When my daughter told me she did not know what I meant with this phrase, I realised I was using it without really understanding the complexity of it and if I could not describe what the process was, then it was not helpful.
So, I stopped to really consider what it was I meant. To me it is a simple and daily process that keeps my energy free and clear of getting tangled up with that of another. But it is much more. If we feel fragmented, less than complete, it is our soul’s alert that something is amiss.
It led me to consider that emotions, being energy in motion, are what I am talking about. Sometimes, the feeling of being not quite yourself can be current, from a current interaction, but there is something else I want to discuss today and that is soul fragmentation.
The first question is ‘When did you start to feel that way?’
Eventually, you will arrive at a time where there was a huge amount of stress, a rock was thrown that did not just cause ripples, it caused a shattering. You felt it. You felt scattered. Afterwards you felt less than whole. Why?
Your energy is your essence. Emotions are energy in motion. At that point, to survive the rock, you will find that you either suppressed an emotion or worse, you detached from it. This was a survival mechanism but whether by suppression or detachment, you now do not have your full quiver of emotions so your energy feels depleted. It is.
The practice of calling back your energy is really calling back the emotion attached to the rock throwing experience. Call it back and observe. What feelings come up? What thoughts? Sit with these, watchfully, mindfully. This is what was lost when you felt the shattering. Feel it now. Express it. Speak the feelings and thoughts that return. It won’t kill you. You’re not being shattered now. You are reclaiming your arrows. You need the full quota.
Why did we ‘lose’ that part of us? I say ‘lose’ because energy is never lost. It might be impaled and stuck but it cannot be lost. But it can be absent. Did having that feeling or reaction at that past time, frighten a part of you? Were you afraid of rejection? Were you avoiding conflict? Were you putting the feelings of others over your own?
Being nice can be dangerous. Placating others at your own expense, hurts YOU. You matter. Your feelings matter. In a real sense, detaching from your emotions for all those valid reasons, was handing your power over to someone or something else. It flattened a cell in your battery.
Call it back. With your hand on your chest, call it back. Summons it. You will realise that you do this instinctively when you are shocked or upset. You will find your hand instinctively goes to your chest. You will also notice that you use a tapping motion to soothe yourself. Think of when you call your animal; you often will find you are tapping your leg to bring them back. Your emotions need to come back to your heart chakra, so pat your own chest as you call your energy back. Command it.
Refill your heart. Feel the relief. Feel your energy change and lift.
That is what the discipline of ‘calling back your energy’ means.
If you need guidance or support while doing this, please seek out a trusted support person. If you do not have one, contact me and I will help you through the process.
My desire is to help as many people as possible to feel whole and connected and safe and to learn how to work with this practice and empower themselves as they deserve to be empowered. Who needs to chug through life with a depleted battery?
With trauma there is resistance. The memories take you back to the past where everything in you wants things to be different but because you are back in the past there is no power to help yourself. All there is is the pain and the resistance to that pain and the thoughts swirl and it’s like being in the middle of a whirlpool that can only suck you down deeper as you fight.
There is a way out. But you have to be ready to let things go.
Stop the words. Stop screaming into the wind. Stop fighting ghosts and trying to change the past. It’s natural but it’s ineffective. A total waste of precious time that we all have now.
You centre yourself in the present and get into your heart, knowing it won’t kill you. You can be confident it won’t kill your because you are alive which is why you anchor yourself through your heart into this present moment.
Then you stop arguing and wrestling.
It should not have happened you will think and that is true. Your mind will continue to tell the story which is your story and it happened but it will be always in resistance to that because of the horrible unfairness.
What you focus on grows.
Focus not on the pain but on your own heart. It wants peace. That is why you have fought but this is not the way. It only makes the whirlpool of thoughts and pain grow stronger. It takes you down further and further.
Instead of fighting, be still.
Remember this is now.
You are safe and anchored and your heart will keep you safe from your mind.
Trauma pain is stuck pain while ever you are resisting it. All the energy that comes from resisting what has already happened is what keeps the whirlpool swirling.
The way out is to stop resisting and instead to quietly accept the thing that wounded you happened and to feel it without fighting it.
Let the tears be calm tears.
Remove the words.
Stop screaming into the wind.
Stop fighting
Stop telling the story. Just let the feelings come and hold steady.
Be still.
Meet the pain with no resistance and it will change.
It will not be a force you fight.
It will slowly stop swirling.
It cannot destroy you.
You are here and you have already survived it.
As you let your true feelings just be and don’t fight them you will feel a profound compassion for yourself and you will feel that compassion for yourself and all you suffered and it will start to calm down.
When you are still, when you are not fighting it any more the swirling will stop and you will be back on safe ground, washed clean in a way. The medicine is in the poison.
