The Fishbowl: Changing The World From The Inside Out

I used to be greatly concerned about climate change, the pollution of the air, land and oceans, erosion, plastic trash, corporate greed, the exploitation and abuse of land, animals, and people, and the war machines that seem to be an integral part of every government. To me, the world had really lost its marbles. I saw us humans as a parasitic plague of rats, killing off their own host planet, all-the-while making fun and rolling their eyes at people who were trying to save it, like monstrous creepy clowns in some kind of literal hell-on-earth circus maze.

The more I thought about it, the worse it seemed to get and the more powerless I felt. I had no control, nothing I did made any difference. I tried cutting out plastic for an entire month, and failed. I went vegetarian. I took fewer showers, shopped local, boycotted the worst companies, and used all organic and natural everything. But I felt even worse. I couldn’t seem to sway this outcome… the killing off of the planet I live on and love by a species that has literally gone mad. As the earth became more and more covered up by cement and human greed I fell into a terrible depression, feeling utterly hopeless.

One day, I sank extremely low. I couldn’t stop sobbing. My life seemed meaningless and I felt tormented by having to live through this witnessing of the death of the animals and places I found sacred.

But a strange thing happened that day. My deep despair had welled to the breaking point of suicidal planning. As I lay sobbing and wallowing in the futility of my life, the light broke through.

Literally this sunlight came pouring through this window. And for a brief moment, all of my thoughts stood still as the light of the day filtered through my window, over the chair and onto the floor. I experienced it as absolute beauty. And a thought came through my mind, “there is always joy in the present moment”.

This thought was like a gift. This day my life changed. The light that came through just then changed the way I see everything. The rest of that particular day I spent in utter bliss of total presence (and also a little contemplation that maybe I needed to check into a mental hospital due to the crazy swing in my mood). But I became fully present in the moment. And each moment was lovely, calm, and peaceful. I began to sketch. All of my problems were magically gone. I just stopped thinking about them, and instead my mind was absorbed by the light of that day as the sun moved through the windows, and of the pleasant feelings of my pens and pencil as they moved across paper.

When the bliss subsided and I found myself depressed again, it was different. It wasn’t as futile because I’d been given knowledge that these feelings weren’t all there was to life, and that I could overcome them. The present moment became a tool. It wasn’t easy, and the following several months were agonizingly difficult as I slowly moved myself out of my clinical depression using Qigong, mindfulness and presence, and positive thinking techniques.

For others that have a hard time living in this world of insanity, for those who get too wrapped up in how many species went extinct today, how much earth was covered by cement or polluted by industry, or how many people, animals and places were exploited or killed for human greed, this message is for you.

Here is the message:

Fixing the entire planet is not your business.

Your business is fixing you.

There is this Mythbusters episode where they tested the “myth” that an irritated driver drives worse and breaks more traffic laws than a person in a good mood. They did a number of things to really piss off one poor driver, including playing loud music and putting honey on the steering wheel, while relaxing another driver with massages and soothing music. Sure enough, the annoyed guy was speeding and ran through stop signs despite his honest attempts to drive safely, while the relaxed guy drove through the course perfectly.

Now close your eyes and feel the inside of your body. Just experience it for a moment, the feeling of being alive inside of there. Now think about the things that upset you about the world, things you can’t do anything about. Notice what changes. Do you have more tension or pain? Did your mood change? Do you feel less like being kind? More tired, upset, irritated?

So the first point I’d like to make is that your thoughts about how terrible the world is are upsetting your body, creating havoc inside there, and making you uncomfortable as you drive around in this flesh vehicle. Not only have you just changed yourself into someone more reckless and negative, but you also didn’t improve the problems you thought about.

Imagine for a moment that you are like a fish in a fishbowl. Inside this fishbowl is your immediate world. The real world that you can touch, feel, see, hear, and taste. In it are all of the people and places, plants and animals, that you love and interact with. This includes your family and friends, your neighborhood, your home, the stores and places you frequent and people you see but don’t even know.

Outside your fishbowl is the outer world and all of the people and places that you know about but are not directly experiencing. The president, the government, climate change, as well as people, oceans, forests, lakes, and species you don’t physically contact but that you know about, are all a part of that outside world. You don’t even see a lot of this world directly… mostly you are reading about it or hearing about through news screens on the glass of your bowl, or stories passed down through other fish.

The more you focus on all these outside stories, the more they change your thoughts, which changes your body, and which then changes your fishbowl. You begin to see your fishbowl through the lens of the negativity of those thoughts, through that irritation and tension created in your mind and body, and the actions born from this negative mindset then pollute your water; your emotional environment. You then spread the anxiety and toxicity of all the problems of the world to all of your fellow fish and surroundings. The more you focus on it and let it become you, you pull all of those problems into your own water by being absorbed by them, and that outer world becomes your inner world.

There is one simple fact about all of this we need to realize: one fish can’t change that outer world. There is a terrible form of manipulation taking place… through our media outlets we have been tricked into believing that it is our business and our problem to fix the entire world. But the only thing we can change is our own selves, and our own immediate surroundings. That is where our power lies. When we focus on what we can’t change we lose our power.

I can be aware of the problems of this inner world, and I can take what actions I have available inside my fishbowl to help heal those problems. But it has to end there, with me feeling good, productive, and powerful, because as soon as I feel the chronic feelings of negativity and powerlessness of the overwhelming problems of the outer world I begin to pollute fishbowl. Like an irritated bad driver that runs into a bicyclist or cuts someone off, I spread my negative feelings and create harm. We all know that a negative person is no fun to be around, and this sort of negativity only harms our immediate community.

I still believe that it is okay to be aware of what is going on in the outer world to an extent; I still listen to the news and try to educate myself. But I do not absorb myself in it past the reading of it, unless I feel that there is some action I can – and want – to take. I am aware of the external world in the periphery of my inner world, and that is all. My inner world is my focus, and being a joyful helper in this world is what now gives me purpose.

We can create change. But unless you decide to dedicate your life to becoming an activist… unless that is your calling, you will not change the world by focusing your thoughts outside of this fishbowl. Do not feel guilty for not being an activist. That kind of work takes a special kind of fish, and those fish know when it is their calling. If it doesn’t bring you joy, it isn’t your calling, and so you need to focus on your own life and what is, because that is where your joy, and hence your power, lies.

Making your own heart happy and joyful is priority number one. Love and joy are healing. They can heal bodies, they can heal relationships, and I believe they can heal worlds. Find your joy. Be present in your life. Do not ruminate on what has been done in the past, or what you want in the future. The more time your mind spends ruminating outside of your immediate experience, the less joy and the more problems you will find. It’s fine to create goals with the future in mind and work toward them, but spend more of your time being present with each step of the way than you do ruminating about the outcome once the goal is formed. You are here to experience your life, do not dishonor it by spending your time ruminating on things outside your life, causing your body to mindlessly experience your life without you.

Trust yourself that change will come just by living the joy that is you. When you are in touch with your inner joy, when you are actually living and enjoying your life, you have more love to give. You will find yourself wanting to be more helpful to others, you will actually naturally make other peoples lives better without you even knowing it. When we live our lives to the fullest, filled with love and joy, when we are happy, healthy fish, we become an inspiration and we naturally bring others up with us. We are, every one of us, a member of a broader community, whether you want to participate or not. Your thoughts affect the lives of others. Period.

Each of us has an opportunity to be the bringers of light into the unknown dark world of what is to come. Right now, the planet isn’t doing so well. Whether we are able to change what looks like a dark outcome for us here on earth over the next decades is debatable. But the debate is pointless unless we can come to the table with the light of love, joy and hope burning bright within us. As long we are polluting our own bodies and environments with the toxic thoughts and emotions that come from focusing all of our energy on negativity and powerlessness of outer world problems, all we do is create more muck, more darkness, more of the same, and we die having lived the fruitless experience of powerlessness and frustration.

