It's Not Hard -- It's Impossumble!! Spirituality and Choices

For me, I always confused "choices” with "options", and believed I could control aspects of my life for which I was actually totally powerless .... I would "chose" to do or say one thing, and would do or say something totally different .... and damn myself to the hells of my own self-induced shame and blame ....

The concept of “choice”, in my experience, is a symptom of mental and spiritual dissociation – massive losses of selves -- disconnected and trying to operate independent of each other to protect and care for themselves. Some label this negatively as “ego”.

“Choice” means there is a “chooser” and a “choice”, two different entities separated by some trauma induced psychosis of self, of absence of Presence, and of necessity to operate independent of intuitive wisdom and spiritually intimate nature. Each “choice” represents a dissociated self who becomes attached to the outcome which that choice may or may not represent. Ultimately the dissociated self with the strongest urgency – limbic survival necessity – will determine one’s behavior and words – no matter the cerebral brain’s awareness of likely or ultimate consequences or preferences.

For me, Step One was the beginning of conscious experience of my separated and lost selves, and the beginning of my conscious experience of my human dependency on a Presence greater than my selves who could empower me to know what I wanted to do or say, and actually do or say it. It is not “choice” – it is a natural intuitive flow of who I am in conscious Presence with Them -- who I am being restored to being.

Spirituality, for me, today begins with the admission, experience, and acceptance that I am ultimately totally powerless -- without Their Presence.

In the story of Jesus, there was a time when people were admiring and complimenting Jesus’s work and outcomes. His response was, “It is not I who does this, but my Father who is in me, He does the work.” He refused to accept the illusion of power of choice over his actions and outcomes. Everything he did and accomplished was a direct result of his intimate connection with his Father. He refused to accept credit for his successes and positive outcomes.

This is my experience as well. I cringe when I hear people say that they “chose” not to drink or drug, or participate in some unhealthy behavior today. For me, this statement is the equivalent of stepping away from conscious connection with my God, and telling my self I can now handle my life – the damning delusion of “free will”. In over twenty years of recovery, I have seen and experienced the hellish results of such spiritual and mental psychosis.

It's not hard -- it is impossible!!!!

Removing Movies From My Mind - Mystic Poetry

Stepping across aisles,
another row of seats
filled with memories, the “selves”,
the forgotten ones –
deeply abandoned parts of who I was to become ....
Hidden in the darkness –
the cinema that I believed was my life –
projected images, drama, sadness, silence,
hope, flights of happy relief,
suspended in dangles of questions
and contrived answers.
My life now staggers with Their revealing truths –
the vagueness becomes clearer,
the movies of my imaginary living are ending abruptly
and I must follow Their lead –
deeper and deeper
present with in my self,
Their comforting Presence –
hands, hearts touching,
closeness and beyond closeness,
Their quiet voices introducing me
-- more and more to “me” I have forgotten,
reminding me of Their present love
and my helpless past.
I experience massive waves of regret and fear –
And wonder --
wondering
if the stupor of the screen’s fabricated images
were not maybe a “better” way to go.
So much to re-experience.....
So much remains.
In our Presence together.

What Do We Really Want? -- Path of the Listening Heart

“The problem with doing what we want is that we don't know what we want .... powerlessness .... but our Higher Power knows – and Their will for me is what I “really” want – but don’t know it .....what happens is my life today is what I “want” – even if my humanness disagrees – all there is and can be is God’s will ..... right at this moment, my humanness is anxious about today’s outcomes ....How do I receive and accept Their gifts for me today? .... “ My Journal (posted on Facebook Saturday, August 14, 2010)

(Responses on Facebook at end of article. Thanks to everyone for sharing)

The challenge for me regarding what I want is that everything I perceive is filtered through my human brain, which attaches a good or bad rating to each molecule, and each unit of perception ....

Going back to the metaphor of the Garden of Eden, the curse was the perception or “knowledge” of good and evil .... at that point the illusion of good and bad was programmed into the human brain, and when the perceptual question is asked, “are you a good witch or a bad witch?” (Wizard of Oz), the answer will always be we and they and it are bad – frequently disguised in the thought and experience of “just not good enough” ....

In the context of the concepts of wants and needs, I will never be satisfied, because my brain will assert its “knowledge of good and evil” and nothing will ever be good enough – I will never be content or truly happy .... the best I can hope for is to be inebriated on thought or some other brain altering substance ....

