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Experiencing a simpler life -- for a few hours

It was 2:15 AM on a hot summer's night and I was sitting in the living room of my apartment in Scottsdale, Arizona -- with no electricity. I awoke about 10 minutes earlier to total darkness and complete silence. Things that I've always taken for granted weren't working: no air conditioning, no lights, no TV, no internet, no refrigeration, no fans...no...no....no.

Even my emergency back up lights and flash lights weren't working. I'd taken them for granted, too. I had them in my apartment for just such emergencies --to provide light when monsoons knock out power -- so I just assumed they would work when there was no electricity. I never thought to check them before I actually needed them to be fully functional. My mistake.

I was alone in the dark with only thoughts and feelings, that I usually try to avoid, as company. The outer silence compared with the inner chatter of my mind was eery. The silence -- coupled with my active mind's need to be reigned in and focused -- created a space within me to think about my life. I hunted about and located paper, a pen and matches to light candles so I could see the words that wanted to pour out of me. While I was doing this, the thought of how, when Abe Lincoln was a young boy, he read by fire light. What a whimp I was being.

Boo!

Boo! Happy Halloween!

I bet that greeting caught you by surprise. It was meant to. As I was leafing through my calendar I realized that Halloween is only two months away. Then I began to think about the "holiday." Isn't it interesting that on Halloween we intentionally go to places where we know we'll be scared.

How do I get there from here?

I'm in the process of organizing materials for a free Success Circle focused on helping people "feel the power of taking positive action." In thinking about where I should begin, I realized that, after we graduate from high school or college, start a career, get married and have kids, most of us don't have any idea what we want to do between those milestone events and our final milestone on earth -- death.

I'm one of those people, too. As a Baby Boomer, I always had a goal in mind: world peace, women's liberation, civil rights, etc. Now I have the luxury of not having to "do" anything but "be" my authentic self and I'm struggling a bit.

Caution: The spiritual path is not for the faint of heart

"I'm feeling amazing - physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually blissful once again. And you will too if you can surrender to what is in front of you, confront your own fears, illusions, sadness, anger, and see them as the lies they truly are. God loves you. That's the truth underlying all our lessons. Receive it, bask in it, and be blessed by it."

This quote is from Ann Alber's most recent commentary on her web site (www.visionsofhome.com) and I couldn't agree with her more.

Ann's article reminded me of a tentcard I have sitting on the top of my bookcase, in clear view at all times. The card shows a stylized individual man seated in meditation with a thought bubble over his head. The thoughts are formed by alternating black and white (positive and negative) block prints that create the message "Before enlightenment chop wood carry water. After enlightenment chop wood carry water." Below the image were the words by by Nicholas Kirsten-Honshin, "Enlightenment, it's not what you think."

If anybody thinks walking the spiritual path involves magic wands, fairy dust and getting to an ending point on the journey and just kicking back and relaxing -- boy are they in for a surprise. The spiritual path involves consciouness, integrity and truth. It involves making choices and accepting the consequences knowing that all is in divine right order. Our journey in life becomes a path filled with forks in the road.

"I remember talking on the phone with a friend who teaches Fung Shui and is involved in several healing modalities involving energy. We’ve both been studying and practicing spiritual principles for longer than they’ve been in vogue. In my case, I’ve been studying and practicing them for more than 30 years. During our conversation, my friend reminded me “enlightenment isn’t for sissies.” Amen! I loved that phrase because it summed up what I'd experienced.

When I first learned about spiritual principles, I was an elementary school teacher in Laurel Canyon, California. As part of my fifth grade class’s preparation for creative writing assignments, I lead them through guided imagery meditations. This was quite radical at the time but it sparked a lot of creativity and inner calmness.

I read everything I could get my hands on, studied The Course in Miracles (TCM), and participated in small group discussions about TCM in Marianne Williamson’s apartment in West Hollywood. I thought I had found the Holy Grail for happiness. Little did I know that I just found the tip of the iceberg.

The more I learned, the more there was to learn. For the first decade of my studies, I used spirituality as a way to avoid feelings. When I was afraid, anxious or angry, I took a few deep breaths and “focused on the positive.” This worked for awhile but soon I could no longer hide from my feelings behind a thick wall of affirmations, meditations, visualizations or anything else for that matter much as an alcoholic hides behind booze and a drug user hides behind the drug of the day. I could run but I couldn’t hide. Wherever I went and whatever I did, my mind, body and spirit came with me.

As time went by, I learned that feelings are the core of living a spiritual life; feelings couldn’t be denied in favor of spirituality. Both were essential. Meditations and affirmations were useful because they helped me to quiet my mind so I could feel all the emotions that I stuffed into my body.

The more I explored my feelings and my unconscious beliefs, the better spiritual principles worked for me. For example, the “Law of Attraction” says whatever you focus your attention on is magnetically drawn to you. I wondered why, when I focused on manifesting money, large amounts of money didn’t flow into my life.

If the “Law of Attraction” was like the “Law of Gravity”, it should always work. What I found out is that it does as long as I truly believe in the principle and rid myself of doubt and unconscious beliefs. I can’t keep pulling a carrot out of the ground and expect it to grow to maturity. Deep in the recesses of my mind, I had the belief that you have to work hard to make money and that belief was stronger than the one that says I can manifest whatever I want just by having a clear intention.

I soon experienced the challenge of having to look at all my feelings and beliefs, determine if they were mine or came from somebody else (i.e., parent, teacher, religious leader, etc.) and then have the courage to try to do things differently. Yikes! This was and continues to be challenging.

