Gaia: healing through mindchange - Recovery of the Spirit

Re: PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

http://MiKaEl.gaia.com — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 02:51:14 GMT

Thanks for the story, my brother.

I can identify. It took me eight years of recovery to find spirit in me, expressing through me as me when my judgments get out of the way. It's my goodness, my integrity, that i denied all my life and then was angry with the world for not acknowledging it.

Since age 13 I was angry at my parents and the world for separating me from my twin brother in high school and lived a false self ever since, - a self of rebellion and anger, trying anti-capitalism, anti-autoritarianism, anti-nuclear, anti-German, anti-white, and finally anti-myself. Got almost killed in the process, but didn't wake up. Thought I needed to be right.
Only when I saw that i knew nothing and was wrong in everything i ever tried, I could choose peace of mind and happiness above being right, above that foolish story they call my life. That's when I learned that peace and love, joy and freedom are parts of me, aspects of spirit as me, available at all times as soon as I remember to express them.

One love.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 17:22:09 GMT

Here is a personal experience, I named it, The Wolf Story.

Once a week or so was movie day at school, and we got to sit in class and watch a movie, which was usually a documentary. I remember one in particular that will always remind me of myself. It was about a man in Spain who raised packs of wolves on his land because they were becoming endangered as a species. The man talked about the history of the wolf and what was causing them to become endangered. One day he witnessed a female having pups and took a newborn pup to raise. He said when wolf pups are born the first thing they smell would always be their "mother." He took the pup home and raised it on a bottle. After taking care of it and observing it for a year he came to realize that she was not happy, and he thought she needed to be with her own kind. He kept a detailed record of the pup's pack and knew exactly where her mother and siblings stayed on his land and released her back to them. They did not reject her, but she rejected them because she did not know she was a wolf. The first thing she smelled was a human and that's what she thought she was. He saw that he could not leave her there and took her back home where she laid down all alone. The man realized that the wolf did not know her true nature and probably would never know it, and he said that he would never do this to another animal again.

The first time I saw this documentary I did not see any further than a story about wolves, but the second time I watched it I saw myself as the wolf. I have experienced the same thing. When I heard the man say the wolf would probably never know its true nature I realized why I have felt so confused all my life. I was not who I thought I was. He said the wolf would lie around and you could see her and tell that she was very confused, unhappy and lost. This is how I have always felt, like lying around the yard not knowing what to do and when I did do something I did not like it. I was not happy.

I knew then without a doubt that I am spirit and I was going to find my true nature. I am what keeps the body alive and I have to remember who I am, who my real father is. I could see what happened to me, the same as what I always heard about wild animals turning on their masters sooner or later because they return to their nature. No, it is not that at all. The animal is just unhappy because it's not its self, its true nature, and the farther it gets away the unhappier it becomes, the angrier it becomes. It is because the animal believes it is a human.

This is the same problem we have as humans-we think and believe we are human when we are really spirit but we do not know that we are. All my life I felt different from others. I felt I don't like them, I don't belong here, I need to go somewhere, do something. I felt as if I were dropped off here and I am not from here, no one is like I am. The older I got, the further away I got from my true nature, and the anger and resentment grew inside of me because I did not like myself. The anger and resentment started coming out more and more, and I would lose control and blame others for pushing my button. The angrier I felt, the less I wanted to live, and I began to cover these feelings up with drugs, alcohol, sex and money. Nothing helped me-it only covered up my problem for a short time and then it was back the next day and growing bigger. People around me, my family and my friends could see this happening to me. Little did they know that the same thing was happening to them. They could not see it in themselves but had no problem seeing it in everybody else! It was not until I was locked up that I saw it in so many others and I could see that there was something wrong with me.

