Posts Tagged ‘Truth’

From Soul to Heart

Sunday, August 28th, 2011

When the soul communicates through the heart, it uses emotions as the primary language. Of course, the more science learns about the brain the more we understand emotions are brain functions, just like thinking, memories, dreams and physical reactions. But that part of us we call the soul (or personality, or anima/animus, or spirit, or self) doesn’t show up on brain scans, so we can only speculate about it. And when the soul speaks to us through the emotions, we tend to feel it in our hearts.

From experience, most of us know emotions get tangled up with thoughts, can be veiled by other emotions, are often obscured by false beliefs, and become confused when in conflict with expectations, or are overpowered by the urgencies of the body. Because emotions are such strong forces, the messages can be difficult to discern.

When we understand what kinds of messages the soul conveys through emotions, we can more effectively tune into this form of inner communication.

Revealing Truth

I have a client who’s trying to make sense of a relationship. He’s with a woman he loves but they have serious communication problems, and even though they’ve broken up several times, they keep coming back together. He told me when he first started dating this woman he felt as if he’d entered a dark cloud, and he felt sort of panicky for the first few months. When they broke up the first time, he felt as if a load had been lifted off him. Yet he keeps being drawn back to her. He interprets the attraction as an indication they belong together, despite the other emotional indicators.

Emotional messages rarely project into the future. They usually have more to do with what’s happening now and what your soul needs right now. Consider the following progression of emotions:

  • Emotions from Victim mode, which include panic, fear, distress, etc., often say, “This is not a good place. Get out now.”  “Place” is usually a situation rather than a physical location. Among other possibilities, it could be a situation that’s dangerous either physically or emotionally; it could be something that’s not a good fit; it could be a toxic relationship.
  • Emotions from Interpreter mode–those that include some form of judgment–can also feel like “Get out now” messages, but usually the communication is more in the line of “Look at yourself through this lens.”  The emotions can illuminate beliefs, values, expectations, attitudes or structures that are not true for you.

It’s important to acknowledge such emotions. It’s important to recognize the ability of such emotions to leach away your personal power. It’s also important to value what they can teach you about yourself.

For instance, if you experience remorse for some choice you once made, what does your remorse tell you about you?  Do you expe­­­­­ct to be perfect?  Do you take responsibility for other people’s emotions and/or choices?  Do you believe expiation only comes after harsh punishment?

Ask yourself similar questions about any Interpreter emotion, and you may discover barriers that are keeping you stuck.

  • Your soul can speak to you using Observer mode emotions only when you free yourself from judgment. When you experience such emotions as curiosity, amazement, amusement, humility, patience and trust, the communications are filled with possibility–and you are able to see those possibilities. People become more interesting, the world becomes bigger and brighter, and opportunities abound.
  • When you open yourself to Partner mode, your soul will communicate to you through such emotions as appreciation, attention, reverence, serenity, pleasure and gratitude. These emotions are your soul’s way of saying, “Yes.”
  • Soul communications at the Creator level come in the form of such emotions as love, peace, happiness, joy, delight, and enthusiasm. The message in these emotions is always of oneness. You will know the oneness of all things. You will know you are never alone. You will celebrate life in every way.

Expanding Relationships

Through your emotions, the communications of your soul will help you learn from every relationship and expand the enduring relationships to new levels.
The first flash of a Victim mode emotion alerts you immediately to an unhealthy situation. If you’re in a relationship and you feel helpless, your soul is warning you that something is amiss. It might be something within you, in which case your first need might be to heal yourself.

Interpreter emotions are as likely to be messages regarding yourself as another person. Does your exasperation reveal an old challenge?  Does your loneliness expose an inner defense?  Does your meekness arise from unhealed wounds?  Does your disappointment indicate unmet expectations?

You can investigate the past, or you can walk away from it. Sometimes old stuff won’t let go without specific healing work. Often, a simple acknowledgment is enough, and you’re able to can move on.

For persistent emotions between those two extremes, I’ve discovered a delightful and revealing exercise:

Indulge. Identify the emotion, recognize it holds a lot of energy, designate a period of time (10 minutes, an hour, a whole day), and give your full attention to it. Immerse yourself in the identified emotion. Wallow in it. Support it with every story you can think of. Engage with it for the full time allotted. Do not let your attention wander. Truly, let your soul pour out the message of that emotion. Chances are, you will make some interesting discoveries about yourself, your choices, and the nature of the relationship. If, when your time is up, you don’t feel a keen separation from that emotion, schedule another session.
You can only begin to know someone else when you free yourself of judgment and enter Observer mode. Observer emotions allow you to see others for what they are. You become aware of their unique gifts, their talents, their abilities, their attitudes, their joys and sorrows. At the highest levels of observation, you might admire, adore and celebrate them. You will also recognize what they are not, and these aspects of them will not feel like deficiencies. Rather, what they are not will support and reinforce who they are.

You can only form a healthy, lasting relationship with someone when you reach out to them from Partner mode. When your soul speaks through willingness, affection, appreciation, respect, confidence and serenity, and the other person is equally confident and serene, you establish a bond with each other that neither time nor distance can sever.

Oneness comes when you internalize Creator emotions such as love, delight, happiness, peace, and optimism.

