October 2016 Audio Meditation

I’ve noticed that I haven’t generated a new practice since September of this year. In that last practice, I described the journey and impact of losing one of my feline family members to kidney disease, a genetic condition that he shares with many members of his family. I described the deepening I experienced during and after the four-month-long process my beloved boy-cat and I engaged as he moved through his dying process. His two sisters are still here, and the difference in the energy and tone of our little family is powerfully changed by his absence.

As these post-death months have moved along, I found myself moved to create videos on multidimensional living, videos that offer information about the way that I move through the world from a multidimensional perspective. This shift in focus arose after what I thought was going to be an inner journey to connect with my optimal future self. Instead, I connected with what I think is more accurately described as an alternate self.

The idea of alternate selves arises from current thinking about the possibility that we live in a multiverse where there are many versions of ourselves co-existing within different versions of reality. The idea of a multiverse resonates with some people and appears ridiculous to others. Whatever your response, one of the ways I would think about this from a guided imagery or hypnotic perspective is that both alternate selves and optimal future selves can be metaphors through which we can tap into new body states, new states of mind, new responses.

The way this all makes sense to me is that I think, or probably believe at this point, that we live in an “information universe”, where information comes first and then becomes energy and form that resonate and shape themselves in response to the new information. For me, these kinds of journeys allow my bodymind to access new information which then becomes the prompt that supports reorganizing my experience and ways of being. Often, these journeys have opened up surprising new possibilities for me that draw on resources I hadn’t known were available. Posting videos on multidimensionality is one of these surprises.

I’m not sure how many more of these practices I’ll be posting, so they may continue to be sporadic, as I find my creative energy moving in somewhat unexpected directions. I’ve offered weekly practices for many years and have enjoyed the opportunity to ponder, explore, and share possibilities through them. So, my intention is to continue, but it’s not lost on me that it’s been quite a gap between this one and the last.

For this practice in conscious living, I invite you to play with the more quantum-oriented possibility that the process of generating intentions and the probabilities they engage is accessible to you. One of the things I’ve been asking people to play with is to say each day, “I am receiving and living into my optimal life.” An important part of this practice is to then get out of the way and allow yourself not to know what this means or what it will bring. Staying out of the way mentally allows for a deeper receptivity.

Then, along with allowing yourself not to know, another step along the way is to stay open for thoughts, flickers of awareness, new ideas, unexpected interest in something you hadn’t thought about before. All these are examples of intuitive awareness dropping in. The next step is to pay attention to these kinds of intuitive flickers and tickles in the back of your mind and to notice which ones you want to explore more deeply or respond to in some other way. For me, these new awarenesses often arrive when I wake up in the morning. They are just there, as if I had always known them.

As with all these practices, please remember to bring along curiosity as your constant companion and to pat gently on the head any judgments that may arise, allowing them to move on through without your having to do anything with or about them. Please also remember to allow mixed feelings, as they are a natural aspect of your underlying wholeness.

Here’s the audio version of this practice if you’d rather listen to it.

884^th Week :  Orienting to Frequencies

I’ve talked recently about the importance of noticing the quality of energy with which we resonate, the frequencies we bring into our lives and experiences. This year’s monthly audio meditations on my website focus on frequencies and the subject of the quality and tone of energy comes up often in my work with the people who come my way.

Not only do I think that it is vitally important to track which frequencies we bring into the foreground of our awareness, but I also invite people to notice the tone and quality of the unique energy signature that emanates from their core presence, from that place inside each of us that is our internal home base.

I woke up one morning saying the following to myself: “I am a living expression of radiant health.” What struck me as I heard myself saying this in my mind was the quality of energy inherent in the words, radiant health. Since that morning, I’ve been saying this to myself every day, with an occasional alternate version that goes something like, “I am the living essence of radiant health.” Whichever way I say it, the key is the frequency, the quality of the words, radiant health.

Also, when I say radiant health, I’m not just focused on my physical being. I can sense into radiant psychological health, or radiant creativity, or radiant emotional resilience. For this practice, I recommend using the general statement of being a living expression of radiant health, but be sure to adapt this practice to what works best for you.

My sense is that frequencies, that all frequencies/energies/qualities of being, have a direct impact not only on our state of mind but also on the state of our physical being. Because of this, one of the ways I engage my explorations of frequencies is to call on certain qualities to accompany me throughout the day. An example that I may have shared before was very powerful for me when my mother was alive and needing a lot of support. On days when I would be with her, I would call on the frequency of kindness, what I think of as the Spirit or Archetype of Kindness, asking this quality to fill me throughout the day. What I discovered was, when I remembered to do this, the day would unfold with an experience of patience and kindness in me that were more accessible and easier to express than what was usual for me.

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For mental health practitioners and others in the healing arts, it’s helpful to have a way to sit with people’s suffering and distress without getting caught up in it ourselves.  In reality, for everyone, regardless of the focus of your work, it’s helpful to have a way to cope with the suffering and distress in the world so that you don’t become swept away by it.

For me, doing therapy with an open heart is essential and yet having my heart open means that I can’t ignore, deny, or distance myself from the suffering of others.  Instead, I use the Buddhist practice of Tonglen to metabolize and manage the emotional experiences—my own and those of others—that touch my heart or threaten to overwhelm it.  What I want to share is my version of this practice.  In Sanskrit, Tonglen means taking and sending, and it’s a breathing practice that focuses on neutralizing activating emotions in oneself and in others in the world who feel the same way.

Read More “754th Week: Psychological Support in Troubled Times”