Asking & Receiving: What Could Go Wrong?

We've all had it drilled into our wooden little heads since we were wee ones: "Ask and you shall receive", and for many of us, the full meaning of that simple phrase has escaped our complete comprehension for most of our lives.

First of all, just asking does not imply that I'm ready to accept what comes as the result of the ask. "I've been asking and asking, and nothing is showing up", is a common lament (nowhere more common than in my own life I dare say).

"Well," says the lightly sarcastic voice of my guide, Marty, "Asking ain't receiving, buddy," in his best Robert DeNiro. "You have to be completely--and I mean completely willing to receive the result of what you're asking for."

Marty continues on, "What YOU do, is ask (a lot, by the way), and then when stuff starts showing up, the FIRST thing you do is judge it, come to a conclusion about its value, and then go back to asking. You see, the thing you asked for has just started to show up, and rather than welcome it into your life, you give it the third degree! No wonder stuff stops showing up--it's scared of you!"

I have to admit I do catch myself doing that now and then, but now that Marty has made a bigger deal of it, I see that my critical nitpicking was like putting a giant fire-breathing dragon at the entrance of my life with a big sign, "Perish those who enter this way." Yikes.

"The other thing," Marty says, sighing, "You gotta see how what is showing up is exactly what you are asking for. Rather than criticizing what's showing, how about changing what you're asking? Huh, bub?" Ouch.

And this is where I can use some other assistance tools, such as "What else is possible in receiving what I'm asking for?" "What else can I ask for that more closely matches what I desire?" Or, if I really want to gain some revealing awareness, "What is the lie in what I'm asking for that keeps me from receiving it?"

I see Marty is giving me his thumbs up. "Okay, that's a good start. Now, what we need to look at is how you're being a big know-it-all." Uh, oh. I've been accused of that by a couple of ex-wives.

"Look, if what you know is causing you to want something other than what you have, then that something is not something you know about, capiche? You want something different, and then when it starts showing up, what do you do? 'Eh, that doesn't work,' or 'I already know that,' or 'I've seen that before.' Uh, news flash: NO, YOU HAVEN'T!" Marty is looking at me like my high school English teacher did when I tried to correct her and I was incorrect myself.

"Again, say you are looking for a new, different, bigger, better way to promote the business, and then, your cute little blonde neighbor comes over and starts talking about how good she is at social media, and your response is, 'Nah, that doesn't work for my business', then you're being a big, fat know it all. Maybe she is the exact person to tell you the answer to your question--being the messenger of the universe and all. And instead, you start shooting her down and dissing everything. Is it any wonder you aren't receiving when you do that?"

Again, ouch. I'm seeing that when the universe sends an answer via a person and you interpret that what you are hearing from them is stuff you already "know", then you're not receiving what you asked for. Instead, pick their brain--find out what it is they know that you don't that is the answer to what you've been asking for.

"Bravo, mate!" Marty is chiming in with his best Australian. "Saying or thinking that you know something doesn't get you anything new. Being curious about what the hell you don't know is a much more fruitful path--in fact, it's pretty much the only path to discovery."

I'm nodding my head. Okay, this know-it-all nitpicker is choosing another way to be. I hereby proclaim to the Universe, I am ready--really ready--to receive! Join me, won't you?

Are You Living A Story You're Not Aware Of?

Lately I've been paying attention to what story I've been living. You'd think it would be obvious, just by looking around my life and noticing the patterns. But that doesn't account for habits of perception, and blind spots.

What I mean by "habits of perception" are packaged conclusions you've made that amount to preconceived ideas about the "way things are", or the "way things should be". These are judgments and points of view, that can be changed, provided enough mindfulness is employed.

These preconceived "lessons" we've "learned" from life can create blind spots of assumptions. For example, just today I spotted myself commenting, "Well, I better get busy, or I won't make any money this month." This gem is chock full of assumptions about how money comes to me, or "how the world works"--you gotta work hard to make money. We just sort of off-handedly live by these "rules", when they are based almost completely on incorrect conclusions made when we were much younger, and less wise. Yet, here we are, spouting these life rules without any critical thinking or regard to their veracity.

String enough of these rules together, and they form a narrative--a story of our life and how it unfolds for us. The thing is, it's based almost entirely on past conclusions, judgments and points of view. The fact that, in many cases, the story has been proven unworkable and sometimes miserable, doesn't seem to cause any introspection. Why? Because it's all tangled up in who and what we believe we are.

