Through the gift of financial insecurity

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. Albert Schweitzer

Fear of financial insecurity is intricately interwoven in all we believe. It is a mighty dragon, chained and held fast in the dungeon of mind. A divine request for its release wordlessly, artfully arose in awareness several weeks ago. At first, as with all the other slices of ego that have been stripped away, it was just a nagging discomfort.

For me, messages from God seem to show up first as uneasiness in my body before making their presence intelligible to mind. If I am not tuned in, it’s easy to miss them altogether or to shrug them off and placate myself with distraction. Commitment to freeing this self from ‘all’ self-made prisons means that paying attention to body’s signs becomes a daily ritual, one perfectly matched with a vast incentive. This request invited me to let go completely and dive into the belly of God—to live there, love there, take my sustenance only there, to release the control I believed I had over my life, to release even the idea of control—in essence, to stop this mad game and come Home.

As mind grasped the fullness of the request the contraction began. Resistance, for me, is felt at the third chakra—right in the solar plexus. When my ‘yes’ to life is complete, life flows simply, there is connectivity, Oneness. But, when ‘no’ shows up, insensitivity, discomfort, anxiety, are there too. It is easy to see the resistance when I’m aware of my body’s signals. Everything I say ‘no’ to shows up in the body for a time before going underground, crossing the threshold of the dungeon into the land of ‘no’. There each ‘no’ finds company, insinuating itself into the intricately woven design created and then used as proof for the way life is. Each ‘no’ makes it a little more difficult to return Home.

Financial security is a truly convoluted fear. On the surface it appears as fear of financial insecurity or, in sheep’s clothing, hope for financial safety. When looked at closely it is worry, doubt, and anxiety about missing an opportunity, taking the wrong path, making a bad decision, a mistake. It is also about the need to be smart and to stay on top of things. Listen, you can hear the tension building. Regardless of story, the end result is always disastrous. After all, we are very ingenious story tellers. Without our intense scrutiny (and perhaps even with it) poof, financial well being slips out of reach forever! Along with it, our chance for happiness, our ability to participate in the good life, and perhaps, if we look close enough, our opportunity to take part in life itself.

Look for yourself. Regardless of how much money you have, it is there, hiding in the deep, dark recesses of the castle, guarded by a dragon of immense proportion. Financial security is a great soul offering, as are all life’s hardships and joys. The financial aspect of life is quite juicy so it reaches out and touches us in sharply intense ways, and as a result, is a perfect device for awakening. It is a mirror into fear when we are willing to stand in front of it and allow the hidden answers to appear.

This time understanding has come in small snippets of insight. The enormity of the request still settles in. To let go of all need to control, what would that imply? Absolute trust, complete surrender, willingness to be with whatever is, stepping off the cliff into utter ambiguity. The question being asked is, “What will I serve?” Will I serve ego and its needs, or will I serve the Greater Good—God, Love, Wholeness? After the residual dust of mind’s story clears away, the question is really that simple.

Will I serve ego? Having spent the first part of my life doing just that, I can clearly see this option holds no promise. I was successful. I acquired all the stuff necessary for happiness. Serving ego is empty, a dungeon whose doors never, never open. I know true happiness lies in a different type of service—serving the Divine, saying ‘yes’ to what is and allowing oneself to be used as an instrument of peace and love. I have felt this peace when I have stepped out of my own way and bent my knee in service to others. As long as I serve my ego, there is never enough. There is always the possibility of loss and harm and because of that I am forever inadequate to the task. No joy in that!

But, when I serve the Whole, it is no longer about me. Concern for ‘me’ drops away into the peace and joy found in being of true Use. When I just let go and dive into the belly of God, there is no discomfort. There is only expansive freedom. Hope for anything, all things, disappears in the dive. As I let go of each layer of ‘no’ a new presence emerges, each time more loving, more open, more able to hear the angels speak. No longer is there a need to hold life at a distance, waiting to be better, to be enough, to be somehow more whole. I laugh with the world and shout at the top of my lungs, “I am so glad to be here! Thank you God for this life.”

