Abundance and Life Force Energy

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Katherine

originally written 7-1—2010
I am in contact with many people who are experiencing desperation, depression, and a sense of hopelessness because they have not been able to find work in this economy. There is a general feeling of fear that is pervasive, and this fear can be very tough to shake off. What I can offer is the place I run to when I can’t move forward: spiritual principle.

I’ve been pondering this Abraham Hicks quote on abundance:
“You want the desire because it is the idea or the goal or the Creation that is responsible for a good amount of Life Force to flow through you. The main event is the Life Force that is flowing through you, not the manifestation. And if you don’t believe us now, wait until that manifestation has popped (I think this means that it actualizes), and realize that its power to draw life through you will be greatly diminished. That’s why you keep wanting another goal and another goal and another goal.”

If our intention of what we want is responsible for the life force energy (or lack of it) to flow through us, we best keep our focus on what we want and not on what we see that we don’t want.

So, what is calling you to a deeper experience of abundance? This quote is directing us to focus on the desire for life force energy rather than the desire for the physical things. This is the same as focusing on the qualities of God instead of the stuff. When we embody the quality of abundance, and we see ourselves AS this quality, and the objects or our desire flow through us but they are not the main event. This is why it’s so much easier to be “in the flow” of abundance when things are going well financially. Our thoughts, words, beliefs, and most of all, our feelings are affirming the truth of who we are AS abundance. The spiritual mastery lies in having the consciousness of abundance “in residence,” so that we are experiencing the life energy with or without the manifestation.

Last week I sent out some abundance concepts, and my favorite is from Spiritual Economics by Erik Butterworth: “We think that God heals, but God doesn’t heal. God is Life. Consciousness heals it accepts the flow of life.” ~P. 134

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I’ll Have St Francis with a Twist

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Katherine

Originally written 10-12-2010
The St Francis prayer of Peace is beautiful, deep, and has just about anything we might need for our spiritual path’s GPS system. As I was reviewing it for our Monday gathering, I noticed that in order for us to live by this mystical prayer, it really helps to let go of trying to control people, events, and conditions. Here’s my take on the prayer from that perspective.

Prayer of Saint Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
• This is my favorite line. It’s humbling. Let me remember why I’m here, and make me a vehicle for peace, not the star of the show.

where there is hatred, let me sow love;
• This can be a tough one. In the face of hatred it’s much easier to play a victim and complain with righteous indignation (a form of control) than to let go of being right. When we stop pushing the suppress button on our feelings and allow ourselves to feel our emotions, it’s easier to see the bigger Truth.

where there is injury, let me sow pardon:
• Pardoning doesn’t condone, but reconciles and heals. Whenever we take a position, there is judgment lurking nearby, and control trailing along behind.

where there is doubt, faith;
• It’s a lot easier to stay on the faith wagon when we don’t need to control the outcome of every little thing. We don’t need to doubt the universe or be the moral police to others. As Stephen Levine says, “With the Law of Karma, you get away with nothing.”

where there is despair, hope
• Krishnamurti, a famous spiritual teacher, was not a big talker. So when he offered the secret to his spirituality to a large group, there was rapt attention. He said, “My secret is I don’t mind what happens.” If we are busy not controlling and not minding what happens, it’s hard to linger in despair.

where there is darkness, light
• We dance through life on a continuum of expression, and experiences that seem like opposites like darkness and light (war and peace, hate and love) are simply stations along this continuum. When we engage in our spiritual practice, and give of ourselves to others, we move up the continuum of darkness toward the light.

where there is sadness, joy
• Something happens and there’s a feeling of loss. Sadness is an appropriate response. If we ignore or resist it, we’re trying to control our natural system of healing, and we can get stuck. Sadness, like anger and fear, has it’s own wisdom, and if we allow it to flow through us, it will shift. Joy is our natural state.

O Divine Master,
• What is your pet name for God? Jesus liked Abba, which means daddy. I like The Beloved.

