Presence of Mind …

Once exposed to the spiritual principles of Mind, Consciousness and Thought, we can sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that because we understand how our psychological functioning manifests, we should be able to live with clarity and equilibrium all the time. This hasn’t happened for me and I also suspect it is not a reflection of normal, healthy functioning. But seeing the action of the principles in my life has made a big difference, even during disequilibrium.

Spiritual intelligence … information, guidance, wisdom … is always active. It is part of our operating system. It is not meant to numb out life experience, to render all experience neutral, rather, in my experience its purpose is to inform it. As a working, solo, mother I invariably have times in which there is a lot on my plate and my mind is anything but calm. But the difference for me now that I am conscious of the principles and their manifestation, is that I can recognise when my mind is busy, sometimes very busy, AND I have the presence of mind not to speak or act from that mindset and instead to look after myself as best I can.

Sometimes, looking after myself impels me to withdraw from the busy-ness of my life and to write, or read, play Uno, lie down, or any other activity wisdom offers. There are also times when I can’t withdraw and I simply have to proceed with my schedule as best I can. But even then I know it is my thinking that I am experiencing and I trust that I don’t have to keep my thinking alive, that life will continue to unfold and that everything I am juggling in my head is probably not that important. So I continue with my life, withdrawing my attention to my busy mind and being present as much as I can to who or what is before me. And then there are other times when even that seems beyond me.

quinninupOver the Christmas break I took several members of my family and my dogs away for a week. Our very rustic self catered accommodation was nestled in the quiet serenity of the southern forests and away from more popular tourist destinations. Kangaroos abounded and the nearest town was half an hour away. In my mind it was perfect for time to read, write and reflect. Not so. All decision making and physical work rested with me. My dogs had to accompany us everywhere, a troublesome knee flared and I spent much of the time in pain. But whilst I was overloaded with responsibility, I also knew that the overwhelm I was experiencing was all my own creation.  Thought and consciousness come together to create experience, for everyone, and I was no exception.

Knowing this made things easier. I couldn’t change the demands upon me but I could do what I could to calm my thinking. I turned my attention and thinking about external events to looking after myself. The shift of attention to my internal source of wisdom for guidance on caring for myself brought immediate relief. I managed to take some time out to rest and read. And I called on others to help when this was possible. I reigned my thinking in to what I could do and let go of everything else. There were still times when it was clear I was stressed, and wisdom supported me to have the presence of mind to not act from my agitated state.  I didn’t voice some of the thoughts sailing through. I was mindful of my tone of voice. And I consciously opened up gentler topics of conversation. At times, I acted rather than react.

I did the best I could with the wisdom that came to me in the circumstances in which I found myself. Wisdom is wonderfully responsive to the unique nuances of our lives. Why would we go anywhere else for help? The physical and mental demands whilst I was away were too big but I had wisdom to call on and it offered the best that could be done. We spent time visiting places of interest, we ate well, we played games and my dogs survived a more restrained routine. And now I am much clearer on what I need to truly give myself the relaxation and rest I need, and I am more committed to time with my family whilst they are around me. Thankfully wisdom is with me, always.

What if ….

Bibra LakeSitting in the lush grounds surrounding Bibra Lake, my friend and I chatted about our lives. She was in the throws of renovating their home in preparation for sale. The prospect of ‘home opens’ loomed and she commented that she didn’t want to go through them. And in the next breath, she dismissed this personal truth  with, “But that’s just my thinking I suppose, so I guess I will need to do them.” So often I have heard people exposed to the three principles understanding of our spiritual nature write off the truth of words they utter with the comment, “but it’s just a thought”. This is crazymaking. Thought is streaming through us all the time. Anything we think can be written off as ‘just a thought’. But that doesn’t help us navigate life. I commented that not wanting to do home opens is her truth and I wondered why we negate the truth of what comes out of our mouths.

When I first had my insight it was about the logic/common sense/wisdom that had surfaced in my consciousness during years of living in an unhealthy relationship. The insight was simple. The thought that I should leave the relationship was accurate, yet I overrode it with all sorts of twisted thinking. When I had the insight I was relieved that I was not insane and that my thinking was valid. What I didn’t see in that moment was that that stream of spiritual intelligence was speaking to me all the time – I just didn’t know how to recognise it. Could this lack of awareness be the one thing in the way of life with more peace and love?

What if we assume that our beings have everything inbuilt to maintain equilibrium and health? What if we have a innate operating system of spiritual intelligence running through us that is is speaking to us constantly about how we need to interact with the world so that our unique makeup is maintained and we are fulfilled? What if, the key to life is to heed that intelligence, listen and respond?

My colleague recounted a story of a woman who had been looking after another friend’s cat whilst its owner was seriously ill in hospital. The cat was rather demanding and the woman commented that she couldn’t meet the cat’s needs. The person seriously ill passed away and the cat remained. The woman who had been looking after it heeded her truth and arranged for the cat to reside in a cattery. The choice of cattery was an interesting one in that the woman chose it on the basis of its ‘feeling’. Each week the woman would visit the cattery and spend time with the cat in question. The story unfolded further with the cat finally finding a loving home in which its needs could be met.