These communications apply to any relationship. Your soul says, “Change this,” using Victim emotions. Your soul helps you look at yourself using Interpreter emotions. Your soul presents possibilities using Observer emotions. Your soul says, “Go for it,” using Partner emotions. And your soul merges with the other using Creator emotions.

Strengthening Your Intentions

Your soul is your not-so-silent partner when it comes to your choices and intentions. The truer a choice or intention is for you, the more likely you will be to align with it and manifest it. And when it comes to what’s true for you, your soul is the most knowledgeable and reliable source of wisdom available to you.

  • Recognize Victim emotions as reliable signals of a need for change.
  • Let Interpreter emotions illuminate your barriers, your resistance, your doubts, and your challenges. Listen to them, then exercise your power to move up to the next level of soul communication. Opportunities and possibilities only become evident when in Observer mode. If you’re seeing difficulty, if you’re experiencing struggle, if complications keep coming up, or accidents seem more frequent than normal–you’re still in Interpreter mode. Become conscious and mindful of your emotions. Attune to the message of the emotion (the message is always to stop judging), and move in a different direction.
  • Attuning to Observer emotions will set you on an easier path.
  • The magical alignment of thoughts, actions and emotions occurs in Partner mode. Obstacles cannot exist at this level. You partner with yourself, with your intention, and with the infinite. You welcome teachers, you attract allies, you are alert to opportunities, you stride forward confidently, doors open, you experience some form of cooperation everywhere you turn.
  • At Creator level, you and your intention are one. Your intention simply is, and you simply are.

Embracing Your Purpose

When people say they want to live a more purposeful life, or they want to become clearer about their specific purpose, I suspect something inside them (the soul, perhaps) is urging them to reach out and give more to the world. I also suspect part of the message is to expand their personal power so they have more to give.

From working with many people who have reached this point, I’ve concluded every person’s purpose as two basic parts:  What we came here to learn, and why we came here to give. Sometimes these two aspects of purpose are intertwined; some people have to learn what they came to learn in order to give what they came to give. Sometimes there’s no apparent connection; the gift is apparent in the person’s talents while the lesson is in a completely different aspect of life.

You can know what you came to give by looking at your talents and abilities, and you can understand your ability to share that gift by looking at your emotions. Likewise, you can know what you came to learn by looking at what you find most difficult, and you can understand your willingness to learn whatever the lesson is by looking at your emotions.

  • Victim mode emotions will always be immobilizing.
  • Interpreter mode emotions will illuminate your relationship with either your talents or your challenges.
  • Observer mode emotions will provide you with a calm, solid place from which to practice, learn, interact, understand, and choose.
  • Partner mode emotions will unite you with either the gift or the growth. They will inspire you, deliver opportunities onto your doorstep, energize you, sustain you through tough times, and challenge you.
  • Creator mode emotions will bring you into oneness with your transcendent self.

Listen to your emotions as you listen to your mind and your body. Your soul communicates with you 100% of the time, using every available means to communicate with you.

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Gratitude

Sunday, May 15th, 2011

You’ve heard the advice, “Have an attitude of gratitude.” Compared to other practices of thankfulness, that one entered my life fairly recently. As a very young child, I was taught to begin my prayers with thankfulness for my blessings. Then came the social courtesy of saying, “Thank you.”  And of course, we celebrated Thanksgiving Day, where stating what we were grateful for was almost as important as the feasting.

Gratitude seems to be deeply ingrained in the customs and social interactions of most cultures. None of us can go it alone, and appreciation strengthens the group, and a stronger group increases the potential for survival.

Gratitude strengthens all our partnerships. Within families and communities, of course, but also with ourselves, with our efforts and with the infinite.

Gratitude is the natural companion of love. Love inspires and energizes service, gratitude inspires and energizes receiving.

Receiving

We cannot exist on this planet without receiving. With every breath we take, we receive air. We do absolutely nothing to earn it, and most of us never give it a thought. I believe receiving, as an act of acceptance, is a form of gratitude. By breathing, by welcoming air into our bodies easily and naturally, we express our appreciation for air.

Receiving includes using what you’re given, expanding your gifts and loving what you have. Jesus taught this truth in the parable of the talents:  the wise servant was rewarded for using and increasing what he was given.

Gratitude receives with delight, finds value in challenge, honors the growth process and acknowledges the efforts of others.

In this issue, I’d like to explore some ways of moving beyond the mere expression of gratitude and into the realm of living it, practicing it and being it.

Live Your Truth

The world is full of teachers, gurus, ministers, politicians, advertisers, parents, friends, even corporations who want you to accept what they say. They may want your best good and believe they know what is best for you. They may be entrenched in their own beliefs or agendas and want to impose their way on everyone. They may be motivated by power or financial gain. Whatever their reasons, they try to influence you to their way of thinking.

You have your truth within you. (See Recognize Your Truth.)  When you practice your truth, when you live in accordance with it, your very life becomes an expression of gratitude for who you are and what you offer to the world.

Your truth, in its wholeness and fullness, accords with universal truth, and universal truth is constantly expanding. It grows with each irreplaceable contribution of each unique individual.

Your individual combination of abilities, values, insights, and personal power contributes to the understanding and expansion of the whole. And when you live in accordance with your truth, you “open the windows of heaven” and gain access to the vast universal pool of wisdom and understanding. You contribute and you receive.