The “knowledge of good and evil” is ultimately the foundation of separation from my God .... the temptation in the Eden metaphor was that they would become “like God” – without “needing” God .... and separation from God, from themselves, and from each other occurred – They were “ashamed” --- before there was no good and bad – but now, they were naked, and they experienced the shame of being bad – not good enough – abandoned and separated ... and they damned themselves to suffering and death for their perceived “sins” .... actually there was and is no “sin” – only shame = the perception and reaction of deserved separation and loneliness....

I spent most of my life trying to determine what God’s Will was. My brain – dominated by right/wrong, good/bad filter programming assigned the thought label of God’s Will to what I did and what occurred that seemed to be good or right ..... frequently this was just a judgment based on the results of outcomes .... when others seemed pleased – good or right .... if others were displeased – wrong and bad..... and I would punish myself accordingly .... I have never “needed” a “God” to create a hell for me suffer in....

For me, as all of the Twelve Steps converged on Step Eleven, I began to experience that as my conscious contact with my God improved, I began to see my self, and my life from their eyes .... as that occurred, I began to lose incrementaly the effects of the good/ bad mental programming filter .... with the “knowledge of God’s will for me” came an increasing awareness that all is good, and that my human self, without my God’s conscious Presence could not live that awareness ....

The material world and its inhabitants – including myself -- do not operate comfortably within such a radical “mental awakening” .... intimate Presence with God, for me, must be practiced as a life style, or my humanness will make outcomes appear life and death, right and wrong ... and I will ultimately be miserable no matter the outcome ...... when I have gotten the outcomes I “wanted” I was still restless, irritible, and discontented out of fear that I would lose my outcome and/or that the next outcome would be “bad” – “unwanted.”

“Having had a spiritual awakening, as the result of these steps ...... we practiced these principles in all affairs.”


Responses on Facebook to the original post:

Drollene B: If we need a lot of things to make us happy, we can cut down the possibility for unhappiness by paring down the list of needs and downgrade them to wants. If we have a long list of wants, thinking having them would make us happy, we can cut the criteria for happiness by downgrading our wants to preferences. If we have only preferences, we can always be happy. I think it's something to strive for. I'm not there yet.

Joseph P. Where we've been wrong is in the belief that we exist. At least in some concept of separateness and individuality. Such is the egoic illusion. The space in which this phantasmic self exists is merely holding a place in time and space better used as a channel for God's love, comfort, Light, forgiveness, peace. There is no MY will, only God's will and the opportunity to fall into harmony with it.

Gary S, Keep it simple.

Courteney B. Keeping my need/wants vs want/needs is what i strive for. when we get something we want we may not be ready for it, as it's 'our' will, not gods. we then may have to ask for it to be removed and clean up another mess, been there myself. :)

Drollene B. Okay, Gary, here it is, simple: Need nothing, want nothing, be happy with what comes when it comes.

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journalling --October 31, 2009 -- Path of the Mystic Listener

Nearly twenty-five years ago, I was in counseling with an Episcopal priest, who gave me an assignment to write a letter to God. In the next session, I read and we discussed my letter and my relationship to “God”. For the next session, the priest gave me the assignment of writing a letter from God to me.

It seemed very strange and awkward, but I was in enough pain to be willing to do anything he asked. At the next session, we processed my letter and my experience and insight in writing the letter. As I was reflecting on my writing, it occurred to me that the amazing experience that I had with this assignment might be “useful” as a daily spiritual activity.

Almost every day since then, I have done this very thing – a “letter” to God about what was going on in my life, my feelings, and what I was struggling with – and a “letter” of what I felt God saying to me. It has been a wonderful and life changing experience of spiritual enlightenment – of increasing conscious Presence with a loving God, whom I have learned to call “Mom and Dad”. I would like to share some of this experience with you here.

October 31, 2009
Mom & Dad,
Good morning! Everything is moving in on me with this cruise coming. I feel anxious, pressured – afraid that I will not have prepared coverage for K’s practice adequately. Please help me and lead me. What do I need to know and do today?

Listening. Always, always learning to listen. We are “hear” – hear and feel our breathing Presence within you.
Your course swings in and out. Questions trigger inner undisclosed wounds – energies stored in stasis chambers (of your brain – near your heart. Connection and separation – swinging in and out – listening for our voices – through the darkened walls of your mind.
The entrance to new places emerges from the debris of old experiences – mangled pieces of discarded selves – like the valley of dry bones (Bible) – and as you stand – open – in our Presence – the “bones” begin to come together and life begins to regenerate inside of you. Living tissue – blood vessels full of spiritual Presence – flowing – throbbing – then beating smoothly – life flowing and beating as you become – alive – loved and nurtured by our caring and unconditional Presence.
Lifeless becomes lifefull.
We are here.

"A merry heart doeth good like is medicine,

but a broken spirit drieth the bones."

