I had a death in my family recently. This person and I weren’t particularly close. She had some issues that made it hard to be close to her. I prayed for her and those close to her every day and hoped that some day, we would be able to be on friendly terms. That some day has come and gone — at least on this plane. I thought that I had dealt with my grief and was moving on, but I have realized instead that it is lurking in the shadows and darting out at unexpected times and in unwelcome ways to let me know it’s still there.
Grief is like that, when it hasn’t been fully dealt with. So this begs the question, “How do I know when it’s been fully dealt with?” I’ve lost a few people close to me in my life and every time was different. But one thing I have learned is that grief is a process. It is a force of nature. You can try to contain it. You can try to push it down into some manageable shape, but in the end, it takes the shape of whatever our relationship was like with the person who died. This can be very challenging to deal with, especially if our relationship with the deceased was not the happiest one.
So when the sadness or the anger or the guilt or the fill-in-the-blank-emotion comes up, I’ve learned to acknowledge it and to realize it’s coming from the pain of the loss. If I’ve inadvertently snapped at someone or if I’m feeling out of sorts, I need to take some time and ask, “If _______ (the person who died) were here, what would they suggest I do to feel better?” If there’s no simple answer to that, I just ask, “What would I like to do to feel better?”
I’ve come to the realization that I tend to push my feelings aside when they are painful or complicated. I get busy. I watch TV. I get on the Internet. It all fades to gray when I’m on autopilot. But I’m also realizing that this strategy isn’t especially effective over time because those complicated and painful feelings come out in other ways that are even more complicated and painful.
I’m thinking of a day at work recently where I was under pressure and I didn’t handle my interactions with people in a very patient way. If I had it to do over again, I would have taken a few minutes to get centered, recognized that I was grieving and (hopefully) continued my day with more clarity and compassion for myself and others.
So in this moment, I am recommitting to notice the painful emotions when they come up and to give them more space in my life. I am recommitting to making a space for the grief. This may take the form of writing the deceased a letter or a poem. It may take the form of some toning. Whatever feels good. But I will make a space for it in my life and in my day.
To go back to the original question, “How do I know when it’s been fully dealt with?,” there’s no set answer. But I do know that as I take care of myself, I will learn and grow more compassionate with myself and the pain will ease. I think one of the signs of moving on is being able to think of the person without pain, and realizing that I have gained the benefit of death: living my life more fully and generously.
Last fall, a friend of mine sent me a link to a video on YouTube.
It took me a while to get around to watching it, but when I did,
it had a powerful impact on me.
Here’s the video:
There’s a whole series of these videos on YouTube, and as I was
watching them, I got goose bumps on top of goose bumps. It touched me
deeply to see these musicians connecting from all over the world. I truly
believe that music has the power to connect us and help us make the changes
we want to make, to make the world a better place. (BTW, if you want to support
the beautiful work of Playing for Change, they are coming out with a CD and
DVD of what they’ve done so far. You can also stay up to date by going to playingforchange.com.
I see the current economic state of affairs as a great equalizer, and while it
has created a lot of fear and pain for many of us, it’s also a huge opportunity
for us to reach out and connect with the world in a way that isn’t as likely
when we’re living in the status quo. After 9/11 here in New York City, the
magnitude of this event drew people together in new ways. I think of the
world economic crisis as that sort of opportunity — and a chance to hopefully
make it stick. It got me thinking about the kind of world I dream of:
I dream a world where we create peace, using music as a vehicle of connection
across cultures, economies, geographies and religions. I dream a world where
we all have enough because we all share. I dream a world where all people’s
gifts are honored and appreciated and used for the greater good. I dream a
world in harmony with creation. I dream a world that trusts the love that created it.
What kind of world do you dream of? And what can we do today to bring it a little
bit closer?
