Category Archives: And then I met God, again

This is a group of posts in regards to large changes in perspective that I have had on the path. It be relevant to a specific God or Goddess, but might not.

And then I met God, again, Shadows

Safety

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I never really thought that I would see Safety as a complicated topic. I was raised AMAB in a not-so-small-anymore Northern Michigan city and I know I am a product of all of the toxic stuff that came come from that. While I had a lot of privilege in my situation, being hispanic made some things a bit more difficult. As an AMAB person, I was supposed to put forward strength at all angles. With those goggles “Safety” can actually correlate with weak. If you are acting to show emotional safety, you are not showing your strength.

The way that I was affected by being hispanic with regards to safety is that I chose to make myself less intimidating. The way I carry myself, the way I speak, the words I use. I worked very hard for a long time so that when I interacted with people, they didn’t see a threat. While this is a tool I created for myself that no longer serves me, this truly benefited my life at this time. While it didn’t stop people from following me in most stores I went to, it limited the times people asked security to be on guard, and it limited the times I was asked to leave businesses. I found a way to change that allowed me to find a bit more safety in my every day. As a side effect, that does serve me now, I learned the value of and how to start offering up: Safety.

On my Services page, the first service I offer is: “Confidential Communication (It is amazing how healing it can be to just be heard)”. And do you know why it is SO important for people to be heard? When a person is heard, they feel safer.

The human psyche is an incredibly powerful thing. When you are in the midst of a fight, you cannot spare the resources to heal. And with so much of our community being aggressive as forms of sharing their opinions and beliefs, the everyday world has become a place of fear and anxiety. Which doesn’t allow much time for healing. We rarely feel safe enough to allow ourselves to heal. For some of us, even in our own homes, we do not have space to feel safe. And when we finally find it, our psyche allows us to open up and start the healing process.

Imagine being the reason that someone else can feel safe… How good would that feel? I do not correlate safety with weak. I find that any means you can show vulnerability actually shows an incredible amount of strength. And with that strength, you can create a safe place for people, you can build connections with people, and you can become a little more whole. With all of that said, what beauty can come from you finding a way to create a safe space for people? When you can make people feel safe, and you continue to be the person you are trying to be, people will feel better in your presence. People will feel the safety you offer, and they will be open to connection. And connection is one of the most important things for me to gain. I want people to feel safe, I want to be a person that allows people to feel safe, and find connections.

What is one thing you can do in your everyday to offer even a single person Safety?

And then I met God, again, Empowering Self, Pride

How is being an Ally spiritual?

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It is Pride Month. The world is being flooded with marketing about how hip and cool the rainbow is. Be bold, show your “Pride”, wear a rainbow. And I find it to be blessing and curse as we walk forward because putting forward support for a marginalized group of people is always important, turning everything into a means of making money through marketing, is going to always end up being toxic for the people it affects.

First of all, to be clear: I am a Hispanic Straight Cisgender Male (HSCM). I have been working towards being an Ally since I learned I had friends that were part of the LGBTQIA+ community, and I started to see the privilege I had as an SCM. And how did I become a better Ally?

I actually remember a conversation with an acquaintance of mine and he asked me (rather aggressively) “What would you do if your child was gay?” I responded to him, “I would hope that they felt safe telling me.” … When my child came out to me, I realized that I needed to be BOLD in my Ally-ship. In order to combat my-own fears of them being confronted by the worst of society, I ordered myself a bunch of t-shirts, and flags. I hung our flags in the front of our house, I started frequently wearing different shirts making sure that everyone I saw knew I was safe for anyone in the community. And most importantly, I tried to make my actions evidence of the ally-ship that my shirts promised. From there, it is pretty easy. I remain open to learning, I remain open to being wrong, and being able to hear that I can be wrong. I listened to hear. I listened to grow.

And if you need to hear it:

If you have a friend/family member/coworker come out to you, make sure they know that you care. Whoever/Whatever they tell you they are, be clear that you still feel the same way about them. I think one of the largest fears is that them being who they are will break any relationships they have. (This is from what I have gathered, I don’t mean to speak for anyone in the LGBTQIA+ community.) But I also want you to know that being an ally does not mean that you can’t make mistakes. I still make a TON of mistakes. And when you do, acknowledge it, apologize, and see how you can grow. Then do the work to actually grow from it.

