No is Perfect

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This morning I watched the full moon set in a clear sky just as it transitioned from the black of night into the beautiful blue of the day.  Not long after, I watched the sun rise and brighten the silhouettes of the trees outside my window.  The clouds moved in and the gray skies added such a beautiful contrast for the Crepe Myrtle tree outside and the green Sycamore leaves that soon will fall.  In my mind I walked back through the memories of my experiences of life on planet Earth this past week.  For whatever reason, the anxiety and fear generally felt all week was still overwhelming.  As a soul that leans heavily towards the empathic, you learn after some time and experience what is your “stuff” versus what belongs to others in terms of energy and emotion.  This week the sensation from outside felt like it was coming from within.  But it was only this morning I realized the fullness of what I felt was not entirely  mine at all.  Much of it truly had nothing to do with me.  I’m just feeling more lately and I find that interesting.

Anxiety and fear are great messengers if you understand their purpose and the fullness of the message these two sensations in particular can bring.  Both are of the same source truly.  I don’t really care much for the reasons why, the source or what lead to the feelings.  I only know that I cannot carry things that are not mine to carry.  I woke up this morning with the remnants of the sensations from my week – the lingering energy and I thought, “Wow, really? Why on Earth would you carry this?”  I got up realizing that it wouldn’t help to beat myself up for my own sensitivity that left me feeling slightly less than awesome as my first thought for the day the moment I opened my eyes.  So, I cleared it all away in a little shower-meditation.  You literally just visualize letting the water pull away all of the negativity.  It is truly an amazing thing to do after a week of high-stress!

When I came down stairs and saw the moonlight spilling down to wash my patio in a beautiful silvery glow, I paused and just took in the beauty of that gorgeous orb seemingly hanging in the sky to punctuate a beautiful and serene moment.  I made some coffee and engaged in some mindfulness meditation to allow the rest of my week’s experience to drop back into the background with my full and complete acceptance of it.  My realization of what I was feeling and the true origins helped me feel more peaceful, more understanding and much less anxious.  I’m going to allow myself to just feel as I feel, be as I am and stop the fear that rises with these thoughts.  Even that fear is a beautiful messenger.  For me in truth, it is a worry that I am not handling all that is before me “perfectly.”  “What a silly fear,” I think now by the light of day.  What does it matter if I am not perfect?  I am not here for that.  None of us are here to be perfect.  We are here to be who we are and to learn to see, understand and allow others to be as they are.  The challenge comes in when others lay their expectations on you and think or even secretly demand that you should react to their expectations for no other reason than they have them.  I learned this week that sometimes you just have to say “No."  The “No” may have repercussions and that just really isn’t your problem.

For a recovering people pleaser such as me, I can admit that I wince when I have to say “No” sometimes still.  My life’s experiences have taught me that quite often your “No” is followed by much conflict and heavy duty sales tactics by others to try and turn your “No” into their desired “Yes.”  But something happens as you age in this realm.  You start to gain wisdom and you realize that no amount of people pleasing will insure you against someone else’s displeasure. When you realize fully that another’s displeasure has nothing to do with you, you stop a really negative process from perpetuating itself into oblivion.  You stop taking on the pain of others and chose to throw off their pain and just stand in your own light.  This is not a painful process really and if you stand firmly and confidently enough in your own light, you begin to see the truth of this.  When you say “No” to something, there are no shortages of people or situations that will rail against the “No.”  Too bad I say.  Sometimes the “No” is about self-preservation, it is about your own peace, tranquility and happiness and sometimes you just have to choose your own happiness over someone else’s and still be okay.  It isn’t easy but truly, with practice it feels like the only thing you can do from the point in your life you begin to understand why standing in your own light is the most important thing you can do in your life.

So, I come back now to less heavy thoughts and the precious beauty of my surrounds.  I’m grateful this week for all of the conflict I felt, for all of the emotions I encountered, the stress and anxiety even.  For these things have taught me to be open and curious about what is going on inside of me despite all of the noise outside of me within my environment.  I am responsible for myself and my thoughts and feelings.  I am understanding and compassionate towards the thoughts and feelings of others and I bear no shame in standing up for myself and my own needs.  Come what may from it, I’m happier in this moment for all of my experiences.  I’m grateful in this moment for every soul I’ve encountered this week along with everything done and said.  It’s been fine week on planet Earth and I’ve many things to consider about all that I’ve learned.  A new perspective dawns and I’m glad.  I don’t know where it will lead but I’m sure it’ll be great!

 

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© 2016 Jaie Hart

A Life Lacking Authenticity = A Long, Dark and Lonely Road

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What is it within us that keeps us tied to someone else’s ideal of who or what we should be?  I think within us lives a primal fear from days long gone of being eliminated from the pack, shunned or otherwise humiliated for being authentically who we truly are.

