Embracing Change

 

Sometimes in life we get rather comfortable with the routine of things.  We’re happily doing this or that humming right along and then suddenly it happens, change peers at you just above the horizon.  Sometimes that change is actually coming from deep within you but you may not notice that until you learn to become incredibly aware of how you create in this life and why.

Change often seems like an unwanted surprise and something we often at first resist.  But here is a little nugget of truth you’ve probably heard before or know deep down inside:  If nothing ever changed, we would become complacent, our senses dulled by routine and our brain cells would waste away without the challenge that change brings. 

So, we mix it up a bit or the universe in its infinite wisdom seems to help you along with that whether you are willing or not.  The depth of discomfort change will bring you depends solely on your level of resistance to it.  What we resist persists and so it’s best to face change with courage.  I feel that way about change.

Change is hard to deal with whether we choose it or it chooses us.  The thing to remember is that change is always good.  No.  Of course it doesn’t always feel good but when you get past the moment of big change and look back, you can often see the wisdom you may not have gained without it.  Even unwanted change can bring us necessary growth that we ultimately benefit greatly from.

So much change is on the wind as is so often the case for me.  I’ve learned to look at a change a little differently.  Instead of tensing up in fear or bracing at the thought of it, I just sort of jump into it and take what comes.  There is always something good in the end.  Always.  I can’t think of a single change that did not carry some form of benefit even if it initially brought me pain.  The pain contrasts, hones and refines our character and can make us better and stronger.  We just have to allow it to be that for us and then it will be.  Resisting change just makes it more painful.  Embracing it with curiosity and staying in the moment, makes it much more palatable or at least a tiny bit less painful to deal with.

Sometimes change means we have to mourn the way things used to be.  It’s okay to be in touch with your emotions when change shows up at your door.  Denying emotion is not a loving thing to do for one’s self.  Allowing yourself to feel how you feel is a very kind thing to do for you.  Trusting yourself to manage the change is another way to minimize any suffering.  You can handle change.  You can manage change.  You can recover from change.  You can even find some kind of silver lining in it if you want to.  Everything comes spinning right back to you and your thoughts and perceptions about change.

Change is the one thing we can always count on in life.  Why not settle in and get comfortable with that idea and find a way to be okay with it?  If you don’t like certain changes, depending upon what they are, you have decisions to make. We do get to make some choices in life.  While we cannot stop the sun from setting, we can learn to love the stars.  If we don’t care for sunlight and sunburns, we can move into the shade and still enjoy the day.  Being willing to be a change agent for yourself is sometimes very necessary to bring about your own growth too.  Change is not the enemy.  We can become our own enemy when we face it.  It’s up to us how we will choose to see it.  We can struggle against it and suffer or we can let it flow and carry us to a better place in time.

© 2015 Jaie Hart (Photo/Words)

Pain and Love In You

There will be times in our lives we will be delighted by those that see the good in us and there will be times in our lives we will be disappointed by those that only see what is not good in us. Which perspective is accurate and is it right or wrong? 

This is limited thinking in action on all accounts.

We are more than any one person can truly take in unless that person is incredibly self-aware and near fully self-actualized which not a lot of humanity can claim. So, what does this mean in terms of those who choose to see the good or the bad in us? In terms of who we really are?...Nothing.

We each will see in others what we filter through our own life experiences. If we’ve not done the work to identify what places those filters firmly in place, we will not see accurately either in the positive or the negative.

 Maybe a better way to understand is not just in terms of what is good or what is bad but rather in terms of who and what resonates with us in a moment and who and what does not.

 Our lives and the things we have lived through will shape our beliefs and perspectives to a degree that will limit our vision of a good number of things. While this may be a fact we must understand and contend with if we wish to grow, there are ways we can strive for the truth and that truth is in feeling. I’m not talking about emotion and I’ve written about this in many of my works.

The feeling part of us is much deeper than emotion and is more akin to the likes of our souls for the sake of easier reference. At this level we can “feel” the truth about ourselves, a situation or others. We just need to learn to take the time in silence and learn to feel what we feel most deeply. If we can do this, we can come to better understand where people are in their development and that is really a more curious and positive way to look at situations and people rather than the required black and white of good or bad.

