January 25, 2010

Simplicity Is The Way To Go

Posted by Amyra under Choice, Empowerment, Focus, Freedom, Internal Conflicts, Letting Go, Responsibility, Self-Worth, Trust
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I’ve been asked what my resolution is for 2010, so I will share it here.  For the record, I have stopped making new year resolutions some years ago.  I had found that the long list I tended to come up with too depressing after a while.  Too much unnecessary pressure, as if life did not present enough on my plate already!  I’ve since taken the route of flowing with whatever life presents, whatever time of the year it is.  This year, if I were to come up with one resolution, it would be to keep every area of my life as simple as possible.

Simplicity is my current buzzword.  It really appeals to me where I am at this stage of my life.  The idea of lightening my load gives me an immediate sense of peace as it creates more room for my creative expression.  Here’s my take on it:

Simplicity cuts out all the frivolous stuff that depletes our energy by taking up too much of our attention.  It frees us up so that we can focus on the things that matter most to us without being pulled in different directions.  When our attention is focused on fewer things, we retain our power to create the fabulous life we deserve.  Simplicity enables us to nurture our own path and to ensure our emotional wellbeing.  Instead of being bombarded by critical thoughts as a result of trying to fulfill everyone’s expectations, we are able to manage the areas towards which we have chosen to channel our energies.  Our load becomes lighter and we’re able to give more to what’s really important to us.

Culprit #1:  People-pleasing

One of the first steps in creating more space for our own pursuits is by drawing our boundaries with people.  I have decided to spend my free time with people I really care for and who supports my growth as I support theirs.  That also means spending less or no time with those who are stuck in perpetual mental poverty and all the behavioural symptoms that come from it – i.e. being manipulative, unreliable, unprofessional, under-handed, lazy, abusive, controlling, etc.

When we try to become all things to everyone, we become overloaded with responsibilities.  These responsibilities drain us mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically.  Mentally, we become harsh on ourselves as we struggle to make everyone happy, and we suffer emotionally.  Our spirit is depleted because we neglect our self-growth.  In the end, our health suffers.  Compromising ourselves this way isn’t healthy for any relationship as the imbalance will catch up with us eventually.

Self-nurturance should be everyone’s priority.  Without people-pleasing, you will be able to create a healing space for yourself without feeling guilty about leaving other people behind or neglecting obligations that are borne out of guilt.

Culprit #2:  Over-analysing

Stop trying to figure things out too much.  The mental drain from needing to work out, comprehend and label everything leaves us with little resources to get clarity on the things that really matter to us.  Learn to be okay with not knowing.  What if your mind resists letting go of knowing?  Consciously relax that resistance and allow the discomfort to move through you without further resisting it until you find yourself in the space of not knowing.  After some practice, you will get better at it and eventually master the art of letting go.

Sometimes, we tend to read too much into other people’s behaviours and take them personally.  We generate negative feelings from the stories we create out of what we think other people’s motives are towards us.  To simplify your life, give up the need to interpret other people’s actions and accept that all of us are doing the best we can given our circumstances.

Culprit #3:  Starting too many projects

I have a habit of working on too many projects at a time and end up not completing any of them.  This year, I will focus my energy on completing not more than two projects at a time.  Having one or two pet projects is more inspiring, without the daunting prospect of having to move ahead with so many different projects.

Also in this category, I will finish reading one book before starting another.  Seeing five unfinished books on my bedside table (a few with cobwebs) gives me a certain amount of stress.  For books that I cannot get past certain pages, I will abandon the need to finish reading them.  One book only at a time.

Culprit #4:  Being indecisive

When we can’t make up our minds about something, guess where our attention is.  Everywhere.  And each subject gets only a watered-down version of our attention.  People can’t decide because they’re afraid that what they choose will turn out to be not such a good choice and that what they’ve not chosen turns out to be better.  Sometimes, even after making a decision, people are still wondering if they’ve made a good choice.  Guess where their attention is.  Neither here nor there.

I have a reputation of being rather indecisive when ordering meals.  I love food, and the more variety is presented to me the more indecisive I get.  I’ve been practising being quicker when ordering food.  I’m also learning to be happy with what I pick out of the menu and to enjoy it fully without wishing I had ordered something else.  Sometimes, if I can’t decide between two items, the solution I take is to order both, which leads me to ask you:

What if you wanted more than one thing?  In the spirit of simplicity, I will say that it is okay to choose two but more than that is a sign of greed and distaste, not to mention it will pass the point of being simple!

Culprit #5:  Forcing things to happen

In one of my previous posts, I talked about the power of deciding and taking actions (The Power Of Saying “I Have Decided!”).  Now, there’s a difference between being proactive and being too forceful in manifesting an outcome.  When you’re being forceful, you risk crossing the line into being desperate and manipulative.  The harshness of this energy will repel rather than support the manifestation of something you desire.

Give it over to trust.  Trust will relieve you of worrying too much and forcing things to happen.  Worrying is not going to help bring about a different outcome, it will make you feel smaller and smaller.  With trust, you will enter the space of infinite possibilities where all the abundance in the world can bring whatever you want into manifestation.

Culprit #6:  Needing to be perfect

This is a killer energy-drainer for so many people.  Needing to be perfect means that you will always be judging yourself against other people and feeling inadequate.  How do we rate perfection anyway?  Whatever you think perfection is, the bar will be raised as soon as you get close to it.  So you’ll be caught up in a cycle of striving for something that doesn’t exist (for more on this subject, read The Perfection Of Imperfection).

