Dig Deep

Sometimes we come to a place in life where all we seem to be met with are conflict and struggle everywhere we turn.  Tough times indeed befall us and it is in those times that we are tested to our very cores.  I hate to disappoint you, but this is why we came.  We wished to learn about all of the things incarnate we could so that we could dig deep into the emotional obscurities we have unwittingly come to allow residence within us.  These obscurities block our growth and our ability to truly shine.  So, we will be called to situation after situation that will bring to life through triggers, those things that truly hurt us the most.  I used to say it isn’t personal.  That’s not entirely true.  It is personal but just not in the way the ego would like to think.  We are not being picked on by the universe.  We are being tapped on the shoulder and being asked to seek to both understand and transcend those things that obfuscate our true purpose and mission in life.

We do have a bit of control in the exercising of our free will in terms of how we choose to come to greater understanding about that which blocks our growth.  We can go toe to toe and blow to blow with those who so graciously have agreed to act out roles in our plays with us.  We can also stop, pause and think – think very deeply and very purposefully asking to be show the truth of every situation.  If you spend some time with whatever triggers you, you can come to terms with the truth or, rather, the untruths you have told yourself about something that has happened to you.  Most of our thoughts about “less than,” “unworthiness” or “not good enough” stem from assumptions we decided at some point in our lives to hold as truths about us.  Perhaps a time did truly come where you were acting beneath yourself, in unworthy ways or you really weren’t good enough and a string of events occurred in perfect time to reinforce those assumptions.  Believe me, when it comes to assumptions about us, we are the masters at finding reinforcements in the outside world and for as long as we hold those assumptions, we will unconsciously seek out more reinforcements.

All is not lost though.  When you run across a “trigger” to such a series of assumptions or seemingly self-evident truths, stop right then and there and take a deep breath, muster your courage and dig deep.  Find the core of the belief and the string of thoughts and feelings protecting a wound and defending it’s existence within you.  I guarantee you there is something not right in your thinking that keeps the wound from healing.  Find the source, find the core – what lead to it, how was it reinforced – where inside of you does this exist?  Sit quietly and set your intent to find, feel, accept and then heal this space.  Write down your findings.  Bring them fully into the light of day and study them.  Now, consider other potentialities…think about what assumptions you made that were not valid as certainties.  What empirical evidence do you have to own the assumption as truth?  If you have no definitive or empirical evidence that your assumption about you or another is valid (and I mean source validating a truth), you have to consider potential alternatives and reasons a wound may have been created.  Through understanding and realizing that the truth you hold may really be only an assumption, perhaps the wound that you thought was inflicted, really isn’t a wound at all.  Something as simple as judging that someone doesn’t love you or they wouldn’t have said or done something, which makes you feel unworthy just isn’t true.  If it isn’t true, perhaps someone did really love you but they were going through the process of exorcising their own wounds and what you suffered was really unintentional collateral damage from which you really can heal and let go of.

You are valid as a bright, shining, worthy, loveable and amazing soul.  All those thoughts to the contrary can likely be source-searched, fully understood and healed in a matter of a short-amount of time with some concerted effort on your part.  If you can take the time to dig into this, and release the pain from wounds you never needed to take on or carry, you can remove your own emotional obscurities that create illusions in your world and block your vision from the truth about love and light in this world.  It is possible but each soul must decide how they wish to engage themselves in this play we call life.  We have free will and we can exercise it freely within to find the truth, the source of our blockages and set them free.  It’s up to us.  

Here is an unexpected truth.  The patterns in your life that bring you pain through different places and situations will recur and continually repeat in different ways until you get to the core of what is trying to get your attention to healing.  When you get so sick and tired of enduring the same trauma and drama over and over again, you will learn that you are being empowered with an opportunity to stop the wounding and protection cycle.  We protect our wounds by getting angry at those who trigger us. In actuality, those brave souls are really helping you.  Thank them for showing you the sore spots that need healing and detach to go within and begin the true meaningful journey of healing in your life.  Its worth the effort, I promise you.  Blessings of higher love and healing.  This post is dedicated to every soul I’ve ever met who exposed in me a trigger and a wound that needed healing.  Thank you. 

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (photo, random internet find)

Love!!!!!

Lessons and Dreams

I walked the beach last night in silence.  I watched the sun cast opalescent rays across the sky and send ripples of light dancing in a perfect chorus line from where it was sinking low on the horizon to where I was observing completely captivated.  It was beyond mere mortal words to behold but the simplest word I can grasp is beautiful.  The breeze was gusting so hard I was grateful for a moment standing at the rail of the cliffs as it gave me something strong and sturdy to hold on to.  I stood frozen there for the longest time in pure silence, motionless except for a bit of buffeting by post storm gusty winds.  I lost myself in the light and tides, seeking solace and escape into nature’s sheer and amazing raw natural power.  It was that my soul most needed.

Some lessons come easy but most of the important ones come hard, through blood, sweat and tears.  Its just the truth of the matter and the truth, well, that’s what the lessons are all about in life.  The truth sometimes wells from deep within your core and tears are the empirical evidence of your time spent in earnest study.  The soul sometimes needs a moment of silence to pause and release, to understand and grasp true inner knowing and the real purpose of life lessons.  Sometimes the only thing a soul has left to do is to stand in their own light. Standing in your own light isn’t always the easiest thing to do and sometimes it means decisions must be made despite unintended consequences.  Speaking and thinking honestly and with the highest integrity at such times is the only way through and just praying for some level of understanding for all involved is the only action a soul can take.  I find myself in such a place.  It’s a hard place to stand but it is no less beautiful underneath than this golden light spilling down to Earth and etching everything in ethereal golden lines and creating defining shadows.

