Clear Path to Peace

It’s holiday time again, and some of us are ecstatic….and some of us are not. Holidays are usually a time when memories and emotions reappear from childhood, and they aren’t always the easiest ones to negotiate. Even if we are not consciously aware of it, longings and expectations about what “family” is, or what “Christmas” or “New Year” are supposed to be, can feel heavy and affect our emotional lives.

Many of us experience a lot of stress around this time of year – triggered by lack of sunlight during the dark winter solstice, or our mounting credit card bills, or from family dynamics that often play out during “festive” gatherings. Fortunately, there is help, and it is easy. All it takes is using something we already have – our breath.

As a peace educator, I have a lot of respect for using breath as a tool to center ourselves. Conscious breathing will help you feel more grounded and calm.

If you notice that you’re feeling anxious in any way, take some time…a few moments…to become aware of your breath. Notice yourself, your body, your thoughts. Probably, you are holding your breath or not breathing very deeply. So stop your busyness – and give yourself the gift of a deep breath. Or two. Or five. Fill your belly and your lungs. Allow your entire torso to fill with good oxygen on the inhale and empty fully on the exhale.

One really important point about tuning in to your breath is to be especially aware of the difference between your inhale and your exhale. They are two separate parts of one breath, and you can use them for different needs.

For relaxation and stress reduction, use the exhale as your point of focus. Try breathing out about twice as long as you breathe in. So if you inhale for two counts, exhale for four. Next breath, experiment with inhaling for three counts and exhaling for six. Remember to exhale very slowly and evenly. Take as long as you want to get to the end of your breath.

While you are relaxing into your breath, begin letting go of any tension that has built up in your head, neck, jaw and shoulders. Consciously release the grip in your mind and body, thoughts and muscles and allow the tension to drop down towards the ground. Inhale some good, fresh oxygen and positivity as a replacement for the tension you’ve just released.

During your exhale, you will be lowering your heart rate and releasing tension from your muscles. Your inhale brings nutrients to your body, newness to your mind and enlivens your blood. Your head will clear, and you’ll be able to handle your holiday gathering much, much better.

Hope this helps. When I teach in San Quentin Prison, the men often remark upon how much this simple relaxing breath technique helps them. I figure if it works for them, in an intense place like San Quentin, it can work for you and me.

Try it, and let me know how it goes. Happy Holidays!

When Jesus walked the planet, he didn’t have a plan to create a massive holiday of gift-giving…complete with stressed out gift givers.  Jesus came to remind us of our eternal holiness, our pure innocence, and the love of God for each one of us.

That is what I receive from his message, anyway.  What do you receive?

This Holy Day season, let’s remember that it is a season of peace.

This means that we can be peaceful about the season! We don’t need to create anxiety about buying stuff, or whether or not we’ve given “enough” to our kids or family members.  Even children who are used to getting a lot of presents can be re-trained to value gratitude, service to others, and simple (maybe handmade) gifts instead of the mountains of plastic they expect. Re-training ourselves and our children is going to take some work and inner fortitude. I know we can do it – if we commit to it.

This isn’t simply a stress management issue. In addition to our emotional health, we need to safeguard the resources of our beautiful planet. So cutting back on Christmas consumerism is an essential environmental issue as well.

Peace is our birthright. It is our very nature. We’ve lost track of that, and Christmas stress is a great barometer for how far we can lose ourselves in the expectations and habits of consumer society. But we can divorce ourselves from the madness, and claim the simplicity of true Christ consciousness.  It is within us, every moment of every day. Let’s find it together.

Merry Christmas!

(Reposted from 11/30/2008)

For all the high profile bullying cases and heart wrenching stories of subsequent teen suicides, there are thousands of kids who suffer in pain and silence. What can we do to prevent bullying, and how do we help both the victims of cruel behavior and the perpetrators of the crimes?

In my forgiveness work, I speak about healing both the victim and the perpetrator archetypes. In reality, everyone with an ego has experienced both sides of this painful coin. One person might think of himself more as a “poor victim” and another might consider herself as basically “a bully,” but for most of us, both labels apply. And though they’re only labels, and both sides can be uplifted by the healing power of forgiveness, the violence still hurts before the healing begins.

The United Nations Charter of Rights for Children states, in part, that “every child has the right to an education and every child has the right to be safe”. One group that’s doing an incredible job helping kids find those rights is Challenge Day. I recently participated as an adult volunteer at a Challenge Day at my local high school. It was a day full of laughter, tears and miracles.

The Challenge Day trainers, youthful yet savvy Gina and Tony, enticed the students into deep honesty, openness and willingness during the 6 hour session. We all played games, made lots of noise, explored giving safe, non-sexual hugs, and shared support for our most difficult life lessons. At the end of the day, everyone (both students and adults alike) realized that there’s so much more that binds us than separates us. Roles like “cool kid” and “loser,” “jock” and “nerd” fell away once our common strengths and frailties were held with compassion and understanding. We learned about ourselves as a human family, and left with a profound sense of peace and excitement.

