Posts Tagged ‘Ego’

Go Universe!

February 16, 2014

I have had a weight problem all my life – oops, I just realized I called it a problem and it isn’t.  I once read “I am the size I am to hold my magnificence”.  That really stopped me in my tracks.  Here I have been unhappy with my size and instead, it is a blessing.  I am working on knowing it is true and knowing that I know.   Then The Universe sent this message:

You have realized, Lee, that your age, experience, skin color, personality, accent, style, saunter, weight, and height, today, are setting you up big-time for the best of your life, while adding considerably to your animal magnetism?

Nothing gets past me,
    The Universe

We’re talking world tours, Lee, fan clubs on each continent, and a TV show that follows as you create a fabulous business I am passionate about!

The two major areas I am working on are loving myself and recognizing my Life Purpose.  Sometimes I wonder if I am doing my purpose and I don’t know it.  I spent the day with my close friend Kathie who is the same age I am.  She was a court reporter for many years, then went into hypnotherapy and now is doing some real estate.  She is still wondering what her Life Purpose is as well.  I know there are a lot of people feeling that way these days; but having company doesn’t quite help me recognize mine.

I have heard the words “find my purpose” a lot, but then others say one creates it.  I have been thinking more in terms of recognizing it and creating it – I know I don’t have to know how to do it, just be willing, open and allowing.  Maybe I just too impatient for that “Aha” moment of recognition and unfolding.  I find myself wondering sometimes “Am I too old?” or “Is it too late?” – ego is working overtime to have me believe it is true.  Thanks for sharing, I choose something else.

I have always wanted to create something of my own of value but never felt I had.  Then it hit me recently, this blog is my creation.  No one else could write it they way I do, nor has anyone lived my life.  One thing through my marketing expert friend, you may have the same information as someone else, but no one presents it the way you do.  That makes you unique.

I’ve been reading a book by Richard Moss called “Inside Out Healing”.  It has been quite interesting and I find it builds on Neal Donald Walsh’s “When Everything Changes, Change Everything”.  In that, Neal spends the first half of his book talking about Past Data – all those beliefs and programs that have been built up over your lifetime.  They are not true, but they feel real.  That had quite an impact on me – I wrote about migraines a while back and continue to use it.

With Richard Moss, he talks about being in the NOW, but in a different way.  He shows a manual with the NOW in the middle of a circle, with the Future at the top, the Past at the bottom.  To one side is Me and the other side is You.

mandala_diagram

The idea is that when you are in the present moment, ego diverts you in one of four paths.   It may be the market list you need to make, the stupid things you did, a belief that isn’t true, etc.  Or it will go to another person and what they did or didn’t do, either to you or about you.  Another path is worry about the future or upset or living in the past.

the past week or more I have spent a lot of time at the computer, for work, my blog, Eddie’s Round Up and things he wanted to have typed for exhibits at the Future of Flight.  I began to think after the first or second long period at the computer – “Oh s—-!  I am going to pay for this either tomorrow or the second day!”.  But then I thought “Why do I think that will happen?  Just because it has in the past doesn’t necessarily mean it is  how it always will be”.   I began to realize I had created a belief around that, I can hear myself saying to someone more than once.  Yes, it had happened in the past, the belief that when I overdo it, I will pay for it, I have to be careful how much I do.

Then I remembered the Past Data loop I had been running for migraines, this was just another Past Data loop about what happens every time I do something and it hits me the next day or the second day.  So I told ego, “that is Past Data and no longer relevant and I am choosing something different.  In this fresh new moment, I choose filling this moment with good health and well-being in every part of my body, all Past Data is invalid and irrelevant”. How lovely to find the next morning and the mornings after that I was feeling well free of “payback” shoulder pain.

Now I am working on the cough that has lingered for 2 years, ever since I had the flu in rehab.  It takes time and some days I feel a bit discouraged, but on the whole there is progress.  now I am thinking in terms of each fresh new moment and what I want to fill it with when I bring myself back to NOW.

