Eat Fruit, Be Happy!

I know it's been a ridiculously long time since I posted on this blog - ridiculous and outrageous things have been happening. It's been wonderful, actually, but is calling for a change - a change in identity, a change in blogging, a change for the better, a change for the best.

The purpose of this post today is to let my blog followers know that as of midnight on July 1, 2009, this blog will be no more. I will export and archive the posts (in case there were any so thrilling that you want to see them again!) and delete the blog! This is an exciting step for me, because the other purpose of this post is to direct you to my new blog:

http://eatfruitbehappy.blogspot.com/

I'm very excited about this and all of my new endeavors, and I hope to see you there!!

With love,

rebeccaj

Another Energy Healing

I had another session with my energy healer today. It was blow-your-socks-off intense. He kept apologizing afterwards, saying he may have gone too far, but since I was doing such a good job of it, why not keep going? Fine by me, that's how I go too.

So after my session, I was wiped out but exhilarated, and now it's almost 1am and I can't sleep. I'm so full of ideas and inspirations. Trying to figure out what I want, and I think I caught a glimpse of it.

A few years ago, I worked for a summer as a raw food chef at a fairly famous raw food retreat. It was an amazing experience, not the least for the fact that I was able to learn a lot about being in a retreat environment. I loved a lot about it, and I had a lot of things that I personally needed to do differently. Since it wasn't my retreat, nothing I could do about those things I needed done differently, so I left.

Tossing and turning tonight, I saw it: my retreat. That's what I want for myself, why not make it for others? A retreat that would combine everything I love: raw food (80-10-10 style, mind you!), yoga, art, music, creativity, meditation, the outdoors, small groups of people gathered for a purpose, camping, hiking, advising, intuitive learning, spiritual growth. The whole bit. All I need for it is a small piece of land! I've wanted this for years. And years. I've glimpsed it in many different configurations, but this is it. Now is the time, and this is the place. It's not just possible. Something might just be being born...

Working at Play

Today's entry may veer into ranting territory, and if it does, I apologize in advance. I'm trying to avoid ranting and trying to stay on the clean edge of my experience, but I am working through something difficult, and I need some help. I welcome and invite comments and insights.

I have a great friend who is a social butterfly. An Intergalactic Pixie, if you will. She is one of the most delightful people I've ever met, and she moves through the world encountering only friends. She knows how to have fun, and relishes doing it. No crowd is too loud, no party too hearty - she flutters in, sprinkles some pixie dust, and flutters out, usually with a few business cards in her pocket of the people she's just met. I'm very blessed to have this friend, and especially blessed that she invites me to join her. I WANT TO!!!

And I don't want to. I am so torn, to the point of rent in two, when it comes to the big, bad dilemma of "Going Out." I have a laundry list of reasons why I can't go out. I actually have a list of 40+ different things that I believe I "need" in order to be able to go out. The list ranges from "I need to eat 'normal' food" all the way to "I need to have the right clothes and accessories" and "I need to know the right places to go." I believe everything from "I need to be invited" all the way to "I need to go out by myself." The ideas are conflicting and contradictory, and while I know, intellectually, that none of them are empirically true, I believe that every single one of them is intrinsically true to my experience.

I'm not agoraphobic, although since losing my job I have spent a great deal of time looking at the world through the viewpoint of my bed, via my computer screen. When I leave the house, my favorite things to do are to go on long walks in the park, to meet friends for lunch, to meet friends for juice, to go to Whole Foods or a coffeehouse (and work on my computer or write in my journal), or to meet up with small groups of friends along with my BF. I love to go out in nature with my BF - we love to go hiking and riding his motorcycle or on a car trip; in the summer we go to the pool. We're very much daytime-hours people. Most of my going out happens during the day.

But I LOVE getting dressed up and going out. I love it. I love going dancing, I just hate crowds and I hate paying a cover and I hate the club scene. I just want to dance to good music. I love seeing live music, if it's good, and not too loud, and not boring cock-rock. I love doing things that are completely absurd, like dressing up in costume for no reason and being in character. It's easier for me to go out in character. But I also love doing hippie things like dancing around a fire. I love going camping. And I love art and theater and all that good stuff.

But when it comes to going out these days, when the call (or text or email invite comes through) I freeze. I absolutely freeze. So much on top of it, the innocent invitation turns into a horrific task, and then what if I don't have a good time on top of it? I can stay home and read and write and learn and have so much fun, even if I'm not interacting with people. But I need people.

Do you see the dilemma? Do you see how it has me torn? I'm such a workaholic - I'm the most workaholic unemployed person you've ever met. Even now, when I'm supposed to be taking a sabbatical to regain my creativity, I have fallen into a workaholic trap of trying to get someone else's project off the ground and feeling like I have to push-push-push to get my own projects off the ground. I haven't done any creative exploration, nor have I done any social interaction (ok, I've done a tiny bit. A teeny-tiny bit.) - I've been working. Because I don't know how to play.

It's exhausting. I want to be an Intergalactic Pixie, too.

More Work

Moving through life through the filter of The Work can cause some pretty incredible awakenings. One of the things Katie says is, whenever you lose something, you can be sure that "you've been spared." Oh, how I love that!!! I can look back at my old life, and rather than feeling this huge hit of a loss, instead I feel this huge joy and love, and I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I have been SPARED. All of the things in my old life that were causing me distress and unhappiness - I have been spared. Not that I will never have unhappiness and distress in my life again, but I won't have those. I don't need to deal with those things now. How do I know? Because I've been spared.

I've got other things to do! It's incredible. I'm the most workaholic unemployed person you'll ever meet. I've been working so much. Non-stop. I love it. I'm having so much fun.

I've been noticing an amazing thing in my life lately. I used to never smile. I used to be quite an angry driver. The littlest things would set me off. I was easily angered, although I wasn't "angry." And now, I move through the world with a smile on my face. I can't help it. I go out of my way to make eye contact and smile at people I normally may have avoided. I love smiling at homeless people, at laborers, at random people as I move around the world. It's really exciting to smile at people, and the best thing is when they smile back. It's so cool. And it's not like I'm even TRYING to smile. I just am. I'm just happy. All the time. I might get annoyed for half a second while I'm trying to get online and my wifi is slow, but then I laugh and smile at myself and enjoy the joke - it's so funny that something like slow wifi could ever be a problem.

And then, right on cue, a friend sent me a text - in the middle of this perfect day, a package of goodies arrived at home! Wow! So many choices of amazing blessings, which one to do next? I love it. We've always got so much more than we ever need.

