As An Infinite Being, You Chose What?

One of the most basic realities about being a spiritual being is that we are infinite. We have all the power, all the awareness, all the knowledge we need to create anything we desire. In fact--a hard fact--is that we have created, in great detail, everything we are experiencing in our lives.

If you compare what your life would be like if you were to fully embrace your infiniteness with what you currently are experiencing, there is probably a "YUUGE" difference. Why is this?

For various reasons over the last few billion years, we have diminished our own power, and our own awareness, to the point where we are mere fractions of what we could be in this world. Why did we do that? Lots of reasons: We did it for someone else; we judged ourselves to be incorrect or wrong; we did it to fit in with a lesser or rule-abundant crowd; we decided being powerful and aware was unacceptable; etcetera, etcetera...

Gary Douglas, founder of Access Consciousness, has a good question that can help set you on the path to reclaiming your personal power and awareness: "Would an infinite being create that?"

"My money is always short at the end of the month" -- And an infinite being would create that for what reason?

"When I argue with my wife, I'm always wrong." -- And an infinite being would create that for what reason?

"I never have enough money to do what I want." -- well, you guessed it.

My old buddy, Bashar, has three questions that should blow your mind and help with this:

1. I am feeling (experiencing, having) (fill in the blank)>
2. I CHOSE this for myself.
3. I CHOSE this for myself because it serves me.

Now this cuts right into the meat of how we, as infinite beings, have come to be functioning as we are in this physical world: CHOICE. We choose everything that happens to us, and it's not as simple as making a black or white, 1-2 choice. Sometimes we make big decisions (choices) about "the way things are" in order to hold those conditions in place to minimize our powers or make ourselves "right". We may choose pain and suffering to prove to ourselves we deserve it for all the times we decided we misused our power.

There are a multitude of reasons we make the choices we do, and the key is to become AWARE of what choices we've made. because when we usually make a choice, we promptly forget about it--especially negative ones. We call it "human nature." I call it "de-evolution".

By using Bashar's three sentences, we can unravel how it is we ended up here, and it allows us (or forces us) to ask the right question. "How or why is this serving me, and why the hell do I think it's a good thing?"

What we're going for here is AWARENESS. Awareness trumps past choices--it interrupts the energy flow created by the choice, and requires that a new choice be made. In this way, we can (if we so choose) clear out the present and the future of negative choices, replacing them with life-affirming, loving, adventurous ones.

"Choice awareness" is the primary driver of happiness and success. If you're always choosing the energies of your highest expression, infinite possibilities unfold, and power is restored.

Predicting and Choosing

I love those moments when "out of the blue" you get an insight on how you've been living your life--and they seem to come when I'm doing something mundane, like walking the dog, driving the car, or grocery shopping (must be some neurological circumstance of some sort)... Anyway, today a big existential question came crashing in: "Do I really know what's going to happen, or am I choosing it?"

Now, what I mean by "knowing what's going to happen", is a range of things--from daily routines where you pretty much know what's going to happen when you take a shower, or do the dishes--to knowing where the money is going to be coming from to pay the rent. In fact, all those circumstances that you just know are going to happen, and do, make up the matrix of our lives; and we don't often stop to see all the choices we make moment by moment to keep that matrix rolling along.

The quantum truth of the matter is that ANYTHING could happen AT ANY MOMENT, since quantum states exist in and out of time, which makes all possibilities possible at any time. I might think I know what's going to happen when I get in the shower, but then the water suddenly shuts off because the City workers turned off the water to the apartment while they repaired the broken main. Or, I think I know what's going to happen when I do the dishes, but then the garbage disposal jams...and I get all bent out of shape about it.

The point I'm attempting to make is that by habitually pre-determining our choices by making predictions about our own activities, shuts off the infinite other amazing possibilities that could happen. I think we construct a nice, predictable set of circumstances for ourselves that (we think) guarantees security for our reality (our money situation, our living quarters, or transportation, our relationships). But what if by doing this we unwittingly cut ourselves off from a huge potential of fantastically wonderful things that could happen to us?

Perhaps a more "quantum" way to live would be to--instead of predicting what's going to happen--we just float in the question: "What amazing things await me at any moment?"

There have been manifestation experiments where it was shown that asking questions about something greater happening, is far superior to visualization techniques. In other words, jump out of the box of yourself and trust that the Universe has your back, and is going to give you what you desire. Your job is not to limit it to a specific set of familiar circumstances.

