Tag: transformation

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Write Your Own Story

Do you like to read stories? Do you have a favorite subject or style? Is there an author you’re especially fond of?

If you wrote your own story, what would the title be? And just for fun…what movie star would play your role?

I love to write. Even as a child I loved to write, as long as it was my own idea. I remember sitting in a small room at the front of our house that my mom used as a sewing room. When my grandmother came for a visit, I’d sleep in this room. It had the most comfortable bed in the world (what our family referred to as the ‘slab lounge’).

It was the site of my first story. I was perhaps 9 or 10 years old, and I was infatuated with the FBI, so of course my story was about them going after a bad guy by the name of Shootist Mc Rowan. It was about ten pages long, but it pleased me to be able to say I’d written something, even if the only person that knew about it was me.

Fast forward over fifty years, one wife, two children, two careers, three grandchildren and the freedom of retirement. If you’d asked me if I’d ever thought I would be a published author, I would have said it was ‘highly unlikely’.

But life has a way of contradicting us.

Currently I’m writing the fifth book in a spiritual fiction series titled. Little Buddha (Books One-Four). It may seem boastful, but I can’t help it, I am in love with the characters, each of whom ‘speak to me’. They guide the series wherever it goes, and I follow along. I get to be a contributor, but am mostly the scribe, enjoying the cast and learning from them. It’s an incredible dance and I couldn’t be happier that they’ve invited me into their world.

What if you could write your own story, not the kind I’m writing, but a story about you.

I suspect you already are. I suspect you’ve been writing it for a long time and that parts of it may feel like they are cast in stone, unmovable, unchangeable.

It feels to me that we all do this every day of our lives. We tell ourselves what we need, have to, or should do. We may alter our supporting cast by discontinuing some characters or search for new ones we believe will be better for us.

But the central core of the story is ours. What are you telling yourself? Are the words harsh, judgmental, untrue, indifferent? Or do you offer yourself congratulations, give yourself freedom to make mistakes, learn, grow, love?

What if you could re-write your story?

What would you change? If you took a few moments to consider this, what would you write down? If you’re feeling courageous, you could even do that right now.

I know it might be difficult but imagine the rewards you could reap.

When I turned seventy (still hard to believe I’m that old, since I still feel mentally like I’m 24) I had some intense feelings about my story. I’d been telling myself for years that my physical health was sliding. I couldn’t do all the things I’d been able to do, or at least not easily, and I worried that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my ‘golden years’.

So, I decided it was time to change my story and tell myself a new one. I focused a tremendous amount of energy on my physical being. I changed several eating habits, increased my exercising and walking, altered my vitamin regime, began a weigh weights program, increased my chiropractor, massage and energy work therapies, and added a whole new element to my routine- cold water therapy, which if you’ve been with me, you read about recently.

What this tells me is that I am in charge of my own story. I don’t have to believe what others say about ‘older people’ nor what the news tells us.

I can believe what I tell me. I can write my own story.

And so can you. And you can do it about anything if you really want to. There is no shortage of folks who will help you if you need assistance. You just need to ask. I hope you do.

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Heart Wide Open

What are your biggest dreams? The ones you would love to experience most in your life. Maybe you already have a list, one that you think about often.

If you stopped for a moment or two, what’s at the top of your list? It could be a to have a truly meaningful relationship with a spouse, parent, child, friend, or favorite animal. Perhaps it would be the perfect job, house, car, or vacation.

You might live in a place where there is war, oppression, violence, disease, or other traumatic events, in which case maybe your biggest, wildest dream is peace, health, harmony, caring or prosperity.

You might live with certain oppressions surrounding you and dream of a time where everyone lives in a safe, prosperous place where there is equity and opportunity.

There are so many situations we all face and sometimes we get an uneven mixture of the good and bad stuff, which can make it more difficult to remain calm and optimistic about our life.

One of my biggest dreams is to live with my heart wide open.

The world can seem like an incredibly difficult place to live and the idea of opening our hearts wide to it may feel frighteningly unsafe, especially if we’ve been hurt often, by others or through our own actions.