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
• Sometimes we can be the most supportive of others when we simply offer our Presence, without advising or interjecting our brilliant wisdom (just a little controlling?) into other people’s process. I always appreciate consolation in the form of loving, unbiased, and present energy.

to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
• When we step outside our ego, put aside our position and our story, and strive to understand others, we are loving them, and as we love them we are being love, our authentic nature.

for it is in giving that we receive,
• This is one of my favorite spiritual truisms, and as Eric Butterworth writes, “Whenever you feel that something’s got to give, it’s usually you.” I have found that the brilliant law of circulation works best if we give from the heart. If there’s a need for a certain response, or if we feel one up or one down, or we give and resent (all forms of control), we are pinching ourselves off from our good. I’ve noticed that the true joy of giving resides in the giving itself.

it is in forgiving that we are forgiven,
• It’s my experience that all blame is self-blame and all forgiveness self-forgiveness. How can we forgive others if we don’t forgive ourselves? Let’s see, where do I start?

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
• Whether it’s physical dying, or dying to old habits, relationships, or belief systems, we always have the option to loosen our claws (let go of control) from what is familiar in service to the eternality of Life, which lovingly holds the seeds for our next expression.

Amen.

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Unsticking from the Muck of Spiritual Codependency

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Katherine

originally written 2-22-2010
My experience has been that when I need to learn something, God (or the Universe) drops feathers, and if I don’t pay attention, I get bricks. Last Friday I had a brick over the head.

Here’s what happened. I rent out parts of my house, and I had spoken with a woman and told her I was most likely renting the space to someone else. She sounded quite solid on the phone, so I told her we could meet just in case the other person wasn’t moving in. She came to meet me, having neglected to tell me she had a two year old daughter, she had nowhere else to go, and knew no one in the area. In the course of our conversation I learned that all of her belongings had been left at the top of my driveway. What kept streaking through my mind was the nagging thought, “You are a woman of God, shouldn’t you do whatever anyone needs or asks you to do?” Each time I had that thought, the woman would pounce – ask me to do something, asking me or telling me to take responsibility for getting her needs met. Eventually I realized that everything she had told me was a lie. I was able to set a clear boundary by saying she couldn’t stay in my house, and she accused me of not being willing to help her. After three hours of back and forth, I called a cab and she eventually left.

This was a dramatic experience, a situation where it was so out of keeping with my usual reality of non-drama that I needed to mine it for wisdom. I used the process of Reflection, a process that reveals God’s valentine to us through unwelcome situations. Here are the four steps to this process:

1. Ask these questions and get the reflection that identifies your responsibility and role in creating the situation.

• “What did this person do that I don’t like, and what did I want them to do?

• Ask Spirit, “How am I doing this in my relationship with you and /or others?”

• “What shift or change inside of me would it take for this whole reflection to go away and never come back?”

2.  Take responsibility through making changes in your behavior, consciousness, or belief system

3.  Forgive everything – let go of the need to be right. You might say in your heart, “I set you free. Your actions do not have any power over me. We are both doing the best we can.”

4.   Detach when appropriate, remembering it is not your job to create OR prevent a crisis. Move into a transcended awareness, remembering that you have a mind but you are not your mind. You have dominion over your thoughts, beliefs, and healing.

What I gained from this reflection was that the shift that needs to happen inside me so this doesn’t reoccur is for me to know who I am so clearly that I’m not thrown off by outside conditions. To be a woman of God doesn’t mean that I don’t have boundaries. I need to develop righteous spiritual discernment. Boundaries are often perceived as barriers, but they are simply a loving act, an act of honesty and intimacy. For me, setting clear boundaries (and committing to them) is being willing to say what works for me. Those of us who have codependent leanings are like liars. Someone asks, “Do you mind helping me move or bringing the casserole?” Our real answer is no, but we say yes. Why? because we lie to avoid being rejected, left out, not liked or not loved. My teacher Frank used to say, “Sometimes it’s not always appropriate to tell everyone your deepest truth, but it’s NEVER o.k. to take a vacation from telling yourself the truth.”