When you strive to be perfect, you are in essence saying to yourself that you are not good enough right now.  So your well-meaning projects get abandoned until the day when you feel you have reached perfection.  The question I’d like to ask you is, when will you ever be good enough?

You don’t have to make yourself believe you are perfect now if you don’t feel you are.  Just work on recognising that you are good enough to do whatever it is you are waiting to do.  Focus on your accomplishments so far and know that you are capable of accomplishing more – but only if you get on with it.  Let go of wanting to be the best.  It is better to do a little than not at all while you wait for perfection.

Culprit #7:  Neglecting yourself

Sometimes, choosing to take time out for ourselves may seem counter-intuitive.  We tend to find it easier to carry on with writing that report, making those phone-calls, tending to somebody else’s needs, etc. and end up over-stretching ourselves.  We need to choose to do the things that help reduce our stress levels even in the midst of trying to reach a deadline.  It may seem as if by taking time out we would slow our progress, but a dedicated half an hour of being in our own space would allow us to reenergise and be more productive in the long run.

If you work from home or if domestic chores become overwhelming, taking a relaxing bath or meditating in a quiet corner will clear your head and leave you recharged.  When you’re in front of your computer, you may come across a nurturing article but delete it without reading because you’re afraid of wasting precious time.  Yet the article may contain soul-nourishing messages or give you insights for where you are heading in your life.  The point is, we sometimes make poor choices, thinking that the things that are going to do us good are a waste of time.

Operating on adrenaline may help push you forward when you lack motivation, but one can’t live healthily like that.  That chaotic way of living will lead you to create more madness in your life.  In contrast, a calm, focused, present mindset will help you to make clear choices and make the management of your daily life simpler.

Culprit #8:  Over-promising

This is a behavioural outcome of people-pleasing but deserves its own category because it is such a stress-building pattern.  Overpromising generates guilty feelings when you find yourself unable to deliver on your promises.  Guilty feelings lead you to beat yourself up and feeling lousy about yourself.  Very quickly, it turns into the worst kind of mental self-abuse and creates a massive entanglement of conflicts within yourself.

Forcing yourself to stop the habit of over-promising is not enough.  You need to examine what motivates you to do it.  Some of the common issues behind over-promising include insecurity about who you are perceived to be, fear of rejection, and unresolved guilt around something that happened in the past.  There’s a big, juicy story in your head; explore that story, own up to your feelings associated with that story, and challenge how real it is.  In the process, you chart your way out of being held imprisoned by that story and liberate yourself forever.

Culprit #9:  Wanting to get your way all the time

Most of the people who visit this blog have probably been working on transcending this for a while, but you would remember what it was like struggling from your ego in your dealings with other people.  The inability to let go of being right and getting your way all the time is a massive drain on our resources.  The constant fight to prove a point or win an argument or get the upper-hand in a situation or one-upmanship is a waste of energy.  When you come out the end of it, the price you get is an inflation of your ego, but it might have cost you a few friendships or respect from your peers.

It takes maturity to be able to concede to another person’s viewpoint, to withdraw from an argument, to accept that someone else is better than you, and to be gracious about receiving less than you’ve given.  We can learn to be comfortable with not getting our way by simply accepting it.

Simplicity surrounds you with a sparkling, clean energy.  It allows you to respect the powers of your gifts and in so doing strengthens your sense of yourself as a powerful, magnificent being.

So simple.

 

January 12, 2010

Spiritual Beauty In Vastness

Posted by Amyra under Abundance, Focus, Freedom, Illusions, Personal Power, Spiritual Growth, Spiritual Joy
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Someone once asked what inspired spiritual beauty for me.  I replied that it is when I see vastness – i.e. a huge monument, a magnificent mountain, a sweeping horizon, a large body of water, etc.  We ruminated about why seeing something huge would trigger our sense of spiritual identity.  The person suggested that perhaps it reminds us of how small we are and amidst such grandness we are forced to respect the omnipotence of the higher power.  I wasn’t sure if it resonated fully with me and I’ve been thinking about it since then.

In the last five weeks, I have been on a spiritual retreat and have so far seen numerous sights that inspired great spiritual beauty in me.  I now know the mystery behind vastness.  Rather than reminding me of how small I am, it reminds me of how infinite my true being is.  The sense of being limitless and borderless in my store of abundance, my creativity, is inspired when I look in awe at something monumental.  If it’s a place of history, the richness of the complex stories that have evolved within that time brings to mind a certain timelessness, infiniteness and creativity in our capacity as expressive beings.

It is the coldest winter in 50 years.  The whole country is covered in beautiful snow.  When driving along rural roads, the vastness presented by the snow-covered vista fills me with a curious warmth as joy bubbles in my heart.  I think to myself, “I am as vast as the distance this snow stretches.”  My consciousness expands beyond the confines of my physical body.  The glorious sun shines through the cold and I love the feel of it on my face.  I think to myself, “I am the sun – infinitely radiant and abundant.”  In moments of facing bone-chilling cold, rather than reminding me of how helpless I am, I dive into the depth of the cold and recover my sense of being Everything out of nothingness.

