Month: July 2019

So here I am on Day Two in London. I’ve been blessed with a (shortish) sleep at S&N’s flat while they have been at the hospital in the pre-labour ward overnight. I’ve just (at 6.30am) received the news that my beautiful sister’s active labour has begun. I’m allowed to join them in the hospital again a bit later.

Good time for some contemplation by the Lake of No-Do…

Yes. It is…

Tragically, I also received the news yesterday that my dear friends E&D lost their beautiful daughter… I’m heartbroken for them, for us all. She was an angel who looked into one with the eyes of God.

My contemplative spirit is rather like a troubled horse this morning.

What should I know?

Rest remains in order, this morning. Rest, to assimilate what you are seeing, sensing and experiencing. And to be a strong anchor on this plane. 

And how shall I rest?

With some pleasant distraction…

*********

[2 hours later] Feeling considerably more recharged after watching some of the hypnobirthing instruction videos, and then… catching sight of some videos about today’s full moon and partial lunar eclipse, happening from 19.43h on Tues 16th July to 01.17h on Wed 17th July (maximum eclipse: 10.30h today)! WHAT A TIME TO BE GIVING BIRTH!

Notes from Melanie Beckler’s video on the July Full Moon Lunar Eclipse 16 July 19 (Youtube 11jul19):

• ONE: Transformation. Culmination of the present eclipse cycle; influx to align with and align with more of the divine truth of you – by letting go of fears, blockages… Simultaneously see: A) the big picture/mission/dreams for your live AND B) where you are now in terms of limitations and draining habits/fears playing out in the present [Yes: scared v sacred!] Opportunity: you can accomplish what your heart/spirit are revealing to you, no matter where you have been or what you’ve experienced in the past – clear and release those old fears/limitations, love and nurture and heal your and past. The universe is conspiring with you/us to raise the frequency, to blossom. Leave space for the possibility of the voice of your soul/internal self being the prominent voice. (YES!)
• TWO: Release. Shake up. Clear. Sacral/root chakras. Core wounds. Past trauma. Insecurities. Transmute. Ancestral/family clearing of trauma. Healing old family divine male/female patterning… Stay neutral. Breathe. ‘What is this revealing to me?’ Fill yourself up with light. Call in the violet flame of transformation.
• THREE: Neutrality in the present moment. Allowing strong emotions to pass through like a storm. It’s a watery time. Let emotions circulate through. Ask what the unconscious emotional needs are? (eg. No-Do) Observe…
• FOUR: Go inward to the heart centre. Heart unlocks and energy can open, and then you can embody more of your higher self. Strands of light entering in. Voice of fear is no longer overriding – your higher self knows your heart’s desires are possible.
• FIVE: Revelations. Downloads. Flashes. Ahas… may appear at this time. Inner voice of inner wisdom – let it be prominent in your life. [YES] Let fear sit in the backseat, and divine self take centre stage.

Beautiful. Ty Melanie!

So, dear Higher Self, what is your advice to me today on this Lunar Eclipse day as my beautiful sister brings forward new life?

Remember the line of recent dialogues: ‘Embrace discomfort; attain mastery’? This is the motif for today. S is embracing her discomfort and birthing her precious child. You will learn a great deal from watching her later today, and syncing your heartfelt breath and movement with her. Know that the planets move with and through the woman in labour. Recognise how the heavens surge to make the woman a channel of Creation. Honour that witnessing. Yours is not to ‘do’ or ‘achieve’ today, but to bear witness. Let your blessed sister bear the beloved child; you will bear witness.

And what does it mean to bear witness?

Here it means to stand close, unflinchingly, mirroring back to the woman that magnificence which you see in her. 

I need the strength of the ages within me today, please.

Remember, you know what to do. 

Bear witness.

Bear witness from a heart-centred place of no remorse, no regret, no retelling of histories… but a complete attention to, and awareness of the present. This is a moment of the aligning of stars. Souls can attune to their highest selves on a day like today. Without a doubt, the heavens are aligning today. Withhold not your highest love.