As I stand here I realize that it isn’t just my heart that aches, it’s my soul that seems to ache.  There is not much I can do about it but to be aware of it and feel my way through it.  There are many things I have learned in this life but none more valuable than the ability to feel my way through the darkness of pain to the light of pure love and understanding.  It’s there if you but trust you’ll make your way to it and when you do it’s like finding pure sunlight after storm clouds clear...its like breathing again after holding your breath for a little too long.  I pause again stopping all thoughts and breathing in this scene before me, breathing in this lesson and dream of late. I come back again and resume my thoughts.  And, so, I decide to go on walking this shoreline alone awaiting the twinkling stars.  I have wishes to make and dreams to create.  Blessings of higher love and light to all.

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (photo/words)

You

Seeing Clearly

I watched storm clouds roll in last night off the coast.  They were huge white clouds that appeared to be rolling and tumbling like waves onto the shore.  For a brief moment, I watched a large mushroom shaped cloud with tendrils hanging all the way to the ground.  I had never seen anything like it in my life and then suddenly it disappeared and reformed into a typical cloud right before my eyes.  I was immensely grateful since I was driving right into it.  It was a good feeling knowing the instability was calming as I was headed into that situation.  It reminded me of my life.  So often have I seen very tense and seemingly untenable situations on the horizon only to head right into it seeing that it’s not so bad and definitively NOT insurmountable.  I spent most of the rest of the late day and evening watching the clouds—winds of change carving and shaping clouds into miraculous pieces of temporary art.  It was quite beautiful.  When the sun finally dipped over the horizons, the sky was just absolutely amazing.  I wanted to head down to the coast but sadly, I was just too tired to make the trip.  It’s been a very long seeming couple of weeks with time barely seeming to move.  I think that when that happens, it’s time to pay attention.

The past year has flown by for me in a day and I had gotten used to it and suddenly, time slows down and I feel, hear and see things differently.  That has been part of my goal of late – to see things not as I ‘think’ they are but as they truly are.  I see the themes in my own life, the ones that repeat and I realize they repeat because I have not yet seen the truth.  The universe in its infinite wisdom brings me opportunity after opportunity to see the truth and so I go within to understand at a much deeper level why?  What is it that I have unconsciously created?  What is it that I fail to see time and time again?  These questions are a very good place to start.  However, rather than seek to beat myself up for those things I have unconsciously created in the past, I will shift my focus onto what I wish to consciously create…the real truth.  I think the only thing I can come back to and feel on solid ground about is that if nothing else, I can stand in my own light…not the shades others attempt to paint for me…but in my own light.  As much as I have unconsciously created in my world, others have also participated unconsciously creating and now that I look back, I see so much so very differently.  It brings me hope and comfort.  It is as if I meet myself in the light of truth for the very first time and now, now I can let go of the assumptions I have held as truth for far too long.  When you can stand in your own light, bravely…courageously…and completely unafraid to see the truth about you and use the love within you to see the truth about others, things, situations well…Well, it changes something within you.

I come back to my memory of the clouds again and see them perfectly formed.  I see the ragged lines joined to perfectly painted opalescent soft lines that expand and grow the moment I focus my attention on them.  I am reminded in the sky right in front of me a truth I have always known but misapplied many times.  What you focus on…the thoughts you hold inside of you about what you see—these are the seeds from which what you plant will grow and flourish.  It’s a beautiful design and so perfectly tuned to each soul as they dream and create within this larger dream we call life.  I stand under the same sky today and I see not a single cloud but the rays of the rising sun.  I am at peace and it is those thoughts I shall hold close and in clear focus today.  The truth is, I am the creator of everything in my world and I have designed everything perfectly and in just the way I most needed things to be.  Now, I understand.  As a new day dawns I find an interesting freedom that blows through my soul.  I stand in awe.  Blessings dear souls.  May you find the truth within you, be courageous enough to face you and find the strength always to stand in your own light! 

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (photo is a beautiful random internet find)

Thoughts Seeking Purchase in the Truth

Long and restless night feeling my way to the stars through a thick blanket of fog.  For many moments I stared up into the gray wondering about this restless feeling that seems to have settled itself over my soul.  I have no answers or tendrils of clues to trace back to nebulous origins.  Sometimes I suppose these feeling just are what they are and not really anything to become overly focused on.  What we focus on we do most definitely create and more than anything in this world, I do not wish to create more of this.  Sometimes I think the soul must wrestle with its own perceptions and divining of the truth whatever that truth may be and in such times I think, perhaps, we merely hold on and go along for the ride and see where it takes us in mind and thought without giving too much weight to the feelings.  Feelings can be tricky.  Especially with thoughts firing off unbidden at lightning speed.  Sometimes mine move so fast and generate emotion while being entirely unnoticed by me until its too late and I’m stuck with the resulting emotion.  In time I think the thoughts will slow down, come back around like the Earth orbiting the sun and the moon orbiting the Earth.  It’s not really necessary to be so overly analytical that we must stop and think or trace each thought.

Sometimes we just have to be who we are and let the mind work as it works associating emotion as it chooses to associate emotion.  Sometimes just being very present with mind, heart, body and soul is all that is called for.  We must know definitively that nothing is really wrong at such times.  We are complex creatures with an ego, wounds and emotion that sometimes overtakes us.  Again, there is no need to get excited, I have learned the hard way.  It’s important at times that we learn how to just detach and observe the happenings in our own bodies and minds in the complete absence of judgment.  It is no easy thing because we are conversely trained to pinpoint and react to everyone and everything.  The point I make is that despite our unconscious training in this regard, it isn’t necessary to do anything but be.  

It’s overcast and the air is moist and has a tinge of chill in it.  Chilly for California is below 70.  I know, "Ya’all are a bunch a wimps out west," you might be thinking.  That may be but it’s all relative I suppose.  We know folks in other states who freak out in traffic but here in California we’ve become so accustomed to it.  Me, I don’t mind the traffic any more.  It is a reality I must contend with.  If I resist it, my feelings of anxiety and frustration will persist and only make the experience worse.  So, I arm myself with really good music and fully enjoy the opportunity to drive at whatever speed and listen to music that moves my soul in beautiful ways.  Everything, as I so often say, is truly a matter of perspective.  If you don’t like what you are seeing or experiencing and truly understand you have no power to externally change people and situations, you go deeper within armed with a very important piece of knowledge:  You always have the power to change how you perceive something, you can begin seeking deeper understanding and looking for the opportunity in an otherwise dismal seeming string of events.  What you focus on you create, as I said.  So, for me, I focus on silver linings whether I can see them or not.  By the very act of holding those thoughts, I will create it and I will understand.  Much like the situation I find myself in now.  If I hold the potential for an eventual positive outcome and clarity of vision for that which I now experience, it will come to me.  That—is a beautiful fact, one that I treasure.