One of the ways that I would say that being an Ally is spiritual is because it requires you to find integrity in yourself, and hold the constant ability that there is something bigger out there that you can choose to be part of. In order to be an Ally, I cannot turn it off when I take off my rainbows. I need to be bold and visible in being an Ally in December, just like I am in June.

Being aware that we all wear masks when we are around different groups of people has the full weight of making sure that the pieces of yourself that are truly in integrity with yourself are the ones that are true no matter which masks you wear. It requires a strength and forcefulness that most people hesitate around. I am actually pretty good with conflict, but I hate it. I know that standing up is scary, AND I know that staying seated perpetuates oppression.

Another way being an Ally is spiritual is that it requires you to learn and grow all of the time. You cannot start with a belief you cling to. You must accept the awareness you currently have, and be open to it changing when new information becomes available. (It is actually the same as Science. X is truth, until we find Y, which is proven by better science.)

One more item that I feel the need to state clearly, being an Ally is spiritual because as I learn more about spirit and people, I see that we are all the same. We are all individual lives that want to be seen, heard, loved, and have some basic rights. I often say that my religion is Relationships. This is because Relationships are one thing in this world that is worth constantly growing and learning to improve. There is so much to be gained to everyone involved when we are all working towards that sacred reciprocity that comes from sharing caring-gestures with another person. To me, this says that taking of my blinders, and acknowledging that I have it easier than other people, and willing to do what I can to help people without expectation of return ~ is literally my religion. So in a way, being an Ally is part of my faith, and happens to come with epically beautiful t-shirts.

And then I met God, again, Empowering Self

More Grace

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I find this pandemic to be tough. There are actually many things that are positive in my life within the circumstances, so please don’t think I don’t see it. But, I do see some things that are happening in mine, and many others lives, that could be judged as a strong negative. I am sure you can stop for a moment and think of several things.

This morning, I wanted to finish a movie I had started a couple of days ago, so I decided to hop on the treadmill so I could justify to myself that it was okay to be watching a movie. Sometimes it feels like sitting to relax and watch a movie feels like a luxury that needs to be earned. And saying that “out loud” it makes me see all sorts of issues I carry around self-worth, value, and more. But even with all of that, I allowed myself to really escape into the movie (while at a fast walk/slow jog). As the movie was building to its climax, I found that I was feeling tears coming to my eyes, and that is when I realized I needed to post.

If you have read much of my blog, you will see that I frequently suggest you allow yourself to feel. And this morning I FELT why I have said this so frequently. There is a release in allowing yourself to experience all of your emotions (safely). A release that allows you to stay closer to your best self than you may have been in quite some time.

I offer two suggestions for myself today. And I invite you to consider them too.

  1. More Grace
    Some of us are living and doing okay. We are getting by with a solid display of okayness and acknowledging the bad with the good. Some of us are delighting in being allowed the solitude we frequently crave, or that time with our family we always feel too busy to experience. But there are those of us that are currently experiencing the absolute worst set back in their lives. No matter which of the three, or any complicated combination you are experiencing, I ask that you offer more Grace. Find a way to realize that the person(s) before you (hopefully 6′ away) are possibly facing the worst fear or pain they have ever encountered. Acknowledge that they might be in their worst selves at the moment. Think about how your dreams, your hope, and sometimes your kindness flee when you are faced with long term pain, or fear. Think about who you are at your worst. Then realize that the person before you is not the person they wish to be, but they are offer the best of what they have left. Offer them some grace. Realize that you are possibly in a much worse place than you allow yourself to see.

    Let me talk about me specifically. Knowing that I need to keep moving forward, and knowing that people rely on me, I (in an almost subconscious level) fall to saying, “I’m fine.” and pushing forward. But here is the truth. I am not fine. I simultaneously hold the joys and sorrows and there is no such thing as balancing them.

    I feel the joys of:
    1. spending time with my family
    2. reassembling our old home
    3. having students in my spiritual path
    4. and being able to work on exciting tasks for a job that I can do from my home.

