So I don’t have any clients this morning and I find myself in a very odd mood. Mostly I would describe it as defiant. I don’t want to do anything. I need to go get a lab done for my naturopath; don’t wanna. I need to go to SNAP; don’t wanna. I need to make a phone call to a client; don’t wanna.
I feel like I’m just reacting to other people’s pressure lately. I don’t wanna. I want to do what makes me happy, the things that I feel authentically motivated to do.
Chakra 1
Energy Center 1: Base of the Spine
Questions:
Contemplate the sacred truth ‘All is One’. Chakra 2
Energy Center 2: Pelvic Area
Questions:
Contemplate the sacred truth ‘Honor One Another’. Chakra 3
Energy Center 3: Solar Plexis
Questions:
Contemplate the sacred truth ‘Honor Oneself’. Chakra 4
Energy Center 4: Heart Area
Questions:
Contemplate the sacred truth ‘Love Is Divine Power’. Chakra 5
Energy Center 5: Throat Area
Questions:
Contemplate the sacred truth ‘Surrender Personal Will to Divine Will’. Chakra 6
Energy Center 6: Brow Area
Questions:
Contemplate the sacred truth ‘Seek Only the Truth’. Chakra 7
Energy Center 7: Top of the Head
Questions:
Contemplate the sacred truth ‘Live In Present Time’. |
Review the list of all completed projects
What was your biggest triumph in 2010?
What was the smartest decision you made in 2010?
What one word best sums up and describes your 2010 experience?
What was the greatest lesson you learned in 2010?
What was the most loving service you performed in 2010?
What is your biggest piece of unfinished business in 2010?
What was your biggest triumph in 2010?
1. Marrying Greg
2. Leaving CFL and going full time in private pracctice
What was the smartest decision you made in 2010?
Marrying Greg
What one word best sums up and describes your 2010 experience?
Growth
What was the greatest lesson you learned in 2010?
Releasing fear
What was the most loving service you performed in 2010?
When I am kind to Greg.
What is your biggest piece of unfinished business in 2010?
Stoopid licensing board.
What are you most happy about completing in 2010?
Who were the three people that had the greatest impact on your life in 2010?
Greg, a certain client, Chris
What was the biggest risk you took in 2010?
Quitting and doing private practice
What was the biggest surprise in 2010?
Aug. 13
What important relationship improved the most in 2010?
Mom
What compliment would you liked to have received in 2010?
Your intentions are good.
What compliment would you liked to have given in 2010?
not sure
What else do you need to do or say to be complete with 2010?
Be ok with whatever the licensing board does.
Creating the new year
What would you like to be your biggest triumph in 2011?
Career development
What advice would you like to give yourself in 2011?
Focus on love, not fear
What is the major effort you are planning to improve your financial results in 2011?
Better focus on budget and actual spending.
What would you be most happy about completing in 2011?
Career projects and training.
What major indulgence are you willing to experience in 2011?
We hope to go to Sedona.
What would you most like to change about yourself in 2011?
Blossom.
What are you looking forward to learning in 2011?
Love
What do you think your biggest risk will be in 2011?
Trust.
What about your work, are you most committed to changing and improving in 2011?
Networking
What is one as yet undeveloped talent you are willing to explore in 2011?
Astrology
What brings you the most joy and how are you going to do or have more of that in 2011?
Art…
Who or what, other than yourself, are you most committed to loving and serving in 2011?
Greg
What one word would you like to have as your theme in 2011?