It’s easily understood why we might tend to cover our hearts or put-up barriers to protect ourselves. I have certainly done this on many occasions. The problem is that every time I do this, it shuts another part of me off from the rest of creation. It limits me and shrinks me. It draws me inward and disconnects me from the beautiful, majestic, magical world where we all live.

I have trained myself to step back whenever I sense a problem confronting me and to give it some distance. That’s what I’m doing right now. I’m giving myself a chance to capture an image that will help guide me to a better way to live.

And one appears, both surprising and delighting me. The vision is of a dreamcatcher, which is a hoop with a web stretching across it, creating connections and empty spaces. For many, the belief is that during the night’s sleep, the web let’s all of the good dreams through, but catches and traps all of the bad dreams, allowing the sleeper to have a wonderful, protected, restful sleep.

A dear friend of mine made one for me and it hangs over my bed, offering me peace and tranquility.

But what does this have to do with living with a heart wide open?

Actually, a lot.

What if I could apply the dreamcatcher idea here? What if I could live, aware of the world, but letting all of the bad stuff stop on the outside of me and only allowing the good stuff in?

A thought springs to mind. According to scientists, we are made up of millions of atoms. When an atom is examined, they find that it is composed of mostly space. In fact, there is a general agreement that the human body is roughly 99.999% empty space. That’s hard to believe. To think that a person we see with our eyes is actually mostly empty space.

What if the same is true of our hearts? What if we could shift our perception of the world and let what we consider to be the ‘bad stuff’ through the empty spaces inside our hearts so that we could focus on the ‘good stuff’? Could we give ourselves this precious permission?

I want to try. I want this because I sense the value and benefit it would offer me.

With my heart wide open, I would be able to hold on to the magnificence and the illuminating divine nature of life. And in that space, I could connect with others in ways I have not yet imagined.

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Starting Over

If someone approached you and asked, would you like to start over, would you accept their invitation?

Would there be any hesitation on your part? Maybe you’d need to spend a moment considering what aspects of your life you’d want to change, to begin again.

If I gave you a few moments and invited you to do a little inventory, what do you suppose you’d come up with?

I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of weeks now. While it might have begun as a fun exercise, it’s turned into something much more engaging, and I find myself drawn toward it in a way I didn’t expect.

I started out wondering about things like, my eating habits, physical exercise routines, sleep patterns, and how I spend my leisure time. These things are important to me, and I have made numerous changes, and each change feels positive to me and gives me a sense of satisfaction, as long as I consider them ‘aims’ and not ‘objectives’ (see my post on this subject for more, if interested).

I found I needed to move beyond these. Something else was calling to me. It didn’t appear immediately, as if it might want to stay hidden.

What could it be?

As I often do, I sat back and gave myself a few moments of quiet to consider. I wanted to open up some space inside me to receive an answer. I’m tempted to move too quickly, as if I will run out of time, so I don’t always give myself a chance to listen. I have to temper that default setting, so I sat in silence and waited.

What filled the gap surprised me.

I felt an overwhelming sense of pressure on my chest, like a very heavy weight was laying across me, forcing me downward. I knew at once what it was.

It was the weight of all of my cultural training. All the things I’ve been taught to believe, regardless of whether they make any sense. It’s interesting to me that they are not all spoken things. Many have been absorbed from what I see modeled around me. I take them all in and they sort themselves into places inside me. They fit into file cabinets I can’t see but know are there and they come out whenever their name is called.

I know it’s going to be challenging to sort through them in order to know which to keep and which to release. So much so, that I’m not sure I’m equal to the task. That is until I realize how much the ones that don’t benefit me, weigh me down and hold me in place.

I am tired of this constant process. I am tired of living with these inconsistencies and untruths. And this becomes fuel for me. It propels me forward.

You might be wondering, what cultural trainings I am talking about. I am too. I don’t believe I know them all. But I do know enough of them to get started.

Here’s one.

Part of American culture is expressed in the statement, “All men are created equal.” I have so many problems with this. For one, it’s the use of the word, “men”, rather than “people”. I rail against the idea that my wife, daughter, granddaughter, mom, sister, and all other women would be immediately excluded. Some would say, give our forefathers some slack, they were only using the language of their time.