If every fish burned bright with the love and joy of their own power, if every fishbowl was flooded with the power of presence, I believe the whole world could change.

To Be Or Not To Be A Victim Pt. 2

It had been almost a year and half since I’d started working on this psychological issue. It was becoming less of a problem, and I had made some terrific adjustments to my life. But it was still coming up. I started noticing myself pushing the victim back down, squashing it, and replacing it with this dynamo-mega-super-woman who was in charge, responsible and totally cool.

But that started breaking down. Super woman wasn’t winning, she was losing. The inner victim is vicious and really powerful.

The problem is that fundamentally we don’t change. We can sometimes change some habits or beliefs, but we can’t change who we are underneath it all. And the victim is a part of my personal experience. It was developed within me as a child, a tiny child, and so it is a fundamental part of my foundation.

Acceptance
One day I became so frustrated with it, thinking it would never end, and I asked, almost out loud in exasperation, ‘How do I completely get rid of my inner victim?!?’

And then these words started flooding into my head, and I sort of felt like I was channeling some inner guru, wisdom, or even a guiding spirit. I asked this inner voice to hold on a minute so that I could find a pen and paper to write it down, and it did (it was funny). This is what it said:

“These parts of ourselves they never really go away, you can’t completely relinquish them forever, as they are a part of you. Trying to relinquish them is resistance, and resistance is why you have been experiencing all of this suffering. You can’t just “get rid” of a part of you that you decided to be born into. We say there is no bad or good, and we mean that to us it all creates the picture. You know that in your art this is true, the light supports the dark and vice versa. You can’t have a good work of art without a dark shape.

You can’t just cut off your arm because it’s shaped differently or it’s too hairy. You are less without it. However, you can learn to tame the dark. You can look at those instincts and traits that don’t serve you and make friends with them, get them on your side advocating for you. In the case of the victim within you, you get lost in its negativity sometimes, and it leads you to dark, un-fun places.

Instead, send your victim love and light. It will always work. Your victim is here for you. She is a part of you. You need her. She teaches you about this world, about human nature. Don’t hate her and wish she wasn’t there, don’t reject a part of yourself. She has thus far taught you many lessons. Your soul has learned. Send her gratitude. Love her. She will take up a place in your heart that is useful and calm. She will point out for you when the danger of an abusive situation arises or when someone else feels victimized and needs help. Love her and she will bring you strength and confidence”.

How to send love to a part of you

When these ideas came through to me it partly made sense because I had watched a video with Mantak Chia on how to send love to your organs, and I had begun doing that to heal my digestive system. I’m including two videos below on meditations for sending love, because I think that this practice is incredibly powerful if we can hone it. (The second one is a little dorky, but it totally works! Bear with it).

Mantak Chia

Dawson Church’s Heart Meditation

Acceptance can be very, very difficult. I suggest to sit with the problem and just consider what it would be like to accept it. Try to accept a little of it at first if it’s hard. Realize that at this moment, the problem exists there with you whether you like it or not, and so really the only sane choice is acceptance, at least in that moment. Try to make it okay for the problem to be there. Be okay with it.

The irony of acceptance vs. resistance is that oftentimes the issue (the pain, the disease, the repeating bad relationships, etc) is there because of a nonacceptance of something inherent to yourself. Especially with disease. Disease is often caused by us rejecting some part of ourselves. I did not want to accept that it was okay for me to feel entirely crappy all day. But not accepting this was making me feel worse. In the end I had to learn to accept that in this moment in my life this is what I’ve been given. That this is a part of my path, and that I am learning something from it.

This doesn’t mean that we should accept abuse from other people, it simply means we must accept whatever life has laid in our path in this moment, the things we can’t change, and then make decisions on where to go from there.

Get In Touch With Your Inner Child

This one feels really cheezy. I had a hard time with it, a very hard time at first. But eventually, and I’m talking years later, I got over that and just did it.

I learned this technique from a psychiatrist many years ago. She told me that I needed to sit quietly and allow the feelings I was feeling (the bad ones) to flood into me. Then ask inside of my mind, “Whose feelings are these?” And feel and listen to the answer. It is usually a smaller version of yourself, when you are little.

You then talk to that child, and you tell her how sorry you are these things happened to them, and you comfort them. You can ask them why they are sad or angry or whatever, and you comfort them and comfort them. You cry with them. You tell them you’ll never leave them and you are always here for them. You develop a relationship with them over time. A loving one. Be the parent that you wish you had had.

You’ll also grow apart and forget about the inner child, and then years later have them re-emerge again with similar or even the same problems, and you begin the whole process again. Again and Again. And over time, you slowly heal your deep inner wounds. You fill them up with love.

Accept the slowness of time and change

The journey to heal our inner victims is slow. And you must allow it to be slow. You must savor the slowness, like you’re watching a baby grow. Savor every new thought that comes to you that allows you to grow and mature even just a little. Savor the person you are right now no matter how “bad” you might think it is, because it is an important part of this path you are on. These things are like winding and bumpy paths to beautiful places deep in forests or mountains. Yes they are hard, but like hiking up a mountain, it truly is neutral. There really isn’t a good or bad, just a harder section of the path. Trust that it will change over time with your effort, attention, and love.

And enjoy it. Enjoy the little things in your life in this moment, because the moment is changing and soon will be gone. Whatever it is about yourself you don’t currently like, decide to enjoy it anyway, while it lasts, and try to love it. It is a part of you. It has a purpose in your life. It is your soul’s creation, it is here for a reason, and it will teach you important things. Don’t dishonor it by declaring it completely black-and-white “bad”. Trust that it is there for a reason.

Allow yourself time, because healing takes time. Impatience is like rubbing the wound raw all of the time… it takes longer to heal and you just end up with a giant scar.

To Be or Not To Be, A Victim Pt. 1

The time has come for all of us to wake up to the things that are holding us back from evolving into better people. And in my humble opinion, our personal inner victim provides one of the bigger hurdles we each must overcome.

For me, the realization that I had a problem with victimization began with my experiences with doctors. I started to notice that doctors made me feel a particular way. A very particular way.

In the year 2017 I was seeing a lot of doctors, and they always made me feel this weird, helpless neediness. At first I thought I just wasn’t able to communicate with them properly; what I was feeling, how important certain symptoms were, or what I thought was the causes. They treated me like my opinion didn’t matter and that what I thought and felt happening in my own body was obviously way below them. They made me feel helpless and misunderstood.

What was so important for my life to function just didn’t seem nearly as important to them. They didn’t seem to care much that I was not functioning. To them it was just another day at work.

The big moment came when I realized that this strange feeling, this inability to express the importance of the situation to these gods of medicine, this feeling of neglect and frustration, felt that same as many moments in my childhood. There had been many times in when my needs just weren’t that important to my parents. Sometimes this included needing food or medical care.

So you can see how the inner victim was being activated: Being totally reliant upon an authority figure to solve my problems – important problems that were severely impacting my life. Then this authority figure ignores or denies its importance, acting like it’s mundane. It made me feel the same small, stupid, helpless way I felt as a child. A victim.

We all have an inner victim, our own personalized sense of feeling small, unimportant, abused, sad and sorry for ourselves, bullied or unworthy. Our entire culture follows a model of abuser/victim to some extent. Our movies and books are often about abusers and the victim’s journey of retaliation, overcoming, or justice. Our justice system certainly divides people into black and white categories of victims vs perpetrators. And we often judge people as being good or bad based upon all sorts of things from personal habits, religious beliefs, or political affiliations. But it’s not all black and white. It’s really all gray. You are just as gray as the person at work you think is a terrible guy for voting for Trump, or the ex that dumped you for someone you think is totally shallow.

How to recognize your inner victim

I think the first step in understanding how to deal with your inner victim is simply recognizing it.