Thanks for stopping by to read my mental meanderings.  I so appreciate your presence here in more ways than one and if anything I hope there is something here in any of my posts that might leave you with pause to reconsider thoughts, feelings and judgments.  Maybe, just maybe, something here might give you hope that you can push past the nebulous, push past the limits of negative thinking and reap the beautiful rewards of a new vision or a new more clear perspective. ~Brightest blessings of love, light and beautiful clarity of thought dear souls!

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (photo, random internet find)

Art of the Soul...~sigh~

Thought for the Day...

Seek not to propagate judgement, hatred, enmity nor adversity. Our words are very powerful and when used in the negative, we create a very negative stream of energy that serves as a magnet for more of the same. We can judge others and things around us but how can we know the truth when half truths are spoken by those repeating what they do not understand? Seek knowledge from reputable sources - see it before you believe it and then understand what you are seeing before you speak and when you speak, speak in positive words towards positive solutions. We can distrust and decry government, politicians, companies and blame everyone else in existence for all of the problems of this world or we can focus on our own hands in our undoing. Consider focus on self and righting self actions and self thoughts. Live and breathe an example of morality, kindness, compassion, wisdom, love and understanding and let that be the energy you spread out into this world. If nothing else, you will sleep easier each night when you retire knowing you seek to contribute to long-lasting and meaningful solutions instead of spreading the problem.  Remember, we create what we experience in this world. ~Blessings of infinite love and light!

Dream in Love, Dream in Light

Oh this dream grows ever more interesting…the sights, the sensations, the knowledge and experience gained.  I shake my head sometimes in awe of the connections and confirmations everywhere I turn.  The design of life is both beautiful and tragic, seemingly.  It truly is a matter of perspective.  We can focus on demons and darkness or shadows.  We can focus on angles and light or love.  It’s all up to us and the way we wish to dream as well as what our soul dictates we most need to learn while we’re dreaming here.  What I think I love the most in this world are those moments between daylight and night or night and daylight – where every energy, breath and thought hangs in perfect balance.  When that perfect moment of equanimity strikes,  it has an unmistakable impact on the soul, the mind and even the heart.  In those rare moments of balance and clarity, we know that everything is truly perfect.  I love life so much and this dream, well, goodness.  All I can seem to say is that it is truly, sincerely, divinely perfect in every step and breath, experience and sensation.

In those very quiet moments in which I feel I am most alone, I reach out with my soul and I can feel how much I am a part of everything and then, if I really let go and tune in, I begin to really comprehend that I am never alone.  In quiet moments of stillness and peace I can feel the heart beats of all those I love both on this side of the veil and beyond.  It’s true what they say that love—once you find it or it finds you, it is never ever lost. 

 Love is the one thing that we take with us where ever we go.  It’s essence is more valuable than all of the gold and other precious elements of this Earth and among all the stars and planets in existence.  The soul is made for love and compassion to both give it and receive it.  We need only open up to it and let it flow.  It’s so simple.  All of the drama we create to divert our attention and create our lessons—I laugh sometimes.  We are like master programmers of the most amazing games and dreams we can imagine.  We set the pace, the time-frame, the keys and levels –all of it.  We are the master planners, gatekeepers and dreamers.  It’s so funny how much fog we create to obscure our own divine vision.  But rest assured that you are the architect and as much as you create diversions and walls, shadows and smoke, you always retain the power for mastery and clarity of your own designs.

We are so powerful.  Our words give off so much magnetic energy.  We draw to us those things we need born of the very thoughts we think.  We drive and yet we do not know we are in the driver’s seat.  We create unimaginable things and start to think, “this is too much for me, hand it over to God, let God deal with it” – always seeking rescue.  We are children of Source and our benevolent Creator has empowered us with the gift of creation in our own lives.  If we have created something that is too much for us, we need only clear our minds, our hearts and our thoughts and create anew, create more cleanly with greater love, compassion and understand.  We hold the tools and the powers to manifest our divine destiny.  We just unconsciously wield those tools and power.  Step into your light and Source given love and strength.  Master your world in clear confidence that it is perfect, you are perfect and your brothers and sisters dreaming here with you are also perfect.  See the truth through the illusion of small-minded thinking.  You are better than that.  So much better than that.  Be the love and the light you want and need most in this world.  Heal the pain from the illusions you have created with your own minds…see your experiences from a macro view point instead of the micro view of an ego wounded and fearful and you will be free.  You will learn to control the elements of your dreams.  Step out of the shadows and shine your lights. Give yourself permission to throw off unnecessary mind-created limitations and step more closely into the Mind of the All of Everything.  Life is beautiful and precious.  Enjoy your dreams in love and pure light.  ~Blessings dearest souls.

(c) 2012, Jaie Hart (photo source imprinted on photo and is not mine - I just love it.)

That Space Between Day and Night

I love that gentle feeling that washes over me after the sun has set.  When the last rays fade into cerulean blue and the clouds moving slowly across the sky begin to fade, there is that precious moment of the space in between daylight and night where so much of this world can be felt.  It is through that feeling that we begin to understand so much about ourselves, this world and our lives and, well, life in general.  I stand often watching as the last of the light as it fades into the black and then all the stars seem to flick on all at once.  Often I find myself thinking at such times that this is more than just a beautiful and amazing world.  There is so much within our grasp in terms of comprehension if only we wanted to comprehend.  There is so much joy that could be had if only we wanted joy.  There is so much love that could be ours, if we only truly wanted that love.  The truth is, these things are everywhere all of the time and we just can’t see.  It’s hard work sometimes to finally see the truth about something.  It requires our participation and more.  There is always a great price to be paid for truth.  To really hold it you must pay with your illusions and the price will almost always seem too steep to contend with.  But, the truth is worth your illusions no matter how much fear wells up from deep inside of you during that first terrifying taste of the truth.  Stand firm and trust yourself knowing that there is no way that we can ever build a firm foundation that has any means of truly supporting us if all we have built is based on illusion on top of illusion.  When finally who we are is replaced with the truth and we learn we are nothing, in that one thin moment of pain, we become everything and every dream, wish and desire suddenly becomes possible.  It may seem like a stretch but it isn’t.