Proverbs

(Inspirational life quote from a meditation book):
“Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply points the way.” Florence Scovel Shinn
“We will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us.”
Seems to me that if “spiritual” means higher Presence, then energy from intimate closeness with you fills the mental voids (of my brain) created by past injuries of separation.

As a human, you want to “know” things – clear, dependable, usable information. Nothing that is knowable is real – they are only thoughts – fixed patterns of neural energy within the brain. Thoughts are created out of space and time – which are also, “not real” – only perceptions of the brain.

The necessity and importance of “love” is that in its truth, experience and thought forms -- creates a bridge from thought to our Presence – an emerging consciousness called intuition – spiritual enlightenment, awareness that exceeds the facility and use of words. Words are only as real as the presence experienced through them. Eventually – as you move and become closer to us, words will dissolve into the nothingness that they are – and what will be left is an intimate connection which can be best described from this side as “love”.

Love is greater than faith, because it is the highest level of faith. Faith is most frequently thought. Belief means one thinks a certain statement to be true. Love means one experiences such an intimate connection with us that thoughts and words disappear and all that is left is conscious Presence, closeness, unconditional acceptance and companionship – with us – to others. There are no longer explanations – thoughts and words – because you have transcended matter –becoming spiritually Present – intuitively “knowing” things that your brain can not know or process.

Flow.

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We Need More Than Answers -- Listening to the Mystic Path

Computers are useless.
They can only give you answers.
Pablo Picasso

Answers are the enemies of spiritual solutions. Knowledge is the enemy of spiritual enlightenment. Intellect disables spiritual experiences. Psychology is the enemy of spiritual Presence and nurturing intimacy.

What do answers, knowledge, intellect and psychology all have in common? They are based on mental thought and not on spiritual experience. So they produce a distraction which gives temporary relief to inner separation and pain. But ultimately it creates more separation – and therefore more pain.

We need something – someone – who gives more than answers – who brings intimate spiritual enlightenment into the darkness of our abandonments – someone whose loving and caring Presence brings spiritual healing to our wounded souls.

WE have this Someone – when we are WE!

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Spiritual Messages from FaceBook -- Mystic Path of a Listening Heart

For me, FaceBook has become a wonderful source of daily inspirations and spiritual Presence. I am very grateful to the wonderful people who share their personal experiences, strengths, and hopes – allowing me to listen to my God in their words …… and in my own responses to their words. My God is always speaking …. It is really helpful –blessings and gifts -- to have so many friends who are willing to be Their messengers….

I would like to share some of my experiences with you …..

Hope – or Not…..

Keli: “Hope is an extension of our Faith that God will fulfill his promises” ~ Givens ( From "The
Dopeless Hope Fiend")

Will: For me, hope can be a preoccupation with a mentally induced fantasy/delusion of what could happen .... like a child who believes in the myth of Santa Claus and is expecting a desirable outcome based on their fantasy .... a mental distraction .... loss of consciousness ….
Or hope can be the intuitive sense of okness, wellbeing and loving closeness that comes from a steadily ... improving "conscious contact with God" .... a peace that passes all understanding .... a joy unspeakable and full of wondrous Presence .... a hope that is not disappointing because Their love is being poured generously and steadily into our hearts ..... a spiritual awakening as a result of these Twelve Steps --- living spiritual principles of hope and healing.....
Where our brains stop thinking and "drinking" …..stops using some mood altering human actions –
here our hearts begin to experience .....Presence..... the ultimate spiritual "guarantee" ..... that all will well in this life ….. and in the hereafter ….



Can You?.......

Michael: “You must do the thing you cannot do.”~~Eleanor Roosevelt

Will: The problem is that we can't do what we cannot do ..... maybe that's why we need a God of our conscious contact and personal experience .... They restore us to an ability to do what THEY can do .... If we could "do it", we would not need Them .... what an incredible loss that would be .... In our weakness we are made strong in them …. we have closeness with them ..

The basis of human shame and spiritual illness is the message and belief that we can – and should – do things we cannot do. Others have held us accountable and responsible for perceptions, reactions, actions -- and outcomes -- that we could not control. I experience that my God looks not at my actions and outcomes but at my “heart” …. And Their perception of me – and others – is that we are special, good enough – in fact wonderful – and unconditionally loveable and worthy of being cared about by Them …. They reprogram my brain to see me and others through Their eyes and “mind”….

Simple … But Not Easy ….

