Postcards from cave time

I have been nudged and pushed by the inner voice to do a workshop on divine guidance. But I resisted this task a lot. So, I thought it would be a good idea to look at the resistance. Where does it come from?

With this intention, I entered into cave time.  I felt that I first needed to make peace with life and all the loss and pain that is part of the spiritual journey (- think of a caterpillar in the chrysalis stage grieving the loss of the former self), before I could move on with the task of creating a workshop.

Here, are  some postcards from the phase of cave time about the patterns I have experienced.

1. Feeling confused while in the midst of it
   I find it hard to make sense of a phase when I am in the midst of it. It is much easier to look at a difficult time in retrospect and then see what it was good for and what I have learned from it.
2. Connecting the dots in retrospect
   As I read through old journals, I was able to see common topics that came up over and over again. For example, one of them was “Learn to express your view and set boundaries even if that might upset others!” Maybe this is why I am guided to continue blogging?
3. Working through old stuff goes roughly backwards in time.
   First, the most recent ‘forgiveness opportunities’ came up, like anger at work. After that, the older stuff came up for processing (like the painful and crippling rheumatoid arthritis I got after the birth of my first child). Last, some unpleasant childhood memories came up about being treated unkindly in a hospital at the age of 3 years.
   So, that goes roughly backwards in time. However, the whole review process was triggered by a disturbing past-life memory that was revealed to me.
4. Reframing, witnessing, faith
   In order to make peace with emotionally upsetting stuff from the past, for me, it usually comes down to reframing in order to find peace of mind. There is probably some gold nugget in the experience that I must be determined to find.
   For current surges of emotional pain, the witness position was often the only peaceful place to be found.
   When nothing else helped, like with physical pain, I got signs by the universe to just have faith that things would improve over time.
5. The universe uses WordPress
   Whenever I had an urgent question during this time, there would soon be several posts in my WordPress feed which contained an answer to my question. God listens. How comforting!
6. Lists
   Besides journaling, I have found it helpful to make lists of all kinds. The list of recurring issues in my life. The list of things to be grateful for. The list of things my higher self would enjoy doing (sharing my experiences fearlessly) versus the list of things my personality self would enjoy (sitting safely on my couch and reading yet another book).
7. Sharing
   Though I did not blog during the last 10 months, I journaled a lot. But somehow, this was not enough. Whenever I had moved through a topic, someone appeared with whom I was prompted to share. It was as if I was encouraged to spell out for someone else what I had experienced and learned or where I was stuck.Thank you to everyone with whom I could connect during that time!
8. Honoring my inner knowing
   When sharing my process with others, they often felt compelled to suggest solutions to my issues. Often, that was helpful. However, in some cases I had to politely decline their advice and rather honor my own inner knowing about what would be the appropriate next step for me – even if I was sorry to see that the other person felt rejected and disappointed.
9. Advice to others is advice for myself
   I often found that when I gave others suggestions about what I guessed would be helpful in their situation, that was the very thing I needed to tell myself in the next difficult situation.
10. Circling at the fork of surrender
    For me, there is a fork in the road. Surrender and do the workshop on divine guidance and all that is connected with it –  or avoid it.
    On the path of surrender, I need to face much fear.
    On the other hand, the path of avoidance does not face the fear and I could stay in my comfort zone and feel safe, but this only leads to circling and coming back to the decision fork in the road over and over again.
    Unfortunately, the path suggested by the higher self is not always what my personality-self prefers.
11. Twisted memory or jump to another timeline?
    Twice during the last ten months, I had the experience that current facts do not conform to how I had remembered things. Very odd! Is this my lack of memory or is it something like the Mandela effect and the jump to another timeline? Interestingly, both experiences seem to be connected to decisions which made me come into better alignment with my higher self.

What happened to my resistance after all of that cave time? It is still there and I still don’t know exactly where it comes from or what it consists of.

Now, I am back to the former mode of pushing through this workshop task with obedience and self-discipline.

At least, I have set a deadline now. A  pilot version of the workshop on divine guidance with a very small number of participants will take place end of March, 2017.