I had been taught all my life that I was human, just as the wolf was raised human. The wolf never saw or learned anything about a wolf, and it would be hard to teach her that she is a wolf after raising her to be a domesticated pet. She was not allowed to be her true nature and was truly trapped within herself. This is the same thing that happened to me. I was trapped, imprisoned within myself. Sure, you can say we are human! Then what about all this God stuff? We are human, we are spirit, and the human part dies and the spirit lives forever. Why, then, are we taught so much about human nature and nothing or very little about spirit nature?

Re: Tools of Healing

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 14:53:21 GMT

This is some personal experiences and also is in my book.

LEARNING TO BE STILL AND LET IT BE

One thing I had learned from Lonnie was how to share with somebody. Lonnie never did say, "I disagree with you, you are wrong." Lonnie said to me one day, "Are you sure that's right?" And I said, "Yes," and Lonnie just nodded his head up and down and never said a word. When I walked away I heard a small voice say to me, "Are you sure you are right and not Lonnie?" And I would see that I was not the one that was right, Lonnie was, and I went back and told him he was right and I was wrong.

What a lesson I had learned. Lonnie not having to be right made me see I was wrong and I learned. Lonnie said, "We don't have to be right. If we don't say we are right, it does not mean we are wrong." Lonnie taught me that if we let it be then God can take care of it. But if we don't let it be then we can only mess it up.

I did not use what I had learned from Lonnie until months after I was released. It happened one day when I was in the kitchen with a friend. She said something to me, wanting to release some anger. I could feel her anger and thought about what I was going to say back to her and decided she would not like to hear what I had to say. Then I heard a small voice say, "Don't say anything then." Well, I just looked out the window at the trees and she thought I was thinking about what to say. She did not know I was done thinking and that I was ‘being still,' not so much still in my body but still in my mind. I was not thinking anything. A few minutes passed and she spoke and said, "I don't think I should have said that." I was amazed! I still kept looking out the window and didn't think anything for a few more minutes and she spoke again and said, "I know I should not have said what I said. I am sorry."

The problem came up and it was handled in such a way that was so wonderful. It was handled by me being still. By me doing nothing, God did everything! Like Lonnie taught me, if you let it be then God can take care of it. "...the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." (John 14:10)
What had happened here was I did not give power to something I did not want, by not opposing the thing I did not want, IT WENT AWAY ! like the Buddhist say , take what is good for you and leave the rest, I've come a long way with this one. I think it would be wonderful if people would learn to only go after the thing they want and leave the things they don't want alone. I have found that sometimes the reason I cannot be still was because the thing that I did not like was in me. I think if I don't change anybody but myself, I am doing a great deal in helping the world. Your Friend,Don

Re: Tools of Healing

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 01:56:53 GMT

            Hello everybody,
                    When I posted LET'S GET THE HUMAN OUT OF HERE, i did not have my wife
                     edit it, and it's easyer to read or understand my writing's after it has been edited.
                      If anybody can let me know how to take it off where she can edit it, let us know.
                                          Your Friend, Don

Re: Tools of Healing

Thu, 19 Oct 2006 14:30:34 GMT

                            LET'S GET THE HUMAN OUT OF HERE
              I would say that is the number ONE tool, that's what work's for me, I've had AMAZING results. I shared some of my experiences with a 65 year old Yoga specialist and he told me, what I have learned in a few years, most people do not learn in a life time, and he said that I was one lucky bustard. The are lot's of people that have learned that they are spirit , but the problem is that they are learning the same old way.They think they learn when really they only know, if a person believes something then he will be living it and not just passing it on that which was passed to him. If we are which WE are then let's get the human out of here and pratice being that what we are and stop being what we are not. Most people that believe that everything we need is inside of us, are looking and seeking to have what they want. Now very few of them know's that so is everything we do not need, but they can see it in everybody else. There are living examples everywhere, take the person that cleans house's for a living and is very good at it . But look at their house and it's everything but clean. I meet people and they ask if I can teach them how to do some of the things that I do, I tell them yes, it is very easy everything we need is inside of us, and everything we do not need is inside of us, all a person has to do, is learn what is inside of them that they do not need and let that go and then the thing's that we do need and really want will start coming forth. I have not had a person to be interested in learning about what it is that they do not need. I will not help put a person on the football field that is not ready for that game because they could get hurt.If I'm going to coach a team, I would like to see that they make it to atleast the play off. You may wonder who was my teacher, who is my teacher, I have many. I am a master student. I am because we are all teachers and we are all students when we open up, what ever is in front of me be it a student or a teacher, I will be the other. The nuts and bolts, I have many, but I would like to see if anyone understands this part, if not then there is no need to where my finger out. Here is a little something that I had put on another pod.