Compassion. Acceptance. And say goodbye to a past that has no power in the present.
This is a reading for the year 2024, who wants to know what is in store for it in the coming months. Don’t we all! And yes, Andie, 2024 would also like to know if world peace is in the cards.
Numerology: 2024 is an eight year. (2+0+2+4) so it is going to be a year of movement.
Master Rune for the Year: Inguz: Life makes a way and change is upon us.
Central Energy of Tarot Four Energies Reading: Nine of Wands. ‘I’m still Standing…”
I am quietly excited as I look at the combination of these messages.
The central card of the Energy Spread is the embattled Nine of Wands. In the traditional Smith-Rider-Waite Tarot it is the character standing in front of 8 wands, head bandaged, holding that one last wand. All the wands are sprouting leaves.
I am very interested that from a numerological point of view, this year will see a lot of movement. It is going to be a relief in many ways and there is no need to fear, because Inguz has a powerful message that grounds all the other messages. Things will fall apart and the centre will hold. And the centre is the heart. That message comes from the African novelist Chinua Achbe. The falling away is particularly relevant. His novel is a deep analysis of how colonisation decimated the Igbo culture and what this is telling me, is that this is a karmic kind of year, when much of the impact of colonisation, with its domination and all the other hierarchical structures that go with it, is going to give way to the remembrance and growing strength of older ancient cultures’ wisdoms and knowledge.
The reason the Tarot has Nine of Wands as the central energy is that world wide, people are exhausted, Earth is exhausted, from an onslaught of fear mongering and division pillaging and deception. And yet, in reality, that has been preemptive. Those of us who want to see change, those who know it is upon us and inevitable, those of us who know that humanity is in the death throes of the old systems that have been so arbitrary, narcissistic and full of low energy, need to gird up and stay standing. Those with power do not easily give it up, but it is sure. Change is upon us, the seeds are through the soil and growing.
Inguz is a powerful Rune, full of the energy of the warrior. Also within the warrior energy, is the gift of sacrifice. This is not going to be an easy year, but chaos always precedes change. As an analogy, it is not easy to go through childbirth. There comes a point where every woman wants to change her mind and not go through the pain. But we know, when we see the nine of wands, that we are at the end of a long and difficult cycle. Hold the line, hold the Light and the embattled warrior finds the strength to continue standing. Wands are the suit of fire, of passion, of action so to answer 2024’s question of will there be world peace, the answer is soon. Change is upon us, but this is a year where there will be a lot of movement and activity to bring it in.
But this movement is orchestrated by a larger energy; the collective consciousness of the people, the planet itself, the stars, even the whole galaxy, is calling in this change. We cannot go on with fear, hatred and division. If we must fight for peace then we make peace with fighting at an energetic level. Not each other, but the ideas that cause the fighting in the first place.
Astrologically, we are entering the Age of Aquarius. We have Pluto putting his toe into the fresh new energy, but then having to go retrograde again for a little while, to finish the clean sweep that is going on when Pluto goes forward again.
As I write this I am aware that many people I have known, would be interpreting what I am saying through the lens of all the deliberate misinformation that people have been fed. You know the stuff; it always makes you feel as though your stomach is clenching into a solid ball. It makes you afraid, it is full of salacious and emotive propaganda and it is Orwellian. War is Peace, you will be told. Truth is Lies. Everyone’s head is spinning as they hold, much like the character in the nine of wands, to their own belief system and are suspicious and critical of who they have been told are the enemies.
We are moving into an era where we will wake up again to the knowing that we already know truth by how it feels. That may sound simplistic but all the arguing has been to shake us up and make us realise we do not need to be told what to believe. We are not spectators, we don’t need online communities and information silos to tell us who the goodies are and who the baddies are. We will come out the other side of this era once again free. We have had to learn the hard way because we have clearly been slow to discern truth for ourselves amid the swirling narratives fed to us. But we will learn and then we will be able to move ahead without rancour and divisive opinions, we will have learned the value of civility, from having experienced the ugliness of a world without compassion and respect.
What is true and for our highest good feels different. We will learn as a species, to go inward. If what we are hearing/feeling/ being told is causing our energy to tighten up, contract, go on the defensive, it is not from the Light. We are going to come out the other side realising all the divisions that have been drawn between us are artificial. Don’t feed it. See it and stand against it. We are going to awaken again to our shared humanity.
2024 is going to be active. It isn’t going to be easy, but chaos always has and always will precede change.
The energies that are in position of helpful energies of which we are conscious, are aligned with and support all I have already passed on. The joyful liberation from fear the Fool exemplifies, is accompanied by the Five of Cups. Change will bring loss and regret and sadness; it always does. There is always grief with any transition and this is a major shift, not just some temporary unrest. The Earth itself is expressing, maybe even reacting to all the energy swirling within the humans who inhabit it. So much energy is up, ready to be transmuted and the Fool is the indicator of what that change is.