May you find the courage to seek out the truth, to hold it and understand all of the illusions you have created.  May you then find the strength and love enough to see this world through new eyes.  It’s design is pure perfection as is your life.  Blessings of love and light.

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (photo, random internet find)

Finding Your Light

Certainly in life, there will never be any shortage of voices telling you who you are and what you should do.  All must eventually pale in comparison to who you know you truly are and what you feel at the core of your soul that you must do for you.  Tread the path with a light heart that there is no shortage of fingers pointing in the wrong direction.  Rejoice in the abundance of those who would find and exploit your weakness for in overcoming them these souls have done you a great justice.   Such internal battles serve only to bring your focus to your own light within.  Never fear your own light nor the authentic ability to stand upright within it.  Your authentic actions serve as a beacon to light the path of those lost in darkness and who wish ultimately if even unconsciously to follow until they find their own light.

(c) 2012, Jaie Hart (photo, random internet find).

Tools At Your Disposal

Sipping hot coffee in the coolness of morning gently begins to awaken my senses.  It was just hours ago I sat in this very same spot, looking up at the sky just like now.  I was watching the stars when I caught a glimpse of a tiny satellite moving across the night sky.  I then felt like that tiny satellite moving through space and time among the stars but not of them, looking similar but so very different and then I wondered what it was like orbiting way up there.  A cool breeze blows and begins to dissipate this heavy feeling in my soul.  There are just those times in life we must feel our way through things and situations instead of using only the limited tool of thinking.  Unfortunately, the ego can often render the “thinking” tool wholly ineffective.   If we become too emotional in our thoughts and those thoughts begin to generate stronger emotions, we cut ourselves off from two other very important tools that really help us understand people and events in this world.  Aside from thoughts and emotion, the soul and spirit are also speaking and listening with every interaction with anyone and anything in this life.  When we take in information with the mind only and are caught up in our own emotions, we’re only getting half the story at best and missing key things at worst!

We’re not taught these things as we grow.  We’ll notice at times when we feel strangely at odds with a person or situation.  When what you are sensing with the spirit and soul (which you are all the time whether you are aware or not) and you are feeling at odds with what the body and mind are picking up on or even have the mind and the body at odds with its sensing, you’re in trouble from the perspective of getting to the truth of whatever it is you may be facing.  The only answer really is to get very quiet, stop all input and just breathe feeling your way through it and noticing the images, the feelings and the knowings that come to you while you create the stillness.  It sometimes takes quite a long time to derive the truth and be certain that you’ve found it and it isn’t enough to think you’ve found it.  You have to test all of your assumptions and determine which ones are certain versus those simply born of fear and worry.  Those two things can be deadly to a soul because we think we can trust the thoughts inside of our own heads.  You can eventually trust the thoughts inside of your head but only when you’ve spent enough time to truly know yourself and understand what is you versus what is the ego-control system taking over your thoughts.

The ego isn’t bad or wrong.  I’ve written about this so many times.  The ego has it’s purpose; an inherent challenge within us all.  But it doesn’t always know the truth about you or any other individual or thing on this planet.  You see the ego, all by itself, cannot comprehend the other languages and derive the truth on its own.  That is beyond it’s capability.  The ego questions, compares, judges and persecutes you and others over and over again until you get tired of its ridiculous rantings and tell it quite frankly, to shut up.  The soul can speak and understand so much more that the ego.  Realize within you lies an entire arsenal of tools to help you take in and process information in this place.  You just have to know which tool has been engaged.  Sometimes these tools become unwittingly engaged in reaction. 

The first up on deck will always be the fearful, worrisome ego.  If the ego fails us, then the body begins to speak with either malaise of some kind, anxiety or even specific body systems being triggered for pain or illness.  If that system fails to get your attention, the soul kicks in and drives deeper urgings you may not understand but your visions and dreams may begin to speak to you.  If this system fails to catch your attention, the spirit steps in and urges you to seek out (if even unknowingly) people and situations that will help you exorcise your “demons” so-to-speak.  It’s a beautiful system.  But if you don’t understand how the different system’s alarms go off, you may become reactionary and that’s a bit of a negative space.

So, you live inside a body with a mind, and emotional system, soul and spirit.  You have all kinds of tools at your disposal to take in and process information and experiences in this life.  You can move along as if floating merrily down the stream of life or you can seek to understand the currents, the tides and the various bends in the stream and even where it will let you out at – perhaps a vast and beautiful ocean underneath a pink sky with a golden sun that fills you with love and light.  Who knows where you’ll go but the vehicle and its design is perfect and the things you face in life are also perfect.  Become aware, very aware of everything within you and around you and smile knowing what a miracle you are in this miraculous and amazing place.  ~Blessings of love and infinite light dearest souls.

(c) 2012, Jaie Hart (photo, random beautiful internet find).

Finding the Lies Within (Yeah - They Exist)

We run across so many things in our daily lives that we discount or give attention to in a negative way.  Let’s face it, we all have our wounds from our past experiences and well, we always seem to run across someone or something that exposes those wounds.  We react then in anger, with great effort for defense or sometimes – if we’re really in a bad way, vengeance.  Oh the nature of the ego and it’s wondrous machinations.  We live our lives this way on auto-pilot and what is so ironic is that unless you get to the core of the wounds, it doesn’t matter how far away you push those people who bring your wounds to the surface or how much effort you put into avoiding those types of people, like the Whack-a-Mole game, they will only crop up again and again and again.  After a while, you may become tired at beating all of these wound reminders down and wonder what you are doing to contribute to this painful array of experiences.  Do you want to know what you are doing to create this?  Are you ready?  It’s really simple.  When you have unhealed wounds, you are putting out a specific vibration to draw to you people who have similar or complementary wounds.  The soul purpose and yes, there is a “soul-purpose” to it, is to get you to look at your wounds and find the truth about their cause.  We make so many assumptions about our wounds and the people we blame for creating those wounds.  Oh the lies we tell ourselves unwittingly!