The Middle Child

March 5, 2013

I was having a shower this morning and for some reason I started thinking about my birth order – I am the middle of three girls.  My Dad used to call us #1, #2 and #3 – suddenly ego was there telling me “You are second best” very calmly.  I told ego “Thanks for sharing, I choose something else”.  I usually go on about my business but this morning I found myself almost yelling “I am NOT 2nd best!”   “I am NOT 2nd best!”   “I am NOT 2nd best!”.

middle_child_t_shirt-r2f36cc2f58f44318b20d31efe46e37ab_f0ckj_512

It hit me that may that’s how I have been seeing myself all my life.  Scary!  I remember Debye telling me if something feels heavy, it isn’t true.  When it feels light, it is true.  I have also been reading Martha Beck – she is such a cool lady! – she calls it “shackles on” ” shackles off”.    This feels heavy “shackles on”.  Since then I have been thinking – not always a smart idea – and wonder if that is true.  Unfortunately those were the days of always comparing myself and finding myself coming up short.  This time I felt grateful to ego and told her “Thank you for sharing”.  This will not be a field day for my inner critic or for me to beat myself up; rather a time to see objectively how much truth there really is in it.

Not too long ago I was listening to Alternative Talk radio and one of the guests posed a question: What do you believe about yourself?  That was a head scratcher because I am not always sure what I believe about myself.  I know beliefs are chapped by parents, siblings, friends, peers, etc.; I look back and wonder if I believed the feedback from those who called me names because I was a chubby, somewhat plain child with glasses since the 3rd grade, was true.  I know it hurt and I didn’t like it, but I didn’t think of any way to fight back.

I went to school a year earlier than I was supposed to – Mom and Dad say I made such a fuss when Ellen got on the bus because I want to see where she went.  There was in Southern California a rule you had to be 5 by the first of March, so I qualified.  My grades were not great, mostly C’s, a few B’s and  an A in art one year.  My sister Ellen was just the right age and she did really well in school; as a result of me and my early start, they kept my sister Candy from going to school until she was almost 6.  She had really good grades.  Both sisters seemed adventurous to me, I was always scared to step out and do things.

I really noticed a difference in my relationship with Ellen.  When lived in California we used to play a lot together, the 4 year difference didn’t seem to be a problem.  When I was 7, we moved to Seattle and lived in a rented house for a year and a half.  It was as if Ellen and I were strangers, she was on her way to junior high and my sister Candy was only 18 months.  When we moved to the present house, I was starting 4th grade and Ellen was in junior high.  What a gap there seemed to be – 4 years was a lot more than it used to be.  There was a 3 year gap in school, so as she left junior high, I started it.  When she graduated from high school, I began.  Unfortunately some of the teachers remembered her – did they have expectations I would do as well?

Ellen is a wonderful artist, plus she plays most of the stringed instruments.  My sister Candy is a musician and song writer as well as writing books.  Where was my talent, my gifts?  I didn’t really know.  I have said I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.  There wasn’t a whole lot that really inspired me or captured my interest, I seem to have drifted along all my life.  I had no idea I would meet an Armenian and go to Australia to marry him, then come back to the States 18 months later.  I had always wanted to travel, so I was able to do that because of his jobs; I lived in parts of the U.S. I have always been curious about and certainly his travel has made me more independent.

Now that I have gotten this far in the post, it suddenly hits me that being diagnosed with RA has contributed to my possible feeling I am not as able or capable as most people.  Oh dear, there is that comparing stuff again.  Well, this one will have to sit on the back burner for a bit to see what else comes.  RA is a subject all in itself.

Don’t Feed The Monkey!

January 16, 2011

It’s been one of those weekends when I have been in resentment more than I want to be.  I have a couple of situations that I am dealing with that can really get to me if I allow it.  And you know who loves it when I allow myself to be angry, resentful and generally negative, you guessed it – ego.  She loves it because she is the monkey mind that wants things to be the absolute worst so she can control it all and revel in it.  She also is so damn sneaky that I don’t know she is creeping into control until I am ready to burst.  Some days I don’t have the energy or the strength to tell her “I see you, I see what you are doing.”  As Eckert Tolle said in his book “The New Earth”, ego loses strength just by  my being aware and observing what is happening.  Now I am beginning to see what she is doing and I start to think “What familiar pattern is this?”.

