Hold This For Me, My Power

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Oh the ways we give it away so unaware.  If only we knew the keys to prevent ourselves from giving away our power at every turn, we might be better able to address our human interactions in this life.  You see, there will always exist those who know no other way to exist than to intimidate and manipulate others for their power not realizing they have it within.  There too will always be those of us who too willingly give it away without thinking.  Here are some ways to know when you have given your power away and I put them in no particular order:

1. Victim thought processes or identification.

2. Blame thought processes or identification.

3. Dependency thought processes or identification.

4. Manipulating thought processes or identification.

5. Intimidating thought processes or identification.

6. Judgmental thought processes or identification.

7. Persecuting thought processes or identification.

8. Negative self-thoughts and perceptions.

9. Vengeful thoughts and identification.

Do you begin to see where I am going maybe even just a little?  The moment we have given in to any of the above thought processes, beliefs, actions or identification, we have diminished our own power and given it away either through holding a false belief or a fear that we created in response to some kind of external stimulus that it was actually we who created to begin with.  No, this is not a blame the victim thought process and if that is what you take from this so far, I must ask you to go much deeper than the superficial egoic mind to understand.  Going deeper within to feel for understanding will actually raise you above your ego that believes that it always must be right, perfect, save face, be the most, the best, the whatever anyone else may think of as cool and wonderful.  We have to get beyond these things in order for us to begin to dust off the emotional debris we’ve collected inside of us through our lack of awareness that keeps our truth hidden from view.

First and foremost, we are powerful always in all ways all the time.  It is only when we choose not to be powerful that we sink into the dramas of the world that we momentarily think have more significant meaning than they really do.   Going back a bit further to form a framework for you from which you may begin to understand, you are here, believe it or not, to experience and experience life in ways YOU choose.  Yes, you choose and there is no room in your choices really for judgment, blame, seeking perfection, to be right, better, best, etc.  You can give your power away through these things if you want to but you don’t have to.  It is a choice. 

Some things don’t seem like choices at all.  Some things feel entirely thrust upon us quite unexpectedly and it is way too easy to get caught up in identifying with the victim or blaming activities in order to vent your way through an experience.  It wastes your precious energy to engage in such thinking and sometimes acting.  It takes less energy and promotes a greater sense of balance for you to attempt to seek understanding for your own choices (whether you realize you made them or not).  Bad things happen to bad people.  Bad things happen to good people too.  The judgment of “bad” is just that, a judgment and it is a judgment most often based on a false premise or belief.  When you begin to understand that we are all part of the whole of life, you start to think about things a little differently.  At some point you begin to disconnect from the world of victims and villains and start to instead embrace the world as it is through compassion and seeking understanding of what you really intended in your creation of this dramatic experience or that one.  You had an intent.  You just can’t recall it. 

You may have heard the term Maya as an attribute describing the superficial consciousness of and happenings in this world as illusion.  In the world of Maya, ego rules supreme and merely battles and clashes with all it encounters in the fight for better/best, etc.  Ego judges, persecutes, attempts to steal what it already has, competes for some superficial prize that doesn’t take one anywhere or give anyone anything of lasting import.  Spoiler Alert:  There is no prize for being better, best, right, stealing energy, giving it away or striving to master illusions.  What we get from this life is the richness or value of our experiences rather than the experiences solely.  If we maintain a place of power, which is our right, we do not have to choose the world of villains and victims whether or not others wish to exist in those worlds and believe in those frameworks.  You can live your life in fear or worry or you can choose not to. 

I’m not saying any of this is easy.  I can’t even say I’ve done it all the time.  I too am just a mere student of this life but I do know a surely as I’m sitting here breathing and typing away that I can feel it when I give my power away and I can feel it when others try to take it from me.  Psychology and lack of awareness runs rampant in our world.  It has been this way always.  But some of us who care to look can catch glimpses of the truth deep within us and take great comfort in the knowing that it is we who choose to be energized or depleted, to become victorious or defeated as we face each of the scenes of our lives we have created for the challenge of the experience.

I suggest to you that despite how you have lived and what you have experienced up to this point in your life, you can make a choice to understand your beliefs, their origins and whether or not you will continue to buy into them or not.  You too can choose whether or not you will stand in your power full of love and light or hand it over to the very next person who demands it through manipulation or fear generating villain-like postures.  It’s all up to you.