You see, we are all in various stages of emotional, intellectual and moral development. If we could understand this, we could learn to hold the same compassion for others that we would hold for a child learning what they do not yet know and that we have already come to understand.

This just takes a willingness to step outside of the framework of control, labeling and comparing. It’s not an easy thing to learn. But when you do, you free yourself to move through this world with greater authenticity, more compassion and infinitely more love and curiosity. There is both pain and love within us and these are the filters that shape our vision. What do you think shapes the vision of others? Can you wager a guess or try to understand? If you can, you’ve just made a huge leap towards your own development. Just some food for thought.

© 2015 Jaie Hart (photo/words)

Shadows

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There was something I needed to do, my inspiration told me.  It wouldn’t be difficult technically speaking but would require great courage and a strong will to change the status quo that had become my world of late.  So, I lit the white candle at the alter and I sat down, took a deep breath and closed my eyes.  In moments, I saw two of my guardian angels, Jacob and Aaron.  Jacob asked me if I was ready and I said, “Yes, let’s do this.”   Just then, my beautiful friend white owl showed up.  We climbed on her back and we were off then to soaring through the night sky and then into the mouth of a cave at the bottom of a mountain in the desert.  We were headed to the underworld. 

The underworld is often greatly misunderstood and so let me clarify that by underworld, I do not mean Hell or Purgatory or anything biblical by any stretch.  The underworld is a different plane all-together and is most convenient for inter-dimensional travel when one is properly prepared and guided.  I’ve traveled the underworld a good number of times when called by my intuition to go within and begin “seeking” for answers.  This time, it wasn’t an answer I sought but an aspect.  An aspect of my own existence I could feel living and breathing inside of me…a creation of sorts.  I had created an inter-dimensional being, a monster you might say, one called rage.  She came to see me many years ago and has wreaked havoc with my sanity a time or two over the last ten years but I didn’t know what she was entirely or where she came from.  All I knew was that she was one very powerful creation who captured my attention so completely at times.  When we first met she hit me with energy so hard in my heart I was unable to move.  I faced her briefly but all I held was fear and bewilderment.  I didn’t have the wherewithal at the time to understand.

The last time I saw her I was in meditation and she leaped at me in my mind’s eye and in that moment I both saw and felt the strength of her power.  She was hideous, terrifying, flaming matted red hair, yellow orange eyes, shrieking, long dirty nails, pale bloodless skin and dark stripes that were similar to tribal tattoos.  This was many years ago and I was in no way prepared for that encounter.  I shut down my meditative practice not understanding that I had only just met an aspect of me, a representation of repressed pain, anger and hurt that was left to flounder on its own unrecognized.   When you get closer to peeling away the layers of the beliefs and lies you’ve been handed or created about your own life, sometimes your own shadow sides will call to you.  Mine did and I answered that call.  I understood the hows, the whys and what was that I had to do.

We traveled through the underworld fast but I caught glimpses of the beautiful light, crystals and different worlds carved into the sides of the cave walls that acted much like live picture frames that you could step into.  With my intuition I guided the owl straight ahead to a tiny perfectly round tunnel where I saw moonlight.  Snowy climbed the tunnel for miles until we arrived on a plane that appeared to be not unlike the Earth but it was some place a little different.  The scene was serene but the energy was not at all so I knew we were close.  Up above a night time sky appeared as it would have on Earth and before us a large black glassy lake that reflected the light of twinkling stars now and again.  A great oak tree rose large and looming across a short field of flat grass and I knew somehow that was the meeting place.  We gathered twigs and rocks large enough to make a safe fire ring.  We lit the flame and we waited.  I held hands with my guides and said a prayer that I be given the strength and the courage to hold nothing but love and compassion for the being I needed to meet.  No sooner had I finished the prayer and felt the pure peace of it washing over us when my guest arrived.