Love cannot remain by itself — it has no meaning.
Love has to be put into action, and that action is service

Mother Teresa

“The Secret” has it right, as far as it goes. We absolutely are the creators of our lives. We are creating our worlds by our thoughts. But, if that is so, why is it that so many of us can’t get the formula to work in quite the same way?

Seven fears are currently creating our lives and will continue to until dismantled. Positive thoughts are stronger than negative, but until we understand our dark side we can’t clearly see the energy and passion we subconsciously put into maintaining our status quos. If our conscious thoughts were the entire picture, creating the world we want would be easy, but the majority of people are unaware of most of their thoughts. In fact, if you just started trying to harness your thoughts for your secret experiment, you have only seen the tip of the iceberg. Many more thoughts lie beneath the surface.

We are to ask, believe and receive. So what is it we want? That is the BIG question. Take a long look at your life. What you see is what your thoughts say you want. There is probably a pretty big disconnect between the reality in which you live and your preferred picture. It doesn’t seem quite possible that you are choosing this life, but you are. If you are willing to accept that responsibility, you have taken a step into, what I call, the moment of awareness. It is from this point you can begin to choose deliberately, but first you must understand what you were choosing and why.

What do you believe? In the words of “The Secret” what are you attracted to? Do you know? Many of us are attracted to drama. Are you? Does something within like the extreme highs and lows? Perhaps you see abundance as somehow corrupt. How do you feel about the wealthy? Do you believe in your magnificence or does something within you, not only believe, but know you aren’t enough. That sense of not being enough is one of the seven fears. What do you believe? Until you unravel your beliefs and see how the seven fears play out in your life, they’re in control. You might have a degree of success with “The Secret” but there will always be a sense of something more you can’t quite reach.

The slower route to happiness and fulfillment is actually advantageous. Working through your fears gives you access to different information than what your mind would choose for you. When you don’t work through the fears you continue attempting to create your perfect world—the world whose perfection is formed by a fearful mind—and believe that the next job, the perfect house, the little red dress, or something equally insignificant will bring happiness. Find a little success and it’s apparent pretty quickly that what you thought would do the trick was only one step along a never ending path.

Instant success with “The Secret” might actually dampen true abundance. If we realized we can indeed, have whatever we choose just by believing, we might miss out on a grander design. If I had been able to realize my dreams of ten years ago I would have missed out on a divine plan that has given me far more than I could have ever imagined possible. How do you ask for that? The only way I have found is to dive deeply into the seven fears and discover who I am without them. When I genuinely understood the truth of my real identity, I realized that everything in my world can be used to manifest the Universe’s only purpose—an awakening to love. We want what we want because of the fears. Work through the fears first and then see whether manifesting your mind’s dream still holds the same importance.

“The most striking contradiction of our civilization is the fundamental reverence for truth which we profess and the thorough-going disregard for it which we practice.” Vilhjalmur Stefansson (Canadian Artic Explorer)

Recently, I watched an interview with Brian Dennehy. As he talked animatedly about his long, illustrious career as an actor, one sentence he used grabbed me and I found myself reaching for a pencil to capture the juicy phrase. Of his performances he said he was constantly, “tinkering to get the fraud out”. As I listened I wondered if we are constantly tinkering to get the fraud out of our lives as well.

The answer came in three parts. Prior to awareness of choice our tinkering is automatic and not to get the fraud out, but to survive. We don’t stop to evaluate our attempts to protect and defend ourselves. We just do it. This is actually a free state of mind. From this state of ignorance, we act, from not knowing any better. Despite the free state of mind, nothing in our lives will dramatically change. Life will be predictable. Psychics will have no trouble telling you what tomorrow will look like, because it will look like today. Behaviors will continue status quo.

After awareness of choice, even as our fear-thoughts are being dismantled, we tinker to keep the fraud closely hidden. We find new, creative ways to hide our deepest, darkest thoughts and beliefs about ourselves and others. We play the game. Sometimes we play it well, and other times it catches up with us and smacks us around a bit.