I was reminded of these thoughts yesterday while out and about.  A simple thing no one but my partner and I noticed, but there was a woman walking down the street.  She wore brightly colored clothing that did not match.  It was partly cool ethnic, partly hippie and partly beach casual.  Absolutely nothing in her attire was in sync;  not the style, not the colors and certainly not the mixed prints.  She was a beautiful woman I thought, maybe somewhere in her forties.  My partner commented on her dress and wondered about it.  I let my senses go out and feel for what it might be that gave her the inspiration for her choice in attire.  Now mind you that I can only filter through my own perception of this reality I experience but what I felt was a spirit true to herself.  I didn’t sense mental illness, lacking awareness of fashion, drug-induced ignorance, color blindness or anything else.  I saw a soul comfortably walking her own way.  And you know what?  I respected and appreciated it so much.

Admittedly, I am a recovering co-dependent people pleaser.  I have lived most of my life trying to be what every one else thought I should be from an A student, to a star team player to a perfect wife and mother.  None of these things could I ever measure up to for long in the eyes of another.  Eventually I’d fail to live up to an ideal and oh the wicked lashing I’d get then.  Not from those with the expectations of me but from my own mind.  That, in my opinion sitting here this morning, is the absolute worst. 

Somewhere along the timeline of my life a feeling grew inside of my core that could no longer be ignored.  I was tired of working so hard for an unachievable perfection that I nearly imploded and in that moment was true perfection born.  I began to question why on Earth would I ever endeavor to be anything other than who and what I actually was?  I realized that there was absolutely nothing wrong with me, my choices, or my desires for my own life, (except for the minor point that I had no clue what any of that was).

As I look back on my life I see so much of the authentic real person within me who tried so hard to fight its way out of my ego’s seemingly forced invisibility.  There is such a thing as an inverse ego.  It is a very fragile one as are most wounded egos.  But something within me kept begging for cognition, awareness and the desire to throw away invisibility and anyone or anything that required that of me.

I spent years then trying on new things to see if it felt right and good and in the process, did the best I could to raise my children the way I thought best despite the frustration of the expectations of others, despite the lectures and the “you oughtta’s.”  I became a self-made success nearly in spite of myself and that’s kind of funny to me.  By sheer force of will I reduced all barriers to mere rubble so-to-speak and I forged a new path if even in pure darkness and eventually as the twists and turns of my life completed themselves, I came to the tiniest glimmer of light from deep within.  I no longer question who I am and have come to learn that I need not worry so much about what others think because they don’t define me, I don’t define me.  The part of me that would try to define me is only my ego and it is incapable.  So, I have learned that I am of two minds in a very interesting and psych-spiritual-philosophical way.  I see myself getting caught up in things and I pull myself out with rational thought and a true sense of authenticity but usually not unscathed.  But those scrapes, bumps and bruises from exploration have taught me what I am not by process of elimination.  Some of you may identify with that process of learning.  It is a very interesting path to say the least!

I rebel against the idea of dictates towards me now near automatically.  I work very hard to quiet the voice inside my head that tries still to tell me who and what to be and well, how to do it even.  I grapple and struggle with that voice that says, “No, you’re wrong, you can’t do that and you’ll never make it this way or that way.”  I struggle with that voice because I see its true origin – again, malware in the psyche.  It’s not mental illness per se.  This is more environmental psychology – along the lines of the natural effect of living in a perfectly imperfect world with individuals who did not understand a human being’s true potential.

Every single soul on the planet does the only thing they know how to do…even when they are doing things morally judged as wrong, mean, horrible, awful, insulting, demeaning, etc.  We all have choices to make in life; including how to manage the effects of our own very personal environmental psychology.

Walking your own path in life can sometimes be a lonely experience.  When you refuse to conform to societal norms or enforced conformity for the ease of others, life takes on a new meaning and the challenge that arises becomes an invitation to climb.  And by climb, I mean climbing out of the pit of other’s ideals of who you should be and embracing the true authenticity within you, accepting yourself exactly as you are and loving yourself despite any lingering traces of a voice whispering negative thoughts to thwart your progress.  The lonlier path truly is complacency, sleepy conformity and ignoring your own true inner feelings and spiritual urgings.

Being authentic means you have found your true inner voice and it will no longer keep quiet.  You can recognize the true inner voice by the way that it speaks to you so that you can feel the purity of the flow within you.  This is the voice you can begin to recognize as the higher part of the self guiding you up and out of the lower designs of the ego.  The ego is not to be destroyed mind-you, but rather understood and then transcended.  Old paradigms of thought and outmoded methods of activity can be overcome when you grab hold of those few precious nano seconds between judgment, emotion and action.  The span is so short from a human timeline perspective that if you remain asleep and unaware that such times are a gift in which you can step out of normal reaction and into, instead, understanding and thoughtful response, you might miss a beautiful opportunity to truly see yourself just as beautifully as you are.  It is absolutely amazing the way you can truly feel living life honestly from a place of authenticity.

