GETTING CURIOUS
….. About why you are as you are
….and healing into the person you were born to become!
(P.S. ANYTHING CAN BE HEALED! Just takes a bit of time sometimes….)
Introduction
Getting Curious is intended to help you heal into the person you were born to become. It offers new perspectives, tools and questions to assist your recollections of your childhood. When you feel and understand how you were conditioned by childhood experiences, you can outgrow that old playpen of perception, and become your happiest, most authentic self.
***If you need it, support for this process is available. See the last page for information...***
Yet, perhaps just reading this material, answering questions and letting information bubble up from within, might be enough. Still, as Mac Rukka, a New Zealand aboriginal shaman once observed: “Calling on others who have already walked the long road from the head into the heart, can save a lot of time and trouble.”
Things to Remember:
When we are preparing to dive within, it’s best if the rest of our lives are stable and peaceful. If there is too much physical or emotional insecurity, wait until things have settled down before you begin.
If you are moderately or severely depressed, this material is not recommended. Wait until you are feeling better.
Take It Slow: Despite our technological expertise, human beings are not machines!!
Our psyches have rhythms of growth. Sometimes we develop rapidly and then plateau for a while to integrate what we have learned.
Real emotional and psychological growth is a little like the process of seed sprouting. You cannot force a seed to sprout or force yourself to grow.
Be gentle with yourself and your emotions. Focus on self-compassion. Take care of your physical body with exercise, fresh air and good nutrition.
Once the seed has sprouted, it has to put down roots into the ground and draw nutrients. Finally after all this effort, the growth starts to show.
Human evolution reflects this process. First we sprout into the recognition of our conditioning and its effect on our lives. Gradually, we integrate back in, the parts of ourselves that got lost. This is our root building.
Then comes the visible growth into our authentic nature, the green sprout pushing up through the soil, into the sunshine.
Just as internal pressure builds up in seeds before the sprouting occurs, we too might feel discomfiture right before we sprout i.e. begin to grow emotionally and psychologically.
In a way, the seed has to die in order to become something more. We too have to let go of our old identities in order to become our true selves.
It is such a relief to feel that you can become the person you were born to be. Maybe it’s a relief for the seed to have sprouted as well.
Happy Dance!!!!
Note: Getting Curious can be freely emailed on to anyone you think might be interested. Please last pages for more details.
Hi,
If you sometimes feel you are smarter, more talented, more attractive, and (dare you say it?) just greater than you appear, read on.
You are.
(This is not a joke!)
Just as the ugly duckling finds happiness when he recognizes his true swan nature, human beings find peace and contentment when they rediscover and embrace their true Selves.
Because children are physically and emotionally dependent on their parents or caregivers, they have a tendency to give up parts of themselves and their full intelligence, in order to fit into the emotional climate of the family.
This is just part of the human condition.
The patterns of this early conditioning (how we experienced life within our families) becomes our normal, our idea of reality. Many decisions about ourselves and our own worth are made very early, sometimes before we speak.
Unless we get curious and see what happened to us, these early decisions tend to run our experience of our lives, how we feel about ourselves and even our life events.
Healing comes as we recognize our childhood conditioning and acknowledge how it has impacted our lives. Out of this deep process, arises a self-compassion for our very human selves, together with a broader and more compassionate comprehension of the human condition.
This process brings wholeness and happiness.
….Please read in full before beginning to write…..
Once you start, try to complete within one or two months...
These simple questions are intended to jog your memory and assist in a greater understanding of why you are as you are, today.
Remember anything is healable. It is safe to get curious about what made you who you are.
It is far safer to get curious about it, because unless we face it, often the early events of our childhood, and the way we felt then, run our lives, even as adults.
Our parents or caregivers were doing the best they could, given their own conditioning and life circumstances. But when someone within a family turns and faces this conditioning with the intent to heal it, it reduces the load of emotional baggage coming down the family line to the next generation.
In this way, facing our own wounding is an act of incredible generosity.
When we face some of the perhaps uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that seethe just below the surface, we learn to acknowledge and embrace them in the energy of self-compassion.