She was animal like, lithe like a cat and she suddenly sprang animal like from the darkness to the far side of the campfire’s light.  I spoke to her then, “Come, please, I will not hurt you.”  I could see her eyes glowing in the darkness and I felt her anger hit the space of peace we had created.  Knowing her heart as I did, since it was the one beating inside me, I put more force and focus into expressing love non-verbally from the center of my heart.  I spoke to her again and asked, “Would you like to join us and sit for a time?”  She seemed to bristle a bit but then stood upright taking slow and deliberate steps closer.  She was strong and fearless in her power and Jacob and Aaron both gripped my hands a little tighter no doubt for reassurance.  I spoke to them intuitively to ask them to let go of my hands and just hold a space of love while I worked.

I took a deep breath and visually embraced the fullness of my own creation.  She was terrifying in appearance just like something from a horror movie but I was not afraid.  I'm not exactly sure why.  Maybe it was that  I could feel the heart of her because it was my heart.  I knew she would not hurt me somehow even though she was angry enough to destroy me.  I stood my ground, looked her in the eyes and let loose nothing but the energy of compassion and then I broke the silent tension between us.  I asked her if I could come sit beside her.  She didn’t speak but made it clear by her demeanor she cared not one bit for me.  I knew better but didn't let on.  Bolstered by strength and sheer determination I walked carefully and slowly around the campfire and I sat down next to her.  With everything in me I focused all of the love in my heart on her, surrounding her, supporting her and fully feeling and ultimately knowing her.  I asked her to look at me sensing her great discomfort.  She looked at me with eyes glazed over still angry, still in the fullness of her emotional rage but nonplussed I pushed forward anyway.  I saw the black stripes on her arms and legs, her back, her body and I reached out slowly and touched one on her left shoulder.  It was not a stripe but a scar.  When I touched it and sent it love, it disappeared and the scars in her arm returned to normal looking skin.  She was shocked but felt the healing.

I paused a moment to let her consider the thought I sent her…I can bring you great healing if you would but let me.  She snarled, “Why should I?  You were the one that created me.  You were the one who ignored me, my needs, my desires and left me behind without a single thought or care.  Why in all of God’s creation should I trust you to bring me anything but misery?”  I answered, “Because I created you and I have nothing but love to offer you if you would be willing to explore and to understand all that has truly transpired.  I reached then for her right shoulder and where the scars were I touched them with my hands bright with pink light and her other arm returned to normal.  I did the same when I touched her back and all the scars disappeared replaced by normal looking skin.  When I felt the back of her heart, I knew she wanted nothing but freedom, just like me.  Seizing the opportunity in her moment of doubt, I moved quickly before her and knelt in front of her face to face, surrendering and yet completely in control.

We stared at each other eye to eye for long moments.  I reached out and touched the black mark scars on her forehead and where I gently traced with the intent to heal and ease her pain, they too disappeared just like the others.  She let me then hold her face in my hands and I whispered, “I love you” over and over again until her pale skin changed to pink and scar-less.  I smoothed back the wild flaming hair and at my touch it turned smooth as silk.  She released into me the anger she held and she sat there in the fire as I clothed her and spoke to her softly words of understanding, words of apology, words of honesty and understanding compassion.  She looked me in the eyes completely transformed and she wrapped her arms around my neck and she cried.  She cried for what seemed an eternity and her tears filled the lake behind her and I knew that she created that lake with angry dark tears.  I told her that there was no need to be angry any more.  We talked of specifics, of scenes from the past and in lives past.  I asked her to let me know when she was ready to join with me and become whole once again.  She said she was ready now on one condition.  I agreed and then asked her to state her condition.  She then said, “You must always stand in your own light.”  She held out her hands then and took both of them in mine and we were instantly transported to a place in time I spent as a child.

Outside of a small church located in a local amusement park I had been to many times we materialized.  We sat there in the sunlight under a tree near a lake.  She had transformed the former scene where I had originally found her.  We spoke then of happier times and she relayed to me the things that hurt her, the things that made her angry that later turned to rage.  I helped her understand the truth of things beyond what she perceived as a child, young woman and then later an adult.  In that moment another aspect arrived and then another.  With each we joined together after spending time to understand, cry, laugh in the sunlight and release the smoky untruths we held as perception unquestioned.  We merged then into one being, one heart beat in peace and in love.