Doing What's Next...

"Doing what's next, without a mental argument, is devotion to God."

WOW.

I love Byron Katie, I love The Work, and I love "A Thousand Names for Joy," the book she wrote with Stephen Mitchell, her husband. It's so powerful, all this stuff, and the more you follow it, the more incredible it gets. So to get to THAT point, to just do what's next, without a mental argument - that's being present. That's being awake. She describes it as "doing the dishes." If the thought arises to do the dishes, you follow the thought. Or you don't. But you don't need to ARGUE with it.

For example, I read that quote, and immediately knew that I wanted to write about it. The thought came up "put that in your blog!" and I thought, "I should do that now." But I noticed instead that I wasn't. What I did was to finish the chapter, and then I easily put the book down and then I wrote about it. Had I kept going back to the "I should do that now" thought while I was reading the rest of the chapter would have kept me from my purpose: to read the chapter. I can have all kinds of ideas about what's next, but until I am doing it, I have no idea what will happen next, and if I argue and debate over what to do next, then I lose.

This has been the theme of my weekend, and I am so glad - AMAZED! even - that here at the end of the weekend I have been handed this gorgeous quote to give me some completion to the lesson.

It's been a big, crazy party-party weekend here in my city. A huge music and film festival has been upon us for the past week, and it's kind of expected that you will go to the free events of the festival and, you know, participate! BF and I had plans to read up on it, make a plan, and get out and go out (we don't go out much; we like to go to bed early and be out during the day), and then suddenly he had to leave town. Defiantly, I boasted to him that I was going to "go out and have fun without you! ha-HA!" But when the time came to go out and have "fun," I had other things I really preferred to be doing, circumstances that made "fun" seem a little not-so-fun. My new, overwhelming exercise routine exhausted me and made walking for hours and standing for hours a little less than preferable. My inspiration to work on my own projects made leaving the house for other purposes seem like a distraction. Essentially, Reality was handing me a nice, normal, quiet weekend at home, while Expectation was taking me out on the town 24-7.

I argued mentally with Reality the whole time. "I should go out." "Everyone is expecting me to go out." "If I don't go out, I'm just a big, dumb loser who doesn't know how to have fun and I totally suck." "I don't have any friends." "I'm lame." Etc. And as Katie says, "when I argue with Reality, I lose. But only all the time." And I kept that argument up! I spent 2 1/2 days arguing with my reality, justifying my reality, making excuses for what I was doing and not doing, and in a lot of ways, I completely missed out on the miracles and amazing experiences that were happening in my life, in my Reality. Reality doesn't change when we argue with it; Reality only changes when it changes.

For example, there were outdoor concerts going on. I had the expectation that I would go to these concerts, because I "should!" Excellent bands, free, not very far from my house so I could walk and not have to park the car, show's over early so not even that late a night. Sounds great! My Story: my legs were in no condition to walk the 2 miles each way and to stand for an hour or so during the show. I wanted to have my dinner, at home, during the peak time of the show, 7pm. I hate crowds when I'm by myself. I could hear the show from my open door. So the expectation and the story battled it out, ferociously, while Reality just continued along in the foreground. I walked as far as my legs could take me. Each time, a friend intervened at just the right moment and gave me direction to turn around and go home. I had exactly what I had for dinner at exactly the right moment. I spent my evening listening with delight to the music coming from my young neighbors in town for the festival (they went out very late, so they kept me entertained until they left!) and working on projects that I enjoyed. With the arguments raging, this seemed like an inadequate way to spend my festival weekend. Without the arguments, it's pretty nice.

As I was walking home yesterday evening, a neighbor around the corner smiled and we said hello. "Enjoying the music?" he asked. I waited for the words to form, and I said, "I'm enjoying not enjoying the music!" He laughed and said he knew exactly what I meant, and we passed a few pleasant words about the virtues of staying away from the crowds. He gave me that moment of validation - that it was OK not to be in festival mode - but I didn't need it. Of course it's OK not to be in festival mode! How could it be anything but OK? It's been perfectly wonderful.

I've been to the park, I've ridden my bike, I've chatted with my neighbors and spent time with a good friend. I've done my laundry and washed (most of) my dishes. I've eaten my good food and enjoyed a few treats. I've received more emails than I can count and participated in my online forum. I've exercised and taken long walks. I've stayed up till 1am writing a business plan that felt as much fun as playing with Barbie's fun house and making up worlds of imagination and seeing its reality as clear as if it were directly in front of me today, all the way down to the colors on the walls. I've made some vlogs and gone to the coffeehouse and took a quick trip across town to upload them at Kinko's. I've petted the kitties and turned the compost. I've slept like a queen. And tonight I even went out with a friend and saw some music, which happened to be amazing (Katzenjammer Kabarett, from Norway. love.), so I DID go to the festival after all! Really, what more could a weekend ask for? Reality is so amazing, it always gives us so much more than we realize, but never more than we can handle.

So the trick, I think I'm learning, is to simply stop arguing with Reality. I will sit here writing this blog until I stop, and it is useless to try and predict when that is going to happen or what else I may do, or what I'm going to do afterwards, or what will make me stop. Will I stop because I'm done, or will I have to get up and go to the bathroom? Maybe I'll get a glass of water, or perhaps I'll suddenly have an urge to clip my toenails. Who could have predicted that itch on my head I just scratched? It's amazing. And it's useless to argue with it. I will do exactly what I am doing until I am doing something else.

That doesn't mean it's not a good idea to make plans or to have ideas of things you would like to do or even "need" to do - I need to wash the dishes, but I'm not going to wash them until I do, and harassing and berating myself while I am doing something else may be fun and entertaining, but it is neither getting the dishes done nor is it adding to the other activity I'm doing. Stay with Reality. Have the thought "I need to do the dishes," and then notice when Reality schedules it for you. Reality is so kind - it always gives us what we need when we need it.

I beleive that Experience is kind as well. Katie doesn't talk much about experience, but I think it's in there. Experience is kind in that I know from my Experience that the dishes will get done. I trust that they will get done because they always have gotten done before. It may be right away, it may be later, but it will happen. So I trust Experience to carry me gently through Reality, giving me reference points for everything I see around me, and adding to my Experience database. Yes, Experience is kind. It's kind of like my "Navi-guessor."

Working Through

I've lately been indulging myself in the luxury of watching Byron Katie's Youtube videos. Last night I discovered some new ones, which was a total treat. I love watching the ones I've already seen, watching them over and over. The Work is so huge. I love it.

