having. Not surprisingly, the mood I chose to display most of all on Facebook was "awesomeness." To be honest, even in the dark periods of my life, I often found the silver lining and something positive to share. I am a firm believer in the fact that what you focus on in life is what will show up for you. I choose to focus on the positive. But I'm not immune to sharing difficult experiences with others and I did so both here and on Facebook and luckily many people reached out and could relate.

I had dinner with a new friend last night in REAL TIME. She's only known me since things have looked up in my life, since after my partner of 20 years left. She doesn't know how heart-wrenching that was for me. She was not there. From her perspective, I post too many positive photos of my recent experiences on Facebook. She had no idea that I am no longer there. I know the reason why she said it. I know it's because she is currently having a really hard time.

But I don't think the answer is to be angry at people for posting cool photos, positive quotes, cute baby or cat pictures, inspiring ideas or even for people tooting their own horns for doing something awesome (i.e. getting married,  having a baby, getting a promotion, starting a business, getting a book deal or record deal). This is LIFE and people tend to want to focus on the positive. I love reading about all the inspiring things my friends are doing.

It sure beats the negative and we have plenty of that in our world and our lives, don't we? During the last election, I steered clear of social media. It just bummed me out. People were so ferocious on Facebook. The viciousness and disregard for fellow human beings was evident. I just didn't want to participate. Not because I don't care, but because I don't want to be part of energy that is vicious or mean.

I think it's okay to express darker emotions as long as we are not hurting anyone. Maybe people don't feel safe to express those emotions publicly. They feel they might be judged or gossiped about. Isn't it funny how humans operate? When we hear good news about someone, we are not always so happy for them and when we hear bad news, some of us secretly feel good because our lives aren't THAT bad. What is wrong with this picture? If we are all connected on an energetic level, my good news is your good news and the bad things I experience are also connected to you.

This is what compassion is about.

If Facebook or social media is not the place to express darker emotions, I think it's important to have a safe place to express those. We should never be afraid of how we feel because every single one of us experiences sadness, pain, defeat, loss and grief at one point or another. Just as all of us experience happiness, joy, satisfaction and love at one point or another. We are not perpetually in a state of AWESOME-NESS. Our states of mind really depend on many things and are as changeable as the weather. We could have blue skies in one area and dark clouds of doom in another and even a rainbow in the middle. There is NOTHING WRONG with the dark clouds or dark emotions, but it would seem that sometimes on Facebook or social media, dark emotions just don't exist for most people. I'm not saying these emotions are not expressed, I'm just saying they aren't as common as the rainbow and blue skies variety of updates and posts. And then it begs the question, is Facebook for real? We are not seeing the full picture. We've certainly gained a wider audience, but at the cost of real, heart to heart interactions. 

So now that I've unplugged from Facebook, I am feeling a tad bit of isolation, if I could be really honest here. I would love it if you are reading this right here and now to let me know you are there. Why? Because for this moment, we are connecting. For this short period of time in your life, you are here reading my blog and I'd love to know that.

Do you ever feel depressed, overwhelmed, sad or angry about the things you read on Facebook or other social media?

Divine Earthly Experience 7: Who are YOU?

 "You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need."—Jerry Gillies

 Hello fellow Earthlings:

 Lately I've been thinking about identity.

Who are YOU?

Or more precisely, I've recently asked, "Who am I?"

It's the age-old question and I'm sure there are many answers, but I believe almost ALL of it has to do with programming.

 When you were born, depending on what you believe, you came into this world with whatever was leftover from your past lives OR as a blank slate. Well, not completely blank, because I believe our true nature is something we each have that can't be carried over or even learned.

That innocence you had as a newborn. Can you remember any part of it?

Strangely, I remember lying in green grass as a baby. I remember the warmth of the sun and a soft blanket under me. I remember lying on my belly and clutching fistfuls of fresh green grass, testing out my grip. I remember the herbaceous aroma, so soft on my bare skin. I lived through my senses and I remember feeling elated to be alive. I remember seeing through my baby eyes with a sense of wonder and awe, but also with a slight hint of familiarity...I'd been here before!

And then the programming set in. The programming came first from my parents: "Don't touch that!" and "Don't go there!" or "If you are good, I'll give you a cookie." And I remember that there were rewards and punishments for things and it got confused with my parents' own emotions and their states of mind. Sometimes I was rewarded or punished for things that weren't consistent. I didn't want to rock the boat because there was enough turmoil in my life as a child. My parents ended up divorcing when I was young, around six, and I forever tried to please them. I grew up trying to please my mother and be a good girl. I learned a lot of behavior that simply was NOT MINE. I took on my parents', friends' and society's behavior. I conformed. I did what was expected of me given my home life, where I lived, where I went to school, etc.