To do this, pay attention to what makes you feel small. Is it your boss, being overwhelmed, or ignored? Just start to notice it, and then try to figure out what it all has in common. Especially if something makes you feel a very familiar way… consider if it is something you’ve been feeling for a very long time. How long? Since childhood or adulthood? Figure out the common thread, the element that sets off those feelings in you.

For example, my inner victim is activated when someone is blocking my own expression of my needs. When I am trying to express something that is important to me and the other person is not taking me seriously, that is what really gets me feeling small and frustrated. When something important to me is ignored or diminished. That is what brings out my inner cry baby and I get whiny, depressed, and super needy.

So what do you do next?

At the time that I had this realization I thought ‘oh good, now that I realize this it’ll just magically go away… right? Nope.

Suddenly all sorts of crazy stuff happened in my life that brought it. Once I realized that I had this victim, this reaction, everything blew up. It was almost as if it threw a temper tantrum. It was like my inner victim had a victim festival and everything that could go wrong went wrong and I felt terrible… my health got really bad, a trip I was planning started falling apart, and nothing was going right. I felt sorry for myself, I wanted everyone around me to feel sorry for me, I cried, I complained, I wanted everyone to understand and feel my suffering and I wished for someone else to fix it.

Taking Responsibility

The first, most obvious thought for me was ‘what’s the opposite of feeling victimized? … Feeling in charge. How can I feel ‘in charge’? … By taking responsibility’.

So I started taking responsibility for all of the crap in my life that was going wrong. I decided that everything that was happening to me was my problem and only my problem. Btw, this wasn’t all that easy.

I then took a look that the whole picture and figured out what options were available (ie: what is in my control), and then started making decisions. It’s not within my control to make a doctor care about my problems. It is in my control whether or not to see that doctor again. And so now I don’t go to a doctor when I have problems unless I need something from them… an evaluation, some testing, or an idea of what options or remedies are available. But making myself well is my task, the doctor is just a tool.

Taking responsibility doesn’t mean that you don’t ask for help. It means that when you ask for help, it’s more like asking someone to help you with your problem, rather than asking them to take the problem away from you.

The other thing about taking responsibility is that you can’t do it with resentment for the people who aren’t there helping you. Don’t use it to become a martyr. If martyrdom is something you tend to do, continue reminding yourself that this is not anyone else’s problem to deal with, that everyone else has their own burdens to bear, and this one is yours to figure out.

I suggest if you have problems with this concept make it a mantra or an affirmation for a while… “I take full responsibility for my own well being”.

Quit Complaining

Complaining is a way to wallow in victimization. It contains a sort of wish to give up and dump your shit onto someone else. It also relays the idea to both yourself and the people you complain to that you receive love through sympathy (which insinuates that bad stuff has to happen to you for you to receive love). Plus it makes people feel a sense of guilt alongside helplessness, which isn’t healthy for anyone. All of this – people feeling sorry for you, wishing to dump your shit off on others, and needing love through sympathy – puts you in a powerless position and manifests more of what makes you a victim. In the end complaining gives the victim negative power, and allows you to wallow in feelings of smallness and abuse. We don’t want this.

There is a difference, by the way, between complaining, and relaying a story, or getting something off your chest. Both of the later come with an attitude of aloofness, or even joviality, over the situation. I recently had a friend call to tell me about a really bad day he had just experienced. Everything that could go wrong had in such an extreme way that it was like a movie. When he told me about it it was with a lighthearted hilarity, like telling an entertaining story, and he himself had remained fairly calm throughout the myriad of crazy things that had happened.

It’s the difference between explaining something or telling a story to someone and whining about it. Telling a story implies that you keep it your own even while asking for help or advice. Whining is trying to make it everyone else’s problem.

The results of simply not complaining have been rather amazing. I suffered for years from terrible, debilitating insomnia. When I quit complaining it got about 90% better.

Stand Up For Yourself * Setting Boundaries

Standing up for yourself is basically all about setting a boundary. Many of us who are dealing with victim issues also have major boundary issues. A boundary is a line between what you do and don’t like. I like flirting with you, I don’t like you creeping on me. I like having pleasant conversations with you, I don’t like it when you call me a name or say something negative about me.

Many of us have massive boundary issues with our families. Family is really where the boundaries were created or abused in the first place. And so this will be the area that is the most difficult. You may even need to stop talking with certain family members for a while, or even always.

But start with figuring out what hurts your feelings or what doesn’t feel good. I have a family members that can be really verbally mean. So whenever that happens I just say “I don’t like that, that statement isn’t true, and it’s not okay for you to say that about me”. This has worked for me, but my family is also somewhat aware and always trying to be better people despite their occasional flaws.

I really like the conversation around difficult family relationships here with Dr. Nicole Lepera.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zc00EYi51k

Healing the inner victim takes much time and patience. This is just the beginning, these are only first steps, and steps you will take over and over again. We are always learning, always changing.

Other steps along the way include acceptance and healing deep inner wounds, which will have to be discussed in part 2.

In the meantime, thanks for listening!

Holy Crap It’s Real

In my previous posts I told the story of how, after starting to follow along with online Qigong exercises, I began feeling sensations of magnets, heat, and tingling in my hands and a relief of my symptoms.

Standing in this funky posture in the middle of my kitchen after about my second or third Qigong session I thought to myself, “Holy crap, it’s actually real!”

This experience intriqued me. I had just spent over a year researching the living daylights out of Sibo and Adrenal Fatigue and every possible supplement, medicine, and remedy of both. I relied a great deal on research studies in an attempt to find solutions to my problems. But the concept of “Qi”, an energy life force that runs through the body upon which both Acupuncture and Qigong are based, is not considered a solid, scientifically proven concept.

Although there have been a couple of bigger research studies done on Qi, both of which have proven that Acupuncture is effective in a couple of areas. That does not mean Acupuncture is only effective in a couple of areas, it means we’ve only done research on its effectiveness in a couple of areas.

As a side note, why do I have to remind us of this? As Westerners, why is it we only believe something once science has proven it? One study has shown Acupuncture to be effective for people with Osteoarthritis. Does this mean that we aren’t going to believe it’s effective for anything else until we’ve tested it on that everything else?

As another side note, I’d like to mention that acupuncture is being used an alternative option to anesthesia for people undergoing surgery, even open heart surgery as is shown in the BBC documentary below. Yes, the patient is laying awake on the table while her chest is cut open and a hole in her heart is sewn up, and in place of an anesthesiologist is an acupuncturist. She doesn’t feel any pain.

Watch open heart surgery happening with just acupuncture for pain control! It’s nuts!

I’m not sure how the thousands of people in China who undergo this style of surgery with great success isn’t proof enough.

Why is it that it isn’t? Why is it that instead we need to round up thousands upon thousands of dollars to perform “real scientific studies” before we will even believe this???

Anyway, I digress.

I was so intrigued by the energy I felt in my hands, that I started looking into what it was, and if you could heal with it. I eventually came across an energy healing class, and I signed up. For a number of weekends my mind was again barraged with thoughts of “holy crap, it’s really real!!!” as over and over again I could most definitely feel, with my eyes closed, the energy of other people’s hands over my body, despite the fact that they were not touching me. Different people even felt differently… one man’s energy felt really static-like, while another woman in the class felt very magnetic or heavy.

I’m serious, it’s frickin’ real!!!

You don’t have to believe me… Einstein said it first.

Since experiencing this, however, I do notice that not everyone feels the energy as intensely as I do. My husband, for example, doesn’t feel it easily at all. When I first came home from my energy workshop I was so excited to try it out on him. But as I stood there with my hands over his right shoulder, feeling a ton of crazy sensations between his body and my hands, I was vastly disappointed to hear him say that he didn’t feel anything. On the other hand, I’ve had friends who felt it so dramatically they thought I was touching them.