I started doing The Work last year in an earnest effort to get myself out of a really difficult place. Initially, the difficulty was an infatuation that never came to fruition. At the time, I had been single for 8 long years. I didn't want to be single anymore, and I tended to greet all new men in my life with a hint of desperation and greed, because they "had to be the one!" Each one simply had to, because it just wasn't possible for it to continue the way it was. Doing the work allowed me to see that not only was it possible for things to continue the way they were, but that there was nothing I could do about it. It also helped me see that I absolutely don't need to be in a relationship, that I don't need anybody to be "The One," and that truly I am the only one I've been waiting for. I reached this place and was able to find a comfortable friendship with this man I was infatuated with, and I was able to maintain my truth that I don't need anybody in a relationship. And then I met my current BF.

When we met, I was in this glorious place of knowing I didn't need him. And now, 7 months later, I am still in this glorious place of knowing that I don't need him. He is the most wonderful man, and I am overflowing with gratitude to have him in my life, and I don't need him. It is so much easier to love someone when you don't think you have to need them.

He doesn't stay at my house every night, and in fact he is going back to his hometown tonight for the weekend (he semi-commutes). Yesterday morning, he was here, and I woke up and rolled over and wrapped myself around him and had an ecstasy of prayer of thankfulness that he was here and enjoyed the deliciousness of breathing with him while he still slept. This morning, he was not here, and I woke up and stretched out and had an ecstasy of prayer of thankfulness that I was alone. I could make a list as long as my arm of how wonderful it is to have him here, and a list equally as long about how wonderful it is to have him away. Both are wonderful, neither is better, I am at Neutral. This is how The Work has helped me have the best relationship of my life.

If he were to leave me and end our relationship, I would, of course, be heartbroken. To quote E.M. Forster, "It isn't possible to love and to part. You will wish that it was... You cannot pull it out of you. I know from experience that the poets are right - Love is Eternal." So if he were to decide that our relationship wasn't working for him and end it, I would most likely be in an ecstasy of sadness, and then, like my experience now with my job I have lost, I would know that he was leaving me so that both of our lives could be even better.

In my life, I have lost so much. I have lost jobs, lovers, friends, family, and pets. I've lost possessions. Each loss has been a hit, and before I knew how to be neutral, before I knew how to do The Work, a loss could be devastating. Devastating in the way that Katie would say, "the world will tell you that you are right," in my grief, in my sorrow. When we experience loss, the world wants us to get upset, really upset, and then do one of two things: get revenge, or get over it. But here's what my experience tells me: I cannot lose anything, because I never had anything. The only thing I "have" is that which I am, which is love. So these things I have lost, these people I have lost - they aren't lost because I still love them! And love always comes back. It always comes back. Maybe it comes back in different forms, maybe it comes back in different ways, but love always comes back. I love all of my ex-boyfriends, whether they know it or not. They are still in my heart, and I can visit with them whenever I want to. So could I do with this beloved BF. Each boyfriend in my life is simply bringing my love back to me. This is the gift of The Work.

There's only one place that I have not been able to use The Work to penetrate, and that is dealing with people I clash with at work. I've tried. I've done pages and pages of worksheets. My last line of work brought me into direct conflict with some of the most difficult personality clashes I've ever experienced (far more difficult than any clashes in a corporate environment, which is ironic). The best I was able to get to using The Work is to just see them as OK, not my problem, and yet being in their presence would still cause me stress (and I know that I caused them stress as well; a conflict takes 2 sides, and I engaged). I'm thankful to be out of the "arena," so to speak, but I know that I'm not done with this kind of Work, and I'm going to have to deal with it again. I can do it, intellectually, I think, but I see this as a huge challenge. Some hard Work ahead.

Self-Care

When I lost my job and got started on this new adventure, one thing that my BF kept saying was "you need to learn how to take care of yourself!" I was, and am, very good at taking care of other people. I'm very interested in taking care of other people, taking care of business, etc., and less interested in taking care of myself. Who would notice?

But of course, taking care of myself is the same thing as taking care of others, because we are all the same. That doesn't mean taking care of myself at your expense - taking food or clothing or resources away from someone else so that I can have what I want doesn't thrill me, and that's why I choose to live as simply as I can.

But what I have been learning is this: until you KNOW that you are taken care of, it is very difficult to take care of yourself. At least, for me it is. Until I knew I had my financial support taken care of, it was difficult for me to relax into being able to take care of myself and do what was right for me. Knowing that I have that now, I am able to.

And I think that it goes back to who I was as a child. I was MONSTROUSLY independent. I was so confident that I was taken care of that I had total faith and confidence that I could absolutely take care of myself. I fed myself, I chose (and made) my own clothing, I would walk home from anywhere in town. I was so secure in the knowledge that my life was provided for. But then I got older and suddenly I had to take care of all of those security issues - I had to buy all of my own clothes, any other sort of amenities that I wanted - and I've had a job of some sort since I was 15 years old. Since then, my whole life has been sort of a race to get the money I need in order to survive so I can do the work I want. In college, my parents made a lot of sacrifices and they gave me a credit card that I maxed out - I had that lovely sense of ignorant bliss that you get for those few years of being in your early 20's - but I still worked for my daily needs, and I always felt like I was on the brink. I rode the whole housing bubble and economic expansion with a constant race for support and money. All I've ever wanted was for someone to take care of me so I wouldn't have to work so hard all the time.

And now I have that - for a moment, at least. It's not about traditional values, although I think there is some merit in having one spouse support the other (not that I have a spouse, mind you!). It's more about wanting and needing to feel that support from God. I am the person who has always wanted a grant so that I could do my creative work. And now I kind of have that, and it feels amazing. I feel so blessed. I'm doing my best not to feel like I have to rush out and "do something" with it.

And More Sunshine!

Just when you think life just couldn't get any sweeter, it does. I woke up this morning to more glorious sunshine and I can't wait to get out in it. So beautiful.

I'm doing a lot of gratitude practice these days. It's so simple. Before I get out of bed, I have to list 5 things, quickly, that I am grateful for. Without even thinking, just go, 5 things! This morning's list: boyfriend, bed, sunshine, breath, pillows. But the super-fun thing about this practice is that you can never, ever ever stop at 5! Once you've got those 5 going, they just start to spill out: blankets, sheets, my hair, my skin, muscles, sex, the mangos ripening on the counter, the simple joy of going to the bathroom, licorice toothpaste, my cuppa tea, and everything, all the way down to my toenails. It's just so good. Life is. When you start your day with a gratitude practice and keep it going throughout the day, it's just the best thing ever. You cannot be unhappy when you are in a state of gratitude. Gratitude drives out every negative feeling and every negative thought. It's pure mental sunshine!!!