Attune, align, bear witness. Oh God, free me from past losses, sadnesses, lamentations. Ah………………. I see………………….. That is why I recoiled a fraction from meeting this moment. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I have mid-wifed before… God bless all souls. God bless all beings. I raise my self up to you oh my Lord. Protect my beautiful sister and her beautiful child. Hold us. Hold us. Hold us in your merciful, loving hands. May the angels of the ages gather about us now.

Embrace the discomfort fully, so that the release can occur and the new life be born. 

I am bearing witness

*****

Getting ready to leave for the hospital, and I learn of the death yesterday of a dear old friend (KL) by suicide. Oh Lord. Raise us up. Hold us. Bear witness to this planet and hear its mighty cry. May those who enter now come in with the songs of angels at their heels. Amen.

Thank you for the Sacred Say/Do Game! I loved it. It made me so much more respectful towards the task-in-time I was undertaking at any one moment. Like my morning walk: when I reminded myself this was sacred, and pulled the ceremonial bell rope, I felt inclined to walk more slowly, more deliberately… Awareness of the sacred has the potential to slow us right down. And it also has the potential to waken us right up! Like singing in our gospel concert yesterday: throwing myself in to the sacredness of the songs and the connection with the audience and with my fellow singers, brought me in to a state of almost fervent awakenedness!

And using my Day Book across the day to note down and acknowledge the beginning and ends of tasks-in-time, with a ceremonial bell rope pull to the heavens, was really anchoring. The Sacred Say/Do Game is just what I need – I’ll do more of it.

Also, I have to say, my Physical Fitness First goal for Q3 established a week or so ago seems to be making a shift. Fitness First activities this past week included:

• Daily 45m forest walks, listening to this amazing audiobook, Medical Medium
• Following MEDSAN each morning – gently, patiently
• Taking early nights much more seriously (ie. get ready for bed at 9pm for 10pm lights out – achieved 2/3 times) – I think I’ve hit a 7 hours average this week for the first time in maybe a year…
• Starting to apply the Medical Medium healing foods/supps protocols: Virtually Vegan, Grazing Green
• Playing the Sacred Say/Do Game to pace myself, and get stuff done
• Resting when needed, to boost my immune system and organ healing
• Starting to tell clients I only work afternoons, to create some boundaries and space for self-care

Next, to keep this up, and remember how to come back to it after my amazing week or two away from tomorrow. And, tomorrow…

I am astonishingly blessed to be called upon to be birth partner to my sister and her husband. And tomorrow I go to London to join them.

Help me prepare psychologically, spiritually and emotionally, for this sacred experience ahead, dear voice of my Being. Show me how to be present with all of my heart, spirit and soul. Thank you.

Time to meditate, dear friend of the Earth… 

*********

 Oh heavens, another stunning one from this amazing teacher, Sarah Blondin. ❣️

https://insig.ht/wUKnIvikjY

What stood out for you, dear one? 

Actually, it was the moment she brought our attention to the feeling of humming electricity in our hands, and reminded us that this was Source within us. I’ve been wondering how to be up to the task of supporting my beautiful sister (S) during her birth, and how not to be in the way, or not to be distracting from her wonderful husband’s (N) role. I’d seen myself staying in the background, ‘in case needed’. But actually, I’m reminded now that S loves the touch of ‘healing hands’. Maybe I can bring my touch, and my reassuring words. I don’t need to be an expert on birth. But I can be an ‘expert’ on my love for my sister, and the knowledge that she loves to have loving, healing touch. So less thinking, more being present with touch and word. Yes, I can do that.

Is that about right? What else should I know.

Yesterday you anchored the Sacred in to your tasks-in-time, to increase your executive functioning while calling on assistance too, with your tugging on the bell rope to the Sacred. Today, a whole afternoon of Movements to Music, is the perfect moment to incorporate Sacred ‘Being’ into your repertoire. Sacred Say/Do/Be is the perfect mix for your today. 