The Fool is not foolish although that is certainly its shadow energy. It is pure. It is clear. It is free of ego. It hasn’t even created a persona yet. Think of an infant. That is the sweet energy that comes when there is no fear and a complete trust. Even if there does not appear to be a road under our feet if we step out of our comfort zone, the Fool knows that it will rise up to be there the minute s/he steps out and off. Trust. Connection. The Sun. Wholeness. That is all represented by the Fool. But this is not a simplistic message, not a fantasy. The companion card is the Five of Cups, that sad figure who is quietly stopping to acknowledge what has been lost. We too, will need to sit quietly with our own sadness, our own regrets, our own evaluation of what it took to bring about this change, but notice. The figure already has the travelling cloak on. Two cups are still standing. When the grieving is complete and respect has been paid, those two cups are sill there, as is the bridge in the distance that will take us away and over the river to the new start that the Fool is already blissed out by. That is what energies are assisting us on a conscious level.
Also on the conscious level, but needing to be overcome are the combined energies of the Seven of Pentacles and the Seven of Wands. Accountability. Reflection. Reevaluation. Two sevens. It will take courage to truthfully face ourselves as a species and acknowledge the deceptions, what we have sown, what we have put our efforts into, all the things we thought were important and re-evaluate everything. The suits are the earth and air elements; dealing with beliefs, communications, thoughts, religions, all of it and how it relates to our connection to earth, to our sense of who we are and what we have done, our sense of place and our well being but also, most importantly, our values. There will, I know be many people individually and collectively who are going to be confronted with the challenges of deep evaluations. I know many will be asking ‘What have I done. What have we done?’ The reason these energies are on the side that can be difficult, is because it takes courage and integrity to undergo an honest evaluation and this is going to be major.
No wonder we have Nine of Wands at the centre. Hold the Line. Don’t give up. Don’t run away from the pain; the birth is close.
At a subconscious level, we have the Two of Wands and the King of Cups there to help us and I am so glad to see them together. The Two of Wands character holds the world in his hands. His wands are budding. New horizons are before him as he/she looks out onto something new. A whole new horizon, under the energy of the King of Cups, the one who has gone through it all; has felt all the emotions, dark and sunny, heavy and easy, the whole gamut of them and is strong, empathetic, compassionate, emotionally literate, balanced and not given to extremes. We may not be fully aware of it yet, but that is where we are moving to.
Opposing that joyous energy, are the Page of Cups and the Six of Swords. There may be a few immature starts, a few less than fully formed peace offerings but yes, the swords are going to be put to rest. Not without casualties. And we will need to help each other as we wrap ourselves up in our warmest cloaks, not to run away from the sorrow, because that comes with us, but as we move away from the turbulence of 2024, towards the light in the distance we are finally, at last, moving towards calmer waters.
I personally feel this change and I know without a shadow of a doubt that there is a different future for humans. I know without any doubt that those who built and climbed the ladders of hierarchy and privilege that have been the mechanisms of so much inequality and vicious selfishness, that has caused mind blowing levels of pain and suffering are so loud now because this is it. This is the final push. Loud and clear is the message to Hold the Line! Hold the Light. Stay in Love.
I hold that by the end of this decade, our children will be living in a world that is fundamentally different to our current world. Stand ready to accept the process.
How to Tame Your ego and Reconnect with your Intuition.
1: Who is Driving Anyway?
Have you ever noticed yourself arguing with something inside you, maybe at those times when you are stepping up, trying something new? Do you find yourself full of inspiration and an optimistic happiness one moment, only to doubt yourself a minute later? Do you find the enthusiasm, the energy slip out and waste away and you push away what seemed so interesting and possible only moments before? Or when you are trying to sleep and instead a thousand thoughts start chasing around inside your head and you realise it is a disjointed conversation?
Do you let life happen to you, feeling powerless to change anything?
Have you ever wondered who is in control of your mind, because once you ask that, you are also asking who or what is in charge of your life. Thoughts become things, so who is this who has the power to change your mind, your emotions, your life?
It brings to mind a time when I was driving and my passenger was clobbering me because she, afraid and alert for kangaroos, thought 80kph was a better speed. That surprise clobbering was more dangerous than any non existent kangaroo. I was the driver, but the car was not under my control, because of her fear.
In my Back Seat Driver analogy, the driver is (or at least was and can be again) your Intuitive Self, your connected Knowing Self. The passenger is your ego. There are many names and titles this being goes by: ego, persona, who you think you are. If your Intuitive Self stays in charge of your vehicle, the ego can take a nap. If you go off line, which is what we all do, then an unqualified part of you has to reach over and take the steering wheel of your life.