The universe’s bag of tricks

‘I want you to hold a workshop,’ said my spirit guide, while I was taking a walk alone outside in Jan 2015.  ‘A what? No way!’ was my initial response. ‘You know how much I hate having to organize my children’s birthday parties. I sure don’t feel like organizing a workshop.’

In front of me, a man was walking with a large dog on a leash. And right after my thought of resistance, he wrapped the dog leash around the belly of the dog in such a way that it became really short. This seemed to imply, ‘Remember, you are on a short leash!’   Afterwards, the dog was supposed to hop into the trunk of a car. But it refused. The man shouted, “Are you crazy?” and just lifted the dog into the trunk. That seemed to mean this would happen to me, too, when I resisted. Sigh. I would probably  have to yield at some point.

I had written a post about the many forms of divine guidance  and  was told by my inner voice that I should somehow turn this into a workshop format.

But doubts crept in. I would have to offer exercises. But how do I practice dream recall techniques in a workshop setting (when people are hopefully not sleeping)? More doubts came, about having to book a venue, marketing, travel, money issues. All of this resulted in me downright refusing to even think about it.

But the universe has its bag of tricks to convince resistant children.

The dishwasher mirrors my stubbornness
I seem to have a special affiliation with electric gadgets. They often stop working when I am not aligned with inner peace. And this time it was our dishwasher’s turn. The start button refused to work, or worked only after pushing it about 20 times. Not funny! Apparently, this was mirroring my stubbornness. Ok, breathe deep and say ‘Thy will be done’. And then the button started to behave well again. I am always amazed when forgiveness works.

Truck advice cheers me on
In summer 2015, I had agreed to write an outline at least, in order to demonstrate my willingness. I came across a truck with the inscription  www.nicht-bummeln.de which means ‘don’t dawdle’. I took this as advice to get started and wrote an early draft version.

The unsolved error ticket mirrors me
In December 2015, my efforts had somewhat stopped due to overwhelm in other areas of my life. I was extremely exhausted with no energy or creativity left over. There were no further pushes by the universe regarding the workshop. Maybe I didn’t need to do it after all? I turned within and asked, ‘Do you still want me to take care of this?’ This time, I did not get an inner voice or dream as an answer. But the universe used another very creative method to let me know.

In October, I had created an error ticket about a technical issue. And in December, about two months later, the ticket came back to me, not with a solution but with the innocent question , “Is this issue still not fixed and do you still want me to take care of it?”

My initial knee-jerk thought was, ‘Yes, of course, you [Bleep], unless you have invented any self-fixing bugs, you better take care of it!’

But then I calmed down and remembered that the universe often uses mirrors to reflect back to me what is buried in my consciousness. I admired the universe’s sense of creativity and felt humbled (and was able to answer more calmly).

WordPress posts about letting go of doubt
Even though I got plenty of messages, I still doubted them. ‘Is a pattern really no coincidence? Do I really hear my inner voice correctly? You want me to hold a workshop? Really? Me?’
On Dec 17, 2015, I got three messages to let go of doubt. Two of these came via blog posts, one was delivered over lunch by a friend. Three messages on one day about the same topic. That was no coincidence and made a pattern. The universe was telling me to let go of doubt.

Dream advice about handling fear
I turned within and asked how to deal with the fear and then got a dream about handling fear that suggested to take it step by step and to trust.
Additionally, my iPad sent me some push notifications of an app with the text, ‘I should be telling you that it is better to be safe than sorry, but sometimes safe can be boring.’
Another push notification said ‘Guts over Fear  is today’s new song’.

Inner voice begs me to visualize
My spirit guide begged me, ‘Allow the vision of yourself being on a stage speaking to people.’ Since I had downright refused the idea to do a workshop, I would never indulge in daydreams of how I would talk to a group of people about this topic. But obviously, daydreams are important. Thoughts coupled with emotion manifest reality. Therefore, I needed to allow some visualization exercise.

Magpies are telling me to express myself
I was staring out of my kitchen window when a magpie appeared on the street. And then another one and yet another one. Until there were six or seven of them. Magpies keep showing up often for me since several years now. When I was active in a forum, a new participant showed up with  the nickname ‘magpie’. And one day, I stood behind a guy with a sweatshirt with the inscription ‘magpie’ on it. Though there are several meanings connected with these birds, I interpret their frequent occurrence as a message to express myself and to consider the importance of voice (i.e., speak rather than write).

