by Carlotta Tyler
Our work with women in weekend retreats has been deep and powerful.
One lens that they respond to is this one, shared with you all on the cusp of a time of radical change and call to consciousness for women.
See this as a context for what’s going on in the US election process.”
There was a time, in the long, long ago
Before we knew why there were eclipses,
Or why things went “thump” in the night,
When people dressed in the skins of animals.
You could see, there was a difference.
There was "the self", and there was" the other".
“The self”, who ultimately wrote it all down, could see that
"the other” swelled up every nine moons and gave forth a new tribe member,
Both "the self" and "the other".
This was seen as Powerful Magic.
When “the self” hunted wild boar in the forest and was gored,
“the self” bled and often died, was lucky if maggots set in.
"The other" bled every cycle of the moon and did not die.
This was seen as VERY Powerful Magic.
At the dawn of civilization there were only two responses to this essential difference.
One response perceived the universe as benign and egalitarian,
honored the cycles of nature and understood the creative life force as complementary, the conjunction of two powerful energies joining the masculine and the feminine.
The other was a "dominion over" response that established "father right" as the primary form of social organization and the male as “better than” the female.
Today we are living out the last days of this patriarchal worldview
As we try to balance our planet and our organizations.
People the world over are noticing the essential imbalance of this original split.
Truths previously seen as sacred are being questioned.
Deeply embedded assumptions & largely unconscious beliefs are being examined.
The way forward is being forged by you and me.
What a wonderful time to be living!.
Copyrights, 2000, Carlotta Tyler
Monday, January 28, 2008
Monday, January 14, 2008
Painful chapters of my story, Friend or Foe?
We all have a story, a chronicle of many chapters, divided into happy, unhappy or outright traumatic events. The memories of the difficult events in our personal history tend to become the obstacles, negative thought patterns and limiting beliefs that influence and rule our lives.
Although an event may have happened years ago, its shadow can still reach into the present in the form of fear, anger, or other expressions from the vast landscape of human emotion. Isn’t it interesting that a chapter of a story that happened two decades ago stays alive for so long. What is its link to the present? The Science of Awareness and Meditation answers that question by examining the functioning of the human mind and the thinking process.
The mind is our personal database where all events and situations that happened to us are stored. All day, the mind collects information through the senses and stores them as new data. Thoughts are the result of this mechanism of the mind. The activities and sensory impressions most prevalent during a given day will be reflected as the thoughts that go through our mind.
If, for example we fall in love and spend time with a new special person, we are likely to have a lot of thoughts about relationships, memories of past love, desires, or maybe worries for the future. A weekend of feeling lonely on the other hand can fill us with thoughts of fear, solitude or memories of abandonment. The rule of thumb for the mind’s functioning is: what you feed the beast is what you’ll have to digest. If the food is heavy, the digestion is likely to be heavy too.
We have the possibility to influence the content of the thoughts by choosing activities and the company of people that make us feel happy and inspired, but we have no control over the mechanism itself. The mind keeps generating thought after thought. It is a natural, ongoing occurrence that cannot be stopped willfully.
A trauma of the past can easily get triggered by a situation in the present through the mind’s process of storing and comparing data from its database. The ensuing thoughts about that past pain come in randomly and uninvited. They often linger or may become overwhelming and they can generate emotions that are very unpleasant. Through thinking, the event of 20 years ago is kept alive and fed new energy - almost as if it were happening all over again.
By understanding the habitual thinking mechanism we come to see that thoughts are the primary reason why the painful chapters of the past don’t lose their grip on the present. Since we can’t stop the thinking, how can we ever be free of the pain?
It is again the Science of Awareness and Meditation that offers an answer. During the practice of Meditation one notices that thoughts are coming and going while sitting with closed eyes. At times there will be many thoughts flying through at high speed, at others they will be like a slow wave flowing in and out. The Meditator learns to watch thoughts without engaging with them in any way. A crucial initial realization of Meditation is to see and experience that thinking is going on and thoughts are being produced, but they are not me - I am the one watching them.
Human conditioning has us believe that thought is our identity. We think that a thought going through our mind is equal to reality and truth. A thought triggered by a familiar situation, like: “I am being abandoned again” and the action of shutting down emotionally seem to be one uninterrupted process. In truth there is a thought like “I am being abandoned again”, then there is a space, and then there is an action being taken. If we develop the ability to notice the space between thought and action, and then learn how to extend that space enough to actually pause, we come to realize that we have treated the thought as if it were the painful truth happening again, right now, when in fact we are reacting to a memory.