Interestingly enough I’ve taught my husband how to run energy himself (I needed someone to heal me). And now, although it is not that intense for him, he can actually tell me where my hands are during a session with his eyes closed.

I also notice that the more I do Qigong and meditation, the more strongly I feel it.

So what does this mean for us?

Here’s what I would love for it to mean: we do not need western medicine for chronic health problems.

Our medical practices for chronic conditions are a complete sham. Sure some people do feel better and get good treatment. Sometimes medical treatments work. But there are a vast number of people who, like myself, aren’t helped by western medicine. There are many people who are made sicker as they are strung along a chain of drug after drug that address only symptoms and never root causes.

We need a revolution. We need to take back our power. We need to realize that the body knows how to heal, that we can heal ourselves. That we don’t need rich doctors and rich hospitals profiting off our illnesses, and we definitely don’t need pharmaceutical companies that shelve real cures to continue profiting off of “treatments” that leave us with massive side effects. I don’t want to paint the picture in total black and white, as I know there are massive amounts of gray areas; good doctors who care, drugs that do actually work, and medical communities that want to do good. But I don’t think that we’ll be able to sort through the good and the bad, what’s working and what’s not, without a major revolution.

What if, and I’m not saying this is true, just “what if”, Qi and energy healing have been known all along but have been suppressed, and deemed “crazy” by our medical world on purpose because if we knew how to heal ourselves “they” wouldn’t be able to sell us drugs? A radical idea maybe, but who knows? At this point, after everything I’ve been through, I think anything is possible.

So I beg you, for your health and the health of our communities, and because you never know when it might be you or a loved one who gets sick, (our entire world is so full of poison) try it for yourself. Hone your own Qi, learn Qigong, learn how to run energy. Qigong is so good for you even if you don’t believe in Qi… it moves and opens up your joints and stretches your muscles. But it also connects you to the life force energy of both the earth and the universe, and it just might surprise you by showing up as real sensations. If it’s something you are even remotely interested in, I highly recommend it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyINAjEoTIs&t=16s

https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Touch-Power-Third-Richard-Gordon/dp/1556435940/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=quantum+healing&qid=1566424111&s=gateway&sr=8-4

By the way I don’t really like supporting Amazon. If you have a local book store, try using them instead!

Mrs. Brightside

To recap my last post, I’d been feeling like I was going to die any day. Yet massive amounts of bloodwork and tests had all “proved” I was fine, and doctor after doctor sent me home with no answers. Until an acupuncturist took my pulse and told me I was very sick.

I began to come up with the theory that maybe I had just run out of Qi. Remember, I was desperate and I was reaching.

But it does makes sense right? Blood, stomach, and hormone specialists can’t find anything wrong, but the Qi specialist discovers something seriously wrong. I’d already run through all the western theories – Sibo, a vagal nerve problem, a biofilm problem, dysbiosis, a brain tumor. I was in need of a new one, and running out of Qi was as good as any.

So one day, covered in needles, I asked my acupuncturist about Qigong: I was looking for ways to build my Qi faster, to feel better faster.

“You could try Qigong”. She responded. “In China we say acupuncture is the lazy man’s Qigong”.

So the next day I looked up beginning qigong on youtube and discovered Marissa, the lady in the red outfit that comes up when you do that search.

About half way through, I felt it. My hands started tingling and getting warm. When I brought them toward each other it felt like a giant magnet in each hand repelling the other.

It was amazing.

The routine only lasted 23 minutes but I felt great afterward. I could actually go up the stairs and take a shower with minimal effort.

The next day, the same thing, 23 minutes, hands feeling like they’re glowing, and I’m good to go. My stomach even started feeling better.

On the third day, something transformational, something massive, happened. It was nothing more than a simple thought. I had the thought, “What if I could heal myself with this? What if I didn’t need doctors?”

That thought transformed me for the rest of the day. I was a happy camper. I was free. I didn’t need any frickin’ doctor. I could heal myself! Somehow. Some way. I would do it. I’d figure it out. I was brimming with enlightenment and hope. There was something in my hands at the end of Qigong that I could physically, actually, feel. Fuck the medical industry! This was real. It felt like magic!

My stomach started feeling better, the bloating went down, and the fatigue began to fade. I was bright and happy!

But then one day, after about a week, something else happened. I had a bad day. I did my Qigong and my stomach didn’t feel better. I was bloated. Really, really bloated. And my mood, thoughts, and energy totally crashed. Hard.

I sobbed. I think that was the first time I sobbed that hard. It was the first time I really lost hope. It wasn’t going to work after all! The thought that I’d have to keep searching for doctors, and for ‘what was wrong with me’, sent me into deep despair. The thought of having to go back to yet another doctor literally made me want to commit suicide. Lost hope is not a good thing. I have learned that that is what suicide is made of. Lost Hope.

After a few days of this terrible misery I made the decision to get up and try again. I remembered how good it felt just to feel that magic in my hands for the first time and so I tried again.

And I felt better.

Thus began a vicious cycle of feeling a little better, getting my hopes up, and then falling completely off the happy-feel-good wagon into a deep, dark depression of utter hopelessness, fatigue, and painful bloating. I began to think maybe I was bipolar. I’d be overjoyed with the slight relief in symptoms from Qigong, and then fall into a pit of tears and despair when I’d have a bad day, where all was lost and I was an idiot for thinking I could heal my body with invisible energy.

The madness continued for months. Up, down. Up again, down again.

I’d have days of hopelessness, of plotting my own demise, and pointless, migraine inducing sobbing. This would be followed by strange surges of happiness as I’d pick myself up and start feeling better… like the calm of eyes of a string of hurricanes. I’d often ponder my own sanity, literally thinking I was beginning to go mad, which had its own spirals of despair to add to everything else.

But within the madness of this storm was a treasure. An epiphany that looks so simple on the outside, but within contains the true secret to our lives. The madness wasn’t going to stop until I acknowledged this little piece of wisdom …

My thought patterns were creating whichever reality I was experiencing.

I’d feel the bloating and fatigue returning, and in would flow all of these negative thoughts of how this was never going to end, and how I’d have to explain things to yet another doctor while enduring more eye rolling and belittling just to go home empty handed. I’d revisit in my mind these depressing visits, then I’d think about how stupid it was to think I could actually heal myself, that Qi was bullshit, and that I was deluding myself while my body continued to get worse. And down, down, down I’d go.

And then I’d do Qigong, and feel the energy in my hands that felt so real and I’d remember that sense of hope and happiness. I’d think that maybe energy was real and I’d never have to see another doctor, and my whole body would feel better for days.

Since I started to wonder if my own thoughts were elongating whichever emotion I was experiencing, I tried something. The next time I got upset I combated the onslaught of negativity with positivity. I started thinking about how lucky I was. I looked around and tried to appreciate everything good, from the colors on the walls, the sky, or the plants outside to how much I love my cats, my husband, my bike, my breakfast. I would try to get into the feelings that felt good and anything that made me remotely happy.

Oddly enough, it worked. I started to feel better physically. Sometimes it would take a day or two. Sometimes it was really, really hard to get out of the muck and start thinking positive. But if I could manage it, it would work.

At some point during this time an even bigger realization came. I started to notice that just beneath the surface of my thoughts, just barely recognizable, was fear. This fear would be bubbling up just before I’d have a really bad day physically (which would lead to the bad days emotionally).

The whole thing was being caused by fear. The fear was that it wasn’t really going to work. After feeling better for a couple of days I’d start to fear that the healing wasn’t real, that I was crazy for thinking so. And I’d fear the return of my health problems.

The root problem interfering with my healing was fear. And the negativity was then enhancing that fear. I am currently working on this fear, and so far the best weapon I’ve come up with is not caring so much. Fear works because I wanted so badly to feel better, I cared about it too much. So instead I gave up. I said to myself, ‘if I am meant to be in pain and discomfort, so be it. I am okay with that’ and I dedicated myself to simply doing the best that I can with what I’m given each day.