This process brings peace and we receive incredible gifts that we could not receive any other way…..
The purpose of our emotional pain is that the discomfiture of it, motivates us to solve it. The solution is to heal into our true Natures.
Without the clam experiencing the irritant of the particle of sand, we wouldn’t have pearls.
Without acknowledging the high and low points of our lives, or the times as youngsters, that we shut down and tried to be less, or felt truly empowered, we cannot recover our full authentic power and energy.
Recollections in tranquility, to paraphrase English poet William Wordsworth, bring jewels of understanding and wisdom.
We all have pain. The good news is that intense emotional pain makes us humble and motivates us to honestly face ourselves, in much the same way that a person with a broken arm becomes very willing to go to a hospital to have his or her arm set.
It also teaches us compassion for others who might feel similar pain.
When we sit down to answer these questions, our own psyches move in to help us, starting to create a kind of safe haven within us. This emotional safe haven allows us to feel whatever comes up to be felt, even if the thoughts, feelings and sensations are uncomfortable sometimes.
You create a kind of energetic womb within. Inside this safe place, your hurt and vulnerable self, heals and transforms into the person you were born to become.
Gradually, through this process of remembering your past and embracing your emotions, understanding grows. We see what happened to us. A greater comprehension emerges. There could even be a peacefulness to this process.
Over time, this invisible womb within your male or female psyche births a new “You”, a wiser you, a more peaceful, intelligent you.
You may have intuited the presence of your real self, deep inside, but felt unable to bring it out, to live it. But now you have found a way!
This process is the opposite of trying to fix oneself. It is more the art of learning to love yourself. Trying to fix ourselves never works because ironically, it is our wounded and frightened parts that tell us perfection is more important than true authenticity.
Any loving mom doesn’t want perfect kids so much as she wants her kids to feel safe and loved enough to be able to grow into the people they born to become. Getting Curious is intended to help you become that Mom to yourself.
It is likely that this process will catalyze dreams as your psyche begins the process of healing.
All dreams, even uncomfortable dreams, come to help us. Sometimes dreams show us parts of ourselves we are hiding from or repressing, to help us weave in new talents or understandings.
The trouble is that when we first discover repressed bits of our psychological energy, they will seem ugly to us. But if we just stay as neutral as possible and see our dreams or inner experiences as part of the healing, these old repressed energy quickly transforms into beautiful gifts….a new sensitivity, a feeling of brotherhood to all humanity, an increased ability to express ourselves or more inner peace.
We just need patience with ourselves just as any loving parent needs patience with children who are tired or unhappy.
There is nothing wrong with any dream you could possibly have, no matter what. Be assured that you are just becoming more! They are just messages to help you.
Stay open to them and lightly ponder their meanings. Keep a dream journal, including your thoughts and feelings about your dreams, especially when you first awake. This practice will assist you to open into more self-awareness.
As we embrace all the parts of ourselves, ugly or not, with self-compassion, our minds become broader and less judgmental, allowing us to decode and understand the purpose behind our lives.
Becoming less judgmental personalities really helps us live happier and more productive lives. Why waste our precious life energy feeling bad about ourselves or criticizing others? What an emotional prison that is!
The truth will set you free but first it may make you feel a little miserable as you remember some events or feelings.
But if your intent is to heal, you will… Real healing takes time just as pregnancy does, although a mom might sometimes feel uncomfortable or impatient….Part of the learning is patience……
The transcendent purpose of our early imprinting, even if it really hurt, is to motivate us to heal. Then with healing, we discover that we are far more than we had ever dreamed we could become.
In a ridiculous kind of way, it is a bit like someone who has always hidden their dirty clothes behind the closet door.
Now tired of forever squandering their paycheck on the constant (and exhausting!) search for new clothes, this person sees they can either keep the game going or just open the closet door and start washing.
Once you start washing, you’ll find it isn’t so bad. It is cheaper, less exhausting and less stressful than constantly being haunted by the mound of dirty clothes behind the closet door. Besides, you will rediscover some favourite outfits you have forgotten about!