This is the kind of spiritual growth I had hoped to achieve on my two-month retreat.  I see spiritual beauty all around me.  Interestingly, I also see lots of people complaining about the cold and the tragedy portrayed by one focusing on limitations.  I rejoice in breaking through the illusion of these limitations.  As I embrace the cold and celebrate the lowest temperatures in half a century, I discover that I am truly abundant.

I was on the phone with someone while my window became a screen playing the most awesome snowfall I had ever seen.  Outside, the snowflakes became bigger and bigger, covering the trees and ground with a fluffy blanket of pure white snow.  I was completely hypnotised and struggled to continue speaking.  Because when spiritual beauty overcomes you, there are no words.  You are immersed in feelings that defy words.

As I write this, I wonder if some people in my position would have thought they were watching a horror movie – as the snowflakes became bigger and bigger, rather than seeing beauty they imagined how much the snow would impede their movements, for instance.  Instead of seeing abundance, they saw limitations.  It reminds me of how easy it is for us to focus on the things that are at the end of a creation and interpret it as a limited creation.  When we shift our focus to the source of that creation, we cannot but see the abundance in where creation springs.  The snow comes from a place that generates an abundance of snow; the neighbourhood where the snow covered is the ‘victim’.  Where does your mind naturally focus?

I saw vastness in that snow movie because I’ve had plenty of practice appreciating vastness and letting feelings of spiritual beauty wash over me.  In the past when I was living with a more limited consciousness, I would have conjured up many fearful scenarios out of something that is really a good thing if I had been able to see it that way.  It takes practice to move away from feeling trapped to feeling free.  A prisoner who’s been released will continue to behave as if she’s still in prison, allowing those around her to persecute her until she mentally steps out of her imagined prison.  If you continue to stay small, your world will look small to you.  If you choose to expand out of your smallness, you can call in the vastness around you to be your trusted ally in freeing you from your illusion of being trapped in a limited world.

How do you call in the vastness around you?  Look around you.  Where is the source of what you see?  Follow back to that source and appreciate the store of abundance.  A picture frame made of wood comes from several pieces of wood which comes from a tree in a forest.  Keep ‘zooming out’ until you see the vastness.  What does it remind you of about your true nature?

What about something you judge as bad, such as an abusive person?  That person is expressing their beliefs and judgements, which are formed by and distilled from their experiences in life, which is a complex saga comprising rich characters with a variety of motivations, which immediately gives you a sense of how varied the store of human behaviours is and allows you to open up to the possibilities of many different experiences you can have among the storehouse of human beings you come across in your life.  This kind of ‘opening up’ of the mind is a key to freeing you from the illusion of being stuck with few or no options.  The gift in vastness is very good medicine for one who feels stuck in limitations.

I am passionate about ‘infecting’ other people with my ability to see spiritual beauty.  Having crossed over, so to speak, I would like to invite all of you to open up to the vastness around you, moving past the limitations you perceive, until you experience true feelings of abundance, joy and freedom.  I promise you, it is all there.

 

December 2, 2009

Do Not Be Perplexed…. Be In Awe

Posted by Amyra under Addictions, Ego, Illusions, Spiritual Growth, Trust, Truth
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I consider myself very privileged to be in a position to facilitate spiritual awakenings for clients who are open to develop their spirituality.  It’s such an honour to be part of someone’s awakening process and so humbling to witness the growth of a soul.  A lot of our clients are highly-accomplished professionals and successful businesspeople who are left-brain dominant; whilst their structured, analytical minds have aided in their professional success, it’s an obstacle when it comes to emotional healing.  Hence, we often spend quite a lot of time breaking through their tendencies to intellectualise the process so that they can deepen into the realm where true healings can take place.

When you intellectualise the process, you do a number of things: trying to put ideas into clearly-labelled boxes; being sceptical of concepts that do not appeal to your logical brain; over-analysing your feelings; the inability to be open-minded about random, subjective matters; and being too structured and linear in planning how you want the outcomes to look like.

But spirituality does not conform to boxes, or necessarily fit into logic, or stand up to analyses.  It cannot be planned in structured and linear ways.  It may not even be possible to put into words.  What are these boxes anyway if not something constructed by our limited brain?  Spirituality is amorphous, unstructured, pliable, circular, often paradoxical, mysterious, and full of undiscovered potential.

Since I take a spiritual approach to treatment, I see addiction as a gateway to discovering one’s true, awakened self.  In that sense, I tend to see every individual who checks into our residential rehab as a soul on the cusp of finding a renewed sense of who they are.  The process often entails the breaking down of the illusions of their ego – seeing through what’s false and inauthentic so that they come back to a total appreciation of the beauty of their spirit.

The flowering of the soul when finding its way back home is a beautiful process that defies what the logical, rational mind can understand.  It can only be understood by experiencing it and letting go of the need to understand it conceptually.  Bring the level of understanding from the mind to the heart, for this is where growth happens.  The more you are willing to surrender, the faster you’ll get there.  Whenever I see clients struggling to make sense of it, I tell them, “Do not be perplexed, but be in awe of it.”  When you’re perplexed, you are attempting to find answers through your logical mind.  When you’re in awe, you simply surrender to the experience while retaining an open heart.  The former creates limitations while the latter allows you to flow with the process of change, resulting in quicker healings.

When clients come to us for help, they have become stuck in their self-imposed structures – either through their own limiting beliefs or allowing others’ agendas to mark the boundaries around their actions and behaviours. They’re unable to see their way out.  A lot of times, the solutions are found by mentally removing these structures and seeing what is possible when they’re no longer boxed in by those limitations.  This applies not just to one’s physical environment but also to the beliefs they rigidly hold on to.