It’s amazing how difficult it can be to step out of your mind and start thinking positively when you are down in the dumps. How hard it can be to go with the flow of what you are given and make the best of it, when it really sucks. But honestly, if you practice this enough, you will realize that what “sucks” is what you make of it, and things do improve slowly over time if you change your attitude.

I now truly believe that positive thinking is very powerful. As a previous cynical bastard of life, I feel a little weird saying that. But it’s true.

So the main message is this: we create the energy in our world with our beliefs, thoughts, and emotions. Are you creating out of fear? Are you thinking negatively? Do you take the lemons and suck it down puckered up in discomfort and then complain about all the lemons life hands you?

There is much in this world that can bring you down. But how you think about it is your choice. That’s where you are truly free, it’s the one thing nobody can steal from you but you. Dwelling on the negative events of your life is like putting yourself into a straightjacket. Every fear you coddle and every negative thought you have about your life is like another rope tying you down, mummifying you.

Just becoming aware of your thoughts can be a challenge. But what I’ve learned is that your emotional state as well as your physical body are like the reflection of these thoughts, like a window into that world. Negativity begets negativity. Take a couple of positive thoughts or things you love, and remind yourself to think about them throughout the day. In every way you can, remind yourself of the good. It is so much more important than I once thought.

It is much easier said than done. When you’re feeling grumpy, to look around and think to yourself how lucky you are, how beautiful life is, to just sit and enjoy the sounds, the sensations, that exist around you… it’s can be really, really hard. But I swear it’s worth it. It can change your life.

Rethinking Western Ways of Thinking (pt. 2)

I wanted to expand on last week’s blog, in which I told the story of my disappointment in western medicine and science.

However, this one turned out to be really, really long. So I’ve broken it down into parts for quicker skimming… I’ve given my top three examples to express the two major problems I have with science. They are labelled in bold. Pick and choose what you feel like reading about.

The truth is, I do frickin’ love science. Yet I believe there are two major problems with the scientific and medical communities: 1. Dogma, and 2. The tendency to uphold science as superior to the subjective experience.

First let’s talk about dogma. Dogma stems from our egos. Our egos take whatever it is we are attracted to or enjoy, and turn it into a personality badge. We wear our likes and dislikes like honor badges won from hard work or competition, as if they are evidence of prestige. Whether it’s our political associations, religious beliefs, or even what television shows we watch. We are dog or cat people, single or married, into books, comics, art, coffee, Game of Thrones, skinny jeans or motorcycles. People who aren’t into the things we like are on the outside, they just don’t get it, and we often treat them as inferior.

We let these things, these outside things that are not us but that we consume, enjoy, research, or think about, define us. And if we were to strip away all of our loves and hates, what then? Who, exactly, would we be?

When things become dogma we no longer see it as something outside ourselves that we enjoy, and instead we take it on as a defining piece of our personality. It then morphs into things we believe are better than other things, which morphs into beliefs about which people are better than other people. Cat people are better than dog people, science people are smarter than religious people, MDs are better than NDs, Atheists are smarter than Christians, Christians are more moral than atheists.

These beliefs can then morph even further into a fear of these “others” with different ideas and lives than our own. We fear them. But why? Are we afraid they will change us? Does their difference threaten us somehow? Perhaps we fear that if they were to change us it might change or break a part of who I am‘. Perhaps it threatens our identity.

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Take, for example, a close scientist friend whose wife senses a nature spirit in their yard. She feels its presence, especially when it is upset with her for something she changed in the yard. However, when she talks about this he roles his eyes and treats it with sarcastic tones. And yet his science cannot prove without a doubt that her experience is invalid. But he treats her as if that is the case, as if she is less intelligent for having these experiences and talking about them.

This is science as dogma. It is a belief that if we, with our limited human senses, can’t measure something, it isn’t real, and therefore we can treat each other with disrespect over it. It has become his religion, he wears his science as that personality badge, and he has to demean his wife’s experience because it is not accepted by the mainstream science that defines him.

Rather than simply accepting that the science world is his own truth, but that his wife has a different truth, he goes that further step of demeaning her experience. With a simple eye roll he let us all know that his own beliefs are somehow better or smarter. Yet she is an intelligent human being, and I very much trust her to be truthful. Who is he to claim her experience isn’t valid? He is holding his views and experiences of the world, his personality badges, as superior to her experience. Her experience threatens his view of reality, his view of himself, and his place within the scientific community’s dogma.

Take away the judgement and we are simply left to ponder questions… how does she know the spirit is there? What does she feel physically? What’s different from when it is there and when it isn’t? Are there others that experience this?

Open minded questioning, in my humble opinion, is true science. Isn’t the purpose of science to explain the mysteries of the world? Considering there are many, many people and even entire cultures that experience “spirits” and the like, why do we dismiss these things just because we don’t have the means to measure them… yet? Aren’t they mysteries we could further explore and try to understand, rather than claiming they don’t exist at all. And must we really take it that step further and claim that we are superior for believing they don’t exist? I mean this is the root of colonization, slavery, WW2… etc.

Whether you do or you don’t believe it exists, you have to believe, you cannot know your side is definitively true. Whether it’s science or religion, it’s still a belief system.

What science has revealed to exist in the world shouldn’t define the entire world that exists… otherwise we are finished, there’s nothing left to discover. If we can’t measure it, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Maybe it only means we haven’t advanced our science enough, that our science is still primitive.

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An example from my own life:
Two years ago I needed an antibiotic for a bacterial overgrowth in my small intestine, a problem known as Sibo. It’s a proven, safe antibiotic that only affects the small intestine, and doesn’t damage your microbiome. Unfortunately the person who did the test, despite being a very common test done in most Gastro clinics known as a hydrogen breath test, was a naturopath. She couldn’t write the script, so she told me to take the test to any GI office. When I took it to my regular Gastroenterologist he yelled at me and told me that his office doesn’t perform those tests. So I called around town and found a large mainstream clinic that did perform them, and set up an appointment.

The appointment went very badly. At the time I hadn’t realized the huge amount of disrespect and animosity among many doctors towards naturopaths. I thought the first experience with my regular GI doc was just him being stodgy.

I started out by handing the doctor the breath test and explaining to her that my naturopath had performed a hydrogen breath test that was positive for Sibo, and I needed the antibiotic. The first words out of her mouth were “First of all I don’t believe in Eastern Medicine”.

“It’s a hydrogen breath test developed by western medicine. I know that your office performs these same tests”

“This test looks nothing like our tests, I can’t even read this test”.

The test was so easy to read I had been able to figure it out within a couple of seconds. Not kidding. Plus the numbers are the same for all breath tests. All she needed to do was look at the numbers.

She then explained that she had serious patients with real problems like stomach cancer, and that they didn’t “treat people for bloating”. And she refused to give me my antibiotic.

This is just one example of my many experiences with the dogma of western medicine. There is no room for anything to exist outside the limited information they’ve been taught, and they sneer at outside people like naturopaths, even when these people are using the same western research and science used in their own clinics.

The doctor that finally gave me the antibiotic didn’t believe that I had Sibo either, and rolled his eyes right in front of me when I handed him the breath test. But then he went on to say that the antibiotic I was requesting really seemed to help people with IBS. Keep in mind this antibiotic ONLY works in the small intestine, and, it’s an ANTI-BIOTIC, as in it kills off overgrowths of bacteria in the small intestine and that is the ONLY thing it can do. It literally doesn’t even effect any of the rest of the body – staying only in the small bowel. Maybe many people with IBS actually just have Sibo???

Besides these experiences, it’s also been incredibly hard to convince any of my doctors of the modern research done on Sibo, most of which has come out of the Cedars Sinai Clinic in California – a western med research clinic whose research shows that many if not most cases of IBS are actually Sibo.