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” Nathaniel Hawthorne

Until we fully engage the experiment and enter into the hunt for our fears, the better job we do of hiding the truth from ourselves, the better chance we have at maintaining the illusion of being just fine. From this vantage, we still hold life at a distance, afraid to fully engage both its laughter and heartbreak. We tinker to keep from admitting how lonely and separate we feel. But, at an ever-rising level of wakefulness, we are aware of the fraud. The once free state of mind is now, less than a memory.

I remember going swimming with friends, just a little more than five years ago, and not wanting to get my hair wet. I was a fish as a child. Nothing satisfied me more than diving into the pool and frolicking in the water. It had a way of cleansing life’s ills and making the good even better. All summer long I ran around in flip-flops and a swimsuit with a big, silly grin on my face. How I loved the sun! But there I was—afraid to let my friends see me without my armor—the protective shield of coiffed hair, blush and eye-liner. Sounds ridiculous…or does it? If it wasn’t important, the memory would have faded years ago, along with other similar events of my life that no longer take up residence inside my head.

At the time, I had already embarked upon the spiritual quest. I was making headway into the recesses of mind, yet I still tinkered to protect my hidden identity, the person I didn’t want anyone to see. I was even aware of the choices I was making and the reasons behind the choices. Remaining hidden was more important to me than the pain remaining hidden created. I didn’t see it as fear. If I had, I don’t know that it would have changed anything. In fact, at this time my spiritual quest, if truth be known, was about escape—escaping from the ‘me’ I had hidden and into the truth and beauty I was certain existed somewhere, if I could just find it.

Now I tinker to get the fraud out, instead of trying to hide the fraud (myself) from view. Once you fully engaged the hunt for your fears, hiding is no longer an option. “Who I am is bowed in surrender. Who I am is ‘One’ with everything. I could call that by innumerable names but I choose to call that LOVE.” Once spoken, once committed, every attempt to hide is seen for what it is—a cry for love and acceptance and a knowing that hiding has not, will not give you freedom from pain, will not end the search, will to be sure, prolong it. There is great freedom in surrender. Without a doubt, surrender begets the only true freedom. Tinkering to get the fraud out! What an amazing gift we can give ourselves.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. – Frank Herbert, Dune. Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear

They say we can never go home again…perhaps we should

Everything material is also mental and everything mental is also material. David Bohm

For several weeks I had been hearing a voice telling me it was time to jump in the car and go visit my mother. Going home is always interesting for me. I love my mother dearly and as I was shown last week, I still held out a desire for her full understanding and acceptance of me. I knew that she loved me in her way, but I still wanted her to love me ‘in my way’. I wasn’t aware that I held out a desire for this ‘appreciation’ of me—for her to ‘get’ me—but on the trip that fact became undeniable.

The entire trip I felt as if I was on the cusp of understanding something amazing, of having a big breakthrough, and yet it didn’t come. My husband and I went up to the boat show in Seattle the next weekend and I told him about my insight and the feeling of impending deliverance. We are rather used to my process now and trust that something good—although rarely what I expect—will come of it. We laughed and talked about the child’s need to be accepted by the parent and how intricate the dance is. When you are committed to the hunt, it is quite fascinating to watch old patterns as they maneuver to maintain their grip.

Later that night as I sat in meditation this story was still present so I asked Source to help me let go of this need for mother’s acceptance and I clearly heard God’s voice say, “When are you going to accept you?” Along with the question came an energetic cleansing—another level of constriction around my heart fell away as I accepted the truth of the question. I was the one who hadn’t accepted my self. It was never about Mother. There is no Mother who doesn’t accept me. There is only my lack of acceptance of myself.

It is never about another. It is always about our story. We project our story onto others—Mother, Father, son, daughter, friend, stranger—and make it about them. We make it about someone other than ourselves to keep the stench from smelling up the fantasy in which we live.

As I watched this understanding unfold I saw how I create and speak the words of each layer in my dream world—in my mind’s world—like a puppeteer staging a play. I could feel the energy of anger, sorrow, frustration with which I imbued each character and how it translated into this body I call mine. They were not speaking; I was speaking to myself through them.