Keli: A simple program ~ The program is simply sharing, working the Twelve Steps, attending meetings, and practicing the principles of the program.
Our complicated lives can be made a lot less complicated if we concentrate on a few simple things sharing our experience, strength, and hope with others, regular meeting attendance, and practicing the principles of the program in our daily lives.
By sharing our experience, strength, and hope with others, we provide a powerful example for newcomers to follow. The effort we put into helping others also helps keep self-centeredness, the core of our disease, at bay.
Many of us pick one group, a home group, whose meetings we attend faithfully. This regularity gives some routine to our lives, and lets others know where they can find us if they need us.
Practicing the Twelve Steps in our daily lives makes the difference between a balanced recovery and simply not using. The steps give us some much-needed guidance in managing our everyday affairs.
Yes, we are complex people. But Twelve Steps programs simplifies our lives, enabling us to live a life free from active dependence. Our lives can be filled with serenity and hope when we live by the guidance of the simple principles of our program.
Just for today: I will remember that, while I am a complex person, Twelve Steps is the simplest way for me to make my life less complicated.
Copyright © 1991-2010 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc


Will: I do a 12 Step Spiritual Maintenance group on Thursdays, and today we were sharing about this subject: the Twelve Steps program is simple but not easy. The reason for this is that the intellectual concepts and directions are mentally "simple" and easy to understand by the cerebral cortex part of the brain. But dependency, and addiction are not located the intellectual cerebral cortex part of the brain. It is located in the involuntary, non-cognitive primitive part of the brain. So we can literally know what to do that is healthy and right, and be totally incapable of doing it or of responding rationally to that knowledge.... Literally, the basics of recovery are intellectually simple --- but virtually impossible to practice .... by me .... That's why we start with Step One: we admitted (and experienced) that we were powerless -- helpless to override the perceptions and reactions of our wounded brains .... powerlessness and helplessness becomes the basis for and beginning of true spiritual experience -- conscious contact with God .... This is my experience, strength and hope ....


We Need to Lose Our Minds ……

Thinus: Sometimes you have to lose your mind before you come to your senses...

Seren: So strange, I was just thinking that. Kind of like "hitting bottom"?
Thinus: Yup that's it.
Seren: Not my favorite memory, but definitely the catalyst for grace.
Nurse Mary: yea and we must always remember our bottoms have a trap door!!
Bronwyn: So that's what is happening to me - and I have so much to look forward to - finding my senses and coming to them! yay! Can't wait!


Will: My experience: "hitting a bottom" was losing my mind .... otherwise, my thoughts would be still anesthetizing my feelings -- my " senses" ..... and I would be convinced that "I can and should handle ‘it’." .... "it's just not that bad" .... thinking is more mood altering than drinking or drugging .... Most people never really recover because they are never able to “lose their minds” ….. and experience the truths of our helplessness without steady, conscious interaction with our God ….

The Need to Fall Down to Look Up ….

Angie: "When you fall down, look around. You may discover something you couldn't see when you were standing up.".......................

Will: If I had never "fallen", I would never have "discovered" – or experienced consciously -- my God's loving Presence .... to grow in Their Presence, I must continue to “fall” ….. from my humanness….
If we are not careful, our brains will use our appearance of success with certain outcomes as proof that we can and should understand and control “our lives”…. The gifts of “failures” are awarenesses and conscious experiences that we are powerless … alone …



Theodore: Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.” --Wilson(via Denise)


Will: My experience: to confront my "dark selves" can be like attacking a wounded and cornered animal ..... dangerous at best .... our dark selves are lost selves who were wounded by separations and abuse ... they need to be loved and nurtured into God's love light, and brought home to be restored to our truest Self .... they don't need anymore rejection and abuse ....
(As I journalled about my dark or shadow selves, I realized that these are parts of me that are the furtherest from conscious Presence with my God … the most wounded, terrorified, enraged – instinctively self protective …. They are not bad – but very, very hurt …. and abandoned ….)


Being Perfect ….

Loretta: The word "perfect" doesn't mean that we have to do everything just right and live without making a mistake. Thank God, b/c we can't to that! It means "devoted" ~ a heart dedicated, loyal and faithful to God. The Word tells us that God shows Himself strong in behalf of those whose hearts are "perfect" toward Him (2 Chron.16:9)

Will: For me: "perfect" is an expression of the attitude of unconditional love and care -- and clarity of perception -- that God has toward us .... They do not see us as wrong or bad ... in Their eyes, we are "perfect" .... They would only like for us to stop abusing our selves with our shame, and self-abuse ..... Perfectionism is the state of being unable to accept that we are already perfect .... at least in Their eyes .... In our human eyes. we generally "suck", never good enough, always wrong and bad – in one way or another ..... Maybe being "restored to sanity" includes beginning to see our selves through Their eyes.... not through the painful separation of our diseases of humanness and dependency .... Conscious intimate contact with out God clears away the unhealed distortions of the past …
Maybe the closest to a mistake we can be is to perceive that we are mistakes.....