In the midst of some of our darkest and most challenging experiences, these little flashes of insight will come from your soul.  Watch for these and expect them to show up for the purpose of your truest and most reliable guidance.  Steer clear of energy robbing anger, frustration, fear, intimidation and all the other negatives as much as you can.  Do so through seeking understanding and choosing how you wish to participate with such things in such a way where you hold yourself accountable for neither doing yourself nor anyone else any intentional harm and you can find and hold your power to you.  If you give it away in fear of worry, you cannot positively create.  I can attest to this fact.  If you hold it with the knowing, trust or faith in yourself as a Source-Connected miracle of energetic existence, you have half the battle of dealing with the challenges you face won.  You can then step back a bit and observe what you might have wanted to glean from the experiences you go through.  The self-love you do hold in the heart of your soul knows that you established experiences for much higher reasons than reinforcing your weaknesses.  The heart of your knows that you created experiences to rediscover your strengths.

It’s a huge leap sometimes to go from fearful to courageous.  So, start with one little step instead and that very simple step begins with curiosity.  Be curious rather than assumptive, judgmental or resorting to persecution, blame or vengeance.  You’ll feel much better about your experiences in the end because then you are moving in tune with your soul that has a much longer-lasting impact than the superficial pursuits of the ego.   Speaking from experience, when your heart stops and your consciousness goes on, the things the ego thinks are important here on Earth do NOT come with you.  What does come with you is the love you held inside, the compassion you experienced, the awe, wonder and beauty of your experiences comes with you and nothing more.  Okay, for some may be regret comes too but if you are alive right now and reading this then there is plenty of time for you to shift your thinking.  Do it today.  You have the power within you and all the love in the universe behind you and to support you.  ~Blessings of infinite love and light.

(Photo, fortunate random internet find)

Wisdom of Legos

The sands of time begin to tell their tale in the lines about my eyes these days.  Youth left me quite some time ago and although at times I might wince just a little, I do not fear the hands of time.  It is those very lines that are evidence of the things that I have learned and that, primarily, is that life is a precious gift, as is the body, laughter and love.  I walk this path alone most days but on the perimeter always and ever stand those who would guide me from beyond without a moment's hesitation.  I'm grateful for their presence always even when I don't always care for the wisdom they will impart nor the things I know at the level of my soul that I must ponder and act upon.  But I always know what resonates deep within my soul and through daylight I walk this world with wonder and a curiosity that never sleeps and I carry these observations into the land of dreams each night. There I am met by love everlasting, giving, beautiful, breathing light.  Oh to leave the land of dreams sometimes seems like punishment to me.  But I know now what I came here for and it is not duty and drudgery.  I certainly didn't come here to maintain a perfectly clean house!  Were that the case, I would have neither children nor pets that enrich my life in ways I am infinitely in a state of gratitude for.  The parents out there might understand this concept a bit more like this:  The wisdom of Legos dictates that when we walk the halls of our homes in the darkness and happen upon an unseen pile of Legos with our exposed bare feet, it is not that our children have been reared improperly to be so thoughtless--a fact we will deal with in the morning.  It is that we have children we love and care for so much that it matters not that our homes are perfectly spotless but that there is love in the home. (This was a rather painful lesson I was once taught at precisely 2 a.m. while heading for the kitchen for a glass of water).

Life is so funny sometimes when we take the lesson plan or play a bit too seriously.  The obvious lessons are so well hidden in plain sight that it can take us years to see what stands plainly within the field of our vision.  It makes me laugh even more to recall those moments I have been swept away in ranging emotions for trivial things.  The light of love and truth has come so many times and I did not wish to see or maybe I did not have the where-with-all at the time to truly understand.  But having suffered for embracing my own ignorance, I decided to step out from the darkness into the blinding clarifying light of truth - open my eyes and throw my arms open wide to embrace the love that lies deep within everything in existence I can even remotely begin to comprehend.  So, back to the play I suppose it is with me.  I have apparently much more to learn and in a certain area in particular.  How do you search when you have found what you are looking for?  You search no longer but proceed with your life and let what will be - well, be.  Pretty simple huh?  There is no pain in realization really.  You must hold love and forgiveness for self as much as anyone else and in time you relax a little more into your own skin never minding the fact you don't look like Barbie or some famous and beautiful movie star.  There is no soul who comes here without experiencing their own nightmares at least for a time.  We are so much alike even though seemingly and incredibly diverse.  We are one and not.  We are here and elsewhere.  We are shadows seeking dissipation in the light. We are everything and nothing at all.  I'm okay with that.  I'm really okay with that.  Blessings.

