Opening to what is already always here.. the end of seeking for well being

The search for freedom, it can be a long and arduous road indeed. Most of us are sold a bill of goods from the time we are very young about what we need to "do" to have a happy and fulfilled life. My story was something like this, go to school and get good grades, go to college, get a career making a lot of money, buy a house and find a man, then you'll be happy. 

I've spent a lot of time and energy seeking fulfillment, chasing after my dream, accomplishing and achieving, making money and seeking acknowledgment from those I respected. Of course sometimes it came and other times not so much, what became more and more clear was that I could not create a lasting fulfillment and well being for myself. I was not free, I was in deep bondage, I was seeking my well being in relationships, substances, experiences, acquiring, education and it was spotty at best. Being on the search for fulfillment, thinking that it is "out there" and "only in these circumstances and not in others" is exhausting and endless! That's the "search" that goes on forever because there is no end to the seeking, there is always more to seek and never a finding that really lasts. All relationships change over time, careers change, totally fulfilling experiences change, what was at one time satisfying can become boring, no matter how much money, education, acknowledgment you get there is something in us that is insatiable, always wants more or different so the seeking never ends.. 

In the midst of this very ambitious drive to squeeze all the vibrancy out of life that I could, I also thankfully had this spiritual thirst wake up in me. As a child I felt very connected to life, guided, inspired, very alive inside of myself. This still small voice inside of me started whispering to me, reminding me of this rich resource that later I discovered within my very own being. Many years later I am still discovering this endless supply of brilliant aliveness that is actually the life that I am. The animating life force that is this life called JoAnne, it's me, I'm the one I've been looking for. 

It's been an amazing discovery that I don't have to look for what I already am, I'm already that! I've just been asleep to this open intelligence that is within me and in awakening to this clarity that I am, the search for well being is over. 

What if this total freedom and well being is right here right now and all one has to "do" is to relax and let everything be as it is. No need to avoid or indulge any particular thoughts, feelings or experiences, rather we can just relax as awareness and let it all be. In that relaxation we can open up to the fullness that we already are.  This is "the work" to develop a daily practice of taking short moments to simply rest and remember, to find my center and then to live from this place of clarity and well being.  

What to do instead of diving into the story..

When is the last time you were excited about spending time with your friend or lover and they were either unavailable to distracted or just not showing up the way you had hoped? What's the result? You feel hurt, disappointed, angry? This happened to me last night, I showed up, made myself available and the other person was not available, apparently they did not get my internal memo and there I was left with my expectation. Well I felt the disappointment that's for sure, but I did not sulk, I did not dive into a story about how I wanted or needed the other person to stop what they were doing and make time for me, I did not get a resentment, I took a breath instead and took care of myself. Wow! 
I've spent so much of my life trying to get what I want, trying to get others to do what I wanted, go where I wanted, act like I wanted, give me what I wanted. It's exhausting I tell ya.. 

To develop this practice of relaxing when you get triggered and pause and go within to that quiet inner space of contentment and well being that is always available if only we can take 100% responsibility for our own experience. To have total clarity that we can empower ourselves by relying on our own inner presence of love whenever we can remember to do so. This is liberation!

What a revelation.. to have this clarity over and over.. My hurt, disappointment and resentments result directly from my expectations and not from what happens or does not happen. This is so liberating and allows me to drop all blame and habits of thinking that others need to be different for me to be happy. I can be peaceful and content in my realization of the presence of God, presence, love. When I can realize this loving presence is always here than truly I am not in lack. Then I can relax and let things be as they are, however I feel or whatever I think, the well being is always on. This is the key taking 100% responsibility for my own well being, no one can give it to me and no one can take it away. It's a big bonus too if I can remember to not take things personally, people do what they do, they show up or they don't, they are available for love and connection or they are not, they are sensitive and caring or they are not, but irregardless of what others do or don't do I can find my own ground, my own stability, my own well being.. then I'm truly free!

You are a hero!!

Do you feel like a hero? Do you see yourself as one.. well I'm here to tell
you that indeed you are!
I've been watching the tv show Heroes lately, underneath the entertainment
& drama there are some powerful messages I hear being voiced.

-We are special, we all have "special abilities", special gifts that set us 
apart and our "job" is to recognize this and use our abilities to serve 
and help others. When we are doing this it does not feel like work, we are
energized and inspired, not depleted.

-We are innately beneficial, we are here to benefit ourselves and others
(I've learned from my spiritual community) and nothing feels better than
this! I felt this strongly as a child, that I was very special, gifted, here for
something big, here to help and contribute!