This clinic also recently developed a blood test that tests for an autoimmune condition responsible for some very severe cases of Sibo. Yet I could not convince my GI doc to let me get this test either. I once again had to go to my Naturopath for that. Btw, it was positive.

Do you see my frustration? I have an autoimmunity towards a protein that the body needs to heal the nervous system of the small intestine. I have a science based western med test developed by MDs to prove it. I knew about the test because I love science and have researched this stuff. But I could not find one GI doc in all of Colorado who is up on this research, or even willing to look into it or to take my test seriously – because it is outside what they already know. Their egos are threatened by it.

BTW, If you are interested in more information about the cutting edge science of Sibo, the science that most Gastroenterologists are completely unaware of and do not want to even look at, here’s a link:

https://www.cedars-sinai.org/research/labs/pimentel.html

Mainstream medicine is like my scientist friend that refuses to accept there may be more than what they already know – and we’re not even talking about spirits and stuff we can’t see, but actual science and research. These doctors wear the badge of western medicine, and that definition has boxed in everything they’ve already learned. God forbid they take into consideration something a naturopath recommended, or new research. In my experience medicine seems to be controlled more by tradition and politics than by scientific data.

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Take another example, William Bengston. William, or “Bill” is a guy who loves research and science. While in college he became friends with a psychic, Ben. As a science-loving person himself, Bill wanted to study Ben, especially because he had a very high rate of accuracy. Ben, however, didn’t want to be studied.

Bill ended up working alongside Ben and spent years helping him heal people with his hands. They cured all kinds of illnesses but eventually their relationship ended when Bill, as a faculty member of a prestigious University, began devising research studies and experiments to test and document these abilities.

Since then Bill’s experiments have proven over and over again that anyone, even people who are complete non-believers in this kind of “hogwash”, can cure mice of cancer. Bill’s energy healing experiments are so strong that the cancer-ridden control mice have to be removed to another city before healing begins, otherwise the controls are often healed as well.

His research shows we can cure cancer with our hands. Where is the Nobel prize? Like my friend’s wife, he has been treated with less respect, probably because his findings do not make a large company any money, and are very much outside the dogma of mainstream science. I am actually quoting from his book when I previously stated that “science seems to be controlled more by tradition and politics than by scientific data.”

Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to gain the funding to do any of this type of research on humans… yet. But that doesn’t mean you can’t try it out yourself.

https://bengstonresearch.com/

I highly recommend his book, The Energy Cure.

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So when I say I had to release western medicine and science, it was this dogma, this personality badge, that I had to release.

I had to realize three things:

1. That what was right in front of our eyes to experience and measure was not all there was.

2. That being open to the existence of more did not have to threaten who I am. That I can still be a valid person, with a soul and everything, even as I open my mind to the existence of things like Qi, yard spirits, and energy healing.

3. I’d hit the ceiling of medicine and science of what is going on with my body. The research into Sibo is so new, it isn’t mainstream. And when I was hit with chronic fatigue that I think is related to my adrenal glands, that is a whole new world that our science hasn’t even touched yet.

It’s why people like this guy in the article below have had to do their own research and even create their own surgeries! I mean come on, when people are so desperate for answers they start inventing their own surgeries you know that our medical science is simply not up to par. Come on, doctors! Open up your minds and start finding us some answers!

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/27/health/doug-lindsay-invented-surgery-trnd/index.html

I think outside the mainstream there are many scientists who see the world with wonder in their eyes and curiosity in their hearts and go to work unveiling the mysteries we find ourselves living in on this planet, in this universe. I think that in order to be a brilliant scientist you truly have to be able transcend the concepts that are in place and imagine what-if scenarios that others fear. What if Qi is real? What if the entire universe is made up of energy? What if our thoughts create our worlds? What if people can heal cancer with their hands and minds? How could we measure that?

These are the true scientists, because without them we’d be boxed in, believing that we already know everything there is to know about the world, and how boring would that be?

Treat the world and everything in it with curiosity, because it is curiosity that wants to know just what a nature spirit is, or just what is causing these IBS symptoms in so many people. It is only through respectful curiosity in the subjective experiences of humans, beings, and everything around us that that we make new discoveries, advance ourselves and our civilization, and evolve.

2. Releasing Western Ways of Thinking, Starting With Medicine

It began last year. I thought I was going to die.  I could barely eat anything without a lot of pain and discomfort. I fit into my clothes from high school, which was ironic because I had finally outgrown caring about that. But I was starving. Being both hungry and in pain from eating is incredibly frustrating and scary.

But the kicker was the fatigue.  For months I had begun feeling more and more tired in my body and muscles, until finally I could barely move. It felt like a really terrible flu in my muscles… they just wouldn’t move and the thought of getting myself across the room or upstairs to change clothes was monumental.  At first I thought it was just from not eating enough but it went on for too long, and eventually it got so bad that I started to feel like I wouldn’t have enough energy to continue to beat my heart, and each night when I went to sleep I wondered if I’d even wake up.  I’d seen over a dozen doctors, who did numerous tests on me.  Every test would turn out to be in the “normal” range (just barely). I spent a lot of time crying and feeling very hopeless. I fell into a terrific depression. I didn’t know what to do.

One day in desperation I went to my acupuncturist.

I was always one of those “open minded” people who thought it was narcissistic of us to think that the only things that exist are those we can sense with our 5 human senses. Even if you believe the “if you can’t measure it it doesn’t exist” mantra you still have to admit that we will be able to discover and measure more in another 100 years than we can today. If everything we could currently measure was all that exists why continue doing any research at all?

However, I had never really gotten much out of acupuncture personally, and was more or less going out of desperation. So I took my “open minded” ass in for an appointment with my Taiwanese acupuncturist who used to work in a Chinese hospital (their hospitals actually have acupuncturists as real doctors!?)

She first took my pulse, then immediately gasped, looked at me wide-eyed, and told me that I was very, very sick.  Her face was more than worried. I think she couldn’t believe what she was feeling in my pulse as she kept feeling my wrist over and over and then looking at me bewildered.  I asked if my Qi was low. She responded with “it can’t get any lower than that or you’d be dead!”.

I teared up. I had spent the last several months trying desperately to convince doctors that I didn’t feel well. None of them believed me. Finally someone knew how badly I felt. I literally felt very close to death in this very strange way I’d been unable to explain.

She asked me what I was doing and who I was seeing. At the time it was a Naturopath and a number of MDs and I was on a limited diet and a huge array of supplements and medication for adrenal fatigue, gut, and thyroid issues.

She wanted me to completely stop taking EVERYTHING I was on.

But without realizing it I had become addicted to taking something. I realize now as I type this that this was based in fear. I was afraid I’d get even worse if I wasn’t doing what these doctors had told me. Despite myself I believed that taking pills and seeing “real” doctors would save me.

I didn’t want to release the regimen. I was faced with a giant conundrum; it was time to release my belief in the western medical system and trust her. That’s precisely what she wanted me to do. And my open-mindedness did not want to.

While laying there with needles all over my body I had this thought… … the thought was… if only I could get my doctors, who didn’t believe there was anything wrong with me, to join up with my Acupuncturist… if only she could convince them… … …and that’s when it struck me. Within this thought was residing a belief I didn’t even know I had held onto… I realized that I devalued her, that truthfully I held western medicine hierarchically above, as more valid, than Eastern, despite my open-minded attitude and despite the fact that I understood the inherent problems of a capitalist healing system for chronic disease. My doctor continued to seem more knowledgeable, more valid, in my mind. I’d be able to believe her more easily if her information was transferred through him. Here she was, a mere acupuncturist, who I’d be embarrassed to even tell my MD I’d seen, and yet she could tell me exactly how I felt while he could not. And I wanted to push her through a western loop in order to fully believe and trust her.