But, you can sort it all out and learn to stop the reacting and painful exposure points.  Its going to take a lot of courage and a lot of self-love to get there but it can be done.  A friend of mine sent me a message once that said something like, “If another takes issue with you, rather than launching into an egotistical defense that only preserves the lie deep inside of you, further protecting the wound, sit down with that person and ask them to list all of your shortcomings and failures."  I know, “GULP!”  Yeah, it does take a very strong constitution to do this and it is the hardest spiritual work of your life.  But the thing is, you do it because there is an outcome or theme in your life you are tired of listening to like that old Shaun Cassidy Album when you were younger (okay, I know I just dated myself).  So, seek out your failings and be unafraid to face them.  Those who exploit your wounds may have their own issues and you will not really be able to properly judge them because you are wounded and reacting to them getting your goat in some way so I suggest something totally crazy.  

Thank them for pointing out your failings. I know that might make the ego incredulous beyond belief but there is something good in that feeling of incredulous (i.e., a message from your soul you have a very big wound that needs your attention).  Be grateful someone has taken the time to point out to you your failings.  I’m not suggesting you have to own them (such as in the case of psychological transference or projection which does happen but that's an article for another blog post) but rather be aware of the perceptions of others.  If there are themes from others in terms of having your failings cited frequently, chances are there is something to what is being said, like it or not.  Only through doing your internal homework will you come to understand what is going undetected (thanks Ron for putting your unique words to this).

Oh, I know the ego is going into total recoil and rejection at this moment considering such a heinous thing as thanking someone who has just seemingly insulted you or who has made you angry.  Think about this, what have you told yourself about someone elses words or actions that makes you angry?  Did you even realize it is you and what you tell yourself that makes you hurt, angry, miserable or sad?  It’s true.  So challenge your own head and assumptions.  Don’t create a reason around what people do or say. Don’t analyze outwardly, it won’t get you anywhere but trapped inside the victim/villain mentality.  Instead, internalize and ask yourself, “What am I telling myself about what I’m hearing or experiencing in this situation or with so-and-so, is what I think really true and am I 100% certain that my perception and what I’m telling myself is the truth definitively.”   We like to think that if our mind or ego tells us something, it must be the truth because it’s coming from inside of us (don Miguel Ruiz is spot on with this concept- do check out his work for more detail). That just is not the truth.  Feel your way to the truth by focusing on how your body feels, how does your spirit feel, step back into the observer within you and attempt to be objective as possible.  If you can do the "understanding the whole truth" work inside to clear up your own perceptions and illusions, you will begin to heal you, you then will naturally change your vibration, and then you will invite different kinds of people to you to experience different lessons.  It will be less easy for people to get your goat!  Healing work is hard business but its time to stop carrying around all of that relationship-damaging baggage that just keeps you sick and toxic often choking on the poison you emanate from your wounds.  It’s a hard truth, I know.  But, I’m not suggesting that you not be gentle with yourself as you explore and that you shouldnt look for gentle souls around you to help you understand either.  Find someone who will be objective and loving at the same time.  You are more apt to get the truth that way.  

I’m going to stop my caffeine induced meanderings for the rest of the morning and do a little “house cleaning” myself.  Some things of late have got me to really start thinking about my own perception and the truth along with all those little lies we humans continuously and unconsciously tell ourselves.  Blessings, love and light for your healing journey dearest souls.  I wish you every success and that you quickly begin to feel the love and light pulsing within you.

(c) 2012, Jaie Hart  (Note:  So I wrote this article but I owe the concepts to every soul I've ever met that hurt me and to every soul I've ever talked with concerning pain and its purpose - so, to everyone of you, I thank you for the blessings of the lessons I have learned because of you.  Also - this photo isn't mine and I take no credit for it.  I found it randomly on the internet).

J.R. Richards....

Another Perspective on Messengers

Good day, good morning or good evening beautiful souls (who have so graciously stopped by to read my musings)!  I have not been able to write in so long it seems so many words and thoughts have been saved up and they just seem to be flowing.  So, I’m going to go with it.  Now, this sudden burst of literary proliferation could be the result of yet another 3:33 a.m. awakening and well, at least a full pot of coffee to myself.  But hey, it’s Friday and I don’t have to work.  So, well, I’ll get to my sometimes befuddled meanderings!

Something has weighed so heavy lately on my mind often.  It isn’t a new concept as I’ve written about it here before but I think, perhaps, a new perspective dawns.  I wrote an article not long ago in which I indicated that we shouldn’t shoot the messengers that bring us messages of pain to contend with.  Nothing gets our hackles up quicker than someone insulting us, circumventing our free will or taking things we perceive of great value away from us.  As much as it hurts, have you ever given thought to why it hurts and why it happened?  Have you ever even for a single moment contemplated shoving aside the wounded ego, pushing past illusion and assumption and trying to see the truth of the message being presented to you?  I know it’s hard and the ego fights equally hard to maintain its victim and villain filter on your view but what if that view wasn’t the truth?  What if that perspective was only a learned behavior designed to point you in the wrong direction to trap you into very small and superficial thinking?  Wouldn’t that very concept make you mad enough with the seeming design of things to try to reach beyond the limits of superficial egotistical woundings?