The challenge now is to enliven the lessons we learned during Challenge Day and make them a part of every day life at Mount Shasta High School, and at all high schools, middle schools, colleges, universities, families and throughout our entire social web.

Only this commitment to peace will prevent more kids from jumping off the George Washington Bridge, as 18 year old Tyler Clementi did this month. Maybe because I drove over that bridge every day for two years during high school, the latest suicide over a bullying incident holds symbolic meaning for me. I also love the symbol of a white bird, flying in freedom, to remind me of peace and serenity.

Whatever symbol for peace works for you, I hope you will hold it dear to your heart and make it grow. To find inspiration, contact www.challengeday.org. Be the change you want to see in the world!

One of my new friends is Nanci Danison, an expert on near death experiences (NDEs). When she “died,” she learned a tremendous amount of spiritual truth. It turns out that what Nanci learned is in close alignment with the forgiveness process I teach, although her vocabulary is a bit different. Her perspective is enlightening and will make you think again about life and death.

One of Nanci’s readers wrote to her: “I’m aware that this world is an illusion…however, the fact that you can’t literally kill people doesn’t change the fact that you can inflict enormous suffering. Dying might be an illusion but the suffering is not.”

Nanci’s response is: “Accepting that the manifested world is illusory means you have achieved a spiritual perspective on life. The next step is to understand how that truth affects how we experience this world.

The entire human existence is manifested and “illusory,” not just the physical appearances of it. I learned in the afterlife that the suffering isn’t “real” either. The emotional experience IS real at the human level, but it is vicarious at our spiritual level. Let me explain. When you watch a particularly important football game, do you get angry with bad calls by the refs, excited by touchdowns, and annoyed by commercial breaks? Are you really angry, excited or annoyed with respect to your own life? No. You are reacting to the game and the emotions fade when the game is over. Similarly, when a woman cries through the ending of a “chick flick,” is she actually suffering in her own life? No. She empathized with the fictional characters and forgets all about the crying after the movie ends. In much the same way, we parts of Source inside humans empathize with the lives of our human hosts. We suffer what they suffer-but only while we are in their bodies (and during the short time of the life review). My own experience in the afterlife was that all the pain and suffering I endured in Nanci’s body was gone. In fact, Nanci’s entire lifetime was revealed to be a vicarious experience, such as we might analogize to having a dream or being in a virtual reality game.

As for suffering with death-that is optional. We Light Being souls can choose to endure it or to get out of the body while it dies. Many near-death experience reports come from people who got out of their bodies to avoid the pain of dying or resuscitation.

The most important point here is that much human suffering could end tomorrow–if we would choose to do it. We Light Being souls have the power to stop our host bodies’ hurtful behaviors. Why don’t we? Because most people are not aware they even have this option. Most people truly believe they are human and cannot escape human emotions and motivations. That is why it is so important that we awaken each other to our true nature as parts of Source. Once you know that you are a powerful spiritual being, and not a human animal, you can believe you have the power to control your host body’s behavior. Expressing more of our spiritual nature through our behavior would increase the amount of unconditional love in our human lives and decrease the violence and abuse.” — Nanci Danison, Afterlife Experiencer and Author of BACKWARDS: Returning to Our Source for Answers, BACKWARDS Guidebook, and the Light Answers to Tough Questions series of CDs and DVDs. www.BackwardsBooks.com.

As Nanci writes so eloquently, the suffering here on Earth looks and feels real, even though in the biggest picture, it’s illusory. That’s why it is so important to be compassionate with ourselves and others when we feel lost, hurt, fearful or confused. All of us are awakening together. How fast we do it, however, is up to us individually.

Once I heard a voice in my head. It said, “Ana, you are not obliged to suffer.” That truth stopped my mind and I got a journey directly to Heaven. Release your suffering to the Holy Spirit, to the One Source that gives you breath. You’ll find joy waiting for you every time.

Recently, I traveled to New York City to visit my family. It was really hot, and traveling in the subway felt like spending time in a sauna that hadn’t been cleaned in about 10,000 years.  Tensions were high – you could feel it in the air.

I got into a subway car with my son and sister. The doors were still open and the place was fairly crowded with sweaty New Yorkers of all colors and shapes. All of a sudden, a black man arrived at the doorway and began yelling at a white man who was sitting in the subway car. “What you did was wrong! I’m gonna make you pay, white man! I’ll see you tomorra! You can’t beat me! You can’t beat me!” he bellowed.  The white guy, who had a fresh black eye, began yelling back, matching the energy and contributing his own equally violent threats to the mix. Finally, the doors closed and the black guy slammed his fist onto our car BOOM! as it sped away into the bowels of Manhattan.