    I feel the sorrows of:
    1. while being under quarantine, I am not able to use the tools I have built for myself to fight off depression
    2. of not feeling like I can really enjoy this time with family as my workload is now: everything I did before plus the need to be a teacher’s aid for both of my children
    3. of feeling like the responsibility of routine for the kids is on me, and even more so that I can’t hold that responsibility at all, so the entirety of our responsibilities for managing time and schedules falls on my wife.
    4. of feeling that despite my competence and effort, I still feel like I can never be enough.
    5. of knowing that life is still happening out there, that friends are experiencing new diagnoses of cancer, getting surgeries that cannot be pushed back, experiencing pain and trauma, and I am completely unable to offer assistance.

    That allows me to realize how even when I carry myself as “Fine”, I can really be falling apart on the inside.

    I ask this of you. Think about you, empathize with others, and to both: try to offer: More Grace.
  2. Give yourself the space… to feel.
    While More Grace was more important for you to hear first, this is more important for you to do. So let’s describe who I am talking about here. Me. Who else? You. I am speaking to you, specifically. If you have any sort of reaction like: “Real men don’t have emotions.” Or “I am not a wimp.” I want you to finish reading this, and then read this this a second time. Feel your fucking feelings. Feel them completely. If you have a partner, I invite you to sit down with them, look them in the eye, and ask how they are doing. And in turn, I invite you to honestly speak about where you are. Try this if you need a starter:

    – I am feeling joy because …
    – I am feeling sorrow because …
    – I am feeling anger because …
    – I am feeling fear because …

    I want you to say all 4 phrases to someone else, and fill in the … with your truth. You might be amazed in the difference things feel between you and your partner. How your connection deepens. And Connection is what we need most right now. If your partner response with: “I’m fine.” please have them read this post.

    Another thing that I want you to know, that MOST OF US will feel embarrassment for sharing our sorrows and our fear. And that is okay. This is what trust really means.

    Our second family rule is: “Feel your Fucking Feelings.” This is the second most important thing in our house (Behind: “Don’t Die”) We have worked to build enough trust that we can share with our kids our fears and sorrows, and they can share with us the same. Start here, build connection, be brave enough to trust. Connection is built on sharing true feeling.

And then I met God, again, Lost in Translation

Growing is really hard

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Most of the work I do comes down to me growing, or helping someone else to grow.  Both of which help the community to grow. And growth comes from change. And change is often scary.

Considering how growth is hard, and change is scary, why do I keep striving for it?  The ideas around “it changes the community” really don’t go that far when I am looking down the barrel of the metaphorical shotgun called change, so why do I keep striving?

This is probably the most important information I could pass on, and it is somewhat like trying to describe the most beautiful place you have ever been, with a person who has never experienced sight. It is so tangible to me, but you might not have the same basis for comparison.  So I would like to try to share the difference between where I was last year on a vacation, and where I am now on vacation, And that change really comes from change I have been willing to make, and the growth I have experienced from it.

I would like to point out that my vacation last year was really good.  While I will describe the challenges to you, it is important that you know that it was good. But there is so much that goes on in our heads, that affects our every interaction in our everyday, that we don’t share in a way that is helpful.

I can recall clearly, that even though we budgeted to prepare enough cash to purchase what we needed on the trip, every dollar we spent, made me nervous about overspending, and wrought with anxiety.  I was afraid of spending too much, despite my pre-planning.

I can recall clearly, that I was nervous about timeliness every morning when we were planning to do something.  My family any I tend to run late. This is something I am learning to accept, but I still experience a large amount of anxiety and stress around getting ourselves ready and out the door.  And I anticipate and fear the kids battling me to get out, and how hard and stressful it will be, despite there not really being stakes to our timeline.

I can recall clearly, that when the kids hate the food they get, and want something more.  And the dread and frustration I experience when they won’t just eat the damn food they ordered.

But here are the pieces that I didn’t see until just recently.  Actually, until my son was brave enough to call me out on it.

My anxiety in those areas, drastically affect the experience of my family in those situations.  It makes them not only anxious in the moment, but it also makes them fear my reactions in those moments, and makes them experience shame around not achieving the unnamed goal I am clearly upset by. (That is actually painful for me to type) And they then change their behavior to something that hides from my reactions in those moments, but reinforces their shame and feelings of failure…

So I am telling you, that I experience valid emotions around validly frustrating experiences, and it negatively affects the experiences of those around me. In fact, my family, who are the most important to me.