-It's vital to have support & a community of others who recognize
their gifts and responsibility to know themselves fully and who "get that
we are innately beneficial" and we are here on the planet to benefit 
ourselves and to be of benefit to others!

-We have an opportunity to keep asking ourselves, "Who Am I really?"  
It's so easy to get caught up in the "limited descriptions" of who we 
think we are and the labels (I'm good because of this or I'm bad cause of that).
This is a detour away from the full realization of this dive into the question
"who am I' - and asking the question over and over, taking a moment to pause
and relax and reflect, is a way into discovering our infinite essence and the
capacity to see that what we are- is this awareness .. that is aware of 
everything but not contained fully in any particular description.

Asking the question is a moment to pause.. it is an invitation to rest as this
awareness and come to know ourselves as this.. (ok I'm going a bit beyond
what the message is from the tv show).

-what we discover when we keep asking the question "who am I"  
or "what do I really want" and focusing more on the deep asking is 
an infinite expansion and unending discovery into the divine essence 
of what we really are..  and who we are here to serve.

We are all heroes, we are all special, we are all empowered and have
access to this internalcapacity to know ourselves and access this wisdom
and clarity within. We have a choice in each moment to focus on this 
clarity of what we truly are (and to be supported by others doing the same)
rather than in the endless "drama" of the descriptions and stories of the happenings.

We have a choice to realize what we really are.. and to be guided from and live
from this realization.. Or we can go on getting caught up in all the descriptions,
the rights and the wrongs, the judgments, the opinions, the drama, and the result
is to be constantly distracted away (forgetting) from what we are really here to do..

Have you discovered your Super Power? Your very own Self?
I'd love to hear about it..

love and blessings,
JoAnne

in deep appreciation and acknowledgement of all the colors of life..

Listening to an amazing book with my kids, The Giver, I read it in 7th grade I think.

What rich dialogue we are having, this is the beauty of homeschooling and I'm cherishing this time with my boys.

A story about one solution to eliminate pain, suffering, war, violence, death, all the sorrow of life.. the cost for this is called "sameness" and it is the elimination of joy, love, nature, color, variety and individuality and choices.. but here's the catch.. the people in this culture don't know what they are missing..

One boy in the story is selected at age 12 to have this special job, to hold the memories of the past for the whole community. No one in this community chooses their own job, or their own spouse, or their children. They are given a job, based on their interests at age 12 for life. They request a spouse and children, they live with a spouse for the time of raising children and then they go to live with childless adults, they don't have sex, they take a pill to suppress these extreme feelings. All of this is governed by the rules, if they break the rules, they are disciplined and if it continues they are released. Jonas our main character is selected to be the holder of all the memories of the past, memories of all the things that the culture has taken away to offer a world of safety, predictability, sameness. As he is given the memories one by one, he learns about and experiences for the first time -weather, snow, animals, war, death, suffering, he learns that "release" (what they do to those who break the rules, people who get sick and even babies who won't sleep through the night) is actually kill them and he suffers greatly.

As Jonas's eyes are opened, of course he chooses free choice, life with pain and color, reality rather than lying and having ones emotions cut off, he chooses to feel it all!

As I listened to the story when he actually sees color for the first time, sees a bird, clouds.. he is in awe..

I started to ask myself .. how often am I in awe of the colors of life? all of the colors? in awe?

The sad news is that when I am caught up in my thoughts, my pain, my story, my limitation -like the culture where there are no real deep feelings, I don't notice the beauty of life, the color, the vibrance, the incredible aliveness of each moment. I don't notice the perfection of all of life because I am caught up in the limited descriptions and intense but ultimately passing experiences. These endless stories of what's what, how i feel, what i think, what's wrong, how much i hurt, who hurt me.. these stories are like the pills to make the urges go away, they cut me off from the vibrancy of life, give me a half life, seem to cut me off from the infinite expression of what I truly am. In this moment I choose again to be in awe to all the colors of life, to wake up to what's amazing, being alive, feeling it all, staring at the blue sky and knowing absolutely that the vast infinite sky is a mirror of the what I am .. opening to the expanse that I am.. open, resting and smiling.

Please.. don't leave me! What we actually want to hold on to..

Do you have one of those special people in your life? Somebody who seems to be able to "cause" a certain type of reactivity in you consistently? One of those who you want more than anything for them to just be kind to you and when they are short, insensitive, or less than loving or helpful, god forbid critical, it seems to send you straight to rage, hatred or deep despair and feeling wounded and deflated. Commonly spouses, family members or maybe our kids seem to be those "special" people, those closest to us, the ones we want to love the most, show up the best for, yet these are the very ones that we are often so triggered by and it seems like we really need these folks to love us (or so we think) in very particular ways and not respond to us in less sensitive or critical ways. These special people seem to have sticky notes attached to their foreheads, our stories about them are all we seem to notice, we're so caught up in our descriptions about these folks that we don't see them at all. All we really see is our story of who we "think" they are.