We've come to believe (because we've accepted certain things as "true"), for example, that "nothing comes easy for me." And, even when something DOES come easy, there is no alarm or red flag to tell us that our little story about how nothing comes easy has just been contradicted. Instead, we ignore that information. But when corroborating evidence that things don't come easy arrives, we are quick to jump on it as definitive evidence of the "truthiness" and consistency of our story.

This selective awareness or filtering of evidence we use to justify our precious stories, is also the way we can change a story we do not want to live in anymore. Just as we ignored exceptions to the "rule" (that nothing comes easy, for example), we can now notice the exceptions and make THAT the evidence that our story is changing. Once we make ONE exception the rule, it all starts to shift. The trick is being able to SEE evidence contradicting our stories.

One way to increase mindfulness is by using gratitude. We are grateful for what we have, and grateful when things "come together" with ease and joy. Without gratitude, we would tend to simply overlook these moments of ease and joy because they contradict our ongoing narrative (that life never comes easy).

Another technique is to "re-frame"--where we re-contextualize what we are experiencing into a positive narrative. For example, when I'm in a hurry to get somewhere--I may be under some sort of deadline--and traffic seems so slow, and that street is blocked off for a festival, or there's a tree down in the road--I would immediately jump to this being evidence of how HARD things are, and nothing comes easy. Instead, by re-framing I become grateful for these slow drivers who are timing my travels so I won't get into an accident in my haste.

In these ways, we can get out in front of our story, and make whatever changes we choose about how the story unfolds.

A long time ago, my guru told me, "Do you know how to train a cat? You wait until it does something you want it to do, and then reward it." Life is much like that--it's flowing according to the story you're creating, and will immediately change course if you do. Change course with gratitude and re-framing.

The Quantum Impossibility of Aloneness

We are at a pivotal time in human history. Science is in the process of proving that there is a single matrix within which all things are affected by all other things. There are hypotheses that what is called "quantum entanglement" is not just for the smallest of of the small, but that it is a central feature of ALL the physical world.

Let's sit with that for a second... The butterfly flaps its wings and volcanoes erupt on the opposite side of the planet; a fly is caught in a spider's web, and half a world away, a quarter mile of glacier calves into the sea; a wolf howls in Alaska, and a geyser erupts in Borneo. These images convey the oneness of a whole system--a system with an infinite number of moving parts, yet each part holographically existing as part of each other part.

Science experiments have been underway to verify that what we used to think of as mechanistic, unconnected, random events are, in fact, very much connected. And we, as points of conscious awareness, have the ability--as do all living things--to tune in and experience any and all of it.

After working for a while with these concepts, it's certainly not a stretch to see the world as a sentient being, reacting to and reflecting back to us our own intentions, feelings, and desires. It is ONLY our choices, decisions, judgments and conclusions that make life seem so distant, so disconnected from us, and so completely reliant on the application of our personal energies for anything to change.

Of course, the universe is nothing BUT change, each quantum bit, subatomic particle wave, atom and molecule has a purpose, an intelligence that is moving to our beckon call, should we desire it.

As psychologically complicated as we like to think we are, we are experts at making life a problem--a hell hole of pain and suffering--where nothing goes the way we want it to, and misery is the over-arching theme of this gawd-awful cesspool of life. With each new tragedy and drama, further proof is set forth about the "TRUTH" of this.

We are, simply, excellent victims. It's so much easier that way. You can avoid responsibility for creating anything, and then get to wallow in sumptuous self-pity until the cows come home--and they, tragically, never do.

The point I want to get to is that we are not islands. We are not separate "points of light" scattered across the void. The "void" is very much an ocean of connectivity, communion and consciousness. Our very atomic structure is intermingled with that of exploding stars, whirling galaxies and all the sentience that created it.

It becomes nearly impossible to feel alone if you embrace these concepts. In fact, do this thought experiment: Close your eyes. Now, in your imagination, imagine another being is sitting next to you. It can be somebody you know, or not, and they don't have to be human. Now, ask this being some questions, such as, What's your name? Where do you live? Do you know who I am? What is you main talent? What do you see that I'm really good at?

Shortly, you'll realize you've been having a conversation with this "imaginary friend", and notice that you didn't know the answers to the questions you were asking them--they did. This being exists .

You've probably heard about people having "guides" or "angels" that show up at crucial moments in a person's life to help make a pivotal decision or bring about a revelation. Well, this is how you can find your own guides. Just "imagine" them beside you, and begin to have a relationship with them.

