Category Archives: Empath

05.24.23
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Like a nice breeze on a spring day..

I’ve been practicing “understanding” and “releasing what doesn’t serve me” for the last 5 years. (This, after 60 years of trying to rationalize my unhappiness, frustration and anger). I, now, recognize that my mind usually grasps for must-know what will happen in the next moment so that I’m safe. Relying on the illusions in past experiences to determine the worthiness of other humans…the judgments, love/hate/right/wrong about people/things while living from my head rather than my heart. I still struggle quieting preconceived notions about how I’m supposed to live and love…right and wrong…acceptable and unacceptable.

What I know in this moment is that I THINK TOO MUCH. I “think” because I “fear”. My expectations, my never ending scenario building, my panic when faced with the unknown seldom comes to fruition….

I have been mentally exhausting myself staying busy…doing, doing, doing…after awhile it turns into resentment, resentment, resentment. But don’t we need to keep “doing” in order to be productive happy humans…or at least to make others happy humans? NO!

I first had a whisper of what was going on a few months ago when I said out loud, I am so sick and tired of living by the calendar. Why do I continue to over commit myself doing things I might enjoy doing if I had time to enjoy them…but instead believing I must stay busy to be valued.

It hit me yesterday as I took my walk amongst the trees, watering the flowers and the garden, sitting on the deck reading with a cool beeeze while the sun warmed my skin. I realized I was doing something…exactly what I wanted to do. My heart was happy, my brain was silent and I understood the beauty of the heart vs the brain. Doing nothing is doing something…attending to myself from my heart instead of my mind/ego feels courageously gentle.

until next time….

10.30.21
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Meme your understanding

The good news is I’m starting to understand…understanding my little habits and attachments that eventually cause me pain and negativity and dis-ease. Actually I feel like this is a big step in the big picture of my life in the 6th decade… Just because I learned it as a child…perfected it as an adult and continue just mindlessly riding the wave …. does not mean I cannot change my thinking, my attitude, my habits!

So the Way I see this is it’s all me…it’s all my choices….its all the difference in my thinking…or lack of thinking. I either live life big and in the moment or I continue doing what I have been doing while lamenting the unfairness of life.

and I must say that once again I have been pulled into memes on social media including those that I just liked but did not take the time to check sources….but I decided to use this even though apparently Albert Einstein did not say it….its a mantra I have been rolling with for a couple years now and in my mind, it actually says everything that needs to be said.

Namaste

10.25.21
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MATH IS HARD….but so is life….

It seems I may have dumped a lot of something in my dream state last night…I woke up recognizing a clarity I have not had for the last few weeks…it’s not like I haven’t realized where my irritation, anger, judgement, hopelessness, and fear were percolating from…but, quite frankly, the more I rationalized and gave my thoughts a safe place to “think” the more miserable I was….and I knew it…I knew what was going on.

I don’t know if Albert Einstein actually said this but this life changing phrase was shared from someone’s consciousness and I am grateful!

A few years ago, I took a wild kinda route to changing my experience. I packed up and moved from everything I had ever known. I recognized I was circling the drain physically, mentally and spiritually a few years ago….and I also knew that if I continued struggling my way to air every single day…trying to make the same thinking work in a different way, I would succumb to becoming a lonely bitter old woman with negative, joyless and angry thought patterns just like my mother taught me. My breaking the glass to escape moment was not easy but I believe it was much easier than daily doing and thinking the same hateful, destructive thoughts. Fear of doing nothing finally became the worst possible life scenario.

If we are strong enough to get outside our head and breathe where we are planted….that does seem like the most comfortable route…but often that is not possible. The knowing is within…the solution is there and We know what the solution is….but the remedy of kicking away the blocks, of changing from the inside out can be daunting….until you know in that second that there really are no rules except of our own making and those rules manifest from fear that keeps us locked in and locked down.

namaste

08.29.21
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The surprise visit

I had a blessed visit this morning with my dad…..it manifested with steepled fingers. Elbows on the arms of the chair with all 5 hand digits touching each other only connecting at the finger pads. It’s one of those memories of seeing my dad sitting in his recliner with his head back with his hands touching in the steepled finger position. The very last time I saw my dad was from the door of his hospital room shortly before his transition, laying in bed with fingers in the steepled position occasionally moving his hands as if having a conversation with someone I could not see.