After a split second of stunned silence, a couple of people laughed, either because they thought it was funny, or because they were actually nervous and needed to break the tension. Everyone looked around and realized that we were fine, no big deal. A young black man looked over toward my white, 13 year old son and rolled his eyes with a smile.  Aron smiled back; so did I.

A few years ago, this incident could have sparked a race riot. In the heat, anything can happen. But this time, what I noticed was all the people (black-eyed white guy excepted) telling each other in subtle ways, “No thanks. We’re not going on that ride to racism, anger and violence. We’re done, and we’re not interested. We aren’t taking the bait and we won’t get hooked. There’s a lot more to life than macho posturing and slugging it out, no matter who’s involved or what their racial background. Let’s all get along and have some fun, instead!”

I got off that subway car inspired by how far we’ve come, and how great New Yorkers are. Some might say that New Yorkers are cynical, they’ve seen it all, and that’s why they let the incident slide into oblivion. But I don’t agree. People reached out to each other to make a better, richer fabric of community together.  Now that’s something to celebrate!

While the Gulf of Mexico’s piercing still bleeds, and all hell seems to have broken loose wherever we look, A Course in Miracles helps to calm our nerves and give us inner fortitude.

“Heaven is the decision I must make.” — ACIM

This is one of my favorite quotes. There’s no room for dithering or hesitation. Moment by moment, we decide.

Heaven is here in this moment. Not outside. Inside. Here – in your heart of hearts.

Namaste.

“A happy outcome to all things is sure.” — A Course in Miracles, WB #292

Allowing the possibility of a happy outcome to all things takes a lot of trust. How can there be a happy outcome when there is so much pain and suffering in the world…and in our hearts?

The only way to achieve any kind of real happiness is to offer all of our loneliness, fear and sadness to the Holy Spirit. Giving it to another person or idea doesn’t work. We’ve already tried to pawn it off on desires for possessions, prestige, sex, and drugs. We’ve attempted happiness through work, or sought relief through our spouses, children and therapists. None of that was successful, except for a minute or two, was it?

We are left with only one course of action that leads to healing. Pain and suffering can only be finally cleansed in one way. We must look in only one direction for support and guidance. Why? Because there is only one source of Love that is real. How can we find healing in anything that isn’t real? We can’t – it’s impossible.

If we want peace, we’ll need to offer up our pride and surrender on bended knee. We must acknowledge with a grateful heart this source that gives us life, minute by minute, moment by moment, breath by breath. Let’s finally understand that this source is pure love…so we can find the soft strength that’s necessary to lay down our burdens. Breathing out our sadness and confusion, we’ll make room for clarity, joy, and new direction. We’ve got to make some space, to clear out. Only the Holy Spirit, God’s grace in action, can help us here.

We will walk off the battlefield as many times as we need to. Over and over…or just once and for all. It doesn’t matter. What matters is directly experiencing relief from the illusions of bitterness, revenge and hatred. They are not real…we just made them up. We can let them go and find sanity…peace…heaven on earth.

This is the way that a happy outcome to all things is sure. Aaaahhhhhh, so good to know. 

A peaceful day to you.

Recently I’ve been playing with a solid gold coin. It’s a quarter ounce gold piece – round, shiny, and dripping with golden abundance. I’ve been holding it in my hand as a way to bring the gold into my life, both on the inner plane as a holy blessing and on the outer plane as prosperity in all I am and all I do.

A few days ago, I lost the coin. I couldn’t find it anywhere, though I did all the sensible things -checked my pants pockets, retraced my steps, etc. I began to feel sad that it had disappeared, and angry with myself for losing it. Damn!  I liked that coin!  I saw my attachment, my assumption about what it meant to me, my annoyance with my irresponsibility. And the little thing is worth about $200, on top of it all.

Anyway, the next day I taught my first Uncovering Your Inner Rumi devotional poetry workshop. A wonderful group gathered in Mount Shasta, CA, to explore writing devotional poetry together. Since I was thinking about the gold coin, I wrote about a poem about it during the workshop.  Here it is:

O Beloved

give me back my gold!

I lost it…yet could I ever lose it?

Jesus, your golden grace

coalesced in my hand

Lakshmi, I prayed for your help

Gone now

poof! it flew into the Mystery

Here is the teaching

if I dare:

never lost,never taken

this golden glow of mine.

Well, I really prayed that the coin would reappear, since I’d now gotten the lesson. A friend helped me search once more, and lo and behold – I found it!  Where, you might ask?  On my altar, where I’d placed it for safe-keeping, beside an image of the Hindu Goddess Lakshmi, goddess of grace, beauty and abundance.I had to laugh. Lakshmi had me covered – the whole time!  Another life lesson:  Divine Love holds my golden grace, even when I’ve forgotten it, and forgotten where I’ve put it.  So good to know.