I don’t know about you but for years I lived in a nightmare dream where there was nothing to be seen on the horizon but a host of dark specters, villains and even monsters under the bed.  Every one of them perfectly planted on my path just to hurt me and prove to me how weak, stupid and inadequate or even unlovable I truly must be.  My anger at such resulting feelings only ever proved that those thoughts of weak, stupid and inadequate or unlovable were actually illusory thoughts my own ego held about me.  And the ego itself is really like a piece of play dough that has been compressed, dented or stretched by my own life experiences with other perhaps, unaware (or perfectly aware) souls that left seemingly indelible imprints on my psyche.  But not being satisfied with the superficial ever for long and the fact that the flames underneath my suffering got turned on high for a few years, I learned to dig deeper within and try to find the truth and the light in every single negative thing (at least in my superficial mind) that has ever happened to me.  Oh my goodness the things that I began to learn -- once willing -- were simply astounding to me, amazing to me and so incredibly healing to me.  Perspective is everything but perspective is not truth.  Perspective is shaped by a series of a framework of thoughts and beliefs that we hold about what we see or experience.  Perspective isn’t really the truth.  So, what is the truth?  I can’t really tell you but I can tell you how to find it for yourselves.  Now, to be willing to find it is great but you have to put on your big girl or boy pants, take a deep breath and be willing to let your beliefs about you be torn to shreds.  Sounds fun huh?  It isn’t but it is so very worth it.  Nothing in the world has brought me greater reward than those moments were I allowed my own perception to be replaced with truth and that means admitting that I judged things, people, situations and even myself, wrong.

I’ve had a lot of help for a very long time with this “questing within” to find the answers to the problems and themes that have kept repeating in my life over time.  The biggest help???  Well, that one is really amazing.  The biggest most blessed and wonderful help has been every single soul that crushed and wounded me to the core of my soul.  Sounds crazy doesn’t it?  It really isn’t.  Messengers come in many forms and if something hurts, really hurts and we’re willing to try to see the truth about why (e.g., what beliefs do I hold, what unhealthy attachments do I have, where do I invalidate myself) an amazing thing happens.  We begin to heal!  No big deal, right?  Well, it is a big deal.  If you stop carrying wounds around that are based on your own core beliefs about an illusion, you free your soul, you free your energy, you free your voice and you free your heart.  When you are free, you begin to understand what is really happening in this world and how perfect everything truly is even when painful.  When you can even just begin to grasp the importance of this concept your reactions will change.  As your reactions change, your energy changes to a higher vibration.  When your vibration increases, you open new doorways to greater experiences here on Earth.  Like it or not, we did come here to learn.  We love the experience of incarnation or we would not exist here.  We are not prisoners on a prison planet.  We volunteered for the amazing opportunity.  So, heck, why not use it as it was intended and learn baby learn – grow baby grow and as you grow…share!  Share your experiences with others who may relate to you.  Your existence and learning may inspire tons of people to reach in deeper and higher to love and evolve more while they exist here.

I cannot tell you why its so important but it just is.  Having said that, we can take as long as we need to or we can simply exercise our free will and stay status quo.  There really isn’t anything wrong with that either unless it creates discomfort you would like to stop.  I was one of those.  I came to a place where the level of my suffering was no longer acceptable to me.  Through a long number of years, I spent time seeking understanding of the patterns, seeking understanding of the origins, finding the pain and the illusions and learning to reach beyond them for the truth.  I cannot say I can see every truth.  I am merely a student of this life after all just like you.  But I know how to learn and now, where to look and even if I’m scared to see the truth, I’ll dive into it eventually any way.  I set my intent a very long time ago to dream lucidly in this big dream within a dream.  I’m finding measures of success where I was completely derailed and sidelined before.  This makes me happy.  Now, I’m sure my life will be filled with messengers that leave me feeling wounded, incredulous and angry.  I may react first when I encounter them but knowing what I know now, I know that I will come to a place of pure gratitude for the messages and the messages they presented to me…even if hard and even if it takes me a long time to get there.  

Okay, I’m done with my coffee induced meanderings.  I think I need a nap now or at least a breakfast burrito!  I pray that your discoveries bring you great joy as you journey through your lives.  If no one else has mentioned it to you and even if I don’t even know you, I’m glad you’re here.  You and your learning as you go through your lives makes a difference.  ~Namaste!

(c) 2012 (photo was a random internet find - and a favorite).

To Give or Not To Give, That is the Question

I’ll give this disclaimer before I dive into a concept that might be a bit uncomfortable for some.  Know that I do not judge because I write from my own personal experience.  I am human with pain in my heart…that fact makes it impossible for me to accurately judge another.  So please understand my purpose is to shine a light in a dark place.  That said, let me begin with a question to ponder.  How many times have you given something in order to win someone’s love, respect or admiration?  Conversely, how many times have others given to you to win your love, respect or admiration?  How did that feel to you?  Wouldn’t it be great if we could be so authentic and say, “I give this to you and I hope it will make you love me more” or hear someone say, “I am giving this to you so that you will respect me more than you do?”  I know.  It just doesn’t happen that way but that doesn’t make the questions invalid.  I think sometimes we have learned through our experience that we must do something or give something to others as the only way to show our worth.  It’s a premise that is fraught with issues great and small.  First, and I know it will be so very hard to take this in but promise me you’ll try—You are worthy of love, respect and admiration whether you give a thing to anyone or whether you do anything for anyone.  

When we put ourselves in a position of lacking acknowledgement of our own validity or meaningful existence in the cosmos and think we have value only to the extent someone affirmatively validates us, we have put ourselves at great emotional risk.  Depending on what you are giving, you may be creating other types of risk for yourself.  I ask you to question whether its worth it.  Do people truly love you more for the things you do or give?  Do they really respect or admire you more when you go out of your way to help them?  If the answer is truly yes, perhaps you are in the company of some good souls who can honestly express gratitude.  However, I know for myself that giving anything with any expectation of gain is a dangerous emotional game I will always lose.  First off, our existence is valid – our lives have meaning – our living and breathing brings much to Planet Earth whether you are able to validate yourselves or not.  You need not become a pleaser of the peoples, a pleaser of your family or a pleaser of friends or others you respect for validation.  If you give only to obtain validation, I suggest you stop and instead find ways to give yourself more love and validation.  That’s the only kind that matters and is long lasting any way.