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Waves of Returning Selves -- Path of the Mystic Heart

Motions. Massive, massive motions.

Waves and waves of flowing, fluid sensation –

from somewhere –

sometime – elsewhere –

washing .... washing across –

over -- the neural pathways ....

patterns ....of my brain ..... repeating ....

replaying .... recurring .... patterns of sensation .,,,,

lost in the past of unremembered silence ....

and desperation .....

seemingly disconnected .....

seemingly abandoned ...

struggling to stand alone, erect

against rising tides of past selves ....

rushing forward, toward .....

into depths and shallows of my soul.

I am being flooded with what I cannot see .....

overwhelmed by what I cannot remember ....

crowded deep into narrow crevices of my mind,

vacant corridors of long forgetting..... then .....

from somewhere from beyond comes that Voice –

narrowed sounds within my heart .....

expanding into lightening and softening reminders ....

we may not be alone – unloved – forgotten....

invited to follow the waves .... Their waves ....

going home

illusions Of "Control" and "Knowledge" -- Mystic Listening

……..the human repression is able to have a remedy. All it takes is having the control of it…….. and to know…….. Voltaire

“Control” and “know” are interesting concepts in modern and non-modern thought. They assume that we and our brains have abilities and freedoms that contradict severely the history of the disease of being human.

If we have control – if we chose – why would we choose to suffer and die horrible lives – or survive the experience under the anesthesia of blinding distractions and mental obsessions? Why would we inflict such incredible pain on ourselves by harming others? We are one – I cannot hurt you without destroying me.

The concept that humans can somehow achieve control over themselves and their lives and outcomes is really unsupportable by observable human experience.

What the masters of sleight of hand, and mirrors and fog try to use to confuse and shame us is the periodic ability of humans and “heroes” to seemingly rise above instinct and disease to do and become the extraordinary – or ordinary. Because the brain does not always reject desirable behavior or action does not prove that if we try hard enough, we can achieve control. Humans can fly – if they have a plane or jet pack. Otherwise, they are ground dwellers.

And some days we manage to be unconscious enough to achieve the illusions of happiness, when really our brain has simply suppressed our ability to feel pain.

If we have control, we should never have to be unhappy, sad, or disappointed again. Show me someone for whom this is true – who is emotionally conscious and not medicated by some drug or outcome.

“Know” – a human derivative of the illusion of “control”. Knowledge is the creation of the cerebral functions of the brains neuroprocessor – the cerebral cortex. It is believed by the brain that what it perceives, it knows as facts, and understands, and therefore it is able to control behavior, reactions, and outcomes. The problem is that the cerebral cortex operates at the “pleasure” or pain of the primitive part of the brain. So it “knows” only what it is allowed to know. The primitive brain automatically and involuntarily controls the operations of the brain in order to maintain stability. We know nothing – we only have perceptions – and reactions – that are controlled without our conscious input into their occurrence.

Hence, the power and significance of the First Step of the Twelve Steps: “We admitted that we were powerless – that our lives had become unmanageable.” We cannot control or know anything.

When we truly experience this truth, and connect with a higher Presence (Step Two), we no longer need to know or control – we are restored to a “sanity” – an emotional balance and a spiritual awakening – that no longer requires knowing or controlling – just the consistent maintenance of an improving conscious intimate contact with Them. The rest becomes history – and Presence.

Love Heals -- the Mystic Path of the Listening Heart

Love cures people, the ones who receive, and the ones that give it, too.
Karl A. Menninger

“Love” is an interesting word in our culture. People can love ice cream, clothes, movies, TV shows, vacation places – and other people. Somehow the same word does not seem to mean the same in each situation.

And yet, the impression we can get from others is that everyone knows exactly what the word means. Frequently this seems to really be a case of “missing identity.”

Dr. Menninger describes “love” as the cure for people. I agree with his statement, only I believe we have to clarify what aspect of spiritual healing “love” involves.

Perhaps a place to start is with what “illness” does humans have that needs to be “cured” – why do we need spiritual healing at all.

In my experience, all human illness is caused by separation – from God, from others, and most acutely from ourselves. The condition of humanness is one of loneliness, guilt, fear, pain, anger – and sadness. All of these symptoms are directly related and proportionate to our level of our personal separation and sense of abandonment.

So what does love do that can cure our disease of humanness? Maybe “love” is about being intimately reconnected to God, to others, and to ourselves.

My experience is that God interacts with humans by means of Presence – an unconditional availability and flow of “loving” interpersonal energy which could be the definition of “love”.