Growth
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
| The Shadow Truth spread provides insight into your attitudes and hidden feelings. This spread is used when you are having trouble confronting something, or fear that you are concealing something from yourself. The Haindl Tarot weaves a tapestry of haunting beauty from the traditions of Native America, the Holy Grail, the I Ching, Kabbalah and the Norse Runes, and is the deck of choice for mystics and those seeking enlightenment. If you would like your own copy of the Haindl Tarot, you can buy it now! | |
 |
The card in the center represents the attitude you assume. Five of Swords (Defeat): An overwhelming situation. Need to hold onto principles until the time comes to make a change. Yes, I have been overwhelmed, and I’ve been searching for principles to hold onto. I have felt defeated. My ego is quite angry and insulted. Underneath that I have more humility. I am trying to tolerate being human, having made mistakes, without holding onto that either as a definition of who I am or my worth.
|
 |
The card to the right represents the thoughts and feelings that underly your attitudes. Three of Swords (Mourning): Oppressive situations. Mourning. Sorrow. Purification through suffering. Yes, I have been going through a subtle grieving process subconsciously. I needed to leave CFL and it’s been the best thing for me, and yet I cling to the past in my mind, and I am angry that it was the situation not my own choice. And yet I never would have chosen to leave without the situation. I also mourn the facade of perfection, or perhaps competence, that held me up and has now crumbled. |
 |
The card at the top represents how your attitude is evolving and will evolve in the future. The Hierophant, when reversed: Social pressure. Doctrines and ideas that have lost meaning. Originality. Gullibility. There’s also a shift in my spiritual process that I think will affect my work. I have approached my own spiritual work and personal growth by a searching collection of perspectives (and religions), which is also how I have approached my work, amassing theories and techniques. I seem to be losing faith in this method and realizing I need to go deeper and trust process not content. |
 |
The card to the left represents how others perceive your attitude. Four of Swords (Truce), when reversed: Movement away from silence and peace. New beginnings or old troubles. I’m not sure what this means. Others perceive me as moving through some transition? |
 |
The card at the bottom represents what you cannot confront or are hiding from yourself. Five of Wands (Conflict), when reversed: Personal and aggressive conflicts. Bitterness towards others. So I’m hiding from bitterness? The mind is a block to the bitterness that must be traveled through to find the peace below it. |
Many years ago, I had an online journal or diary before xanga, before blogs. Several years ago my xanga was a diary. Slowy, over time, it became formulaic, an attempt to impress alternating with a strange paranoia about having witnesses reading. Maybe not paranoia always, but self-consciousness. Then came Facebook, which leads to snippets of expression and sharing of information without any depth of conversation or sharing really.
Ok, that being said, here’s how I feel today: shitty. Why? I am anxious because I am still dealing with the licensing board evaluating me. This whole experience of getting into legal trouble has shown me my own level of narcissim. I am addicted to seeing myself as a good person. If I see some indication that I am not, or have made mistakes, particularly mistakes that may cause me risk of my career and thus are threats to my ability to survive financially, it touches on my core issues. So in response, I went through a period of depression and shock and shut down. One result was my faith in 12 Step programs took a nose dive. I guess my ability to trust others did. In part this was because my attorney told me I couldn’t discuss it with anyone. So suddenly I had a problem that I couldn’t take to meetings, except in vague hypothetical terms. It turned my world upside down, or at least on it’s side.
Greg is on his way out the door for work. It’s snowy, so I’m not going in until the afternoon, a.m. client cancelled. I realize I am in an anxious trance, or anxiety attack at the moment. I am trying to not burden Greg with it.
Ok, I took a break for a second. I feel better now. Yet, I know there is something really core that is within reach of some healing right now – despite the discomfort.
So, another thing that recently happened is a visit to a spiritual mentor. I have taken over updating a list of local therapists. One guy listed on the directory emailed me and said, hey, I’m not actually a therapist, but he didn’t say remove me from the list. When I read about him, I realized I wanted an appointment and had one with him. He works through a local yoga studio. http://www.flowhoodriver.com/about-adi.cfm
Adi Marino. As it turns out, his teacher is Gangaji.
So in my 1:1 discussion with him, he shared about non-dual spiritual teachings, about finding out who we really are. The technique basically was to turn and face discomfort and feel into what’s in the center of it. What happened is I shared about intense anxiety and shame, I looked into it and found and emptiness in the center. He said that, in effect, we are all one and it is impossible that that unity is flawed. Therefore, Shame is a lie. Anxiety is a lie. My deduction.