In a way, it’s like having a bank account. You put money in, it accumulates interest, and you end up with more than you put in. By your participation, you acknowledge the value of money. It may never occur to you to think, “I’m so grateful for money and for the banking system. Money in flow helps many people prosper, ”  You don’t need to. The system works whether you’re grateful or not. Everyone who contributes has the potential to benefit.

This is equally (perhaps more) true when it comes to the free trade of human potential. When you live your truth, you are essentially saying, “I’m grateful for wisdom and truth and for the system that keeps it circulating. I’m grateful I can contribute to the benefit of others. I’m grateful others contribute and benefit me.”

You are expressing a prayer of gratitude every time you utilize and expand any aspect of your truth, including but not limited to:

  • Your talents.
  • Your love.
  • Your happiness.
  • Your wisdom.
  • Your knowledge.
  • Your service.
  • Your personal power.

Embrace Your Experiences

Not every experience in your life has been wonderful. No doubt you’ve experienced pain, trauma, loss, disappointment, and/or hardship. Some of your experiences changed your life forever. Perhaps some left you with scars–or even gaping wounds. What is there in such pain to be thankful for?

Being thankful is only one aspect of gratitude–and maybe you’re not thankful for pain. You don’t have to be. Every experience, no matter how difficult or painful, contributes to universal consciousness and understanding. You are unique. You experience life in an individual and distinctive way, and your personal experience adds to the universal database and influences the courses of time in some way.

A very good way to let go of pain is to explore the experience for the good embedded in it. Every experience has the potential to benefit you in two ways: what you can learn and how you can grow.

Every experience offers challenge, and in meeting the challenge, you grow. You may be pushed to greater physical feats. You may discover new concepts or gain insights. You may find yourself expanding your compassion. You may identify talents or abilities you didn’t know you had. You may meet new people or encounter alien beliefs. When you meet the challenge you expand, and expansion is always spiritual.

If you can receive your experiences fully and unconditionally, the pain will evaporate. Acceptance and pain cannot exist in the same space. If pain continues, you are subconsciously unwilling to let go of it. Reach for deeper understanding, additional growth, a stronger connection with your infinite self. When you probe for the value to you and embrace the experience, this unspoken expression of gratitude opens the way for growth and wisdom.

Welcome Your Opportunities

Every minute of every day contains opportunities. When you’re operating from gratitude, you increase your ability to see them. When you see them and take advantage of them, you’re expressing gratitude. The following opportunities are always available, regardless of any other circumstances:

  • The opportunity to respond. You always have both the opportunity and the ability to choose your reactions. The range of possible responses neither depends upon nor change with circumstances. You can lose and find triumph, or win and find insecurity. Once you recognize your capacity to choose your emotions, you will immediately begin to see a wider range of possibilities in all areas of your life.
  • The opportunity to think. (And imagine and want and create.)  As long as you’re alive, your brain is active. Use it with delight and confidence.
  • The opportunity to act. Most actions work in favor of best good or against it; few are neutral. If you find yourself holding back from action, check your thoughts and emotions. Replace doubt with gratitude, and both your willingness and ability to act will increase. Act from wisdom, and your every deed will be an expression of gratitude.
  • The opportunity to invite opportunities. Opportunities present themselves every hour of every day. Welcome them. Gratitude naturally exists within welcome, and as a result you will receive unexpected assistance from surprising sources.

Love Your Work

In Western cultures, productivity and work are often used synonymously. Or at least work is valued according to its level of productivity, and we value productivity from several angles.

  • We admire the end product, whether the result is an edifice, a masterpiece, a company, a beautiful child or great wealth.
  • We admire the people who produce such results: the architects, the builders, the artists, and the entrepreneurs.
  • We admire such functions as being productive, using time effectively, being efficient, accumulating results and staying busy.

Some people get these different aspects of productivity mixed up, putting the value on being busy first, and giving little attention to the body of work produced. They believe if they worked harder, they would get more done, and they would produce more and therefore they would be productive, as if this were a formula for success. Some people think busy equals productive. They pour attention, energy and emotion into work, without giving much consideration to Work.

Work, with a capital W, has value whether it’s seen as a job, a profession, an avocation, a calling, a purpose or the end result. Work for its own sake has little value. Slaves work. Hired laborers work. If you “hold a job,” you work. But when you think, create, build, establish, learn and grow, you do the Work.

Work in this sense, may be seen as Purpose, but the two are not necessarily synonymous. It depends on whether work is the what or the how. If you are putting yourself through school, supporting your family, having adventures, acquiring more skills, building a repertoire, experimenting, serving, etc., you are probably focused on what. You probably care more about the end result than the means used to get there. This is staying on purpose. This is doing your Work.

And when you do your Work, you are expressing gratitude. You are gratitude when you enjoy what you’re learning, delight in your family, immerse yourself in your adventures, revel in your mastery, celebrate your discoveries, love those you serve. When you are gratitude, you learn and grow, you strengthen your family, you have more adventures, you gain mastery, you make new discoveries, and you expand your service to others.

Trust Best Good

Best good happens as a result of alignment. When your choices are congruent with what’s true for you, the result will be best good. When you bring your thoughts, emotions and actions into alignment with your choices, the result will be best good .