SUNSHINE!!!

Although I overslept, because last night I stayed up past 1am, this morning I woke up to radiant, glorious sunshine. How awesome is that?

Breaking the Silence

The past few days have been an odd assortment of being very quiet, very bored, very much overflowing with ideas, and very restless and very busy. It's been raining, cloudy, overcast and cold here - January weather in March - and we just don't do well with that. We do much better here with 100+ and scorching sunshine. I need my sunshine. Can't wait to start working on my tan.

But it has also been an extremely productive past few days. I've been writing so much - articles. Real, honest-to-god articles to be published in a real-honest-to-god printed magazine. This is so exciting. I've never done anything quite like it before, and it thrills me. I'm amazed at how many words I have. Words just seem to spill out. I've been writing for about 4 hours non-stop, maybe more, and it's after midnight and they just keep coming. I've got words for my blog, words for my other blog, words for my friends, words for my family, words for my bf, words for my book, words for my journal, words for my plans and dreams - an endless well of words. It's so incredibly exciting. I never knew I had so much to say. I just open my hands and out they spill.

I have to close my hands in order to get quiet enough to pray. And I've been doing a lot of that lately, too.

New Possibilities

I am so excited! I'm so happy! Life is an amazing place.

A few days ago, the demons were on my tail, attempting to drag me down and make me feel horrible about myself and my life - they were even whispering in my ear last night. But today, I can quote the amazing Tracy Chapman and say "All you demons go back to Hell! Save my Soul, save my Self..." (Crossroads, what a great song, great album.)

Today, not only do I have lunch scheduled with 2 of the most powerful women I know - a lunch meeting I've been waiting for for 2 whole weeks - but I also finally received the go-ahead and information I needed for a major, major project that I've known about for a few weeks and have been chomping at the bit to get started on.

My biggest character feature, I think, is a rampant streak of impatience. In some circumstances, that comes across as being pro-active and eager and ready to go, and in other cases, it just makes me a great big, bossy, pain in the butt. I have learned how to wait, although I hate it mightily. This whole process over the past 2 weeks has been nothing more than a continued exercise in patience, learning how to strengthen my patience muscles. Learning how not to jump up in a panic and freak out and run out to try and fill the void in my life called "work" with something really unacceptable called "job." Learning how to be calm in the face of not getting what I want at the moment I want it, learning how to sit still in the midst of very uncomfortable circumstances.

This major, major project is something so close to my heart, and I am so incredibly thankful for it. It's a start to something beyond big, beyond powerful. This is a wonderful opportunity. I'm so happy right now.

Faith vs Logic

Last night we watched Bill Maher's "Religulous" - a documentary of sorts about the atrocities and idiocies conducted in the name of religion. Now, it was Bill Maher, so of course it was aggressive and confrontational, but what bothered me the most about it was his attack on faith. He went to people with a strong faith and demanded that they prove their faith, that they back it up with rational logic, historical proofs, etc. He didn't choose the most educated or profound people of faith, certainly not people as quick and clever as he, so they came across as foolish, deluded goons, while he just came across as mean.

The rest of the film continued on in a less confrontational vein, as after his initial attacks, he just kind of settled in and let whoever he was interviewing kind of stick it to themselves, which is always more entertaining and enlightening anyway - it's hard to side with the interviewer when he's being a big fat jerk, right? And I am the first person to come down on the side against "religion." I think "religion" is the biggest waste of time and energy and money and resources, I think "religion" is so divisive and power-hungry, despite the fact that all the major religions are more similar than different, and all the minor religions are just whacked-out fairy tales.

But FAITH! Hold on a second. Faith to me is so important. Obviously, since I've gone through this whole document to talk about God and prayer and all that jazz, gone off on my "I believe in magic and fairies and angels!" tack - how can I be this steady, clear Agnostic with a huge amount of logic rolling around in my head AND be someone who is developing a profound faith? How do those 2 things correlate, and could they withstand a Bill Maher interview?

Here's how I see it: I believe in a Benevolent Intelligence that has created this world we live in, and that Benevolent Intelligence is that which we colloquially call "God." I have no "proof" whatsoever that this God exists, other than in my own wonderment at the incredible beauty and structure that I see in the world around me, and the certainty that I feel in my heart and spirit that this is true. For me. I believe that this God is the energy field, the force field, the glue that holds this all together, and that within this energy field are infinite variations on energy that do not have to be witnessed with the 5 crude senses in order to be experienced. I don't have any honest experience with a "microwave" but I've seen it turn white bread and American cheese into a sticky pile of glue. Same thing with God and with the other energy levels that we call "angels" or "gods" or whatever.

I look at the world through the eyes of someone looking for miracles, and therefore I am able to see miracles happen all the time. Bill Maher is looking at the world through the eyes of someone looking for "mundane coincidences," and so he sees mundane coincidences all the time. It's the same stuff, it just all matters how you choose to call it.

The God I believe in doesn't really care what I do or how I do it. The God I believe in has given us all free will, which means that we have every ability to do things in the most messed up manner we choose to, or we have every ability to do things in the best manner we choose to. I don't believe that God has any intention of destroying the world (coming back for the punishment of Judgment Day), but He has given us the free will that we are welcome to do so if we're stupid enough.

So if God doesn't care, then why do I pray? If God doesn't care, then why would prayers be answered? To me, it comes back to the energy of it all. A prayer creates an energy, which then stirs up other energies, which then enables the fulfillment of the prayer. It doesn't matter to me if it's "God" answering my prayers, or if it's me answering my prayers - was I able to fall asleep the other night because God put me into a trance, or because by praying I was creating a very relaxing energy in my body which then enabled me to sleep? Does it matter? Is it not in truth the same thing? I think it is, I feel it is, I believe it is. I don't need to classify it as one vs the other. I don't need to argue with the logic that supports that God doesn't exist, because God is beyond human logic, as is love and sex and really good food - other really excellent things that I believe in.

Believing in God doesn't mean that I put any faith or stock into the stories written about God. The Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the Book of Mormon, Scientology, the Bhagavad Gita, whatever - they have as much truth as Harry Potter. Which means, of course, that they have a lot of Truth. But they've also got a whole lot of fiction and contradiction and all kinds of garbage that makes it just so impossible as a human being to follow. It would be far, far easier to live your life according to Harry Potter, actually. Those books are more consistent. I don't need to believe in or argue about the creation stories (what a waste of energy!), or about the end-of-days stories. I don't need to believe that God requires me to make human sacrifice - of myself or my loved ones - or animal sacrifice or any sort of sacrifice. That to me is totally human garbage.