The back seat driver is not your adversary by nature but by default.
Once upon a long time ago, when you were very little, long before anything corrupted your confidence, you were pure potential. You were born perfect, body soul and spirit programmed with love, in harmony and communion with All That Is, connected with golden threads to everything in a dance of oneness, the start of everything, the beginning of a journey through the labyrinth of life. You were born a triumvirate being of body; your physical self, your soul; your emotional thinking self and your spiritual self.
The body learns all it can learn through its physicality; through what it hears, sees, smells, touches and tastes.
The soul, that part when all the emotions and thoughts, also learns through your senses. It was like the water of a pristine ocean, through which your body had clear access to your spirit.
Your spirit is that part of you that is all knowing. When these are integrated, you experience your true essence and step into a powerful freedom.
The disintegration is caused by fear. Fear of not belonging. Fear of being wrong. Fear of rejection. Big fears related to survival.
This beautiful, clear ocean of your soul, so full of beauty and clarity, over time, became darkened, scarred and damaged because the world got in the way. It introduced fear and doubt and censure. The dark oil of fear, of neglect, of criticism, of conditional expectation begin to drip drip drip into this ocean and the water of our souls, the home of our thoughts and emotions, clouded over, lost its transparency and the body and spirit lost the clear connection. How the ego grows, depends on the conditions it finds itself in. It is like a computer program, everything is stored and with enough repetition, run automatically. It is however, vulnerable to the infiltration of viruses, that slowly, insidiously, alter the original program. It is the same with us.
It happened in a million small ways as you began to put together ideas of what keeps you safe in this world you found yourself in. You began to experience yourself as a person. You learned every day.
Your ego, that part of you that you think of as ‘self’, managed all the information you were sequentially gathering, in its attempt to keep you safe. It stored it, categorised it and filed it. It learned values and beliefs from your caregivers and community. It learned how to survive, how to belong.
Over time, you forgot that you were unlimited, a unique little miracle and learned to accept limits and rules, to please, to avoid displeasing and sometimes it had to be wholly concerned with immediate survival. The human need to belong, to feel safe is the core need on which everything else is structured.
The wise, knowing part of you grew less distinct, as the ego grew larger, until you were disconnected from your intuition; that part of you that knew what it could not know, imagined what had not yet been, created possibilities and brought them into being. In so doing, you gave up the intuitive power that I intend to lead you back to.
Life rerouted you in a sense. Whereas before, you were an instinctive being, you now have a persona, an identity, a sense of self, complete with inherited beliefs and values, accepted norms and ways of thinking.
The direct access, that clear water conduit now detours through these systems of ideas, beliefs and experiences.
The ego is your helper but over time, it can become a limiting straight jacket, if it is not balanced by your intuitive Knowing Self. It is when this happens that it morphs from passenger to a back seat driver ready to responds to a power vacuum for which it is totally unqualified.
How does our persona go from being a necessary part of survival, to a potential mugger on the back seat of our life? There are many answers, but I would say fear is the main reason.
‘I feel a little unsure’ you say.
Your ego is there to keep you safe, you currently feel you are not, so it immediately seeks safety. As it searches similar experiences, similar data from the archive, it encodes the current feelings with those old feelings. You have just been dragged into the past. You have no power there. As your ego searches for ways to make you safe, the search only reinforces ‘unsure’ as a valid emotion.
It is a loop.
‘This feels uncertain’ you say and the same process begins.
When we experience the world as an unsafe place, which indeed it can be, fear is a healthy and useful response. However when fear is the emotion we attach to being unsure of something, that is certainly not useful.
The problem with existing this way, is that your ego only has the past to look at which makes it very vulnerable when it is faced with the unknown. It has nothing to go on, no advice, no direction, nothing, when facing something new in its mission to keep you safe. Over time, in its mission to keep you safe, it develops shortcuts. In essence, if it can stop you changing things up, it can rest. To do this, it just needs to amp up fear of change. Job done, blanket and feet up time.
So, it trains you.
It develops some pretty big guns.
Who do you think you are to….. It’s not broken, don’t fix it…… Why would you try that? You know what happened when…. That’s risky! You could lose……..
All these make its job a little easier. But it is not you, it is a hybrid persona constructed of thoughts emotions and experiences saying these things, creating the feelings, feeling the threat. It is not connected to that quiet knowing part of you. It is a mask, a protective device that has developed over time until it has grown so large, so influential and so familiar that you do not even realise it is not you. You become smaller as it grows. The quiet knowing voice that once used to guide you has been smothered.
Ego’s voice is louder, more insistent, more emotional than the Knowing part of you that is actually peaceful and uses few words. The ego is often afraid, and its advice, while keeping you safe, also keeps you very small. It only got to be so dominant because you abdicated.