By stopping in the moment, and listening to the experience of my family, and being honest about what I am experiencing…  Acknowledging that we planned for the expenses, we don’t have to stress about it every time. Acknowledging that we do NOT have to be anywhere in this moment, and there are no consequences to being late to a venue like, the park. And realizing that when I go out to eat, it can be crushing to spend $12 on a plate of food and find it detestable, allows me to finally acknowledge that my kids feel that way too. They want so badly to try something new and enjoy it, and on top of not enjoying it, they feel shame around ‘wasting my money’.

This vacation, when I experience the stress about money, I spoke up about it to my wife.  We talked about our plans, and came up with ideas for me to honor that concern/fear, while also not adding that stress to the family. When we are coming up close to a time where we need to be somewhere, I speak about plan or concern, and the family steps up to assure that we won’t be behind, but also about when I don’t there is no requirement around the time set. When the kids eat something that they don’t like, and just get quiet about it, I look at them and say, “it is ok.  We will pick them up something from a fast food restaurant on the way back to the hotel, because they were brave enough to try something new, and it didn’t work out.” I actually saw this in my daughter today, and I saw that my negative reactions in the past only made things worse, and today I could start showing her that I understand.

I was completely unaware how those anxieties and fears were affecting me in my everyday. It took my son, and my daughter to trust me enough, to tell me I needed to do better, that allowed me to earn that trust that they offered.  It is a cycle that can go either way. If you act as your worst self, you perpetuate the world around you making you your worst self.

And what I am experiencing now, is that I can perpetuate being my best self, by acting my best self. If it is simply calming my response in a noisy car, if it is slowing down and explaining something again, if it is ordering a second meal, or even if it is taking 5 minutes in a stressful time to massage my wife’s back…  The extra work has only proven that we can have an enjoyable vacation together. There was laughter in the back seat, on a long and painful drive. My daughter got to feel her feelings about the food she didn’t like, and still got to eat something. We spent time at the pool together. I feel like we can be really successful in our trip, and after and cumulative 12 hours in the car with my family, I am looking forward to the next 5 days of vacation, not feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.

I think the hardest thing about change, is really that to change, you have to accept responsibility for your actions.  But the the value in the work, is priceless.

And then I met God, again

What is the Misa?

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I think it is important to note the Quechua is a very interesting language. And over time, it has adapted quite a bit to the Spanish language which is also spoken heavily in Peru.

The proper Quechua word is Misaq’epe. And a rough translation for this is: “the collection of khuyas or power objects given by the teacher or Nature Spirits to the Paq’o (Shaman/Mystic/Priest/Healer/Wiseperson).” The Misaq’epe is a physical extension of the Andean Priests power and is used in almost all ceremonies. This is also stated as Misa for short, or Mesa, which is the Spanish word for table or plain, referring to the flat surface it creates when opened for use.

The Misa is a ceremonial cloth, filled with Khuya, and other pieces relevant to the Paq’o. It can contain almost anything at the Paq’os discretion. But each item in it carries value in the Misa. It serves many purposes. And the least of which is to carry the Khuya and tools. It truly is an extension of the Paq’os power. Through the Misa, I see the Universe around me, and within that universe, I see the truths that exist around us. Even the ones that don’t seem apparent. And even if they are too subtle, or disconnected for me to see, all the truths are there.

I feel like I could look at the layout of my Misa, and the contents, for days straight and never come near finding all of the meanings that it has to tell me. And that is only trying to look for a single person. The Misa can be used for connection to the individual Khuya, or all of them, it can be used to connect to individuals, it can be used to read people/places/things, or do divinations, and it can also be used to change the universe around a person. It is a grave responsibility, and it is a remarkable power.

The Misa, and all it can do, gives me so much to be grateful for on this path. I continue to learn more about myself as it challenges me to be a better person.

Ancestors, And then I met God, again

Ayni

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Ayni (Eye-knee) is a Quechua word for Sacred Reciprocity. And to be very clear, Reciprocity is not just given and taking of things in equal value.  Sacred reciprocity is about you gifting what you can without expectation of return, and how it gives people a feeling of joy that allows them to feel generosity in their own spirit.