The next scene carried an intensely powerful moment with my own mother, of love, of words, of truths in a long line of angry and troubling relations passed from mother to daughter and daughter to mother.  I felt so much love for my own mother, the same love I felt for my daughters and I whispered “The path to healing you mom is to return to your own mother’s love and so on and so on back through time for time is meaningless and proximity is not as important as you think.  I told her I absolved her, loved her and wished her every success in her journey.”  I was pulled then back to my present reality.  With eyes closed still and feeling nothing but peace and love, I thanked the Divine Mother for such a healing journey.  After a moment of silent pure gratitude I opened my eyes. The lone candle burned still flickering in the darkness on the alter, seeing Snowy, Jacob and Aaron fading from my mind’s eye at peace.  Stunned by my own courage, stunned by the depth of my own love I knew the healing of my own shadows had begun and in that healing the real work had begun.

© 2014 Jaie Hart (photo and words)

Emotional Pain Never Heals

Certain experiences of anxiety, fear or pain in a present moment scenario can sometimes seem to strum the chords of prior episodes of anxiety, fear or pain. This may cause many other similar past experiences to rise to the surface of your consciousness, making one simple episode seem like a bonfire.  It's like discovering you whacked your knee on something and a bruise followed but you didn't realize you had it or had completely forgotten about it.  Then you either hit it again or otherwise touch it and the pain returns to be felt yet again.  It makes me wonder if emotional pain ever really heals.  We suffer anxiety, fear or pain for a multitude of reasons, but that's not the point of this blog.  Stick with me for just a moment as I strive to develop this point. 

As we go through our lives and experience various events, we assign anxious, fearful or painful thoughts.  At some level, it is almost as if these things are written into the archives of your psyche.  As you move away from those moments where you have experienced such events, you start to forget about the negative aspects of your experiences.  But then, suddenly, something similar comes up and the unconscious mind reaches through all of its archived records to find similar experiences from which to judge or assess the current experience.  In so doing, the thoughts will strum the chords of other painful experiences and seemingly set them loose, leaving you feeling emotionally raw and out of proportion with the current experience.

So, I cannot help but wonder about this:  Emotional pain never heals. Our anxieties stem from fear, and this fear stems from the thought of pain.  This is not the first time I've considered this line of thinking.  A superficial wound will heal but the memories of it won't necessarily leave us.  I wonder, when thinking of these emotional wounds - the anxiety, fear and pain, if we will not heal until we begin to better understand our thoughts.  It seems that until you fully understand the extent of a situation that leads to thoughts of anxiety, fear and pain, you won't heal them but rather nullify their existence.  Take the simple knowledge gained from not taking things personally as an example.  We've begun to truly learn and understand that most people who express themselves in mean and insulting ways are not really telling you anything about you, but rather are telling us about themselves.  When you think about it, we once felt the pain of these attacks, and those wounds gathered and collected throughout our whole lives.  Finally, we come to understand that some people are mean just because of their own battle scars, and this has nothing to do with us at all. The pain that was written, inscribed deeply within our psyches, becomes unwritten through understanding.

We transform our suffering through understanding it's purpose.  Oh, I know, it is a huge leap to understand that some emotional challenges have a purpose.  This is especially true when certain experiences seem by their very design to serve no purpose other than our emotional destruction.  But wait, if you go on with that thought, you spill your power out in blame and fear, and there is no healing or resolution to be had.  There is only the continuous collection of more anxiety, fear and pain.  Through seeking greater understanding, you begin to truly know that life is not designed to emotionally destroy you. Essentially, you need to step back and see a much broader framework from a greater and higher perspective of love, compassion and understanding. When you can accomplish this, ultimately, the pain is transformed and simply disappears.  There is nothing then to heal because you have begun to fully realize the illusion of suffering.  I'm not saying anxiety, fear and pain are not real when your thoughts are embroiled in the entertaining of these things.  I'm saying that if you can shift your perspective for long enough, stand in your own power and take responsibility for your play, your actors, your sets, your behaviors and your action through striving for greater understanding, you nullify the effects of pain, it seems.