Why does this matter, I often write in my posts.  I want you to think for just a moment about why this matters.  If you live the life someone else designs for you – even if that design comes from your own ego spurred on by environmental psychology and unconscious malware, this is a recipe for a very unhappy and unfulfilling life.  I don’t want that for myself certainly and I don’t want that for you either.  I can pretend I am a teacher of sparkling and impeccable thoughts and actions but that would be a lie.  I teach from the heart by real experience that I have been through, that I grapple with and that I succeed at if even painfully sometimes.  I like to find meaning in the ugliness and take it as a personal challenge to find some shred of beauty in it no matter how long and hard I must contemplate, reflect and adjust my sometimes-myopic vision.

This is one incredible ride…life.  It is meant to be lived from the heart and soul of you. When you can determine that which most prevents you from living life in joy from the truest center of your being, everything changes from the mundane to the extraordinary.  You become (once again) extraordinary and the thought of that makes me smile.  Blessings for your journey beautiful dreamers.  Find that thread of authenticity fighting within you for conscious cognition.  Give it a tug with a smile on your face and be willing to deal with all the stuff that falls out.  It’s that “stuff” that you must wade through and clean up to get to the good stuff in life.  Be fearless and courageous.  You were born of the stuff of the stars that shine so very brightly.  Live your life like you mean it straight from the heart.  Much love and light always and in all ways. And, So, It Is!

 

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© 2015 Jaie Hart (photo and words)

If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy my books.  You can find them at http://www.jaiehart.com or Amazon Kindle and even in Nook.  Bless!

Healthy Detachment: A Far Cry Different Than Being a Doormat

In spiritual circles, there is much discussion about detaching or rising above something frustrating or bad behavior that truly is wholly unacceptable.  This talk ensues leaving an earnest seeker thinking they are somehow trapped in the space of forcing down anger and frustration while they try to rise above something or not let something bother them.  It is so very important to note that many spiritual principles are discussed but not necessarily understood in their proper context and without that context, you could be misapplying principles to your own psychological detriment. 

Healthy detachment does not mean that you walk around letting everyone use you as a doormat while you just smile and I say, I love you or I forgive you.  You can do and say these things, absolutely!  But, if you are in any way being inauthentic about that, you are actually harming yourself.  Sometimes you have to say something until you mean it but that is mostly applicable to negative self-talk and that is certainly not what I’m talking about here.  What I’m talking about here is actually several concepts wrapped up into one designed to help you better understand how you can make some choices that will hopefully be more in line with your integrity and authenticity as well as helping you understand human interactions and their true intent.

Let’s face it and be real up front, not all of us know how to play nice in the sand box in terms of human behavior.  We’ve even been guilty of this kind of behavior ourselves, lets be very honest, at least at some point in our timelines.  The first part about this concept is to understand that another’s bad behavior is not your doing, is not your fault and is nothing for you to carry no matter how loudly the poor behaving person screams from the mountain tops.  Bad behavior is about the person conducting it and not you.  Learn accountability for your own behavior and you will start to notice where that accountability is lacking in another.  When you start to notice, don’t slip into the trap of judging another’s side of the street dirtier than yours because that doesn’t really lift you up either.  You have to deal with what you face to get the true meaning and essence of the life lesson before you.  

When people behave poorly to us, until we break old patterns of our own thoughts and normal reactions to the behavior or others, that behavior is likely to generate negative emotion within us.  That’s perfectly fine and completely okay.  Allow yourself to feel the emotion and then consider whether you might be able to understand its true message to you.  Perhaps that message is simply this:  Some people have suffered environmental psychology they are either unable or unwilling to change and this causes them to behave poorly and sometimes even in ways that hurts your feelings.  Fighting back with vengeful-type behavior is like trying to put out fire with gasoline.  You’re likely the one to go up in flames.  I always suggest that when someone has hurt your feelings with their behavior, it’s best to take a moment, a breath or even a walk long enough for you to gain your composure to the point you can articulate how you feel.  Then I’m going to suggest that if it is safe for you to do so, tell the person how you feel when they behave in a certain way.  I suggest that you don’t attack the person but instead you focus on the behavior.

