Sometimes, at a certain point on our spiritual path, we may develop a tendency to hide in samadhi, praying for a last minute "hail mary" pass to save us from the discomfort of our circumstances. We may have gotten very good at dropping into a deep & altered state of consciousness, despite the messiness of our lives, and we may think that this means we are touching enlightenment. But then we inevitably have to get up to go to the store or the job & we have to encounter the actual circumstances of our reality, which may not feel like the "peace" of samadhi at all. In fact it may feel as confusing as hell.

So we run back inside & retreat from the world thinking "if I can just get peaceful enough in here then surely it will begin to influence all of the chaos out there". But there really is no "in here" & "out there" & so the longer we hide in samadhi the messier the "out there" often gets. So what do we do then? 

There are myriad teachings available right now that tell us how to "think positively" to "visualize what we really want" to "listen to our heart not our head" to "be love" to............ Finally, after days or years or decades of grasping after these pretty pictures, we may find ourselves despondent & befuddled yet again by the apparent circumstances of our lives. And it is here that our true gift resides, waiting for us to finally drop to our knees in exhaustion. This Gift does not want our submission, it simply wants us to try being here, to try not running away from our lives & ourselves. 

And so I say ~ step out into the messiness & see it for what it is. For it is not uncommon for our liberation to show itself in the midst of our despondency rather than our bliss. Bliss often feeds the desire for more bliss & thus perpetuates the outer search. Yet in the heart of this hopelessness is the chance to glimpse what has been here all along, if only we will not turn away from it. Find out what is within you, what is you, lying in the heart of your discomfort. There is no where left to search....there is nothing more to do....nothing more to say........

How many of us have the conditioned imprint in our bodies & nervous systems from early age that "resistance is futile - compliance is inevitable"?

When the autonomic nervous system is faced with a threat that it perceives to be unresolvable, the primary response that is hardwired into it is to "play dead" & descend into a state of helpless freeze, a sort of suspended animation what affects the entire organism. 

Ironically, many young children who are not naturally aligned with the structure & discipline of public schools are indeed indoctrinated with this very mantra - that their natural impulses & expressions are irrelevant & non-compliant with the system they are immersed in every day. And over time, either they have the tenacity to act out & rebel against the system, or far worse in my view, we learn to comply. Even writing this sentence brings tears to my eyes at the very memory of it. In fact, public school systems were actually created with the intent of creating a docile work force meant to serve in the army of industrialism.

For years I have noticed within myself & in many of the people (especially women) with whom I have the honor to work, that the lower part of the body is often lacking sensation &, at least partly, dissociated from our conscious awareness. Along with this often comes the unconscious, conditioned tendency to relate relaxation with this sense of helpless immobility & accompanied by a judgement of laziness that must be overridden by an inner or outer directive of disciplined action. 

We can even see this program beginning at a very early age by examining the traditional roles of the masculine & feminine in the conventional view of marriage. Even in very loving families one can often witness the stereotype that my parents exhibited of my mother loving to immerse herself in mystery novels & us sharing long luxurious conversations over steaming cups of coffee. That is until my father would walk through the room & with gentle sarcasm say something like "are you still sitting there?". For he had just finished mowing the lawn or some other disciplined activity. Now please understand that I was raised with copious amounts of genuine love, support & encouragement for my creative abilities. So this is not a case of abuse & neglect.

Yet still there was imprinted deep within me the tendency for my body & nervous system to vacillate between a sort of lethargic, sedentary stupor that felt to me like relaxation, which continually needed to be overridden by my internalized slave driver who admonished me for my laziness & ordered me to get up & do something. Then the activities of my life, even those which I found pleasant & desirable, tended to be executed by a nervous system that was in a state of at least subtle hyper-vigilance. And this pattern repeated itself for decades until the conditioned hypertonicity in my tissues & held energy in my nervous system no longer allowed me to drop into deep states of regenerative sleep allowing the organism to restore its natural state of ease & vitality. Eventually I was diagnosed with a disability that resulted from this tendency to be in a state of chronic hyper-vigilance that had devastating physical & emotional affects.  

Many years later, after degrees, certificates, trainings & deep self-exploration I am now able to work with the underlying conditioned beliefs that set these patterns into this organism in the first place. The process is not over, but each exploration now reveals an amazing discovery in the liberation of my authentic self from the social, cultural & religious characteristics that were superimposed over who I really am. And with each layer of the excavation I find myself relaxing into life itself more & more all the time.

One of the deepest layers of this brain/body-washing is the vacillation between hyper-vigilant activity & helpless lethargy when confronted with the demands of a life in 3D reality. And in the metaphysical/spiritual world this can often express itself as the polarity between fantasy & reality, but that's a whole other story for another day.............

                                                      ♡Jeanette

The Ultimate Competitor - 
The ego is always in a state of competition. Either it is competing with someone outside or someone inside, but the competition never ceases. In fact even when it perceives that there is someone other than it to compete with, it is in fact competing with itself. It is competing to prove that it is worthy of something....of everything, because it doesn't really believe that it ever will be. And no matter how much self love we give the ego it will never be enough. 

So then, what is the answer? Surrender is the only possible answer, the only possible way to end the competition. No matter what it is that the ego thinks it is battling, no matter how noble the cause, the only solution is to stop. For whenever there is the impulse to win at anything, there is separation, there is duality. 

In the end the ego will never solve the dilemma of life itself. The more reign it has to keep trying the more we will pull into our life relationships & people whom we perceive to be in opposition to us. And although the ego may be able to cooperate temporarily, it will never be able to truly collaborate entirely. The final battle is in fact to stop battling at all. 

Yes, I know this goes against everything that the ego has been taught: to never give up, to persevere, to use the last breath to serve the forces of Light & defeat the Darkness. But try for just a moment to watch this inner gladiator & see how it squirms under your direct observation. What lies underneath that it is trying so hard to protect? Ultimately it knows that in the final surrender....the ego itself disappears!


♡Jeanette