               Pema, I think I got it now. I did sent a large message the other night but it did not go through. About depression, I believe that everyone really is depressed, they just do not know it. I believe that it comes from being told that we are only human! That's enough to depress any body when you believe it! It does not look like everybody is depressed because they keep it under cover with something. I know what I am talking about because I overcame depression and believe me it was a hard path but what a blessing it was. I seen it was really something that was inside all my life but had grown and was so out of control I could not keep it hid no longer. Today I would not change a thing about my first 40 years because I had learned so much. I did not learn as I lived ( so called lived ) it was afterwards when I could go no farther and I turned around and then I started to see things were not the way I thought or the way I was taught. Today I know if a person is depressed it is because they have forgotten that they are a spirit and believe they are only human. Today I am ALIVE and living what I am today is nothing like I was before. I have wrote a book about all this called Inside Out , you can go to my website and learn more. http://www.beyouinsideout.com/ . We can all learn a lot right here, bring it on.

YOUR FRIEND, Don Childers

Re: Steps toward manifesting abundance daily

http://MiKaEl.gaia.com — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 20:06:08 GMT

Thanks 's so much Crow. I often need to be re-mind-ed, reset my mind to the truth, that my attitude is what determines my feelings. And that practicing gratitude no matter what makes me feel good, no matter what.

The other basic tools of happy and healthy living I have been learning about I would like to list and ask everyone to help expand this list, so that eventually we come up with a glossary of Life skills that need to be taught in schools:

Gratitude
Gratitude puts me into a humble place of appreciation which is a prerequisite for feeling good about life and the world.

Expect positve outcomes
Who ever said we have to look for negative outcomes? Expecting negatives is what we call worry, fear, stress, etc. Definitely recognized as a major cause in all diseases and emotional problems.

Let go of all judgments
Judgments are self damnations. If I think someone is a thief because he's rich, I forbid myself to ever become rich. If I judge baldness to be ugly, I will hate myself when i turn bald.
Only free from judgments I can percieve reality as it is.

Forgive
Forgiving ios the tol to free myself from the past, especially from traumas. A trauma will persist until i forgive it. and a mistake as well. Forgiving serves my liberation, not the one i had to forgive. And forgiving myself for my part in the story is usualluy more important than everything else.

Activate the Knower
We all need to learn to discover the point of witness consciousness, observer or knower, our higher self as open minded awareness, the "aware will" as Psychosynthesis founder Roberto Assagioli called it, from which we know that we are not our emotions, thoughts, and feelings, but centers and directors of intuition and attention by which we create, allow or disallow our experiences. To find that spot of spirit, from which we direct our thoughts, try mindfulness meditation as introduced in my guided meditation "Awareness in the Now" (see my blog, can't find the link now).

Focusing
Focusing is our main tool to determine what we choose to experience and can be used consciously to determine life direction and outcomes. For further insights into the pactice check www.focusing.org.

Please, all: add to this list.

