Articles - September 01, 2016
Depression: A Spiritual Crisis
Tags: Depression, Spiritual Crisis, Leaned Helplessness, Mental Illness, Negative Ego
It is a gloominess that descends upon you like a thick, water soaked blanket. Colors fade to shades of gray, joy becomes completely inaccessible while sadness overtakes your body. While this is experienced briefly by many wading through loss or grief, to others depression takes up permanent residence in their psyches. The outside person sees their relentless sadness as unwarranted, as physically they look quite capable. While they may be on many levels, the depressed person is caught within a quicksand of hopelessness inside that pulls from them their very will to survive.
In science, animal models are used to study depression. In one model a dog is restrained by a cage on a platform where it receives a mild shock regularly. Once the animal realizes it cannot escape this shocking it withdraws, expecting it will never end. Eventually the dog is put on the platform without the cage, but it doesn’t leave, even when it can. It stands there and continues to be shocked. This is called “learned helplessness.”
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Articles - August 01, 2016
The Unforgiven: Beyond Crimes and Punishment
Tags: Forgiveness, Justice, Near Death Experiences, Scarcity, NDE
We are often bound to people we do not like, trust or respect through our grudges, fears and hatred. These are people who have hurt, rejected or abandoned us. Some crimes are personal, others hit at the hearts of our race, gender or sexuality. Some have done unthinkable things, others have just offended us. In any case we hold court in our minds and then execute sentences that keep them forever accountable.
We know we are supposed to forgive and move on but we feel that excuses their behavior. If we stop holding our grudge, who will they answer to? Someone has to remember. If we let them off the hook how will we know they have paid for their transgressions? We punish them so we know someone has, because we fear they will do it again. This takes great energy, however, even when it is simply a dialogue in our minds.
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Looking For Love
Tags: Love, self love, relationships, unconditional love
Looking for that ultimate soulmate, someone who loves you unconditionally, even the darkest bits you so skillfully tuck away? This is the goal of a lifetime for many. When we find it we feel we are finally “home.” So often, however, this perfect relationship takes a turn in the night. Studies show this often happens about 18 months in. Something happens. Someone pulls back or starts trying to control the other, temperaments wear or a job takes front seat. Illnesses set in or our needs go unmet. Judgments flare and we polarize, pulling back. This, however, is when the real journey to finding unconditional love begins!
The hardest thing to accept is that this disharmony has everything to do with you! Whatever the other person is seemingly doing wrong, you see it through your filters and react to it based on your experiences from the past. We… are creating half of the dynamic. A person may be unavailable for some reason, perhaps because they are overwhelmed or because they are are distracted by an obligation. Their pulling away may have nothing to do with you… or it may be in reaction to you, but because it has happened so many times in your life before, you react in anger. How dare they abandon you? What is most interesting is that the other person is reacting to your actions through their filters too.
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The Perfectionist’s Trap
Tags: Perfectionism, Individuality, Uniqueness, Acceptance, Shadow, Creativity
You see it in the fine print of advertisements, the subliminal messaging that there is a state of perfection that you have yet to achieve. It may be your looks, your ability to earn, your social status or even your health but something is amiss, and until you fix it, expect to hide in shame.
Many of us are indoctrinated into this belief system by parents who know that part of mastering their own drive for perfection is having the perfect child. You were marched into formation and asked to tow the line, given rules to live by and standards to achieve. In the process, however, you rejected the parts of yourself that aren’t perfect. When we put our imperfections in shadow we can only see them externally, in our judgements and pity of others. Many, ironically, try to overcome these divisions by helping others change to their ideal.
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Sorcery
Tags: Sorcery, Ethics, Shamanism, Gossip, Evil, White Shaman, Dark Arts
Sorcery is the darkness that thrives in the shadow of Shamanism. While shamans use their powers to heal, sorcerers, like Darth Vader, take that same wisdom and turn it inward for personal gain. The sorcerer can make an enemy suddenly sick or curse a family for generations. They thrive on having power over others because their wounds drive perceptions of their own shortcomings. Our emotions tune our vibrations. The essential differences between the sorcerer and the shaman, then, is simply the nature of their intent.
In the days of old sorcery and shamanism were often entwined. Using shamanic wisdom to do harm to another was an acceptable form of survival between waring tribes. As humans have evolved many have come to recognize that having power is a responsibility that comes with a set of ethics and a code of honor. There is difference between having power and having ill will. Today’s shaman believes evil lives in the hearts of men and women, not as an independent principle.