Truly I already knew that Western medicine doesn’t have all the answers. We think of it as advanced because we are looking backwards to the days before antibiotics or immunizations when we thought leeching people was a good idea. The history of western medicine includes giving people drinks of mercury and arsenic for syphilis and morphine for crying babies!

If we could look back to now from 500 years in the future we’d think the same things about just how primitive these days are. We are always existing at the leading edge of medicine, which gives us an illusion of greatness.

But even through my own experiences I knew this!!! In every case of problems I’ve had throughout my life I’ve been told I needed drugs or surgeries that when I researched them, would make my problem worse (steroids for arthritis, PPIs for Ulcers, Ambien for insomnia, etc). I’ve done A TON of research into everything… especially Sibo, finding huge discrepancies between the research and MD treatments.

Plus, My partner is a medical device sales rep… deals have to be profitable for both the hospital and the doctors performing the surgery in order to be made available. If a new drug or surgery isn’t profitable, it isn’t available. Socialist countries are more apt to go for the inexpensive, effective treatments because everybody has money to lose when people are sick, but in this country certain people have much to gain by our illnesses. It simply makes more economic sense in terms of profitability, to sell treatments rather than cures… And I already knew this… so why am I laying here wishing I could change my MD’s mind?

The major point, the life altering epiphany, was I hadn’t listened to my own knowledge and instead had held onto a system that was holding me back. I had to let go of the thought that western medicine would save me, or even help me, because in my reality it wasn’t doing either. Whatever was going on with me, western medicine couldn’t even measure it. She could measure something that nobody else could, that was very real to me, and not at all real to my western world of medicine…

Let me say this again…
she could measure something that nobody else could, that was very real to me, and not at all real to my western world of medicine…

Within this statement exists the dominoes of epiphanies and realizations that were next to come that have utterly changed who I am at my core. Beginning with the loss of my total faith in western science and medicine as the only, the most advanced, the best, way of thinking that exists. When we give up these beliefs, we become more free and expansive. Believing in one thing only, in a hierarchy of knowledge, is very limiting. The truth is, every modality has something of value, as well as some pitfalls, and to claim only one of these is true or valid is both insulting to the people those systems help, and limiting you to the ceiling and pitfalls of your own belief system.

I went home and put all of the supplements away in a cupboard. After a week of no supplements, I actually had a better day. Many months later when I was feeling better she told me that she had been very worried for my life.  Unfortunately this was not the complete answer to my health quest. But I did start to feel better overall. The bloating was less painful, I started sleeping better, and the fatigue began to fade.

This was the first time I was asked to trust in something that was foreign to me. It was hard, and I had to first acknowledge, or realize, the belief that was blocking me from doing that. So much of the time we are acting through the invisible force of our subconscious beliefs. We have to start to see these for what they are; illusions that hold us back. It was hard for me to realize that western medicine was making me sicker, because research shows that it should’ve helped. But the fact of my own experience was opposite of the research, and I had to accept that.

It also opened up a strange question for me. It revealed that what I think and what I believe can be different, and even oppositional. That your beliefs can work against you. The question for me now is, how do we change those deep inner beliefs that are controlling our lives despite our intentions? How can we live the truth of the things we know, rather than the illusions of the things we’ve subconsciously taken on?

For now, I know that we are here to expand and grow. And to do that we must first ask questions. What are the ideas, people, systems, or things that you are quick to judge and reject? Are you judging someone or something based on fear? Do you believe in a system or a regimen that is limiting?

I believe we can have ideas or things we believe are true for ourselves, while acknowledging that what is true for others may be different from what is true for ourself.

Acknowledge your biases, open your heart and mind, trust, and surrender to the learning experience that is life on planet earth. That’s the only advice I can really offer for now.

1. The Turning Point and a New Blog

I used to think this way.  I used to see the world as a living nightmare, where, powerless, we wander, not knowing what to do, while destruction of our planet goes on in every direction.  The world seemed to be seething with the most base and horrible forms of humanity.  Hierarchies, people worshiping money and empty material items with little to no compassion for the suffering below them, while striving towards empty friendships and  with people of any sort of status above them.

I couldn’t handle it.  I found it sickening, and it made me sick.  Really really sick.

I’m going to try to make this short, because the story of just how sick I got and how horrible that was doesn’t serve much purpose.  And so I’m keeping it to a minimum, but if you have questions leave them in the comments and I will try to answer them.

Yes I got really sick.  It began with insomnia.  Insomnia that got so bad I literally couldn’t get more than a few hours per night.  This went on for a couple of years, and believe me, I tried everything.  Well, everything except the major drugs because I like to do research, and the drugs are terrible for your brain and do nothing for chronic insomnia (they’re great for small bouts of insomnia caused by a trauma, but for chronic cases the effects eventually wear off and you get worse rebound insomnia, which is something I experienced with melatonin and over the counter remedies and was not willing to do again.)

I then began having terrible digestive problems that turned out to be Sibo (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth).  After a year of massive research, over a dozen doctors and Naturopaths and every diet and supplement or drug regimen you could think of, I started experiencing the most debilitating fatigue I’ve ever experienced.  At one point last year I could barely eat anything, I was put on something called the “elemental diet”, which consists of a very easily digestible medical food powder.  This was a difficult regimen in which I ate no real food, only this gross powder mixed up in water for 3 weeks.  But it made me even more tired, and I became so fatigued  I could barely move my limbs or get up my stairs to get dressed or go to bed at night.  It was awful.

But no doctor could figure it out.  My blood work, all of the massive amounts that I had done at every different doctor’s office imaginable, showed that everything was borderline low… but nothing worth worrying about.

In the meantime I literally thought I was going to die.  I felt like my body was dying, like I wasn’t sure I’d have the energy to get up the stairs or to even continue to beat my heart.

And so I started to feel very hopeless.  I was living in a hopeless world, and a hopeless body, and there was just nothing left to live for.

One day I started sobbing and couldn’t stop.  This went on for hours, my head throbbing and spinning from all the crying.  It was that day, in the late afternoon, when these words came into my mind.  “You don’t want to exist here, so now you must make that final decision.  Do you want to live or not?  It’s your gift, you get to decide what you want”.

The feeling was that all I needed to do was say the words and the powers that be would just let me die.  I had been living with a secret death wish for a very long time.  I had had thoughts of wishing I would just die most of my adult life, because I hated everything.  I hate my civilization, I hate religion, I hate what we are doing on this planet, killing everything… if you’ve read some of these posts you know it.  I am full of hatred for our current situation and I feel stuck living here with these horrors, these monsters that rule our existence and this planet.

However, in that moment, I looked around, and saw that life was also quite nice.  I am living in a lot of luxury.  I can take a bath whenever I want, I have clean drinking water, I live in a beautiful home that we’ve made beautiful, I have my own studio, I garden and the plants are healthy, my yard is beautiful and there are many birds.  I can go hiking in nature within an hour drive.  I have a couple of good friends who care about me.  I have a love, a real love, that cares about me and is open and loving.  I am, … blessed.

And yet my hatred of my own civilization had caused me to feel guilty, to feel bad, about my blessings, instead of actually living them and feeling them and loving them.

The story of misery was mostly taking place outside of my immediate surroundings, and I had focused so much on it, that I had completely ignored everything that was good in my immediate life.  As a “privileged white person” I felt guilty and ashamed of the good things in my life and was subconsciously pushing them away.

I was also beginning to believe that my body would never feel better again.  I had lost hope of being healthy.  All of this began pouring through my mind when for some reason I decided to go outside and sit down in my yard.  I felt a patch of clover to my right and looked down, and started looking at the little clovers.  Within a few minutes I found a four leaf clover.

It felt like a sign.  I realized that truthfully we are never stuck, things are always moving and changing.  Between the insomnia, the Sibo, and the fatigue it had been many years since I felt well.  Up to that point my thoughts were that if I was going to continue feeling like this I’d rather bite the dust.  But the clover felt like something was trying to get a bigger point across.  What if thinking I was stuck was the main thing making me feel stuck?