I'm toying with these ideas not to blame the victims or rub salt in anyone's wounds.  I'm writing from my own experiences of having those chords of pain strummed so that they rise to the surface to the point I am raw, in an active state of pain and striving to understand it.  I do not fear pain.  I see all three of these topics as very closely aligned. No matter which aspect we embrace, each time one of these things crop up we are being given an opportunity to better understand.  If I step back from the shadows of victim-hood and blame, and stand squarely in the light owning my emotions, my thoughts and the illusions of my own perceptions, I'm free. 

These are tough thoughts to translate beautiful dreamers and I so hope in some way I'm getting through.  I may have to take another shot or two at articulating these thoughts to help them crystallize more concretely from the pureness of feeling within to the simple language we typically use to converse.  So much meaning is lost when you have a feeling and yet try to define it with limited words.  You'll understand when you get there, this much I know.  But I have this silly thought that if I can articulate what is rising, it may serve as a light for someone else who wandered ever long in the darkness as I did.   As I'm writing I'm thinking, questioning and testing.  I'm on an amazing and wonderful journey of understanding in this life and am delighted by each discovery whether it hurts, perplexes or confounds me.  I know I'll understand because there is a knowing inside encouraging me to seek the meaning to find the freedom.  I have nothing left that needs healing.  What I have is a lifetime of experiences to better understand the truth that is buried beneath the lies of unchallenged perception.  I'm talking myself in circles now, so we will end this bout of mental meandering and leave it for you to take it or not. ~Blessings of infinite love, light, compassion and most of all, a full depth of understanding to set you free.

© 2013 Jaie Hart (Photo, random internet find)

Special thanks Liam for your understanding, love, support and most excellent help with making sense of this download with me.

A Shift in Thinking

A friend got me to thinking about a topic I thought I might write about.  I’m writing about it in the hopes it might assist those dealing with memories that are unpleasant.  Certain happenings in our lives will create emotion and attach to a certain frame of a prior scene in our lives.  For whatever the reason, that frame may replay over and over again in our heads and often bring back the original emotion from the initial occurrence.   These can be brutally difficult to deal with and if surfacing memories bring back all of the emotion of some initial trauma, first and foremost, I recommend that you seek outside assistance via a counselor or even your medical doctor.  They can get you the help you need in some of the more severe episodes and this article is by no means intended to be used instead of the proper clinical treatment protocols.  Having said all of that, I liken difficult memories to aftershocks.  The original 6.0 occurred at some point in time and it left its mark within your being.  The memories of the original event are the 1, 2 and 3.0 aftershocks that surface from time to time and then eventually dissipate.  A psychologist or psychiatrist can explain the reasons for this based on their clinical training and study.  I am not one so cannot speak clinically.  I speak from my own experience for whatever it may be worth.

I have encountered events in my life at times that left me with post-traumatic event syndrome.  This is not as severe as PTSD by any stretch but rather a much  lesser version that occurred from a shocking single event or a collective of shocking events in a short period of time that resulted in hypervigilance, insomnia, high-anxiety, panic attacks, nightmares, replay of the shocking scenes over and over again and periodic memories of the original traumatic events taking too much focus in my consciousness to the point of continual distraction.    At first, these were quite disturbing to me and I became upset when the memories surfaced.  I armed myself with knowledge, the services of a trained clinician and gave myself lots of time and patience to heal.  Although my traumatic and shocking events are long over with, occasionally a memory will surface.  When these happened initially, I was worried that something was wrong which added unnecessary anxiety an fear to what I was experiencing.  Becoming worried was actually adding more fear to the pain and that just wasn’t working for me.  Over time, I learned to process the occurrences and why they were so shocking to me.  I eventually learned that time will heal all wounds and having a memory surface does not undo all the healing work I have done.  I have learned that the memories just sometimes surface and I began to train my mind to see them not as more trauma to deal with but an opportunity to accept that surfacing emotions and memories are actually a sign that I was progressing with my healing.  I would imagine that the fact that these things are surfacing within my consciousness rather than remaining buried was a good sign, a sign I was healing and I would imagine every time an unpleasant memory surfaced a beautiful pink light being taken into the tender place that memory surfaced from to bring it even more healing.  I realized that I could witness and observe the memory surfacing without attaching emotion to it.  Yes, there were unpleasant things that happened but I am not those things, those things were not my fault and there is nothing wrong with me that made them happen and despite them, I learned to grow and heal.