Perhaps, if we were to interact with others using unconditional attentiveness and companionship, and gifts of caringness – spiritual presence to others -- maybe we would find people who responded to this spiritual treatment, and experienced spiritual healing of their human condition. Maybe like Dr. Menninger said, we would also find ourselves experiencing spiritual healing and spiritual enlightenment as well.

Let’s try and see.

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Experience Life's Precious Moments
Precious MomentsPrecious Moments
> Precious Moments

Poem: "Re-emerging Selves" -- Path of the Mystic Heart

My silence pounds walls of repetitive wordings,
living encapsulating in blocks of sound,
flashes of remembering
the unforgotten swirls of past moments –
events and experiences in the “Now”
of my human beingness.
Every object, event, coated
in emotional energy and glistening
with presence and absence – won and lost.
My mind has fashioned,
constructed…
reconstructed…
demolished….
and reconstructed…
so many selves of experience…
into narrow streams of solidified thought….
Dammed by survival…
resisting possible fluidity…
walls of blindness created in desperate silence…
I am….
We are…..
Reemerging…..
from desolation and destruction…..
looking … for what is still hidden…
so deep….
in the presents of the past.

From my Journal: March 5, 2008

Where Do All The Voices Come From -- Mystic Voices of a Listening Heart

“So what's worse? Too many voices in your head or complete silence?“

This Facebook quote, along with recent writing and listening I have been doing, triggered some powerful new spiritual awakenings and experiences.

First, it is important to realize and experience that these voices are my “lost selves” – parts of me that were disconnected or dissociated from my actual Self in order to emotionally survive the emotional traumas of my life.

There are four awarenesses that I experienced about my inner voices:

1. When I experience confusion, memory losses, and difficulty making decisions, they is caused by being overwhelmed by these voices – lost selves --pressing me with their pain and fear and needs. Imagine being in a shopping mall full of people – at Christmas, and everyone turns and moves toward you – surrounding you --- talking, then yelling, then screaming information, feelings, demands, requestts, etc...... and imagine trying to process and survive the whole experience.

2. The majority of people survive and function within the material world and within relationships by using silence – the absence of consciousness of the voices. By depressing the operation of the neural pathways of the brain, the pirmitive brain instinctively turns off the sound of their voices. And when that doesn’t work, it will exaggerate, dramatize, generally flood the neural pathways with distracting new activity focused at external circumstances and outcomes – thought.

3. My experience is that we do not have the ability to listen, organize, and process their voices, and successfully address the needs that drives these lost selves into frenzied desperation.

4. What I need to do is to allow a simplification to occur – to become as a little child – in the loving, caring , ujnconditional Presence of my God, and to receive gentle guidance -- to help me move through the conscious experience and restoration of these lost selves. For me, my spiritual parents/guides operate through the Presence that resonates in others.

I perceive that the majority of human beings live materially “successful” lives in virtual silence -- not stillness – silence – the forced and constricted absence of sound -- not the quiet and flowing serenity of Presence. I define ‘success” experiencially as the reaching of enough life outcomes to be reasonably satisfied with life – often to notice of others as being accomplished or having “successfully” overcome sizable obstacles to do so. Most often, success, for humans, is perceived as being within the realm of objects and material outcomes, not relationships, closeness, or intimate awakenings.

“Success” in our modern culture typically entails the suppression of these inner voices – lost selves – in order to reach some external outcome. Consequently, I experience that those who our culture venerates with public media attention, as being the most “successful” are also the most unconscious. As I watch them, I experience the feeling that no one is home. I only experience their masks -- hiding deeper and deeply wounded selves.

The efficiency of unconsciousness – the dead and dying selves lie decomposing on the screens of our televisions and cinemas – in our politics, music, and entertainment. I feel sad. So much wonder and beauty of selves lost in the blinding glares of deafening outcomes.

If you are hearing your inner voices, too, and would like some comforting Presence, and direction, try some of these blogs that I have written, and feel free to contact me on Facebook, or by email.

We can all help each be restored to sanity – truer and more complete versions of ourselves. Our lost selves need us to improve our conscious intimate contact with our God so they can come home. We and they do not have to be alone today.