‘I don’t know what to do’ you say and it groans. It is not qualified to drive. It has worked hard and just wants to cruise along happily on the back seat keeping an eye out in case of attacks by wild tigers, or such calamities.
It has never passed any driving tests and it knows it, so when you take your hands off the wheel, it is terrified, and rightly so. It can barely see over the steering wheel in fact and the only mirror it has is the rear view one. Yet when you abdicate the driver’s seat, when you allow fear and uncertainty to paralyse you, your ego, fearing everything, reaches its long arms over, grabs the back of your seat, pushes you aside and grabs the wheel.
So, there you are, careering along the road, you with your hands over your eyes, the backseat driver madly trying to steer for both of you, in a state of sheer terror. All the while, it is desperately looking for the emergency lane to pull over in to. That is why you keep stalling and getting nowhere. How can this change? Where is the map for this?
If we were raised to listen to our wise Self, we would be able to remember the situation without feeling it as though it was current and move more gracefully on to ask your intuition how you dealt with it. We would, in other words, stay in the present moment and stay conscious as to what we are experiencing.
We are body soul and spirit, born perfect and then forgetting.
This journey is to reconnect to a higher state of consciousness, fully awake and fully alive. Before we can do this, we first need to take a close look at what is going on in our minds.
2: Learning to Tell the Difference Between the Back Seat Driver and the Self.
Find Stillness First.
We are not our thoughts. Most of them are the inner voice of our avatar, our ego.
Once we recognise we are not our thoughts we can begin the process of taming our ego by taking back control of our minds and from there, our lives.
But how can we possibly do this?
How do I reach that sacred, peaceful place of of simply being, of experiencing myself as ‘I am’.
Part 1: Who is ‘Thinking’ me?
Sit quietly and observe your thoughts.
Do not judge them, resist them or feed them, just accept and acknowledge them.
Allow the thoughts to come and go. Simply observe them.
Now look at the thoughts analytically.
What do you notice about them?
You may notice some or all the following characteristics of your thoughts:
You may notice that the most persistent thoughts are not novel, they are not new. They are familiar visitors and as you observe you may see that these are the basis of the things you worry about.
You will probably notice the following characteristics
‘Should’ features a lot, as do could and would. The thoughts are often critical. They are often anxious. They are taking you back to things that have happened in the past, uncomfortable feelings and painful memories emerge when you engage with the thoughts.
Now try not to think. What happens? Take your time. Try again. Observe.
BUT…part 2:
If you are the one observing the thoughts, who or what is thinking the thoughts?
This process is necessary for you to discover for yourself, perhaps for the very first time, that you are not in control of your own mind; the thoughts are in effect, controlling your life. The good news is that you would not be able even to notice this if you were not also an awareness, an observer. This is where the power lies. You can turn all this around. You can take your power back.
There is a chart you may have seen, as it is all readily available on the internet, that charts the frequencies of different emotions.
Thoughts, like everything else, are forms of energy. The feelings that accompany thoughts resonate at the frequencies of the thoughts charging through your head. The word emotions is from the Latin emoter which literally means energy in motion.
Check how your persistent thoughts make you feel against the chart developed by David Hawkins and adapted by many other practitioners.
Based on work of Dr David Hawkins.
What do you notice?
What I notice is that the thoughts seem to precede emotion, to even generate emotion.
For me, the most repetitive thoughts visit with feelings of guilt, grief and desire. I understand why I feel stuck so often. At frequencies between 30 and 125, they are closer to death than peace. Emotions at the Alpha or beginning point of this chart is energy at its most contracted.
Do you find that persistent unmanageable thoughts trouble you as well? Do things make sense as you look at the ranges?
Do you find that the persistent thoughts, the ones you cannot seem to control, have a low frequency? Do any of them get above 250?
What is going on here? No-one would choose to deprive themselves of joy, yet here we can clearly see that the monkey mind appears to be stuck in a range of 20-250 on this scale.
Why?
Because most of the thoughts that enter our mind are not ‘us’ at all but they create emotions within us, which is how we experience ourselves.
Most thoughts are from our ego, our lower-case self, our avatar creation; that part of our soul that was only ever intending to keep us safe. What happened? Why did it become so dominant? And why is it stuck in low vibrations? Our ego has become our ground control, our go to adviser, our navigator. The fact that it changes over time, is an indication to any thinking person, that it is in fact, not a reliable source.
Perhaps the answer lies in the reason for its growth in the first place. Remembering its function was to keep us safe, perhaps the necessary question needs to be ‘safe from what?’ This question is a vital one, a necessary perspective if we are to recover. By asking ‘Safe from what’? our ego will tell us what part of us it is protecting.