Fast forward to the present. I am still uncovering and exploring more and more buried feelings and unconscious beliefs. Each discovery triggers many emotions and gives me the choice of “facing the fear and doing it anyway” or staying stuck. So far, my choices have been to move toward the light and the truth that’s in my heart. In the process, I often am anxious, scared, and hopeful, all at the same time. With each step forward, I have a deeper understanding of the spiritual beliefs that I started studying 30 years ago.

I sense that the more I explore my own inner world, the more my outer world will change for the better and the more I will truly feel the truth of spiritual concepts. I will move from knowing and being able to recite the principles to feeling and living them. This process isn’t for sissies and it never ends.

"I'm feeling amazing - physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually blissful once again. And you will too if you can surrender to what is in front of you, confront your own fears, illusions, sadness, anger, and see them as the lies they truly are. God loves you. That's the truth underlying all our lessons. Receive it, bask in it, and be blessed by it."

This quote is from Ann Alber's most recent commentary on her web site (www.visionsofhome.com) and I couldn't agree with her more.

Ann's article reminded me of a tentcard I have sitting on the top of my bookcase, in clear view at all times. The card shows a stylized individual man seated in meditation with a thought bubble over his head. The thoughts are formed by alternating black and white (positive and negative) block prints that create the message "Before enlightenment chop wood carry water. After enlightenment chop wood carry water." Below the image were the words by by Nicholas Kirsten-Honshin, "Enlightenment, it's not what you think."

If anybody thinks walking the spiritual path involves magic wands, fairy dust and getting to an ending point on the journey and just kicking back and relaxing -- boy are they in for a surprise. The spiritual path involves consciouness, integrity and truth. It involves making choices and accepting the consequences knowing that all is in divine right order. Our journey in life becomes a path filled with forks in the road.

"I remember talking on the phone with a friend who teaches Fung Shui and is involved in several healing modalities involving energy. We’ve both been studying and practicing spiritual principles for longer than they’ve been in vogue. In my case, I’ve been studying and practicing them for more than 30 years. During our conversation, my friend reminded me “enlightenment isn’t for sissies.” Amen! I loved that phrase because it summed up what I'd experienced.

When I first learned about spiritual principles, I was an elementary school teacher in Laurel Canyon, California. As part of my fifth grade class’s preparation for creative writing assignments, I lead them through guided imagery meditations. This was quite radical at the time but it sparked a lot of creativity and inner calmness.

I read everything I could get my hands on, studied The Course in Miracles (TCM), and participated in small group discussions about TCM in Marianne Williamson’s apartment in West Hollywood. I thought I had found the Holy Grail for happiness. Little did I know that I just found the tip of the iceberg.

The more I learned, the more there was to learn. For the first decade of my studies, I used spirituality as a way to avoid feelings. When I was afraid, anxious or angry, I took a few deep breaths and “focused on the positive.” This worked for awhile but soon I could no longer hide from my feelings behind a thick wall of affirmations, meditations, visualizations or anything else for that matter much as an alcoholic hides behind booze and a drug user hides behind the drug of the day. I could run but I couldn’t hide. Wherever I went and whatever I did, my mind, body and spirit came with me.

As time went by, I learned that feelings are the core of living a spiritual life; feelings couldn’t be denied in favor of spirituality. Both were essential. Meditations and affirmations were useful because they helped me to quiet my mind so I could feel all the emotions that I stuffed into my body.

The more I explored my feelings and my unconscious beliefs, the better spiritual principles worked for me. For example, the “Law of Attraction” says whatever you focus your attention on is magnetically drawn to you. I wondered why, when I focused on manifesting money, large amounts of money didn’t flow into my life.

If the “Law of Attraction” was like the “Law of Gravity”, it should always work. What I found out is that it does as long as I truly believe in the principle and rid myself of doubt and unconscious beliefs. I can’t keep pulling a carrot out of the ground and expect it to grow to maturity. Deep in the recesses of my mind, I had the belief that you have to work hard to make money and that belief was stronger than the one that says I can manifest whatever I want just by having a clear intention.

I soon experienced the challenge of having to look at all my feelings and beliefs, determine if they were mine or came from somebody else (i.e., parent, teacher, religious leader, etc.) and then have the courage to try to do things differently. Yikes! This was and continues to be challenging.

Fast forward to the present. I am still uncovering and exploring more and more buried feelings and unconscious beliefs. Each discovery triggers many emotions and gives me the choice of “facing the fear and doing it anyway” or staying stuck. So far, my choices have been to move toward the light and the truth that’s in my heart. In the process, I often am anxious, scared, and hopeful, all at the same time. With each step forward, I have a deeper understanding of the spiritual beliefs that I started studying 30 years ago.

I sense that the more I explore my own inner world, the more my outer world will change for the better and the more I will truly feel the truth of spiritual concepts. I will move from knowing and being able to recite the principles to feeling and living them. This process isn’t for sissies and it never ends.

Does life have to be so hard?

I just had an insight about what's been going on in my life and it seems to have stabilized me at this moment. I thought I'd share in case it resonated with you. Basically, what I finally experienced is that life isn't good or bad, it just is. My arm isn't good/bad, my leg isn't good/bad, my finances aren't good/bad -- they are just what I am experiencing in this moment in time. It's my ego that judges whether something is good/bad and that's determined by beliefs, experiences, DNA, education, etc.