A friend of mine recently recommended (well, commanded is more the word) that I watch a video of Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat Pray Love) on Ted. We were talking about the promptings we had been receiving to write and my friend stopped in mid-conversation and said, “You have to watch this video! Watch it then tell me what you think!” So I did. And just so we’re all on the same wavelength about what this video is about, here it is: (Please note that it’s about a 20-minute talk, but well worth your time and energy.)
Now the interesting thing here is that as a coach and creative person, I have been really focused on creating abundance in my own life and in the lives of others. Not just material abundance, but abundance of joy, freedom of expression, inspiration, service, love, connection to Source — all that good stuff. But what I have missed, it seems, is that unless and until I negotiate with that Source of Inspiration when it comes and find a way to stay tapped into it on a regular basis, I am going to miss opportunities for it to express through me.
This is the sort of idea that makes many very talented people become addicts, I know, or give up on doing what they love because it can seem just too damn hard to let creativity flow through you when you’re worried about all the other things you feel are important to do in this life. One idea that really resonated with me in Ms. Gilbert’s talk was this idea of no longer feeling at the mercy of my creative urges, but in fact, working with them in a way that allows me to have a little more say-so in how and when I act on them.
One of the examples that is given in the video is of Tom Waits driving down the freeway and hearing this beautifully tantalizing melody and feeling that angst that accompanies inspiration for many of us, especially since he was driving down the freeway and couldn’t exactly stop and write a song! Has anything like that ever happened to you? Have you ever been struck by an idea right at the most impossibly inconvenient time? Sometimes I think that the Universe is just torturing me when this happens. But what Tom did that changed his creative process was to look up and negotiate with his Muse and ask it to come back at a more convenient time.
I love this. It means that instead of feeling like I better hurry or else I’ll miss the idea that’s thundering around in my brain, I get to be creative on my own terms. I don’t happen to believe that creativity is the gift of an elite few. I think creativity shows up when we allow it to. When we make space for it in our lives. When we love it enough to ask it to come back at a more convenient time and then keep the appointment.
“A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile.” ~~ Don McLean, American Pie
There is nothing like music for taking us back to another time and another place. The music could be music we grew up with, or music from an entirely different era, but it evokes feelings that can harken back to places other than where we are now. Sometimes it can be a wonderful trip down memory lane and other times it can mean remembered pain that we would just as soon not feel — or maybe we would.
Today I was reminded of an old dream I had that was formed out of a meditation. The dream had been to create a Concert for World Healing. In my dream, the concert was set in Geneva Switzerland. The idea of the concert was to bring indigenous healers together from all around the world, plus musicians and sound healers, and to create a celebration of the Earth and its people. The focus would be to provide understanding and appreciation of indigenous traditions and to share ideas and information that would help us deal with the environmental and social challenges we face.
I first had this vision in 1996. I really didn’t know what to make of it at the time. But it wouldn’t go away. Finally in 2000, I was at a place in my life where I wasn’t sure what was next for me. It came to me that I should pursue this vision. So I did my best to begin to find people of like mind to help me figure out what the next steps were. I wrote letters. I talked to friends. I looked for others who were putting on similar events. In October 2001 (yes, shortly after 9/11) I even went to Geneva and connected with some Sufi friends there to discuss the likelihood of this event being held in Geneva, as it was in my dream. I think they thought I was just a crazy American (they said so) and they tried to encourage me to think of this as an inner project, rather than an outer one. They pointed out that similar things were happening already and maybe I should just rethink this.
So I did. And I let it go. And I contented myself with the notion that maybe I was a crazy American after all. Maybe I was chasing rainbows and I had just picked up on somebody else’s vision. All of which may or may not be true.
But one thing I have learned in the intervening years is that going with one’s gut is never wasted. I may never understand exactly why I had that vision and why I felt so compelled to find a way to bring it into being, only to have it not happen — at least for me — but it did help me to put myself out there in ways I would never have imagined. It did keep me on the trail of who I really want to be and what my life purpose is. And I know it led me to this place of being a spiritual life coach and learning to nurture my creative side in a whole new way. Even the hurt of somehow not being able to birth my vision has led me to look around and to champion others who are doing similar things.