State your piece and then get ready to let go of your attachment to outcomes.  You see, people who behave poorly cannot change their behavior until they learn how.  You can speak how you feel when it is safe to do so (or journal or talk to a trusted friend or adviser if it is not safe for you to speak how you feel) but you can’t control another person or their behavior at the end of the day.  To complicate matters even more, the way you perceive the “bad behavior” is filtered through your own environmental psychology and part of the emotion you feel may not necessarily be from the outside world at all but for something within you left unexamined, a belief held and long-forgotten that you were unconsciously reminded of by someone else’s bad behavior.  Regardless of your perception, regardless of the reason for the other person’s bad behavior, you can express how you feel about it.  Consider a discourse rather than a raging argument.  Consider a moment of listening within for what is calling to you.  Listening without for what someone else is really saying.

There is a final part to this and this is perhaps the most important.  If you’re getting the message and still the bad behavior continues and you really don’t want to participate, that’s where you have to choose your own side and set a boundary to protect yourself.  The best way to do that is to step off the battlefield or seek the appropriate assistance with processing what is happening and making the best choices for you.  Healthy detachment is when you arrive at a place where you know what “stuff” in an interaction is your “stuff” and what “stuff” in an interaction belongs to another.  Set boundaries.  Participate only in what you wish to participate in and do so gladly whether that means stepping further into discussion or stepping off the battlefield entirely.  Know that you were put here to be no one’s door mat.  Sometimes some people behave so poorly that the only way you can hear your own inner messages on whatever it is they brought up for you is to get away and spend as little time as possible with that person.  Set a boundary around what you will or won’t participate in.

In closing, truly for your own sake and benefit, you must let go of the idea that you have the power to change another’s behavior.  Healthy detachment means that you truly understand that you have power only to understand and control your own behavior, make your own choices for your own ideals.  No other can be accurately judged by your standards, perceive exactly the way you do or contain within the exact same messages for life lessons that need learning like you do.  Healthy detachment means that you allow yourself the authenticity to feel how you feel, think before you act or react and that you choose then what you will or will not participate in.  It is work and hard work sometimes.  The malware that runs rampant within our sense of self-needs to be right, validated and vindicated and thinks it can control others.  This is an illusion. 
  

With healthy detachment you can show yourself compassion by allowing your feelings to be felt, seeking understanding, speaking up if you need to be heard and then moving on if need be in order to set boundaries more in line with your own personal integrity.  You can also show another through healthy detachment, the respect and the courtesy to allow them to be exactly who they are without your interference or requiring them to change.  Participate or don’t but let go of any idea of getting them to change.  Let go of the thoughts of “only if.”  You can “only if” every single relationship or encounter and never will you get to the space of healthy detachment while you dig yourself deeper into the emotional egotistical drama of it all.  If you want to engage in it, it is up to you but if it isn’t healthy for you then you have some choices to make to get off the floor and decide you will detach rather than be a doormat or martyr. There is nothing of true value in that for you.  You’ve done nothing so wrong that you deserve such self-inflicted punishment.  Know this and feel the truth of it within you.

These are no easy things to learn.  Simple in concept perhaps but more challenging in action and action for you personally is what this is all about.  Your timeline, your life and your experiences are about you but not necessarily in the way you might think.  So, give yourselves room to be, to feel, and to respond to life as you deem most appropriate. Detach from the need to manipulate or control what you consider to be bad behavior in others and try if you can to accept people and situations just exactly as they are.  If you don’t like their behavior, set boundaries for yourself, communicate your boundaries where needed and you can go on living, understanding, expanding and growing in a healthy manner in your life.

 

© 2015 Jaie Hart (photo/words)

If you like this post, you might enjoy some of the concepts in my books.  You can visit my website at:

Http://www.JaieHart.com.

Anxiety's Grip

I stood under a dark sky filled with stars as so often I do.  I watched pale clouds move across the stars seemingly in slow motion.  Despite the beautiful peace that I knew I could feel on the perimeter, it could not reach my core due to anxiety producing thoughts.  There are sometimes frustrating aspects of the journey that we all must face, think through and contend with.  This occurs mostly because we have become engaged in things our hearts just are not in.  Sometimes these things can be helped and sometimes they just can't.  So what then, to do in the interim?  I am not really sure but this is my attempt to figure it out.  I wish to figure it out because this is a state I would call, discomfort.  The reasons why are not important as I've already quite adeptly pinpointed that for myself.  The matter is what to do about it without ascribing rippling effects outward that may, in fact, serve to create even more discomfort...at least temporarily.

