The Value of Sounds and How sound affects me now

For some reason the last few weeks I have become more aware of how sound affects me. I can't explain it well. I just know that I have immersed myself in listening to different sounds. I have such a wealth of opportunity for sound sampling on the net.

I have literally bombarded my Facebook with Youtube clips of sound. And I put a few on here that I was drawn to the most. It's almost like I am trying to find a sound that is similar to the ones I hear somewhere inside of me, around me when I am in a deep meditation.

First I hear air rushing around me. Then it turns into a buzzing ..like cicadas or bees. I was pretty familiar with that for years. Now it moves from the buzzing to a sort of sound pulsation. And if I stay in the state any longer the pulsations run together and it sounds like music. I can feel the pulsations in all the chakras and it swirls the energy around these energy centers.

A couple of days ago I was outside cleaning up an area near my wee garden. I was so immersed in what I was doing that I started to hear the musical like pulsations. And when I feel/hear this it makes my body feel like it is in a meditative state and energy rushes through me.

Later I told my partner that I thought I heard the trees singing. He made a funny face but was very kind. I mean he didn't call me crazy or anything.

I have always loved music and maybe this is an extension of it? I have no idea but I love the vibration pulsations and the lift of energy throughout my body.

Lean in to it.

I think it was in the fall or early winter of 2003, I was sitting at my computer playing Ultima Online desperately trying to escape and resist yet another crushing anxiety attack. I remember feeling it coming on earlier in the day. I worked 3-11 shift at that time and it was my day off.

I had taken all the xanax I could safely take along with the other antidepressant meds I was on. To say I was an emotional mess would be like calling a tornado a windy day. I was a real mess. The medication and the counseling helped some but I was not getting better. My life circumstances were dire almost to the point of being desperate. I won't go into the reasons now..suffice to say I was just a mess. Along with the medication I also practiced meditation and Reiki but today I just could not settle enough in my self to do this.

Ok, back to where I was...sitting at the computer, trying to ignore the shakes, rising nausea and the pounding of my heart up in my throat. My best friend (adopted sister..she is way more than a best friend) walked in through the side door into the kitchen. She walked in the living room and saw me. She knew without asking what was happening.

I just said to her, "It's really bad and the xanax isn't working." She started to give me Reiki and then stopped and said, " Just lean into it." And while she was talking my "Inner Guidance" cut through the crazy unstable energy coursing through me this cartoon in my head of a tree trying to get away from the wind. All the time my sister was talking trying to explain this. What I caught after this crazy cartoon in my head was her last words, " I think you should stop trying to resist it." At that moment something happened and I realized I was trying to get away from it and I was resisting it. All of a sudden I could see how resisting this gave it a stronger hold on me. Just for a few seconds I gave into it. Stopped resisting and imaged myself leaning in to it.

At first I was so wild with some unnamed choking fear I could only do it for a second or two but that was enough for me to realize there was something to this. I deliberately and mindfully willed myself to just let go to it. And I feel it easing the pressure inside me. My heart stopped its uneven clattering in my chest, the shaking stopped, the nausea faded and the only thing left were what felt like beams of wild energy coursing through me.

The discomfort remained but the other awful things that went with it..went away. I don't remember a lot of what else happened after this on that day. I remember feeling such gratitude and a measure of relief from the torment I was in. My mind and heart swirling with the conflicting ideas of surrendering vs resistance. I remember spending the rest of the evening talking to my sister about this.

After that I started to use this regularly whenever I felt the beginning of one. It was successful enough I no longer needed the xanax. These "panic episodes" stopped inspiring terror in me.

Soo I had so much success with this I decided to try leaning in to other kinds of emotional pain I was dealing with. My life had taken such a devastating, exhausting and just plain scary turn in 1996 it affected all parts of me.

There were mornings when I woke up that my heart felt just broken. I would wake up and this terrible sorrow would grip me. I tried to override it, meditate out of it. Anything to stop the horrible pain. Well I tried, "Leaning in to it." And how I did this (with the help of my Inner Guidance who gave me the idea)..I would stay in bed, get tissues...and let myself feel what I felt and cry until there was no more tears left. Then I would reward myself with a soak in the tub, a cup of coffee, lay in the bed and read or meditate. The first times I did it was for almost two hours. But the deal I made myself was this. This is the crying time..get it out and then it's done for the day. And my days were better. I slowly began to feel better.

The time I took for this went from 2 to 3 hours to 1 hour ..down to 30 minutes over a period of a year and then I didn't need to do it everyday. I decided to make it like a formal ritual to reinforce the idea that this is the time for sorrow and then I spend the rest of the day living in the now. I set an alarm, lit candles and let it rip. Then when the alarm went off it was done. Time to baby myself with a hot bath and a cup of tea. Or chocolates or a good book.