Cosmic push notifications
On Feb 16, 2016, my iPad suddenly started to switch from standby to active mode when sending me push notifications of apps. Apparently, the ‘do not disturb mode’ setting had been disabled all of a sudden. Hmm, what did this mean?
On the same day, I got a post and an email both with the word PUSH in it. That was a pattern again.

Ok, got it. Apparently, the grace period was over, and I got a push to get moving now.

Dream series about what is holding me back
In February 2016, I then had a dream where I was dancing Latin rumba with my spirit guide. I was dancing gracefully, but my legs could not move freely since they got stuck in the long Latin dress which was tied together on the floor. In my dreams, dancing is a symbol of communicating about the spiritual path. That meant that I could not communicate to the fullest extent since something was holding me back.
But what was holding me back? I asked spirit to show me. As an answer, I got  a mini-series of up to three dreams per night on about five consecutive days which addressed all the reasons which were holding me back. It was so much that my guide asked me in between, ‘Are you sure you can take more?‘ The most important point was lack of commitment and that this would make me prone to give up at the slightest obstacle. Other points were fear based decisions, desire for reward, doing too much for my children, dwelling on the past, laziness and sloppiness, and being concerned with what others think about me.

Sickness as a consequence of resistance
I have pain in one foot. Homeopathic treatment, which is my preferred method, just shifts symptoms around at the moment but does not heal. I remembered that the refusal to express myself in writing resulted in breathing issues in the throat. The throat chakra reacts if there is lack of expression. Likewise, I think that the issues in the foot might point to the root chakra (connected to trust and personal power), and I get a hunch that the pain will lessen once I commit fully to this workshop project.

Feeling drained versus energized
So many messages and the threat of illness as a consequence made me willing to comply. I got that I have to work on the workshop project.

But then another blog post came up that said that it is not enough to do things just because we feel pushed to do them. No! We need to do them because we enjoy them and because it makes our heart sing.

Yeah, I know that. Except that my situation feels like standing on top of a high building, staring down into water and being told to jump. ‘Just jump! And don’t jump just because we threaten you! Jump because you really enjoy it!‘  Well, nice suggestion. But, frankly, that did not feel feasible for me.

So, I turned within and asked, ‘Show me. How I can become more intrinsically motivated?’

And the answer came. These past weeks in March 2016,  I felt quite exhausted and drained as if no energy was left for mundane tasks of preparing meals or other household chores. I felt only energized when I worked on stuff which was related to the workshop about divine guidance. I took me a while to figure out that this stark contrast between feeling drained vs energized was probably the answer to my question.

Thanks for the information, dear universe, but the feeling of exhaustion sucks.
Note to self: Always be careful what you ask for!

***

The workshop has grown into a pile of about 40 slides now, but it is still in a draft version.

Shouldn’t I feel super ashamed now that I am so stubborn and resistant? No, there is another way to look at this. Rather than to burden myself with additional guilt,  I can choose to think about it as an interesting research project. Resist and then observe with what tricks my guides come up. Can I do my PhD in resistology and procrastination?

I often wonder whether it is difficult to be a guide. I sure would have given up already on someone as stubborn as me! I so appreciate their patience and perseverance and am always in awe about the creative and humorous communication methods of the universe.

 

 