I chose that day to continue, to keep living this life.  That decision was the beginning of a transformation.  I am hoping that maybe if enough of us transform too, we can change everything.  I no longer believe that we should be focusing so much on the terrible atrocities of our world, because this focus has a terrible outcome… it makes us feel powerless.   And what if we project these feelings out into the world?  What if we are how we feel?  What if feeling powerless makes us powerless?  Don’t get me wrong.  I do NOT believe in burying your head in the sand, I do think that we do need to learn and become aware of what is happening, and continue taking action.  But we need to do it with care.  Once we know what is happening we can’t allow ourselves to become addicted to the negativity of it, focused on only the bad, such that we make ourselves depressed, sick, and devoid of our own will to live, such that we bring the energy of our world down instead of up.

I know it sounds so damn cliche, but we must be the change we want to see in the world.  I used to deplore this mantra, because I believed it gave people the okay to ignore the atrocities of our civilization.  But the absolute truth is that I am the only thing that I can change.  You are the only thing you can change.  If we view this as a travesty, then it will be a travesty.  If we view it as a joyous ability, then that’s what it will be.  We are, in a sense, creating our own reality.  And collectively we are creating our reality.  There is a collective consciousness.  The more we immerse ourselves in the negative the more negative our life here on this planet will be.  I felt I couldn’t digest my world, and so it was that I couldn’t digest anything.

That choice wasn’t an end-all.  It wasn’t like I made that choice and then everything got better.  That choice was the harder choice.  Living on this earth is very difficult, and transformation is hard.  Since making this choice I’ve still been suicidal, I’ve been frightened, depressed, sick, messed up and upset, but I’ve also felt tremendous joy, been made aware of better ways of living, of other possibilities, and of a great amount of power we actually have within our own minds.  I am muddling through the downs to get to the highs, that’s where I’m at currently.  I believe that it will eventually settle out a bit.

So this is the beginning of my ongoing story of change and transformation, of what belief can do in our lives, of what happens when we let negativity and focus on the bad rule our minds, and how to release all of it to create a better world for ourselves and the planet we live on.  It is about seeking… seeking truth, seeking healing, seeking love, and I want to share it with anyone who seeks these things too.

It is time to dig ourselves out of the trenches of negativity and powerlessness.  It is time to move from a place of misery, heart break and negativity to a place of love and joy.  I really hope we can all do it together.  There is a collective consciousness.  What kind of energy are you contributing to it?

Until next time.

The Bringers of Light

I am an agent of beauty and meaning.  That’s what an artist does.  We are the true bringers of light into the world. Religion is not.

We connect the people with the mystical forces of life. Early religion was supposed to do that. Once upon a time religious ceremony and art went hand in hand.

Sadly, we severed that connection, and while religion went on to become a moral whip and population control device (or more likely a sexuality control device), art became a luxury item obtained for personal enjoyment and lavish, boastful home decoration.

But in every piece of art, the thing we artists know deep down in our heart of hearts, is that art still has the capacity to connect us to a deeper understanding of our own roots. Roots that reach beyond the capitalistic business world we are forced to endure every day, beyond the physical reality of a 40 hour workweek, to-do lists, bills to pay and time to kill. Roots that remind us of our true purpose here on this earth, to feel the warmth of the sun after a long winter, the taste of nourishment after being hungry, to feel the rapture of falling in love and the joy having children… the things that are essential to life.

In the words of Micheal Burry (the genius hedge-fund manager who first recognized and invested in the impending mortgage crisis of 2008) when exiting the world of financial investment, “business kills the part of life which is essential, the part that has nothing to do with business”.

Yet art does the opposite. Art is the thing that connects you to that essential part of life.

Our Dreams Are Bullshit

One day when I grow up I’m going to be a pop-star.  Or an astronaut.  Or a firefighter.  Isn’t it amazing that we teach our children that one day they will lose their inherent worth and have to get a job to prove that they are someone important.  That in order for anyone to take you seriously in this life, you have to have a real job.  Well, I think this is total bullshit.

Civilized life is not the pinnacle of humanity.  It just isn’t.  Most people think it is, and this opinion is directly proportional to how many other non-western cultures they have experienced or researched.  But the truth is that modern civilization is really just a modernized version of feudalism.  We are mostly the peasants – peasants allowed some pretty great jobs and a fairly cushy life, most likely so that we don’t revolt. But in the end we are still slaves working our lives away with little to no power to truly change anything.

The truth is, we aren’t meant to work this fucking hard.  We aren’t meant to wake up every day exhausted and struggling to figure out how we are going to work all day and still have time to make dinner, grocery shop, go to the bank and read to our kids or enjoy our hobbies.  We especially aren’t meant to work our lives away for someone else to make a lot of money off our hard work, which is what most of us do.

We are meant to work, about 20 hours per week, to find food and shelter for ourselves and the people we love.  The rest of the time is meant for spending time with those people we love, doing things we love doing like swimming or making shit or telling stories, and simply existing.

Ever sit in the sun on a warm spring day for hours just reveling in the feeling of the warmth and the breeze?  Because that is actually what we are meant to do.  That is the reason why life exists.  Enjoying the taste of food, the feel of the air or another’s touch, talking and teaching and learning with each other, and the smell of the rain.  Our sensations – that’s the stuff that actually infuses life with real meaning.

We are meant to understand the seasons – the tastes, smells, feelings and sensations of every different season.  We are supposed to know all the constellations that move through each of those seasons.  We are meant to have a genuine connection with the animals and bugs that share our landbase.  We were meant to play with wolf pups in the wild and sing songs by moonlight.  We are meant to wade through rivers, know the smell of the rain before it comes, and eat food right from the earth.

We are meant to do different activities with each season, making life exciting.  We certainly aren’t meant to do some sedentary activity day in day out for years upon years.  No wonder we aren’t healthy.

Everything we need to survive this world has already been given to us.  It grows right out of the ground.  There it is, but we are not allowed to take it without someone else’s permission?  WTF.

I have heard the statistic that indigenous tribes spend about 17 hours per week seeking food and shelter.

So why the fuck have we decided that instead of living off the land with our tribe we would rather become somebody?  Why do we spend our whole lives feeling good about ourselves based on what titles we can attribute to ourselves and how much money we make?

That’s what our dreams boil down to.  What we really seek is a place on this ridiculous, human-imagined hierarchy imposed on us by our civilization.  We want a way to feel better than other people, or in the least, to feel like we are somebody of some importance somehow.  We all compromise trying to figure out a career that will reward us money for food and shelter, preferably of some high standard, so that we can prove ourselves to our friends and family.

So much of our experience, of our waking life, is dedicated to proving ourselves.  Proving ourselves worthwhile, hard working, loving, caring, good, interesting, important, smart, capable.

And then we often end up depressed and feeling empty when we have finally grown up and found a job.  Because we know that it is inherently pointless.  That we just spent a lot of time and money on something we thought would be so fulfilling but we now realize is just dumb.

The truth is that we are supposed to be important regardless.  Every person in a tribe has their place and has an inherent meaning and importance simply through existing.  Unfortunately culture has stripped that meaning and importance from our existences.  Regardless of why or how, we have lost our inner significance and now we are forced to find it exterior to ourselves.  Which I think is sad.

So face it.  You do what you do most likely, at least in part, to feel good about answering the question “so what do you do” at parties.  Perhaps you love numbers and actually really enjoy being an accountant.  Perhaps you are a lucky artist who actually makes a living doing something you love.  But truthfully even those lucky fuckers would still quit their jobs in a heartbeat if they won 500 million in the lottery.

So truly… what do you want to do?  What do you want to be when you grow up?  I just want to be wild.  Too bad they don’t allow that here.