I can’t. I won’t. It would not have been any more ‘right’ then, than now.

Even if this word were changed, the idea itself is only given lip service in our culture. We are not treated equally. Anyone with eyes can see this any day of the week.

We are not equal, but I don’t believe that’s even the key. What feels right to me is that we are all unique, all worthy of love, all part of the divine. What separates us from seeing this is what our cultural training teaches us.

That’s one thing I aim to change while I start over.

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Cold Water

Are there times when you receive the same message over and over again? It may come from different sources, but the intent seems clear.

This happens to me every once in a while, and I’ve learned to pay attention and let the messages soak in. I allow them to roll around in my mind and see what they have to offer me. Most of the time, they are full of surprises and run off in numerous directions, but they always end up feeling important.

The most recent instance of this occurred a couple months ago. It started with my son, Tommy, mentioning a Netflix series titled, Limitless, that he thought I might find interesting. It was a brief series about Chris Hemsworth’s (yes, Thor) pursuit of improving the quality of his life by engaging in several different endeavors. Although I found the entire series fascinating, and Chris’s conviction, strength, and endurance remarkable, what really spoke to me was his cold-water experience.

After some preparatory training he ended up swimming in a wet suit through frigid water for a significant distance to test his physical and mental abilities to withstand the torturous swim out to a buoy and back. I am amazed by his passionate pursuit and his desire to improve and extend the quality of his life.

At the end of each episode Chris shares some of his ‘take-aways’ and mentioned that a part of his plan was to end his showers with 30 seconds of cold water. He’d learned that cold water enhances our immune system and he wanted to capitalize on that advantage.

I thought about this and decided that I wanted to do the same thing.

Soon after making this decision, I received five more confirming messages about the cold-water experience and its value.

Okay, I got it!

So, I began ending every one of my showers with 30 seconds of cold water, not only while standing with my back to the water, but another 30 seconds while facing the icy stream. WOW! Incredibly bracing!

I wondered whether I could stand doing this day after day. Did I have the stamina and the drive it would require? Only time would tell.

Fortunately, what I did have was a sense of purpose. I wanted the positive effects this experience would create by improving my immune system. I really wanted this.

It’s now been 70 days since I began, and I haven’t missed once. In fact, I’ve extended my times of exposure from 30 to 60 seconds per side. It takes enormous disciple on my part to do this every day, but I immediately feel the benefits and sense they have a compounding positive effect on my body.

I’m not sure if I’ll extend the time further, but I am planning on participating in the next Polar Plunge. This is an annual event held in Lake George (NY) in January, where participants swim in the freezing cold lake water. I’ve had this on my bucket list for a long time but have never been serious enough to pursue, until now.

So, what’s the point of this post if you’re not interested in ruining showers for the rest of your life? Well, for me, it represents a major change in what I think I am capable of. If I can do this hard thing, what other hard things can I do?

I’m now focusing some attention on my sleeping patterns and my breathwork. I know they need a lot of fine tuning and it’s great to know that I will be the recipient of whatever benefits happen. To know I am able to make lifestyle adjustments gives me hope and reminds me that I am in charge of my own life.

What hard things might you be capable of? What benefits might happen in your life if you make some changes?

As I discovered with the cold-water experience, I’d only know if I tried.

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Aims and Objectives

Do you have any aims and objectives in your life? If you were to list them, what would they be?

This question intrigued me, and I wanted to pursue it, but felt that first I needed to define both terms. Were they different or versions of the same idea?

After some thought I came up with the following.

Objectives felt like solid goals. They are definitive expectations which I pursue with the firm conviction of accomplishing them. They are measured by ‘completion’.

Aims felt more fluid. They are intentions that I set, with the hope of experiencing them. My aims are movements toward ‘progress’.

Once I sat back a bit, I could easily see how different these two concepts are. One is heavy and the other is light.

For me, aims and objectives set up a basic framework for my approach to life. What I have to share may connect with some of you, either because you feel the same way or because you know someone else who is like this.

