Q & A
Dear Blessed One,
The questions below are from email dialogues I’ve had with people after skype sessions.
SS in NV: I have this terror coming up that I am losing my mind. I try my best to drop out of the story and let go, but I feel like my mind is pulling out all the stops to get my attention. I feel like I am unraveling. I just don’t know what to believe anymore…
SR ~ Don’t believe anything. Let experience be your teacher. Losing my mind was my greatest fear too. I could see after I lost my mind that it was actually the mind that was crazy and the best thing that ever happened to me was to lose it. It was something I had to experience though.
Stop thinking. Thinking stops when we stop listening / lose interest in the stream of chatter. The best way to stop listening is to tune into something in the body, anything.
Consider the possibility that unraveling is the next step in your evolution. Ride the waves as mind proposes how awful unraveling is. What does it feel like ~ that’s the best way to drop out of story.
Typically the closer one is to non-identification with the mind, the louder it gets, as mind recognizes its demise. Breathe.
Whoever you ‘think’ you are, is not you. Surrender to the great wisdom of Life…it’s got you.
JG in UK: …I am studying with Andrew Harvey at the same time. I find you both absolutely great teachers who both move my heart, so I am torn & confused a little.
Andrew Harvey, who I adore, says we need sacred activism to help change the world for the better, yet you say everything is as it should be & it’s all unfolding in a preconceived way destined by the Goddess. I really need help in understanding this because I feel torn. I appreciate doing good is always good for its own sake, however I would really just love to know your views…
SR ~ All is well; the confusion you’re experiencing is serving a purpose. It’ll burn itself out and from the ashes will rise clarity. If you’re drawn to sacred activism, if that’s what makes your heart sing, do that. No thing to know, only to follow the creative impulse of life that flows through you naturally in every moment.
Stop trying to figure it out, drop into your body, listen, and follow your heart. Directions will change organically…as long as you’re not clinging to anything, shifts happen with ease, knowingness arises from within, and peace holds it all.
Life is a self-correcting system. It’s like over-steering when you’re learning to drive; you veer left and then swing right until you find the sweet spot in steering. See if you can relax into confusion…let it be. Recognize that it’s just the mind again thinking it has to know! Knowing comes from a much deeper place. It comes through you, not from the mind. The mind is constantly broadcasting old news. Stop paying attention to it. Put your attention elsewhere.
JB in AZ: I viewed a video which I resonated with. It pointed to how people said they wanted freedom and yes even experienced it, ‘but’, and there’s the word, but… So in a way people don’t value freedom, i.e., not as much as their conditioning; ‘but I need to attend to this first, but…’ And it may cost them 10 years before they say please take me, buts amid all, and, for God’s sake, rest in the freedom. What I sense is you had that one, pure intention, desire — me, not so sure.
SR ~ Yes, I had one burning desire: to wake up no matter what it took. Underlying that intention was fear of what it might take. It took a number of painful dramas to distract me from desperate seeking and the great desire to awaken for Self-realization to occur.
In regard to the ‘but… list,’ I ask the person I’m working with to explore what they’re committed to. Committed to validating their story? Gathering witnesses? Committed to suffering? Pain? Anger? Limitedness? Fear? How attached to the conditioned, restricting mind that says, ‘not yet,’ is the one who wants freedom? Examine that one. Look for the one who sees all the reasons why ‘this is not the time for me.’ When you find the one with the ‘but… list,’ hold that aspect of self. Console and nurture like you would a young child. It’s only fear. As you love and respect all aspects of self, integration happens naturally and that particular persona no longer screams to be seen, creating space for new commitments.
AC in NY: I recently talked with a gentleman… kundalini… spirituality… but something seemed off… Then I figured it out — he is an atheist, an intellectual scientist that had different explanations for every part of his process… it has left me feeling a bit off and confused about the whole God question and is there really a supreme being?
When they say in spirituality that the spiritual is the last to go, is that what’s possibly happening to me?
SR ~ The only supreme being is You. There is nothing outside of you. You’re playing a game of hide-and-seek with yourself. Feel into that. Don’t buy into anyone else’s reality.
See if you can determine what it is that Life is asking of you in the moment. Pause, take one or two conscious breaths, move attention from labels, judgment, and preferences and shift awareness into the heart. See the person / situation through the eyes of Love. Evolution / awakening / expansion happens naturally and is painless when you’re not struggling to hold onto anything that is shifting or leaving.
When you wake up in the morning, the dream that you had the night before fades and leaves no injuries, losses, or triumphs in your waking state. It is the same in your “waking state”.
As we continue awakening / evolving, there is less and less identification with the dream of life. We realize nothing is happening; no injuries, losses, or triumphs. Even though our humanness may still experience sadness, anger, etc., when we become lucid in the dream of life, we can choose to not make up a story about the feelings, feel them, and notice as they fade away without leaving wreckage in their wake.
Be like the tree that lets the wind shake her leaves…no resentment, no resistance. Let life have its way with you. It’s all “spiritual” ~ spirit in form.
In the relaxed state of presence, see how you’re being guided in every moment to respond to what is in front of you. Are you being called to action? Are you being pressed to open wider and see from a higher perspective? Is something being triggered from deep within so that it may come up for healing?
Much Love and Blessings to You,
shellee
“To put it still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet..” ~ Alan Watts