10 ways to inner peace

1. Know about the importance of inner peace
   Inner peace is not just another emotional state, but it is our real being. It is the place of power. Being there is like having a magic wand.
   Inner peace is the place from which knowing comes. Knowing how to act appropriately in a given situation.
2. Desire peace
   As long as it feels good to succumb to anger, the desire for peace is not strong enough. But life will take care of this. Eventually, we will all have suffered enough, and then inner peace will become the highest priority.
3. Clear the clutter and simplify your life
   Too much stuff, too many items on the to-do list, and too many responsibilities can feel overwhelming. A friend asked me how I can stay relatively relaxed. I replied that part of it is that I have a low maintenance life-style. I just don’t do a lot of things that women and mothers are supposed to do in our society. Of course, that raises some eyebrows every now and then. But, inner peace is more important to me than fulfilling norms of the society.
4. Get enough sleep, exercise, walk in nature, breathe consciously
5. Keep a journal
   Write down anything that is bothering you just to get it out of your system.
6. Meditate
   My favorite method is turning the focus of attention 180 degrees backwards so that awareness looks at itself. No counting of breaths, no special posture, no visualization techniques. Can be done during sleepless nights lying in bed or during routine tasks like peeling carrots for dinner.
   (This method comes from the Dzogchen tradition, but the easiest explanation is here in this 4 min video http://www.justonelook.org)
7. Forgive
   If shit hits the fan, my favorite method is ACIM style forgiveness.
   In case you get angry about a situation, turn within and ask for inner guidance. How can I see this differently?
   If I don’t hear any answer, I run through the following checklist:
   -) I don’t get upset because the me which is hurt is not the real me ( – like it would be stupid to get upset about losing in a board game of Parcheesi).
   -) I don’t get upset because the thought which leads to being upset is not true ( turn the thought around with The Work by Byron Katie)
   -) I don’t get upset because there is something good even in this seemingly bad situation ( – maybe the disturbing event or person is meant to mirror me in order to show me something? Maybe it is a reminder of lost peace? Or it has a metaphoric meaning?)
   -) I don’t get upset because I have created the upsetting event myself in the first place (via the power of my creative consciousness).
   -) I don’t get upset because I have planned this challenge before my incarnation and it serves the purpose that I shall remember who I am in truth. (See the great books  Your Soul’s Plan and Your Soul’s Gift by Robert Schwartz. I was surprised to find out why someone might plan to experience alcoholism for decades. I highly recommend these books in case you struggle with some major issue which makes you upset for several years.)
8. Stop the thought spiral about past and future
   How to stop anger and regret about the past and worries about the future? Options are ACIM style forgiveness, meditation, or focussing the mind on the present or on some task (like mantras or a flow activity).
9. Give up control
   Being a mother has taught me that I have no control over my children. I have no access to the switch in their head when it comes to whether they learn or whether they clean their room. I can’t turn a tulip into a rose and vice versa. I can only give them water and fertile soil. It’s useless to struggle and then beat myself up about my inability to control them.
10. Wake up
    See that the separate personal self is an illusion in the first place.
    We are consciousness. Before birth, in the body, and after death, we are consciousness. There is always the ‘I Am’ with content. We are the ‘I Am’ with all its content: noise colors lights shadows sensations thoughts emotions (which are physical sensations in the body) memories (which are thoughts). But by putting the label on our body as ‘me’ and on the other person and the wall over there as ‘not me’, we have separated ourselves with the consequence of fear and guilt. The way back home is seeing through the illusion of these labels. ‘I’ is just a label for this particular body-mind appearing in consciousness and it is not more real than Santa Claus. (Book recommendation: Gateless Gatecrashers by I. Cuinaite and E. Nezhinsky)

On God’s short leash

Have you ever felt that the universe acts like a teacher?
I do. And I found that it can be a rather strict one.

On my journey, I was guided into inner peace. With stick and carrot.

When I was angry, weird things would happen. For example, light bulbs would suddenly burn out while I was in the room. Whereas, when I was in inner peace, miracles would happen, e.g. wishes would be fulfilled promptly.

It was as if there was a penalty for becoming angry. But, actually, it was guidance.

Later during the journey, I noticed that the reins became shorter and shorter.

At first, I only ran into trouble when I was angry.
But later, weird things would already happen when I was in slight stress.

One day, when I was in a little stressed and anxious mood about my to-do list, the automatic teller refused to give me money (- lately, I seem to have a weird relationship with electrical appliances).

And during the Christmas vacation 2014/15, I got some health issues (pain in my feet) just because I thought I deserved a break from posting on this blog. When I asked the inner voice about the pain, it replied ,
‘During this vacation, just blog once a day, and you’ll be fine.‘

Oookaaay…  That was guidance (- even though it felt like I was being blackmailed at the time). Eventually, I obeyed and the pain vanished.

That was the pattern of consequences:
At first, for anger. Then, for anxiousness. Later, even for laziness.

So, guidance became stricter and stricter, making sure I stayed in inner peace more and more. And making sure that I fulfilled whatever contract I had signed before incarnation (- darn, I wish I could remember what I promised in the fine print).