Many of us go through really hard times. My hardest time was when my mother died, by her own hand, when I was young, pregnant, confused and almost penniless. You probably have a different, painful story that affected your life. What did you do when the traumatic thing happened?  What are you doing with the memory of it? Are you open to jumping into the River of Love, no matter what happened – or might happen in the future?

The River of Love is the healing experience of Divine contact. It’s sometimes called the Holy Spirit, the Divine Mother, Father God, or the “peace that passeth all understanding.” It was the only thing that kept me sane and whole enough to raise my children well, despite my mother’s illness and its effect on me. It helped me learn that I am a lot stronger than anything that shows up in my life, even the shock and pain of my mother’s suicide.

It took years to receive all of the lessons this experience gave to me. I needed to learn that the Grace of God offers a more powerful love than what my human mother could give me. It’s a love that never leaves, never gives up, and always heals when we allow it into our hearts.

Through this life journey, I feel humbled and in awe of the great mystery. I wonder where my mother is now, and how she is doing with the lessons that she learned. I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I feel the movement of my soul in holding them. I am open-hearted and open-minded, calling for more wisdom.

Life gave me this experience to show me that NO MATTER WHAT, the River of Love will float me home to a deep inner sense of security and serenity. This river taught me to release my sadness, and find gratitude for the lessons I’d learned. It gave me the joy and freedom of knowing I am never isolated or without a friend. The River of Love showed me that the edges to all things are friendly…if I relax into the safety I share with the Divine.

In the past, I rarely spoke or wrote about what happened with my mother. Even now, I feel reticent to discuss it. But I also feel that we need to share our life experiences – not to wallow in the pain of them, but to transform difficulties that seemed impossible to overcome.When really tough things happen, using our minds to figure out what to do doesn’t help very much.  We need more space, more breath, deep intuition and a lot of prayer and true forgiveness to feel whole again.

I give swimming lessons in the River of Love. It’s OK to get your feet wet – or plunge right in with a full, naked leap! See you on the river…..

The deeper I go into forgiveness…in the ecstatic, radical sense of the word…the more I see that its invitation is surrender. Forgiveness is the golden door, the way past all fear and grief, and an entry into life beyond dictatorship of the ego.

What is radical about radical forgiveness? What is ecstatic about it? Using a spiritual philosophy grounded in the teachings of A Course in Miracles and other holy books, we go beyond the traditional usage of the word “forgiveness”.  Rather than “letting bygones be bygones” (somehow), we agree to let our spiritual intelligence teach us. We humbly learn about the gifts that were hidden or obscured – in even the most terrible events in our lives. We surrender to the wisdom that lives beyond what our intellects can decipher. Allowing the healing blessings in, we also let pain and sorrow out of our hearts.

When we choose to let go of blame and grievances, and the corresponding thoughts and emotions buried deep within, we can refill ourselves on a cellular level with healing grace. We then find out that there is no spiritual need for forgiveness, after all, because we are not helpless, solitary victims of our circumstances. The world is not out to get us — in fact, God wants our perfect happiness.

Divine Love beckons us, welcoming us to release the pain of this material world, while supporting us to remain present in the world in order to guide others to the door. Divine Grace, sometimes known as the Holy Spirit, is the healer, and our part is to surrender to the healing…constantly flowing…the River of Love.

Recently, I found two plays on words that gave me a chuckle.  I share them here for your enjoyment and inspiration.

One of the hardest parts about being human is the tendency toward feeling abandoned. Abandoned by loved ones, by the death of loved ones, by the “betrayal” of others, and by God as well.  Especially by God. Hence all of the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that muck up our innate happiness.  Well, I found that there is a great use for abandonment.  Turning around, there is the possibility to abandon ourselves to God. That’s the juicy sort of abandonment that brings sublime joy, health, and happiness. This is the abandonment that Sufi poets describe so well. So next time you are feeling sadness or pain over thinking you’ve been abandoned by someone, abandon yourself to God instead. Freedom will be yours, every time.

Meditating upon “turning around”, I remembered the analogy that Colin Tipping likes to use in his explanation of Radical Forgiveness.  He describes our lives as being tapestries. They are beautiful, but usually we look at the backside of them. (“Ass backward,” as we used to say in New Jersey.) From that viewpoint, there are knots and hanging strings, and the image is messy and blurred. Turn it over, he suggests, and we see the divine perfection of our life plan, including everything that has ever happened for us. Not to us, but for us. It’s a turn-over!  Delectable!  I can remember that….apple turn-over, yum…let’s go get one right now.

When life seems unmanageable, try abandoning yourself to God. This surrender will put you on the path of forgiveness. And when circumstances are distasteful, turn it around…give yourself a tasty turn-over. Witnessing the perfection of each moment will make your life delicious again.