As sentient beings, we have free will. We can choose. We can release negative emotions. We can move out of judgment. We can acquire calm. We can access more of our own power. And when we do, we invite best good.

Such choices–for calm, for congruence, for wisdom–are expressions of gratitude. No words are necessary. Conscious thankfulness is not necessary. The gratitude lies embedded in our choices. By trusting that best good will result, trust becomes your expression of gratitude for your agency, for your truth, for the experiences that provide wisdom and growth, for you life.

Live mindfully and well, and the energy of your unspoken gratitude will precede you in all your endeavors.

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Recognize Your Truth

Sunday, March 13th, 2011

A while ago, I wrote an article called “What’s true for you?” Today I’d like to expand on that topic by exploring some of the aspects that comprise personal truth.

Your Life

Quite a number of facets comprise your physical life experience. You have biographical data:  name, age. parents’ names, place of birth, place of residence, etc. You have biological data:  height, weight, hair color, and all the other factors governed by your DNA. You have educational experience with accumulated academic knowledge, and you have a job history with acquired professional knowledge.

You have a personal history that includes the places you’ve lived, the people you’ve loved, the illnesses you’ve endured, the accidents you’ve survived, etc. And you also have a personal history that didn’t happen, such as the places you haven’t lived, the schools you didn’t attend, the people you didn’t love, the jobs you didn’t take.

So how many of these facts, figures, choices and experiences are true for you?  How many of them may not necessarily have been true for you, but helped illuminate what is true for you?

Perhaps you’ve worked jobs you weren’t suited for. They helped you learn how important it is to employ your skills, talents and preferences in your work.

Perhaps you’ve loved people who weren’t a good match for you, whether it was the boy in third grade who chased you around the playground every recess, or the cheerleader girlfriend who liked you because you were on the football team, or an emotionally unavailable spouse. They helped you understand yourself, recognize your vulnerable areas, realize what matters to you in a relationship.

You may or may not have grown up in a home that recognized your worth. Either way, what did you learn from the experience?

You may or may not have been given a name that fits you. Have you learned to like it?  Have you changed it?  Either way, what have you learned about self-labeling?

You may or may not be living in an environment that nurtures you. What inner power are you finding in that environment?   What would you like instead?  Why?

There’s an old adage that advises you to bloom where you’re planted.  The wisdom of this advice lies in the opportunities for personal growth provided by the circumstances of your life. Regardless of location, you can make the most of any situation. When you’ve gained all there is to gain, or when you feel the call of another place, you can choose to transplant yourself.

If, however, you uproot yourself before you’ve learned what that situation has to teach, you’ll just take yourself with you. Pretty soon the new situation will provide the same frustrations, challenges, disappointments and pain as the old one.

An exploration of the situations of your life can help you discover ever-deeper levels of who you are. You become clearer about what you want and why you want it. You gain understanding about yourself within relationships.  And you understand the service you can offer to the world.

When your life is true for you, you resonate with it. You experience more peace, better health, greater abundance, and deep inner joy. Choose a life that is true for you, and be true to the life you have chosen.

Your Value System

Many religious apologists claim moral and ethical behaviors derive from a belief in a deity. Atheists who choose the high road believe morality motivates simply because it produces better results than immorality.

Whether you acquired your moral sense from the teachings of your church or from an observance of natural consequences, the results are the same. Some behaviors and qualities of character work better in society and inspire you to better choices, some create conflict in society and lead to personal chaos.

There have been many teachers throughout history, some religious, some not, who have offered advice about which behaviors and character traits produce the best results. A search on the Internet will produce myriad lists, systems, discussion boards, and advice columns.

These lists of values, virtues, ethics, and qualities are more likely to illuminate what’s out there, what’s possible and what others believe than expand your own self-understanding.

The virtues and qualities that are true for you will pass your own personal tests. Consider the following challenges:

  • You understand what the virtue or quality means to you. For instance, what does honesty mean, or compassion, or temperance, or humility?
  • You observe the value it adds. In what situations does it add value?  Are there situations when it might confuse rather than enlighten?  Is it ever neutral?
  • You decide if it’s worth the effort. To what extent does it come easily to you?  Are you already living it?  Is it difficult for you?  Is some aspect of it is not true for you?
  • You recognize its value to you. Does it strengthen you?   Or do you feel disempowered by it.

No one is born with a fully developed values system – not even the saints; we all have to develop our own. Your personal value system does not include every trait or quality someone at some time has considered a virtue. Very likely it does not even include every quality you’ve been taught to believe is a virtue.

You have a values system, whether you have been conscious of it or not. However, if you’ve adopted one that is not true for you, you will experience confusion and self-doubt. If it is true for you, it will enhance and empower your life.

Your Intuition

You have an inner voice that speaks truth to you. It’s been called many names at various times including:  your conscience, the holy spirit, your spirit guides, an angel, your spirit animal, the ancestors, etc.

This voice obeys several rules in its communication with you, including:

  • It responds to and with whatever emotional energy you’re emitting.
  • It speaks in the languages you are most familiar with – your spoken languages, of course, but also the languages of your thoughts. It arises from your frame(s) of reference and uses your metaphors, your analogies, your symbolism, etc.
  • It works from within your worldview. If your worldview is narrow and specific, so is your inner voice. If your worldview is curious and expansive, so is your inner voice.
  • It is limited or not-limited by your sense of your own self. The truer you are to yourself, the truer the messages you receive from your inner voice. If you are confused, conflicted, or specifically focused, your inner voice must speak from wherever you are at a given moment.