When I listen to people (and myself) talk about the problems in their lives I am always struck by how often the solutions come out of their mouths but are then dismissed. Where did we learn to dismiss truth from our true nature? All of us have spiritual intelligence (formless) talking to us and it seemed to my friend and I that it is often coming up against formed unconscious thoughts about the nonexistence of innate spiritual intelligence streaming through us. It exists, it is alive, personal, responsive and wise. When words come out of our mouths that bring tears of spiritual recognition, we are experiencing a moment when our mindset has loosened and we have heard something from beyond. When we have an insight, a moment of recognition, it is another moment when spiritual intelligence has broken through our unconscious armour and we have heard from beyond. When we have a gut feeling about something, that is our spiritual intelligence communicating, and we need to listen. Perhaps most of all, we need to listen to the words that come out of our mouths. Innate spiritual intelligence is much more abundantly present than we think. What if much that we dismiss is wisdom we need to heed?

Am I really lonely?

Ever pondered loneliness and what it is really about?

I am not in intimate relationship, haven’t been for quite some time, and for many months on end that circumstance doesn’t even cross my mind. But today, I had a moment when I felt a gaping hole of isolation and loneliness within.

It was a fleeting moment, and I tried not to pay too much attention to it, but a troubling thought had birthed a troubled feeling and it wasn’t going away. All my moments thereafter seemed to be tarnished with that feeling , and as the afternoon progressed, my state of being deteriorated. Unlike Santa joyously handing out beautiful gifts from abundance, I felt more and more burdened with bleakness.

By the time I got home I felt the impulse from beyond the troubled feeling to find a quiet space and write.  I grabbed my journal and retired to my room to write. No censoring, no plan for where it would take me, just put down the thoughts that came. A paragraph or two and clarity began to emerge.

Every day I live a very rich and fulfilling everyday life. No glamour, just getting out there and doing what I do, allowing my thoughts to come and go and enjoying insights as they come. For years, I have lived those ‘everydays’ without a significant other and been untouched by thoughts made up about that. Until today, when, in a split second, my thinking created a deeper level of meaning around a circumstance and I was left feeling sad and lonely.

Thought, not events, creates our feelings. Thoughts create the ebb and flow of feelings as we move through our day and if we leave them alone they pass by. It was truly liberating to see the deeper meaning I had created with my thinking about the experience of not having a significant other. I am on my own and for 99.9% of my days I make no meaning out of that and live fully engaged with life. But today, I created a different experience of the very same everyday ordinariness. Our experience of life is truly inside out.

We are all not really alone. The insights, the ‘aha’ moments, the clarity, those experiences all come through us – from somewhere way beyond the boundaries of our selves. We are all always wisdom … oneness …  and if we are experiencing anything different, we are thankfully just making it up. Listen to innate wisdom and our creations disappear.

 

Unlimited Possibilities

There are some brilliant free resources available for those interested in learning about the three principles understanding of how human beings work. A practitioner I particularly enjoy is Judy Sedgeman. Her website http://www.three-principles.com includes the METV Series: Innate Health, consisting of training videos with contributions from esteemed practitioners such as George Pransky, Linda Pransky, Aaron Turner, Christine Heath, Bill Pettit and Rudi Kennard. Last week I watched the first video several times and was struck by a deeper appreciation of how insights change us. It inspired the creation of the visual below.

In the moment of experiencing an insight, everything changes. Prior to that moment, thinking arises out of formed thought, it already exists, and depending on what is being lived in the moment can be accompanied by a feeling state we may perceive as normal, even if it feels tense, tight or anxious. But when an insight occurs, unlimited pure potential is opened up and our thinking is free to take a different form. It enters with a completely different feeling.

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Recently I have experienced 3 insights which in the moment created a significant shift in my awareness and feeling state, leading to significant change. The first occurred when I noticed how I was starting each day – usually with a feeling of overwhelm, even after a solid night’s sleep. From my experiences and awareness of the three principles that explain how human psychology works I knew that my feeling was not due to the demands of my working life. Instead, it was being created from within my own mind. It was then that I got curious about what it was that I was thinking that was creating my reality. Bam! Insight entered and I could see the underlying template I had innocently imposing on my beautiful life. At an unconscious level I entered each day seeing it as a series of problems to solve. This was a personal reality I was creating – but that didn’t make it true. Life could be anything! This insight was huge. Immediately my mood elevated and my body loosened.

In the second example, I once again became conscious of a ‘restrictive/limited’ feeling I was experiencing in regards to work that I considered I was ‘qualified’ to pursue. I was limiting my options. Again, I got curious about the nature of feeling and was blessed with the insight that the limitations I had imposed was simply due to thought I was entertaining within and that I could give myself permission to flourish as I chose. In the video mentioned earlier, George Pransky comments that no problem is a problem if we can see it as thought. Become aware of the feelings that accompany them and you open up a space for insight.

In my final example, I again had cause to pause and reflect on the feelings I was carrying around about my life. Once again, an insight enabled me to see that because I had categorized some activities as work and others as leisure, (the marketing industry is very good at promoting this dichotomy) it was no wonder that given my daily schedule, I was feeling like a worn out camel. But we’ve made this whole picture around work and leisure up. Activity is activity, life is life. It moves and flows and is filled with activities. My job is simply to follow the life that flows through me. Nothing I do need be a category to weigh me down – I am simply making that up.

Immediately following each of these insights I felt my body loosen and my feelings rise. Whilst those feelings will again change (thought is dynamic) I notice an increasing ability to notice and live from a truer state of being – wisdom.