Click here: Finding Daily Inspirations

Returning to the Secret Garden of Lost Selves

Twelve Step Spiritual Life Management

Valley of Deadened Selves: Poem of a Mystic Heart

My mind drapes sadly over the fallen corpses --
selves fallen in the service of guarding, protecting the “me”.
I am buried beneath growing swells of rushing raging e-motions
pounding the beaches of my consciousness and thoughts
Reminding, remembering, forgetting yet again.
Protected– a light that rests casually on the edge of my mind
an unravelling of what was never together
exposing the inner wreckage and carnage of my past and dying selves.
I can’t remember where I am – who I was –
another world seems impinging from somewhere
beyond what is for me –
I am present, fallen, and streaming – in realest time –
as light continues to rise – burning alive motions,
somehow, in this dead and dying selves –
as Presence beginning to gently glow and flow within deadened lifeless
veins – and life, a love, sensations of beingness,
Presence begins to beat
where darkened hearts had stopped before.
My valley of deadened selves, touched – restoring -- yet unknown appearing Self – enlightened shadows of what may yet to come.

Returning to the Secret Garden of Lost Selves -- the Mystic Heart

I was in a spiritual support group today where the topic was Step Five of the Twelve Steps:

We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs (the nature and symptoms of our emotional illness).

This step is the continuation of Step Four:

We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

In Step Five, we reach out to our God through the flesh and blood of another human being, and together we move away the debris that blocks the door to the Secret Garden... Will W.

For the complete article, click here: Returning to the Secret Garden of Lost Selves.

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Listening to God's Will Through the Voice of Our Own Fear

Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered in anything short of God and his will for us.
Billy Graham

I struggled the greater part of my life, trying to determine what God’s will was for me. I didn’t realize until the last fifteen years that I was wanting to know the terms of the contractual relationship that God was seemingly offering everyone. If I could determine “His” will and do it, God had to give me what I wanted – primarily to be loved and cared about.

To know and fulfil God’s will had become my will, and it was failing miserably – no matter how much I tried to sacrifice and martyr myself to please “Him”.

Anxiety was a given. I was not measuring up to my expectations of how I believed I should please God, and I knew – from religion – to expect my impending judgement and my imminent destruction.

Over the past twenty years, I have begun to learn and experience certain “truths” – at least for me.

First of all my God, as I experience Him -- and Her -- has no rules by which They judge and punish me. Their love is unconditional and constant --irregardless of my actions and thoughts. My problem is my judgement and punishment of myself based on the rules that I have been programmed to believe they have for me.

Second, God’s will is exactly what I would want, if I knew myself, and what I wanted as They do. In the purest sense, God’s will and what I really want are the same.

Third, God’s will is a natural result of living in intimate closeness and love with Them. Their intent is for me to know and experience my truest selves, and with their loving support, to live increasing complete in that spiritual enlightenment.

Anxiety is the beginning of spiritual enlightenment, because it reminds us that we are still not yet completely connected to our God’s higher Presence and love. It is the beginning of a “faith” beyond thought, and hope beyond understanding – not the opposite. To conscious feel anxious is to become present and available for their love to flow into our hearts and being.

The maintenance of spiritual presence and spiritual enlightenment requires the following: experience our feelings – especially anxiety; increasingly connect ourselves to Their loving Presence through daily inspirations and precious moments of experience and hope; and consistently take the action necessary to stay intimately connected to their loving care.

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Turning On God's Love Light -- the Listening Heart

Every day my eyes would automatically open as the sun began to rise. I’d lie there and not just look at the dawn, the dawn would enter me. The imprint of sunshine – of a new day following the darkness of night – made its way into my cells.
Marianne Williamson

Light – spiritual enlightenment – precious moments illuminating the darkness – experiencing daily inspirations – bursts of God’s Presence – as we spiritually awaken to spiritual healing -- from painful darkness.

I heard of a child who was chronically punished for being unacceptable by being placed in a small closet underneath the stairs. Her mother called it the “Mean Kid’s House”.

The child and her siblings would work hard and sometimes they would be given a little money. When her siblings had a chance, they would buy candy. But the child from the closet would buy candles. The candles were so she could have light in the darkness of her “Mean Kid’s House”.

Darkness is the absence of loving, caring, unconditional Presence – from others, then causing a sense of separation from God, and ultimately separating us from ourselves. Sometimes it is as physical as a closet, but more often it is a dark and sad place inside of us.

We all live or have lived in the “Mean Kid’s House”. Shame, guilt, fear, loneliness, and sadness – mental and spiritual darkness – have surrounded our existence and experience. A conditional world had abandoned us in order to avoid themselves.

Many of us created imaginary friends, selves, lives to fill the darkness with blind hope – actually temporary mental painkillers fashioned in painful desperation. Nothing changed – and we remained hopelessly damned to the empty stale and blinding silence. The only voices were the voices within our brains – and even they became progressively more and more abusive.