But there is Devotion. There is Spirituality. There is Divinity. These are the energies that pull us up out of our base natures and into a much better plane of existence. I believe that this is the purpose of human life, and on some level, the purpose of religion. To remind us of what is possible, not to mire us down into what is extremely likely.

Necessity of Silence

Yesterday I was a little quiet in the blogosphere, a little quiet in the head-o-sphere as well. It was necessary, because actually while "I" was quiet in my head, my demons and devils were pursuing me with all of their might, desperately trying to pick a fight, desperately trying to make me do something I would regret later. What I have learned over the past 2 weeks: when being chased by demons and devils, please do not do what they are asking you to do!

How incredibly funny, really, that I could ever think of following the guidance and advice of the thoughts in my head that have my well-being at the very bottom of the heap. And yet I've done it so many times. When I follow those thoughts to their ultimate conclusion, deep down into their rabbit holes where no light or sunshine or God's radiance is visible (though it is there!), all that is visible is the despair, all that is visible is how deep in trouble I've gotten myself. And man, that just sucks.

The demons and devils yesterday were playing this fun game with me: anybody I love (locally) who I haven't heard from in the past oh, say, 15 minutes, or if I've called them or sent them a text or an email and they haven't gotten back to me yet (because they are busy and have lives) and I do mean quite literally in the past 15 minutes, my demons will catch hold of that person's name and love and memory and they will start to torture me with it. "this person hasn't called you back because they don't love you anymore. they have found out the truth of who you are, they've seen right through you, and they don't love you anymore. don't you want to find out if that's true? don't you want to confirm that your worst fears are true? i promise you, if you reach out to them and tell them everything you're feeling right now, they will verify it. they will. that's why they haven't called you back. they want you to go away and leave them alone." Scary, isn't it? It was that kind of energy that made me post the entry that did, in fact, really damage one of my favorite friendships - expressing my worst fears, which had absolutely nothing to do with my deepest experiences.

A few years ago, I was doing some research on narcissism after being exposed to a pretty powerful narcissist (who was such an incredibly important player in my life, who still is. I have a whole novel dancing in my head about this magician. I'm so thankful for everything he's done for me!), and I read that there is a sub-type or a sub-clinical symptom or something like that in the narcissistic personality spectrum in which the personality assumes a degree of "invisibility," as in they don't consider themselves memorable and so they assume that the people around them do not have a thread of connectivity or recognition towards them. They assume that they will be forgotten, and they do not expect that people will recognize or remember them, even after many exchanges, and they do expect that even people who have claimed to love them will forget about them - out of sight, out of mind. This manifests in behaviors like the long-suffering do-gooder (and that would be me), or in the big, puffed-up, attention-seeking-and-hogging classic "narcissist" who is doing everything in his or her power to make sure that they are remembered.

It's taken me a long time to admit that I recognized myself in the description of a narcissist, even in that tiny bit. I do assume that people don't remember me. Over the past few years of living in my new adopted city, I have made more of an effort to connect with the random people I exchange with - my juice guys, my whole foods guys, etc. - as well as with my clients. Being afraid to be forgotten, I have a frighteningly good memory with names and faces, while always keeping my own identity somewhat anonymous. But what this means with my demons and devils is that they torment me by telling me that I will be forgotten. Not just remembered poorly - FORGOTTEN. Out of sight, out of mind, baby. And as a result, I am terrible at staying in touch with long-distance friends, because I assume they have forgotten me. Seriously.

Now, I don't have this misconception to a pathological degree - just to an inconvenient degree. I'm very glad to have seen it, both in that website and in my own behavior, because it has helped me get over it to a very large degree, to the point now where it's pretty laughable. Until I have a day like yesterday, in which there is panic and fear and a sense of loneliness and isolation and not-knowing, and it's not so funny anymore. Or, rather, it's even funnier and I don't get the joke.

I am God's Pet

I think God loves us the way we love our pets. Not even so much the way we love our children or lovers - too many human expectations - but in the way we love our beloved pets. We take care of them and give them their freedom, we don't expect them to behave in any way other than the way they do. With enough love and gentle training, we can teach them to be more like us, but we still understand who they are and we love them so deeply, so unconditionally, with nothing more than fervent and constant devotion.

So if I am like God's little kitty cat - welcome to jump up into His lap and be stroked and petted, with all the water and food I ever need - all I need to do to "earn" this luxury of love and care is to simply be myself. To share myself in the way that makes me happiest is also the way that God loves me the most. Isn't that amazing?

Ordering up a Prayer

Last night, I did an incredible thing. I actually prayed.

After I wrote my post, I fell instantly and outrageously asleep. I slept like a sleeping thing until my phone rang: beloved bf wishing me good night. It was around 11:30, I think. After that, there was no sleep for hours. I was AWAKE. I was as instantly and outrageously awake as I had been asleep only minutes before.

So I got on the computer, I did some writing, sent some emails, tried to sleep. No luck. I got up and read the entire section on India in "Eat, Pray, Love," a book that speaks to me on some very deep levels, most of which are obvious and annoying and I'm so jealous that she did it first and that what I'm doing now is so similar, just without the exotic locations and the cash in hand. But I digress. The section on India is so steeped in prayer, and when I read it, I feel a longing for prayer that is very similar to a longing for sex. And yet I find it so hard to let myself just pray.

Not always. Sometimes in my life I have had a fairly regular and consistent prayer practice, but lately, not so much. But last night, weary and tired at 2:30 in the morning, all I wanted to do was sleep, and all I wanted to do was pray. So, assuming the appropriate supplicant-like position - all stretched out lengthwise like a cat and pressing my belly up against the cool, hard wall next to my bed and burrowing my face into my pillows, I prayed.

In "Eat, Pray, Love," she makes the analogy that prayer and meditation are the 2 sides of the conversation with God: prayer is when you talk, and meditation is when you listen. I really like that, but I get frustrated with that desire for immediacy - the wait that is necessary after you've spoken to God (usually). So the image I conjure builds in the space for the wait. God is my Waiter, I shall not want.