We have all been burned badly by the unpredictable, so the idea of asking open-ended questions about our desires feels like giving up our personal power, and control, and that is scary.

Gary Douglas, founder of Access Consciousness tells us to "live in 10 second increments"--where any choice can be changed within 10 seconds. Now that's freedom. You desire something? Get the energy of that thing--just the energy of what it feels like, not what it looks like--and keep choosing that, and follow the energy to the actualization of that desire.

Abraham Hicks has a famous saying: "Hold a thought for just 17 seconds, and the Law of Attraction kicks in. Hold a thought for 68 seconds and things move; manifestation has begun."

So, rather than "predicting" everything that's happening to you (thus guaranteeing the same old-same old), start choosing your desires by asking questions like, "What would it take for ______ to show up?" "What energy, space and consciousness do I need to be for __________ to happen?"

After a little practice, things really will start moving directly toward your desires, and if you stay out of the habit of needing to have a predictable life, who knows what fantastic things could happen?

Take A Moment

An article inspired me in this newsletter about joy not having to be an intense experience, and that cultivating an awareness of "okayness" is a valid path to well-being. In fact, unamplified states of gratitude and appreciation for the "little things" in life go a long way to de-stressing the system, and allowing the body and mind to restore.

I think it is a part of the human condition to strive for intensity of feelings; a way of creating a narrative of grandness and transcendence that rises above the "normal", the "mundane" or "average". It is born out of a numbness to routine, and a sort of blanking out of the repetitive or regular, much like retinal fatigue, or the numbness from rubbing an earlobe. Society's highest expectations and rewards are given to those living the most outrageous and intense lives, and we all have embraced this paradigm as a judgment on how we measure up. You know, the "star" factor.

Modern psychologists would chalk these attitudes up to bad mental health, and here's why: Most of what happens to us in our daily lives certainly is unremarkable, and yet we seem to measure our joy factor or happiness factor by how intense our perceptions are as we put a priority on extreme events.

We've all heard people say, "It was really dangerous, but I've never felt so alive." The reality of this is if this danger you speak of that was making you feel so alive just kept going without respite, the stress of it would certainly kill you.

Another aspect to this is finding fault with experiences, judging them as "boring" or "monochromatic" or "disappointing" in some way. It's a mind set that has an expectation of intensity that sets a standard against which all experience must measure up. This is validated with TV dramas, big movie adventures, and sweeping novels--all stimulating our nervous systems and exacerbating our sense of the extreme. Our lives by comparison certainly become dull.

Everything Science tells us about the human mind-body system is that excitement, danger, peak experiences, are all stressful to the body; causing the restorative systems to shut down, the adrenaline flight or fight systems to ramp up, leading to cell damage and oxidative stress injuries. The life of the adrenaline junkie is certain to be shorter and less satisfying over the long term.

As an alternative approach, start to become aware of these conditions:

• At this moment, nothing hurts
• Right now, I am not upset, and I'm not suffering
• Nothing is actually bothering me at this moment
• I don't really need anything right now
• I'm fine with the way things are right now
• I'm grateful for just being able to be
• I appreciate everything around me at this moment

When you start breaking it down like this, it becomes apparent that what is really causing any of your well-being and any of your happiness is happening at every moment. Lifting all the judgments about how we're not living up some "superman" or "superwoman" intensity, allows us to become aware of and enjoy those small moments to ourselves, and allows these moments to rise to equal priority with moments of intensity.

I'm not saying one shouldn't strive for something fantastic in their life, or plan big adventures. I'm saying that the time between the intensities of life is just as valuable, if not more so in terms of body repair and mental well-being. We tend to forget that this is important amidst all the bombardment of MMA fighting, 200 MPH car races, super-hero blockbusters, acid trips and rock star stadium concerts.

Just take a moment, to have a moment.

Are You All In?

Commitment is a complicated and funny concept. On the one hand it represents strict, unbending discipline. On the other it represents a giving up, or letting go--a turning of one's soul totally over to a belief.

The first definition makes me feel tired. Don't we all feel a commitment to working as hard as we can to make our lives happy? We grit our teeth and grimly set forth on the laborious path to what we believe will create happiness and fulfillment. This brings out the rebel in me. Why not work smart, not hard? Or, maybe it's not a matter of "work" at all?