My work as a Paqo is done on the Gift Economy.  Which makes me endless happy for several reasons:

  1. It allows me to use my privilege to assure that those with less do not have to do without my aid.
  2. It allows people to be helped, and if they choose to give a gift in return, it can be something that means a lot to them, and allows their soul to feel that there is an equitable exchange. To elaborate, if I charged $60 an hour for my services, my work becomes transactional, and they value of it ends once the check is written. If I don’t charge, and a person decides that they would like to give me a monetary gift so they can offer me something of value in exchange… The exchange has happened, both people are happy, but there is a remaining feeling of I appreciate you, and I feel slightly indebted to you (in a positive way).  But it also allows for someone to gift me a piece of handmade art. Which has value that our capitalistic market doesn’t recognize.  Handmade art carries the Kawsay (Cow-ss-eye) or life energy of the piece.
  3. It allows people to be helped, and just accept it for the gift it is, and not feel the need to return something.
  4. It honors the wonders of Ayni: which is an essential aspect of all things for a Paqo.
  5. I have also noticed that with the Gift Economy, the transaction doesn’t end. Many of my clients become friends and we build strong relationships ~ which is also an essential aspect of all things for a Paqo.

Ayni is such an essential thing for me personally as well as my work as a Paqo.  I realized today while I was taking a walk around our neighborhood on this lovely Equinox day, that I feel indebted to my mentor, my Ayllu, and the lineage, history, and care of the Q’ero people.

I work hard to hold a balance of Ayni with both my mentor and Ayllu, but I was trying to figure out how I can aid the Q’ero. I was recently turned onto an organization, by a friend Tami, called The Heart Walk Foundation. The goal of this US Non-Profit is to aid the Q’ero people in their lives high in the Mountains.  You can donate to the Q’ero directly through their site, or, you can purchase some of the beautiful hand-woven textiles that carry both: their history, as well as the Kawsay of the people.

Through the Heart Walk Foundation, you can donate to help the lives of Alpaca’s (which are essential to the way of life), Directly to the Education of Children, Health, Food, and Security.

I have spoken directly with a member of the board of this organization, and I fully support what they are doing.

Currently, I support friends who are creating things that matter, I support Black Lives Matter, and I will now start supporting the Heart Walk Foundation in their efforts to help the Q’ero people.

I would ask two things of you:

  1. Consider the power of your money.
  2. If you wish to offer a gift to me, you may do so in submitting your support for either of these two organization.

Heart Walk Foundation
Black Lives Matter

 

 

And then I met God, again, Lost in Translation

Tower of Babel

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For those of you who have not heard this story, I will give you the briefest possible explanation.

Towards the beginning of mankind, mankind got overly proud of their own prowess and decided to build a tower to the heavens to meet God. After they reached a point that was higher than God was comfortable with, he stopped them, destroyed the building, and created hundreds of different languages for the people to speak, so they wouldn’t be able communicate with one another to rebuild it.

I have often heard this story and frequently could only hear the scientific improbabilities. And this exact thing points to the issues I created, in trying to not hear what people said about God. Looking back, I see that my goal in doing so was to NOT hear them. It was not to point out science. It actually gives a poor name to both science and faith.

If I were to alter my goal in that argument to line up with my interests, hear them, and speak truths I see in their faith, so that we can all work together, the story looks a bit different.

Let us start with the idea that this whole interaction is true. I find that no matter what faith you are in, while you don’t have to believe in the other person’s faith, it is important to know that their faith is true for them. With that, I see the story above as being very different.

It seems to me that in order for us to make sense of things, we personify everything. So, while we might have been made in God’s image, I doubt Ze* has our pettiness, frivolousness, or ignorance. What if Ze destroyed the tower and created the different languages, not to STOP people from meeting Hir* face to face, but so that we CAN meet Hir face to face.

The reality, is that God is all around us. No matter how you label Hir. God is in the air, the plants, the trees, and all the beings. What if this tower was prevented because people were under the misconception that you needed to build some remarkable tower to meet Hir. And by destroying that tower, and preventing the communication to recreate it, maybe God was reigning us back in from a humongous Red Herring? What if Ze was both, redirecting us to a helpful place, but also making ‘God’ accessible to everyone, including those who could NOT build a tower.

Food for thought.