There have been theories tossed around that the imagination is really a sort of clearing house, where our desires meet the sentience of the physical world. That sentience is constantly engaged in partnering with you to construct your life based on your desires, conclusions and judgments. I tend to agree (and this has been posited by some scientists) that the sentience of the physical world is amoral--that is, it has no judgment as to what is "right" and "wrong". It's humans that are excellent at doing that, and we do it almost automatically. Why? To make a story. To show ourselves how good or bad we are, and thus, create the matrix for games and adventures, either sorrowful or exciting.

So, choose to embrace this Oneness of Life. Reach out for it, interact with it, experience its deep sentience and observe it responding and reacting to your intentions and desires. Soon you will discover the perfect partner you never thought you had--the most intimate confidant; the most empowering coach, and deeply loving lover. And all it has ever taken--all it ever takes--is making that choice.

Live lightly, feel deeply...

My friend and remarkable artist and poet, Paul Bond, posted this on Facebook: "Aldous Huxley, the renowned 20th-century intellectual who wrote 'Brave New World', came to regret only one thing in life: how 'preposterously serious' he had been when he was younger.

"There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That's why you must walk so lightly. Lightly, my darling... Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you're feeling deeply."

Yeah, leave it to Huxley to pretty consistently blow my mind. He pulls apart two normally connected states: feeling light = feeling happy or frivolous; feeling deeply = feeling heavy. In fact, we even have the hippy vernacular, "That's heavy, man" in reacting to a spiritually deep, existential concept. And we pull back so as not to be sucked into the quicksands of our own life's ultimate meaning.

Huxley is suggesting to instead feel deeply the existential truth in the experience of life, without any need to heap loads of significance on it, or make it more important than anything else in this world.

If you've done any "manifesting" study, you know that usually the lightest of requests submitted to the Universe creates the fastest results. The Universe's responses, our body's needs, the consciousness of non-corporeal beings, God, even the thoughts of others, come into our awareness as whispers. We get used to a certain amplitude of cacophony in our modern society that seems to "drown out" these whispers and makes life seem "heavy" and isolated. We feel we need to work hard, slave away, keep our noses to the grindstone and only accept those obviously physical things as valid to our perceptions. The rest of the whispers lose their relevance.

Remember the butterfly flapping its wings causing an earthquake on the other side of the world? It's the leveling of the playing field between extreme amplitude and zero state--all is the same meaning, all is simply an effect. Everything is important, and yet nothing is, because it is all one system--one infinite connection of everything.

Perhaps it's a habit to only pay attention to big, loud, explosive experiences that rattle our senses and create flight or flight responses, when these types of experiences are the exception, not the rule. By keeping our filters turned up to protect ourselves from the intermittent drama-trauma of life, why not re-tune?

Take down the filters. Allow it all, feel it all, but skip lightly around and through it without caring or needing to somehow "do" something about it. The "doing" is not what is important. What is important is who you are being, because the Universe is responding only to how you are being, one way or the other. Why not lighten your life by being light? Be engaged with the vast and mysterious depths of life and yet enjoy the "unbearable lightness of being"?

Transcend the Reptilian Brain

I'm pretty sure, that for most of us, when we observe animals, either wild in Nature, or in captivity at a zoo, we are struck with how instinctual they are, how "automatic" their responses are, and when a threat is perceived (whether there is an actual one or not), they either flee, or make a stand to fight.

We notice this in animals because we have the same mechanism brought to us by our ancient reptilian brain. Located at the base of the skull, this is the first part of the brain to develop, and is the oldest evolutionary part of the overall organ we call the brain. Every "knee-jerk reaction", or automatic, unthinking response we have to our perceived experiences has been expressed by the reptilian "fight or flight" brain.

What switches us over to that ancient part of our brain is stress. True stress creates automatic responses, feelings, impulses, urges, that are seemingly out of our control. This is by design, apparently, as it is hard-wired into our endocrine and nervous systems, and can cause a myriad of changes in our body--all with the purpose of fighting or getting out of the way.

The thing is that although the body is hard-wired into the reptilian brain, it is not designed to remain in a fight-or-flight state. Constant stress, such as conflict in relationship, or at our jobs, or in active military combat, wears down the body's ability to repair itself, and makes it susceptible to disease and breakdown.

"To transcend those physical limitations (of the reptilian brain), we must find within ourselves that place that is not limited, not physical--which is not programmed in reaction-response that keeps us in fight or flight. In order to transcend that, we want to transcend the reptilian brain, which is the hind brain, the oldest brain--which is programmed to respond to fear, pain, negative expectations, sense of loss, betrayal, anger--survival-based programs. When we can transcend the limitations of our survival-based programming, we can begin to expand our consciousness beyond the expectations set, and still achieve our dreams. To achieve our dreams it is helpful to let go of the need for them to show up in a certain way." --Dr. Richard Bartlett, Matrix Energetics

Finding that "clear space", that space of no thought that finds us floating in a sea of enfolding love and support, is the skill of transcendence. It is also the space of repair and healing after the reptilian brain has "blown out the energetic fuses" of the body, leaving it weak and exhausted. Bodies were never intended to live exclusively on adrenaline and cortisol, and when they are forced to, misalignment, dysfunction, disease and early death follow.