As we are often striving for healthier ways of being with ourselves, speaking with ourselves, relating to ourselves & referencing ourselves, we naturally want to surround ourselves with folks that are caring, respectful, kind and loving. I for one can say for sure that I am drawn to folks who see me for who I truly am, a reflection of perfection, divine spirit, whole, complete and possessing infinite capacity to know my true self & to express this fully in my life. To be around someone who knows their true nature, that they are beneficial my nature, here to benefit themselves and others is remarkable.

To know someone who is no longer caught up in endless self focus, self concern, who is no longer caught up in their own personal history, well to meet someone like this opens one up to that capacity that we all actually have. It gives us hope. That we to can have this liberation as is mentioned in the St Francis Prayer, It is in self forgetting that one finds. So some folks are here to push our buttons and some are here to shine the light on the path so we know the way back to the full remembrance of who and what we actually are. Well what I notice is that it's nicer to be with the people who are holding the flashlights and

guiding us along when it seems to be dark and we aren't sure where to go. I prefer to be with the kind people rather than the ones that seem to evoke the venom in me.. are you with me here?

It's an easy trap to fall into to think I'm just gonna stay away from those mean folks, so we get divorced, cut ourselves off, move on.. but for the most part it doesn't work, we find new people to push our buttons, for as long as we have the buttons...

This can be especially true when we are on a spiritual path, in recovery, working on ourselves, striving for healthier ways of relating, bringing more consciousness or awareness to our relating, practicing spiritual principles in our relationships.

It's a real art to take 100% responsibility for our own experience. To own it. To say "this is my frustration, my sadness,my reactivity, my story, it's not caused by anyone or anything, it arises in me, here and I have a choice in how I respond to it."

In my young life, I was taught and learned the habit of blaming others for my discomfort, pain and anguish. I found substances early in life and followed the grown ups around me and learned to shift my experience to avoid what I could not bare or deal with. Blaming, replacing, avoiding, indulging..

these were the tools in my tool kit and after about 10 years I wound up in an AA meeting and the journey of self responsibility and discovering my true divine spirit began.

So that was 20 years ago and today the practice for me is very simple, rely on what you are.. not the descriptions that I have taken myself to be.. it's moment to moment, relax and remember who and what I am, notice what's looking in any moment, relax the thinking for moment, what's here? Just awareness..

No story, no descriptions, no story, just awareness, clarity, well being, total benefit, aliveness, energy, infinite wisdom and capacity, open and spacious. Have you noticed?

Over and over whenever you remember, relax and open and let everything be clarified, see everything from the wide open perspective of the "view" the balanced view, rather than the little limited "point of view" where we categorize everything into good and bad and strive for the good and run from the bad.

Last night I had one of those Ah Ha moments, I had a brief conversation with my most special button pusher, he said this, I got triggered and was off to the races, he's this, he's that, blah blah blah..

God intervened... my itunes started playing on it's own, (my phone is doing strange things lately) a song that I love by Pink called Please don't leave me. In the song she says basically that she can't believe how mean and nasty she can become when her heart feels broken and she begs.. please don't leave me.. Over the years I've sang this song out and felt such emotion when i've felt abandoned and left by someone.. but last night I really heard it.

It was like my true self was singing it to me.. begging me to not abandon and forget the love that I am.

Yes I can be so mean and nasty when my heart feels broken, but I have a choice, we all do. I can feel the fullness of the emotion of the moment, stay present with what's here and ask myself what do I want to inform and influence my actions? I can empower myself by relying on this intelligence and stability that I am (I picture a giant 400 yr old Redwood tree) for short moments, to pause and notice what's looking, to stay in the fully recognition and awareness of this love intelligence that we are, to not go back to sleep and stumble around seemingly with Amnesia. We can stay awake and aware to what we really are, we can commit 100% to this, and in doing so everything becomes so clear, we come to know our innate stability, what about us is not affected if others are nice or not. This well being is a constant, stable, acknowledged, fundamental and who and what we really are.

This is liberation, enlightenment, what we all want, what we all already are, but not necessarily conscious of..