*Ze and Hir are gender neutral ways to identify She/He and Him/Her

And then I met God, again, Spirit Interaction

Caution

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One thing that I find troubling about worship is the amount of effort it takes.

While I am aware the effort is part of the point, I often feel that taking that first step, putting that initial effort forward, is like an opening gambit in chess. It is requesting a relationship that you then need to maintain. That is where the hesitation comes in.

This train of thought really gets me thinking about the relationships I have now, and how hard it seems to be to maintain them. How my efforts seem to be never enough. (Insert several more expressions for anxiety here)

But when it comes down to it, so many of the things with which I work, exist as a consciousness because they have been believed in. So the fact that I even fret about not offering enough to maintain a “proper” relationship, is in fact, worship onto itself…

I am quite excited at this realization. But that got me thinking deeper… What Spirits/Gods am I worshipping that I have not acknowledged? How many hours a day do I spend worrying about the dishes or a confrontation at work? Ever notice how the more you worry about something, the bigger it seems to get?

Also, how many hours do I spend on my computer, my phone, Facebook, Instagram? It made me see that putting an Apple Logo on my God Alter might not go amiss…

By having a subscription to Amazon Prime, am I increasing the energetic power of the spirit created through the worship? All of the sudden, my ideas of social justice give me some clear boundaries on where and with what I worship. It brings much more meaning to “Every dollar is a vote.”

What do you worship that you aren’t yet aware of?

And then I met God, again, Sometimes, one thing, is everything

Connections

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If we look at some basic principles of Qi in Chinese Medicine, you see that the Qi (or energy) that makes the core of you, is a knot of all sorts of energy cords that come from many other places.  It is like you are the central hub and a definition of the crossing points of all of the different energies that make you, you. Basically, you are made of a giant intermingling of energetic cords.

Now, if we take that idea forward, and think about our interactions, to have an interaction with someone, you are actually taking an energetic cord, and trying to energetically make a connection to them.  This can be a positive thing, and it can go bad.  But that is a story for another time.  I have noticed for a very long time that I will see someone, and I feel connected to them.  The only word I have for it is attracted to them.  And I feel that this is where our language breaks down.

When I say attraction, I am not meaning sexual attraction.  No matter what that person looks like, nor how I perceive and judge that appearance, this attraction has nothing to do with it.  It is almost as if I can sense an aspect of who that person is.  An aspect of their essence. And from that brief glimpse of who they are, I feel as if I know something about them, and that something seems to override any visual representation that I take in with my eyes.

This is something that I would like clarity on.  And I would like to offer clarity in a place where neither our language, nor our culture is very clear.

There are several people I have met, mostly women, but also some men, transgender, pangender folks as well.  And it took me a long time to figure out that this wasn’t a physical attraction.  I am seeing that they are a person with whom I could connect.  And when I can trust that connection, without judging it, I can find a soul with whom I can connect.

For example, my family and I were visiting some family-friends in London, England.  We were having dinner, and we very briefly saw one of our friends that had simply been unavailable each time we had been there in the past.  And when I saw her, I instantly felt that connection. This was initially confusing for me.  She is a strong, intelligent and kind woman, and that is the sum of everything I would find attractive in a woman.  But it was so clear to me that the attraction I felt was not about romance.  The longer I thought on this, the idea came to mind, “Best Friend”.  And that was actually a defining moment for me.  I realized that this confusing pull that I have had, that seems to transcend people’s physical appearances, was an energetic connection giving me a clue about the people with whom I could be close to.  To be able to trust, and be 100% authentic with. This was a feeling I was having that talked to people I could trust and truly find friendship in.

Our language supports very few kinds of relationships without paragraphs of explanation. Friend, Romantic, Enemy, None.

If we can look beyond this, we can see all of the various relationships here are: (Like my post about love)

The relationship with your dog.
The relationship with a respected peer.
The relationship with a well spoken professor.
The relationship with your son’s friend.
The relationship with your favorite Oak Tree
The overarching complicated relationship with your extended family.

There are so many I could list that are boldly different, and remarkably and subtly different from the above.