In fascination, I continued to observe the understanding unfold. I saw how these perceived slights created my energetic body and generated the physical reality in which I found myself. They created my entire experience: my sense of worth, my state of abundance or scarcity, my world view, my response to events and whether I saw them as opportunity or problem, my connection or lack thereof with each person I came into contact. They created my experience of everything. My interpretation created my happiness, my sadness, my ranting and raving, my compassion, my understanding, my willingness to love or to withhold love. They created my experience of God!

My heart opened wider in awe and I felt my head bow in reverence to this Truth. There was no other person—no mother, son, husband, friend—there was only my version of them. As I saw this it dawned, with the brightness of an angel’s wing, that if there was no other person, then this person who was creating the other people did not exist either. It was all mind. It wasn’t my mind. It was ‘separate’ mind, endlessly creating. And…it would continue until I forgave it—giving it all back to the Divine.

Quite a story and one with a very happy message! Who you are, who we all are, is so magnificent! When we are willing to step into the fear, it dissolves. With each voyage into the darkness we emerge brighter, wider, more expanded into the Truth of who we are. There truly is nothing to fear but fear itself. And that is not quite right in its wording, for if we fear ‘fear’ then we will leave it alone to grow and fester and create a reality for us that prevents us from experiencing the love we desire.

Love is what we all search for and our stubbornness in blaming others makes certain that we never find it. Until we are willing to see our fear and then step right in the middle of it we are doomed to our present reality. But…if we are tired enough of hiding, tired enough of holding it together, tired enough of the knot in our stomachs, tired enough of failing ourselves, tired enough of settling for less than what we know is possible, then and only then, once we have let go of our defense—God can find us.

Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said to have broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sciences, for this barrier does not exist. Erwin Schrodinger, physicist

For Our World
Mattie Stepanek, From ‘Hope Through Heartsongs’, Hyperion 2002

We need to stop.
Just stop.
Stop for a moment.
Before anybody
Says or does anything
That may hurt anyone else.
We need to be silent.
Just silent.
Silent for a moment.
Before we forever lose
The blessing of songs
That grow in our hearts.
We need to notice.
Just notice.
Notice for a moment.
Before the future slips away
Into ashes and dust of humility.
Stop, be silent, and notice.
In so many ways, we are the same.
Our differences are unique treasures.
We have, we are, a mosaic of gifts
To nurture, to offer, to accept.
We need to be.
Just be.
Be for a moment.
Kind and gentle, innocent and trusting,
Like children and lambs,
Never judging or vengeful
Like the judging and vengeful.
And now, let us pray,
Differently, yet together,
Before there is no earth, no life,
No chance for peace.

 Wondrous
O wondrous creatures,
by what strange miracle do you
so often not
smile?

by Hafiz
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Most of my life I have felt as if I was on the outside looking in. When I think back to my school days I never quite fit in. There were always people more popular than I, people who appeared to be happier, to have more friends, or a more interesting family. Always a problem solver, I set about trying to prove to myself that I could fit in too. In my innocence, I reasoned that all I had to do was try harder, work longer, be nicer. It is interesting to note that when I was younger everything I desired had to do with people and connections, rather than acquisitions and security.

At some point, that changed. At some level, I must have realized my strategy wasn’t working, because I shifted my focus outward, to the acquisition of things. I wanted the closet of clothes so that I’d look better, different, special…in an effort to gain attention and the illusive acceptance. I wanted toys, at least at first, as incentive to get others to play with me and to think I was cool. Somewhere acquisition fever took over and the initial impetus got lost in translation.

For the last several years I have been looking closely at my life, my hidden motivations and unconscious driving forces trying to understand and break free from that tug in my heart whenever I enter a room full of new people. Will they like me? Will I stutter and show how ill-at-ease I am? Will they see the ‘real’ me?

The trip to New York for the publicity summit was a novel growth experience. It was a great learning process. Outwardly, I appeared calm and collected and to the unpracticed eye, inwardly I was pretty cool too. I had learned enough over the years to understand that if I made the conversation about me I would die an embarrassing death. So the secret for me was to keep the focus on what I could do for each of the specific media that I was meeting. It was a bit tricky. There was still an ‘I’ there that was going to do something, so the possibility of melt-down was imminent.