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (photo is a beautiful work of art I found on google images).

Judgement Unaware

Judgement is such a funny thing.  We dispense it with each other all of the time creating prejudice and division, entertaining the good or the bad and labeling others as such.  However, are we truly capable of judging another or their path really?  I question our ability to judge because I know human beings.  We are each like a circle and depending on our interaction with other aspects of other circles, we can only know one or two degrees of each other at any one time.  We cannot judge someone as wholly bad or wrong because of one degree of their persona that we have come to know and yet we do it without much understanding.  We cannot really escape judgement, I think, here in this frame because we have attached to each of us an ego that by its very nature compares, contrasts, tries, judges and condemns others on auto pilot.  While I am aware of this fact, I am also aware of the fact that I may judge a person's behavior that I experience as bad or wrong but I also know that I cannot see the whole of another person, nor can I see his path.  If I were to wholly condemn someone because of our interactions, I'm really creating negative energy for myself.

Having said that, are their certain people I refuse to hand out with?  Oh yes, absolutely the truth because something in me ignites certain behavior within them that when combined, creates a wholly draining energetic experience and vice versa.  But, I have learned that it is not my place to judge them as a good person or a bad person.  There are just those that we run across that we negatively react to and those we run across that we wholly resonate with.  I think that those we react the strongest too actually give us a unique opportunity to figure out where our buttons are hidden.  If we can find what really pushes our own buttons, we can seek to understand why those buttons exist and if they exist due to assumption and unhealed pain, we can dig a little deeper, seek to understand and perhaps, heal the pain, removing the button.  Then, if we should run into the person who once got under our skin or others like them, we don't have to create the same negative energy reaction.  We can learn to live and let live.

In my view, I know there is much I do not know.  But, I know that Source sees all, understands all and loves all of creation.  Who am I to judge another of Source's creations?  Going back to my original thought, I am incapable of judging another as a good person or bad person.  I am, however, very capable of discerning which interactions I prefer and don't and will behave accordingly.  I have a very busy life with lots of responsibility.  I will not tolerate emotional manipulators or energy vampires.  I try not to judge people and this is a fact, however, if people manipulate me for energy, I am quickly done.  Many of these folks are quite fine individuals who have made choices I would not make and they are at various levels of awareness in this world.  But, I will exert my right to choose who I will participate with and who I won't.  I don't care for negative energy, drama for drama's sake and people who attempt to steal from me what I would willingly give if they would just learn some more amenable behaviors or honesty and direct communication perhaps.  I also will not tolerate those who lay unspoken and not-agreed to be me, expectations upon me.  While it's true that I hold those in my inner circle to higher standards, I do my best to live up to my own standards.  I love and hold compassion for all souls at a basic level because I truly believe that we are one.  But I am not above anger, frustration and wanting to steer clear of certain people and that is my right.  Likewise, I can totally respect and appreciate those who might wish to steer clear of me.

I have a rather unusual effect on people.  Unwittingly, I intend to expose the wounds and weaknesses of others rather quickly.  These wounds and weaknesses are escalated rather quickly when I refuse to engage in the typical unaware control dramas (read James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy).  I do attempt always to deal with everyone with love and respect but when you expose people's wounds and weaknesses, they tend to react rather poorly.  Vengeance is often a first tool to fight.  I do not intend to cause harm.  In fact, I'm here for the opposite reason.  I mend souls through shining light in the dark places they may not be aware that exist within them.  Some folks cry out for love and help.  Sometimes acknowledging them is enough, forgiving them is enough and walking away while holding nothing but compassion is the best and kindest thing that you can do.  Hurting a wounded soul by putting them in their place is not helpful.  Not really.  No one benefits.  Not you, not them period.  I think that is why understanding that we all have wounds and weaknesses is key.  Knowing we all have egos more prone to react from triggers is important.  Understanding even better how to assess and respond to a situation with others is absolutely priceless.  Realize we do not know everything about everyone.  We barely know ourselves until we put forth a concerted effort to learn and we cannot learn by accepting how the outside world defines us.