Regarding spiritual codependency, my Practitioner was very helpful in helping me mine this experience for wisdom, and she said something that I find quite useful and ponderable: “I don’t trust people’s yes until I trust their no.”

Whenever I apply these steps to a problem, drama, or issue – when I take responsibility for what needs to change inside ME, one of two things happens:

1. The “problem”, which is merely a reflection, goes away, e.g. someone calls a cab, or the person that has been driving me nuts moves to Brazil.

2. The person or condition no longer bothers me.

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Praise the Lard!

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Katherine

Originally written 10.25.10
There’s a vendor at the San Francisco Farmer’s Market that sells roasted pigs. The workers wear t-shirts with a big pig, and over the pig are the words Praise the Lard. I believe that praise is the fundamental element of healing, and to prove it to myself, I’ve started my own personal praise-a-thon.

When I think of healing, I think Emma Curtis Hopkins. She teaches that the healing is sourced in praise. Our power lies in praise, and this means praise for the good that is visible and for the good that looks like not-so good – the poopy stuff. There’s some lines in Thessalonians 5, where Paul says, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Hold fast what is good.”  I think this is what Jesus was doing as he walked around teaching while trying to avoid being arrested and killed. I’ve noticed that it’s hard to praise and be bummed out at the same time. Try it sometime.

I’ve been writing Praise on my hand for the past week. Whenever I see it, I stop, breathe, and give thanks to God for whatever is in front of me. This is making a difference in my world. We’ve had some big rains, and I rely on many pumps in my yard to keep the house from flooding, so, when it rains a lot, I have in the past gone into a sort of automatic fear of flooding (maybe because I’m so imaginative) that has been hard to manage, even though I have a generator I can use if the electricity goes out. So I’ve been applying my praise – grateful for a warm house, electricity, a dry house, etc., and even though my generator is not currently working, my praising seems to be the dominant voice I’m listening to. I’m not to the place of blissed out about the rain yet, but I see a big shift as I relax and point out the good. As I praise, I experience God right in my face. Isn’t this is what we want when we say we want a closer walk with God?

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Join our Praise-a-thon

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Katherine

Originally written 11-1-2010
I’m inviting you to participate with us in using this month of November for a Praise-a-thon. If you are one to make intentions, you are welcome to join us in setting an intention around something to praise. My intention is to praise everything, and each day I’m choosing a different area. Yesterday it was health – health for myself, for my community, clients, computer, garden, the health of every individual in the world, and of course, for the few people in my life who I resist. Today I am praising everyone who ever taught me anything. My mom taught me to be a stabile individual, my first spiritual teacher taught me to honor my emotional experience, and Ann McLain taught me how to ride a bicycle when I was 7 years old. Praise, praise, praise. If a month of Praising sounds like too much, how about a Praise Day? It’s kind of like Groundhog Day without the rodents and without needing to predict the onset of spring.

In Unveiling Your Hidden Powers, Emma Curtis Hopkins tells this story:

“The Japanese believe that praise of all things exhilarates the mind and then the body, while complaining brings very different results. In 1814, Kurozumi Saki became very gloomy by complaining. The Japanese term for gloom is inki. Sake had breathed the spirit of gloom until he was ill with tuberculosis. He resolved to cease mourning. It was difficult at first, but he began to praise everything and everybody. He went on for some years, breathing into himself an entirely different set of words. He began to be very cheerful, even though his TB seemed to be getting worse. One morning, just as he supposed he was breathing is last, he was praising the rising sun and a sort of buoyant ecstasy went through him. His breath grew deep and electrifying. He rose from the ground where he had collapsed, and found that his breath was the very spirit of cheer, which the Japanese term yoki. His breath was a healing force for others, as well; if he breathed on deformed or dying people, they were healed.”

I’ll have what he’s having! I’m finding that praising everyone and everything as God always brings a response.

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