The same feeling or relief comes when you begin to face your emotional baggage.
Remember, no matter what happened, by writing about it and feeling the pain (or the other emotions) of it for a short period of time, you will grow beyond it.
As you carefully consider and answer these questions, you will step past your old limited idea of yourself.
You will see that you are more than the events of your childhood and your life choices until now.
As you realize that you can recover all the parts of yourself that you have lost along the way, you will discover new talents, find more energy, enjoy life more and probably experience physical changes.
For example, people often report that they feel and look lighter, without loss of weight. This occurs because there are subtle energy fields beyond the body which store our trauma. When they clear, it affects not only your aura, but also the physical body, giving it more health, vitality and natural beauty.
You could go through times where your body aches or feels stiff, or you feel older than you are but again, THESE ARE TRANSITION PERIODS.
Clearing our emotional baggage ALWAYS brings us more into health, physically, emotionally, and mentally.
Your story begins with your conception and the time you spent in your mom’s tummy as a fetus and embryo before being born as an infant.
In many societies, such as India, it is believed that the mom’s thoughts and emotional states have enormous impact on the new life forming within her.
Beyond this, it is held that even the thoughts and relationship of the parents at conception affect the child, so that even sincerely and deeply wishing to conceive an intelligent and noble-hearted child will influence the baby that way.
Even Western psychology agrees that the time between your birth and about age six is the time when you made most of your decisions about who you are and what you could expect of life.
Perhaps too, the West could realize that maybe simpler societies have some wisdom and depth to share that could help us become happier and less stressed.
If your circumstances were less than perfect, you can still recover your full self and live your best possible life. It just takes some time and effort.
We have to feel again the emotions and feelings we felt as little ones and this time, love ourselves through it, calling on Universal love/The Tao for help. Or Jesus, the Buddha, Krishna or Amma.
Feeling well loved gives a child more inner peace, self-trust and resilience. Likewise, if you imagine and cultivate the feeling of receiving universal beneficent help, this will assist your healing into your best self. (This may take practice. Fake it ‘til you make it!)
As a small one, you knew the truth, that you were someone of great value. Now you are embarking on the journey to heal back into your true essential personality, the person you were born to become.
Please read below, identifying yourself with the “I”.
At the point of conception and later when I was growing in my mother’s womb, I was awake in my soul consciousness.
I really knew the reasons why I had chosen to come to earth at that time, why I had selected my parents, and what I hoped to achieve in my life.
As the weeks and months passed, I registered all my mother’s thoughts and emotions, including her fears and hopes for me. I felt how much I really wanted to wake up this lifetime, how much I wanted to remember who I really was and to live the life I came here to live and do the work I came to do.
I am choosing to awaken to my true nature. I know that the Universe will always support an authentic intent to awaken.
But I also understand that there is an enormous amount that I do not know and so I have to be humble enough to learn.
If your mom is still alive, you can ask her questions, such as what was her experience of being pregnant with you like?
If she can remember and is open to speaking to you about it, ask what was going on with her… how did she feel about being pregnant with you? What was going on in her relationship with your father?
Where there any big events that occurred during her pregnancy with you? Did she move house? Did anyone close to her become sick or die?
Was she excited, scared, or confused? What did she hope for you? What was her worst fear?
What was her relationship with her own mother like? Were there any complications to the pregnancy or your birth?
Remember, sometimes parents forget about what was going on with them. Also, these kind of questions can bring up material that is uncomfortable or even frightening to them.
Perhaps, they can’t deal with it and can’t speak honestly. If so, do your best to recognize this and cultivate compassion and understanding for them.
Then their fear and refusal does not have to impact you negatively. Gradually, you will become objective about their limitations without feeling you have to continue them yourself.
It can be shocking to find out the truth…i.e. supposing you were an unwanted pregnancy… yet, what you will hear will explain how you have always felt within yourself, underneath.
Children know the truth of things even before they speak. If parents are not straight and clear with youngsters, kids can blame and distrust themselves, deciding that there is something wrong with them and their own inner feelings about things.