When I am catching a flight in the morning I rarely sleep well that night—not sure if it is anxiety or what. It has to be fear-based—perhaps fear that the alarm clock won’t go off and I will miss the flight or maybe there is a fear of flying that is deeply hidden. I haven’t seen the bottom of this habit yet. This trip nothing was different other than I wasn’t sleeping once I got to New York either. I now know that you can function rather well without sleep.

The second night in New York I sat up in bed, deciding to meditate since I wasn’t sleeping. I thought I would ask and see if I could get an answer to my insomnia. It wasn’t long before I heard “Move outside of your self. The focus is on you: your pitch to the media, how you will look, how they will respond to you.” The solution was clear. I began to extend my energy beyond myself to my friend who was sleeping in the bed next to me, next to the sweet people I had met in the elevator, and to my fellow participants at the summit, and out and out it went until my love and energy circled the globe. The thought of Gayle was so dispersed that there was nothing solid enough to claim…and I slept.

The next morning I awoke, not quite energized, but definitely more rested. As I stood in each que awaiting my turn to speak, I continued the practice, connecting with each participant and opening my heart to embrace the larger whole. My practiced pitch was quickly thrown out and replaced with ‘in this moment’ truth. I shared my discomfort, my ‘right now’ story and how the seven fears play out in day-to-day life. It was comfortable and honest. It felt clean and aligned with my promise to God and to myself of who I choose to be.

All of a sudden I was in the middle of it rather than standing on the outside looking in. I hadn’t gotten there because of the new pair of expensive pants and shiny new shoes I was wearing or even due to the haircut and pedicure or classy leather briefcase. None of those things had mattered. I was standing in the inside looking out because I had moved beyond centering on my self to a heart-centered focus on all that was around me. I put myself in the middle by expanding the circle around me and created possibilities that were previously distant to me.

These deep insights are such a blessing—true gifts from the Divine. They show us the path Home. It is Home that we search for, for that place of connectedness and love. As we attempt to connect, whether we do that through acquisition fever or by working on ourselves to make the package more presentable, what we are really after is to move beyond the limited self into unlimited selflessness. It is by giving what we want to others that we begin to dissolve our own hard edges, the ones that keep us at a distance and make us believe that we are small. As we take the spotlight off ourselves our true magnificence shines through.

Stephen Mitchell, Tao te Ching (a new English version)
Success is as dangerous as failure. Hope is as hollow as fear. What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure? Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky. When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance. What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear? Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don’t see the self as self, what do we have to fear? See the world as your self. Have faith in the way things are. Love the world as your self; then you can care for all things.

It isn’t what you think it is…

Expectation: An expectation, which is a belief that is centered on the future, may or may not be realistic. A less advantageous result gives rise to the emotion of disappointment. If something happens that is not at all expected it is a surprise. An expectation about the behavior or performance of another person, expressed to that person, may have the nature of a strong request, or an order. Source: Wikipedia

My son is a wonderful mirror for me. It’s uncanny. Sometimes I wonder if he is really sitting next to me or if I just envision his face on reflections of my own thoughts. It seems every time we get together I come away with a fresh look at something I thought I understood. Whoever said, “We are our children’s teachers,” had it backwards.

This time our topic was expectations, or more precisely, letting go of all expectation. My son was a little resistant to the idea, especially when asked to apply it to people whose behavior he wasn’t exactly fond. He couldn’t see how letting go would result in anything other than an acceleration of the behavior—basically giving license to the individual to continue pushing his buttons.

I tried to explain how hanging onto the expectation of change actually locks in the objectionable behavior, guaranteeing push-back from the person whose behavior we don’t accept. Remembering high school science class and Sir Issac Newton I borrowed Newton’s Law III: To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts. Translated, it means if we push someone to change, they will push back and…our wanting changed behavior is a subtle, sometimes not so subtle, push.

As long as we are less than unconditional in our acceptance, we are creating the certainty that the behavior will not change. We see the person as someone who does such and so, and that is who they are, at the very least, that is who they are for us. This may partially explain why people can be very different depending on who they are with at the time—different expectations or levels of acceptance.