The point of this article is to create understanding, to make you aware that judgment is inevitable but you can achieve greater understanding circumventing inappropriate or uncalled for reactions and that you have the right to participate in what you choose to and to disengage from what you do not wish to participate in.  See people for who they are and don't expect an angry and wounded soul to act like they are perfect and wonderful.  Let them be who they are and you can make choices accordingly.  We cannot change each other.  Judgement will never get you there.  However, understanding the framework within which you move and interact will bring you greater understanding and much more peace as you move through your life.  ~Blessings of great love, higher wisdom and much light.

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

Fall

I can feel it in the air, that slight shift and change that brings us ever closer to the equinox.  I love that feeling of balance, the coolness that tinges the night air and that beautiful cerulean blue sky that becomes enhanced by big white puffy clouds.  The Summer is always fun and entertaining but I much prefer the Fall.  I relax a little more for some reason and the sleep in the cooler temps?  Well, it's just delicious to say the least.  When I look around and see the leaves on the trees turning, changing and beginning to fall away, I'm always mindful of those things I have finally learned and can now let go of having grown a little wiser for my efforts.  Maybe that is the real source behind that relaxing sense of completion.

The seasons are markers to me.  Much like in business, when we review the quarter's progress, so too do I engage in the same activities concerning my life.  I review my challenges and goals and consider my accomplishments--those planned as well as those unanticipated.  Life to me is no longer about filling my home with things that do not benefit the wisdom of lessons learned.  I am by far more interested in learning to understand and hold compassion for others as I make my way through this life.  That is the bigger challenge and it is infinitely more rewarding.  We cannot take with us the things we've collected while we've squandered our days and hours in pursuit of a feeling.  We can, however, take with us all of the love and understanding we have gained in our lifetimes.  When our bodies give up our souls, we remain very conscious and in that consciousness we are quite curious about what we've done - did we make it - did we do all the things we intended to do for the sake of the experience and learning?  We quickly then turn to love, did we give it enough, did we forgive and understand enough and did we leave a wake of love and serenity behind us?

When we know these things it gives us great pause to consider how we will live as we are, in fact, living and breathing.  Life is so very beautiful when you have your focus gently placed on those things that truly matter.  To deviate only causes you to lose your place and forgo your own progress but you can always find another way to learn because your consciousness never dies.  This place provides a great opportunity for experiencing from a very limited set of facets but there are more dimensions to our existence that we can reach into at any time. 

So, I've gone a bit of track.  But that's okay, I love letting my mind and heart roam where ever it wishes.  I appreciate every single day in every season I am alive.  Don't get me wrong.  But I'm happiest when I see representative change in the seasons.  It inspires in me hope.  It inspires in me the desire to enrich my own experience and to live in a way that I might leave some measure of peace behind me when the winter of my life finally comes.  I don't fear the hereafter.  I fear living lost in a world of superficiality and materialism.  I don't begrudge having nice things or making light connections - I just want the rich depths of meaning in life to continue to grow exponentially.  I will not fail in seeking that which I most desire.  I don't have it in me to fail.  Blessings of love, acceptance and understanding dear ones.

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (photo and words)

A Beautiful Life

Standing under the stars feeling my way through my soul.  Pulling in the energy of the universe to soothe it.  Sometimes in the quiet and stillness a soul may come to know a great yearning from deep within and that yearning is simply for love.  But love, we never lose it or our connection to it.  We just seem to when some of life's tougher lessons come along to seemingly shake up our serenity.  I don't know...the only thought I can seem to think is that  I didn't come so far to throw it all away in a moment of weakness and nostalgia and I know that I must stop being so self-indulgent over a lesson of late.  It's time to breathe and deep.  Its time to think and deep.  Its time to feel and deep.  So I pause in the darkness and look up at the twinkling lights and each one flickers in time with my beating heart.  Each carrying a message and I can hear them - don't give up, don't give in, turn with in little one and find your wings, there is more to this than what you thought and time will tell...there are dreams to make and life plans to live.  Think not for one moment that you are not a part of us and that we are not part of you there always for an eternity, shining the light in the darkness.

I know it must sound silly but well, it's my quiet moment and I may take solace under the stars in which ever way I can to get the healing peace flowing within.  I'm incredibly grateful this morning.  For the past 18 months I have been in an accelerated set of life lessons that were intense beyond belief, beautiful immeasurably and filled my heart with wonder and joy for life in ways I never thought possible.  But after months of rapid learning to suddenly face the silence and stillness with maybe too much time to wander and let my mind meander through the many thoughts, visions and emotions vibrant and real beneath my skin, I'm at a loss for...well, I'll just leave it at that.  I have a few weeks to pull it together as a new path opens up for me and then, it's off racing in another direction with hopefully, greater understanding of life as a reward for my efforts.