This is where self-doubt and lack of self-trust are born, in the early experience of a chasm between what the child knew and experienced internally and what was acknowledged or understood by the parent.
But all this is just part of the human conditioning. Besides, the practice of calling on help from the Tao can return you to internal peace, wisdom, and your full colour spectrum of truth, talents and personality.
Questions: Parents….
The word parents is used but can apply to just one parent or to another very key figure who helped raise you. Just answer in whatever way that makes sense to you.
Some of the questions involve asking for information which is obviously only possible if your parent(s) are still alive. If they are no longer living, perhaps you could experiment with imagining speaking to them and hearing what they might say.
How do you feel about your parents presently? Do you look like one of them particularly? Which parent did you feel closest too growing up? Which parent are you closer to now?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of each parent? What do you like or dislike about each parent? What did each parent value most about you? What characteristic(s) of yours was the toughest for each parent?
Remember, you are free to add your own questions, especially if they arise from inside you. Your true Nature will be helping you in this process to become more clear and authentic.
Infancy:
What kind of a birth did you have? Were there any medical procedures such as a Caesarian section? How did you greet the world? Quietly or did you cry lustily?
Were you placed on your mom’s stomach? How did she feel when she saw you? What were her thoughts about her new baby?
How soon did you return from the hospital?
At home, did you have your own room, share with siblings or did you stay in your parents’ room? If you stayed in another room, how far from your parents room was it? How was it decorated?
If you were with siblings, what did they do when you cried if anything? Were they old enough to comfort you?
What is your first memory? Was it happy or sad? Were there other people around or were you alone?
Did your mom nurse you? Or were you bottle fed? Why? If you were breast fed, how long were you nursing?
What kind of baby were you temperamentally? Did you have colic or any other difficulty? Were you healthy with a good appetite? How much did you sleep?
Are there any family stories about you as a baby?
The questions and the ones coming later are intended to jog your memory about being a baby, a toddler and a preschooler.
As you write down what you remember, try not to judge or edit the material or the feelings that might come up as you do this. (Just do your best!)
Find pictures of your baby self and make a picture book if you can.
To assist you to learn to love yourself, you might look at the pictures and steer yourself to feeling compassion for the infant and toddler you were.
You might even talk aloud to the small one you once were, and give your little child-self the loving compassion you might have needed earlier.
The good news is you can receive it now. Seeing this will help direct your psyche toward more self-love and self-acceptance.
What does your mom say about you as a little one? What does your dad say? What kind of small one were you? Quiet? Playful? A Character? Do either of them have any special memories of you as a baby?
Were their favourites in your family? Were you a favourite? If not, who was? Did the favourites change as the years passed?
Once parents start focusing on your childhood, they might start to remember a lot and speak easily.
Sometimes people can’t remember or don’t want to remember but often, in an atmosphere of peaceful inquiry, parents remember quite vividly.
Just let your parents offer you what they remember and try not to push or criticize.
Try and understand that their emotional wounding – what happened to them in their childhoods – might come up as part of the experience of answering your questions.
Many adults are still injured children underneath their grown up façade.
See if you can learn to let your heart become bigger. Try to embrace what your parent/s tell you. If you feel judgment or feel upset, embrace that, just be with those emotions.
One way to deal with upset, is to bring your focus to your heart area. Getting into this habit will stop you from getting caught in your head so much and will keep you more grounded. Over time, it will also promote feelings of self-compassion and compassion for others.
Ask your own questions as they arise within you. Often the flow of the information exposes other emotional/factual material that will help explain some deeper feelings within you, things you perhaps half felt underneath, but couldn’t explain why.
Write about it all, rather than taking out your pain on others who also will be in pain, even if they are hiding it from you.
Creativity helps us express and release uncomfortable emotional states. Working with clay, drawing, painting, writing, or music, can help very much. So can exercise.
Pets can help as well ground us as we grow emotionally and spiritually.
Very important, is to develop a habitual attitude of self-compassion.