I wasn’t having much luck making my point. I hadn’t found the words that could connect the dots. Usually when this happens there is something more for me to learn. Perhaps I didn’t understand my point well enough to share it. That didn’t feel accurate to me. I had seen the truth of it too many times to deny its reality. More likely, I wanted him to let go of his expectations, and thus, ensured that he couldn’t. I was doing exactly what I wanted him to stop.

That’s when the shift took place. A window opened into possibility ending my crusade of logic. It suddenly became clear—the piece I was missing. As I saw what I was creating I had given up and the answer simply appeared; funny how that happens. When we cling to our desire for change, we have a picture in our heads of what we want to happen. We become knowing. We know what is right and what is wrong. Our version is right; the other version is wrong. That in and of itself is a set-up for failure, locking us into an unending war. Take a look at recent history; it’s sadly full of examples.

But there is another, perhaps more important consequence. When we hang on to our expectations, locked into our version of how ‘it’ should be, we aren’t holding the space for miracles. God can’t slip in and surprise us with His version, a version always far beyond our ability to imagine. If we can find the courage to let go of our expectations of others, and ourselves for that matter, we allow God’s pure design to unfold.

real
eyes
don’t
conceptual
lies

Bernard Gunther

Is it an Either/or Choice?

Protect and defend or learn and grow. I was deep in conversation with my son and he said, “Mom, it doesn’t have to be a choice between the two.” His energy was protected and I was having difficulty being with him. It felt as if I was sitting next to an impenetrable hedge, not an ordinary hedge, but one with great thorns and deeply troubled energy. I felt as if I had been transported to Grimm’s land of fairy tales and plopped down in the middle of the wonderful story about Little Briar-Rose.

“But round about the castle there began to grow a hedge of thorns, which every year became higher, and at last grew close up round the castle and all over it, so that there was nothing of it to be seen, not even the flag upon the roof. But the story of the beautiful sleeping Briar-Rose, for so the princess was named, went about the country, so that from time to time kings’ sons came and tried to get through the thorny hedge into the castle. But they found it impossible, for the thorns held fast together, as if they had hands, and the youths were caught in them, could not get loose again, and died a miserable death.” Brothers Grimm

The protected energy stood between us. It seemed odd that I felt it so intensely. It made me wince. It definitely had my attention. Even as I responded to my son I realized that this was his lesson…and it was mine as well. Nothing that ensnares us is someone else’s cross to bear. It is always ours and the more intense the pain, the greater the chance for personal opening.

So what was it that wanted my attention? I had been seeing snippets of fear gathering around my upcoming trip to New York for the publicity summit. As I listened to the coaching sessions of my fellow attendees, I had sensed the ghosts of my past inadequacies as they grabbed at my heart, not hard, just enough to make certain that I felt their presence. The first one appeared as I listened to a woman’s sales pitch, describing the specifics of a winning appearance. As she listed her nightmare examples—gray hair, face cream and little else—it occurred to me that she was describing me. I brushed it off—after all, my hair is silver not gray—but the corrosive thoughts had already seeped through the cracks. The second had come when I was offered a free thirty minute consultation with an image consultant and chose not to participate in the offer, reasoning that I didn’t have current pictures with my planned wardrobe. The third dug its heels in during a conversation with a friend—a most unexpected place. Her surprise at my decision to pass on the image consultant offer forced me to take a look and see what was up.

Opening my eyes had taken more effort on God’s part this time because this fear was very, very painful and therefore, pretty deeply hidden. Once glimpsed, the investigation began. It was rather like opening an oyster; I twisted the knife back and forth and all of a sudden it popped.

As I watched the layers unfold I wondered if all women, men for that matter, held such deep aversion for their own bodies. Mine had started early on, in my teens, and had evolved into a nagging dissatisfaction on the best of days and downright self-denial on the worst. I hadn’t realized how much I longed for a different body. I was judging my appearance, not the woman with the winning strategy. I had determined that the image consultant would want to change my appearance, because I wasn’t satisfied. My friend’s reaction wasn’t her reaction at all; it was mine.