I could dive headlong into codependent and enabling behaviors here to further demonstrate the harm the premise and resulting actions of giving to receive are.  But those are obvious and have well been covered by many a wise psychologically trained individual.  I’m more concerned about the core need we sometimes have to find love or validation only in the outside world.  This core need can drive us into wholly unrewarding behaviors that lock us into emotionally unfullfilling prisons that really only serve to reinforce the pain at the core that generates the need.  Without attention and effort, this core pain perpetuates itself into the outside world by bringing soul after soul who will unwittingly or even sometimes carelessly exploit your pleasing, helping or giving nature.  Now, there is a difference in giving freely without strings and not tying any personal validation to the act of giving.  That is actually healthy.  In such a case, giving can be rewarding for the pure beautiful energy aspect of giving.  The giving becomes its own reward.  But we’re not all in that wonderfully enlightened place all the time.  My reason for posting this at all is that I hear so often, “But I did this and still he refused to acknowledge me” or “I wasted all my time on so and so and still she ran off with some other guy.” 

This “give to get” thing is a really important teacher.  It hurts for a reason so pay closer attention.  When it happens, don’t blame the person you helped or gave to for not loving you, respecting you or admiring you in return.  Realize that thought process represents a victim/villain perspective that still only reinforces a negative self-image hiding somewhere deep inside of you.  Realize the truth of the message trying to present itself to you and illumine your path with pain.  Love you first.  No matter what anyone has done to you, no matter what anyone has said to you.  You are worthy of love, admiration and respect as a soul in existence.  Every human being is despite the off-based human judgment or assumptions we make or are on the receiving end of.  We must realize we were put here for a reason.  We exist here for a reason.  We have purpose just by living and doing the things we do.  If we cannot find a pathway to our own love within, we will continually put ourselves at risk for ever increasing amounts of pain.  It’s not that we are unlucky or being punished, we are being given a gift each and every time we feel emotional pain.  We just have to understand how learning works here incarnate enough to see it. Pain is not the enemy nor are those who seemingly deliver it so when you feel or experience it, particularly at times where you expose or put yourself at risk by giving to another and getting no return – learn to see it for what it is…learn to see within you the pain that is hidden.  Try to understand it and love yourself through to that beautiful healing ground that exists within us all.  Then, then you can get to the really good stuff in life.  Like, giving because you are already the epitome of abundance, you are loved, you are respected and you are admired.  You are already these things and when you can make that subtle shift from giving to get to giving for joy without any strings, I’ll tell you it is so liberating.

Some food for thought, No?  I hope so.  This is a tough life lesson but for those of us willing to look beyond the illusion of our own assumptions and pain, we can and will find the space within us that needs more gentle care and love, give that to ourselves and grow in this world in a more positive light!  So, give yourself permission to love you, respect you and admire you.  When you do this, you will attract people who also love you, respect you and admire you.  It’s how like attracts like in this universe.  ~Blessings of higher love and light!

P.S.  If you like the concepts in this article, you might also like one a wrote a while back.  Here is the link:  http://dreamintime.blogspot.com/2010/01/attention-people-pleasers.html

(c) 2012 photo/words Jaie Hart

Home...

Sleepless in....

Frenetic thoughts raced through the caverns of my mind.  Each one echoing and reverberating until a literal cacophony hit my senses.  It was like listening to an orchestra playing a love song out of tune. Tossing and turning left me taunted so I escaped to watch the clouds crawl across a midnight sky.  I could feel the restraints of this spiritual laryngitis loosening its grip on my voice and this amnesia clearing like the sky after a torrential storm in spring time.  How long I stood there, I can’t really say.  I needed to feel the darkness of night, to embrace the shadows and let the just less than temperate breeze fill my soul.  I used to be so afraid of the dark because I couldn’t see.  Now, I find the night a comfort.  It’s the things right in front of me in the daylight I seem to have had the most difficulty visually taking in with certain clarity.

I felt the whisper of an owl's wings  as she soared in searching flight and I did my best to breathe in the starlight and clear these racing thoughts.  For a moment I found reprieve as my skin signaled the thinning of the veil.  I could feel a presence looking for something to explore.  I gave no purchase with my silent acknowledgement and with a sight the presence left me.  Traces of memories of vengeful and wrathful deities played across my consciousness and I could not help but wonder why it is I would come here at all.  There has to be something I'm missing or I would not be so compelled to explore and seek understanding of this particular time and those that came similarly before.  If only I could see a little more clearly.

My mind drifted back to otherworldly things seen this week.  A simple flash of cobalt blue light in a place that it could not possibly exist on a day I set one of my fears free. An interesting coincidence or the cheering on of a beautiful friend watching while soul traveling?  I don't know.  I suppose such thoughts might sound crazy.  Well, you don't know the half of the thing I've seen.  Too much for my own mind to buy into its own insanity. I'll save those stories for another time and I let the thoughts go with a smile that comes from somewhere so deep inside.  The chills settled in and I wasn’t quite sure if the air had turned colder or the veil had grown thinner.  It didn’t much matter to me in that moment.  I was just grateful for something, anything else in the world to occupy my senses.

I found my mind searching through memories as my senses struggled to take in the night.  And there in my mind’s eye another night, and more stars…conversations rich and depths beyond measure.  Sweet recall are these and again they thrill my soul like they did way back then.  I love nothing more than a conversation so deep very few can follow even if well equipped.  I smile seeing firelight on a hill near a coast.   I sighed remembering... so glad at least this vision I could call to my soul.  I was lost reliving the joy of that memory for the longest time and so much peace did it bring me.  I smiled in the dark once again for no other reason than pure joy.  The chill came again as my memory slipped back into the night.  My ethereal visitor and visions seem to have taken wing to flight.  So I stood there feeling so alone in the darkness and I wondered if it would always be this way.  Chills again realizing it was not just the veil but the cool night air causing me to stir.