But to let go of these structures, there needs to be some sense of a safe alternative presented.  Otherwise, it will truly feel like death – in letting go of your grip on what has kept you safe and falling into the chasm of nothingness.  A deep depression or hollowness can manifest temporarily as a symptom of the death of your ego – sometimes known as “the dark nights of the soul”.  This isn’t a bad thing, no matter how uncomfortable it may feel.  The pendulum will start swinging back to the opposite polarity, bringing you back into light, once you’ve reached the depth of despair.  In emerging out of darkness, you’ll pick up various aspects of your true, authentic self, until you arrive at a higher form of yourself – more alive and whole than ever.

The alternative that needs to be presented to encourage you to let go of rigidly-held beliefs will not form into convenient little structures.  But a trust that there is something else worth experiencing will enable you to let go of what isn’t working anymore.  And when you begin to feel the mysterious in-betweens, be in awe of your discovery and let yourself be brought home on a wondrous journey.

 

October 23, 2009

A Tribute To Personal Freedom

Posted by Amyra under Assertiveness, Choice, Empowerment, Freedom, Fulfilment, Self-Acceptance, Self-Actualisation, Values
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In my work as well as my personal growth, I often examine how our fears entrap us in a false sense of imprisonment.  We fear expressing ourselves, making courageous decisions, saying no to those who’re abusive to us, standing up for ourselves … because we might leave ourselves exposed to judgements and rejection.  The cost of asserting ourselves and exercising our freedom is the shame and embarassment of being shown that what we do is not acceptable to others.

What is it about being accepted by others that make it such a powerful drive that stop us from living a happy life?  Reading this, it may sound ridiculous that we short-change ourselves so readily to gain the approval of others, yet it happens more often than we’re comfortable admitting to.  This feared unacceptability can come in various forms – e.g. being told we’re not good enough, being persecuted, leaving someone unhappy.

The rules we learned as children followed by a lifetime of putting into practice those rules (often in inappropriate contexts) have convinced us that straying from what’s kept us safe will bring about the same outcomes we had feared as children.  Our logical minds (A will lead to B; C will lead to D) are influenced by fears that put an irrational spin on how we make decisions.  In other words, we are stuck in a world governed by a set of rules that we ourselves have chosen (whether influenced by others or not) when the reality is that in many circumstances as adults we have the freedom to act as we please – our actions governed only by our conscience.

And what of our conscience?  Our conscience should only be dictated by what we know to be our personal values, and we guide our actions by ensuring that we uphold those values.  What this means is that the clearer we are of what our values are, the more confident we are of making the decisions that are right for us.  Having a weak sense of our values, on the other hand, would make us waver in our decisions and more likely to yield to the desire to seek the acceptance of others at the cost of what we truly want or believe in.

Sometimes, it takes a traumatic experience to enable us to learn our true values.  Those who have gone through great hardships will tell you that having experienced the lack of something they now value that thing much more.  When we value something to the extent that we will do all we can to keep it intact in our lives, it becomes our guiding force in what we choose to do.  Although at times our choice will come at a cost, it enables us to act with certainty and to accept the consequences of our choice.  This is personal freedom at its essence – the ability to make our own empowered choices to shape our own lives.

What we must nurture is self-acceptance – having a respect for who we are and a belief for what we stand for.  Self-acceptance takes the focus away from others and towards ourselves.  Instead of focusing on how we are perceived and judged by others, we concentrate our care on what brings us happiness.  Here we get to sieve out the truth from a generalised belief that it hurts us to hurt others.  This is our bottomline fear.  Only when our personal boundaries are firmly intact can we know the difference between guarding our values and compromising our wellbeing.  Misplaced guilt and the fear of being punished are a result of having loose boundaries – it takes us away from acting from our empowered center and into giving away our sense of freedom.  We become our own persecutor when we’ve discovered that those who persecute us are merely boogey-men conjured up by fear – so real and familiar is that sense of being restricted about what we can do that we continue to restrict ourselves long after any real threat is gone.

An over-inflated and misplaced conscience is the culprit behind many failed dreams.  Who are we really afraid of hurting?  Is it worth protecting this hurt?  Is this protection still relevant in your life right now?  Knowing who the real target of our fear is, we can set ourselves free, so that we no longer spill over this over-protection to those we have no business protecting.

Discarding this mental baggage will lead you to a greater capacity to assert your powerful self.  In recovering from addiction and other dysfunctional behaviours, lapses and relapses (when we go back to our old behaviours) usually happen because we’re afraid of asserting our powerful selves.  That feeling of being weak is more likely to be due to this fear than to a shortage of inner resources to make the right choice.

Freedom to act as we choose is the most fundamental right we have and cannot be taken away unless we give it.  Step into your power and make empowered choices that bring you closer in line with what you desire and believe in.  There is, at the end of the day, only one litmus test which may be crudely spelt out: are you man enough or woman enough to stand up for what is deeply important to you?

Note the word ‘deeply’ – so often we confuse what’s superficially important with what can fill us up from within.  People have a tendency to spend years immersed in something that only satisfies them on a superficial level but that comes at a cost of endless chaos and stresses.  True freedom is when we make the decision to disengage from these superficially important matters and seek out the things that give us a warm feeling of fulfilment – calm, expansive, joyful and soothing.  In contrast to maintaining the superficial, there isn’t a sense that there’s ongoing price to pay – and that is a sign that what we’ve chosen, in exercising our personal freedom, is right for us.