I was ready to head out to the car and scream my lungs out today and yesterday because I was frustrated.  Most days I can deal with it and notice the patterns and be able to let it roll off my back.  But for some reason I haven’t been able to do it this week.  2 or 3 three comments at different time just hit me wrong and I wasn’t able to stay objective – I went into victim mode and fed the monkey a huge meal.  One of the exercises we do at Ike Pono has to do with showing  how we assign significance to things where there is no significance.  It’s all a story we make up about a situation.  It is an exercise that does piss some people off and when it  is finished, they are asked what the purpose of the exercise was.  They come up with all kinds of answers except the real answer.   It does make them start thinking about times in their life where they made up a story about something that didn’t actually have a story.  Now I know this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense unless you have taken the weekend – I don’t talk about the exercises because they have a sequence and it would take them out of context to describe them.  All those stories we make up feed the monkey.

I have to admit, I have fed the monkey a feast this weekend, but it doesn’t mean I am going to beat myself up – more food for the monkey.  I see patterns from my life and how I have always reacted – time to change those patterns and viewpoint to a positive one. How easy to say it or write it but not all that easy to do.  I feel attacked and insulted for no reason, other times I feel I am not heard or valued.  Is it actually true or a story I made up to feel justified if I struck back in retaliation?  I can think of times when I did it back just so that person would know how it felt.  But it didn’t really work, just made the other person angry and more mean.  I felt powerless and helpless – don’t like feeling that at all.

Plus, yesterday was my birthday and I wanted to feel like a princess with everything sunshine and smiles.  It is my only 64th birthday and I wanted it to be “perfect”.  It is an unreachable outcome for things to be “perfect” – ask all the bridezillas out there.  Maybe just feel a bit more special than usual for my birthday.   Now I have to say, my husband brought me flowers, took me to dinner and generally made feel very loved so that princess part was just about there.  So what is my excuse today?  I’m working on not feeding the monkey today, it is taking all my angels and Spirit to work in me to change my attitude.  Actually, this is one of those times when I need an attitude overhaul rather than just an adjustment.

As I think about being resentful, I realize no one else is really aware of it or even cares because they are all caught up in their own stories from their point of view.  I have to constantly remind myself that the after effects are on me, my body and my frame of mind.  By sitting and stewing about it, playing the victim just continually feeds the monkey.  It will take some time to remember when I get this way that  it is not worth it and tell myself

“DON’T FEED THE MONKEY”.

What Will Be My Focus?

January 1, 2011

WOW!  It is 2011 this morning and it is quite uncomfortable.  I was fine when I went to bed last night – isn’t that usually the way it starts?  I woke up in the middle of the night very stiff in sore in my thighs – must have been the cleaning out I did yesterday.  I took some Advil because it went from hip to ankle and very, very uncomfortable.  I was able to sleep until 7 – YOW! does it hurt now.  I have gotten up so I don’t keep tossing and turning and keep my other half awake and rubbed arnica gel as much as I can on the places that hurt.  Now the question is – Do I focus on it, on how uncomfortable it is and what am I going to do?  Or do I change my focus to something positive since I have done all I can to relieve it?  I keep hearing in my head that what I focus on, think about right now will be the future – well, suppose I change what and how I think?  Simple isn’t it.  It means reframing how I see things, choosing different things to concentrate on and seeing the gift in it.  That shouldn’t be hard.  Ah, the devil is in the details.  How easy to say, just change the focus – that only means changing 63 years of thought patterns in one fell swoop.

It’s actually not so dramatic, it is one thought at a time.  So out of the thousands of thoughts a day, which do I choose to change, and then what is the next one?  Here comes a program again.  A slightly resentful one that comes out of frustration and overwhelm – I don’t know where to start and it’s so hard to do it when I hurt so much.  Oh dear, here comes another one – I don’t know where to go with this train of thought, I really have nothing more to say.  I might as well quit and go on to something I have more to say that makes sense.