Our emotions are as complex and numerous as wildflowers in a European woods. Thinking of how most children were raised, of what measures were employed to teach those children acceptable behaviour, many of us would agree that for many of us, we were trained out of certain thoughts and behaviours by the mostly unconscious reliance of caregivers on the tools guilt, fear and shame. These are powerful tools for the powerless and unconscious to use. It is how we were raised and how our parents were raised so….. and on it goes.
These three are probably the strongest negative emotions a human can experience. Shame and guilt and fear are also powerful creators of ego. They are strong messages that we are faulty. Feeling faulty is not a safe experience. Adjustments must be made. It is a matter of survival when young, to be accepted. No-one wants to be thrown on the scrap heap, rejected or ignored. See how low the vibration of shame is? 20. That is why people feel they want to die when overwhelmed with this emotion. Fear resonates at 100 which is 10% of possible good feelings! This is where we begin to create this adjusted version of ourselves. Think of it as a mask or an avatar, with codes and programs to run it.
It is timely here to take a quick look at the vibration and impact of pride, desire and anger; the other triumvirate that builds a different, but equally inauthentic egoic or avatar self. We can learn that certain attributes or behaviours will elicit praise; which feels good so we code this into our ego as well. Too long in these emotions creates all kinds of disorders of personality.
The vibration of our ego rarely rises over 250!!! That is the plight of the unconscious person, and the credentials of the Back-Seat Driver that is currently in charge of your life!
Now, ask yourself once again, ’Who or what is this part of me that is observing my thoughts? If I am not my thoughts, can it be that I truly am this entity that is quietly observing my thoughts?’
Yes. While the ego is reactive, loud, demanding, this Observer is wise, calm and neutral. It can be all this because it is the higher, knowing part of you that you were created with, that is itself connected to ALL THAT IS. I refer to it interchangeably as the Higher Self, the Knowing Self, The Observer and your Intuition. It is all the same.
This powerful part of you is in fact the real you. The I Am presence is who you are. It just got blocked out over time, that is all. It is still there. You will feel the difference when you step into the Observer role. You will notice that it has a higher frequency. It is free of fear, unlike the voice of our ego. It is love based, not fear based. There are no limits to how good it can feel.
The question now becomes ‘What is consciousness and how do I reach it? How do I take back control of my mind?’
Like anything that is worth attaining, it takes commitment and practice. The antidote to over thinking and hence the key to this process is to retrain our minds by becoming aware of our body, our physical selves.
We have now experienced the truth about our mental activity and have realised that there is an Observer. To connect with this, we need to find a way to stop our incessant thinking, but we cannot do this with the same tool that created the monkey mind. It is like using a nail to hammer in a nail. How exactly then, can we quieten our minds? The answer lies in dropping into our bodies.
Bring to consciousness a time when you were pure sensation; sitting in a tree, swimming in the ocean, lying in a comfortable warm bed…..
Sink into that feeling and experience it fully
Stay with that, with the goal of being free of intruding thoughts for 3 seconds
When a thought intrudes, observe it, let it go and return to feeling
Rinse and repeat
Practise being able to drop into this state at will, at any time, until you can. Practise this until you can stay there for 3 uninterrupted seconds then expand it. Until you master your mind the Back-Seat Driver will be in charge. Is this what you want?
You may find a gratitude list is another useful tool for when the hamster in your head takes off. If you are finding it hard to be still or feeling rotten, reading this list can interrupt a low energy and stop it taking hold.
As you practise this you will find that your brain begins to change. When it takes off in its old direction, you as the Observer will notice and be able to bring it back. By practising holding higher vibrational thoughts for a time and using these to go into your body instead and stay with the feeling, your brain will be developing new pathways. You will be able to interrupt compulsive thinking simply by reading this list. Then you will be able more easily to drop into that peaceful space between thoughts. These two practices work together. Use them both.
Summary:
We are not our thoughts, we are the Observer of our thoughts.
We are unconscious until we realise we are unconscious.
We need to become conscious.
3: Finding the Warrior Within.
Nothing changes until we learn the difference between living automatically and living with full awareness, being conscious of our bodies, our surroundings, our thoughts and our emotions. The part that is aware of all this is, to me, quite difficult to find the words for. It is hard to find words for consciousness. What is this awareness that can observe? Atman? Over soul? It is my essence and it acts as an overseer. I can see why the term Higher Self is so popular, because there is an eagle like quality to what I am grappling to find the words for.
It is always there, the gut instinct, the intuition, this wise overseer, so why is it that we think so little about it? Why is it not spoken of? To me, it goes back to how dense the creation, the avatar, the persona we build and walk around in, is. It is dense as in heavy and thick, and dense as in thick… you understand.
