Reaching For Improved Thoughts

"What Is" Can Be Frightening 

Take for example my present situation, recently returned from India to the USA, with everything I own fitting in a carry-on suitcase, no job, no money, and no prospects to start life over with.

At the moment the hardest thing I am coping with is being reliant on my family for assistance and support. They have been wonderful but, the pressure to find employment is immense.  In my worst moments I am a terrified gibbering mess.

What is that Frank Herbert quote from Dune?

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration."

Looking for Relief 

Many mornings I wake from a night terror in which I am homeless, because I haven't been able to find work. I don't remember much of the dreams, but I know that the fear is still with me when I opened my eyes. The urgency to be working is so powerful a motivator it has been consuming all of my thoughts and efforts.

Keeping a positive attitude is proving difficult. This has been a tough year and my confidence has been badly shaken by the unhappy experience of going to India and not being able to succeed in making a life there.

I keep reminding myself that Source is my generous provider. I only have to look at the many great and surprising things which came together to bring us home in order to find evidence of it.  I can't be anything but gratefully amazed. 

I Reach for an Improved Thought

The card I pulled today, from my Getting Into the Vortex deck, reads . . .

I Can Find Harmony by Feeling For Improved Thoughts.  

If we were contemplating an action that caused negative emotion, we would not proceed with the action until we had resolved the negative emotion. We would make sure that we had come into alignment with Source before proceeding. By feeling for the improved thought, in time, and usually in a short time, you will feel the harmony of your Source; and you will know the appropriateness of your behavior. we would not look for the long lists of right and wrong, but instead, we would feel for the emotion of alignment with Source.

Today My Best Effort Is In Reaching For Improved Thoughts  

I Am Safe.
Source is my generous provider.
I have everything that I need with enough to share and to spare.
Good health is my divine right.
I Am Safe.

Differences and the 180° of India

Living in India is hard. I had no idea how hard it was going to be when my husband and I arrived in Hyderabad. Talk about culture shock.  I feel as though I am in an alternate reality, one where everything has been turned upside down. It would be less shocking to my sensibilities if the moon were to rule the day and the sun the night. I don't know where to begin writing about the core differences which change how one lives here, but I can tell you that as a woman my experience is even more impacted. I know now why the caged bird sings.

I am not having the tourist's experience. I am settling here.  Learning to navigate the culture is consuming all of my attention, demanding a level of awareness that I am forced to maintain or pay the consequences, which might be very harsh. 

180° of India

In western culture the female is objectified, sexualized, and targeted by media advertising. Here it is the male who is the focus of these pressures and the female is elevated and to remain untouchable, worshiped. She must be beautiful but if a woman is perceived as being too opinionated, independent, friendly, approachable or sexual it is scandalous. She might find herself targeted for violence and possibly rape.  Being worshiped here means a woman is isolated for her protection. Her house has barred windows and doors. Her clothes are meant to display the wealth and status of her family but should hide her body from prying eyes -- eyes which are everywhere and come with wagging tongues. Being worshiped demands perfection, stillness -- do not laugh too loudly or move freely in your body.

Men are blatantly sexualized in the media and their masculinity is even more heavily evaluated than I have ever witnessed before. I think this contributes to the huge rape problem that India is having. As pressures increase for men to be perceived and prove their masculinity and power over women and in life. There is vicious judgment and pressure on performance for men (and women) to receive even the smallest level of respect or benefits. The man must perform or he is condemned a failure. A husband must perform or his wife and children are shamed and ill treated also.

Further Differences . . .

India has bought into the all the worst most superficial aspects of western capitalist culture with a desperation to acquire and display. The India portrayed by their television is a lush, sanitized, clean fantasy India of wealth and luxury, with no waste or poverty. The reality is in stark contrast with harsh living conditions, abject poverty, and beggars crawling through trash filled streets.

I attended a trade exhibition where the central lawn area designated for family relaxation, sitting, and eating looked like a trash pit. People sat on trash to eat their food purchases, rising to leave a layer of more trash and move on through the exhibitions vending stalls. In India it is taboo to handle garbage. Only the lowest cast person is concerned with clearing away rubbish and they are reviled for it, Untouchables. Everyone else simply drops their litter where they stand and moves on, creating a cesspit of garbage. I was told simply to "look up."  "Don't look at it." (I carried my trash home with me. I could not bring myself to toss it on the ground.) My mind was reeling at the enormity of a mind set where the person who cares for the environment is considered the lowest of all, while those who are respected treat the earth with disregard, and disdain to clean up after themselves. 

These are just a few of the differences I have encountered. Others include people climbing and sitting on tables where food is being served; walking over food; grabbing food from the plates of others; dumping left over food scrapings off one's plate back in to the serving dish meant for others to share. No food is to be wasted. Beggars come to the door and happily take rancid or moldy food if given it.  Sanitation isn't even a consideration. Heaven help you if you need a toilet.