Let’s consider each of these rules.

Your energy. When your emotions are positive, you open a clear channel and the messages come through without interference. Negative energy acts like static, interrupting and distorting the messages of your soul, sometimes making it difficult for you to discern them, sometimes obscuring them completely.

Your language. Sometimes you may hear your inner voice as an actual voice speaking verbal words. More often, you will get an idea, or feel the need for caution, or know it’s time to act, or just know one choice is better than another. Sometimes your inner voice uses something you’ve already focused your attention upon to give you a message to yourself. Your work or your avocation may be the metaphorical structure for the lessons of your life. For instance, a doctor who explores caves will think in different images and use different metaphors than a landscaper who knits.

Your worldview. If you think the world is flat, your inner voice will work within that framework in providing you with truth. If you believe people are out to get you, your inner voice must work within that context. If you see the universe as your partner, you inner voice will be able to speak to you with the wisdom of the ages.

Your self. You intuition can communicate only within the scope of how well you know yourself and how much you trust yourself. The truer you are to yourself, the better you know yourself, and the more open you are to knowledge and growth, the more straightforwardly your inner voice will be able to speak to you.

Your Desires

We live in a time and a society where more choices are more available than ever in the history of mankind. From almost every angle, we are encouraged to imagine, to dream big, to acquire. While this kind of encouragement helps us explore what’s possible, it rarely includes the disclaimer:  “You can achieve anything you want, as long as what you want is true for you.”

Not everything you might put on a Dream List would necessarily be something you truly want, or would work for, or would pay the price for. Your true desires, however, are not only within your reach; they want you as much as you want them.

Here are some of the ways you can differentiate a true desire from one that is not:

  • A true desire will not have a “should” attached to it.
  • A true desire comes from your heart.
  • You already have the talents (if not the skills) to achieve a true desire.
  • A true desire will fit within your value system.
  • Your intuition will always inform a true desire.
  • The universe is always your eager partner when you pursue a true desire.

One of the ways you can recognize a less-than-true desire is to examine why you want it.

Reasons that often indicate a need for re-alignment with a desire include:

  • If someone else thinks it’s a good thing for you to want.
  • Only to make money or to acquire fame or power.
  • Because it’s tradition.

Such reasons are not stop signs, more like yellow flags. If your desire meets the go qualifications listed above, and you can make someone else happy, or make money, or get famous, or conform to tradition, terrific. Such motivations can easily be within your value system and be true desires of your heart. The important thing is this:  Make sure what you want is true for you, and make sure you can be true to it.

A true desire is not necessarily easy. It might be damn challenging. Pursuing a true desire with your whole heart will always bring rewards greater than you imagined when you began. You might not get exactly what you thought you wanted, but whatever you achieve will exceed your wildest imagination.

Your Service

You serve your world, your community, your fellow human beings, and yourself in many ways. You serve with your attitudes, with your energy, with your talents, with your efforts, and with your intentions. Sometimes you give your time, sometimes your money, sometimes your emotional support.

However, not all of the kinds of service the world needs will be true for you. The world needs doctors, and you might be a musician. The world needs musicians, and you might be tone deaf. The world needs both warriors and peacemakers. Humankind needs both scientists and mystics. Communities need adventurers as well as homebodies. Families need nurturers and breadwinners. You need to give the service that is true for you.

Some forms of service are particularly well marked as “service,” such as volunteer work, donations to charities, ministering to the poor, and anything identified as charity. Other kinds of service are much less noted, but of equal value:  spreading good cheer through a smile or a touch, laughing together, staying connected, showing respect and appreciation, receiving gracefully, extending unconditional acceptance, etc. By such actions and attitudes, you raise the energy level of wherever you are, of whatever you are doing. When you lift someone’s spirits, their energy expands, and together you send more goodness into the world than either one of you could alone. This expansion of good energy becomes exponential, as each person carries it from the starting place to the next person, the next activity.

In this way, being the truest person you can be becomes the greatest service you can give. Being true to yourself expands you energetically, and as your energy expands, your goodness reaches more people, and goodness embraces people in love, which frees their good energy. Good energy always has more power than negative energy, so in this way you expand peace and love in the world. In this way, you serve yourself, your neighbors, your community, your country, and the world itself.

Choose Congruence

Each of these factors – your life, your value system, your intuition, your desires and your service – can reveal the truth of you to you.

Observe them. Become mindful of yourself. Recognize your emotions, and acknowledge the results those emotions bring into your life. Do some emotions bring your closer to your truth?  Do some put distance between you and who you have the capacity to be?

Quite likely, if you are in misery or struggle, you are not aligned with what’s true for you. Conversely, the emotions that produce calm, cooperation and/or oneness, increase your congruence with your own truth.

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Wholeness and Enlightenment

Sunday, January 16th, 2011

Several months ago, I posted an article titled What’s True for You.  I presented ways you could identify what’s true for you or not true.  Basically, the pursuit of something that’s not true for you is usually motivated by Interpreter mode emotions.  Since Interpreter mode results in struggle, if you are experiencing struggle, you are in some way out of alignment with your own truth.