Mikael

Re: Steps toward manifesting abundance daily

http://laughingcrow.gaia.com — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 17:43:19 GMT

I would add that emotional state is also key. Mental discipline itself is insufficient. I find that consciously choosing gratitude for what I already have is a primary force in generating further improvements. When I get disappointed by what I haven't accomplished, upset about what I don't yet have, then my emotional energy feeds the negative, and I continue to create false scarcity. To live in abundance, I only have to realize that it is already true. This article helps me remember~

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following- There would be: 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south, and 8 Africans. 52 would be female, and 48 would be male. 70 would be non-white, 30 would be white. 70 would be non-Christian, and 30 would be Christian. 89 would be heterosexual, and 11 would be homosexual.

6 people would possess 59% of the and all 6 would be from the United States. 80 people would live in substandard housing; 70 would be unable to read, and 50 would suffer from malnutrition. 1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth. 1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education, and only 1 would own a computer.

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding, and education becomes glaringly apparent. The following is also something to ponder...

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation ... you are ahead of 500 million people in the world. If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the world. If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace ... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy. If your parents are still alive and still married ... you are very rare, even in the United States and Canada. If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful...you are blessed because the majority can, but most do not. If you can hold someone's hand, hug them, or even touch them on the shoulder...you are blessed because you can offer healing touch. If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you, and furthermore, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

Namaste,
Crow

Re: Steps toward manifesting abundance daily

http://MiKaEl.gaia.com — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 20:59:43 GMT

Thanks so much for claryfying this process a little, freewil.

I am often aware that I create my reality, or at least try to rremember that I am living primarily in my mind, but how often do I catch myself as I question exactly what I just affrimed I want. Actually I seem to spend most of my time worrying if what I want is really the right thing to want etc.......

I also know that focusing is the most important mechanism by which I direct the development of my mind and experiences, but I am far from staying focused and creating what i really want.

So thanks again for the reminder.

Mikael

Steps toward manifesting abundance daily

http://freewil.gaia.com — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 18:14:21 GMT

Steps toward manifesting abundance daily

What is the most important factor in Conscious Creation?

The concept of Conscious Creation is now a well-accepted buzzword in
a variety of metaphysical circles; however, despite the
proliferation of this material, it seems many are still unable to
achieve the success they would like to use these principles. Why is
this so, and is there a missing component that is largely being
overlooked? What is the most important factor in Conscious Creation?

Answer:

The main missing ingredient is focus and consistency of effort. In
your modern lives, you are constantly surrounded by many, many
choices. Choices about what to eat, where to eat, what to wear, how
to wear it, different career and job opportunities, many, many
different ways of expressing yourselves and filling your lives than
in earlier periods of human history. Your abundance of choice leads
many of you to be distracted by other possibilities, therefore
lessening the amount of focussed energy being placed on the things
that you say that you want. This is one of the reasons. Another
reason is that for the most part, you simply allow life to happen to
you. You turn on your radios and TV's, you listen to the news, you
react to it in one way or another and you go about your day. Very
few of you start your day with any other purpose in mind than 'go to
work', 'take children to school', 'pick up laundry', 'go
running', 'pay my bills'. In addition to these general 'to do' lists
that you have, you simply go about your day allowing life and the
day to happen to you. However, each part of your life is a result of
thought. If you think you have a hectic, unstable, disorganised
life - take a look at your thoughts.

The most important aspect of learning to manifest is focus. What many
do who first learn of their inherent ability to attract to themselves
what they are wanting through thought, is to instantly think of the
biggest, best, largest, most courageous dream or thing they could
imagine, they instantly say " I want a large sum of money" or "I want
to become a movie star" or "I want that luxurious home in the
mountains". For those of you who are unaccustomed to focussing your
thoughts, these items will present great challenges. It is not that
they are difficult, for it takes exactly the same amount of focus and
decision to manifest a thimble as it does a castle. The difference in
the manifesting of the thimble and the castle, are the beliefs you
have about having and owning such things. So many of you are burdened
with feelings of lack of self worth, the conflicts that arise out of
manifesting your largest dreams, sabotage the manifestation of them
in the initial stages. When you think of such grand things, such
grand dreams, most of you immediately begin an inner dialogue in
which you tell yourself of all the reasons why you may not have the
thing you have dreamt of. You cite examples, you remember all the
other 'failures' from the past, the 'failures' of friends and
perhaps even try to convince yourself that the higher path, or the
spiritual path, is to go without and to learn how to be satisfied
with what you have. Although we would agree that being satisfied
with where you are is a beneficial quality to develop, but
satisfaction is not the same as stagnation!