It is imperative, therefore, to find that transcendent place. The comforting part is that it is always available to us--always there waiting to enfold us in loving warmth. Call it angelic, god, higher self--this place is within all of us, yet we tend to discount its value. The stresses of our experiences seem so real, so immediate, so demanding of action, that we forget the damage prolonged exposure to that reptilian state causes.

It is absolutely vital and required that we do everything we can to re-access our inner transcendent place when we become aware of stress responses. This allows the body to recover from the nitro-endocrine chemicals that act like jet fuel throughout the body, burning up reserves at a severe cost.

Establish a time during the day or night when you can sit in silence and comfort and access that inner peace place. It usually takes some time to get there, depending on stress levels, but know that the more often this peaceful state is accessed, the faster and more easily it shows up--just like any skill--the more you use it, the more accessible it is.

Find out what your personal "gateway" to this state is, whether it be through meditation, music, breathing, bathing, or all. Your body will thank you, and that stressful life you keep living will start to become less and less stressful.

Mindfulness and Habituated Thought

My friend and consciousness coach, Janet Barrett, recently wrote an essay about "habituated thought," and how we so naturally and easily lay down in a thought groove and then solidify that with justifications and conclusions and use those to not be afraid, insecure or powerless.

Habituated thought is how we cope with the infinite-ness of ourselves. We narrow down the bandwidth using judgments of right or wrong; we then justify those judgments by tying our experiences to them. We then leave it there--a nice comfortable little rut of unconsciousness.

We then continue packing these ruts around every facet of our lives until we can barely make out how we actually fit into all this. We lose ourselves in our own choices, judgments and conclusions.

It's not really our fault. We're trained in this way of thinking from the moment we learn the language, and from the role models of our parents who pass down various modules of habituated thought from their ancestors--and so it goes.

Humans are really good at spotting patterns, assigning meaning to them, and then encapsulating those meanings into definitions and ramifications. The problem with this innate genius is that we so rarely turn it in upon our own thinking. We get fleeting glimpses of patterns of behavior in ourselves and others, but once spotted, we rarely follow up because the illusion is that it really doesn't matter that much.

News flash: It does matter. Mindfulness of oneself does matter. By simply being aware of how we are thinking and feeling, and being able to catch ourselves at those moments where past conclusions and judgments take over, we can, by using this as a tool, completely transform our lives beyond what we now think is possible.

Here are some easy-peasy, split second practices from Access Consciousness you can use that short-circuit habituated thinking and feeling patterns. By applying these tools, you free up creative energies and unburden yourself from heavy conclusions and judgments that just don't serve you.

Recently, I had an occasion to experience some pretty significantly deep self-doubt. It came in the form of a habituated thought pattern that was something like "Nothing is going to change / I don't see it changing / Maybe it will never change", and then the accompanying feeling was a knot in my solar plexus and a deep flash of discouragement and fear.

As soon as I became aware of the thinking pattern, I chanted to myself several dozen times (sometimes out loud). "Interesting point of view I have that point of view." I did this with the feelings, too.

I also asked, "Is this mine? Whose is this? Return to sender!"

Then, I topped off this series with the statement, "All of life comes to me with ease, joy and glory."

At first, it took about an hour of doing this to finally notice that the thoughts were beginning to lose their impact, and those feelings of discouragement and fear were fading. I continued with the series every time I spotted the thinking pattern start up again, or the feelings begin again.

After about three days of this, I woke up one morning and felt much lighter and actually hopeful, and usually the waking up hour or two are the most filled with this hopeless thinking and feeling. Yay!

As the day progressed, I continued with these processes, and then added the question, "How does it get any better than this?" and "What else is possible?", along with creating feelings of gratitude. By the end of the day, my strength returned, the knot in the stomach was gone and I found myself saying, "I've got this. No problem."

Using these mindfulness tools is a matter of making them a priority in your life. Since you create your life with your awareness, choices, thoughts and feelings, it makes sense that making sure those activities are in good working order is a top priority.

We want to be able to spend our lives as the highest and the best creators we can be, and that takes the mindfulness necessary to keep the crud and crap cleaned off those creative jets. Who knows what amazing creations we are capable of?