When applying these concepts, I found that they have to become practical to mean anything to me. There has to be something specific to sink my teeth into.

I though back over my life and one truth became apparent to me.

In almost every case, objectives only felt valuable if I accomplished them all. Whenever there was something left undone, it plagued me and reduced my sense of self-worth.

In contrast, aims offered me flexibility, room to grow, and a way to alter my perspective about my pursuits. In short, they gave me freedom and allowed me the opportunity to enjoy the progress I experienced.

I thought I’d share an example with you from my life.

I used to be a White Knight.

A white knight is someone who feels the need to be a savior on some level. Although a white knight can be helpful to have around, they end up stealing other’s ability to stand on their own and only offer the white knight a sense of self-worth if they are rewarded by someone else.

As a white knight I felt it was my responsibility to save people, to please people, to right wrongs, and to protect the ‘little people’. These responsibilities created all of my objectives. And as you can probably guess, I was never wholly successful and as a consequence, I always experienced frustration and a continual depletion of my own worthiness.

It took many years for me to see clearly how this approach to life did not benefit me or anyone else. And yet, seeing something and doing something about it are two very different things.

I’m sure it wasn’t a change that happened in one singular moment, but that’s how it felt. There was a dawning and a major shift because at once, I knew that embracing ‘aims’ was my way forward. That, and being honest with myself, even if that meant moving into uncharted territory.

I realize my aims might sound unusual to you, but it’s truly what I feel, and it represents the light I aim to step into.

I aim to be a divine messenger. I aim to invite people to experience new thoughts and ideas. I aim to aid, encourage, and support folks during their earth walk. I aim to assist others with finding their own clarity and making choices which benefit them on their path through life. And I aim to experience JOY while in the flow of my own life.

Releasing objectives and embracing aims offers me a world of freedom and opens me fully.

My hope is that you find your own right path.

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What If You Were God

It happens every so often.

An idea comes out of nowhere. It generates a spark that ignites my curiosity and off I go, following the trail.

Does this ever happen to you? Do you get carried away, sensing there is something mysterious and amazing that could happen?

One day I was sitting with no particular plan, and I began to wonder what it would be like to be god and set the whole world in motion. It brought up so many questions, I could barely keep track.

A sort of conversation arose, different from any others I’d ever had. I wondered, could I put myself into god’s loving heart, and once there, could I explain myself so that everyone would know me? If I were god, how would I show my love to all those who walked the planet?

I considered, would I set limits and create requirements for living? Would I keep track of everything that was said, everything that was thought, every feeling experienced? Would I establish conditions and rules and if I did, what would my response be if the conditions and rules were breached?

Would I require adherence, devotion, abstinence? Would I be tolerant, accepting, doting? Would I punish, demand, withhold? Would I be forever open to forgiveness and offer constant hope to all?

These were mind boggling questions to consider and it seemed so difficult for me to formulate any kind of plan that would be fair and equitable. The number of exceptions would be astounding.

I thought some more. I wondered, would I continue to give gifts to the world? Would I send messengers to remind everyone of how much I loved them? Would I give each person ‘free will’, allowing them to make their own choices? Would there be any bounds to my love? Would I always listen, forgive, care?

Since I am a human being trying to put myself into the mind and heart of god, I fully recognize the limits of my understanding. I also realize that the nature of my questions reflects my own sensitivities to the world because one of my next questions was, as god, would I be loved in return? If as god, I was faithful to people, would they be faithful to me?

It was incredibly challenging to come up with any answers I felt were fair for all. It left me a little woozy and I needed a new perspective.

So, I asked god for some guidance, and here is what I heard.

“I will need to explain my answers, so give me a chance before you take anything the wrong way.”

I prepared myself to be patient and listen.

“I want nothing for you and nothing from you. You see, I don’t work from a set of obligations or specific expectations. I offer you freedom to choose whatever you wish. That, and the ability for your wishes to become real, to become your truth. You have the same creative force I do. You create an idea, a picture, a dream, and you speak it and act it into your reality, just as I do. I do not ‘wish’ things into your life, because I’ve shared the gift of creation with you, so that you can bring about whatever you desire. But you see, that is your greatest gift and your greatest challenge, because the world cannot distinguish between your thoughts and your actions. It gives you exactly what you request. If you look clearly, you can see this in other’s lives and if you look deeper still, you can see it in your own. Before you arrived here, you had within your spirit essence, the gifts of creativity and freedom to choose from every possible choice. You have this still and always will, and this worlds experiences teach you how to use these gifts wisely.”