It is not that we are offering to you that you should not think big,
that is the last idea we would want you to gain from our answer.
However, what we are saying is, you need to practice deliberate
creation, and we suggest that you start this with the creation of
your day. As we have already said, for the most part, you simply
allow your day to happen to you. In order to prepare yourself for
creating your life's dream, start with creating a day, and do it
consciously. For example, as you awaken each morning you can say to
yourself "today I wish to learn more about what I love and more
about what excites me" or "today I wish to discover more of my
talents". The list of possibilities is endless. Note this, the
MOMENT that you make this statement; you have launched a new
creation. As you say these words and INTEND to experience 'more of
what you love', your soul then sets about brining you those
opportunities. As you shift your focus on life away from being
reactive beings, in other words, simply responding to
what occurs in a day, and you become a creative being, setting forth
your intention for the day, you ability and confidence increases.

You may want to increase abundance in your life, as you make the
statement as you awaken "today I wish to experience more abundance",
your perspective will begin to shift. As it shifts, you will first
see the abundance that has always been there, as this happens, your
focus shifts onto the positive side of having, instead of being
focused on lack. As your focus shifts on having, you invite more
abundance to come into your life, you start manifesting new things.
The first stage of all manifesting is to shift your perspective so
that you can see that the thing you want is already there, perhaps
in a different form, but the essence already exists. For example,
for many of you, money represents freedom. As you shift your focus,
you will see more aspects of the freedom already present in your
life. You will begin to see other riches, abundance in the form of
love, friendship and other gifts.

Successful manifesting takes two ingredients, focus and self worth.
It is also important to remember that in your world of opposites,
each subject has two sides, giving each thing you want to manifest a
lack side. In other words, there is money, and the lack of it, there
is success and failure, there is health and there is a lack of
health. What we observe, is that the majority of you are focused a
great deal of your time upon the lack side of every important
subject in your life. You remember the criticism of one, but you
forget the praise of one hundred. We give you this promise, if you
can focus on what you want, and hold that focus intensely over a
period of 21 days, reviewing and updating you vision each 7 days,
you will be well on your way to creating what you want, it will be
yours! Remember, the key is to hold your focus!

What stops you from holding this focus are a couple of things.
Firstly, there is the fear of disappointment, the thought that
perhaps holding all this desire and focus may just simply lead to a
greater sense of disappointment than before. When this comes up,
most simply stop wanting the thing they say that they want to have.
The other great saboteur of conscious creation is allowing your mind
to wander off into all the 'logical' reasons why you can't have what
you want. You start saying to yourself: I am too old, too fat, too
uneducated, too young, not talented enough etc, etc. You then begin
to shift your focus onto the not having.

For those of you who have been aware of the universal laws of
creation, having a deeper sense that you are creator, your greatest
challenge is to live this knowledge fully. The belief that you create
your own reality is relatively new to this generation; therefore, it
has yet to gain wider acceptance. Until the population as a whole
gains this understanding, those of you who are aware of your ability
to manifest, are constantly challenged by the popular view that you
are a victim of random events and that life, like the universe, in
unpredictable and has a much greater power than you do. So many of
you are still believing that the Universe can exert itself against
you, even believing that misfortune and 'bad luck' is perhaps
a 'karmic debt' that needs to be paid off as recompense for some
nefarious deed in the distant past of a past life. It is not that
that you are not creating consciously, for indeed you are. So many
of you habitually choose to deny yourself, deny your divinity and to
deny your ability. This is conscious, it is a choice. When you do
not get what you want, you often go to great lengths to justify why
you cannot have the things that you want. Even those who love you
will support you in these beliefs concerning what you can and cannot
have. They will tell you that there is a lot of 'competition' or
that the 'market' is slow, or that your chosen path is
always 'difficult' and a 'challenge'. What you then consciously
choose to do is to agree with them.