So, the problem is, I left feeling a bit of a crisis as to how to go on living this life in this body with all the story of my life as “me.” LOL. The first obstacle after that was trying to explain to my husband. That weekend and the following, we both went to the Dharma talk with Adi, which has peaked Greg’s interest enough to make his own 1:1 appointment with Adi. I don’t plan on following Adi necessarily, if he even sees it that way; I just wanted Greg to know what I was exploring.
I attended a Dharma center in Portland a decade ago. It was not the right time for me. I was not emotionally stable enough to handle the threat to my ego that is involved in this type of path. I may not be now… LOL.
But back to why I am bringing all this up now, today. I got a letter back from the licensing board asking me further questions about their allegations with regard to the administrative rules. I must write a response, a defense. Somehow this has become the central fire of my spiritual choices right now. Do I defend my ego and attempt to defend my innocence? I can’t. Do I throw myself under the bus and over confess, promptly admit my wrongs, as 12 Steps would say to do? The problem is I can’t accurately assess it anymore in the spiritual state I currently am in.
Honestly, I wish they’d just total up the fines and fine me. Be done with it. But clearly the process continues so that I am forced to look within my core sense that I am broken, tainted, evil, throw-away, should never have been born, will-be-found-out, my core SELF-HATRED.
So the desire to just be fined and move on is another desire to just escape the self-hatred rather than face it. So I will explore facing it, looking into it, moving through it. The only way through is through.
While I adore the idea of using an actual altar as proposed in Lesson 3 of ACWL, I am struggling with implementation; however, I wanted to share my ideas about using visualization of an internal altar. I have used this for several years now. The idea is about surrender of any problem in my life. What I do is visualize an altar and I push whatever symbol of the problem in question onto the space as a visual representation of turning it over to God. I am therefore releasing my attempts to solve it on my own and inviting Him in to my life to work His wonders, or at least to comfort my anxiety so I may find peace.
I did a google search to see if anyone else is talking about this:
another Put it on the Altar Prayer
I also wanted to share that I do have an altar space in my den that I share with my husband, and more effective than that is above it on the wall where we both have vision boards hanging.
In lesson 3, you are encouraged to make a home altar, which I’ve done before, but didn’t have the time to do yesterday. This course takes focus!
Here are some examples:
Assignment #2 is to write two letters to two parts of yourself:
Dear Fat Self,
Mostly I feel really bad for you. I’m not sure it’s pity you want, but it’s what you get. And I also wish you could hide it better. Why is food addiction one of the main addictions you can’t hide (unless you’re bulimic, I suppose)? Now that I’m getting older, and I’ve gained and lost the same 50-75 lbs. several times, my skin is starting to really show the wear and tear by sagging. I hate to look at it. Maybe that’s your goal and always has been, to both broadcast pain but also hide behind a disguise, a deterrant from actual positive attention. Pretty crafty, but also pretty toxic.
Is it really so awful living in your body? You seem to be on strike and it’s been going on for years. I guess eating is being in your body, but not when dissociated. And it’s a lie that eating the wrong stuff is fun, comforting or nurturing. Sh’yeah, right. And would it kill you to exercise? Why did your brother get to be the athlete and therefore you could not? And all the pain from big thighs, big chest, no core muscles! I’ve had it!
I just wish you could love yourself and take ownership of your body again.
Dear Thin Self,
I don’t even know who you are. You seem like an imposter. This is the only pic of a time when I was thin, after high school. I don’t even know how it happened. Maybe it was the release of pressure, fears and loneliness that came with being at college. I don’t know.
I feel like I get too much attention when I am thin. People make too many comments. I don’t like it. I also am afraid that I will seem arrogant or better than others. Like the best looking woman in the room is always hated anyway, so be sure not to be her.