My spiritual training has taught me that I choose to attach emotion to things and I choose to attach emotion to things when I do not understand the whole picture.  For my events, I have long understood the reasons for their occurrence (including my reaction which was quite normal and reasonable) and it removed from me the pain and fear of those events.  I have forgiven the people involved even if my mind sometimes will not fully forget and not forgetting is actually okay.  I do not dwell with worry over unpleasant memories or traumatic ones.  Those events do not define me nor do they bring anything at all to me other than a reminder of a very challenging situation I experienced for a reason and transcended with love, patience, self-acceptance and understanding.  I choose no longer to attach emotion to prior memories.  I try to witness them all whether positive or negative as just a string of events.  I can choose to attach emotion to them when I wish to but most often I don’t.  Attaching emotion to memories requires that some part of me live in the past, at least in my own mind, and I much prefer to be very present in this now moment.  In this moment, I am free from the way I grew up, I am free from all of my challenges of the past, I am free from self or external judgment, I can just exist, be and love as I choose.  I am at peace and gratefully so in the present moment.  Through compassion for self and others, forgiveness of self and others and patience with myself primarily, I have moved past the traumatic memories of a long-ago string of events (oh and cannot forget the amazing assistance of a very trusted clinician).  They are my past, a part of my history or story but they are not me and I need not hold them with any significance right here right now even if my memories should decide seemingly of their own volition to challenge my perspective on this.

Life is hard sometimes and we unwittingly make it harder all the time with our assumptions and emotions.  But, we can go into our deep thinking states with love in our hearts and the intent to understand and free ourselves from the heavier and unpleasant emotions from the past.  We can forgive and we can move on knowing that the spirit and soul is energy and, therefore, not harmed by physical occurrences we have experienced in this life.  Relax into the seat of the soul as much as you can and just notice your thoughts or memories from time to time.  If you’d like to know more about these concepts, I highly recommend a couple of wonderful authors – Gary Zukav (The Seat of the Soul), Byron Katie (I Need Your Love.  Is That True?) and Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now).  When I read some of the concepts in their books, they became a launching pad into transforming the knowledge base of understanding and creating from there my own practical application that worked for me personally.  I owe a huge debt of gratitude to many authors but these three resonated with me the most when I was working on healing and gave me the most valuable pieces of information.  We are not our thoughts.  We are not the ones thinking our thoughts…the true consciousness of us is the observer within the soul and not the mini me egotistical mind.  WE are bigger than the ego and understanding how the ego can become trapped in pain and wounds is so helpful.  Freeing yourself from the illusions long enough will help you uncover the truth.  Again, let me state though – do not hesitate to seek the assistance of a trained clinician.  They can help bring you great healing provided you are willing to do the work to heal and transcend the experiences that have brought you disharmony. If you are not willing and open to doing the work, you will have created an untenable emotional prison to try to exist in.  Please do not remain in such a state.  You deserve so much more than that dear ones.  In love and light, I pray you all find great healing for all that even remotely ails you.  Blessings.