Everything in life matters and everything happens for a very good reason.  The one thing I have learned in my nearing fifty years on this planet is that when we are not quite in the right place, be that physically in terms of our home's location, the right job, the right relationship or the most supportive circle of friends and acquaintances, stress will ensue.  When we are engaging in things out of sync with our truest core and desire, discomfort can result.  I find myself in such a state and the answers while seemingly easy, are not easily attained.  As I sort through each nuance, option and potential resulting consequence, I am feeling stunted, a little worried and well, even more discomfort ensues.  Not much can be done about circumstance that I, myself have created and created out of a very good and valid necessity other than sort through those thoughts that are resisting what IS the most.  Pinpointing those thoughts and finding ways to restructure them - not to create a fantasy untruth about what IS to ease my mind but to try first and foremost to understand the heart of this lesson I face.

I'm not sure how to get there.  I know what I'm doing about it but what I do will take time.  A change is in order, of that I am certain and even if uncomfortable, I am one to embrace change because only through it can we bring in more opportunity for love and greater light.  Sometimes it is time to move on from all of the structures one has built and seek to rebuild certain structures with a different design, work from a different premise and then focus more acutely on the desired outcome while preserving aspects of highest import.  It's time for very focused thought and attention and much more in the positive rather than letting my mind run rampant with fearful and anxiety producing thoughts.  I am understanding of what must be on the periphery I think...but I'm not really sure I have not understood my own motivation for staying in a certain situation, right precisely where I am.  It is almost as if this nebulous something calls to me.  But I feel that nebulous something might actually just be boredom, frustration, the wrong kinds of challenge that seem to require effort with little to no real progress nor reward.  But then I wonder why it might be I would put myself in such a situation to begin with.  There must be a very good and valid reason because if I've learned anything in this life, it is that I can implicitly trust me and my soul and my Soul's Source to lead me, to guide me and help me to understand those things I most wish to consciously comprehend.

I can feel the anxiety in my soul and know that somewhere I have crossed a line perhaps that I shouldn't have crossed and not with anyone else but myself.  So, going back again...rethinking the premise, the platform from which I built what I have created.  I have created a wonderful something out of nothing and yet I am dissatisfied with what it now requires or what is seemingly required of me to maintain this structure.  I think that I shall stop attempting to limit my thoughts and instead realize the pleasing parts of what I have built are part and parcel of my own soul and so will be present anywhere I decide to focus and move.  I may just find that if I tear certain structures down and rebuild them, I may find myself in the same stance of a certain dissatisfaction and then, so, why put forth all of the effort at all?  Such thoughts create an immoveable stasis that is quite unproductive and very much anxiety producing.  So, I come back again to my own thoughts realizing the common denominator.  An emerging thought begins to form and take hold deep within the heart of me.  This structure I dreamed of, created a vision for and executed quite adeptly on I am proud of but this structure in this one area of my life is not me.  Without it, I would still be me.  Without it, I would find other things perhaps more in line with the authentic core of me.  That's it...that's the crux of the issue.  I cannot be other than authentically me and those who desire I be anything else, well, they will ultimately be greatly disappointed for no more will I live up to the expectation of others in certain regards.  I am more concerned with the state of my soul and what I offer this world rather than meeting the expectations others place upon me.  Expectation is sometimes a challenging thing.  Sometimes expectation can result in retroactive contracts...even when spoken, we may decide that we thought we wanted to live up to an expectation but we've learned that we simply cannot.  We cannot be deterred in life by learning such truths about ourselves.  Rather than disappointment, perhaps we should relish the splendor of realization of our truth and authenticity.  Discovery of truth is not often bliss inducing.  At least not at first.  Bliss comes when the alignment of love truly enters the whole of our being.  And then, acting in alignment, there comes the joy, the love and the light to embrace.

I look down this path, glad for what I have built but I also embrace this emerging opportunity for changing, for embracing new thoughts and for courageously placing one foot in front of the other even though I cannot clearly see in this moment just exactly where I am going.  I feel deep within the core of my soul it's a good place and so I trust every breath and step.  I am now feeling the release of anxiety's grip on my consciousness and I'm grateful, so grateful.  There is no situation you cannot think and love yourself through.  The way may not always be clear nor easy but trust you and then do whatever it is you must do to find that loving alignment within that brings forth the supportive and authentic thoughts that are your truest gift to this world. ~ In love and in light, I send you clarity of thought and the capacity for and the reality to receive love in the highest.

Twisted Conformance

Imagine for a moment that there is someone in your life that you love, look up to or need something from whether that be physical, emotional or financial support.  You need them in some way and they have either consciously or unwittingly agreed, or so it seems.  But, in order to receive what you want from them, there is an implied and sometimes a verbalized or otherwise expressed expectation that you must be a certain way or do things other than within the realm of your very natural tendencies to please or appease this person. In a word, you must pay to play in a way that is wholly unhealthy and unnatural for you.  You need this person, or so you think, so you engage in all sorts of twisting and contorting of yourself, your thoughts and your behaviors in order to confirm to this individual's desire.  Imagine this can take so many forms...The man or woman who tells their spouse or significant other they must drop 50 lbs, surgically alter themselves, take medication, dress differently, speak differently or behave differently.  Because you love them or need something from them, you forget about you as a beautiful, loving and wonderful person just as you are and in fear you attempt to comply.  You can do it for a time but eventually your natural propensities and proclivities are going to resurface and there will be conflict that is going to make you feel bad.  Whether you know it or not, the fact that you must contort or twist yourself into something you are not is already hurting you very deeply so when you still don't measure up after trying, imagine how devastating the conflict will be to you.  It is a tough human drama that plays out in so many relationships its really kind of sad.