Wow!

And god ended by saying, “I love you and will always co-create with you toward this awareness. Be at peace in this knowing.”

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A Diet of Words

I want to choose to use good words every day. Why is that so hard for me? Why am I so tempted to use harmful words to say to others and to myself?

According to one source on the internet, we speak about 7,000 words a day. These are the ones we speak out loud, so that others can hear them.

It makes me wonder; how many words do we say to ourselves in a day? More importantly, what are the words? What do they convey to us? Are they helpful, neutral, or hurtful?

I also wonder; what is their relationship to our physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual life? Does each word have weight? I mean this both figuratively and literally. Do certain words weight more than others?

Are the words we choose to say defining us and our experience here on this earth?

Suppose we decide to speak, outwardly or inwardly, words that offer us support and reassurance, would they weigh less than words that condemn or shame us?

If we made a list, what words would offer us hope and set us free? Once created, would we be able to say them to ourselves, and mean them? What would enhance our ability to choose and embrace them?

To me, these are all important questions, because they prompt me to consider my choices, knowing full well that my answers create my experiences.

If I want to produce great results in my life, the words I choose to speak matter. What I say reinforces my actions and what I want to have happen in my life, whether it’s releasing weight from my body, my mind, my heart, or my spirit.

What I say can make it easier or impossible.

I sense the dawning of another question. I wonder what would happen if I released all of the words that don’t support me? I recognize there are so many of these. I’ve already shifted away from one of the cruelest words I know…’should’. I don’t use it anymore because it hurts too much. It hurts me and it hurts anyone I say it to. Its destructive power is immense.

So, if you are game to try something with me, let’s take a moment and write down some words that best support us and our grandest vision of who we want to be. I’m aiming for seven words to start with, but you can pick whatever number seems best to you.

Okay, here are my seven and why I chose them.

  1. Yes (an affirmation of life and a word to be used with other words to accomplish and enjoy things in my life)
  2. Love (the most affirming word in our language, love for others and love for myself)
  3. Gratitude (for what I am experiencing in my life)
  4. Possible (as in, everything is possible, within reach, offering a sense of hope)
  5. Faith (in both things seen and unseen)
  6. Trust (that I am loved, safe, able, connected)
  7. Belief (that I am in charge of what I believe and can make changes when I need to, reshaping my world)

Now I wonder, what would happen if I kept this list of words in places where I could see them. What would happen if I used these words more often than any others? And what would happen if I spoke these words out loud?

What I believe is that it would make an enormous difference, both to me and to those around me. I would be healthier, happier, and lighter. This is what I would like words to do for me.

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Beyond Miracles

Do you think that miracles can apply to you? Do you believe that you can experience them personally in your present life?

I wonder how many of us seriously consider this. Sometimes miracles are thought to be grand scale things that only a few ever encounter. But what if this isn’t true? What if everyone can experience miracles?

In my last post I shared that I serve as a channel. Sometimes directly from divine source and other times, well, I’m not always exactly sure. I know there is depth and worth to what I receive, and I guess it doesn’t always matter if I know the source.

I do recognize there is something sacred happening. It is at once fascinating and difficult to believe. I wonder to myself, why me?

It is then that I receive the distinct awareness that it isn’t just me. It’s there and available for everyone. We’ve been culturally trained to ‘stay in our lane’ and believe in our limits. We’re taught that life is narrow, or at least the ‘safe’ life is. We receive constant reminders to reinforce this belief.

But what if we were meant to be spectacular beings of energy and light and do profoundly great things with our lives?

Well, that’s something I can believe in.