One thing it most definitely is not, is the Back Seat Driver. If anything, it is more like a flight controller. It is also our essence; that which remains when all else passes. Ground Control. North Star. Guide? The ‘us’ that we thought was ‘us’ is a construct that we have built over time. How can anyone know they are unconscious? In a way it is the same as the dream state. Mostly, we are unaware while dreaming, that we are dreaming. In the same way, we are unaware, while we think we are living, that we are unconscious. How do we become aware?
I think it only happens when we realise that we are thinking… and that if we are aware that we are thinking then there is an eagle within all of us. But this only happens when the wind dies down, when the ripples on the waters of our mind settle, when we achieve stillness, that we connect with the life changing question: Who is observing the thinker/feeler/sensate creature? In this stillness, we can watch the movement of thoughts. It is only when we become objectively aware of our thought process that we even begin to understand that everything we thought we understood is now up for review. It takes practice to maintain enough consciousness to be able to actually do this, to observe ourselves thinking.
The moment comes for all of us who walk this track, this overgrown bramble filled uneven path when we realise that we (the person we have assumed we are) is not in any way, in control of our thoughts! Our thoughts think us. Our thoughts run wild and we have no idea. We are so used to thinking unconsciously that we are not aware at any given time what we are even thinking. It is all going on automatically. When we begin to become aware of thoughts as entities, it is alarming at how slippery they are, how, rapid, how relentless. It is only in deep stillness that we are abele to break through the illusion that we are in control of our own minds. Mostly they are a shitstorm of data, impressions, beliefs and outside voices that we have internalised and not even been aware of.
‘I think, therefore I am’, is not quite right: I am aware that I think, therefore I am, might be closer.
Thoughts are the landscape of our egoic self while awareness is the territory of a much higher state of being, the one we were born with but forgot.
Until we are conscious, we are hurtling along the road with our eyes covered, forcing the Back Seat Driver to try its best to keep us alive.
4: Learning to Accept What Is.
The Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference. (Reinhold Niebuhr)
The second tool to develop in this journey to regain control of our own minds and to be able to stay present and not lost in the past or the future, is the art of true acceptance.
What is, simply is. We confuse ourselves by trying to reorder, realign and change circumstances, people and feelings that are outside our sphere of influence. Buddha states that the cause of all suffering is the attachment to desire. We often skip over the most important word here which is attachment; the inability to let go and let be.
While I am not advocating passivity which in effect makes you the spectator of your own life, I am suggesting we learn to recognise what is within our sphere of control and influence and what is outside of this.
We are ultimately only in charge of ourselves. We are free to alter what we think, our behaviour and our choices. Yet so often, we find that when we are in a state of resistance, we are stretching, trying to fight what cannot be fought and often, exert control over another, and we are suffering.
The really ridiculous thing that we humans do, is assume we can bring about change if we dislike something enough. Wiser souls teach us about how energy works.
Each human is an autonomous, sovereign being. While we may influence them, it is not our right to attempt to change or control them in any way. Once we accept that, we can draw all our own energy back to ourselves, where it rightfully belongs. Resistance is a state that allows our energy to bleed out. There are some things we need to find the serenity to accept.
Nothing feeds the ego more than a state of resistance. We don’t like something, we feel misunderstood, we wish it was warmer, colder, we feel inferior or superior, we feel dissatisfied, we wish things were different. All are states of resistance.
Remembering that we created our ego in the first place, it helps to be aware that it is when we drop into a lower vibrational state that we are leaving the Light, descending into a lower frequency. When we are faced with any kind of change, when we are unwell, tired or experiencing loss, when we are faced with a fork in the road and need to make a decision, we are vulnerable and can easily become afraid and unsure. These are the times when we are likely to find it most difficult to remain in Observer mode.
Looking at the frequency chart, we see that fear and desire, resonate at a frequency of 100 and 125. You may be curious about the resonance of desire. We are told by many gurus to set goals, to define our desires, to proclaim our intentions, so why is desire resonating at only 125? The reason may well be that desire often has its origins in what we feel is lacking in our lives. They are often verbalised as wishes. If you consider this for a moment or two, you will feel this sense of lack. Here I also think of the Buddhist wisdom, that the attachment to desire is the cause of all suffering. Desire itself, if it is not coming from a place of lack, is not a ‘bad’ thing. However, when we attach and cling to that desire, we are heading for quicksand. Attachment is the hallmark of ego. Any time you feel you must have something, it is your ego..
Feelings of inadequacy are thus often attached to our desires, generated from old original shame or guilt, close neighbours, which is why we often find ourselves affected by thoughts of inadequacy. We have all heard these thoughts: ‘Who do you think you are to…’ If we are not able to recognise that we are being spiritually mugged, we are likely to slip into apathy and give up on ourselves and our dreams. At the same time, to protect you from disappointment it will also tell you that you don’t ‘deserve’ it or something similar. It is a complicated mess when we don’t know what we are doing.