Yesterday, BF and I had dinner at the Lake. A typical kind of grease-and-beer joint that springs up at every Lake, Beach, Shore and Pier in America, with an outdoor seating area overlooking said body of water, ducks and seagulls fighting for the scraps of food that the children don't want (why eat it when it's so much more fun to throw to the ducks?). It was a cloudy, coolish evening, and early in the season, and a season riddled with drought, so the "floating" restaurant was perhaps actually touching ground, sadly. Anyway, it wasn't crowded, it wasn't loud, and they had a veggie burger on the menu. Our handsome young waiter's name was Jeff, and it was his pleasure to serve us.

In my exhausted state, hot belly against cool wall, I went again to that restaurant in my mind, with my lovely BF by my side, and God-as-Jeff came up to the table and asked me what I would like. God-as-Jeff assured me that I could have whatever I wanted; special orders don't upset us. So I began to "order" my prayer. First, I asked to simply be able to go to sleep, explaining that I was tired and had had a long day. "Not a problem," God told me. "Is there anything else you'd like tonight?" And there was, actually. I asked for "peace in the situation," trying to wrap a few simple and appropriate words around the complex and saddening upheaval my life has taken these past 10 days. "Sounds good, " said God. "Let me talk to the chef about that one. Anything else?" "A few more things. I want only to eat my good diet from now on. Can you help me with that?" At this point, words were becoming more complex and hard to form, and I was getting lost in pictures, but God-as-Jeff once again gave me his assurances, and once again asked if there was anything else I would like. There was something else, and I mentally began a long explanation of what that was before realizing that I wasn't making any sense to myself, that I was actually falling asleep! I glanced over and saw that God-as-Jeff was still standing politely at the end of the table, pad in hand, smiling sweetly, and waiting. "Thank You so much," I mumbled. "That will be all. You've been very helpful."

When I woke up this morning, I was so tickled at how well that had worked, I decided to try it again, only this time I took myself to one of my favorite raw food restaurants, Juliano's Raw in Santa Monica, and Juliano himself was my Waiter. I ordered a lifetime of eating 80-10-10 Raw (see my other blog for more on that) and I asked for guidance in my yoga practice. He bowed to me graciously and set off to the kitchen to attend to my wishes.

By asking for my prayers as simply as if I was ordering off a menu, it gives me, mentally, such a tremendous healing space to allow for the "fruits" of the prayer, so to speak, to be delivered. I trust that God-as-my-Waiter has every intention of providing me with as close to my ordered request as possible, so it helps to be specific, which also helps to hone the request down to its most basic and essential components. It also reminds me to be polite and thankful, as this incarnation of God is here to help me, and it's very important to share my tremendous gratitude.

Incredibly Tired

It has been a long day. A long 10 days, to be honest. Today we went hiking, and it was beautiful and a wonderful time, and now I am beat to exhausted. So no long posts, no energy for me to tell you about the incredible conversations we had, or the view, or the amazing challenge of hiking and climbing, or the insights to my situation. All of that and more happened today, but tonight I am going to bed early. Tucking in with a book and falling asleep as soon as possible.

Life is grand.

Envy

There is a girl I am deeply, deeply envious of. I've never met her, to my knowledge I've only ever seen her once, but she exists in my consciousness as a continuous reminder: Envy.

It was a hot summer day last year, hot and glorious like it is here in the summer, which lasts from mid-April through mid-October. Late afternoon. Me: in my car, running errands or going to work, I don't remember what I was doing. I only remember vividly what she was doing. Her: blond, skinny in that way women admire each other for being skinny, wearing a string bikini and riding a motorscooter. Barefoot, no helmet, string bikini, scooter, riding away from the park and the pool and headed off to who knows where. In that moment, she was the absolute embodiment of FREEDOM.

I mean, really, I know how foolish it is to be riding around basically naked in your birthday suit on a motor vehicle in traffic, but OH! the freedom she represented to me. The freedom from such boring constraints as "put your shoes on!" "put a helmet on!" "wear clothes!" lol! This girl had it all. In my mind, she was off to meet up with some dashing, dangerous and similarly mostly-naked young swarthy buck with glossy black curls and a big loud cruiser, upon which they would ride off to some amazing naked orgy amidst the fairies and gods. And I was going to work. ugh.

I have carried her like a talisman burning in my heart since then. I want a scooter. I want my hair to be loose and free. I want to ride around in my string bikini. sigh.

I've mentioned her to several people, and they each said the same thing: "You don't strike me as the kind of person who would have envy. What's up with that?" But I do! I have such envy.

The envy I feel is more like a longing: I want that. I want that energy, whatever that energy is, whatever it represents, that's what I want. With her, I want that freedom and that ease. I have another friend who is gorgeous and covered in tattoos, and I envy her that freedom of being so effortlessly and creatively beautiful.

I don't envy people for their stuff. Stuff to me is basically a waste of time, unless it's a really amazing piece of jewelry, or art, or really (this will sound stupid) great-fitting jeans. The stuff I'm interested in is either for work or for beauty, everything else to me is kind of a waste. I'm not even that interested in comfort, so thank God for my boyfriend who is and has provided me with some nice basic creature comforts like, you know, a real bed.

I envy people for their freedom. Freedom of expression, freedom of creativity, freedom of movement, freedom of mobility. Another person I envy, deeply, was a man I once saw out for a jog at 11pm. He was just jogging, wearing wind shorts and running shoes, late at night. Only women really understand that kind of envy. Such freedom. Freedom from fear, freedom to simply BE, to be out, to be bare, to be safe. To run, fleet of foot, under the moon, and to be safe from getting caught.

Envy is the longing for the expression of that which is me, which I am denying, and the recognition of the expression of that which is not me, which I am attempting. I am freedom, therefore when I witness people expressing freedom and I am denying freedom, I am swooning with envy. I am love, therefore when I witness people expressing love when I am denying love, it literally wounds me. I have made the grave error in thinking that I am obligation, not freedom, and that I am solitude, when I am love. Can I trace all of my mistakes, throughout my lifetime, back to these original errors?

I recognize my own freedom, which has nothing to do with politics or economics, and I see that it has everything to do with the expression of my soul. And in order for me to be truly free, I have to be fully within my body. And when I am fully within my body, then there is no envy, only joy and self-realization.

The Energy Battle over My Diet

This is a post that will require a lot of prayer while I write it. Just the fact that I am writing about a battle indicates that this is a "hot" issue, and I am trying to be so soft. I'm not always succeeding, but I am, believe it or not, always trying.