My last post told the story of a woman who was healed from a condition she’d suffered from for many years. She moved within a crowd, neared Yeshiwa (Jesus) and touched his cloak. Yeshiwa silently called to her to step forward, which she did, despite her fears. He told her that her act of faith had healed her. He did not say, “I have healed you”. Yeshiwa was very clear that ‘her faith’ had healed her.

What a hugely significant distinction this is. It tells us outright that she exercised her own power, and this act of willing faith was the source of her healing. Amazing!

Do you believe you have this same choice to make? Do you believe that claiming your own healing is possible?

I think we both know what our cultural training would say. An unequivocal, ‘NO’. It would tell us this was not and is not possible. It defies too much logic. It isn’t scientific enough to be believed.

It might say, you’re misunderstanding the story. It might suggest that no healing is ever possible, except through direct divine intervention.

One of the most beautiful things about our lives is that WE get to choose what to believe. We can, of course, relinquish our choices to others and give them our power. In many ways, this is exactly what our culture teaches us to do.

If you are someone who seeks another way, please know that YOU have the free will to make your own choices. You can experience the life you claim.

I’d like to share some mechanics of faith with you. Imagine for a moment that there is far more than meets the eye here on this earth. Imagine that everything already exists. There is a pathway for every experience already laid out. Not chosen, just laid out and available for the choosing. Another grand distinction.

You do not have to create the path; you merely choose it. And in the choosing, your language changes to a more powerful word. You claim it. You claim it over and over again, until it becomes your personal experience of the world. You exercise your faith in what you claim.

This is what the woman in the story did. At first, she was fearful, both about what others would think about her or what they might do to her. She was hesitant, not knowing if Yeshiwa would allow her to touch his cloak and afraid of what he might do in response. She had a big decision to make. She chose to act on faith, that all would be well, that she would be healed, released from her physical pain. She ignored others and acknowledged her own power. She acted with faith, and she was healed.

And once healed, she told others, so that they might experience their own power of being healed by faith.

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Miracles

Do you believe in miracles?

If asked to define a miracle, what would your answer be? It might be harder than you think or maybe everything in life is some sort of miracle to you.

One miracle I experience occasionally is that I serve as a channel. It could be as a conduit for a message to someone living from someone who has passed. It might be an insight about life worth offering to someone in need. Or it could be receiving divine words in the form of a story, offered to enlighten and guide us, if we are open to receiving.

I’d like to share one of these stories with you. It’s one I received from Yeshiwa (Jesus’s name in Aramaic, his native language).

Although it’s told in the bible, the version I received is much deeper and richer emotionally and spiritually.

Before I share the story, I’d like to say that I have no vested interest in you believing that I channeled this story directly from Yeshiwa. I am entirely comfortable with you deciding for yourself and not taking my word for it. What is important to me is that I act courageously and offer this to you, because I feel its truth to my core. I also realize that I cannot offer any proof, so all that matters to me is that you lean into this story and see whether it feels true to you.

The story is about a woman in desperate need of healing, and it is told from Yeshiwa’s perspective.

“I walk among you. The same and not. I know what power I hold. I feel it as my blood and know when it has been touched, even among a crowd. Some touch me, some touch my heart. This is a faith touch, and it can change anything, can change everything.

A woman nears me. I know her heart and I know what holds her body and grips it in a way that will not let go. Not by its own choice. It is subject to me and the power of love. She walks in my shadow, tortured by her awareness that all but me will revile her for her thoughts, because she wants to touch my garment. Others would not allow this, not understand this. They believe I become the same unclean they believe she is. This is not my way, and it is not my father’s way. It is not her way and so I call her to me, not with words but with my heart. Her timidity is exceeded by her pain, and she reaches out to touch my cloak. The moment she does her whole world changes, and she will never be the same. She has chosen a new way and seen me for who I am. She sees the face of god. She sees her own in its reflection. Her heart becomes still. I ask the crowd who touched me. I do not ask because I do not know, for I do. I ask so that she may choose to step forward and realize the magnitude of the change to her life. It is not the healed physical body that is important- to her or to me. It is her spirit, which now can be at peace. It is her spirit which knows me and rests with me. She will speak often of this and change many lives. This is how faith works. It enters the heart and seeks other open hearts, moving freely. This is how all actions of faith happen.”