This is not to say that we cannot create and manifest our desires. There is nothing wrong with having desires at all. In fact, it is essential. The key is within the chart.
We begin with the desire. Then we start to step up the ladder. We find the courage to express it and to begin to take all the necessary steps towards attaining it. Then almost paradoxically, rather than attaching to that desire, repeating affirmations and the like, we need to let go of all attachment. Attachment drags the desire down with the feeling that somehow, we will be incomplete without it or that achieving it is a struggle. The higher way is to instead move past attachment into the vibration of willingness and acceptance. Once we have identified our desire, and courageously taken whatever practical steps that it is our responsibility to take (remembering we are creators and not spectators in our lives) all that remains to be done is to be willing to allow our desire to come towards us, in whatever wonderful way that may be, while at the same time, removing the obstacles that the ego will attempt to put in our way. It is a process similar to gardening. Apply water and nutrients and remove weeds.
At resonances below 175, we are not hearing from our Higher self and have lost this vital connection. Is that why people caution us to ‘be careful what you wish for?’ Just an interesting thought. If the ego is the needy part of us, and Our Knowing Self only ever desires that which is for our highest good, what does that tell us about some of the things we want?
By now, the benefits of becoming aware of the presence of the Back-Seat Driver are becoming clear. We need to quieten our minds so that we can reconnect and lift ourselves to a happier energetic state. We need a level of control of our thoughts to be able to recognise what is happening in our inner worlds. If we cannot, then we cannot see when we have taken our hands off the wheel, or know when we need to put them back on. Once we can still our minds, we access the Wise Observer within. Then we see clearly. By mastering our minds, we are preparing to grow, to improve, to lift ourselves out of low energy and into the Light.
5: Now What?
A tool is only a tool, until you know how to use it.
In my own journey to gain control of my mind, I drew on the wisdom of many others wiser and further down the path than I was. I also turned to my Runes. I had not read them consistently for many years. Then one day when sorting and tidying, I found them again and began to study them. I journalled their messages every day. The first author I consulted referred to our Higher Self as our Knowing Self, a term I use and love. The battle of the Spiritual warrior, he also said, is always the battle of the self with the Self. He had this adaptation of an old poem from the Hindu Text, the Bhagavad Gita in his book:
Lift up the self by the Self And don’t let the self droop down For the Self is the self’s only friend And the self is the Self’s only foe.
I was fascinated.
It is often only when we are at a point of great need that we are receptive to wise counsel. At the same time, I went from a casual relationship with Tarot cards to a commitment to learn their language. Both Runes and Tarot are excellent tools to connect to our Higher, Knowing Selves. Oracles of all kinds connect us to our inner world, which is where all the answers we seek lie.
As much as anyone reading this, I also have times when I am not sure of my path and feel I am lost or stuck, which is why I was drawn to both systems. They are useful tools to either prevent an ambush from the Back-Seat Driver, or to deal with the effect of one.
Going back to your took kit, consider how different your life will be once you decide you are going to take the steps to reclaim control over your mind. Imagine. Feel the possibility of a life without fear or inadequacy running the show. These are only a few tools in my growing arsenal but they are the most important in building a solid foundation for my evolution. Truly, until we become conscious and can experience the peace of being reunited with our Knowing Selves through realising that ‘we’ are not our thoughts but that still, wise presence that observes our thoughts, nothing else will take root in our lives.
There is no better way to spend your time and energy than in aiming for and achieving peace of mind; a mind without clutter, without loud chatter, without sabotaging thoughts. It is simple and that simplicity fools some who continue to ask for someone outside of themselves to do the work for them.
Do not let the simplicity of the steps fool you into thinking it is TOO simplistic. And yes, that thought is a perfect example of what the Back Seat Driver will hiss at you when you start the process.
It is up to you whether you allow the fear based ego to continue overseeing your life. It does not like change. It has grown used to being in control and these steps, should you choose to begin this journey, turn all that upside down. Expect resistance, but recognise where it comes from. Invest the effort into yourself with these simple steps and see how quickly your life changes! In nature, all things change. The Wheel of Fortune turns. The Fool in the Major Arcana of the Tarot is my hero, my trail blazer, the keeper of wisdom, the egoless free traveller I truly desire to be. I will keep my ego relaxing on the backseat. It can travel with me, keeping a lookout for real danger if is so desires, or it can sleep. What it can no longer do, is hijack the car. Do not abdicate your responsibility through fear or insecurity. You can see over the wheel. That is a great start. Let your ego rest. Thank it for all it has done for you. Hand it a blanket.