This morning during the Daily Word and meditation portion of our Unity Service with my eyes closed I felt tears beginning to trickle from the outer corners of my closed eyes and my attention was drawn to the fact that my elbows were resting on the arms of the chair and my 5 finger pads on each hand were touching in a steeple position and I knew that my dad was close by. I wondered why the visit!

The energy of my dad visits often when I am open to his guidance or I am in a moment when I recognize I’m feeling lost or lonely and need some love. It’s not that I actually reach out or seek his connection, it’s that he just appears in my vulnerable heart. I am learning to allow the embrace, allow the connection, recognizing that his presence is here with me always and most importantly understanding that his presence is as real as if he were looking at me across the room from his recliner in his physical form.

Namaste

03.21.21
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I AM WHAT I AM

I have been thinking it was retirement that has taken the pressure off. The pressure of no longer entertaining the belief that I’m not as smart or as worthy as everyone else…mentally living in my head believing that because I didn’t pursue a college educated career I wasn’t as good as or as worthy as others. That’s not it! I jumped out of bed this morning searching for pen and paper in order to get this most recent download recorded.

I’ve always known that I was raised by common parents…common being dad graduated from high school, enjoyed being with himself fishing or hunting, worked a “job” to make a living. Because of his job choice, he was able to take his art to work with him and create who he was on the job while hourly walking around pushing buttons and checking gages. I have no doubt I’m over simplifying his job. My mother didn’t graduate from high school but spent many of my growing up years taking sewing classes and living the life of a secretary for a lawyer. She always called herself a legal secretary and while I knew that “legal secretaries” were probably credentialed…she was theoretically a legal secretary.

I married into a cerebral family which didn’t help my self esteem at the time …. I just knew I was different than they were and did not fit into this family who I assumed looked down on me because I didn’t know “stuff”….I knew street smart stuff, I knew life stuff but I didn’t know the right stuff. The comparison that I always made was an illusion of my own making….if I had only known then what I know now.

I have always been exactly what I was meant to be…it was the ancestoral or familial blocks that had to be excavated, discarded so that I could understand I was a vital part of the whole of humanity. I contributed but I did not understand my part in the big picture was as important as the next person. So when I woke this morning with this knowing. There is nothing I need to do physically, mentally or spiritually to be who I thought I could be…These are just soul blocks that I’m in this lifetime to work through and remove. Being me is not something I need to aspire to …. it is what I AM.

Namaste

08.16.20
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Coffee and the pandemic

This morning one of those wormy kind of things wiggled its way into my consciousness and I recognized it as a symptom of my fear of scarcity. I won’t head dive into everything I’ve learned in the last couple of years about the fear of not having enough…whether it be money or toilet paper or love … but Once I recognized it in myself, I started questioning if this is the fear that has many hoarding toilet paper and chlorine wipes during this pandemic. This fear was a cloud I remember over my childhood…it probably goes without saying that a child should not grow up aware of their parents fear….but we know what sponges children are. My parents were young adults during the depression so I get it!

With that in mind, it is obvious when you look at my overflow closet in the basement that I buy in bulk. The difference in buying in bulk to save money and buying in bulk because of the comfort of always having what I think I need when I need it is a very thin line.

Just like all of my spiritual ah ha moments, I’m not sure why this realization showed up this morning…but I know it comes to be healed. I buy coffee in bulk …a box of 72 keurig morning blend and one box of dark roast. It used to be when the stash got down to 12 or 13 K cups, I knew it was time to reorder. Similar to a friends wife who sent her husband to the store for cartons of cigarettes when she was down to one carton in the closet.

Our morning cups are in the aqua vessel

This morning when I lifted the lid I realized that another 2 boxes of kcups arrived this week…I obviously did not need to order. The realization hit me that this is a bigger issue than I realized…this fear of running out. I think the pandemic and the run on toilet paper inflamed my “lack” nerve. Instead of irritation with the lack of toilet paper on the shelves of the grocery store, I send grace to those people who, perhaps, are also suffering from an unrecognized fear of lack. I need to offer grace to everyone who is not exactly like me because I have NO IDEA what their lives and their fears feel like to them!

Namaste

08.06.20
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Morning has broken

As morning broke with the sunrise, it took awhile for the full sun to rise over the cloud bank. The beams of sunlight edging the clouds was more beautiful each time I looked out the window until the majesty of the sun was a bright, blinding orb.