My energy healer has talked to me about "guru" energies in my field. This does NOT refer to any particular guru, specifically, at least not in my interpretation, and not in what I'm talking about now, unless I specify otherwise, which I may in a moment. As he has explained them to me, these "guru" energies are energies that require dogma. They require adherence to them as the pathway to God, rather than adhering to the inner knowing, the inner self, the teacher within, the guru within. Not all people who are considered Gurus carry this kind of energy - many powerful Gurus incarnate on the planet now are people doing the true work of a teacher, which is to lead the student to an inner knowing, the inner self, the teacher within. In the role of the Guru, it is their job to point out pitfalls and problems, to let the student know when they have lost their way or gotten caught up in phenomena that don't matter, and to gently further the student's education by teaching them more and more. I consider these people to be Gurus, with the Capital G.

Now these other gurus, small g, kind of go on a power trip. They figure out that they have a certain amount of knowledge, mystique, charisma, whatever. And instead of teaching, which requires a whole lot of mistake-making and experimenting on the part of the student, these gurus create dogma which require a whole lot of adherence to the teachings of the guru. The guru claims that he/she/it has the only true teachings and the only true way to God. And many many many people, myself included, fall prey to the guru and attempt to adhere to the teachings.

These gurus don't have to be physical entities who we sit and pray and chant with, although they do sometimes take on that manifestation. They can be authors of books, or neighbors, or ministers, or elementary school teachers. We can encounter them as children or adults. What matters is whether or not we allow them to attach to us, energetically. And, more importantly, whether we allow ourselves to attach to them.

My energy healer said, laughing, as he always does (how can you not adore someone who chuckles and hums while they work?), that I seem to have had a lot of these guru attachments during my lifetime. "Not a bad thing," he said, "I used to have a lot myself. Just something to be aware of." (That, my friends, is the neutral point! sweet awareness!) And I can see that - oh how I can see that! And that's another post, my lifelong love affair with gurus.

To get back to the Battle of the Diet, because I think this is so important. I have had a guru attachment to the organization I have worked for for the past 7 years. Naturally, right? This has been a tricky alliance, because I am not a naturally dogmatic person, and this organization is one that demands a rather devout adherence to the rules. And that's OK, that's how organizations survive! I have nothing against that. But here's where it gets a little trickier:

In March of 2003, my inner knowing, my inner teaching, led me to the world of Raw Vegan Food. I fell in love with another guru! My, how I fell in love. This was the guru I had been waiting for all my life. Problem being: My old guru was not so very "pro" raw vegan food. As a matter of fact, he was pretty "anti" raw vegan food. He was pretty anti-vegetarian in general, believing a vegetarian diet makes people weak and soft. Maybe it does, and that's not what he's looking for in his organization. I happen to disagree with his position, now, but before I met my Raw Food guru, I totally believed my old guru's position. My transition to a Raw Vegan diet was a total road-to-Damascus conversion - I saw the light, and I was HEALED!!!

So now I had a problem. I had 2 gurus attached in to me, with absolutely, diametrically opposed views on food and nutrition. I mean, you couldn't find 2 people more at odds. I think if you sat them down together and made them talk to each other, they would both agree on maybe 3 things: 1) the other guy is an idiot; 2) they have all the answers; 3) nobody needs to eat as much as we do in our western culture. And I think that would be about it. Living with this battle going on inside of me was difficult to say the least. I have tried doing the work of the organization, without following its nutritional dogma (which is strange - to attempt to pick and choose which bits of dogma work for you and which don't. Isn't adherence adherence? I struggle with this big time). I have left the organization to follow the Raw Food guru, and soon discovered that that emperor wasn't wearing as many clothes as he thought he was, either. I've come back to the organization and formed an uneasy alliance - how to be a leader giving different instruction without getting caught and knowing that other people are looking to me and saying the dogma back at me. Very strange. Very difficult.

And difficult within myself. If I disagree with the organization or the leader this much about this thing, where is the line? And I disagree with the other guy, too. Hmmm. Do I abandon both? Is there truth in both?

The problem is: my inner knowing tells me to eat a Raw Vegan Diet. And not just any ol' raw vegan diet, but I found a NEW guru! A guru without guru attachments, actually, at least not to me. Maybe a guru who I could consider a Guru. Someone who doesn't demand compliance, just suggests a good plan and then gives you such a strong argument for it, it's like a big ol' smack in the forehead "well D'UH!" Neither of the other 2 diet guru energies are very happy about this. One guru is telling me just to eat Mcdonald's and the work I'm doing will nourish me from that. The other guru is telling me to eat superfoods and trip out on raw chocolate to give my body super-nutrition. Both claim that their plan will take me to a higher consciousness. (This new Guru just says his plan will make my body work better. I like that.) But with so little ME in me, just 6% a week ago, up to maybe 70% today it feels like, it's not a battle I can fight effectively, so I end up in a compromise: cooked vegan food, most of it pretty junky. It's the vegan version of Mcdonald's!

So now what? Having left the organization, I'm working on kicking these guru attachments out. Not just these 2, these are just the only ones that care what I eat. And they just aren't going quietly. I've stopped trying to force myself to eat the way I really want to, because it's just too much of a battle still, and I can only do so much. The cooked food really does numb you out, and with all that's going on around me, a little numb-out seems like an ok thing. I sat with my body the other day, with my Sacral Center, and I asked how much longer it needed before we could get back to "my" way of eating. "4 days" it grunted back. 4 days. OK. I can wait 4 more days. 4 days to get strong enough, 4 days to fill up my Me tank, 4 days to move these energies fully out of my field.

This might sound all new-agey woo-woo, maybe too much, but substitute the word "beliefs" for guru, or "thoughts." A guru doesn't have to be a person, because really the only thing that matters is how strongly you attach to it, and how strongly you allow it to attach to you. Your own thoughts are your own guru, positive or negative. So I'm working on moving the negative thoughts out to make room for my positive thoughts.

But I really like (and feel) this whole guru idea. It makes sense to me.

So the Battle of My Diet is being prepared. I'm gonna win.

Life at 65%

When my energy healer told me I was operating at about 65% yesterday, my first reaction was "Wow! That's awesome! Just imagine how great 100% will feel, if this is how great 65% feels!!!" woo-hoo! I don't have any sort of "gee, I thought I was doing better than that. Shouldn't I be further along than that by now?" Trust me, I'm the person who has spent their whole life thinking they should have been further along than "wherever" I've happened to be. So feeling so incredibly happy and thankful at 65% is a really sweet surprise, a really great blessing.

And it's also a wonderful time for assessment. 65% is a vast improvement over 6%. And I can see it. My life has been full of metaphors and examples of how full of MySelf I have been (not from that egoic "full of myself" mental place, but truly energetically, how full of my own precious Self is my tank? How much of Me am I running on?).