If you have negative behavior patterns and a loved one is trying to improve those patterns out of love, that's one thing.  But often times I see the behaviors requiring improvement are not based on that at all.  People in various types of human relationships will have this idea of what they expect those around them to be and they will give with strings that somehow become very strong and heavy cables wrapped around your neck and heart and if you want or need anything from them, you have to be incredibly mindful of the cables and strings or its conflict time.  We walk into these situations unwittingly.  Sometimes there is enough good coming out of the interaction that a little modification for someone else is really not a huge deal.  Take someone who liberally sprinkles the F-bomb into every conversation regardless of who they speak to.  Curbing that personal habit or preference in certain company to be polite is not a big deal if it is okay to the f-bomb dropper.  But, if it isn't, the f-bomb dropper may have to find different company to hang out with.  The f-bomb is just a word and the offense people take in it has nothing to do with the person who uses this very creative word to express themselves really.

Take another example. Someone naturally has a tendency to question everything around them, including why everybody around them walks their path the way they do, likes to point out every error in judgment and misstep and takes a bit of pleasure in the finding of issues.  Such a person may be faced at some point with a request to behave differently around those who have no appreciation for such behavior.

Another example, take a partnership where one partner feels his or her status and self-worth is derived from how their partner speaks or behaves and so requires that partner to dress in a way or speak in a way that gives them a comfortable level of ego boost in order to show love to that partner.

These situations all have a common theme and that is that one party has decided that the other must behave differently in order to be around them.  It's a tough thing on both parties on the surface until you get very brave and dig down deeply.  Every person has the right to be who and what they are without judgment, without forced change thrust upon their behavior to get love and without being belittled for not being other than who they are.  Likewise, people have the right to be surrounded by those that make them comfortable, support and  uplift them.  We have to take a cold hard look at who we have in our lives and why.  What do we gain from the presence of others and what do we have to learn from others?  If we find f-bombs vulgar, we can choose to be around only those individuals that don't use those words.  If we require others to modify their behavior around us, we start getting into sticky territory.  I think of my own situation with a family member.  This family member gives love with heavy duty cables and steel strings.  Likewise, this family member will acknowledge love only if given in very specific ways.  Never mind how you express love naturally, it will not be accepted as good enough if not provided very specifically on their outlined, heavily written about and often proclaimed loudly - terms. 

We all have choices to make.  Rather than expecting people to twist and contort themselves to be in our presences or dealing with those who demand or expect you to twist and contort yourself into something you are not - it is decision time.  The answer is simple - Either walk away and find those you do not have to twist and contort or those who do not demand you twist and contort or decide where you will stand up for yourself and draw boundaries or where you think its not unreasonable to compromise.  It's not rocket science but I'll tell you the ego dives into these situations and creates all manner of mischief.  Sometimes I think that the ego is the source of our own built-in darkness and ignorance.  We must battle that evil in all kinds of ways in order to come to peace, see and understand things with a little more light.  No situation has the absolute correct answer as human needs differ but if you do not find a way to become wholly knowing, accepting and loving with yourself, there is no way for you to know what compromise you can make without causing harm to yourself or where you are causing harm to others with your requests.

So, I'm not here to judge any parties as you may have surmised right now.  I'm here to point out there is a space of common conflict that different people will bring about for various reasons.  We all have to decide what is right for us and what isn't.  What I never, ever recommend though, is that you hang out with people who will not accept you as you are.  I also don't recommend that you hang out with people you cannot accept exactly the way they are.  Just like you should not have to change who you are to be loved, respected and appreciated, you should never require that others change who they are to win your love, respect and appreciation.  If you can't find that space with others, move on to those you can find that space with IF your goal is to come to peace and understanding.  As I said, this one isn't easy but if you honor some rules, you can get through them without experiencing or causing as much pain.  Free will - your free will ends at your person.  The free will of another ends at their person.  When two come together and their free will is at odds, someone must compromise for the interaction to continue or decide the conflict is not worth the effort and depart.  If the ego did not get involved needing to be right at the expense of others, this concept would be so simple to embrace.  But the ego does exist and what a fine teacher it can be in these situations.