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Articles - April 01, 2016
The Modern Shaman
Tags: Shamanism, Animism, Archetypes, Power, Nature
Some people believe calling yourself a shaman is akin to saying “I am God.” A Shaman, they say, is a trickster who takes many magical forms, transcending space and time. Only others, they say, may call you one!
If we look at the word “shaman,” we find it is simply the (Siberian) Tungus tribe’s word for “medicine person.” Every indigenous tribe, from the beginning of time, has had a person, or two, whose role it has been to connect with the Creative Force on behalf of the tribe, to ensure their survival. They were everyday people with emotions, egos and even relationship problems to work through, but they were sensitive to energy. Their sensitivities helped them to heal the sick and help track down animals for food. They could see the dead and they could hear the spirits of Nature. Their job was to be an intermediary between the seen and unseen. When their skill sets were first recognized as children, they were pulled aside and trained to be of service to the tribe. There have always been these people, every culture, ours included, has relied upon them.
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Articles - March 01, 2016
Keeping It Sacred: Asking Permission
Tags: Respect, Entitlement, Honoring, Sacred Relationships
Our world is running a thousand miles an hour with a new technological advance just around every corner. We run to keep up and take shortcuts to get there. In fact, it is an unwritten law in our Western Culture that we do, or take, and if necessary, make apologies for it later. This sense of urgency puts us neck to neck, scrapping for what we believe, by birthright, is ours. We seem to have forgotten how to have respect, however, and how to honor each other in our scrambles up the ladder. Is it any wonder that nothing feels sacred anymore?
If we take a step back and look at the philosophies we have inherited in the West, we can see that there is a drive for more that is rooted in deep fears of scarcity. We have been doing and taking, without apology, for millennia. To be assertive denotes a position of power and strength. It gives a message of boldness that is forthright and highly revered, but it creates dissension when no permission is granted.
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Blog - February 17, 2016
Are you loving from your wounds or from your heart?
Tags: Love, Wounding, Infinite love, Control
Are you loving from your wounds or from your heart?
Your wounds say it will never last,
they say that there is not enough,
and they say there must be something wrong with you
because there isn't...
they say this person will hurt you...
Control the objects of your affections, they say, so you are not further
wounded.
Your heart says love is everywhere, in everything.
It says you do not need to hold onto it in another,
because love will never go away.
It says you may see me in the eyes of a small child today
and in the whispering of the winds tomorrow,
but I will never leave you...
Forms come and go...
let the pain from their loss, dissolve into the darkness,
the deep velvety darkness
that fills the space between moments,
the gaps between forms...
In that womb,
that exists between each ending...
And before each new beginning,
you will find it...
Love that beats like a steady base line
that pulse that comes through your heart.
Articles - February 01, 2016
Fight Flight Or Freeze
Tags: Anxiety, SuperCeptor, Highly Sensitive Person, Fear, Spiritual Angst, Depression, Fight or Flight, HPA Axis
One of the most crippling side effects of being highly sensitive is running high levels of anxiety. Sensitives, or SuperCeptors, are highly tuned to pick up on the nuances of their environments, keeping their bodies forever on alert. They are not the only ones, however. Anyone who has been imprinted by a stressful or traumatic period in their life, also has a brain tempered for further stress.
In the first five years of our lives everyone’s brain is being “tuned” for how it is going to react to the world. If those first years are filled with high levels of stress, we develop a brain prepared for more. Unfortunately, this creates a “trigger happy” stress response ready for danger behind every corner.
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Blog - January 21, 2016
Asking Permission
Tags: WIsdom, Repect, Permission, Peace
Looking at Permission
Wondering why someone would take, instead of earn, or ask for, something?
Even little things...
Even with someone we love and cherish...
Does Love mean you do not have to ask?
Looking at how it is standard in our culture to "act and apologize later..."
And how it is considered weak to say you are sorry...
How it is considered weak to ask for anything at all...
Having Respect is at the bottom of asking permission.
Somewhere we seem to have forgotten how to respect our fellow travelers,
our fellow beings...
Showing strength is somehow more important than showing respect...
What will it take for us to remember
That there is Strength in Humility?
That there is Peace in Respect?
What will it take?
What will it take for us to ask
Instead of take?
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