To escape, we must begin to find “candles” – sources of light, love and Presence. “Candy” is nice. But loving Presence begins to shatter the darkness with new inner sources of hope and healing. Our lives begin to change – spiritual enlightenment begins to burn – beginning as just a spark, and becoming radiating beams of warming Presence and spiritual healing.

Our God knows the way out. We need to find and follow Their loving Light out of our darkness and into Better Places by Their loving design and care.

The imprint of sunshine – of a new day following the darkness of night – made its way into my cells. And one morning it was as though I heard the voice of God, telling me as I witnessed the dawn that “Such is the work I will do within you.” I too would experience a new dawn after the dark night of my soul. God would give me a new beginning. I knew it then. And as I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep, I thanked Him with all my heart. And my heart was healed.
Marianne Williamson



In the darkness shall be the light, and in the stillness, the dancing.
e.e. cummings

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Staying Intimate with God Through a Listening Heart

God sends no one away except those who are full of themselves.
Dwight L. Moody

This is a cute quote, with some very experience-provoking ideas.

I would hasten to note that in my experience, strength and hope, my God has never sent me away -- ever. This concept of being sent away concerns me because our shame and guilt can grab this up and lead us into fear and separation – while God never changed or moved His and Her unconditional love and Presence.

One spiritual awareness to have here is it is possible to be in a state and mental condition where God cannot reach us – because of our unconscious resistance and unavailability.

Another spiritual awareness is that this occurs when we are mentally “full of ourselves” -- when there is no room for God’s Presence within our lives. There is “something” that can exist inside of us that blocks God’s intimate and caring love from entering our heart and lives.

This “something” is our wounded selves trying to protect us from harm, and in the process, harming us with separation from God. These wounded selves from our past are trying hard to protect us. They are like an auto-immune disease – like arthritis – where the body’s natural defense systems, in an attempt to protect the body, actually attacks and harms parts of the body.

Frequently this characteristic – self-protection by wounded selves – is angrily referred to as the “ego”. Our ego is a collection of lost past selves that have formed together inside our brain in an attempt to protect us from separation and abandonment, and in the process actually causes separation and abandonment in the process. Our ego fills our brain with fear and anger, which separates us from others, from our God, and from ourselves.

For this diseased process to end and God’s loving Presence to begin to flow into our hearts, we must address the woundedness of our ego. First of all, our ego selves need to be accepted and not resisted. They are our heroes – as misguided as they are. They have fought to keep us safe in insane and abusive situations.

They need to be nurtured with increasing higher Presence, back into loving health and sanity. They were created in the pain and in the fear of abandonment – and more abandonment will make more determined to protect – at any cost. They need to be given high doses of God’s Presence through spiritual enlightenment – daily inspirations, the experience of precious moments with others and God, and the spiritual support of spiritual coaches and guides.

There is an unlimited supply of Presence and love available to us from God. We must empty our selves of the wounds and infection of our lost selves –ego – and be restored to a growing openness to the God of our personal spiritual experience.

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Finding Our Selves Through Mystic Listening

We usually see things not as they are, but as we are.

Anonymous

What are we looking at? What relationships, what situations, what events – what is it we looking at? And most importantly -- what are we looking for?

As we begin submerge beneath the surface of thought and intellect – into emerging spiritual enlightenment – we begin to see and experience “things” -- parts of ourselves deeply hidden within ourselves – lost and forgotten selves.

To survive the threats of abandonment and loneliness, our brains stops the “tape” of our lives and replaced it with yet another “tape” – another self – with some of same memories hidden in its memories and programming. And yet this new self is alone and separate from the rest.

Each time we lose another part of ourselves – another self appears to continue the trip toward unconsciousness – and toward death – the seemingly ultimate and final separation.

When life happens, our brains has unresolved issues recorded in unconscious traces – becoming activated by external events. Most of what we experience is our painful past selves projected on to the material world – a giant mirror of ourselves. What we see and hear are actually reflections of our past and lost selves.

Some become distracted by the perceptions of prior lifetimes – or reincarnation. I suggest that we might be more productive by re-experiencing and restoring our many lifetimes within this lifetime.

I was raised in spiritual enlightenment to view all my perceptions as reflections of lost and abandoned selves – life times – seeking, looking for a return to being present and conscious -- now. To become distracted from ourselves by living the material world as truth has major power to sever more of ourselves from the core of our spirit self.

Spiritual enlightenment involves establishing a heightened conscious presence with God, allowing ourselves to stop losing selves, and to be progressively restored to ourselves.

What are we looking at – looking for? Our selves.

Experience our perceptions of life – Connect with the higher Presence -- God of our experience – Actively embrace who appears in God’s care as our newly returning selves.

The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.
Madeline L’Engle

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