I took some deep breaths of gratitude for my view of the world outside my window.

I make an effort to avoid all of the negative, blaring news about our government, our lack of leadership, our current health crisis, our anger with each other, the ugliness that is in my face every time I turn on the TV or open my IPAD. I’m tired…I’m very tired. But the sunrise this morning reminded me that there is beauty out there…we must just focus on the natural wonders we see and dismiss what does not serve our highest good…onward and upward!

Namaste

06.27.20
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Do you ever wonder?

I spend a lot of time either agreeing or disagreeing with other humans. There are times when I’m neutral. But often I say in my head…what are they thinking? What are their demons? What happened to them? More like what the HELL happened to them? Thankfully I’m also able to say, how did I get so lucky with friendships? In spite of the the events in my life that I considered negative at the time, how did I get so lucky? I am grateful for the ability to now recognize Peace of Mind?

Laying in bed trying to get a nap in before work, I was focusing on my chakras because I have been feeling out of alignment…or to be honest…I’m tired, have been experiencing some fear and entertaining bitchy thoughts. While laying there I had the image of an older woman with large, lipstick decorated lips. My thoughts went to what would that be like to have well endowed lips. Would I talk differently, would I enunciate words differently? Would I look in the mirror and notice my beautiful lips first…or would I be focused on thin hair or tired eyes? What would it be like to look different? What would it be like to even have a different heritage…say black or asian? Would I be the same person inside..looking in the mirror but seeing a different face?

Of course I would be a different person inside having different life experiences. But, what if we could trade out bodies for a day? Would I understand the difference? Would I be less judgmental? Would I “get it”? Would I be the same after walking in someone else’s pumps?

Until next time…..

08.07.19
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Right now is the only moment I have

Because of my upbringing which I can sum up as do what you are told, no need to have a mind of your own because this is what you believe and this is what you will do, it took me a long time to realize that I was going to begin stepping out in my own direction. I still followed rules and, for the most part, laws, but I learned through experience that if you continue doing what you’ve always done and think with the same mind you used before, then you will have the exact same outcome. BUT…if you pay attention to nuances (which I now call intuition), speak with respect, do your homework and intelligently defend your case, then sometimes rules will be changed. I also learned that if the rules don’t change, you can either suck it up and follow the rules which MAY be the appropriate behavior or more likely for me, I would get mad…scream and holler in my head …. then organize like- minded individuals and go at it again…. being sure to attach some negative emotion to it so that in 20 or more years later, similar emotions about similar situations can rise up and before you know it you are overwhelmed in anger and hatred and vengeance which will probably be overblown for the situation…ie:road rage. There are many years and many experiences that have occurred before which exploded this workable problem into a full blown battle in your head. When they rise up, you will be reacting and responding the way you did 20 or more years ago to a completely different situation….the cycle just continues throughout life.

What did I just read or hear the other day..something to the effect….you can’t fix a problem with the same mind that created it.

My opinion as to the answer is not going to come from me in a 3 paragraph blog, or quite frankly, from me at all…I’m learning and all I can really share is what got me from there to where I am now sharing my thoughts on my blog, but I will credit the PRACTICE of meditation, the book Mastery of Self by Don Miguel Ruiz, Jr…his daddy wrote the Four Agreements, The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer or A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.

Until next time…

10.20.18
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Empath

Once I started doing the work. Once I started listening to my inner self. Once I realized that therapy was not the end all for a peaceful life. Once I was introduced to the possibilities, I started changing….I started reading books and listening to the people close to me who had a different outlook on living the best life for themselves. Once I calmed down and realized that many of my opinions, behaviors, prejudices and judgements were not really mine but belonged to the people who either shaped me in my childhood or were learned from my emotionally fearful peers, I started figuring out where my bottom line of recovery needed to start. I do not believe that this learning ever stops. I believe that just because you KNOW, you are just on a different path…but I don’t think I will ever really KNOW in this lifetime.

One of my first ah ha moments was when I read an article about being an empath. I teared up recognizing myself in the words. It resonated with me…I was in my knowing. I knew I was an empath. This morning a Facebook friend shared This empath article. Which sent me to my dear diary blog to document my thoughts….and share it with someone else who may need the insight or nudge.

Until next time…..