Today I’m going to expand on that theme, focusing more on what is true for you.

Imagine a circle divided into three wedges.  Imagine the wedges represent your thoughts, actions and emotions, and the circle represents your wholeness.  When the wedges are intact and united, the circle is complete and you are congruent.  This congruent circle represents your wholeness.  When you are congruent, you are complete.  You are also  the captain of your soul and connected to the infinite.

While I designated the three aspects of wholeness as thoughts, actions and emotions, they can as easily be called:

  • Empowerment: Using the infinite power within you.
  • Mastery: Mastering yourself, your purpose and your intentions.
  • Enlightenment: Listening to the truth of your heart.

Today, I’m focusing on enlightenment.  Only by listening to the truth of your own heart can you be true to yourself, and only by mastering yourself and your purpose can you access the infinity of your inner power.

Enlightenment

I first heard the term “enlightenment,” in high school in reference to The Age of Enlightenment, a period during the eighteenth century when Western philosophy focused on reason as the stronger legitimacy for authority than inheritance.  Seemed pretty enlightened to me.

When I began to hear the term used in connection with spirituality, my sense of it grew foggier.  It seemed to mean an esoteric connectedness, achieved only by a few and only through intense meditation and after years of practice.  I puzzled over that one for years.  It seemed to deny the enlightenment that comes through the process of gaining wisdom.

When you consider listening to the truth of your heart, do dozens of questions arise for you, such as:  How do I listen?  How do I distinguish my voice from all the other voices in my head?  How do I know if what I’m hearing is true?  What exactly am I supposed to listen for?  Do your questions continue to pile on from here?

The following factors may help sort through the mix and find more of what’s true for you.

Your Values System

Many religious apologists claim moral and ethical behaviors derive from a belief in a deity.  Most atheists and agnostics who live according to a moral or ethical code, claim morality produces better results than immorality, so a values system is simply logical.

Whether you acquired your moral sense from the teachings of your church or from an observance of cause and effect, the results are the same:  some behaviors and qualities of character work better in society and inspire you to better choices; some create conflict in society and lead to personal chaos.

All human beings are strong in some areas and weak in others, and your true values system will not include every trait or quality someone at some time has considered a virtue.

If you find a certain quality to have value yet believe you do not currently possess it, you have the power to choose it.  Decide firmly that it is something you want to incorporate into your life, and visualize what it represents to you.  Say, for instance, you want flexibility.  What would more flexibility bring into your life?  Less stress?  More peace?  More room to maneuver?  Focus on the results of flexibility – the peace, the room, the freedom, the lightness.  Feel  those qualities in your meditations and practice them in your life until they become a done deal.

Similarly, if a certain quality is not true for you, or if you are not aligned with it, you will experience confusion and self-doubt.  You have the power to un-choose it, to stop trying to force fit it into your life, and thus see yourself and your true values more clearly.

When something is true for you, and you are aligned with it, it will enhance and empower your life.  Your task, then, is to become more aware of what is true for you and become more attuned to it.

I encourage you to make a list of the qualities or virtues you believe you possess  – or would like to adopt.  Journal about each one and what it adds to your life.  Observe the emotions that flow within you as you write about each one.  Any that are not true for you will probably evoke emotions of judgment and struggle.  Those true for you will likely evoke Partner or Creator emotions.

Your Intuition

You have an inner voice that speaks truth to you.  It’s been called many names at various times including, your conscience, the holy spirit, your spirit guides, an angel, your spirit animal, the ancestors, the still small voice, etc.

This voice obeys several rules in its communication with you, including

  • It responds to and with whatever energy you’re emitting.
  • It speaks in the language you use.  Your spoken language, of course, but also the language of your thoughts.  It uses your metaphors, your analogies, and your symbolism.
  • It works from within your worldview.  If your worldview is narrow and specific, so is your inner voice.  If your worldview is curious and expansive, so is your inner voice.
  • It is limited or not-limited by your sense of your own self.  The truer you are to yourself, the truer the messages you receive from your inner voice.  If you are confused, conflicted, or specifically focused, your inner voice must speak from wherever you are at a given moment.

Let’s consider each of these rules.

First, your energy.  When your energy is positive, you open a clear channel and the messages come through without interference.  Negative energy acts like static, interrupting and distorting the messages, sometimes making it difficult for you to discern them, sometimes obscuring them completely.

Second, your language.  Sometimes you may hear your inner voice as an actual voice speaking verbal words.  More often, you will get an idea, or feel the need for caution, or know it’s time to act, or just know one choice is better than another.  Sometimes your inner voice uses something you’re already focusing you attention upon to give you a message to yourself.  Your work or your avocation may be the metaphorical structure for the lessons of your life.

Third, your worldview.  Your inner voice wants to speak to you in expansive ways, to encourage partnership and creativity.  The less you judge the world, the more you release your intuition to speak truth to you.

Fourth, your self.  You intuition can communicate only within the scope of how well you know yourself and how much you trust yourself.  The truer you are to yourself, the better you know yourself, and the more open you are to knowledge and growth, the more straightforwardly your inner voice will be able to speak to you.