Now I know this sounds silly and so childish but I don't care. It saved me. It saved me from a life of pain and bitterness. This time taught me to nurture myself and it was the beginning of my path of "Acceptance".


Whew..that was exhausting talking about those times. It kind of made my heart ache to think of those memories. I gotta go meditate and "Lean into it".


Ok, I am back. Now where was I? The beginning of my road out of the "pit".

I will summarize what I learned from this that I use today for everyday discomforts.

First I sense some uncomfortable sensations..like anxiety, fear, anger etc... I then go through "The Formula" that my Inner Guidance gave me a long time ago to aid in proper handling of emotions.

First is the stimulus (what happened prior to these feelings rising. It could be rain, a phone call, a passing thought etc). How am I perceiving the stimulus..and then how am I interpreting it.
How am I responding inwardly and what is my physical reaction.

This helps me NOT to grab on to anything around me to blame for my discomfort. It just is. That's how I process it now.

Next I deliberately open myself to it. Allow myself to feel the discomfort and mindfully be aware enough to not resist. That makes it so much worse.

Then I acknowledge that I am feeling the sadness, anger, anxiety, fear or whatever it is. I don't try to find reasons for it or pin it on an event or person or situation. It just is. Because what I know now is that anything can trigger these feelings at anytime. We all have so much repressed and buried garbage shoved down inside us..sometimes the most innocuous things will trigger it to rise out of the pit of hidden garbage in us.

I Reiki myself while I take a few minutes to observe and acknowledge my discomfort. I try to concentrate on the sensations and not allow my mind to start it's derogatory or blaming chatter. In a kind way I do this. Because the other thing I learned was to be as kind to myself as I would expect a good empathetic friend to be to me.

Now this is no magic wand that you wave and it all goes away. No, the discomfort is still there but manageable...and I am finding if I stay with it, good things are hidden behind the discomfort.

This is an ongoing process and part of the human condition is we will never be free from our emotions and discomfort. But it gives me the sense that I am participating in my own healing. I am actually controlling my emotions by acknowledging them and processing them respectfully. Not shoving them down inside myself and not dealing with it.

Enough Enough! I am confusing myself.

Am I Crazy or Did Something Paranormally Strange Occurr

Well last night I received a kind of message from the Universe that I needed to pay attention to my own metaphysical and spiritual business and stop peeking at others. Ok, I can see that. And, by the way, my computer is working just fine...as long as I don't attempt to find that certain blog.

What comes over me sometimes? I think I may have been kind of obsessed with it. I believe it's because I miss my network of close friends who are spiritually and paranormally inclined. I don't know that many people in this area and I just became fascinated by reading about someone within 40 miles of me. Someone who is experiencing many of the same life challenges that I have experienced or am presently working through. And honestly I could just be plain old nosy.

I am not sure what the climate here is for "alternative spirituality". There aren't any "New Age" (for the lack of a more appropriate term but you get the gist) Stores here or health food stores..Wait, there is one in Beckley...I can get my elderberry tea there. But there are no Reiki Groups that are visible on the internet for this area. That doesn't mean they don't exist it means I don't know anyone who knows the "Alternative Healing" network here.

Ok, I digress...my point to all of this is..last night after the debacle with my computer..(gah, what a mess!) I meditated for a while and then I got a real urge to read. I had already read all my library books except for one and that wasn't what I needed to read.

So I go into the spare bedroom, turn on the light and look at the bookshelf in there. I reach down and pull out a book I have never seen before. A large blue paperback book. About Mer-Ka-Ba.

A book by a guy named Drunvalo Melchizedek. It was a brand new book but had been published in 1999.

Now, the strange thing about this is I never owned a book like this. And I would know because when I moved from Virginia to West Virginia I went through every one of my books. Many I gave away and sold. Only enough for two small bookshelves were kept. I had enough to fill three large ones before. I know I never owned this book and if I had found it, excellent as it might be, I would not have kept it. It's just not my kind of thing.

Well, I took the book to bed and sat up reading it. It was very interesting. I wasn't able to read it in depth, I figured to get an overview and read it today. I saw some interesting symbols that resonated with me, a lot. And some chapters about prana and energy flow through the body.

It was fascinating. I pored over some of the drawings of sacred geometry and I did feel some stirring.

After reading this for an hour I got really sleepy and I put the book down beside me on my partner's side. (He was at work) I meditated myself into sleep and woke up when he got home.

I cuddled with him for a while until he fell asleep and I got up. The urge for coffee moving me into action. I decided to read the book some more and went to look for it. It is gone. I can't find it anywhere. I looked under the bed, behind the heavy headboard, behind the night tables and under my sleeping love. It's gone.

The only book I found was "Love in the Palm of Your Hand," another excellent book by Ghanshyam Singh Birla. I know I owned this one and kept it because I met the author and he signed it for me. This book has an awesome slant on using the lines in the hand for self knowledge but that's another day..another post.