That happens to me a lot, I start out writing about RA or something else with a great idea, then find it peters out and I am at a loss about where to go from there.  Funny, I see a picture of myself out in an empty field, everyone has left and I am standing there alone, not knowing what happened or what to do.  It makes me feel the way I did in school, anonymous and invisible, that no one wants to play with me because I am overweight and not good at games.

I suspect that is ego trying to take and keep control, telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about and no one  wants to listen anyway.  She loves the negative, the doom and gloom so much she will do anything to keep in control.  And she is sneaky as well, I think I am more in control of things than she is and when I let my guard down, she is in there at the control board before I have a chance to take a breath.  But she won’t be obvious about it right then, she’ll do it quietly so I am not quite aware of it until I notice how negative I feel.

It  makes me realize how often it happens and how many times I have said “Why did I choose this, why didn’t I choose that other project, subject, etc?”.  It happened a lot in commercial art school in the middle of a project that didn’t seem to be going well.  That phrase “It seemed like a good idea t the time” keeps coming up quite often.  That’s how it feels now.  Well, I have changed my focus, but is it what I had in mind?  I don’t think so.  Now there’s the rub, I have a good intention but don’t always have a plan or concrete idea on how to accomplish it – especially in this realm of my life.  It is so much easier to physically get up and go do something else than it is to think something else that easily.  Hmmm, do I hear ego trying to make excuses here?  Another thing she is very good at doing.  It also occurs to me that I may sound like I have a split personality because I keep referring to ego in the third person.  Maybe in some way I am because ego is all programs and I am looking at being more positive, more Aloha – it’s too depressing with ego always in  control.  I am working on remembering to observe what is happening in those times – when I am aware of ego and observe what is happening, she has less control.

Now I wonder if I have accomplished anything with this post – it started out in a specific idea but I ran into trouble finishing it.  Maybe it is just another way for me to be more aware of what is happening in my head, my heart and to begin to recognize programs better.  There are a lot of them and I don’t think I have recognized all of them yet.  Maybe the clue is to just observe what’s happening when I am in this situation.  To see what thoughts come up and if they are familiar – I may just recognize another program.

I now realize that instead of giving up writing this post because I ran out of thoughts, I kept going and have found a small “aha” for myself through it.  I hope it is helpful to other people.  Oh dear, I can hear little digs from ego about how stupid this post is and it would be better not to publish it.  Yes I will post it!

Is it just me?

May 4, 2010

This seems to be a real wagon train period, the trail has been full of potholes, the wheel broke and the trail isn’t very clear, only a couple of miles a day.  Now I promised I wouldn’t whinge and I won’t.  It is simply that I don’t have all the answers or have it made – I too have those times when it doesn’t seem there is any progress or difference and it can be discouraging.  I would love to have a good cry and get it all out, at the moment that isn’t an option.  But what I have learned is that writing it out often clears it all out and then I can feel the sun come out again.

There is a good chance that ego is creeping in to take over again – she is furious that I have finally begun to understand she is the false self, not the real me.  Eckert Tolle says that just by observing what is happening, ego begins to lose her power.  At  a low point, it can feel as if she is fully in control and I don’t have the energy to notice, much less work on finding the gratitude and positive aspects of my life at that moment.  There is another part where he writes about a woman who came to him and was so depressed and despondent, she poured out all her woes to him and he listened, free of judgement.  Then he told her something that has stuck in mind my and I have used it many times.  As I am writing this paragraph, that’s what I needed to remember very early this morning when I was uncomfortable and having trouble sleeping.

When the woman had come to the end of her story, he said: “At this moment, this is how you feel.  There is nothing you can do about the fact that at this moment this is how you feel.  Now, instead of wanting this moment to be different from the way it is, which adds more pain to the pain that is already there, is it possible for you to completely accept this is what you feel right now?”  The woman said she wouldn’t accept it.  He then told her: “I am not asking you to do anything.  All I am asking is that you find out whether it is possible for for you to allow those feelings to be there.  In other words, if you don’t mind being unhappy, what happens to the unhappiness?”.  After a few minutes she realized that although she was still unhappy, there was a space around it.  It seemed to matter less.