I'm grateful this morning for angels incarnate.  I thought all of mine had gone and the words of one of them echoed through my mind, "you are never alone dearest."  Misty-eyed upon recall it's hard to type - but well, he was right. We are never alone and when the need is real and great, there are angels here to guide us and get us through the rough spots.  Thanks to my angels as I was surely in need of rescue and now here this morning under the stars, searching for strength and finding some, I see that I can do this - I can get through the wrapping up of the lessons learned.  I'm proud of my progress and grateful for every single soul who brought more definition to my thoughts, who shaped my love and my experience here.  It's been a beautiful journey and so, it shall continue - a beautiful life.

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (Photo, beautiful random internet find)

The Soul's Development - Judgment Not Needed

Watching the skies pulls me out of the depths of my own thoughts and resulting emotions and brings me such a great sense of peace.  I think it is because the sky is so vast and our limited view from where we stand is a doorway to the whole universe that we can't necessarily see completely nor comprehend fully.  As I stretch my consciousness out far and wide, beyond what I can see, greater understanding attaches to my thoughts and I begin to see things a little differently.  We enjoyed a break in the gentle rains of the past day right at the most opportune time in order to catch a glimpse of wonder great in a grand display of storm clouds, cerulean blue and the beautiful colors of a setting sun.  The fiery colors were beyond description as where the soft pinks that appeared to be hand painted by God Himself on the tips of white puffy storm clouds.  I watched motionless for thirty minutes at least and felt the swirling and chaotic thoughts within my own soul dissipate in to an all encompassing awe and deep appreciation just to be alive and witness this simple event. 

A concept I had observed a lifetime frequently materialized in my field of vision this week and it bothered me only because I know the pain behind these events of human behavior displays.  I can feel the core of the cause, the point of origin and the root of the thought and activity that caused what I saw.  Although I can see it and believe me I feel it, it's hard to witness and not be able to do anything to change it.  Knowing that I am truly forced in this world to accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can and have the wisdom to know the difference, I must seek deeper understanding and come to truly appreciate the diversity of souls learning here in the Earth school right now. There is no right or wrong to this series of events I have witnessed and I am ill equipped to judge but after considerable thought I wanted to share my realizations.  It may be a stretch in terms of what is true for everyone else but my mind seeks understanding first and foremost.  The essence of the challenge is the lack of patience, tolerance and understanding humans show to one another.  Breaking this concept down into bits and pieces to further tear it apart for greater understanding, a picture emerges that seems so simple.  Human souls are all beautiful and bright shinning emanations of love, I think.  But, human souls are also at very different levels of understanding and development in the schema of life as we know it.  When humans expect souls to be at their level of understanding and exhibit corresponding behavior, the humans with the expectation forget that not every soul is capable of the same level of understanding.

Consider, if you read it, my last article in which the child feels unloved at having his toys taken away.  He's angry, frustrated, feeling dejected and rejected because he cannot have what he wants.  Before he succumbs to mother and father's insistence that toys be put away to ready himself for bed, he may rail against the directives intended for his own good.  He does so only due to a lack of understanding.  Consider this very same small child for a moment.  Say another soul must deal with this child soul for some reason.  The more mature soul understands the laws of cause and effect and physics.  The child does not yet have this understanding.  If the more mature soul ridicules the child, berates his behavior and being for his lack of understanding and resulting behaviors, both souls end up with toxic energy.  A child cannot understand the laws of physics or even the simple seeming laws of cause and effect until the child has had sufficient life experience to grasp such concepts.  A soul at this level of development can only do and understand what their level allows.  They should not be judged for what they are as yet incapable of learning and the soul doing the judging is also demonstrating their true lack of maturity for berating the child.

Take another level...souls at the teenage level of development.  I've witnessed how a teenage child who is just beginning to grasp life and the ego's grip on their reality ridicules, berates and even verbally attacks a child much their junior for the smaller child's inability to perform long-division - "How stupid you are - you can't even do this." (Can you tell I have kids?  Giggles).  I cringe when I witness this.  Teenage level souls exist out there.  They think they know everything and gain a measure of assurance in life or a mini ego boost buzz by making others feel small.  They are not to blame either because they do not have sufficient time and development to truly grasp the error of their ways.  Through time they will learn and the ego's out of balance approach to life will typically be tempered over time as they begin to learn the ways of the world.