If this is difficult, just learn to bring your focus repeatedly to your heart area, as discussed above. It works as well.
A habit of self-compassion or a habit of returning your mental focus to your heart area will transform your life. Once this attitude is deeply lodged in your unconscious, your life will lighten up immeasurably.
Toddler…
Do you know when you started walking or talking?
Did your parents care if you were fast or slow to do these things?
Do you have any brothers and sisters? What birth order are you in, and how many years are their between you?
If you didn’t have siblings, did you wish them?
Did your parents think you looked like either your mom or your dad? Was there anyone in the extended family that you looked like?
Did you move house during the years from 0 to 6?
Were there any big family events? If so what were they?
Do you remember being scared or hurting yourself or being hurt physically?
Do you remember any outfits that you wore?
Did your family include members of your extended family? Were members of your extended family invited to birthday and holiday celebrations?
As a little one, which family members, including your extended family, did you feel close to? Why?
Which ones did you feel more distant to? Why?
Did you have two sets of grandparents? Grandparents can have a magical quality for small ones and enhance a child’s feeling of self-worth.
Write about the characteristic of each grandparent and your feelings about each one, if they were around you in childhood.
As a toddler, did you have your own room or did you share with others? Do you remember what colours the walls were or any picture or decoration? Your favourite or signature toy?
Did you have a favourite blanket or cuddly doll to comfort you and help you get to sleep at night? If so, how long did you have them for?
Did you have pets as a little one? What were they like? Do you remember their names? How did you feel about them? Where did they sleep?
What were you particularly known for, as a little one? What behaviors did your parents encourage or consider cute and what did they discourage?
Do you remember getting in trouble? What would you most likely get in trouble for? How frightened did you feel when you did something you knew you shouldn’t have? What kind of discipline did you receive? Describe.
How did you feel about your own name? Did you like it?
Do you remember any dreams from this time? Did you have any recurring dreams or nightmares as a child?
If you got scared during the night, what did you do? Could you crawl into bed with your parents or a sibling?
What did you eat for breakfast and lunch when you were little? Did you have any favorite foods?
What sort of activities did you like? Were there any activities that you just loved to do? Things you hated to do?
Do you remember how you used to feel as a toddler?
Physically? Emotionally? What was your temperament like? Extroverted? Introverted? Happy? Thoughtful? Shy?
Do you remember your home? What did it look like?
Was it crowded or more spacious? Think about your neighborhood and how it looked and felt to you.
If you moved as a child, try to remember your different homes and neighbourhoods. What did they look and feel like to you?
Did you go to daycare or preschool? What experiences do you remember? Did you have any favorite teachers or friends? What were their names?
Did you take lessons to learn special skills? Did you go outside to play? Do you have any memories of your parents taking you to any particular places like a park, playground or down by the river or to the beach?
When were you happiest? Was it easier being a boy or a girl in your family or was there no difference?
Did you go to kindergarten? Do you remember your teacher’s name? Were the kids friendly? Did you make friends? What were your favorite activities?
Take some time to think about your early childhood and the feelings and emotions that arise within you as you contemplate that time in your life?
Just thinking about and feeling what memories and emotions come up for you, will bring you more information about your history, your child self and you will find that it will subtly raise your awareness and even your intelligence.
The more parts of ourselves that we learn to judge as bad and to repress, the more defenses and denials we carry. This makes us unhappy and lowers our available intelligence… (Ergo, we don’t see what is staring us in the face.)
The more we open to the information arising from our true Natures, the lighter we feel, the safer and happier we feel and the more our intelligence is freed up.
What was the name of the school you went to in Grade one? What was the building like?
What was the name of your teacher? How did you feel about this person? How many children were in the class? What were your favourite subjects?
How did you feel when you went to school in the mornings? How did your body feel?
Do you remember any big events at school? Do you remember any significant events in your family during Grade one?
How did your parents feel your school experience? Did they encourage you to do well or did they not seem to care either way?
If you had trouble at school with a teacher, or with other kids, write about it and describe your own and your parents’ response.