Interestingly, I have a friend who has been creating an Earth Day event for the last few years (check out information on this year’s event here) and his events, although on a smaller scale, are very much in the spirit of my original vision. I’ve been involved from the first year and it’s been very rewarding, assisting my friend and also performing.
But sometimes I still get caught in thinking of myself as a failure. I still hear that old music that makes me cry and remember things that really aren’t true about me, that are lesser visions of myself. While I’ve learned it’s important to let out those old feelings when they show up, I’ve also learned that feelings are not facts. They exist in the moment and they can change in an instant. I get to choose which songs I listen to and what they say about my experience.
If following my inner guidance as far as I can go seems to lead to a dead end, does this mean that I can’t trust my inner guidance? No. It just means I haven’t got the whole picture. It means that there’s more for me to see and be before I’m ready to realize my vision.
So let’s try this on together, shall we? Let’s agree that we can absolutely trust the music of our inner guidance. We will know by how it feels if it is leading us in life-affirming or life-denying directions. It may not always lead us to the vision we originally had, but it will always lead to a larger place than we now stand.
I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
I got an idea this morning that came in the form of a question that popped into my head. “What’s it like being a millionaire?” Many personal development teachers, including Abraham-Hicks, talk about the value of acting as-if and of focusing on your life as you want to live it more than you do on how it is now. So when this question popped into my head, I decided to spend a little time writing in my journal and answering the question. Some very important ideas came out of this little exercise, which took me all of 10 minutes, and I’d like to share them with you.
The thing that struck me as I wrote was that the overall flavor of my life as a millionaire was not that different than it is now. I just had nicer stuff and more time to enjoy it. But I still woke up. I still spent some time writing in my journal and visualizing. I still made coffee and had breakfast. I wasn’t spending my time trying to figure out how to spend my money, which is what I might have done when having more money was all I could think about. The feeling was something like the realization Dorothy has at the end of The Wizard of Oz, that everything she really wanted was right in her own backyard. My lifestyle as a millionaire doesn’t start when I have the million dollars. It starts with habits I’m forming now. It starts with how I’m thinking and feeling and acting now.
So what I decided to do was to go through what I imagined in my “ideal scene” and write out some practices I could implement right away that will serve me in achieving my goals. One of them is the idea of lying in bed for a few minutes and being grateful. I have been doing this for just a few moments a day, but I decided to make this a real discipline because, for one thing, the time when we are just waking up is one of the most creative times for us. So if I spend some time giving thanks and thinking about my day, visualizing it as I would like it to be, this particular time is one of the best times to do it because my conscious mind is not in the driver’s seat yet.
Another idea was to create as beautiful and pleasing an environment at home as I possibly can. I don’t have to be a millionaire to do this. I just have to apply myself. Let go of clutter. Focus on the things in my home that are especially pleasing and meaningful to me and let go of the things that aren’t so pleasing. Catherine Ponder talks about this in her book The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity. In doing this, I am giving my subconscious mind more room to work and more inspiration to nourish it. I know that these two ideas alone will make me feel better and allow me to be more attractive in allowing the Universal Forces to come to my aid in accomplishing my goals.
But perhaps the most important lesson (and one that I know I’ve heard before and need to remind myself of) is the value of following my hunches. If I hadn’t decided to take the time today to answer that question, I would have missed out on something important. And as I prepare for the rest of my day, I can feel good in knowing that I listened to that little voice inside that is conspiring to help me.
I know that I’m going to be doing this little exercise again because it feels good and I have learned from it. Maybe you’d like to give it a try. If you’re already a millionaire or if you are focusing on other goals, just use them instead of the idea of being a millionaire. See for yourself that acting “as-if” has real benefits in the here and now.