Sacred Say: stating an intention, and tugging on the bell rope of the Sacred for assistance, noting your appreciation, fomenting wonder.

Sacred Do: actioning your intention, leaning on the Sacred, making space for assistance. 

Sacred Be: reflecting upon all that has been said and done, and resting in the peace of having collaborated with the Sacred. Allowing the experience of co-production to settle into the knowing. Marking. Acknowledging. Appreciating.

How do I ensure I am not ‘Doing’ when I think I am ‘Being’?

Doing: external activity in the seen world, executive functioning, performance.

Being: internal reflection. Going inward. Connecting with that intrinsic self. 

You can easily practice going from one state to the next in Movements, at the moment of ‘Rest’. Practise Sacred Being – the state of ‘No-Do’. 

Do/Be/Do/Be…

I feel a song coming on…

Do/Be/Do/Be… Feel the difference between the two states. Bring consciousness to this knowing. Why? As you get to recognise the different states, ‘Doing’ (executive functioning) will get easier, as you will be reminded that the Doing is temporary, and rewarded with periods of restful Sacred Being. 

So today, I am playing the Sacred Being Game?

Yes. You can still play Sacred Say/Do – but it’s really Sacred Say/Do/Be all together. 

Ok, then let’s call it that. Three different states. I like it.

Tug on the bell rope to mark the transitions, and keep invoking the Presence of your loving attendants. 

Ok. I will do this. Ty.

I am playing Sacred Say/Do/Be

Yesterday, I shot ahead of my audiobook and googled Epstein-Barr Virus. I immediately came across the blog of health coach, Elizabeth Rider and her protocols for treating EBV, based on her experience of implementing Anthony William’s treatment advice.

In another blog she describes how her childhood was marked by endless strep throat – aka/or indistinguishable from,  tonsillitis, which I had incessantly as a child, even after my tonsillectomy at 15. Elizabeth notes via Anthony Williams how strep and mono are markers of underlying EBV. Read this extract by Elizabeth – it describes me entirely, all bar my actually being diagnosed with mono (glandular fever) – which looking back on my post-tonsillectomy period of exhaustion/depression/sleeping through the evenings at age 15-17, I now realise I probably was experiencing:

“I had strep throat a lot as a kid. It started to get really bad in my early teens, and it seemed like I was in the walk-in clinic every other month being put on another round of antibiotics to clear up the strep. (The dozens of rounds of antibiotics caused an entirely different issue—an unhealthy gut bacteria balance that I’ve been able to clear up with real food, avoiding processed foods, and consuming fermented foods and probiotics, but we’ll talk about that in another post.) My mom grew weary of the cycles of strep and asked the doctors if there was anything we could do. They suggested having my tonsils out. Fifteen is old to have tonsil surgery, but after consulting with different people, my parents decided it was the right decision. I had my tonsils out, which really cleared up the strep, but I never fully recovered from the surgery. Between the hard detox off the anesthesia and the wicked case of mono I developed, I just never really felt 100% again.

Side note: Much later on, while reading The Medical Medium, he talks about strep being a co-infection to mononucleosis, which made SO much sense in this story. I had no idea that was the case 20 years ago, and neither did any doctor I had ever encountered.

Back to the mono. In the six months after the tonsillectomy, I was so tired I could barely get out of bed. It’s normal for a teenager to sleep a lot, but it was getting worse by the day. I was an active dancer and cheerleader and at a healthy weight. I ate pretty well for what we knew back then, but despite being seemingly healthy, I was exhausted all. the. time. My mom took me back to the doctor, and one test later, it was clear that I had mono. Mono is really common amongst teens, so they just told me to rest and that it would pass.”

Ok, so in other words, I’m starting to understand my own childhood backstory in light of the possible early activation of EBV in me – and ongoing reactivation through my life, especially through periods of stress, which have been immense at time. Could it be that my diagnoses of depression, anxiety, PTSD, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and even Autism, have their roots in this virus?!