Go right into your feelings about all this.
How did you get to school? How did you get home?
Did your parents work full time? If they did, what did you do after school? What did you feel about it?
Write as much as you can about each grade of school; the name of the school if you changed schools; the teacher; how you felt, names of any school mates; any trouble or unhappiness; any good times; and what subjects or activities you remember enjoying or not enjoying.
Were you a kid who sat at the back of the class, at the front, caused trouble or had lots or few friends?
Sometimes it feels like an effort to bother thinking about all this and recording it in a journal, but if you just keep at it, your remembrances will start coming and you will feel again some of your feelings from that time.
Include your experience of summer holidays. How did you spend the summer months? Did you travel? Did you attend summer camps at all or go to your own family cottage? Did you visit grandparents or other members of your extended family?
Take your time thinking back and remembering.
Doing these things will inevitably bring up old material from the past. Don’t be afraid of this process.
If your intention is to free yourself by going into this material, you will become freer and clearer for having done it.
If you feel temporarily unhappy doing all this, please focus on compassion for yourself and if you can, on anyone who caused you unhappiness.
If you can’t do that, try to keep bringing your consciousness back to your heart area. And feel your feed on the ground!
Alternatively or concurrently, imagine giving your unhappiness over to the Tao, or to the Universal Love that created this universe. Or to Jesus, Buddha, Krishna or Amma….There is a reason is why doing this is so important…..
When we give things over to a higher intelligence, we give our psyches more room to come up with solutions to our problems. It is like feeling confined in a dark room and suddenly realizing we can open the door and walk out into the sunshine.
Remember, all children give up parts of their true selves to fit into their family of origin. But no matter how difficult our early years were, we can learn to retrieve the parts of ourselves that we left behind.
To do this, we have to feel again the pain we felt as children, but just for a minute or two. As we cry in deep sorrow at how separate and unsafe we feel, these split-off parts return, warming up our lives and increasing (freeing up) our talents and even our intelligence.
This process gets easier and easier. Gradually we become mentally, emotionally and even physically healthier. Life becomes rich with meaning. Basically all these questions are just intended to jog your memory but material beyond these questions may come up so just write about that too.
Write about everything you can think of, from your childhood to grade 12.
Pay particular attention to your adolescence, what puberty was like for you. Describe any changes that occurred in your body and in your moods.
What was it like for you socially? How did you feel about your adolescent body?
How did you feel about being male or female?
How did your family respond to your gender?
Was either maleness or femaleness respected more than the other sex or was each gender valued equally? Were there certain jobs assigned to the females and males or did both sexes pitch in and do whatever chore was presenting at the time?
Who was your first love? If you had a relationship, what was it like and how long did it last? Did you become involved sexually?
Did you have any issues with your sexuality? Describe? How did your family respond?
How was your academic life?
How did your parents react to your adolescence and the events that came with it?
Do you remember any conflicts? Any unusually happy times?
Did your family have a particular set of religious beliefs? Did you attend church? How did you feel about this? Were their benefits? Were their difficulties?
If your parents were not affiliated with a particular religion, did they spend time with you communicating values or principles to live by? What was their example to you, by the way they lived their lives?
What did each parent admire the most? This could be a person, place or thing or value.
What did you admire the most as a child, and then as an adolescent and then now?
As a child, and then as an adolescent, what did you want to be when you grew up? What kind of life did you dream of?
If you write out these answers and the thoughts that come to you, by hand, keep the record of it. You may wish to do this more than one time, even many times.
Try to notice if there are any changes in your life or understanding, which come as a result of your efforts to remember your past, in order to comprehend your present.
The more you keep records of what you find out, the more you will be able to see your progress as you compare the various versions of what you have written. You might see and feel how you have grown by writing each version.
Wisdom comes as we recover the parts of ourselves we lost in childhood.
It is very brave work to do this but it really brings great gifts of peace and understanding and more that cannot come any other way.
You can do this exercise many times over the years. Each time you will retrieve more information, more understanding and more parts of yourself.