I can't find the book. It's like it doesn't exist. I have looked over every inch of my bedroom, dressing room and even branched out into the other parts of the house. On the outside chance I went for a stroll in my sleep. (I never sleep walk)

In the state of Acceptance I now accept it. I don't know how it got here and I don't know where it went. I do remember the things I saw and read. I remembered the guy's name so I could look it up and sure enough there are lots of books by him and extensive workshops and training. I looked it over and the feeling wasn't there. I was just supposed to read a bit of what he wrote. I did. Now what?

It will unfold in it's own cycle. It always does. I will definitely write about it when it comes to me.

Oh by the way, Blessed Beltane, Mayday, Roodmas!

Acceptance

I have spent years of contemplating how to get through life in the best way. How to alleviate the pain I felt so many times. How to process the frustration, helplessness, sorrow and fear that overtakes me and I think all humans at time or another.

My "Inner Guidance" came through with some wisdom to guide me. I wish to share this. And remember this is my truth. I would not ever claim that this is universal or pertinent to everyone but there may be something usable here for someone who is struggling with pain in their life. I have been mindfully practicing this for over a year now and what a difference it has made!

Here goes:

Acceptance entails: Center, Balance, Focus, Responsibility, Mindfulness and Gratitude.

To Center is to be where I am at any given moment. Not thinking about or nursing old wounds of the past or anticipating new ones. Not to muse on frustrations, hurt feelings or obstacles. Not to think of anything that stirs up anger connected with old buried emotions.

To Center is to Be where I am in the NOW.

To achieve this I use a method that was introduced by Pema Chodron in her book, "When Things Fall Apart". To frequently take three deep breaths and look around. This jolts me out of self pity and self revelry enough to kindly remind myself these are just thoughts and to take a look where I am right now, physically.


To Balance, I place my awareness into the moment I am in.


Then to gather my Focused attention to that place where I am at this moment. To focus on what I am doing at this exact moment. Not to look around for signs of more slights and frustrations that will break my attention on the Now or cause my egoistic emotions to rise up again. At least for a few minutes. This allows me a respite from the constant churning of my emotions. I truly see where I am in that moment.

And in those moments I can see that "Acceptance" does not require anger to motivate me in life.

Center, Balance and Focus does not require my ego. And when I do these things I am truly in a "State of Acceptance" While I am in this place I am able to release the bottled up and repressed hurts, frustrations and other baggage without feeding it or making it larger than it already is.

Just for a few moments even seconds of letting it go on a wave of energy to be recycled like a strange type of dialysis of the energy. It not only gives me a sense of relief and release but it cleanses my aura and energy body.


The human condition has imposed an interesting pseudo-balance into the mix. To be "right" or "wrong". To be the "right one" or the "wronged one" or both. My Inner Guidance wants me to just BE. To Be in a way that flows like water through this life as well as the illusions and obstacles life in the human condition presents.

When I am in a state of Acceptance, I do not add to the garbage buried inside me. I am blooming where I am. I am not looking at the "what ifs" or "I can'ts". I am moving along in my own way without disturbing my aura and my energy centers with more baggage. When the opportunity arrives that proves to be my purpose for this lifespan, I will be open to it.

In Acceptance I can be what I am inside and out without comparing myself to anyone else. My ego is not required so it does not matter what anyone else is doing. My focus is on my progress, which is where I am in the Now.

In Acceptance I can be more loving with myself and therefore more compassionate with others; instead of being self righteousness, rigid and bitter. How can I be an embodiment of compassionate action if I am an embittered venomous person frustrated with life?

So when I notice these feelings rising up, I will stop and take deep breaths. Remind myself to see where I am in the Now. To Center, Balance and Focus. I will let the egoistically stirred garbage move out of me. Even if I am only able to sustain this state for a few minutes or seconds. Even that little bit helps me to prevent further perpetuation and growth of the toxic garbage inside me.

I will myself to be less rigid and less self righteous. My body is stiffened because of my stubborn refusal to go with the flow of my life and to hang on to every slight, real or perceived. I will myself to bend and squat, turn and twist like a strong tree in the wind.

I will not wallow in self pity. I recognize the conflict is within and I am my worst enemy. I call a truce and I will now live through the beauty that is me, inside and out.

I remind myself of the mechanism of emotional control, which is NOT repression. A stimulus occurs and it is then perceived, interpreted, responded to and reacted to. I will be mindful in Acceptance to not indulge in illusions of perception. But to see a thing for what it is. If it rains it is not to ruin my plans for the day, it rains because the land needs water.

I am Responsible for every step of my life. I am Responsible for every thought and every decision, big and small, minute by minute. My life is created and shaped by this. I want to be Mindful of this at all times. To be aware of mySelf and myself.

And most importantly of all, I will express Gratitude for all the blessings in my life.