So, enough of my thoughts on this topic for now.  I did my best not to lean a certain direction on purpose and I hope that has come through.  I have, as we all have, been the person required to twist and contort and also the one who expected others to twist and contort.  Neither feels good at the end of the day for me and so I do not engage in them.  I will not twist and contort and if others violate my ethics and integrity with their being, I choose to respect them and not hang out with them.  Having said that, I know others who do a fantastic job at negotiating these situations rationally.  There is no right or wrong here.  There is just an action and a consequence each must decide whether it works or doesn't for them.  The secondary message I always like to convey is to be who you are and to love yourself regardless of what anyone expects of you.  If people want something from you that you cannot live up to, say so and let go of the matter.  Just move on.  There will be no shortage in your life for situations to crop up with others you can learn from that are maybe a little more similar to you and perhaps more tolerant or understanding.  Do be wary of love given with strings though.  These have the potential to create much pain for all involved. 

So, that's it...I'm done with my morning thoughts on twisting and contorting or requesting same.  Life is all about actions and corresponding consequences for learning.  Be aware and more importantly, be very self aware.  You can find the light in any darkness you find yourself in.  Just trust in that belief until you have experience enough under your belts to know this as truth.  Blessings of love and light beautiful dreamers!

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

Found My Way Home

I cannot help but wonder a bit about the space I've found myself in recently.  I write and put it out there publicly in the hopes that something I write about my experiences might help others but what I've encountered is something entirely different than what I had anticipated.  When you step outside of yourself in any means publicly, others tend to develop certain expectations about who you are and what it is that they want or need you to be in order for them to feel okay.  Sometimes that expectation is too much of a burden to carry.  I've written about this before but the lesson lingers on and so, there must be something more to it than I had originally considered.  My ego reacts terribly to people who try to tell me what to do, how to think or who to be.  My ego reacts this way because it is a direct, even if unintended insult, right straight through the the heart and soul of who I really am.  Please consider this the next time you lay your expectations on someone else.  Is it really about them or is it really about you and the healing and accepting you need to do on your own.

I am a student of life, an observer with natural keen analytical ability.  I take things in, learn the frame work and then dissect it completely for one purpose and one purpose only...to understand it.  I write about my observational experiments because as I write, it helps me to understand what I think I am perceiving more clearly.  I am a human being just like everyone else on the planet.  I get out of bed every day, shower and make myself presentable to a world that doesn't really care who I really am - they care how I show up.  Sometimes the world seems to expect me not to be who I am but what it needs me to be.  I look at this one thing and see it as the very nature of much discontent and conflict in all human interaction.  I've bumped up against this one several times in the last few weeks and have suddenly come to realize how much this has materialized on my path in life and I look back nervously now as I see how many times I twisted, bent and contorted myself to be what others expected, demanded or even nicely asked that I be for them.  Its an unreasonable and untenable request - an unfair request - and ultimately, one I can no longer grant to any soul on the face of this Earth.

I can only ever truly find happiness if I show up and present with my heart wide open, my mind wide open and curious but I have to do that my way and I cannot cave under the duress of threat that someone won't like me or they will take their love and respect away from me if I don't behave the way they want me or need me to.  Not one single soul on this planet is above making mistakes or being human so let him who has never made a mistake be the only soul with a right to throw a stone at me.  I'm laughing as I type this and want you to know that I say these things truly with a light heart and to be a bit "cheeky" as my friend Annie would say.  In my 46 years of learning I have come to know the greatest life lesson there is:  To thine own self be true and for no other reason than to uphold your own sense of honor, honesty and integrity because at the end of the day or the end of your life which one day will come at the end of the pavement that is the road of your life...the character you build in matters of the heart and soul are all you take with you.  Being the best at acting to meet other's needs and please those around you in exchange for superficial "love" (that isn't love at all) will win you nothing but a trip to the void where you'll have to figure this out pretty quickly in order to move beyond and into the afterlife.  If you don't figure out who you are now and find a way to love yourselves for the beautiful divine representation of love that you are, you'll be beset one day, much like now, with the monsters and villains of your own creation.  It's not a good path if you ultimately wish to find love and happiness.