The whole MEDS protocols I developed a couple of years ago now are quite probably my attempt at adapting to, and maximising, life with this exhausting condition. And when I’d given in to unemployment due to poor health and committed to my full MEDS-based healing, with the help of a brilliant nutritional therapist, I did actually recover considerably. But then last year, going back to work, and eating/sleeping/socialising at the pace of my wonderful new partner… all seems to have reactivated something in me – for I am constantly exhausted and in adrenal fatigue state, with my kidneys firing adrenaline, my body bloating up with cortisol weight,  and my nights awash with anxiety attacks.

Ok. So… Today I listen to the next section of the audiobook – ‘Healing from the EBV’. What advice for my day?

Your simple-heartedness…

Oh yes. Ehem…

Set your inner state to open, receptive, calm, curious. We need to receive today’s information in a moderate state, so that we don’t blow an emotional gasket at the very moment we need to think rationally and practically. 

Thank you. Yes. I agree. If I am going to need to go through a treatment plan, I know from previous experience, it’s like climbing Mount Everest – a physical and psychological roller coaster, requiring very quiet, understated, internalised resilience, faith and persistence.

I asked for Peak Experiences. My goodness, the restoration of my physical health would be such an incredible Peak Experience. Thank you.

Simple-hearted. Simple-hearted. Simple-hearted. Do your meditation and get ready to go for your walk. Stick to your MEDSAN protocols this morning. You’re going to need them in the future. 

I’ve been loving my daily dose of MEDSAN. I created reminder prompts on my phone, along with the associated time:

I’ve been so grateful for a new morning timetable in my life – after years of having my children’s school run as the default timetable, it’s been difficult finding my own morning routine. Also, this week, I’ve actually been going up to bed at 9pm, having an epsom salt bath/shower and turning my light off by 10pm. (G joins me later, and I barely notice him coming in he’s so quiet.) That way, if I wake up at 5 or 6am (as my anxiety/adrenal activity tends to make me do), I’ve had the sleep I need (ideally 7h). It’s amazing.

So this is my current MEDS + MEDSAN pattern:

• 7 – Med & QT
• 8 – Exercise (walk or cycle)
• 9 – Diet (hearty breakfast) and Shower
• 10 – Admin/Emails
• 11 – Networking (marketing) or Nap
• 12 – 5 – Client work and Case work – ideally remotely / at home, to preserve beans
• 5 – 9 – Housework, Supper (veg + protein), Rest with G / Going out for music practice
• 9 – 5+ – Sleep… (the crucial S of MEDS)

You have made substantial progress. The pattern is truly healing and revolutionary. You are setting yourself up for success in your chosen mission. 

Thank you. Ok. Deep breath. Simple-hearted. Time for my meditation and walk.

I am still simple-hearted

PS. Other resources on EBV:

https://avivaromm.com/ebv-thyroid-connection/

Yesterday, you missed out a key outcome of following your Higher Self’s Path (HS Path):

• I get helped, inspired and taught by my clients

It’s true! Yes! That’s why I’d often do 1:1 client work for free or cheap, because I end up learning my best lessons from my clients! It’s a privilege.

So there is a key marker for you: I know I’m on my HS Path when I learn as much from the client as they might do from me.

Yes. And on the other hand in my training for large groups, I’m often so focussed on getting through the material, I don’t get the full benefit of learning. (Though I could shift my training to be more facilitative. Tbh, it’s always hard to balance people’s expectations of being taught and being heard in training.)

When you were in an unwell state we helped alleviate your suffering, first by helping you:

• Bolster your flagging Spirit (will, lifeforce)
• Heal your broken Heart
• Recover your fractured Soul

This is the work of the HS Path: the alleviation of suffering at an essential level.

To participate in this work takes maturity, patience, commitment and faithful trust that you are a channel for something far more skilled and perfect than you.

You are invited to participate.