 

October 8, 2009

The Power Of Saying “I Have Decided!”

Posted by Amyra under Change, Choice, Commitment, Empowerment, Spiritual Guidance, Trust
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I remember when I started exploring spirituality many years ago.  At that time, I’d been stuck in a space of self-sabotage, anger, control, rigidity and self-despise.  Exploring spirituality had enabled me to move out from that negative space and to see that life could be so much more.  It taught me great lessons in trust, surrender, abundance, true joy and empowerment – and I lapped up the new experience with great enthusiasm.

But whilst stepping into this new space was a freeing experience, it took many years before I truly understood how to apply those spiritual lessons in my life.  Today, I am still learning.  Striking a balance between walking in a spiritual world and applying great spiritual lessons in my daily life is a constant challenge that makes my life a stimulating experience.  I enjoy making a discovery of yet another level or dimension to a concept that further enriches my life.

In my earlier days of learning to trust in the Universe, I threw away all controls as I allowed myself to enjoy the freedom of being ‘a passenger of cosmic intelligence’, so to speak.  That was refreshing, after obsessively trying to control outcomes for years.  “When you trust, you will be taken to where you need to be,” was a well-known mantra in spiritual circles.  I still believe this (as is evident from my last posting about flowing with your intuition).

But trusting isn’t about being passive at all.  For self-expression, the ability to make empowered choices out of our free will, is a spiritual lesson too.  When we’re in tune with the energies of the Universe, the pathways before us are illuminated – though invisible to our naked eyes, we can sense those pathways.  As we trust in what we sense, we make choices and decisions to follow this guidance.  That choice to move along an illuminated pathway is still down to us.

This is the antithesis of remaining in a state of vagueness, ambiguity or ambivalence.  Being vague/ambiguous/ambivalent gives us the illusion that we have more freedom but actually it leaves us stuck, unable to move forward.  It’s fine if we had taken a year’s sabbatical to sit around to test out the truth of spiritual concepts, but in our practical world it’s just … well, not very practical.  When you want a certain outcome, supported by a strong feeling that it is going to be good for you, it is up to you to take the necessary steps to see the manifestation of that outcome.

I’ve seen many people take the ambiguous stance regarding giving up an unhealthy habit.  They justify it by saying, “I don’t want to commit to giving up completely because if I fail it would leave me totally discouraged.”  This is poor excuse and in fact nonsense, held on only by the fears of giving up a familiar pattern.  It does not stand up to logical examination since choosing not to commit to something we say we want is like allowing ourselves the space to fail.  In other words, we set ourselves up to fail.  Of course, committing to something does not guarantee that we will achieve it, but it maximises our chances of success.  Commitment is akin to covering up the energetic holes around our intention so that all our resources are channelled towards ensuring a desired outcome.

So much has been written, discussed and sold around the hot topic of manifestation.  People are desperate to acquire the secrets to manifesting their heart’s desires, and I can give you THE KEY to bringing in what you want to create in your life:

DECIDING that this is what is going to happen.

Whatever it is that you want to change in yourself and in your life, decide on the change.  Decide that you will change.  Decide this or that will happen.  And you will make it happen, despite obstacles along the way.  Unless you make this shift internally, unless you decide, you are setting yourself up for failure.  Ambivalence leaves you weak.  Make up your mind and move on in that direction whole-heartedly.

In your path towards what you want to achieve, you may draw in the right people to help you.  But nobody can make that decision to achieve it.  Only you can do it.  It cannot be done for you.  Without making this decision, your efforts will only be half-hearted, to match your half-hearted intention.

A simple yet powerful statement of “I have decided!” uttered with total conviction and determination will immediately pull together all your resources and bring them to the forefront of your consciousness, ready at your fingertips.  You allow no leeway for a different outcome and so your every action will be infused with this intention.  You may actually find a different outcome when you get there, but the process of moving determinedly towards what you desired as an outcome is such an empowering act of self-expression and self-actualisation that a differing outcome to what you desired would not feel like a failure when you get there but a delightful surprise.

What can you say “I have decided!” for today?

 

September 25, 2009

Trust Your Intuiton, Flow With It

Posted by Amyra under Intuition, Meanings/Associations, Spiritual Guidance, Trust
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I love it when I get powerful messages through friends.  There’s something about being able to sense our spirits while we’re engaged in human interactions – it’s that sense of suddenly knowing that we’re not just two people sitting in a little shop drinking coffee but that on a spiritual level we’ve been communicating with each other all the time despite the physical distance between us; and that what we’ve been communicating has been so wise that only in rare instances can we let in the depth of those messages.  When the depth of such messages are grasped and understood, it can have profound effects in transforming our lives.

My friend Gill whom I greatly admire for her tremendous courage in self-transformation shared one such message with me recently.  It seems she has streamlined her philosophy in life to this one piece of wisdom: We must trust our intuition and flow with it; it’s when we resist the strong messages of our heart/spirit that things go wrong.  In fact, she believes that things can only go wrong if we resist what we’ve been intuitively guided to do.

I reflected on some of my past experiences and found this to be true for myself.  How often had I stayed too long in pain because I had ignored what my gut feelings were telling me?  Conversely, how many times had I listened and trusted my instincts, acted on it and gained from it?