My friend and teacher Karen Curry told a story recently about a young man, the son of some friends of hers, who had passed away a year ago of leukemia. Even in the midst of the horrific effects of the disease and its treatment, he still maintained a positive attitude and was (and still is) an inspiration to those around him. I am pasting Karen’s blog post below. Please read, and if you feel inspired to take action in any way in this young man’s honor, I know you will feel even better for it. I feel great just sharing it with you!
By the way, did you know that gratitude is one of the highest vibrations there is? And also that the more gratitude and love you express, the faster the things you are wanting can come to you?
Today, October 22, 2008, is International “It’s All Good!” Day.
International IT’S ALL GOOD DAY is a special day in honor of my dear friends Martin and Connie Jordan’s son, Andrew, and the 1st anniversary of his passing. Andrew crossed over last year after a four-month battle with leukemia.
Even before his illness, Andrew had an amazing positive attitude and love of life. He was an inspiration and continues to be from the other side.
Andrew was diagnosed July 11, 2007 with AML Leukemia. During his nearly 4 months at All Children’s Hospital, he kept his attitude of “IT’S ALL GOOD!”, even when he got injections of chemo shot into his spine a few times a week. The hospital staff and patients regularly gathered in Andrews room noting that his energy was always calming and uplifing.
If a 16 year-old young man could keep his positive attitude while enduring excruciating pain, than so can we, for at least one day!
Andrew’s greatest desire was to touch, teach and inspire people all over the world. On the anniversary of his passing, we decided to do something to help Andrew keep his spirit and his legacy alive.
So, on Oct 22, 2008, in honor of Andrew, I encourage you to set the intention to consciously keep a positive mindset, no matter what. Smile at a stranger, hold the door open for someone. Be a part of the goodness that flows between us as Divine Siblings. Every chance you get, notice the Good that surrounds you! Remember that you will be joined today by many people around the world celebrating Andrew’s life and IT’S ALL GOOD DAY!
In honor of IT’S ALL GOOD DAY, I invite you to join me in a special project. I have a special 18- year-old friend, Sarah Parker, who has volunteered six months of her life to work with orphans in Nepal.
Sarah recently emailed her Dad and asked him if he could send warm hats, scarves and flea powder for the children. If you would like to help Sarah and her Dad keep the orphans warm, I invite you to send childrens hats, scarves, art supplies (especially pens and paper…we take for granted how lucky we are to be able to write anything whenever we want…) and anything else you’d like to share with the children to me:
Karen Curry
5321 Park Ave. South
Minneapolis, MN 55417
I will be giving Sarah’s Dad your donations to send in a package to Sarah on October 31, 2008.
If you would like to donate money instead, I can make your purchases for you:
I have an Inspiration Notebook. It’s a three-ring binder where I have pictures of places I want to visit, people I want to emulate and material things I want to attract. In this notebook is a picture of the Spanish cellist, Pablo Casals, along with a quote by him. It reads:
“Each man has inside him a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated, but it takes courage for a man to listen to his own inner goodness and act on it. Do we dare to be ourselves? This is the question that counts.”
As I was looking at this picture and quote this morning, I was inspired to learn a bit more about Casals. I found this wonderful video on YouTube, which I think says more about him than perhaps any biography can do:
Whatever one may think of his politics, his personality or his personal life, what I feel from his words and from his music is a great understanding of people and of the soul. For instance, here’s another quote:
“The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?”
Casals lived through the Catalan fight for independence and through the Spanish Civil War. Opposed to Franco, he spent the rest of his life away from Spain. His understanding of love being without borders was undoubtedly hard won. But when I listen to him play, all of the circumstances of his life, while informing who he was and how he played, come together into something more.
This is something I strive for in my own life: to live it in such a way that it becomes something more than circumstance, but speaks through the music of the soul to others who may need to be reminded of Who We Really Are. To flow with the Divine Symphony every, every day.
“The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.”