I beg for my ready ‘Yes!’ to be accepted, and for full mentoring, guidance and education to be provided.

Settling into the work of the alleviation of suffering takes the constant peeling away of egoic thinking.

I can work with that.

Furthermore, it involves getting really calm, receptive, attuned, attentive and intuitive.

Yes.

But most of all, it requires you to cease seeking personal gain, approbation and acclaim. Instead, your goal becomes that of checking in with the client as to whether the work is done – and seeking an assured affirmative. That is the goal. It is not self-focussed.

It is self-less? Person-centred?

It is mere physics. It is an equation. Enough of the right work => the work is done. That is all.

I see.

So for today?

Settle in to pondering the question of the alleviation of suffering. What is it?

I am asking myself ‘what is the alleviation of suffering?’

I reckon my ego hates stillness.

Your ego is always seeking safety for you. Your ego is doubtful that stillness is a route to safety. 

Is stillness a route to safety?

Ask the ninja warriors. 

I guess they would say that mastering stillness makes one better able to protect one’s safety when fast self-defence is needed. How are my self-defence skills? Or better put, how could my self-defence skills be improved?

By mastering stillness. 

Ha! And how might I do that?

By letting nature be your guide. See how still and rooted is the tree. See how patiently the flower waits. See how little need has the bird for task execution. 

I can almost imagine settling in to the rhythm of nature, as its student and disciple. What would I learn?

You would learn how to hear the messages of the wind in the trees, how to interpret the sun’s rays upon the rocks, how to commune with the birds and the insects. And what of all of this? You would develop the ability to attune your frequency to the harmonics of the ages. You would open your heart to the landscapes of the cosmos. 

A little fly has come to have a fidget around on my laptop. What is it teaching me?

That life is fleeting. Make good of the time at hand. 

Teach me how better to make good of the time at hand – in a way I can understand and respond to, long term.

Learn to recognise certain decision types which are ‘forks in the road’. One way is the ego’s path, the other is the higher self’s path. Learn to sense the difference between the two. Learn to recognise the feeling underfoot of each path, and to distinguish the air, the landscape, the ‘flavour’ of each path. Neither path is ‘wrong’ or ‘harmful’, but one path is circular, and the other is directional. 

This is what I know of the Ego’s Path:

• It always feels great to start off with – fresh, fine, true, sensible, wise, promising
• I generally secretly expect it to bring me good things – money, success, recognition – though I might not say aloud that’s what I’m wanting out of the venture.
• Often, the crucial factor of success depends on A.N.Other person in whom I have put my confidence. I have impressed them, and they have promised me good things, implicitly or explicitly. I believe we have an understanding.
• Sooner or later, it turns out that my hopes were rather too high, and unfounded…
• The person or offer or opportunity turns out to be less than I’d hoped for
• I’m soon losing energy, feeling drained, starting to doubt myself and resent the tasks at hand.
• I wish I hadn’t started on the path, and I start complaining, procrastinating and retreating.
• Eventually, I make a break for it and cut my (often substantial) losses, letting go of the relationships involved as I run…

Argh! Awful. Now that is a karmic cycle and a half.

And what do you know about the path of the higher self?

This is what I know of the Higher Self’s Path:

• It is virtually always modest, understated, under-the-radar
• It tastes ‘sweet’, it sounds ‘quiet’, it feels ‘private’ – no one’s congratulating me or clapping at the end of it (!)
• It’s small scale – generally 1:1
• Generally, someone actually gets helped – by me
• The financial returns are low… and therefore I doubt whether I’m actually doing the right thing because ‘surely my duty is to earn enough to support myself and ultimately create some savings so I can be self-sufficient…’

And so then you stop doing the HS Path and return to the Ego’s Path (‘for the money’) and take a loop round the hamster wheel, and then come back to the HS Path… til you stop yourself again (because, ‘where’s my cash?’) and hop back on the hamster wheel… 

What might happen if you were to steel your nerve and stay on the HS Path?