If there is an area of your life where you don’t fully trust your own judgment, I encourage you to choose to become more attuned to your inner voice in that area.  Practice pausing to listen before any decision.  Stop.  Become calm (see Clarify Your Intention).  Review the possibilities as you know them.  Listen to your inner voice.  Proceed without haste.  At first you may not recognize the difference between instinct and impulse, so simply watch what happens.  You will begin to notice when your instinct speaks truly, and as you trust it, it will speak more often.

Your Desires

Your true desires are not only within your reach, they want you as much as you want them.

Here are some of the ways you can differentiate a true desire from one that is not:

  • A true desire will not have a “should” attached to it.
  • A true desire comes from your heart.
  • You already have the talents (if not the skills) to achieve a true desire.
  • The universe is always your ready partner when you pursue a true desire.

A true desire is not necessarily easy. It might be damn challenging.  Pursuing a true desire with your whole heart will always bring rewards greater than you imagined when you began.  You might not get exactly what you thought you wanted, but whatever you achieve will exceed your wildest imagination.   (See Expand Your Possibilities.)

Your Service

Some forms of service are well-marked as “service,” such as volunteer work, donations to non-profit organizations, ministering to the poor, and anything identified as charity.  Other kinds of service are much less noted, but of equal value:  spreading good cheer through a smile or a touch, laughing together, staying connected, showing respect and appreciation, receiving gracefully, extending unconditional acceptance, etc.  By these actions and attitudes, you raise the energy level of wherever you are, of whatever you are doing.  When you lift someone’s spirits, their energy expands, and together you send more goodness into the world than either one of you could alone.  This expansion of good energy becomes exponential, as each person carries it from the starting place to the next person, the next activity.

In this way, being the truest person you can be becomes the greatest service you can give.  Being true to yourself expands you energetically, and as your energy expands, your goodness reaches more people.  Your goodness embraces people with love, which frees their good energy.  Good energy always has more power than negative energy, so in this way you expand peace and love in the world.  In this way, you serve yourself, your neighbors, your community, your country, and the world itself.

You can of course, continue your forms of traditional service, donating money, volunteering, and ministering to those in need, especially if they are true for you.  To multiply the service you provide with your hands and your wallet, bring your good energy, your joy, and your love into the doing and the giving.

These are a few of the ways you can listen to the truth of your heart and bring your emotions into congruence with your thoughts and actions.  I believe enlightenment follows congruence.

For personal guidance in bringing your thoughts, actions, and emotions into congruence, please contact me directly by emailing me at kathy@kathyjacobson.com

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Truth and Consequences

Saturday, July 31st, 2010

(If you would like more information about personal life coaching, or would like a free introductory session, please contact me:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com)

In an old parlor game called Truth or Consequences, on your turn you had to choose between telling the truth or accepting the consequences.  This was a game of risk.  Someone else got to ask a question to which you had to answer with the truth.  If you didn’t want to risk the truth, you could choose to take the consequences.  Of course, you got no advance notice of what the consequences would be.  You might have to go outside and howl at the moon or kiss the person next to you.  Since either answering the question or performing the consequence would put you in an uncomfortable spot, you were likely to end up embarrassed.  The relationship between truth and consequences was always either-or.

Life often feels as risky as the old game.  Sometimes we can see a direct correlation between a choice and result, but often events seem random.  Accidents happen.  The unforeseen takes us by surprise.  Yet it’s hard to be satisfied with non-answers.  There had to be a cause.  Surely there were clues.  There must be reasons why.

One of the conundrums of wanting to know the cause-and-effect of some things is that we then have to accept that all things are governed by the same laws.

If, as Newton stated in his Third Law of Motion, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,” then everything that happens in our lives is a result of something that came before.  Do our personal lives conform to Newton’s Laws?  Or are we playing Truth or Consequences.

Facts vs. Truth

First, we want to discover the facts – and so things get interesting right from the start.  Many things in life are factual and irrefutable, such as the diameter of the earth and the speed of light.  If the sun’s shining, it’s hard to argue otherwise.

But do The Facts necessarily equal The Truth?

Some things, such as mathematical equations, can be identified in purely scientific terms.  Most things, especially living things, develop around a subjective backbone.  The Facts filter through our perceptions, beliefs, cultural norms, etc, and influence our Truth.

No matter how determinedly we try to stay neutral about an event (or a relationship or a situation), we can never be totally objective.  (I’ve been practicing neutrality regarding weather for years, and I never complain, but I still chill when my body cools and I still sweat when I get hot.  Because my body reacts to temperature, I am subjectively more or less comfortable.)   We’re human.  We process things with our bodies, our minds and our emotions.  We see things through our personal set of filters.  We draw conclusions.  We care how things turn out.

And because we care, we influence the result.  Our thoughts and emotions become contributing factors that affect The Truth.

For example, say you have a challenging relationship with your mother.  Perhaps she criticizes or complains about something(s) that matters to you – your taste in clothes, the person you’ve chosen as a life partner, your profession, what you feed your kids, etc.  Such criticism has been going on for so long you can hear it coming before she opens her mouth.

If you were to compile a list titled The Facts, it might look something like this:

  • She’s controlling.
  • She doesn’t want me competing with her.
  • She thinks she’s the only one who knows anything.
  • I’ll always be her “baby.”
  • She twists everything I say.