Here it was, out in the open, asking me to let it heal. Sitting with this fear was extraordinarily fascinating. It is usually enough just seeing the fear to begin the process of letting it go. I see it, understand the need for healing, open my hands (literally), and release it, giving it back to the divine—to the Christed awareness—forgiving it. But, this time was different. My hands did not want to open. My hands clenched, wanting to hang onto my self-resistance. It was a very old story, one I had wrapped tightly around my life. Letting go of the resistance meant that I would have to accept the perfection in the form God gave me.

As I thought back to the tale, the analogy became clear. On her fifteen birthday, little Briar-Rose pricked her finger on the spinning wheel and fell immediately asleep, fulfilling the curse cast upon her at her birth. Briar Rose, all the people in her father’s court, and each of the creatures fell into a deep sleep spanning one hundred years. Many princes attempted to break through the hedge but were caught by the thorns and died. None broke through until one day another prince tried again.

“But by this time the hundred years had just passed, and the day had come when Briar-Rose was to awake again. When the king’s son came near to the thorn-hedge, it was nothing but large and beautiful flowers, which parted from each other of their own accord, and let him pass unhurt, then they closed again behind him like a hedge.” Brothers Grimm

One hundred years had come to pass. The time was ripe. The hedge no longer held its power. Maybe my son was right. Maybe it isn’t an either/or choice. Perhaps there is no choice at all but rather a ripening of willingness that arrives fully matured in God’s own perfect time. At another time, even with the same clues, I might not have listened. The pain may have been too deep, my identity inexplicably entwined within the story—the thorny hedge shielding me from an ache long avoided by means of clever fabrication. Possibly it was necessary to learn the other lessons first—lessons to help me unearth these more deeply hidden treasures. With each new ‘Yes’, as the hands open in surrender, a more profound awakening becomes possible.

We tend our pain meticulously through the familiar process of thinking about it. The more we think around our emotional pain the more we cripple ourselves with the artificial intensity of it…We would allow our pain to dissolve into the skylike openness of direct experience; but somehow we feel more secure with our pain as a reference point. Ngakchung Rinpoche, From “The Zen Commandments” by Dean Sluyter

Believe you have the means to offer your whole self.
Fill this life with your whole Love.
Elle Collier Re

This week has been a time for looking at relevance. The thesaurus lists several synonyms for relevance, among them: significance, meaning, importance, consequence. For me it comes down to two words—to matter. Isn’t that what we all want? Don’t we all want to matter, to make a difference? If we disappeared from the face of the earth, wouldn’t we want to know that someone would go looking for us? Sounds like a worthy goal—to matter—but as I found this last week, it comes at a fairly high price.

I should go back a bit and shed a little light on my latest life lesson. The lessons seem to come from every direction lately, generally like a thief in the night—with no warning and hell bent on stealing what I hold dear. This time God was serious, either that or I wasn’t listening the first time, because I was given two ‘opportunities’ to pay attention.

The first lesson took the shape of a comment from my teacher. As she mentioned an old friend’s return I was reminded of a past that failed to live up to its promise. My heart clutched and closed. As we talked memories darted in and out of their hiding places. I obviously had not hidden them deep enough. I heard my teacher’s voice; caught a few words in the middle of her sentence…you can’t withhold your love…and was swept back into the hell of my mind’s creation. As her gentle words broke the spell of memories and mind-stuff the cause of my heartache was evident—I had closed my heart whose only purpose was to unfold in love and be of service. Yes… her words felt right.

Perhaps to make certain that I got it this time—thank you God—the lesson was repeated just two days later. This time it took the shape of a broken agreement and being left to deal with a responsibility alone. Isn’t it funny how one broken promise opens the floodgate to similar recollections? It is so easy to grab the high ground and assume the role of the wounded. I would never do that…I don’t understand what she was thinking…Doesn’t she understand commitment? Don’t I matter? Again, the swirl of memories and mind-stuff, designed with one purpose—to protect and defend this sense of self, to insure that I had relevance, to protect myself from being hurt by another’s rejection—to hold the fear at bay.