Moving, Shmooving: What I Learned About Housing

I don't particularly like to move--I mean change residences. There's not only a lot of physical labor involved, but there are all the decisions to be made and a huge amount of extra tasks, so if you are a busy entrepreneur like myself, how do you fit it all in (in more ways than one)? That said, here's my moving story... I hope you find it...uh... moving.

The landlord, we'll call him Brad, was a typical one: very cheap--would only fix things that would save him money. If it didn't save him money, he didn't fix it. Other than that, we were on good terms. In fact, he and his wife visited to see how I was taking care of their property and he said, "We hope you'll stay here as long as you like." That was back at the beginning of April.

Two weeks later, I got a notice in my mailbox to vacate with the minor admonishment "we have changed our minds" as the intro. I now had 30 days to "git out"... It seemed like a reasonable time (although legally in California tenants are entitled to 60 days--especially if they have a home office); so I didn't say anything.

A few days later, I ran into Brad and asked him what was up with the mind-changing, and he said he was turning the place into an Air BnB. "Gotta make money for retirement!" he chortled. I was deadpan. "Well, good luck with that."

A couple of days later I carved out some time to start looking at house rentals, and what began to dawn on me was that San Diego has a sellers' market going on big time with housing, and a housing shortage on top of that. I was looking for a small cottage (they call them "casitas" here) that allowed a small dog. Turns out everybody was looking for the same thing, it seemed.

I signed up for all the real-time email alerts with Craigslist, Home.com, Zillow, and others. I'd call as soon as I'd get the alert and the typical response (if I got a response at all) was, "Oh, we've had 20 calls already! Isn't that great!" Well, for you, maybe...

I realized I had to up my game, so I put everything else on the back burner to concentrate on this search for a residence that seemed to become more and more elusive. I looked at probably 20 places, and all were either too expensive or had no pets policies, or mold, or other deal breakers--and I wasn't really being all that picky.

June 1st was in two days, and I hadn't nailed down a place yet. I did have one, but it was being remodeled and wouldn't be ready until the 5th. I figured the Brad would let me have a few days grace, but, no. "No, no, no! I have construction guys coming on the first to tear down that wall in your place, so you gotta be out!" Ugh. It dawned on me that now I had two things to do: 1. Find somewhere to store my stuff, and 2. Find somewhere for Wookie (my doggie) and I to live temporarily while I finalized a rental.

I remembered a friend of mine, back in April, had said, "Well, if you need a place temporarily, I've got plenty of room." I called her. "Hey, great timing! I'm gonna be out of town for two weeks, so you could take care of the dog while you're here." Perfect. It was only about 10 minutes away, so now I just needed to put my stuff somewhere.

For the last two years, I had rented garage space with the house next door, to set up my infrared sauna and store some stuff that I had trouble fitting into the 500 sq. ft. I had to work with. It went great until the ownership changed, and the fiery redhead from San Francisco, Megan, told me to pack it all out of the garage. She was turning the place into an...you guessed it... Air BnB. I sold the sauna, and squeezed everything else back into my place.

Since then, I noticed the garage remained empty, so I called Megan to ask if I could store my stuff in there for a month while I found a new place. "Sure. Gimme fifty bucks." OK--second problem solved.

The place with the remodel ended up to be untenable. Not because of the building, but the landlady ended up being nuts. She doubled the deposit after we had an agreement, and I found out from a friend that she was dog-phobic. So, I spent the next month, nearly every day, scouting places. I covered all of San Diego County (which is a big piece of land), looked at more places with hope waning. My house host returned from her trip, and I told her my predicament. "Well, maybe you should be looking for a situation rather than just a building." Huh. Then I realized what I really wanted was to live somewhere where the people were conscious and community driven.

I posted my pitch on the San Diego Conscious Housing Group on Facebook, and somehow, the energy seemed much lighter. In two days I got a hot lead. It was for a casita right across the street from where I had been, and I knew several of the people there already because they had been neighbors! The name of the place: Zen Casitas. Two yoga teachers, a couple of writers, and nice, aware people.

The irony made me laugh. I immediately called the management company and after a few days, the lease was signed and I was rapidly deposited in my new place with Wookie.

The moral to the story is that if you're attempting to actualize something, make sure it's not something else you're not acknowledging that you're making a deal breaker. As I was running around San Diego County looking at places, I was unconsciously running everything through a filter of requirements that I wasn't acknowledging to myself. So, the Universe in all it's wisdom kept sending me on a wild goose chase until I finally coughed up the real reason I needed to move into a new place. After all, a home isn't just a building. It's partly reflecting what you believe you are...