Before this all happened, I was using about 6% of my house. I have a tiny, tiny house, and even so, I was only using 6% of it. I would come home, and curl up in my bed. I ate in my bed, slept in my bed, wrote in my bed. My bed was literally my little nest that contained everything I needed. I slept with my computer in my bed (if my boyfriend wasn't there) and with my phone in my bed. I would fall asleep at night holding my cell phone, and wouldn't let go of it all night, like a security blanket. I would wake up in the morning, and before even getting up to go to the toilet, I would open my computer and check my email. So even before I had started to care for myself during the day, I was caring for my business.

In my house, wherever things landed was where they would stay. I was veering dangerously towards the energetic pattern of the person who carves passageways out of stacks of paper, only for me it was stacks of clothes. When your spirit is being pushed out of your body, it takes more energy than you possess to create an appropriate living environment. Or, rather, your living environment becomes appropriate as a reflection of just how much you are actually occupying your Self.

As I started to fill up again, and started to re-inhabit my house, I started to discover all kinds of metaphors for how "out of it" I was. For example, I had bought quite literally hundreds of candles, and yet I did not own a single match. I love that. How accurate, how eye-opening! Hundreds of candles and no matches. I have spent hundreds of dollars on jewelry, some of them custom, hand-made pieces of art, heaped in a pile under miscellaneous clutter, sometimes even garbage. I had created a beautiful altar and yet hadn't consecrated the space around it enough to prevent both my boyfriend and myself from just dumping stuff in front of it. I have tiny closets, and most of my clothes are soft, knit things that benefit most from being folded, and yet I do not own a dresser and kept attempting to keep my wardrobe on hangers. I even had a sweater-sorter thing, one of those collapsible shelving things you hang from wardrobe rods, which I wasn't using and even had in my car to take to Goodwill! I could go on, but you get the picture. So many simple things I could do to actually inhabit my body and my house, so many details I had overlooked.

So I've made tremendous progress. Yesterday I organized my closets - always an obsession of mine; I even had a business for awhile helping people organize their own closets. I LOVE a gorgeous, organized closet, no matter what size. I brought the hanging shelf back inside, and lovingly folded all of my t-shirts and sweaters and arranged them by color. My closet is no bigger, but there is a place for all of my treasures to be displayed to their own best advantage, and it's a joy to look into. That simple step of reaffirming myself has gone a long way!!

My altar is now a sacred space. I took my computer out of my bed, and placed it so that as I am writing, I am sitting on my meditation cushion, on a rug. My altar is behind me. My books are to my right, and the blowing breeze through the open door is to my left. I have my music playing, and incense burning, and all of this is contained in a tiny nook of about 4'x6'. I very much like writing inside my meditation space. Since I have started writing here, I feel like the words I write have more strength, love, and light. It feels like an occupied, important space, not just a place to dump stuff.

I organized the bathroom last night, and rediscovered my jewelry. I put some of my favorite pieces on - pieces that were made for me or given to me by very important and beloved people. I feel their strength and love while I'm wearing them.

The bed is made, and I put all of my nesting things in a little basket, so I can still nest up if I like, but it's easy to take the stuff out of the bed and keep the bed for what it is here for - a place for rest and love.

I feel like I've made great progress here at 65%. There's still 35% more to be done to fully occupy the house. The kitchen is still untouched (it's so loaded. Energetically. Entering my kitchen to feed and nurture myself is a direct act of defiance towards the energies that have been draining me, a very clear statement of their lack of authority in my space, and ironic given my "other" identity as a raw food educator, writer, advocate and proponent!). A huge part of this energy battle in my body has been fought over my diet. Huge. That's another post altogether. Add it to the list! My car is still a mess. There is still scrubbing to be done. All of this will come together, slowly and gently. I am in no rush.

I would rather stay at 65% and create a strong imprint of 65% Self than to try and rush to 100% and not have the strength to maintain. These things take time. Healing is a process that cannot be rushed. I feel so good about my progress. I'm happy.

Energy, Part Deux

Trust me, everything is funnier in French. Try it sometime.

To follow up on my earlier post about energy: I realized that I hadn't actually mentioned that indeed, my energy healer was able to detect that I had been "hijacked." That an energy from the old business - not from any individual there, mind you, this is not about any person there, but rather an energy around the old business - had come along and picked a fight with me. From what it feels like to me, it's the same energy that has been picking fights with me for awhile, and it's the same energy that created the original "bad blog." After all, it worked so well the first time, why not try to get me to do it again? Writing is as natural to me as breathing, so it's not like it has to try and get me to do something I don't want to do, right?

And I felt it again today. I was just humming along, doing great, working on my house, getting back into my space, when suddenly I felt this sense of shame. Not much, just a little, just a taste, like that whiff of cigarette smoke you get from a passing car with its windows open. Just enough that I could recognize it. "Ahhh, shame. I know that feeling. Ahhh, yes, I should be feeling that right now. Shouldn't I? Oh, the pain I've caused people, oh, I'm a bad person, I should feel ashamed." I felt this sneaking in, and I just stopped. I laughed out loud. HA-HA!! A fake, harsh, phony laugh. Then I went into the bathroom and I forced myself to look in the mirror and laugh out loud (a more challenging exercise than you might think). Then I started talking. I asked myself the hard questions: do I feel this shame? is this me? what do I have to be ashamed of? is God ashamed of me? And I forced myself to answer: I don't really feel this shame, I just feel like I should. This isn't me. I have nothing to be ashamed of - people were hurt, and I am grieved by that, but I am not ashamed. There is no shame in God, only Love, and Love drives out shame and fear. So then I started dancing. And laughing. And then I went for a walk. And the feeling of shame went away.

What I am learning from this: our true emotions are not the same as our conditioned reactions. I am sad, but I am not ashamed. I take ownership, but I do not take blame. I am happy, because I am joy, but I take no pleasure in the suffering of others. I have practical concerns, but I am not worried. I can hear all of those imprints from childhood: you should be ashamed of yourself, I blame you for this, how dare you laugh at a time like this, you better be worried. I want to cast those imprints off and build myself new.

My energy healer did a quick tune-up on me tonight (he has been so marvelous and patient and answered all my questions). I said I'm feeling so much better, I feel like I'm around 80-90% full-of-me! He laughed and said, well, looks more like about 65%. Which is a whole lot better than the 6% or so that I was a week ago! I'm excited - if this is what 65% feels like, wow! what must 100% be!?!?!?