This was the prize the thief in the night was after. It wanted my whole self. It wasn’t satisfied with all that I had given; it wanted more. It wanted me to let go of everything I held dear, of any claim to relevance, significance, or meaning and it was showing me the cost of clinging to my self-importance—the turning away, the closed heart, the ache of isolation, the denial of Wholeness.

The choice is always present, always waiting for us to step out of fear. We can choose to be right, to safeguard our importance, and in doing so we choose separation, or we can choose love above all else, regardless of what we fear might happen, knowing only love can fill the emptiness. In choosing love we allow the hurt to heal; we allow our hearts to open and satisfy their purpose; we allow this miracle of life to unfold. Isn’t this what we really want?

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.
It is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
I Corinthians 13:4-8

Pure Possibility is our natural state, what we are when we say YES to the divine life force surging through our bodies and our world. It truly is as simple as Yes. Wake up to the truth of your magnificence. Come play with me, here beyond the gods of mind and our fears of lack.

Surrender: 1 a : to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand <surrendered the fort> b : to give up completely or agree to forgo especially in favor of another; 2 a : to give (oneself) up into the power of another especially as a prisoner b : to give (oneself) over to something (as an influence) intransitive verb : to give oneself up into the power of another: yield. Synonym: relinquish.

No wonder we avoid it. Surrender has some pretty negative connotations. The descriptions aren’t very appealing—to give up completely—into the power of another—especially as a prisoner. Doesn’t draw you in, does it? I have spent the day searching for another word to use instead of ’surrender’ because its meaning does not do us justice. We hear the word surrender and immediately a red flag goes up—way up.

For the past months I have been dancing with surrender. A few nights ago it got the best of me. Enough already! Let go. No…you can’t keep anything. Let it all go. Sit and be still…silence…long, spacious silence. Out of nowhere, words of prayer began to slip from my lips. My mind had swung around slyly and cut back in. Father, teach me…show me…heal me.

Laughter, oh what a blessing it is! At once I saw the brilliant resourcefulness of this mind. Who says we aren’t creative. I was awed by its determination and fortitude, in love with the mystery of the dance. I sat back in wonder at its myriad shapes and guises, constantly, effortlessly shifting and adjusting and remembered Aja’s words, “Just this.”

Surrender to ‘just this’, to what is present in this moment—that is true surrender. When it comes it is a lover’s embrace, taking your breath and all that we believed ourselves to be. It leaves no trace of who we thought we were. It is free fall into Love with the Whole. It is the ‘Yes’ that hasn’t a ‘No,’ no opposite. Our ‘no’ tells the divine that we are still on our own, that we still want to play this silly game, that we still know what is best, what is right, what should be, that we still need to be taught, shown, healed, that who we are is still not enough.

When we know love matters more than anything, and we know that nothing else REALLY matters, we move into the state of surrender. Surrender does not diminish our power, it enhances it. Sara Paddison author of Hidden Power of the Heart

There is another word for surrender. It is freedom. It comes with a wild, heartfelt belly laugh, and feels as light as an angel’s kiss. With my full Yes, it instantly turns my world inside out. My heart rather than my mind is the access. As I surrender to Love, surrender all that I believe to be true, I see that I was never separate. It was merely imagination—creative and audacious—but imagination none-the-less.

I shall use the word ‘freedom’ in place of surrender. It is the perfect substitute. I was right to revere freedom, to fight for it and cry for its loss. Let your quest for freedom drive you relentlessly. At our core, we know its importance; we just don’t understand what it is.

The following is a prayer from Spiritual Teacher, Chris Celine, available at

http://www.chrisceline.com/chris.html

Intention

Mother-Father God,
Creator of All Life ~~
I am ready and willing to embrace new life.
I ask to see a different world.
I am ready to be transformed in every way.
The perfection, the beauty, the holiness,
Of who I really am
Is known to You, Dear God,
But not yet to me.
I say yes,
I want revealed to me
The depth and power of my true self.
I am willing to experience the wondrous Creation of All Life.
I am Your magnificent creation.
Help me to embrace my true and beautiful self –
Alive, undefended, compassionate, the power of Love Itself.
I embrace the truth of myself and all beloveds.
I surrender completely into total reliance on You.