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...

Being 50/50 with Life

I first heard this concept from Gary Douglas, founder of Access Consciousness, and it took me a long time to fully understand what being "50/50 with life" actually means.

The key is to embrace the assumption that we are all infinite beings and as such, are infinite creators. The 50/50 concept doesn't work unless this is understood. But, it's what got me into a conundrum, which is why I had such a hard time understanding this.

The conundrum is: If I am creating everything that's happening in my life, then where's the 50 percent come from? Isn't that 100 percent me? Actually, no.

We all came into this reality agreeing to quite a long list of rules and laws, and by doing so, it shifted our power and energies to "the other". It's important to get why this is important. "The other" is the Infinite--all the infinite possibilities from which all possibilities are born. It is, as I like to say, the soft underbelly of my own infiniteness. It's the part that we make "the other"--the part that is beyond what our limited minds can fathom.

So... it's imperative, when desiring something, wanting, or needing something, that we acknowledge "the other" as our actualizing partner, that without, life becomes difficult and suffering becomes the norm.

Ultimately, Life--our experience of everything we are--is a team effort: the team of You and Life. It is at the core of dualism--the engine of polarity that drives all motion in the Universe and beyond. By not acknowledging this Other Partner, we end up victimizing ourselves within the limited perceptual box that is the mind.

How do we access that other 50%? It's deceptively simple: ask questions. But more than that, it's BEING the question, where you're genuinely curious about what is you are asking about. "What would it take to find an epic, generative relationship?", for example. Hold that question, really be it, and soon, your partner, The Other, we begin delivering circumstances, opportunities and new awarenesses about actions you can take that fulfill that sincere question--a conversation, a Facebook post, a look, a new context--all flowing to you from the Infinite in response to your question.

Now, there is a nuance to this. If you're asking the question out of desperation, or other fears, the low frequency emotional content serves to block the broadcast of your question and the reception of all the possibilities. The question must flow from pure curiosity. "What else IS possible here?", "What DOES have to change here in order to resolve this issue?", or, "WHO do I need to be in order to receive more money?" The Universe instantly begins the process of delivering your possibilities. Then, as the possibilities come pouring in, it is then becomes a matter of choice. And a choice made creates new awarenesses and even more possibilities.

So, say hello to your 50/50 partner: Life!

Hacking Memes

Since embracing the "quantum" way of life, many things have changed for me. I notice I have really different "pet peeves"--behaviors of self or others that stimulate an automatic reaction because of a pre-conceived judgment or point of view.

We call them "pets" because we have no intention of letting them go, mainly because, I'm pretty sure in my case, anyway, letting the Pet Peeves run rampant gives a certain "rush" of control; an outburst of a point of view; the heart-felt judgment or justification of who you are. I think we embrace certain Pet Peeves in order to make it seem we're participating in life and expressing ourselves about what we need and desire, much like we do with our pets.

One of the newer Pets I've been letting run amok, is rebelling against memes about process. Here are a few (actually seen on Facebook) that usually put me in a state of rebellion:

• "When I don't work hard, I lose money."
• "A year from now, you will have wished you had started today."
• "Consistency always leads to excellence. Whatever you do in life, always be consistent"
• "The road to success comes through hard work, determination and sacrifice"

Everyone, it seems, has their own formula for success. And most people would probably nod their heads as to the truth of these statements. The problem is, each one of them, under certain circumstances and possibilities, are absolutely false.

For example, I've worked hard and lost money. I've also made a lot of money without doing hardly anything.

A year from now I'm not going to be mulling over my choices I'm making now. I'll be making new choices without any regrets.

Consistency is also the way to mediocrity, stuckness and non-mindfulness.

We all know examples where "hard work, determination and sacrifice" has not led to success.

Conventional wisdom without introspection allows one to embrace these memes, not because they are really true, but because they sound like they should be.

All of the memes above are about process--the way you do things; the right way to do things. From the quantum perspective, however, they are one way of doing the process.

What gets me up on my soapbox about thinking in this unexamined way, is that it completely deletes out possibilities. There are a million ways conditions, things and experiences manifest in the world. Why narrow it down to one measily meme?

By applying infinite quantum states to the things you want and the life you desire, it is the certainty that asking the question puts the universe into motion is key. Sure you'll have stuff to do when you start asking about a better job, a bigger house, nicer car, or an epic relationship, but without living in the question of those things, it can only be hard work and sacrifice--that one way you are convinced is the only way.

The universe always has your back. There's even a word for it: "pronoia", which I've written about in past issues. The universe has your back only when you embody the question. It's then that the universe gets busy bringing you what you want in the way that is best for you.

Questions such as, "What would it take for the best house to show up for me that would bring joy and ease?"; "What energy do I need to be to receive an epically healing and generative relationship?"; or, "What is it going to take to bring about a big change in my life toward joy and fulfillment?" Then, you remain in that question as the Universe goes about answering it.

I'm not saying there won't be hard work. I am saying "hard work" is one possibility. If there are infinite ways something appears in this universe, then there are certainly other ways than "hard work" for it to show up. Maybe it's joyous work. Maybe it's play that doesn't feel like work at all. Maybe it's just answering the phone. Or, maybe it's enthusiastic involvement.

My point is to be mindful about how you've decided to make things happen. Look at what processes you believe must be in place before something happens for you. Then, realize that is only one way of looking at it. If you must have a process, or a checklist of things to do to get what you want, then ask the universe for options--the most fun ones. But always remain in the question, and the quantum Universe will deliver.