At the beginning, the woman in the story knows her faith can set her free. But for her, she feels her healing is dependent on a confirmation from Yeshiwa. Her faith is conditional. Not only that, but she also understands that the opinions of others stand in her way.

Through his heart, Yeshiwa calls her to him, and she responds. She overcomes the messages that life has sent her and touches his cloak, believing that as soon as she does, she will be well.

And her whole world changes.

She steps forward and says she is the one who touched his cloak. She realizes that this simple act of faith is what has changed her life. That Yeshiwa offered her the chance to demonstrate and declare that her healing has come from this act of faith.

And her life becomes a living act of faith, as she spreads this message wherever she goes.

I have more thoughts about this miracle and how it might apply to you and me and I encourage you to read my next post.

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Inner Voices

My last post raised a few questions and I’d like to move deeper and share some possible answers with you. Ones that may be worth considering.

For those who may not have had a chance to read my last post, it centered on why we might choose experiences that are challenging for us, rather than ones that are easier and more comfortable. It also offered a new way of gaining insight into our lives by listening to our inner voices.

I shared my belief that each of us has a physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and ego voice which wants to be heard. And, that these voices all have something of value to add to our lives, but that when one overshadows the others, some chaos can ensue.

Does this make any sense to you? Does it dovetail with any of your experiences?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how my inner voices react to the cultural training I’ve received throughout my life. What seems true for me is that each voice is strongly influenced but not uniformly. It also seems to depend on the situation.

What has shifted into focus is that I sense inadequacies in my cultural training. I am questioning all those things which have entered my consciousness and become a part of me. Rather than allowing them to continue, I feel a need to reconsider whether they are still true for me.

I sense that my most of my cultural training (all the things I’ve been taught to believe by those of influence in my life) are distortions of what is, in fact, true.

Hints of the original messages offered to me are surfacing. A part of me needs to understand what they have to share with me. I need to look beyond the default settings I have established and beyond the automatic responses they create in my life.

Lately I’ve begun to realize that my ego voice, in its effort to protect me, uses my cultural training to establish a threat assessment for everything I encounter. Based on its assessment it sends what it considers to be important messages to my other voices. Most of the time the messages are fear based. Whereas the effect can be beneficial because it generates action on my part, I sense there is a much more gentle and effective method to accomplish this.

That’s where something I call my ‘translation table’ comes into play. Simply put, this is an idea, a process, where I evaluate whether my cultural training makes sense, rather than reflexively accepting it as true.

My translation table seeks more information and asks important questions. What do I sense in my physical body? How do I feel emotionally about what I am encountering? What do I think about it and whether it is logical, factual, or reasonable?  Does it connect in any way with my spiritual blueprint? What am I protecting and is there a better way?

Often, I find that examples help flesh things out and provide useful insights, so I’d like to share one of mine with you.

One message I’ve received through my cultural training is that I don’t ‘deserve’ (fill in the blank). That I am not inherently deserving. Instead, I must earn everything and even then, I am not safe. It can easily be taken away from me. If I think about it, the origin of this becomes clear. Mostly it is schooling and church, but also the comments of others; parents, friends, and those in the workplace.

I step back a moment and allow my inner voices freedom. I have an immediate physical reaction. It makes me feel weak and sluggish, sure signs it does not support me, nor speak my truth. Emotionally this belief drains me, sapping my energy. As I think about it, it becomes obvious that it only represents a story I’ve been told and is not factual. My ego weighs in, indicating that this claim of not deserving creates more work, because it broadens the need for protection.

And finally, my spiritual voice speaks. It tells me this idea; this concept and cultural belief is not a part of MY spiritual blueprint. It reminds me that every choice and decision is MINE to make, and I am not forced to accept anything which does not feel ‘right’ to me. I can safely release any cultural training which does not support or benefit me. Simply let them go. This frees up an enormous amount of space inside me, space now available for what does feel true. Space I can use to embrace beliefs that improve my life and offer me freedom. Allowing my inner voices the opportunity to share with me is a true gift and brings me abundant peace and clarity. I hope yours will do the same for you