So the good news is, the answers we are seeking are here all the time.  We only need to tune in and listen with our hearts.  Beneath our humanly existence and all its ego-based struggles, we are an infinitely wise being.  A gigantic library of knowledge is stored right inside us – we hold the keys to this knowledge but the world around us also hold spare copies of these keys.  When emotional turmoils and mental conflicts become overwhelming, it may not be easy to open the door ourselves – this is when those spare keys come into work, through something someone said or a meaning you draw from observing something around you.

When a message is strong and clear, we will know it.  Spontaneity helps, as a lot of times the guidance is contradictory to what our logical mind says.  Yet it will feel right, no matter how wrong it seems.  The tricky part is when we can’t decide whether it’s intuitive guidance or a dysfunctional thought!  Sometimes it takes practice to develop our intuition – but we do our best anyway because our intention to follow our guidance will go on record that we’re moving forward, and we will begin to fine-tune our intuitive sense.  After some time, when you look back and recall your feelings you’ll be able to distinguish true guidance from self-defeating thoughts.

Guidance from within (or from greater spirit, which are ultimately the same thing) is a gift.  We only need to heed the message and flow with it.  Sometimes, we decide to create something different instead of flowing along with the guidance.  We think we (our ego self) know better when our divine self, with its infinite wisdom, is guiding us from a vantage point that spans all time and space.  Trusting in the infinite wisdom of our spiritual self is a lesson we must learn in order to transcend our low-level struggles and move into a higher existence where abundance and joy are ever-flowing.

When I trust and flow with my intuition, I can literally feel the supporting hand of the Universe gently prodding me from behind.  Try this.  Let go of control and surrender to what your intuition tells you, and feel the soft, warm, protective energy moving you along to that mysterious place.

 

September 10, 2009

How Good Can You Stand?

Posted by Amyra under Abundance, Addictions, Fear, Self-Sabotage
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Many of my clients with addiction problems have asked why they often drink or use drugs when things are going well for them.  “I can understand if I’d been feeling bad,” they say, “but why is it that when things are good I’d start using again?”  There are many reasons and I am going to offer my views focusing on the aspects which I find particularly interesting.

Sometimes, we use the excuse of wanting to celebrate to go on a binge and end up abusing ourselves.  This is not what I am addressing; here, the celebratory mood is likely to be forced just because we want an excuse to embark on our self-abusing behaviour.  What I am addressing is when your life genuinely starts to look good and you’re feeling good, and then you choose an unhealthy habit and you end up sabotaging yourself.

A typical description sounds like this:

They’ve stopped using.  They’ve been working out regularly, and their body is fitter and stronger.  People are commenting on how good they look.  They’ve learnt to take time out to relax and meditate.  They feel more balanced emotionally and less prone to anxiety.  They feel inspired and creative, perhaps picking up a project they had abandoned.  Overall, they’re feeling good, probably the best they’ve felt in years.  Their life is ripe with possibilities, all the things they’ve always wanted is within their reach…

Then all of a sudden, a thought comes into their head strong and clear: “I want to have a drink” or “I need to go on a hedonistic weekend.”  With that, they embark on the old road of addiction and find themselves in that awful, familiar place – sabotaging all the good they’ve achieved.  This happens not only for those addicted to substances; people also sabotage themselves this way in relationships and businesses.  What is it that makes feeling good so difficult to bear?

Most of us have been programmed to expect pain.  Therefore, when we find ourselves in the unfamiliar place of feeling good, we tend to sabotage it.  If you’ve been struggling in a painful place for a long time, experiencing abundance would be a new concept for you.  You’re simply not used to the feelings of having abundance.

This is similar to having ‘poverty consciousness’.  You might have read statistics of people who won the lottery only to lose all the money they’ve won within a very short time.  In wealth seminars, one of the things they get you to do is to raise your threshold for wealth – how much you believe you are worth deep down – so that you are driven to achieve more wealth and without sabotaging it.  But what I’m addressing is the feelings itself that come from having good things.  If feeling good is uncomfortable for you, you may need to raise your threshold for feeling good.  To make changes, we need to first know where we’re at – where is your current threshold?  How good can you stand?

If your self-concept does not fit into the concept of someone who experiences good, then you are likely to sabotage your situation so that it fits more into your concept of yourself as someone who is in pain – because no matter how good things have become, deep down it’s not what you’ve been programmed to achieve.

Perhaps you secretly believe that you deserve to be punished, and you’ve been dealing with deep-seated guilt and shame about who you are.  If this rings true for you, perhaps now is the time to take a real hard look at what you believe about yourself and work to change those beliefs.  Changing beliefs isn’t just about uttering positive statements to yourself over and over again – it involves the process of reconciling your relationship with yourself, making peace with yourself through forgiveness of yourself and/or others.

Another reason why we might sabotage ourselves is the fear of being disappointed – i.e. we believe that we won’t be able to sustain the good, so we preempt it being ended for us by ending it for ourselves.  One or even a series of disappointments in the past does not mean that it is the most probable outcome for you now, unless you choose to perpetuate that story.  It is fine to be cautious and learn from past mistakes,  but it is defeatist to expect disappointment all the time.