Perfect Diversity . . .

My spirit is being tested. My comfort zone is being challenged. My assumptions about life and how best to live are being examined against different world conditions, views, and culture.  I am being forced to see things with the eyes of a stranger and to find sense in the world turned 180°s round from what I've known. I am being forced to let go of values which have no force or potency in the circumstances which I find myself.

The culture or ways of being may be different but the humanity and human needs are consistent. I am beginning to see more than differences and expanding in my awareness of others. Thank you India.   

The Importance of Building a Relationship with Source

2017 is here and world events seem to be moving so quickly. It is all too easy to identify and become caught up in the swirling maelstrom moving around and through our lives. Every direction we turn we are faced with changes and challenges. Life seems so uncertain. The planet is on fire with the consequences of human indifference and mismanagement. The United States political scene is in upheaval. People have little or no confidence in their elected leadership. There are wars and rumors of wars. Humanity has overgrown the space allotted to it within the circle of Life. And yet. . .

In times of uncertainty, strife, pain, and illness we are forced by circumstances to find new ways of coping or adapting. These are the moments we must go within and discover or rediscover ourselves, our needs, beliefs, and drives. These are the moments of transformation, when we are most likely to reach deep and connect with Source.

Ask yourself what this present moment is challenging you with. 

Are you struggling with negative core beliefs about money, need, insufficiency, worthiness? Are you being undervalued or marginalized? Have you undervalued yourself? Have you lost sight of your own worth, or integrity? Are you being challenged to redefine your idea of self, your role, or place in society? Are circumstances demanding you reevaluate your ideas of superiority, or inferiority?

Ultimately, all of the illusions which create conflict and pain in our lives --need, insufficiency, superiority, inferiority-- find their root in one illusion. 

No matter what triggers our circumstances, the fundamental root cause of our discontent is the illusion of separation from Source. (Refer to Communion With God, by Neale Donald Walsch)

Abraham Teachings, Ester Hicks

Know that you can never be separated from Source, but you can believe in a separation and therefore experience the effects of it. 

When you release your doubt and your fears of inadequacy, allowing yourself to accept the inseparable nature of your relationship to Source, you will feel, know, and begin to experience the bounty of that connection. 

That is why. . . 

My Most Important Relationship Is With My Source . . .

Getting into the Vortex Cards

There is no relationship of greater importance to achieve than the relationship between you, in your physical body, right here and now, and the Soul/Source/God from which you have come. If you tend to that relationship first and foremost, you will then and only then have the stable footing to proceed into other relationships. Your relationship with your own body; with money; with your parents, [partner], children, grandchildren, and your world. . . will all fall easily into alignment once you tend to this fundamental relationship first.

Practicing Mindfulness: Beneficial Beliefs Feel Better When I Think Them. . .

Practicing Mindfulness. . .

Almost daily I encounter someone, or myself, experiencing suffering over or with tumultuous thoughts, thoughts run amok. Thoughts that torture our minds, interrupt our focus, steal our attention and energy have become a plague within our society, which culturally places a high importance on thoughts and thinking ability. 

René Descartes

"Cogito ergo sum. . ."

 a Latin philosophical proposition by René Descartes, translated into English as

 "I think therefore I am. . . "

Complex thought may be one of the factors in the advancement of humanity as a species, but look what has happened to us as the thoughts we think spiral into fearfulness and aggression. . . when our thoughts about ourselves become overly critical. . . when our thoughts about each other become separatist and exclusionary. . . when our thoughts about life become those of superiority and inferiority. . . thoughts of insufficiency and greed. . .

Believing every thought that comes into our minds is a symptom of mental illness, as not all of the thoughts we think are true.

Consider that what we believe shapes our reality and as such it is beneficial to be mindful of the thoughts we pursue and the beliefs we cling to. It may seem simplistic to point this out, but --to paraphrase one of my favorite influencers, Abraham and Esther Hicks-- a belief is just a thought that you keep thinking and thoughts can be changed.

We have the power to choose which thoughts we will pursue, cultivate and grow. We have the ability to examine our beliefs and when we find those which no longer serve us, re-frame them to bring about change.

Distinguishing between which thoughts are beneficial to us and those that are not is a skill which requires practice. When we have been unconsciously allowing our thoughts to rule our lives, it can become confusing to ween ourselves from those thoughts which separate us from the improved state of being we desire.

Thursday's thought to think upon . . .

Beneficial Beliefs Feel Better When I Think Them. . .

There are things in your environment --that you believe-- that match what you want.  And there are all kinds of things in your environment that you believe that defy what you want. How would you ever sort them out? How do you know the active beliefs within you that serve you well and the active beliefs that do not serve you?  How do you know the beneficial beliefs from the detrimental ones? The Beneficial beliefs feel better when you think them.  The detrimental ones feel worse when you think them.

 ~ Getting into the Vortex cards

by Ester and Jerry Hicks

The Teachings of Abraham