© 2013 Jaie Hart (photo, random internet find)

There is No Sin But Illusion

I love the cooler temperatures of late.  The much cooler November skies always seem to hold the richest colors in deepest cerulean blue, the brightest golden orange and pink sunsets and the most beautiful clouds I've ever seen.  At night, the coolness creates a depth to my view of the stars and sends me right back to childhood.  I was always a lover of the sky and especially the stars at night.  I'm not sure why other than maybe, perhaps, it is the powerful energies of silence and stillness that always seem to be in abundance this time of year.  With all the worries and cares of this world, there is nothing more beautiful and serene than standing still and just sky gazing.  Life here on Earth can seem frenetic and chaotic with the masses running about working out their life lessons not realizing its all about shaping our psychology away from the ego and back to a place deep within the soul that always remains at peace.  Tapping into that amidst the chaotic swirl of our normal human activity finds you retrieving your own well of love and peace that truly is in a never ending supply.  But, there is a catch or well, rather, a trick to fully comprehending its beautiful existence.  That is, simply, adjusting your thoughts and setting your intent to be open to it.

There are those souls in this world so twisted, torn and damaged from pain and assumptions on the inside that they seem to go on and on for hours and days and years even with no clue that the love they seek and the peace they most desire is right inside of them.  Instead they flock to anything light with the sole intent of possession, obsession which ultimately serves only to destroy - no, not the object of their misguided affection but themselves.  We hold the tools, the keys and the power to heal if only we would understand it is a choice.  In every moment and in every design of human interaction we may choose the darkness or the light.  If you see nothing but victims and villains and a terrifying and terrible world that you are charged or so-punished to live within, it will be hard for you to see but you have chosen fear and darkness.  It is understandable.  It happens to the best of us a time or two or even three.  However, no one can save us but ourselves.  The Source of the Universe is there generating and emanating pure love and light we need only turn our attention to in order to begin to feel, engage the freedom of healing and wielding love instead of hatred or psychological projection and transference.  No matter which side of that line that you stand on, know that you have the power always to choose the darkness or the light.  If you see only darkness and shadows, shift your gaze -  make some positive changes so that the energy that gathers behind your emotion magnetizes more loving light, energy and positivity to you.  For those standing in the light, be not deterred by your brothers and sisters who have either intentionally or unwittingly chosen the darkness and fear.  Instead, understand.

A Course In Miracles describes the evidenced choices of victims and villains and all the subsequent and seemingly hurtful actions of such souls as a cry for help and a cry for love.  Incredulous as this might make you to feel...you might be the one called to give assistance to someone who attempts to steal your light through attempting to wage emotional battle with you.  Know that this does not mean that you are called to stand there and subject yourself to emotional and physical punishment from the mortally emotionally wounded.  There is a simple approach that you may take as you then remove yourself to a brighter proximity until the soul can make his or her choice or you can stand strong enough yourself to know the truth therefore being unaffected by the dark choices of others - remind them they have not sinned and any grievance they seemed to engage you with was born only of illusion.  Based on this fact, you can then issue forgiveness knowing the seeming transgression against you and any resulting pain was truly born of only illusion - this seeming war the souls who need help engage in.  You may let them know, in some way - you have not sinned - it was only an illusion and you are forgiven and loved.  Such actions and thoughts will issue forth a reminder that will provide by far more assistance than engaging in battle with them. It may not be physically safe to engage in this discussion face to face and so the same affect can be felt if you set aside quiet time and direct these thoughts instead of angry and hurtful feelings at a wounded soul.  A soul in pain will see threats where none exists and they will act as if the nearest thing or person to them is the cause of their discomfort despite a life time of taking on unhealed pain up to that point their paths crossed yours.  Understand and hold compassion...understand and hold forgiveness and realize yourself the choices you are making and have made.  There is no sin, there is only action and consequence born from an ego either healthy or not healthy within a mind that is either whole or seemingly made through pain to be not whole at all.  Battling the mortally emotionally wounded makes no sense, nor does standing continually in harm's way.  Find the love within to bless and forgive them and go about your business in love and light.  For those making dark choices you have always hope.  There is no sin that you have engaged in that takes you away from the loving light of Source.  It's only your jaded minds that have brought you these thoughts.  Every soul is connected to the One, therefore, every soul is love and light.  The only difference is the choices we make, the thoughts we hold and the perceptions we consider truth based on the experiences we have.  If you think yourself for a moment unworthy, again, you have not sinned.  If you believe yourself unworthy - it is you who will create things and situations to reflect your thoughts and feelings of unworthiness.  You are never unworthy so stop those thoughts at once.  Let go of the past pain that jades you - seek assistance to do this if you must but do not stand in the darkness wishing for the light or attempting to possess it from outside of yourself.  The light is within you the moment you find you are worthy to stand within it and allow healing to come and then shift all of your actions towards loving light.  Know that it is only your thoughts that need adjusting, your hearts and souls need mending and then you too can return to the light of love and seemingly sin no more.