We do this in our heads long before we act on it – i.e. we note the possibility of a positive outcome but we quickly thrash it down just in case we jinx it.  There’s something almost superstitious about the way we think, as if the chance of us getting something good will be better if we don’t expect it.  Actually the reverse is true: if we don’t hold a sense of expectancy for something good to happen, there won’t be a space for it to happen, because when the good things start to come you’re likely to miss recognising it and continue on a self-defeating path.  Expectancy allows us to expand into the realm of positive outcomes, whereas expectation of disappointment closes off the door to this realm.

We fear the unknown.  The unknown is neither destructive nor expansive, but it stores the potential of both.  That’s why it’s so scary to think of stepping into the unknown.  Yet we must be brave to step into the unknown in order to claim the joyous.  We must allow ourselves to not know what form the positive outcome is going to look like and just expect to be able to experience joyousness that can come in any form.  The form is less important – what we can imagine right now is only limited, but the feelings of good can come from many, many different outcomes.

Every time you catch yourself taking a turn for the worse, through your own chosen behaviours, you mark that line that defines your feeling-good threshold.  In time, you’ll develop a definite sense of that threshold.  Next, you can stretch yourself to stay in the space of feeling good until it becomes more comfortable for you being in that space.  We can get used to anything if we stayed in it long enough – after a while, our tolerance will increase and what used to be uncomfortable will become less so.  With awareness that you’ve reached your threshold and that you are about to sabotage yourself but you’re choosing to stay in the space of feeling good, you can train yourself to stop reacting automatically and thus end up in a far better place for a prolonged period.  Life gets better for you as you learn to enjoy positive experiences.

 

July 15, 2009

Mission: Spiritual Joy At Every Moment

Posted by Amyra under Choice, Ego, Focus, Letting Go, Life Mission, Spiritual Growth, Spiritual Joy, Truth
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Over the weekend, I was sharing with friends that I had just discovered a new life mission: to experience spiritual joy at every moment.  In the past, I had spent years figuring out my life mission, and in the end, I always came out with something to change the world or that involved making some unique contribution.  Those are all very well, but as I think about it now, they smacked of arrogance – which suggests that I had not reached beyond the ego in coming up with what I’m here to do.

Spiritual joy is, to me, the most sublime of human experience.  Some qualification is needed for the term, and I begin by making clear what it is not.  It is not about feeling happy all the time, or looking cheerful by putting on a big, smiley face.  Rather, spiritual joy is a deep emotional experience that takes you far into yourself and expands your sense of beingness in the Universe.  You can feel spiritual joy even when you are sad or undergoing some emotionally tough experience.  This type of joy is akin to opening a big book containing sacred knowledge about life; it is enlightening and it fills us with wonder.

If I focus my experience on feeling spiritual joy, then the roads and doors to spiritual joy must present themselves to me.  It might be through taking certain actions that are life-changing or world-changing.  But I am more interested in making use of every moment as an opportunity to experience spiritual joy – to sense the perpetual flow of movement in every moment, especially in my own growth.

What I’ve gained from learning to appreciate spiritual joy is that there really is so much to enjoy about life.  In focusing on spiritual joy, it’s taught me to transcend low-level struggles and to see the larger context.  Joy is a powerful, moving energy that can erase all self-doubts and inadequacies.  After all, we doubt ourselves and feel inadequate in reference to a limited world which we have constructed and which isn’t the whole picture at all.  When we immerse in spiritual joy, it takes us out of the box and into the space where everything is possible.  The more we experience spiritual joy, the more we break down the old programming that is hard-wired into our system and change our whole experience of life.

Paradoxically, indulging in spiritual joy does not make me all floaty and airy; it makes me feel more grounded.  Although it takes you ‘out there’, it does so by expanding your presence rather than by displacing your energy.  Meaning that your energy remains firmly rooted in the ground as your consciousness expands.  As your consciousness expands, you are filled with more presence.  As your presence becomes more solid, you are more aware of your earthly surroundings and the connectedness between all things.  Your existence isn’t displaced but enhanced.

This gives a new flavour to the term ‘life mission’.  For me, it is quite liberating to now look at my mission as simply to feel spiritual joy rather than to bring about some changes to my environment.  Regardless of my environment, I can still feel spiritual joy.  It teaches me to appreciate every moment and to exercise my power of choice in how I experience my world.

Having a ‘beingness’ as a life mission allows us to tap into the part of us that is in control – the part that makes the choice whether to experience something in one way or another.  When we focus on and look out for something that is readily there, we experience it.  This is true for most things in life, including feelings of abundance and excitement.

So, if the life mission or life purpose you have carefully crafted no longer inspires you, it may be worthwhile to reexamine your place in your world.  If you have evolved to a more freeing way of being but your ego is holding on to old attachments, it may be time to let go of them.  Only you have the power to let go of things, it cannot be done for you – and in so doing you will open up your world to greater joy.

 

July 6, 2009

Strange Is Good

Posted by Amyra under Change, Choice, Emotional Pain
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As a counsellor, I’m always fascinated by the choice of words that people use when describing the process of change that is taking place for them.  Fascinated, because any new variation I hear enriches my experience of working with people.  I’ve always been intensely interested in what motivates people and in learning about the complex human psyche.  One thing I’ve grown to appreciate is the availability of language in connecting one’s experience with one’s self-awareness.