I often mock the creation of new words that can come out of modern culture, but I cannot dis-acknowledge the benefits of words like “Frenemy”.  My kids use this all that time.  And it is a single word that actually takes a very complicated relationship where you are mostly friends, but there is some competition between you, and you regularly have spats that seem quite mean, but when it comes down to it, you would defend that person as a friend….  This single word articulates a complicate relationship.

While we may not yet have the vernacular to describe the complexity of the 90 thousand potential relationships, we can start to acknowledge them.  We can acknowledge, and even converse about the nuances of relationships, and how they are not always a relationship that must be Romantic if you are nice to each other but it is not quite friends.

By acknowledging these, we can start being clear with our intentions about those energy cords we send out in making connections with people.

It can become clear, and perhaps society can see, that if I, as a male, and teaching a female something, does not mean that there is romance even as an idea in the conversation.

Relationships can become more clear when we are transparent from the beginning that our intentions are to be a strong friendship, in a way that is NOT romantic.  And if at some point, those intentions change, be honest about that too.

When we are talking about how to connect better with others, let us start, by being clear with ourselves.

Ancestors, And then I met God, again, Shadows, Sometimes, one thing, is everything

Shadows

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There are so many aspects of myself that I have spent years finding new ways to look around and avoid.  What I have learned so far on this path, can really be summed up to a single act.

Find, acknowledge, and accept your own shadows.

What is a shadow?  The definitions are slightly varied here or there, but the core of it is this: A shadow is any aspect of yourself that you avoid, or causes you to act in a way that are not in your best insterest.

Need examples?  Some of my shadows I have found are these…

  1. My cruelty
  2. My Ego
  3. My hatred
  4. My anger
  5. My Recklessness
  6. Money

These are aspects of myself that I had avoided for years.  And after spending some really difficult time sitting with those feelings, learning to accept them as part of me, and moving forward, I feel something important has shifted.  My understanding.

I have always run away from the aspect of myself that was cruelty.

But I realized that Cruelty is only one end of that spectrum.  The other end is Generosity. And many problems in my life have fallen into line, by simply accepting the balance that swings between Generosity and Cruelty.  Remember, only acknowledging one of the two, leaves you without balance, and out of control.  Accepting the aspect that my value judgements dislike, I have found that the skill I have that makes me so efficient with my cruelty (my tongue, and ability to say exactly the right words to hurt someone) is actually a skill that is equally as strong with Generosity.  I learned that I also have the ability to say exactly the right words that someone needs to hear, to allow themselves to heal.

I have so many shadows. The 5 above are simply the ones that are the loudest, and somewhat more simple to deal with for it.  But there are so many other shadows that overshadow aspects of our lives.  And some are far more profound than others.

This past weekend, I did some extremely hard work, and encountered a shadow that I didn’t realize I was holding onto.  When I was 16, I moved out of my parents house.  And there was a physical altercation that was the trigger point for me leaving. The physical altercation did not actually cause this shadow.  It was the fact that while I was ‘facing-off’ with my step-father, my mom was standing over his shoulder, not doing anything.  I completely accept that she was probably terrified.  But that moment, told me that she didn’t care enough about me or my safety, to overcome her fear.  I realized that it put her in almost a paradox, where every direction she felt like she failed.  I left home, because of that.

It didn’t end there though. This past weekend, I re-encountered this experience, again.  This is not the first time I have looked at this shadow, and found a new dark spot.  I felt that deep sadness. It sat right over my heart Chakra, and was a black-hole density of sadness.  I let myself go into that feeling to work through the problem and I cannot tell you the challenge it held for me.  But I came through it.  And I saw things much more clearly.  I saw that I have the ability to cut my caring almost as clean as with a blade.  Just like I felt from my mother that day.  I found that I fear that my kids will one day see that I didn’t care, so I model myself after this “ideal” I have where my efforts can be so forced as to feel in-genuine.  That made me feel sick.  This insidious shadow snuck into the core of who I am, and could have possibly ruined my goal of having my kids remember our time together as happy, and knowing that we could be authentic and true with each other.  Realizing what that one shadow, that I didn’t even realize I still carried, had such a profound affect on who I currently am.  And how holding on to that memory was such a strong item causing self-sabotage made me realize that I need to look so much deeper to clear the stigma of my shadow self, accept me for me, without the burden of those stigmas, and to grow.

I feel so much lighter, and I feel so ready for the challenge.