A Course In Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever
LESSON ONE: Bricks on the wall:
God I confess:
Shame: I am ashamed of being lazy and fat, allowing my pain to show on my body. I am ashamed of not having a father growing up. I’m ashamed of being tall, having big hips and boobs. I’m ashamed of not being perfect. I’m ashamed of having to leave my job because I got in trouble. I’m afraid of rejection because of that.
Injustice: This world seems unjust. I don’t feel that I deserved to get in trouble. But then I doubt myself, maybe I did? It isn’t fair that I had to be embarrassed and to go through this scary experience. But ultimately I was protected the whole way and still am.
Anger: I’m angry at that cop, at those bosses, at that lawyer, at the D.A., the investigator, that mom.
Protection: Do I believe that God is protecting me? Yes. But not when I am in fear. I feel I need Protection from attack outside of me, but it’s really attack inside me.
Fear: I’m afraid of not having enough income, but I keep having enough. Thank God for having a husband. Thank God for having a God. I’m afraid of embarrassment. I’m afraid of losing my license, which is unlikely. I’m not afraid of fines, it’s just money.
Pride: That’s a big problem for me, false pride and pride in reverse. I can’t stand being in trouble because I think I’m better than that. How arrogant is that?
Unforgiveness: I haven’t forgiven all the people I’m angry at above. God, I need help to do this.
Selfishness: I am selfish when I expect Greg to meet my needs, that are for God to meet, and don’t care as much about being of service to meet Greg’s needs.
Judgment: I judge myself harshly.
Jealousy: I get jealous when Greg has any relationship with anybody else at all and secretly wish all he needed is me, even before God.
Disdain: I feel disdain for myself, some of the people I’m angry at above.
Greed: I am greedy when I eat.
Excess responsibility: I carry the burden of thinking I’m responsible for my clients’ healing, when it’s up to God and them. My job is to help them remember God and healing.
Laziness: I am lazy about avoiding household chores and organization, about avoiding excercise, and about avoiding grocery shopping or preparing food.
Separation: I feel separate from my brothers and sisters.
Pressure: I feel so pressured about paperwork and pleasing clients.
Dishonesty: I dont’ feel that I can be honest about what I eat sometimes.
Exhaustion: I’m exhausted because I carry so much anger, esp. in my back and my weak core muscles.
Arrogance: I think I am better than people with less education or intellect.
Burden: I am burdened by fears, pressure, anger.
Inferiority: I feel not as good as people with more education, who seem smarter, who are physically fit, who are unafraid, who are organized.
Stress: I am stressed by deadlines, by getting dressed in the mornings, by back pain.
Embarrassment: I feel embarrassed that I cannot control clutter and am seen as messy.
Heartbreak: My heart is heavy because I’m not close to my siblings and don’t know how to be.
Self-abnegation: I have built this wall so that others won’t hate me for being beautiful and successful and seeming to have it all.
“With every word, ask yourself whether or not it represents a thought, an emotional reality, or a character defect that pertains to you.”
Reflection and Prayer
“See all the flesh you think of as excess weight as a brick wall that you carry around. Looking closely at the wall, see that is it made up of your own suffering and pain. Now ask God to walk up to the wall with you. Together, the two of you being to take down each brick, one by one, and ultimately dismantle the wall. Explain to Him what each brick means to you, then watch how whenever He touches a brick, it crumbles.”
//
amznJQ.onReady(‘bylinePopover’, function () {});
// (Author), Dean Ornish M.D. (Foreword)
It’s just sort of hitting me that I am self-employed now that I’m full time in private practice, since Oct 1. I never set out to do this. I guess I always knew that therapists often go into private practice, but I spent 20 years in agencies; it’s what I knew.
Now I make my own hours. Well, I take that back. My clients make my hours. And those are mostly evening hours.
(This kind of sucks since I am a morning person. But it will get better when I get more used to using my morning alone time again).
Also, no more vacation or sick pay. I guess in trade I have little bits of time off all the time.
Now if I could just get used to these changes. I think it will probably take a year.
I am really glad I spent two years getting used to it, part-time on the side. That made the transition easier to have less to figure out all at once.
Recent Comments