I guessssssss, something could actually grow out of it, which would be soul-satisfying and eventually economically viable – if I stayed with it.

Given that life is fleeting, and getting better at choosing the Higher Self path at ‘forks in the road’ is a key skill, what can you do to harness the knowing you shared above? 

Maybe I could assess some of my projects. I would just need to work with this formula:

• Who gets helped in this project? 
  • • Me => Ego Path project
    • Others => Higher Self Path project

How do I resolve my concerns about money then?

By asking for the money you need, for the work you are meant to do. 

What work am I meant to do?

Casework: by this is meant, the healing work of your profession, directly not just ‘indirectly by teaching the skills to others’. You long to help others and for now you are seeking to do so by training others in your professional skills, but in doing so you are left uncertain as to whether your teaching actually has the least impact on those who need it. It does, but you have absolutely no way of knowing this because you never see your trainees again, so you are left with a data vacuum which ultimately stops you getting the ‘satisfaction’ of service to others. 

That makes sense. The thing I like about casework is that I need to get into a very centred state to be able to undertake it. It’s a state that nourishes my being. I feel very connected to the person. With my training, on the other hand, I often feel I am performing, jazz-handing and impressing… It exhausts me as I make my impression by chucking louche at the trainees… 🙁

Softly, dear soul… Softly. Your thinking about casework is all that was needed for today. As for your remembrance of the ‘very centred state’ you harness for casework – know that that same state is the state of nature that we described earlier. When you commune 1:1 with your client, you are the tree in the forest, the flower in the garden, the bird on the telegraph pole. That is all. Settle into a focus on casework. That is all. That is your Higher Self Path. Let the Higher Self work out the finances in due course. Your role? To stay on the path when the money doubts creep in. We’ve got you. Cleave to the path which leads forward.

So, settle into the Higher Self Path work – casework. I can do that. And I can finally market it as well. I know I can. I must be brave and trust.

You are held. 

I am settling into a focus on 1:1 casework.

I am recognising the Ego’s Path is always circular.

I am following the path of my higher self which feels under-the-radar, but could actually progress if I stayed on it.

I am focussing on my Higher Self’s Path

This commitment to a sustainable work pattern… In terms of ‘peak experiences’, I know subconsciously that this simple, ‘one jam flavour’ pattern won’t be as stimulating and exciting as my current ‘multi-flavour jam, finger-in-the-socket’ pattern.

You are right. What a relief because if your nervous system gets any more stimulation or excitement it might well…

…Blow a gasket again. Adrenal fatigue. I know, I’m there again. Ok. Thank you. Good reminder. Teach me about settling into non-burnout lifestyle. How do I learn to love and trust simplicity as a way of life, not just something I crave when I’ve overcooked myself?

Remind yourself of your beautiful, unique system. Your wiring. Your sensing brain. Your Aspie gifts of empathy and knowing.

Well to be frank, since you mention my brain, I was contemplating how I probably get super hopped-up as a way to counter ongoing anhedonia. [Inability to feel pleasure at normal things…] I honestly think I broke my joy sensors along the way, as the things other people get excited about, and anticipate, often leave me unmoved.

Ah, beautifully put. Ok. Perfect. Hear this: You are trying to grow your new joy sensors. You felt them emerging on your weekend away, didn’t you? Your new joy sensors are based on tapping into immense stillness.

Really?! Then how am I meant to earn a living in this noisy world and feel joy then?!?! There’s no ‘immense stillness’ in the outside world!!

How about the idea of interacting with the world, on a 1:1 basis, 2h a day..?

Aha, and then using the rest of the time to tap into immense stillness? I get it. I hear you. I’m hearing you. I’m getting it. Ty. May I absorb this knowing! May I learn to develop my new joy sensors by tapping into immense stillness. I’ll start by going off and doing my meditation… All is well. All is still… Thank you.

Start by tapping into stillness. The immensity and joy will take care of itself. You are deeply loved.

I am tapping into stillness