Casals reminds me that the child he speaks of is still inside me and each one of us. That child just needs to be remembered and honored. If you are a parent or grandparent, it’s safe to assume that you want what’s best for your child. What about the child in you? What about wanting what’s best for him or her? I think that in taking time to figure that out and to do something every day to nurture that child, we are tapping into the inner goodness that Casals speaks of.
Abraham-Hicks says that there is nothing more important than feeling good. I think that feeling good is allowing that inner goodness that we are to flow through us. And this, as Casals says, is what the world needs most. You think about that.
I recently came upon a video that made me stop and think. While I found it to be hilarious, it got me thinking about how I hang on to so many old stories about myself and how letting go of them can be as simple as I allow it to be. Before I go on about this any more, take a look for yourself:
Beliefs and behaviors are habits of thought and action that get established over time through repetition, yes? So if I’m going to change them, it’s not really just a matter of stopping the old belief or behavior but also of replacing it with something more pleasing — kind of like giving a toy to a baby so they’ll give you the car keys they’ve been gnawing on. Let’s face it. We do things because they feel good. At least they start out that way. We’re getting something out of them, otherwise we wouldn’t do them.
So if we’re going to change them, we need something that feels just as good or better than what we want to replace. For example, let’s say I have a belief that I’m not worthy of success. It’s not always there. I have my ups and downs with this idea. But on one particular day, I’m feeling really low and this belief is just eating away at me. What can I do in that moment? I can choose to take a walk. Call a friend. List all my accomplishments up to this point in my life. I can do a Sound Clearing Exercise. The point is, I need to do something to counteract the not-so-great-feeling. Of course, I could choose to wallow in it for a day or two, but in the end, in order to come back to Who I Really Am, I need to let go of that belief that is hurtful to me and take an action that affirms who I am.
One of the mottos of Twelve Steppers everywhere is One Day at a Time. Changing limiting beliefs and behaviors is accomplished one moment at a time. While this may seem daunting in the face of truly addictive beliefs and behaviors, taking actions that support us become positive habits that really feel good. And they’re infectious. My husband is big on taking walks to clear his head and now this is something I do often, myself. He also does this little thing of blowing on my head when I’m not sure how to resolve something, as if he’s blowing all the cobwebs away. Not something I’d do with anybody else, but it’s endearing, all the same.
So instead of just Stopping It, the idea is to keep going, but in a direction that feels better. Even just a little bit. As Abraham-Hicks says, “The better it gets, the better it gets.” In other words, by the Law of Attraction, the more we focus on something, the more of that thing will come to us. So it makes sense to learn how to ease out of habits of belief and behavior that don’t feel good and into ones that do. It’s as simple as finding thoughts and activities that please us. That’s something easy to start doing today.
Along with millions of others, it seems, I’ve been reading Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth and attending (or at least attempting to attend) the online class on the book that’s being given by Oprah and Eckhart Tolle. One thing I’ve noticed in my own life is that whenever I commit to making a change in my life, I seem to run into situations that call up my deepest fears around that issue so that I can heal it on a deeper level.
For instance, I have been having some interpersonal challenges with a group I do some volunteer work for. What I realized, when I was able to just sit with all the feelings that came up in dealing with these “difficult” individuals, was that the feelings were really based on much earlier interactions with my parents. I should also say here that probably the biggest thing that helped me to be able to see this was the fact that I got very sick with a cold and all I could really do was rest while dealing with the physical symptoms. It’s interesting to note how my body was working in my favor, forcing me, in a sense, to rest and reflect so that I could understand what was at the root of the challenges I was experiencing.
Anyway, when I realized that the interpersonal challenges were being driven by these old emotions, I was able to let them go and see them in another light. Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth,really helped me with this, because I was able to see how my ego was invested in making the folks I was having the challenge with “wrong” and how that has been keeping me upset and unable to see a solution. When I realized this, I was able to let go of the feelings that no longer served me and to see them with the compassion they were crying for.