Thoughts of my routine and dire need for sleep came to the fore of my present consciousness.  I looked up at the sky once more, whispered a prayer on the breeze and decided to return to the very necessary task at hand…sleep.  I need to sleep body, mind and soul.  Please let me rest, I thought to myself.  I returned to my bed still warm as I left it.  I gazed at the ceiling and could swear I saw stars.  I drifted then deeply into a dream.

(c) 2012, Jaie Hart (photo, random internet find)

Shining the Light on One Relationship Challenge

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard about, been through and watched helplessly as others struggled with this one very significant aspect of a relationship…the various ways people demonstrate love.  I write often about perspectives and prisons.  The reason is that we create so many in all of the various places of our lives and as a result, we support the self-obscurity of the truth of a situation.  We are all individuals.  Everyone of us thinks, acts and reacts to life based on our own core set of ideals.  So often in relationships and especially romantic ones we have this mistaken belief that if someone doesn’t perfectly and frequently demonstrate love in the way that we want and need it that the other person doesn’t care about us or love us.  This is huge so please pay close attention.  You have to have the ability to clearly discern the truth about this one from the judgment you might exhibit based on the prison you are trapping yourself within.  For example, Sue (made up person) is an overtly demonstrative and affectionate person. Her partner Bob (another made up person) is not an overtly demonstrative and affectionate person.  Sue shows that she loves Bob by always telling him the uplifting and complementary things that she wants to hear and may always touch his hand or shoulder while speaking and always reaches out to him when they are together. This is how Sue demonstrates love.  Bob demonstrates love differently.  Bob demonstrates his love for people by being a fixer of things, being there for people, listening and offering advice.  Bob adores Sue and is always fixing things and just being there to listen to her speak and share her thoughts.  Sue, over time, has begun to feel that Bob doesn’t really love her.  She raises the issue in conversation stating that Bob is not demonstrative and she doesn’t feel like he even notices her.  Bob, hearing this and knowing how much he does love Sue is offended and doesn’t understand how she could possibly feel that way – he’s there every day whenever she needs him, he’s always fixing things and always listening.  They get locked into battle defending their positions and sadly, losing sight of what is really there.

For Sue, she either needs to understand that Bob demonstrates love differently than she does and that fact in no way minimizes how he feels about her or she needs to decide that she needs to find someone more like her.  It is unfair of Sue to require Bob to become more like her and demonstrate love in the same way she does.  For Bob, he either needs to understand what Sue is saying and agree to try to be a little more demonstrative if he can be or he needs to decide that he needs someone a little more like him.  In Sue’s case, the man adores her and is there for her every day but she feels insecure about their relationship because he doesn’t demonstrate love the way that she does.  The perception that someone does not care and love us just because they do not show love and affection the way that we do is untrue.  We have to understand that everyone is different and that difference can be a beautiful thing.  So many perfectly good relationships are thrown away on this issue and so many conflicts are ignorantly engaged in in the absence of understanding of how different people demonstrate love.

If we would take the time to understand how other people demonstrate love, we would feel less insecure about many of our relationships.  You have to really know and understand yourself and your  needs and you have to really be able to open yourself up fully to receiving unconditional love and understanding of your partner.  If you can’t do this and you cannot understand and reconcile the differences in how you express yourself, you are locking yourself into a prison of conflict.  Until one person becomes ready and willing to see the other person’s side of the equation and the willingness to accept another person unconditionally just the way they are, you are wasting your time and someone else’s and only you can figure out the real reasons behind why you would do that to you.

We make so many assumptions and judgments about other people based on how we are.  That is so unfair and it really imprisons and tortures you.  It also makes the lives of people around you very difficult to bear.  I speak from experience here.  I had a family member once that I went out on a steep financial limb for.  I really loved this family member and just wanted to help.  Because I am not an overtly demonstrative person and showed my love differently, I was accused of being an insensitive and unloving person.  I’m not that and I know that.  Over time, I began to see that this person demonstrated love in a certain way and would not believe that anyone could love her unless they demonstrated love to her only the way that she demonstrated love.  This bred so much conflict for her in her life, with her partners and even with family members.  I think that if she could only understand that people love differently and those differences do not mean they love her less, she could free herself from years of pain and anguish.

So, the next time you think your spouse or partner doesn’t love you because he doesn’t take out the trash or cook your favorite meal without being asked – think again.  The next time you think the person you care about doesn’t care about you because they don’t call you like you call them, think again.  Now, having said that we also have to be aware of what our needs are.  We often want to make the other person bad so we can feel okay about complaining.  Here is where understanding, unconditional love and acceptance comes in.  You do not have to hurt and blame people for not being to you what you need.  If someone cannot be what you really need, tell them so and send them away with love so you can find that person closer to being able to demonstrating what you need. There is no need to hurt others because your needs are not being met.  State your needs, if they are still not met, stand up like a grown up and make a mature decision – accept the situation as it is with love and understanding or have the love and understanding to allow yourself to move on and find something else.  There is so much unnecessary conflict where blame and attack, judgment and persecution run rampant.  It is so unnecessary.  If my partner were to tell me tomorrow that I am not meeting his need.  I would be sad.  I would do what I was capable of to improve but I know I can’t change the heart of me.  If I cannot change enough to make him happy, I love him enough to let him go and pursue what would make him happy.  I would not need to hate him nor hurt him for being who he is and needing what he needs.  Conversely, if my partner cannot be what I need, I will raise my needs to him and trust that he will do what he can.  If he can’t, I know I must either love and accept him for who he is or I have to be honest and let him know that my need is so important I must leave to pursue it somewhere else.

You’d be surprised at what you can learn about each other together with lots of understanding, effort, acceptance and unconditional love.  We don’t have to make other people out to be villains for being who they are.  We also cannot expect people to automatically know what we need.  If you need something specific, ask for it.  If you don’t ask and its not given, don’t punish your partner with conflict.  Ask for what you want.  If they are capable of providing it and consent to doing so, great!  If they can’t do it or they won’t, love yourself enough to make the right decisions for you.  There are so many other applications here.  Give it some thought!   Have a blissful day.

(c) 2012, Jaie Hart (photo, random internet find)