The second definition of commitment is scary to me. It's the commitment it takes to jump into the abyss; take that leap of faith, or give up all your preconceived notions, plans and schemes for success, and let the Universe just provide.

Somewhere in the middle of these two extremes is where most of us dwell for the short years we have on this planet. We beat ourselves up for not "sticking with it"; but then beat ourselves up because we realize we just can't let go and have a little faith in life. All the while, happiness, contentment and fulfillment seem like bubbles in the wind.

I must say, after 60-plus years of wearing myself out working my ass off, instead of achieving a modicum of happiness for my trouble, I instead have realized the utter futility of it. Over my lifetime I've often glanced over at the Second Way longingly wondering if that would be the fruitful path not taken. I even dabbled in it sometimes when the stakes weren't very high, with mixed results.

Now I'm wondering, what if the Universe is just waiting for me to get out of my own way? What if I'm unconsciously blocking the Universe by making all these plans, cooking up all these schemes, and worrying my pretty little head about outcomes. There's a nagging knowing that this is the true reality of my life, that the ego must demonstrate how powerful it is in creating a life for me. But what if that is all just bullshit? What if the doorway to fulfillment and the actualizing of all my grandest wishes and dreams was as simple as just asking for it?

The Universe sometimes has a way of pointing directly at your self-esteem issues when you ask for something. We jump over into planning and working hard to prove to ourselves we're worthy of what we ask for. "Work hard enough, and you can have everything you want." I think this is mostly a lie. Sure, hard work and slavish commitment to an objective is how most of us get stuff we want, but what if that is the "long way 'round"?

Instead, what if it's more a matter of asking for something and then being completely, and committedly willing to do, be or not do and not be whatever comes up in the actualizing of it, and what if doing and being only those ways of joy and ease was the fastest track to bringing your dreams to fruition?

In other words, you want the joy and ease in your life that your objective would bring. What if the path to that objective was doing and being that joy and ease right now? All the Universe seems to want to know is, Are you committed to the joy and ease your dreams would bring? Can you truly receive that, or are you awash in doubts and self-defeatism? The Universe is all too willing to let you thrash around in those doubts, otherwise how would you become aware of the alternative?

Say it with me: I hereby COMMIT to the joy and ease the actualization of my dreams would bring, vow to become joy and ease in my life right now, becoming a powerful, shining beacon the Universe cannot miss in bringing me everything grand and wonderful I can imagine, and beyond. Are you ALL IN?

Reverse Engineer Your Pain

After being on the spiritual discovery path for most of my 63 years, I've come to see that there are just about as many approaches to how to go about this journey as there are people. In other words, spiritual journeys are a deeply individual experience, and ultimately, only the journeyer can decide which way to go, or what approach to take.

Ironically, there are also some very tried and true techniques to use to speed you on your way that seem to apply to practically everyone--results vary. My own style of research and discovery into who and more vitally, what I am, includes trying out practically every mode and modality I run across. I've often thought, If I just stayed with one damn technique I'd probably be a lot further along by now. But then, this would be only if I didn't change as a result of applying these various tools. I change--need a new tool. And although that seems like a bit of an excuse, it seems to work for me as I am now.

That said, one observation I keep running across, and then processing on, is how the emotions are intertwined with the physical body. There are hundreds of modalities that address the emotional component of physical disease and discomforts, yet basically, they are all saying the same thing.

My favorite spiritual teacher and savant, Teal Swan, summed up this whole approach with one question: "How does your pain make you feel?" Sit with that for a moment. "How does your pain make you feel?" What emotions are triggered by your pain?

The reason this is such a significant approach is because the structure of pain and dis-ease in the body is underpinned, anchored and given form by the emotions or feelings from which they arose. By re-experiencing these emotions, we're able to effectively "reverse-engineer" and de-construct our pain.

It goes like this: Say, you experience knee pain. Now sit with that pain for a moment--not resisting it, not judging it, or fleeing from it. Instead, observe how that pain makes you feel. Pick out some emotions--there will be several.

For example, I felt my knee pain and it had a feeling of helplessness about it. I followed that back into my past, asking for the earliest time where I felt helplessness like that. I ran straight into a time when I was about 8 years old and had badly sprained my ankle. I couldn't walk on it, and was limping around. My friends wanted me to come out and play, but I had to say I couldn't. This tied into feelings of abandonment and rejection--not to mention frustration. I realized my knee pain had dozens, if not hundreds, of "anchors" or connecting points with past incidents.