It is not so that you are not consciously creating, much of your
self-deprecation and diminution is done regularly and consciously. Do
you dare to be different? Be not afraid of your light, of your
greatness, you are a child of God, you can create what you want!

Wishing all joyous creation;;;freewil

Re: Trauma shames

http://MiKaEl.gaia.com — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 12:41:25 GMT

I can really identify with Bradshaw. When I observe my mind in mindfulness practice I can see how the rational, analytic part always jumps in when there is a noise and it needs to make sure that nothing threatening is going on. A survivor and defense mechanism, it seems to be.

As long as I don't identify with the thoughts I go back to peace and serenity, but if I follow the analyzer I am lost in the story. So noises are mini-traumas, while big traumas identify me completely with the thinking mind and the fear.

Mikael

Trauma shames

http://MiKaEl.gaia.com — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 18:45:38 GMT

The drivenness in any addiction is about the ruptured self, the belief thatone is flawed as a person. The content of the addiction, whether it be aningestive addiction or an activity addiction (like work, buying or gambling)is an attempt at an intimate relationship. The workaholic with his work, orthe alcoholic with his booze, are having a love affair. Each one mood altersto avoid the feeling of loneliness and hurt in the underbelly of shame. Eachaddictive acting out creates life-damaging consequences which create moreshame. … Shame begets shame. The cycle begins with the false belief systemthat all addicts have, that no one could want them or love them as they are.In fact, addicts can't love themselves. They are an object of scorn tothemselves. This deep internalized shame gives rise to distorted thinking.The distorted thinking can be reduced to the belief that I'll be okay if Idrink, eat, have sex, get more money, work harder, etc. The shame turns one

into what Kellogg has termed a "human doing", rather than a human being.

John Bradshaw, "Healing The Shame That Binds You"

Tools of Healing

http://MiKaEl.gaia.com — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 18:28:29 GMT

Tools of healing I consider the attitudes and practices we need to develop to heal the separation of mind and spirit, or lead to being identified with spirit, self-realized, God-realized or enlightened.

Everybody might have his/her own idea about the goal and what enlightnenment means and we might not know what it really is like until we reach there, but we don't need to worry about that here. All we need at first are tools to waken up from the "consensus trance" and get started on a spiritual path and an idea about the steps we need to take.

I start with a list which hopefully expands through various comments and reactions to a discussion board in itself.

Mindful breathing,

Mindfulness meditation,

Self awareness, emotional awareness, emotional intelligence, realizing that we are not hurt by other peoples actions but by what we think about them, by our own attitudes

Activating the witness consciousness, recognize that I am awareness and will beyond thoughts and feelings

Recognize that mind is a quality of the universe, not only humans, intelligence is part of the universe as we are part of it

Focusing on positives, expressing divine qualities, love compassion, generosity, giving, serving all, right thinking, eightfold noble path,Letting go of negatives, realizing that negative thinking hurts us, not themLetting go of addictions to substances, personalities, power, thinking, feeling

letting go of past and futureAcceptance of the now, of All that is

forgiving the past, self and others, forgiving the ignorance we are leaving behind letting go of the personal story, realizing that I am o.k. beyond story and conditioning,

developing happiness, letting go of being right, joy and happiness come out as I get out of the way

open mind, beginners mind, recognize that we know nothing through thinking, but everything through open minded awareness

gratitude, the direct way to happiness is giving thankshumility, God/Spirit/universal intelligence is in charge, not the ego

service, helping others onto the path, you cannot keep it if you don’t give it away

Practicing the constant presence of God