So we commit to the practice or remembering, becoming conscious that we have a choice, to Please don't leave me! (this conscious awareness of what we actually are).

warm water and your own breath.. all you need to wake up..

a story about waking up in the body to the reality that we are..

bathing in the rich mineral waters that flow from the earth

melting into the warmth, held by the rocks and the mud below

the tension releasing into the spring, eyes closed,

falling deep into that space of oneness with mother earth

I soaked and I got lost in sounds of running water

cool air on my skin and the sense of me fading away as the night sky came to be

I scrubbed the mud, rocks and sand against my skin and this incredible life force

surged up floating and warm my body giving way to the water

I felt completely free and at one with all the miraculous nature all around me

when the warm made me feel sleepy I headed for the ice cold water and plunged in

electric shocks shot through me and I relaxed and sat in the stream for as long as i could

back to the warmth, touching every rock, feeling like the energy of the rock was ancient

as was I held, so loving held and fed by the spring

I started being breathed by life itself, deep breaths, so much energy coming into the body, trembling and shaking, this went on for some time, life was moving through me in such a profound way, filling me completely as if to push out what was ready to go...

I felt a deep release happening, letting go.. letting go of so much that I'd been holding onto

(to what i thought I needed, what I thought I was), the rocks and the water

seemed to be pulling it out of me, there was no resistance, I was ready to let it all go.

All that the body was holding was moving on, in the deep relaxation and release something

new was being born, a spaciousness, an aliveness, an openness.. it continued to expand and open..

the breath grew deeper and faster, then the tears began to flow, energy surging through me, pouring out through my arms, in my tears, in each exhale, I shook and i moaned, deep lion breath exhales letting it all out.

wow wow wow, through the intensity, there was so much calm and relaxation and presence!

Each moment flowed one to the next, with such intelligence, I felt the perfection as if everything was in its perfect time, all I had to do was just to let it be.. let it be..

What followed the deep movement and release was laughter, I was filled with a sense of lightness and carefree abandon..

I started to play and giggle, blowing bubbles and singing out..

sheer delight, of the sound of rubbing rocks together in my hands, feeling the smoothness

and roughness as the same time, this went on for a long time..

but the deep relaxedness and alert awareness remained, I stayed completely with myself..

As my body floated and danced in the water every movement was a celebration of

sensuality, it was as if all of nature was making love to me, showing me this delight of love

that was innate and so obvious.

And so in continued, giggles, surrendering deeper into the warmth and totally

letting it have me, completely present unto myself, all the way here, in each moment,

here and loving it..

so so so grateful.. for this life, this openness, this perfection.. so much appreciation!

Taking in the view.. what I see from the mountaintop..

I'm walking along the path of life.. my habit is to look at the ground as if I need to see and anticipate all that arises. As i stare at the ground, I begin describing all that I see. Again this is a habit, it's rough, it's smooth, on and on it goes. The terrain varies, there are rocks, hills, it weaves back and forth, up and down.. I look at the ground and I describe it, it's rocky today, slippery, scary.. Today its all uphill, it's hard work, I really have to push myself to keep going. Other days it feels easy, I am energized, the path is smooth, I skip along, smiling and singing a song.

Occasionally for some reason I glance up.. ahhh the "view", such expanse, such awe for the vastness of the sky, the landscape, the clouds and it seems to go on and on.. of course I keep walking along just fine without looking at the ground. But then out of habit I look down and "the view" seems to go away, replaced with a much smaller scope of vision.

This is how it is when I "seem" to forget the vastness of what I AM, when i get locked into looking and describing the circumstances, how I feel, or what I think, describing it as good or bad, there seems to be a contraction, a shrinking, limitation.

The practice that I've been committed to is to just relax and look up, take in the view, the vast expanse, infinite possibilities and expressions. To focus less on describing what I see and think and feel and to focus more on the wide open space, the vast intelligence, this is what I recognize as clarity or presence or simply awareness.

A 15 yr practice of inquiry comes back to me.. what is this awareness? what's looking? as opposed to what is seen with it's endless set of descriptions..

It's easy to get away from myself, or so it seems.. but again the commitment to stay here, in conscious awareness of what is looking, to maintain the view, to look up, to relax the habit to describe and categorize and rather to see what is at the basis of all that arises or appears, what is the one source of everything, to feel into this..

Gratitude seems to be an amazing part of this, to share appreciation for all that is.. yes even the stuff I'm not so excited about.. this too!

This commitment to the view, to gratitude and appreciation, to relaxing and letting everything be as it is, to seeing what is aware of all of this, maintaining the view of what's looking..

well.. this is what seems to really allow me access to my true capacity to be of benefit and to serve at the highest level..

love to hear your direct experience with the view...

much love

joanne