Have you experienced something similar? I’d love to read your stories.

Power of forgiveness and lost emails

Some years ago, our mail server was restructured. After that upgrade, my emails of the last 30 days were lost.

Fortunately, I had already read all of them and there were no action items left. But still, I wanted to keep them just for the record.

My initial reaction was self-righteous upset. “Oh boy, they messed it up!”

Of course, I asked whether the emails could be restored. But somehow that wasn’t  possible without unwanted side effects.

Then I became quiet.

A Course In Miracles (ACIM) teaches to turn within and ask, ‘How can I see this differently?’

Lately, that translates for me into, ‘How the heck have I manifested that one?’

Suddenly, it dawned on me.

This happened during a phase when I was decluttering my home. It was like a compulsive decluttering diarrhea where I thought about nothing else than getting rid of old stuff. For ten weeks in a row, I threw away stuff from all categories. Clothing, books, CDs, pots and pans, etc. .

The universe merely seemed to say, “You like to throw things away? Let me see how I can help you.”

And with a mischievous grin it cleaned away my emails, too.

I became quiet and didn’t get upset, knowing that I had called this issue into my experience.

Four weeks later and without any further action from my side, the lost emails suddenly reappeared.

***

Usual disclaimer:
ACIM style forgiveness is not about creating a better dream. Instead, it is about waking up to the fact that we have all created this ourselves. As a byproduct, the manifestation of the outer world can change.

Thou shalt not blame

Yesterday, I turned within and asked what the topic for the next post should be. Instead of straightforward answer, a German children’s song kept playing in my mind:
‘Auf de Schwäb’sche Eisebahne’  (On the Swabian Railway).

I had to google the lyrics. Apparently, as a child I never got past the third verse of the song. I was completely unaware of its story.

It is about a farmer who wants to take the Swabian train. He takes his goat to the train and binds it to the rear end of it. Probably, he assumes that the train won’t be faster than one of those oxcarts which he is used to. The he gets on the train.

At the next station, he gets off and wants to untie the goat from the train, but he finds only its head and the leash dangling there.

The farmer gets very upset. He grabs the head of the goat, throws it against the porter and yells,
“For the damage you must pay, you drove much too fast today.”

(There is even an English translation on the web http://germanrail.fr.yuku.com/topic/832/Auf-de-schwbsche-Eisebahne-On-the-Swabian-Railway#.VKl0nmd0zuo )

That could mean two things:

Either, I should not complain when the metaphorical train I have boarded is going much faster than expected.

Or I should write another post about forgiveness. ACIM style, of course.

The power of forgiveness

My wise inner voice urges me to share my spiritual journey. Yet, often I still recoil in fear from that task. (Somehow, I’m afraid they might still hunt witches in Europe.)

So, mid of October 2014, I manifested three opportunities for sharing and writing under my real name. But each time, I had second thoughts about it. And I would procrastinate.

And each time, something in my surroundings would mirror that hesitation.

Often, this sort of fear-based procrastination was mirrored by some clogged things. Oh, I didn’t know how many things there are in a household that can be clogged! Coffee machine, dishwasher, drain, toilet, shower head…
A year ago, I even had breathing issues  – a clogged throat chakra.

In the second half of October 2014, the drain in the bathroom sink was clogged. I do prefer a clogged drain over a clogged throat chakra, but it still sucks.

Shit!

I was aware immediately that I probably caused the clogging by my resistance to sharing under my real name.  I assumed that I would have to pour chemicals into it in order to fix the drain. How annoying! Sometimes, life on Earth sucks.

Then one evening, I confessed to my husband, “You know, the clogged drain is very likely caused by my refusal to respond to that newspaper’s call for readers’ experiences about spirituality.”

He listened patiently, probably not believing my theory. Then, he got up and went to the bathroom. “Honey, did you do something to the drain? It appears to be cleaned now.  I didn’t pour any chemicals into it. Did you?”

No, I didn’t either.

***

The power of forgiveness is that I come into alignment with my real being, i.e. that I find my inner peace even if faced with disturbing situations. As a result of that, the outer circumstances can change since they reflect my inner emotional state.