All of this was my programming. I took it on. I became it and believed that's the way things were. I put a lot of pressure on myself to achieve. I wasn't good enough unless I was checking things off my list. I went to high school and became the "Outstanding Journalist of the Year" upon graduating. I got into college and before I left, during my senior year, we were asked to write down what we expected we'd be doing in 10 years. I wrote down my plans on a little slip of paper that was carefully placed in a film canister (time capsule). I was told I'd receive that canister back at my 10-year reunion.

I missed my 10-year high school reunion. I was thousands of miles away living in a tiny, Japanese, tatami-mat apartment in Sendai where I taught English. I lived in the suburbs and had few friends. I was lonely. Maybe the loneliest I'd ever been. My best friend from high school mailed me my film canister. I remember that day the mail man slipped the envelope through the mail slot. It fell on the freezing cold concrete floor that was my kitchen. My apartment smelled of Kerosene and was freezing.  With gloved hands, I ripped open the envelope and read the letter from my girlfriend and then carefully opened the canister, which had been sealed for 10 years. I took out the little piece of paper from the canister and read:

"I will be married with 2 children (a boy and a girl), I will drive an SUV and live in the suburbs and have an MBA or Masters in Journalism."

Shit! Here I was in my squat Japanese apartment, single, the owner of a BICYCLE with no masters degree in anything. What happened?

I am not really sure, but somewhere along the line, maybe after graduation from college, I had had an identity crisis. I did not know what I wanted, but I knew what I didn't want. I did NOT WANT TO SETTLE DOWN and live the life I was destined (or programmed) to live. I felt I needed to get FAR AWAY from everything I knew in order to find out who I really was. I traveled all over Asia. I went to Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, India, Tibet, etc. I studied Buddhism and I eventually married a Buddhist monk, moved back to Seattle, wrote a book (Lessons from the Monk I Married, Seal Press 2012) and
settled into a wonderful life of traveling, writing, teaching, etc. I felt so elated. I felt like I knew who I was. All the risks I took were worth it. I let go of a lot and found out what really called to me.

And then my husband left.

He ran off with a younger woman and left our 20-year partnership.

So much of my IDENTITY, the one I thought I really OWNED, was enmeshed with my husband. Who was I without him? I had built my life around this person. I had written a book about this person. NOW WHAT?

And I began to suffer an even BIGGER identity crisis. I was floating in a vast sea looking for anything somewhat stable to grab onto—a stick, a tire, a log. It was dark and lonely...lonelier than my time in Japan even.

I felt nothing. I felt I was nothing. Nothing to offer. I went into a shell. I went into hiding. I stopped writing and reaching out. I was in what some people call the "dark night of the soul" period. I didn't post on Facebook, I didn't write on my blog. I reached out to just a small handful of people eventually. That was it.

At some point it dawned on me, maybe 5 months or so down the line, that I had a gift. I could now be WHOEVER I WANTED TO BE. I didn't need to live by any other person's rules but my own. I took ownership of who I was. I decided to take a Burlesque class. I became VENUS ON FIRE. I have a stage name. I am sexy, fiery, strong, passionate, alive. I dance in high heels and sometimes dye my hair red. I wear sexy dresses and skirts and leggings and a flower in my hair. I buy myself fresh flowers once a week and get massages and drink fancy cocktails with names like "purple skirt" and "sex on the beach" and those very cocktails became sign posts pointing the way of my future. I would wear a purple skirt and have sex on the beach in the most passionate, romance-novel way you can imagine.

Who woulda thunk it? Well, I did. I CREATED IT.

We don't have to live PROGRAMMED lives. We can be whoever we want to be. We can create whatever identity we want and live a life that is our own.

I feel like when we are young, we accept all the programming that is around us because we need the experience, and as we get older, we have to DE-PROGRAM ourselves to find out who we really are or what we are drawn too.

One thing I uncovered about myself, that I don't think was programmed, is that I'm HIGHLY INTUITIVE and I was always afraid of this side of myself because being psychic is not something that was encouraged or accepted early on by my family or peers. Now, I've found my people. I am in an 11-month Clairvoyant Awareness Program at Psychic Awakenings in Seattle and I give weekly hour-long psychic readings to people along with my teacher and other class members. I have developed this side of myself that I always hid from before. Now, I am offering useful and valuable information to people that can help them on their journeys. And I'm still creating and uncovering parts of myself. I get to write my story and that's EXCITING!

Who are YOU?

Is it a question you care to know about? Do you feel you are leading a life that you created that is YOUR OWN or have you been programmed or influenced to lead a life based on your family, society and the people around you? Did you know you have a choice?