And yet another level..the young adults.  The judgement of their teenage level is, for the most part, left behind them - typically.  They begin to understand there is something greater than themselves and they experiment more.  They gravitate towards truths that seem right but still they must gravitate towards universal truths - those truths held in common opinion by others but not really representative of definitive truth.  They can slip easily back into the teenage level or they can learn to grow and progress.  Some souls at this level cannot progress.  Their life path is to remain at this level of development.

Another level...the mature adults.  These souls have gained a great measure of self-awareness and how the world works.  If aspects of their development have not been stunted at the prior levels through unhealed trauma and pain, they begin to become teachers as they learn.  They may still slip into uneducated judgement but they can begin to transcend this level and learn to focus away from the victim-like thinking of the earlier stages and start to better grasp self-reliance, accountability and responsibility for self, thought and actions. So far, none of these levels is truly capable of judgement until they have transcended their level but they employ it seeking the ego boost buzz not knowing how short-lived, fleeting and detrimental it truly is.  For one level to compare themselves to a lower level is to compare apples to oranges - a waste of time.  But, they will learn this in time or not and the "not" will become the essence of learning for those at higher levels of development who not only learn from direct experience but the experiences of others.

I'm over simplifying because you can stratify these levels far beyond what I have here...I'm trying to paint a picture that my leave one with food for thought in terms of understanding human behavior and true limits.  Just because one soul learned to transcend inappropriate and unrewarding behavior has no bearing on another soul's ability.  The final level in my simplified story are the sages.  Those who have transcended all the other levels and who have come to deeper understanding of love, experience and gratitude.  They no longer feel the need to judge to feel okay nor so they seek the fleeting ego boost buzz as they've learned its true detrimental effects and they have learned a measure of giving love to all equally and refrain from interference by exposing their own judgment.  Oh, they have judgments and they know it but they will take that judgment and learn from it rather than verbalize to make another feel bad.  They have learned from their experience and they have learned the higher filling of the soul with joy and love by appreciating themselves on their own merits rather than through judgment.

Age and time incarnate in this life has no bearing on the level of a soul's development.  You can have 70 year old infant souls.  You can have 10 year old sages.  It is the soul's development and not time incarnate that dictates a level of development.  Let me put it a very simple way...if you knew a soul had a mental diagnosis that caused undesirable behavior - would you judge, make fun of or berate that individual because they are not behaving normally or like you?  If you didn't like how that soul behaved, you could in some way begin to understand that soul is limited or maybe step away from interaction with that soul wouldn't you?  There are souls at every level who are fully capable of learning and growing to the next level but they can't until they are taught and they practice and engage in life differently.  Just like a small child who does not understand the concept of cause and effect, many of us have not yet learned how that particular concept deepens and morphs over time.  Some of us will learn to grasp that lesson and extrapolate it across all areas of our lives.  Some of will learn to grasp that lesson and apply it in a compartmental way in our lives.  Some will not grasp it at all and continue to do what they've always done. 

As I finish up my thoughts, the sky begins to mist tiny drops of water on the Earth again.  I sigh realizing the thing that I sought to understand in more depth has made me realize that in general the construct I witness cannot change.  It cannot change for those unwilling or incapable.  I cannot judge them.  I must hold compassion and understanding and disengage from the areas that cause me pain until I learn my own lessons more fully and no longer feel the pain but a deep love for all as I witness all of the souls at play around me. ~sigh~  Whatever road it is that you are on and whatever level of development you are at - appreciate yourselves and I thank you for your courage in coming to the Earth school to teach and to learn.  I'm grateful for what I have witnessed and am grateful for what I am learning.  The thoughts no longer swirl as I let them now go like those clouds dissipating into the sun's rays.  Blessings of wisdom, greater understanding, love and infinite light to you all.

(Note:  Written stream of consciousness - editing to come later - please forgive typos if you read before I have time to edit.)

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (words/photo)

Understanding our Resistance

Over the past few days the wispy angel wing clouds succumbed to a blanket of gray.  The heat of the past few days has dissipated and a gentle rain has begun to fall.  It's cadence so soft and gentle, like beautiful music.  The peace has given way to deep thought from so many directions its hard to pull one single concept from the swirl of the rest.  There are times like these and if we would know with certainty that such times are part of life and we can ride the waves until the storm passes, we would not resist and create anxiety for ourselves.  Life can seem difficult to bear when it seems like your emotions are not your own...like they have been externally manufactured by some force of resistance in the universe and unexpectedly placed within your core.  But, take heart for it is only an illusion to give you something to do for a time.

