transforming our own negativity

Hey, it's the last weekend in January already! It's blustery and gray here on the island, and I have the whole weekend to do nothing and see what arises. Awesome! I unplugged the router early last night and slept and dreamt for a long time.

Sleeping more is important when you're practicing multidimensional being. You may have been raised to think sleeping late was lazy or lethargic or avoiding 'reality' — but neuroscience disagrees. It's restorative to body, mind, and spirit, and literally repair time for your cells and even for clearing what's stored in your brain. There's a little video on all that here.

So, as I watch the cedars sway in the wind, I came across an article (click that if you don't want to read all my blather) that pinged my attention for this blog post.

Now that my retreat on 5D thinking and practices has happened, and I'm doing those practices for my own vibrational transformation, I know once more that What you teach you learn. 5D thinking (simply saying, thinking and doing what you want to be) gets easier and easier, simply because you are noticing what you're thinking, and how you're feeling. Noticing where our brains go is, of course, the foundation of meditation, but you can do it anytime, anywhere. And gently bring your mind back to right here, right now, there is nothing to do but simply be. Rest in the nature of alaya, as the Lojong slogans advise.

At night, in bed, I find, practice is particularly helpful, because the personal mind loves to keep on its little self-appointed tasks of thinking about the past, pondering answers to trivia, updating the to-do list, fretting about future unknowns, and keeping busy with all sorts of stuff. Like, just because I watched an episode of Grace & Frankie recently with references to The Music Man (and every single musical from my childhood stuck in my head), my 'little brain' nightly brings up the trivia question, Who played Harold Hill in the film version? (while singing 76 Trombones and trying to remember all the lyrics) when I am actually wanting to stop thinking and shift into lucid dreaming consciousness. Busy little brain. Does yours do this stuff?

I noticed I'd habitually take the bait and start trying to recall the actor, even wanting to get up and plug in the router and actually google it, to get the answer so I could go to sleep. Talk about a hook! Along with a million other 'little brain' prompts and queries and reruns. But now that I'm noticing whenever I slide off just being now+here, I catch my little brain in its tricks. Nice hook, little brain. But I'm not playing. Now it is time to rest. Rest now. Be nowhere. Be now+here.

I notice also the little beefs and grudges and sleights or pseudo-sleights and outrages it loves to revive as hooks to my attention. Little brain knows that usually gets my energy going. I've been noticing when I go negative—about myself or anything else—as another practice. It's habitual, whether in conversation, in what we respond to while scrolling the Book of Faces, looking in the mirror, reviewing our past and its ubiquitous faux pas, explaining why things are the way they are, or all of the above.

I noticed I went negative more than I wanted to as a sort of habitual brain chatter mechanism. These days of the daily nightmare, you can go negative 24/7 and feel it's necessary for the salvation of the planet, but, um, actually that is not so. I'd venture to say that is part of the nefarious agenda, to get us to go negative more.

We perceive energy, and as we perceive and believe, so it seems. As one shaman said, the world is as we dream it. To transform our habitual negative perceptions of ourselves, others, and the [fate of the] planet we ride, we simply need to notice what's happening now, and use intent to choose where we direct our energy in the moment. This includes practicing self-awareness and noticing where our beliefs disempower us. We have trouble believing in our own power! We're much more indentured in why we can't have power, why mean people can take it, why someone may have put some whammy on us long ago that's still holding us back, etc. etc.

And, as a shamanic practitioner, I do work with retrieving lost and stolen power as a major service to clients. But, restoring wholeness—the overarching intent of the work—means also assisting the client to transform the energy locked in their beliefs and perceptions of how things are not ok and why that is so. And how can I do that for them if I don't do it for myself?

What you teach you learn is evermore true as I practice intent intent intent, and actually shift the burden of negative thinking off my weary, come-from-a-long-line-of-critical-worriers shoulders. Shamanic work definitely assists with this, as do my retreats and stuff. But personal intent and practice, and noticing your own thoughts and beliefs, with a little helpful info, must be part of anyone's path to freedom, reclaiming your power, your mind, your energy, your dreams.

So, the article that popped up today might be news you can use for this practice. It's from Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop site, and even from what appears to be a relative of her fiancé, not that it matters. It's the information and how clearly it is stated that grabbed my attention. After a very successful night of personal negative-thinking re-patterning, I wanted to offer something to you, for your weekend reflection and daily practices.

What happens in your mind when you read this: Negativity and negative intentions are distorted energy and consciousness. They originate in part as a reaction to pain. Negativity is our blame and judgment, our selfishness, pessimism, self-righteousness, cruelty, and apathy. Negative intentions are the parts of us that want to punish or humiliate, that don’t want to give, that give to get, that won’t receive, that won’t see the other person beyond our own needs, that won’t reveal our vulnerability, that won’t surrender. Subtle or obvious, our negativity and negative intentions create suffering because they are distortions—and our distortions keep us separate from ourselves and others.

That is a quote from Aimee Falchuck, from this interview. You may find the discussion helpful in your personal energy wrangling.

Since I'm an energy wrangler—and it's all about energy, and intent, which is the directing of energy—her clarity in that first sentence got my attention. Our childhood/adolescent reactions to pain create negative patterns and perceptions that we find ourselves using over and over, from looking in the mirror to responding to situations or certain people or events. But the negativity slant is like responding to a distorted mirror or garbled recording of something happening. We're perceiving something that is not as we perceive it, and hurting ourselves again in the process, trying to avoid pain. We are suffering and creating suffering.

Transforming our own negativity before going ballistic at the negativity and negative intentions of others (yes, I used a weapons-based word there on purpose) has more peacekeeping capability than a comment thread smackdown ever could. That we have the power—not the person or event or circumstance—to alter that distortion, is key to not suffering. And maybe to peace in our hearts and in the world. Feeling good about yourself, less provoked by what you perceive as bad stuff from others, sleeping more, and creating world peace as the bonus. All free and available for you 24/7.

Happy Saturday! Take the day off, in your mind at least. Rest. Oh, and, Robert Preston played Harold Hill. I knew it was Robert somebody! 

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