Knowing that the thought, as painful as it may be, is not me nor my identity, but a memory that presents itself as the reality, gives one new choices and strength. We can now choose to go down the path of repeating the pain by identifying with it, or we can realize that right now a new situation is happening. If we are able to stay with the circumstance that is happening here and now, we are likely to find out that it has nothing to do with the old script that got triggered.
In other words, when we develop the ability to watch the thoughts without identifying with them as “me” or real, when we can see them as the result of the mind’s thinking process rather than as our identity - We can then free ourselves from old pain and learn to experience life as a fresh and new adventure every day. Imagine the lightness of living without the burdens of past pain or negative conclusions!
When we stop identifying with the thoughts and the pain of the difficult chapters from the past, they are no longer experienced as obstacles in the present. Rather they become signposts - friendly reminders to stay rooted in the practice of fully living the present moment and exploring what it has to offer. These signposts then become great gifts!
Marie-Lou Kuhne Millerick
Although an event may have happened years ago, its shadow can still reach into the present in the form of fear, anger, or other expressions from the vast landscape of human emotion. Isn’t it interesting that a chapter of a story that happened two decades ago stays alive for so long. What is its link to the present? The Science of Awareness and Meditation answers that question by examining the functioning of the human mind and the thinking process.
The mind is our personal database where all events and situations that happened to us are stored. All day, the mind collects information through the senses and stores them as new data. Thoughts are the result of this mechanism of the mind. The activities and sensory impressions most prevalent during a given day will be reflected as the thoughts that go through our mind.
If, for example we fall in love and spend time with a new special person, we are likely to have a lot of thoughts about relationships, memories of past love, desires, or maybe worries for the future. A weekend of feeling lonely on the other hand can fill us with thoughts of fear, solitude or memories of abandonment. The rule of thumb for the mind’s functioning is: what you feed the beast is what you’ll have to digest. If the food is heavy, the digestion is likely to be heavy too.
We have the possibility to influence the content of the thoughts by choosing activities and the company of people that make us feel happy and inspired, but we have no control over the mechanism itself. The mind keeps generating thought after thought. It is a natural, ongoing occurrence that cannot be stopped willfully.
A trauma of the past can easily get triggered by a situation in the present through the mind’s process of storing and comparing data from its database. The ensuing thoughts about that past pain come in randomly and uninvited. They often linger or may become overwhelming and they can generate emotions that are very unpleasant. Through thinking, the event of 20 years ago is kept alive and fed new energy - almost as if it were happening all over again.
By understanding the habitual thinking mechanism we come to see that thoughts are the primary reason why the painful chapters of the past don’t lose their grip on the present. Since we can’t stop the thinking, how can we ever be free of the pain?
It is again the Science of Awareness and Meditation that offers an answer. During the practice of Meditation one notices that thoughts are coming and going while sitting with closed eyes. At times there will be many thoughts flying through at high speed, at others they will be like a slow wave flowing in and out. The Meditator learns to watch thoughts without engaging with them in any way. A crucial initial realization of Meditation is to see and experience that thinking is going on and thoughts are being produced, but they are not me - I am the one watching them.
Human conditioning has us believe that thought is our identity. We think that a thought going through our mind is equal to reality and truth. A thought triggered by a familiar situation, like: “I am being abandoned again” and the action of shutting down emotionally seem to be one uninterrupted process. In truth there is a thought like “I am being abandoned again”, then there is a space, and then there is an action being taken. If we develop the ability to notice the space between thought and action, and then learn how to extend that space enough to actually pause, we come to realize that we have treated the thought as if it were the painful truth happening again, right now, when in fact we are reacting to a memory.
Knowing that the thought, as painful as it may be, is not me nor my identity, but a memory that presents itself as the reality, gives one new choices and strength. We can now choose to go down the path of repeating the pain by identifying with it, or we can realize that right now a new situation is happening. If we are able to stay with the circumstance that is happening here and now, we are likely to find out that it has nothing to do with the old script that got triggered.
In other words, when we develop the ability to watch the thoughts without identifying with them as “me” or real, when we can see them as the result of the mind’s thinking process rather than as our identity - We can then free ourselves from old pain and learn to experience life as a fresh and new adventure every day. Imagine the lightness of living without the burdens of past pain or negative conclusions!
When we stop identifying with the thoughts and the pain of the difficult chapters from the past, they are no longer experienced as obstacles in the present. Rather they become signposts - friendly reminders to stay rooted in the practice of fully living the present moment and exploring what it has to offer. These signposts then become great gifts!
Marie-Lou Kuhne Millerick
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