Sometimes your body might ache, or even hurt, as the new understanding is integrated into it, but don’t worry. Just be patient. The aches and pain will disappear and you will feel more energetic and healthier.
You could even feel very stiff for a while, perhaps as you feel again some of the rigidities that you grew up with. Just let it be, and it will disappear and you will find your point of view becoming less rigid and intolerant.
Some people might feel heat in their body as unconscious anger is cleared. Or looking at this material could cause anxiety.
The secret to handling anxiety is to understand it is just fear of your true Nature.
Knowing this, you could just let the anxiety be. Think of being with a very scared child. You would just comfort and reassure the young one. Now try and do that with yourself. If you just experience anxiety, and just observe your state, it will dissipate
(This might take some practice!!!!)
The really exciting thing about this process is that you will always receive a big gift. You will receive the part of your true Nature that the anxiety was hiding from you.
Now you will also be carrying less fear into your life which means that things will open up for you.
How could this not occur?
The truth is that the fewer defenses we are carrying to our authentic Selves, the less our true energy is obstructed. As we free ourselves from the emotional prison of our early conditioning, we blossom and bear fruit and give our gifts.
Remember, before you begin the exercise, set the intention to grow into your full personhood in a useful, gentle way. Intend for great good to come to you and to those around you, as a result of this soul retrieval.
For those truly motivated to uncover and understand your true Self, writing out your full life story, from birth to your present day, can be very helpful.
Or sometimes just going through the questions in Getting Curious several times, helps deepen our clarity, perspective and grasp of our emotional material, strengthening our ability to gain freedom from the emotional prisons of our limited conditioning.
But beyond this, give some thought to who you want to become, what kind of person do you want to be?
How do you want to feel?
Many wise people, have suggested the importance of values and constructive principles of living.
If we decide to live in service to something greater than our own needs or wants, such as serving humanity or the greater good, it is amazing how universal love will solve problems for us.
Just as the elves and fairies of fairytales assist the heroine or hero to achieve impossible feats, our service to something beyond ourselves, mobilizes our full psyches, giving us extra strength, intelligence and stamina.
Real change is slow and sometimes it feels that our problems are unsolvable but they are very solvable.
Most often we need to accept ourselves and our situations. When we do that, our outer circumstances change.
Things change because our acceptance of ‘what is’, comes from our eternal Nature or the Tao within.
This process of opening to and communing with our true Essence, heals everything.
It heals our lives, helps everyone, (especially those around us,) and strengthens Mother Nature!
If this seems a stretch to imagine, just know it would be considered commonsense in many simpler societies….
For instance, in ancient Hawaii and some South Pacific islands, it was believed that physical illness was connected to how people treated each other.
It was believed disease had its origins in anger or causing hurt to others and that secrecy gave power to illness. It was felt that when an error was confessed, it no longer had power over a person.
While this might be able to be done internally, through admitting something to oneself and being willing to change, the ancient Hawaiians encouraged the practice of reconciliation and forgiveness through Ho’oponopono.
Ho’oponopono featured family conferences where relationships were set right by prayer, discussion, confession, repentance and forgiveness. It was considered very important that everyone’s feelings were heard and acknowledged, to facilitate a true and permanent healing.
This process can also be done internally. You can imagine all your family members sitting at the table with you. You can speak to those at your table in your imagination and listen to what they say to you. You can offer forgiveness and ask for it, if necessary.
Because we are all connected, your family members will be subtly aware of your inner communication with them. The more sincere and beneficent your intention, the better.
Our psyches know far more than we realize. By choosing to engage in these kind of practices, we allow the bigger understanding already within us, to emerge.
It heals us. This process can feel a little like land emerging from the ocean. All of a sudden, we have more inner space and our whole existence feels roomier and more peaceful.
Another healing practice is to identify the biggest emotional difficulty rooted in your past and ask other people in a group to act it out with you. Because Everything is One, you will find that others are incredibly accurate in the way they act and speak. This practice can bring more peace, understanding and resolution to an emotional wound.