I wish no soul on this planet had ever been harmed by another soul mired in dark choices.  I wish all could immediately return to the light but, you see, that IS the journey - to return to the light and the choices you make will bring you there or block you from it.  You hold the tools and the power.  You really do.  Blessings of great love and light all souls.  May you find the light within, feel the love freely flowing there, find the healing for all of your life's wounds and walk in the light for the rest of your days here.

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (photo, random and yet so beautiful internet find)

Trigger

There was never a more perfect song to convey the thoughts I have today than this one.  Have a listen for a moment....


Triggers are a funny thing and nothing launches our being into ire more than quickly than a person who has triggered us, made us angry or hurt.  We wish to blame them, attack them for triggering us and make them suffer as we suffer.  But, and there is always a but now isn't there....The person who triggered you is not to blame for your pain.  The reality is the "trigger" person is a messenger in disguise.  You can take the egotistical road and attack them, blame them, insult them for making you angry but all you are really doing is continuing to feed a very painful illusion that you, yourself, has created.  I know, I know, this is going to be like a big heaping spoon full of the nastiest medicine you've ever had to take but stay with me a moment and maybe you just might understand and set yourself free once and for all from the trigger. 

We get angry when someone makes us feel bad about us...and we feel bad when triggered only because we believe unconsciously (very unconsciously) that someone has exposed us - or rather, exposed a very sensitive and wounded part of us that we believe somehow is justified but do not want to believe.  Take the issue of abandonment - hot, hot, hot topic as we all have abandonment issues at some level.  So, someone we thought should be there in a certain way in our past left us, didn't support us or ignored us and we, feeling lost and not understanding what was happening, formed an assumption about us - that we are not worthy as evidenced by what someone important to us did or didn't do.  So, then, forever after in our lives we will be triggered when people leave us or in some way disregard us.  We are triggered so that we might take the opportunity to better understand the original wound and finally and fully heal it.  The truth is, people do the only things they know how to do and sometimes, they make bad decisions and leave us hopelessly and helplessly as collateral damage and it hurts.  If we form any unthinking assumptions about us, we condemn ourselves to being easily triggered for life.  If we go on through our lives always blaming and attacking those who trigger us, we are missing beautiful opportunities to go within and heal the wound that created the trigger to begin with.  We can shoot the messenger but that only reinforces the original wound leaving us helplessly trapped.

Its a terrible situation.  But, we can step out of that vicious circle/cycle and realize that we always were worthy of love, worthy of caring, worthy of consideration and someone just did not know how to give you that at a key moment in time when your opinions of you were just developing.  We have to realize that when we give away our power to the person triggering us through attack and blame, we are only feeding the original wound.  The truth is that no one has the power to make you feel anything but you.  To believe otherwise is to marry yourself miserably to one of life's greatest illusions.  Don't do it.  It's a terrible, miserable marriage that will leave you broken your whole life.  Stop the egotistical low-road thinking and grab hold of your power and use it to find the core of the trigger and heal it.  If you can do this, you'll never be triggered and suffer needlessly on this issue again.  In every moment we have the opportunity to chose darkness or light.  When you choose blame for your own emotions, you are choosing to remain mired in darkness - it is you making you suffer.  You are a beautiful soul, worthy of love, worthy of light and you do not have to suffer at your own hand and realize truly that it is your own hand.  Learn to find the wound, learn how to heal it and free yourself from one of life's greatest illusions.  Stand in your own light and taste the delicious emotional freedom that comes with healing.

Blessings of patience, understanding and courage for your journey dear ones.  I pray you find the highest love and healing light within you.  You do have the power.

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart