Archive for the 'Parenting' Category

“… you cannot offer anyone something that is less advantageous to them than to see them as they feel and as they are trying to get you to see them. People argue for their limitations all the time. They say, “It’s not going well” and you try to cheer them up, and the more you try to cheer them up, the more they try to convince you that you shouldn’t be trying to cheer them up.

And they’re not deliberately trying to drag you into the abyss, it’s just all they know right now. And if you go there, you leave your Inner Being behind. And then you are down there wallowing in this discomfort together and then you come to resent them, because you felt better before you tried to help them.

So you finally get it that you cannot help anybody unless you are feeling good.

And, oh, here’s the corker! When you’re feeling really good and they’re feeling really bad, you might not be the one to help them anyway. Because the frequencies are pretty far apart. So then you just keep seeing them as you see them and knowing that somebody along the way, somebody who feels a little better than them will lead them a little, and somebody who feels a little better than them will lead them, and somebody who feels a little better than them will lead them.

And then pretty soon, they’ll be in your vibrational range and then you’ll feel exaltation together!!!”

San Antonio, 4/21/07

Life as been whirlwind around here, as usual, with activities involving kids, work, & family stuff.

I have had many challenging things occur in the past couple of months, which without the help of EFT, my saving grace, would have had me incapacitated emotionally.

The story that I have always told about my childhood is one of immense struggle and lack of love from my mother. I have, over many years, managed to transmute the feelings and thoughts about that situation. At least I thought I had effectively dealt with all of that, until I received a message, from my sister in law, saying that they all would be moving into my peaceful sanctuary of North Carolina. They included my brother, sister in law, neice AND my mother!

Okay, so perhaps I didn’t have this mother thing under control. The information threw me into a tailspin that took me a while to get out of. I started to have health issues, that, thankfully, resolved themselves.

With the help of a therapist, I tapped on many issues that popped up that I didn’t realize still existed for me.

“Even though I don’t feel like I have any control over this situation…”

“Even though I am afraid that I might fall back into old dramatic patterns when mom moves down here….”

“Even though I am angry that they will be encroaching on space….”

“Even though I am worried that I really haven’t made the changes that I thought I had…”

Basically it all came down to inability to control the situation and doubt about what I really did know. Hmmm… sounds familiar. I wasn’t able to control or even affect any change in my situation while growing up either.

After a couple of sessions, I am finally at peace with the whole situation. Circumstances have changed a bit and the only person coming down here is my mom. We are actually helping her find her way here as well. Instead fighting against what may come of this, I have decided that I will embrace it and allow the NOW to rule instead of the past pain.

The other challenging situation that I am still dealing with is my husband’s illness. It cycles from okay to really bad, on a regular basis. We are in the midst of a medication change and that can either be challenging or disastrous. This phase of changes has been very difficult for everyone in my family.

I have started listening to Echart Tolle’s “The Power of Now” and have been finding some answers to the questions that Abraham hasn’t really addressed. Pain bodies make so much sense to me and I know I have some active ones, and without a doubt, my husband is almost exclusively living in them.

In the introduction of The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle describes how he was feeling before he had is transformation.

One night not long after my twenty-ninth birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train — everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world. The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in contin­uing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this con­tinuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live.

The Power of Now - pg 1

My husband is in this place more often than he cares to admit. This issue is one that I have been actively using EFT with for a long time. I have come to a place where the emotional charge of what he is going through is not very strong. Yes, do get very sad when I stop and contemplate how this journey may end up for him. I try not to go there very often.

There is life, then there is physical extension of life, and then there is that which is the return to that which is life. There is no death. And so you cannot NOT save a life because a life cannot be squandered, a life cannot be lost. You cannot cease to be. And so you are saying that I should save the sanctity of a physical life experience.

A dear woman had been coming to our gatherings for many years and in time introduced her daughter also, and not long after her daughter took her own life. And her mother, of course, was devastated and then mad at us and at her because she thought that our knowledge of no death had in some way given her daughter permission to take her life in your words and re-emerge into pure positive energy. And as we visited with her, we said to her, we explained what the death experience is and the freedom and well being that her daughter is experiencing and we said in an attempt to soothe her wouldn’t you rather that your daughter is in this place of pure connection to who she is rather than that uncomfortable, painful mindset that she was in before? And her mother said, no! And it really speaks to the way that most humans view this so called sanctity of life. “Yes, I would prefer that you’re here suffering and miserable rather than re-emerged and feeling wonderful. And we really think it’s worth getting your thoughts around. And we know that it’s not the easiest thing to know and understand, and we know that most of the world, as we said to our friend earlier, would not agree with us on this!

Most people really believe that under *all* conditions it’s better, no matter how miserable you are, to stay in this physical body. And we are certainly not promoting suicide, although every death is that you know? Every death is suicide because no one can do anything to you that is outside of your vibrational offering, and your vibrational offering, by way of Law of Attraction is creating everything! And so we think that it’s really one of those things where you do the best you can to express the Joy of life experience through the clarity of your example.

Alaska Cruise 2007

I understand this philosophy and I can, very much, understand my husbands desire to escape from it all. It is hard to imagine the pain and torment that he is going through and living and reliving on a daily basis. My hope, as he travels this path, is that he has the transformation like Echkart Tolle or Byron Katie had. That is a selfish hope, I know, but not totally impossible.

I used to use our children as a tool to make him think about the finality of it all. “I won’t let you screw up their lives like your father screwed up yours”. But I have stopped that. If something happens, our kids will be okay. I will make sure of that. His illness will not be swept under the carpet and hidden away. Our children will know that he is sick and that they are not to blame for anything that may happen due to his illness.

It’s odd. Through all of this, I have come to appreciate the concept of hell, if only for purely selfish reasons. The fear of hell is what is keeping my husband here with me. I will take that bit of hope as a time extender for him to find his way.

My role in all of this is as Abraham says: “do the best you can to express the Joy of life experience through the clarity of your example.” I am still working on that. I am there more often than not. I just need to focus on the fact that I am doing this for myself and not for the potential benefit that my family would have from my connection.

Oh what a river we are all traveling on.

Elbows aren’t supposed to look like that!

I spent quite a bit of time in the past 5 months being the typical overly concerned parent. I knew I was getting into my daughter’s boat, but I couldn’t figure out how to get out of her boat and back into my own.

In October, Jen fell off the climber in our back yard and severely dislocated her elbow. I expended so much energy over that 5 months prodding, cajoling, and threatening her so she would do the exercises needed in order to get full motion back into her arm. It was always a battle. She was discouraged, angry and resentful about it all. The progress was very slow and she would look at the things she wanted to do (gymnastics) and see that she wasn’t anywhere near being able to go back. (Sorta like we all do at times, huh? ) We both had a pretty severe case of “what-is-itis”.

Shortly after she fell, I went to an Abraham Workshop in Asheville, NC and was able to discuss the issues directly with Abraham. This is about a 5 minute clip of, what turned out to be, an almost 30 minute conversation with Abraham.

Click arrow to listen to clip.

Abraham Hicks Workshop - 10/26/07 Asheville NC

Abraham:
So now let’s recap for your own understanding. So your…describe the incidents again, the first one.

Me:
The first one, my daughter was playing and she fell off the climber and dislocated her elbow and broke her elbow.

Abraham:
Alright, so now here’s the question that, if we were talking to her, we would her, but you are a very good stand in because you understand her. So now she has this manifestation, which is an indication of vibration. What do you think the emotion is? We know that she has discomfort, physical pain, and all of that but what is the emotion that she would describe now that that incident has happened?

Me:
She and I discussed this because I … It was one of those things where I’m like “I know what the cause is trying to explain… Frustration. She’s been frustrated.

Abraham:
So now that it’s happened, this is the thing we want you to hear. This is how you get value from manifestation. Now that this has happened, how do you feel? Frustrated because now she can’t do the things she is accustomed to doing. Frustrated because now her activity is limited. So now, frustrated because now because her activity is limited. Ringing any bells?

Me:
Yeah, it is.

Abraham:
So, so, so..

Me:
But she doesn’t, it’s funny, she doesn’t want me to point that out to her. I don’t know how to get her to come to that realization on herself. ‘Cause I have pointed that out. I tried to say, “Maybe you were feeling this way before. And she is very resistant to ME telling her or suggesting it.

Abraham:
That’s why we say, you gotta teach through the clarity of your own example because she won’t be resistant to the demonstrations that you offer.

Me:
This is a demonstration because I told her, before I left, “I guarantee you, I’m gettin’ in that chair again and that will be law of attraction at it’s best.” And I’m gonna go “Jen, I did it, I did it, and see I told you I was gonna do it” So she’s going to see that it can happen.

Abraham:
And what you want to emphasize is that once something has happened it is easier to expect it again. So it was actually very simple for you to sit here this time, you lighted up all over the place. In other words it gets..

Me:
Well, I’ll give you the honest truth, I was sitting there thinking “okay it’s ticking away. I can’t be thinking about the fact that I might not get called upon because then the vibration goes down.

Abraham:
Alight, that’s what you want to tell your daughter. That’s what you want to explain but through the clarity of your example, and the things that she is able to witness. You see, as a parent, or as a teacher, there is this tendency to say “I have to live the perfect life so that, because if I don’t life the perfect life, then I’m not practicing what I am preaching.” And we say it’s living a real life, in awareness of your guidance, is the best gift you could give to anyone. So when you feel ornery, stop in the middle of it and say, right out loud, “mmm I’m really feeling ornery” or what ever the feeling is and “how can I turn this around before I fall and break my arm? Or do I have to fall and break my arm, before I realize I was feeling ornery?” In other words, just be playful about it. Of course you have to be sensitive because no one ever likes you to point out that …

Me:
Say “you did that”.

Abraham:
Well, the last thing in the world that you want to do is get credit for the things that are going wrong in your life. And yet, there is an empowerment that comes with it because, when you realize you get the credit for what goes well and for what doesn’t go well, there’s such knowledge in that. And ultimately, so much more freedom, because as long as you believe that somebody else is responsible, then you are limited to their gaze and to their granting of your wishes.

In other words, there’s no way out of it, you just have to let you kids be the empowered beings that they are.

Fast forward to March 2008, and my daughter is still getting frustrated and I am still getting frustrated with her frustration The progress was quite slow and tedious. There was progress but not enough for her to feel good about it all.

Thanks to a recent Abraham CD, I was able to shift my point of view for this whole situation. I realized that I had been approaching the situation in all the wrong ways. Well, duh, all that struggling to get a little movement should have been a good indicator.

I was looking at her as the broken Jen, instead of the well Jen. In the midst of her getting upset about it all, again, I said to her, I KNOW your arm can do what it should be doing. I know you can get make it happen, and it doesn’t have to be all this hard work either. I told her that if she would look to her arm doing all the fun things that she likes doing instead of all the things she can’t do right now, things will change.

From Abraham-Hicks CD 2/3/08 - Los Angeles CA - CD 4 end of CD

This is just an example of the gap getting further apart. It’s just an example of somebody believing in the reality of what is more than the reality of what is in vibrational escrow. And it’s a good thing you don’t create your worlds from your physical disconnected place. It’s a wonderful thing that you are launching forward, forward, forward. That’s why we can speak so unequivocally about the eternal nature of that which we all are. That’s the power of influence.

That’s what true healing is. It’s KNOWING wellness with everything that you are because you’ve practiced it and you care how you feel so much.

And someone might say “Someone’s sick and it bothers me that you won’t commiserate with me.” And you have to say “Can’t do it. Not good for me, not good for you. THIS is what I KNOW. THIS is where I stay. THIS is what I know about this. THESE things I know. This is my KNOWING. This is my KNOWING. This is my KNOWING.” And when you have the good fortune to being up close to somebody who knows something so emphatically about you, THAT is the power of influence. That’s what healing is.

Almost Straight!

(For the full transcription of the quote and an audio to go with it, you can see my post, Abraham on Influencing Wellness in Those You Love.)

She and I had a in depth conversation about how what we focus on comes to be. I reminded her of my trip to see Abraham and how I KNEW I would get a chance to talk to them again. Not getting into the seat just wasn’t an option. It’s all about the focus. I suggested that she focus on her arm the way she wants it to be and know that it can be that way. We talked about shifting her feelings about the exercises from “these exercises SUCK” to appreciating them for helping her get her arm stronger and straighter. I knew she was hearing what I was suggesting. I helped her with the exercises and I could tell that her feeling surrounding them had changed a bit.

The last time we went to therapy, Jen reached 0 degrees, perfectly straight! That was about a 6 degree difference from the last time and a big jump over what the change usually is from visit to visit. On the way home, I asked her to tell me honestly if she had started doing more exercises for her arm or if it was about the same. ( I knew what the answer was but wanted her to see!). She hadn’t worked harder and the arm got much better. The only thing that changed was that she shifted her thinking a bit and her arm followed the lead!

I foresee her arm getting much better much quicker now. The next phase is to get her bending a bit more. Right now, we are consistently sitting at an 110 degree angle on bending. I think about 160 is what she is shooting for. Boy are we going to shock the therapist the next time we see her! I think Jen has seen that she *can* make a difference and it doesn’t have to happen by her doing the exercises all the time.

When a child has a dream and a parent says, “It’s not financially feasible; you can’t make a living at that; don’t do it,” we say to the child, run away from home… You must follow your dream. You will never be joyful if you don’t. Your dream may change, but you’ve got to stay after your dreams. You have to.

Excerpted from a workshop in Asheville, NC on Sunday, May 1st, 2005

All Is Well
Abraham-Hicks

You are really individual beings, with very special talents, and it would be nice if teachers had the time, or parents had the awareness or skill, to see the children as the very individual, very special beings that they are. So that rather than trying to drum them into one category, they are, instead, appreciating the special insight that each child brings to the sea of diversity and contrast which is the stuff that creation comes from.

Excerpted from a workshop in Atlanta, GA on Saturday, September 13th, 1997

All Is Well