(A big healing ingredient is the act of exposing the trouble in the first place and then allowing others to help. Doing this heals inner feelings of being separate from others and from life.)
Remember no matter what happened to us as little ones, we are all responsible for our choices as adults. Maybe take time to reflect how you are living this precious life and how you would wish to be remembered.
Maybe think this way...Your life so far has been perfectly orchestrated by your transcendent Self. All your (so-called) imperfections and mistakes were necessary, to prepare you to outgrow the person you have been in order to become the individual you were born to be.
What if the conditioning you have received, has been (lovingly) tailor made for you to facilitate important lessons? This approach stops us from blaming others and shifts us into a new neutrality. We start getting curious about our past and the reasons for it.
Realizing that its origins might even arise from other lives, really opens our minds and hearts. Just supposing, our troubles have their roots in our own actions in other lives. Even if this is so, we, in our current lives, are not personally to blame now. Nor are the persons who have caused us pain. Really, our only power is to steer toward compassion and forgiveness for ourselves and others who are attending the sometimes tough school that is life on earth.
When we realize this on an emotional, not just intellectual level, that we can outgrow and transcend our past, we awaken on every level. It is a thrilling experience, even if disconcerting.
Stay open and the help you need will come.
(All we can do is our best as we live during this challenging time. We do not have be perfect! In fact, making mistakes is crucial to the process of awakening to the deeper meaning in life.)
Still, it could be important to think about what you would like to have written on your gravestone ….
Because all human beings only get so much time here to dance before it ends.
So go back, take a thoughtful look at the questions and let the process of answering, help you to recover those parts of yourself you might have left behind.
If you answer sincerely, you will start to feel a greater peace, comprehension and sense that you are starting to live the life you came here to live!!!!
Remember although it might seem like a long shot to the Western mind, in the East it would be understood that the Universe supports the process of looking inward.
Just as the great oak lies within the acorn, your best self lies within you, under layers of conditioning.
You just need to see and feel what happened to you, go neutral on it, (forgive others and yourself) and sprout.
Please don’t worry about the amount of emotional baggage you face. Truly anything can be healed!
Just as the lotus arises out of the mud, great compassion and wisdom comes as we understand and grow out of the mud of our conditioning.
In fact, the greater our emotional wounding, the greater the gift we bring to the collective, as we heal.
(When the going gets tough, the tough get going!!!!!)
We can count on universal support because even though it might be easy to forget, or not see clearly, the point of life is for all of us to achieve self-awareness.
When we start to live out our best life, we help everyone and everything, including Mother Nature Herself.
Turning to look within, is by far, the most powerful action we can take within our lives. Anyone who is willing to go inside, is a hero.
Premasudha Janet Hobbs lives in N. Vancouver B.C. Canada.
***Premasudha is always interested in feedback and supporting people doing this work.
Please count on the fact that you will always have Premasudha’s very compassionate energetic support for your growth in awareness, through her prayers, best wishes and her capacity for unconditional love.
***If more formal support is needed, please see her website and contact her to arrange monthly email support, phone calls, sessions and workshops.***
Her email is: thecompassionateway@gmail.com.
Websites: www.thecompassionateway.com and www.thecompassionateshaman.com (Please keep reading….there is more…)
To obtain the most spectacular support of all, please get a hug from Amma. This amazing woman travels all around the world to reach as many people as she can. Please see: www.amma.org.
Premasudha will include Getting Curious in an interactive, internet course she is building, entitled: Living The Compassionate Way.
Just a couple more things to discuss…
***Please feel free to share Getting Curious with any individuals who might be interested in this tool, to help them look within…..
But please inform the author if you wish to use Getting Curious in the public sphere and/or for material gain. It has been registered as a copyright and all rights are reserved. *** ……And finally……
Huge Blessings!
Love Premasudha
P.S. See Premasudha’s books on amazon.com kindle.
Special thanks to David Hobbs, Bhavya Corina Menz and Prathibha Andrea Gray Grant for their help with feedback, suggestions and editing.
Copyright 2014 All Rights Reserved