I immediately began to feel my knee loosening up a bit, and inflammation and pain levels going down. I kept re-addressing the feelings my knee pain was putting me through, with it becoming increasingly clear that although physically the knee was swollen, stiff, sore and hard to walk on--all of that was being held in place by a previous emotional state. The "holding in place" of those emotions, over time, created physical changes and mutations resulting in knee pain.

Another one of my favorite teachers, Christopher Hills, always emphasized that emotion is "E, energy, in - MOTION". When the motion stops or is obstructed in some way, either by denial or lack of interest, or misunderstanding, it eventually creates physical disease and discomfort.

Thus, pain becomes a virtual key to emotional freedom. Emotions are locked up in the pain. By simply looking at them, the energy is reset into motion and pain dissipates.

This is such a simple mechanism it's easy to forget about it--not to mention pain has a way of distracting attention away from its cause. Use your pain as your deep existential treasure--your strident path to ease and joy in the body and freedom of choice in life.

The Ultimate Approach to Pain

I was listening to body expert and Access Consciousness facilitator, Donnielle Carter, today on her internet radio show, "The Right Body for You", and had a couple of a-ha's.

There is a very common and almost guaranteed trap with pain, and that is to make it significant and part of who you are. This can be very sneaky, but let me tell you some ways to break the syndrome.

Donnielle reminded me that pain is my body yelling at me. Why does it yell? Not so much because there is something that wrong with it, which is the first conclusion most of us come to. It is more deeply the body attempting to get into communication with its occupant. It needs the healing power of attention to repair and rejuvenate in the areas of pain.

Let me repeat that. The body's way of telling you that it needs your attention is the experience of pain. It already knows what it needs to heal and transform, and a major part of that is the attention of the owner.

Now, what the body doesn't need is for you to focus on the pain itself, because we all know what happens when we focus on something: it gets bigger. This is like objecting to the fact you are being yelled at, instead of listening to what is actually being said. What the body is needing you to do is simply and only acknowledge the communication that is in the form of pain.

Here's a process to run: When there is a particular pain, respond to it by saying "Thank you." The body now knows that you got the message and it can stop yelling. The "thank you" phrase has the dual use of being a declaration of gratitude. So you are effectively telling the body, "I hear you and am grateful for your gift of communication to me." The combination of acknowledgement and gratitude is just the healing mojo the body is looking for from its owner.

What usually happens--and this has been my downfall--is we focus on the pain as if that is what we must "get rid of." That's like yelling back at the body, "Shut up! I don't want to hear anything more from you!" This does nothing to create a healing two-way communication line with the body, and will only make things worse for both you and your body.

How do you NOT focus on the pain? By acknowledging it. It is the practice of allowance. You are not resisting or avoiding it, you are simply allowing its presence--simply allowing it to be a communication from your body. This creates space between you and the pain, because it has succeeded in getting your attention, which is the purpose of it.

Now, your next job is to thank it (gratitude) and then cast your attention where there is ease and joy in the body. No matter how bad pain gets, there is always a place somewhere that doesn't hurt, or even feels really good. Yes, your knees ache, but your back feels great. That's the kind of grateful attention the body is craving, because, again, what you put your attention on gets bigger.

By allowing and thanking a painful area on the body, you can then start asking questions, such as: What is it about this I'm not getting? What is it going to take to have ease and joy in all of my body forever? What does the body need that I can provide that I'm not aware of?

Imagine that a painful area of your body is a voice talking to you. What is it saying? How does it feel? What is it asking for? Continue asking these questions and the overall questions above. Soon, you'll begin to receive awarenesses about things to do or ways to be to assist in creating joy and ease in that painful area. Maybe you'll get a sudden urge to stretch, take a walk, breathe, massage, have some sex, drink some water; or you may get a mental picture of sunshine, or standing barefoot in some grass; or maybe even eat some ice cream or go to a movie, or listen to music. These are all responses to the questions you have been asking, and these are the things for your to-do list as a considerate and responsible body owner.

Embrace Pronoia!

I'm sure you've noticed this in your life: You buy a car and suddenly you start seeing that car everywhere. I used to think because I made this particular brand of car my own, my mind started making associations with similar car brands that I was not aware of before, even though they were there the whole time. I'm now coming to believe something deeper about this interesting phenomenon. What if when I bought that Jeep, I became part of the "Jeep Matrix", and other Jeeps started showing up for me because I'm in that matrix, not because I just wasn't aware of them before.