Our thoughts move at lightning speed sometimes.  They move so quickly that we cannot consciously comprehend the emotions we attach to them.  We only know it when we find a difficult moment where consciousness itself begins to be a struggle.  We may live for the night, a nocturnal reprieve to escape far and away deep within the land of dreams. The reality is, it's only thoughts and they hold no sway over our experience except to the extent we give them purchase within our reality.  Have you ever sat down in a quiet space with the only focus to feel your body and experience your surroundings without the mind judging and labeling?  It's hard, I know but such an exercise gives you a taste of the truth.  We exist beyond our thoughts and our emotions.  We are not them.  However, if we are not careful with our approach in embracing them, we may lose ourselves believing we are our thoughts and we are the anxious and fearful things that generate a wild range of emotions.  We're not that.  We are the quiet, serene and peaceful being just watching with amusement the struggle of thoughts to gain purchase as truth.  Thoughts are symbols only - things we learned to construct in this frame but there is more to existence than our thoughts.  We exist not to think but to be.  Thinking is a side effect that if not properly understood can taint an otherwise very beautiful life.

And then, then there is emotion - the true power we hold within us.  Our emotions generate energy and we feel happy, sad, joy, love, anger and more.  We create these emotions with our own thoughts.  So, if we create these things unconsciously, automatically, just imagine what it is that we could do and experience if we take back control, ignoring the chaos and substance of our thoughts and push past them in moments surrounding ourselves only with the peaceful comfort of the base energy from deep within our souls.  We can generate bliss in the most chaotic of moments but it's a choice.  We often don't realize our emotions as a choice and some will fight to the death of a relationship to prove that fact wrong but consider this...When a child must put away his toys and resists, mother or father will take the toys from the child and put them away.  In the child's mind, not understanding what is happening, he will generate thoughts that he is not loved by mother or father because they are creating his unhappiness by taking his toys away.  The reality is that mother or father loves the child very much but its time for dinner, a bath or bedtime to help promote better health, safety and security for the child.  You cannot explain this to the child because he  has not yet gained an appropriate level of awareness to grasp the reality...the truth.  And so, it goes that we feel emotions and often do not understand why we are going through what we are going through.  But consider further, perhaps, there is a very good reason you are experiencing what you are experiencing just now.  Take it a step further and consider that what you are experiencing is something you wanted to experience to enrich your soul and teach you about the strength and love you are truly made of.  When you begin to understand you'll no longer react feeling unloved because something you wanted has been taken away.  You may realize that you are choosing these feelings only because you don't yet know any other way to process what you are experiencing.  You may further begin to understand that you can seek the deeper meaning of an experience and change the resulting emotions you are left with. You can learn to soar higher with your understanding and, thus, change the landscape of your vision - your experience and choose a different set of emotions. 

This is a very difficult lesson that takes time to fully appreciate.  But once you gain this understanding in one simple situation, it will forever change the way you view the experiences in your life.  As your life unfolds, you will begin to look even more for silver linings or the real truth rather than the provisional ones your uneducated minds may reach for.  Then, then you begin to free yourself from the lower limits of existence.  You begin to think about things differently, try on different thoughts and then begin to experience different resulting emotions which will bring to you greater understanding.   It takes only a willingness to be open to the possibilities.  As a small child grows and learns more about the construct of the world he exists in, he begins to react less negatively when mom or dad says its time to put the toys away.  In fact, over time the child chooses not to be a victim by resisting the actions around him that exist for his own good.  In time, the child puts away his own toys, no longer resisting what is best for his own well being and the experience changes.  He no longer feels unloved but understands the love being displayed before him.  The child then is free to grow into adulthood and greater lessons and much deeper understanding of the construct that is his life.  It gets easier over time the more we learn and allow our own growth and begin to accept and move with the events that unfold in our lives rather than continually and on auto-pilot - railing against what unfolds.  We are only victims when we do not understand.  Its a hard lessons, no doubt about it.  At the same time, its a beautiful one when we shift from a being that has things happen to them randomly without seeming cause - to a being who creates from his or her thoughts, emotions and energy, understanding and love.  ~Blessings

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (photo is not mine but a random internet find).