I have learned that in life, I tire of fighting the expectations that others have placed upon me and I will never succumb to those expectations again.  Rather, I shall move away, far away from those who think so little of themselves that they can influence others and manipulate them into being something they want and need for instant gratification.  Oh, it is never done with malicious intent I do believe, but rather a great heaping pile of misguided misunderstanding.  If you want to look up to someone and raise them above you - you have immediately cut yourself down.  Stop that right this instant as you do not deserve that.  Do not idolize anyone or anything ever because to do so minimizes you and you are no less than a child of light...a beautiful child of this amazing universe.  Take your rightful place in this world by finding and seeing the love within.  Quit seeking flattery and adoration and instead rebuild the structure of your thinking.  You are so beautiful just as you are and if another cannot accept you, then walk away.  I have walked away all of my life from those who laid the burden of their expectation on me about who I should be to them or for them.  I hope above hope and I pray that one day, one bright and beautiful day will come those who have fully embraced the hearts of who they are and who, like me, have decided to lay down the world's expectations and be the loving, joyful and wonderful souls that they truly are for the pure joy of it...rather than fake something or act just so others might adore them find me and together we will merely enjoy a moment in the sun.  I am not on this Earth to be adored and I am not on this Earth to cut myself down by placing others above me in my own mind.  We are one.  We are equal at many levels.  Our understanding, perceptions and assumptions are the only things that separate us.

Be courageous enough to accept you for who you are.  Be curious enough to discover the things you do not know about you.  Be compassionate enough with yourself and others to see your kindred equality and then you might see what the true light of heaven really looks like.  Heaven never was a place, dearest souls.  Heaven is a state of being...a state of knowing...a state of grace...a state of love...and a state of mind.  Thank Source I finally found my way home.

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart 

Nerdy and Kooky Meanderings

Time holds no meaning when you have found a state of bliss.  Life accelerates and slows down dependent upon your state of flow with all that is.  When in painful moments, time slows down.  When you are wanting, yearning or crying, it crawls.  When you're having the time of your life, the hours go by in mere seconds.  It's funny when you think about it and when you dig a little deeper than that you might even realize that you have right there in front of you evidence of how powerfully your mind can create with the right impetus of emotion and powerful positive thought (energy) behind you.  We don't think about a lot of things that perhaps we should.  But, then again, everything in its own good time I suppose.

When you can time travel, time starts to lose it's meaning a little bit.  When you can look back and pinpoint your very origins in time and carry forth your consciousness to the present and then divide it by the various dimensions your thoughts and consciousness exists in, well, time becomes irrelevant.  Yet, here in this frame, time is everything.  Time is running out.  Everything runs by the clock due to work, school, obligations and well, the list goes on...but time - it exists because we do but it is not static in the way that we think.  I think traveling backwards in time is easy because our conscious experience is recorded some how in the space we once existed in or maybe, perhaps, we exist there still.  I just don't know - all I can really speak from is experience and I need no time machine.  My memories are as real upon experience as the sensation of my fingers gently tapping out letters on my computer right now.

So, for those of you fearful of gray hair and wrinkles indicating your time is running out, relax.  You aren't the bodies your souls inhabit any way.  That's not to say you shouldn't fully enjoy and appreciate the experiences you are having but you see the existence we create in this frame has the limits that we have all mutually agreed upon.  That means that we are here in this frame for the span of a dream elsewhere and then, well, we are not here but elsewhere.  In my last article I wrote about my own experience with my consciousness existing beyond my body.  My heart stopped and I was out of my body and yet fully conscious in a very liberating way.  There was such a great sense of freedom, expanse and unlimited sensations of reaching father than the limits we are used to within our bodies.  I've read about the experiences of others traveling outside of their bodies and I once doubted the plausibility or validity of such experiences until I had my own experience.  I've had several still after that even-- that didn't involve anything so traumatic as my heart stopping.  Rather, I've had the experience of going back in time and reliving both beauty and tragedy, love and anger, lack and abundance all in the span of various lives.

I don't write much about this aspect of my nature as I always hated the idea of being labelled a Kook!  But, I find as I get older, I just don't care any more.  Label me away and I will always know the truth about me and nothing in this world defines me but the thoughts I hold about myself.  I was created by a single thought and that thought, the Source, gave me free will to think, be and experience this world and others as I so choose and I do choose.  I love life in all of its forms, from the myriad colors to the full spectrum of emotions and corresponding energy.  More important than any other experience I can convey is that I love!  I love and I am loved.  These two things - the ability to both give and receive unconditional love - well, learning these was worth every bump, bruise and scrape of some very serious uphill climbing for a very long time!  Live and learn.  Hey, that's what we're here for.

Enough of my kooky mental meandering for this evening.  I'm tired and need to get to meditation before I get too sleepy to do it.  There is only so much Discovery Channel a single woman can take any way (oh yeah, add nerd to the list of labels - Yeah!)  I hope that every one of you out there reading this post walks away with one thought (other than Jaie is a Nerdy Kook - hahaha).  Seriously, the thought is this - be who you are...explore this life fully with curiosity, an open mind and a great love for self and life.  When you can do this, life gets richer, more beautiful and infinitely more rewarding.  It's true.  It's really true.  Be blessed!  Much love and light!

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (Photo is not mine but gorgeous)