This type of manifestation has been called "Pronoia"--the awareness that the universe is conspiring in your favor--a term coined by consciousness pioneer John Perry Barlow of the Grateful Dead. Simply put, you ask for something with the conviction that the Universe has got your back, and it (sometimes miraculously) shows up.

It's also interesting to apply this awareness to what is snarkily referred to as the "Placebo Effect". You believe that a substance you ingest will heal or regress some malady or condition, and sure enough, after a little time, it does, even though that substance was a simple sugar pill. The opposite can also be true: You believe a medical treatment will harm you, and it does, but not because the treatment is actually harmful. It's because of your belief. This has been coined the "Nocebo Effect".

In fact, the Placebo Effect is so well-documented, scientists try to short-circuit it by conducting "double-blind" trials for new drugs in an attempt to isolate the actual effects of the drug from a person's beliefs about what it is doing to their body. I would ask, which is more powerful? The person's beliefs, or the drug? Isn't this just another form of pronoia? The universe is re-arranging to your beliefs causing the body to be harmed or healed.

When applied to the universe of nutritional supplements and herbology, it's easy to see a huge complication here. If your beliefs are just as strong or stronger than any supplement you can take: 1. Why take a supplement (or medicine), and, 2. What do you actually believe? Are you a believer at first, but then lose that belief so the supplements start to do nothing? Or, are you convinced nothing will work and you take the supplements (or medicine) to prove yourself right?

So much confusion and frustration is caused by this, and it is in no small part helped by marketing and the physical sciences. For example, a certain supplement is known to contain a certain property, say, ginsenosides. ginsenosides are shown by science to positively affect overall vitality and immunity. Because you believe in the science and you also observe a lack of vitality in your body, you use the supplements with ginsenosides in them to heal or resolve the lack of vitality.

As long as it's as simple as that, your chances of improvement are probably pretty good. But, what if one morning you wake up and you feel worse. You start to believe that perhaps these ginsenosides don't actually work, and soon, because of no result, you stop taking the supplement. You then start searching out other alternatives, and find something else that science says relieves your lack of vitality. This time, you feel better. Ah, now THIS is the answer! And from now on, when you have a lack of vitality, you medicate with this substance.

What if healing and health have really nothing to do with what supplements you take or even what diet you consume? What if the MOST IMPORTANT thing is what you BELIEVE about your health and healing?

I've been experimenting with this lately. I was taking a lot of different Chinese and Ayurvedic herbs, and various vitamins and minerals to address some joint and muscle pain I was having. The herbs seemed to help, as well as the vitamins, yet there was no real resolution (after a year)--some relief at times, but no resolution. In fact, I was bouncing so much between relief and exacerbation, I just got thoroughly confused and discouraged.

I then woke up one morning and had the strong awareness to just STOP taking everything, and fast for a day. Then, re-introduce herbs and supplements ONLY after carefully asking my body and using kinesiology (muscle-testing for strong or weak signals) to determine what I actually consumed. I committed to muscle test everything, including different foods and forms of water. I discovered that my body was struggling with long-term dehydration, and was expending more energy responding to all the herbs and supplements I was shoving down its throat than doing any actual healing.

After about three days, I was feeling much better, and as days went by, I felt better and better. This was confusing to me until I realized that my core belief was that the body heals itself naturally, given proper hydration, oxygenation and my personal conviction in its healing abilities.

So rather than making a judgment call about what I "needed to take" to bring health to the body, I started asking the body what it really needed: how much water, what foods when, what exercise when, how much sleep when, and any vitamins, minerals, enzymes, or herbs. It showed me it just mainly needed the basics: plentiful water, clean food, fresh air, some daily exercise, some minerals, given in gratitude and with my core belief in its healing super-powers. Start asking the universe with sincere curiosity, "What will it take to get rid of _____?", and "What needs to happen in my life to have vibrant health in my body?" This will stimulate pronoia, and awarenesses and answers will start flooding in.

Start asking for your core beliefs about your body. What are your convictions about your body and health? By discovering and validating these (or changing them) you can escape from the placebo/nocebo rabbit hole, and allow the universe to simply work in your body's favor. Embrace pronoia!