In my work, I find that people don’t always have fluency in the emotional language.  Nowadays, largely due to the rise in popularity of self-help books, audio tapes, seminars and TV programmes, people are more exposed to emotion-speak.  But when it comes to speaking about one’s own emotions, people still tend to struggle.  In fact, the process of struggling to find the right words is very much a part of the therapeutic process.  There is, of course, a danger of labelling one’s experience with a general concept that has little to do with what one is actually experiencing, but a skilled therapist would be able to pick up on an inauthentic expression and explore with the client what they are actually experiencing.  A skilled therapist listens emotionally and intuitively to what is being expressed by a client – so a lack of emotional connection on the part of the client would seldom go unnoticed.

This week, I’ve heard a client who’d been struggling with connecting to their feelings use the word “strange” to describe how they felt.  I was interested because it told me that the client had now shifted into change.  Strange isn’t bad – it simply signifies a change taking place.  To change, you need to be out of your comfort zone, and that can feel very strange indeed.  You’re in new territory, after all.  Anything new that you do will take you to a place of feeling strange for a while until you familiarise with your new environment and make some sense out of it.

Strange is good.  A child exploring a world of magical fantasy would find that world strange.  It implies a level of acceptance of the reality of that world and a certain belief in something positive about it.  The strangeness is in the unsure footing the child has in a world that promises great things.  The way of the curious child is the way we adults should approach change – with a certain expectancy for our eyes to be opened to something wildly new and exciting.

We tend to view change as uncomfortable, and that we’re stuck in it.  It’s worth reminding ourselves that what is, no matter how painful it seems right now, can transition into something more comfortable, if we keep moving along with the fundamental energy that is ever changing.  A shift in your outlook about being in the realm of change can transition you quicker into the new phase where you can now enjoy the change that has taken place.

Being in the realm of change – the place of discomfort, of strangeness – is a powerful phase where creativity is ripe to express itself in any direction.  Paradoxically, the more you relax into the strangeness, the more control you have over the outcome of change.  When you’re relaxed, you stop fighting the process of change and allow a new truth to be revealed to you.  This new truth will enlighten your next move and clarify your actions from here on.

Some days, I wake up feeling strange, and I don’t have many words beyond that to describe how I am feeling.  I don’t like it or dislike it, I just know that I’m on the verge of a new experience.  It’s like wearing a thin nylon sock on one foot and a woolly sock on the other – something will happen to correct that misalignment and it may involve pushing everything else into misalignment as well.  I sometimes use the word “weird” but I will stick to “strange” from now on.  I like strange.  Strange is good.

 

June 10, 2009

The Power Of Dragonfly

Posted by Amyra under Illusions, Shamanism, Spirits, Symbols
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BODY RENEWLOGO

I am sitting by the rooftop pool in a hotel and watching a dragonfly trapped behind a glass wall.  Its wings are crimson and they reflect an iridescent shimmer as it flies.  I marvel at how powerfully the spirits are communicating with me today as I have come here with the intention to write about the symbolism of dragonfly, its significance in my life, and how it represents my work today.

When I was a kid, I loved being among nature.  I loved playing in the gardens – finding cool, shaded spots among bougainvillea shrubs and creating sanctuaries for myself.  I was a natural witch, spending lots of time collecting ingredients from various parts of plants, slicing up little roots, picking flower petals, extracting juices from leaves – and I’d pretend to make potions on a crudely assembled altar in the garden.  I was happiest when I was in nature – feeling an easy flow with the elements and an innate understanding of how energy worked.

I guess like any child, I had a vivid imagination and I believed in magical creatures.  I imagined what it was like befriend a mermaid or to come across water babies.  I was into unicorns, dragons, fairies.  I also loved dragonflies.  To me, they were almost mystical creatures, in the same league as unicorns.  There was a tree from my childhood that attracted lots of dragonflies in the early evenings and I used to play with them every day.  They seemed to dance rather than buzz or fly or any other words usually used to describe the movement of insects.  I didn’t think of dragonflies as insects, they were from a magical dimension, as far as I was concerned.

Today, the dragonfly is still very appealing to me.  In my spiritual path, learning to work with animal symbolism in the shamanic tradition has opened me up to establish stronger links with my spiritual self and has provided pragmatic tools for me to exercise my personal power.  In working with the Power of the Dragonfly, I’ve discovered that my work converges with this power: what the dragonfly stands for sums up neatly what my work is about.

The premise of my work is that we are seldom as trapped as we think we are.  It’s an illusion, and we have the power to not only see through this illusion but to change, transmute, transform what we saw as a helpless situation.  This is why my body movement system is called Body Renew – ‘body’ being our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies; and the concept of being able to renew ourselves on these different levels.

In Native American Shamanism, the dragonfly stands for Illusion.  As an insect, the dragonfly is remarkable in its ability to manoeuver its body and change directions during flight.  It can fly up to 30 mph and spot movement 40 feet away.  What this means is that the dragonfly can approach and see things from many different angles, rather than stuck with one viewpoint.  This is how we see through illusion.  Moreover, its ability to reflect and refract light give the impression of transforming colours – another way of showing us that things are never quite what it appears to be.

See the convergence?  That is why I have decided to use the dragonfly in my logo.  The logo is created by Adam George, a talented artist, shamanic facilitator, sailor and healer.  My heartfelt appreciation to Adam for his creative help and being so spot-on in ‘getting’ where I’m coming from.

Looking up, I see that the dragonfly is no longer behind the glass wall.  It has found a way out of its trappedness – a perfect illustration of its shamanic power.  I’m going to pay attention and watch its movements, knowing that such a perfect manifestation can only carry a powerful message for me…..

 

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