I use different modalities for these kinds of troubling emotions. What I find especially helpful is to use what I call sound alignment. All this entails is feeling the emotion, asking where it is in my body and then visualizing what it would look like as a physical presence in my body. Then I ask what it would sound like if it could make a sound (and believe me, your emotions do make sounds!). Then I just make that sound whenever I feel that emotion or think about whatever has been troubling me. This helps me to release those feelings from my body using sound and helps me to feel better a lot faster.
Other things that help include EFT, physical exercise and also listening to music that either aligns with the emotions I’m feeling or lifts me above the emotions I’m feeling. Since everyone’s tastes are different, you may need to experiment a little to find what works for you, but just the process of looking for the “right” music for you should help get you out of the hold of whatever emotions may be confronting you.
To find out more about how sound can help you roll with the tough stuff, use the Contact Form on the Contact Me page to schedule a free consultation. The clearer each of us becomes, the better life on Earth will be for all of us. Part of my commitment as a coach and sound healer is to help create a better world, one person at a time. I am starting with me and I’m starting now!
Have you ever come up with a new way of doing something and then shared it with a friend or colleague, only to have them tell you all the reasons why it wouldn’t work? Or worse still, why their way of doing things would work so much better for you if you were just smart enough to use it? Depending on how close this person is to you, it probably stung a bit, didn’t it?
I have come up against my share of this sort of thing and what I have come to realize is that most of us have developed our own ways of doing things that we’re very attached to. If they didn’t work for us, we probably wouldn’t keep doing them that way, right? (Well, not in all cases, but bear with me here.) Nothing wrong with doing what works, I always say.
But what if I got an idea that was my own unique spin on somebody else’s idea and — giving them full credit for the original one — I wanted to use it to assist even more people? You wouldn’t think the original inventor would have a hard time with that, would you? Well, sometimes they do. And when they do, you can either let it stop you or you can continue to follow your inspiration because you know in your heart of hearts that it’s a good idea. You know your heart. You know your intentions. And you know that, whatever the reason is, the inventor doesn’t get it and may never get it.
Some of us are really tempted to just chuck the whole thing out the window at that point. Some of us do. But I’ve noticed that the folks who are successful in every field of endeavor have all come up against those in authority who disagreed with them at some point in their careers, and those that we remember are remembered because they had the courage to work around those who didn’t understand or appreciate their views. I remind myself of Christopher Columbus, the Wright Brothers, Henry Ford and those brave souls like Copernicus and Galileo.
I include Galileo in the mix as well because, even though he eventually recanted his views and submitted to the power of the Church, you have to admire the man for even attempting to express his viewpoint at all in the face of the Inquisition. And not only that, he was creative about it. After all, “He that fights and runs away, may turn and fight another day; but he that is in battle slain, will never rise to fight again.” (Tacitus)
Actually, it occurs to me that when I encounter obstacles — whether they be in the form of technical challenges or in the form of criticism from people I would hope to have support from — it usually means I’m onto something Big. It’s time to hunker down. Time to stick to the trail. Time to really tune in and listen closely to what my own heart is telling me. Opinions are like noses: most everybody has one. Technical challenges mean you’re attempting to go forward into unknown territory.
It’s not grandiose to say that each time one of us chooses to go past the obstacles and opposition — on whatever playing field we’re on — we are creating a new benchmark for humanity. So to those who are told they will never walk again and who walk again, to those who are threatened with death for expressing their viewpoint, as well as for those who are merely criticized, to those who struggle against their own inner demons and those who face outer ones, I say, “Walk on through the Unbelief! You cannot know what ripples your steps may cause.”
Robert F. Kennedy put it this way in a speech he gave at the University of Capetown, South Africa: “Let no one be discouraged by the belief that there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills — against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence… Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation…
It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man or a woman stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he or she sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
, that everything she really wanted was right in her own backyard. My lifestyle as a millionaire doesn’t start when I have the million dollars. It starts with habits I’m forming now. It starts with how I’m thinking and feeling and acting now.
After all,