If you’re self-aware enough to admit you add to the problem, you might include:

  • I always get defensive.
  • I’m always primed for an argument.
  • We don’t seem to speak the same language.

For everything on the list, you can come up with Facts to substantiate your points.  But your mother can use equally specific Facts to justify her behavior.

So, here you are, with examples, reasons, perceptions, convictions, beliefs, etc.  Where, in this mess of Facts is the Truth?

The Truth is in the Consequences

One way to understand a situation is to tease apart the end result until you find the component parts.

Assuming the universe operates in a logical, consistent manner, true processes will always be replicable.  Mix the right proportions of hydrogen and oxygen and you’ll get water.  Every time.  Mix the right combination of resentment and contempt and you’ll get war.  Every time.  It’s just that in human interactions, the “right combination” means different things in different situations, depending on different criteria (such as the differences in personalities).  Still, if you have water, you know you can break it down into hydrogen and oxygen.  If you have war, you can break it down into resentment and contempt (with any number of additional elements thrown in for good measure).

Every situation can be reversed engineered to discover the component parts.  When people are involved, the components usually consist of a core belief and an central emotion, and here lies The Truth of the situation.  Consider the following possible combinations:

  • Being alone might result from the combination of the belief that, “I’m not welcome,” and the emotion of insecurity.
  • Not enough money might result from the combination of the belief that, “Money is evil,” and the emotion of aversion.
  • An aching back might result from the combination of the belief that, “It all rests on my shoulders,” and the emotion of doubt.

Let’s see if we can find a reasonable Truth of  the conflicted relationship I used as an example.  A relationship involves more than one entity (even your relationship with yourself), but the only part you directly influence is your own.  So even though your primary frustration may arise from your mother’s behaviors, it’s important to look first at what you bring into the conflict.

Perhaps you get defensive because you believe some variation of, “I’m not good enough.”  Quite a number of emotions could be central to such a belief:  resentment, self-doubt, defensiveness, contempt, yearning, misery, envy, etc.

Perhaps you believe some variation of, “She’s a bitch.”  Your central emotion might be hate, contempt, disdain, rebellion, anger, asperity, etc.

Whatever you believe and whatever you feel, you bring your own subjective energy to every encounter with your mother.  Your energy is one of the contributing elements.   Of course, her energy also contributes, but as in any chemical formula, if you change one element – or even the quantity of one of the elements – you get an entirely different compound.

Create the Consequences You Want

To produce different consequences, you have to change the Truth.  To change The Truth, change the energy.  To change the energy, make different choices.

(How’s that for a scientific formula?)

You don’t need to go searching for The Old Truth before you adopt A New Truth.  The Truth is what you feel and what you believe.  Without knowing precisely which emotion you’ve been radiating, you can choose the one(s) you want to exude instead.  Without deciphering the exact belief contributing to your past results, you can adopt a new belief that will serve you better.

Let’s get specific:

Say you want to change the fact that you’re alone.    Choose an emotion that radiates confident, welcoming energy, such as humor, pleasure or enjoyment.  Internalize the belief that will become the backbone of your new reality:  “I’m surrounded by people who like me.”  “I like others and others like me.”  “I eagerly respond to invitations to participate.

Say you want to increase your prosperity.  Choose which empowering emotion will best support your decision – love, enthusiasm, joy, exuberance, delight, gratitude, generosity.  And choose which belief will break any paradigms of scarcity:  “I happily welcome financial abundance.”  “I love money and money loves me.”

Say you want to heal an aching back.  Choose an emotion that infuses you with confidence – calmness, resilience, assurance, humor.  Find a belief that frees you of any sense of burden:  “I trust my family to have the strength and ingenuity to take care of themselves.”  “I am surrounded by partners, and I receive their love and support.”

Any shift in perception is a new choice which moves you into a different energy field.  To check this out, try a little experiment.  First, think of some recent event in which you felt delighted, happy or excited.  Review it a time or two in your mind, then notice what’s going on in your body.  How does your face feel?  Your hands?  Your shoulders?  Your stomach?  Now remember a recent situation in which you felt angry, annoyed or resentful.  Replay that incident in your mind a couple of times and pay attention to what happens to your body.  What changes in your face, your hands, your shoulders, your stomach?  Now switch back to the enjoyable situation.  If you had a scowl did it switch to a smile?  If your hands clenched, did they relax?  Etc.

Energy radiates in every direction.  It impacts other people and influences situations in much the same way it affects your body.  If you bring harsh, angry, disgruntled energy into a situation, that negative energy bombards others.  If you bring cheerful, confident, welcoming energy, that positive energy relaxes others.

Because energy, either negative and positive, affects the subjective response of everything it encounters, it changes The Truth as seen by all participants.

Let’s return again to my example of a conflicted mother-child relationship.  The decision to inject peace and acceptance into every encounter with your mother changes your subjective truth.  You see yourself through a different lens; you see her through a different lens.  This changes the energy between the two of you and that changes the energy of the situation.  Your peaceful, accepting energy permeates her energy field and changes her subjective Truth.  It’s like placing a new filter over the lens through which she views your encounters.  These changes in Truth change the Consequences.

Once you know how the two Truths of emotion and belief produce your Consequences, you can adopt the formula into all aspects of your life:

Positive energy creates Positive Truth produces Positive Consequences.

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