I have remembered that and thought, can I just accept this is how I feel at the moment, without wanting it to be different?  It is a different way to see it and although I haven’t gotten to the point of accepting it wholeheartedly yet, I know I feel better shortly after that.  That’s what I forgot to do last night in my discomfort and feeling discouraged.  That definitely opened the door for ego to creep in and try to take over control again.  Sometimes it is only a matter of being willing to accept it – being willing makes a big difference.  Maybe later the trail will be more defined and the ruts and mud holes are gone for a bit.  Those mountains are bound to look closer soon.

Sentence or Journey?

April 4, 2010

As you know, I have been dealing with RA for 39 years – as I look back over those years, I realize there is a difference from Day 1 to today.  For so long I have felt I was  suddenly sentenced to deal with RA with no hope in sight of an end.  I would look at others dealing with a broken bone, surgery, illness, etc. and think – They have a limited length of time to deal with it, that after certain stages are accomplished it will be finished.  Knowing there is a time limit seemed to be a lot easier to work with than to feel there is no limit.  There didn’t seem to be any hope of a suspended sentence, time off for good behavior or maybe even a pardon.  Not only that, it wasn’t going to kill me, just make my life miserable for years on end.  (I apologize for whingeing when I promised this blog wouldn’t be that way).  Essentially it was a bad, long term case of “oh-poor-me-osis – I am the worst off person in the world, no one has as badly as I do.

I realize now that was Ego, my false self, being in charge and the worse it was the happier she was.  She revels in the negative, the scary, everything with fear.  The worst part was that I thought that was me and I wasn’t happy about that.  People would tell me how positive an attitude I had – I kept thinking, “You have no idea the bitch who lives inside me and whinges all the time”.  I would feel so sorry for myself, why did I have to be drag may ass tired all the time, hurt from head to toe, take all those drugs and be on the business end of a needle.  Why can’t I have energy and flexibility like everyone else and have fun and do what I want, when I want, how I want?  All I could see was what I couldn’t do, couldn’t be.  I realized I was fighting it, that RA and my body were the enemy that I didn’t have any defense against.  I often felt hopeless and helpless, while at other times I felt useless.

I don’t know when I began to think there might be a different way to look at it because there was no big “Aha” moment.  I found different books to read, some people recommended, some I found myself and some I stumbled across in looking for something else.  I read the first volume of “conversations With God” and one line in it kept bugging me because I couldn’t visualize it or clearly understand – “What you resist, persists.”  I read it 2 or 3 times, then went on to Volume 2, then Volume 3 and to a couple of other books he wrote.  I didn’t really understand it, but it was a different way at looking at life, myself and God.

When I started reading Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth”, the business with ego and false self took awhile to understand, even then as now, I still am working on it.  Another book I read was “Radical Forgiveness” by Colin Tipping – his view of things in one’s life was very different from what I had been thinking and feeling.  The idea that people and situations that come up in one’s life  could be a soul contract with another’s soul to resolve the situation, especially an ongoing one.  That is still a little unclear for me but I am now “willing to be willing” to explore it and understand it better rather than dismissing it out of hand.

And of course, Dr. Phil.  As much as I want to ignore some of his questions, I know they are true.  When I am in a situation and certain I am right, his question “How’s that working for you?” comes up and I have to admit it isn’t working.  He also says “You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge”.  How often have I been so not ready to see what my part is in the situation.  The one that sometimes really gets me is “You teach people how to treat you”.  I would much rather see myself as being put upon, a victim of someone being mean to me rather than acknowledging I am part of the problem.  Ego wants me to keep seeing myself as a victim, it is part of her power and hold over me.  Thanks to Eckhart Tolle, I am now a lot more aware and working on putting her out of business.

I’m not sure at the moment where the idea of a gift in RA came from or when, it has been growing slowly in my mind and doesn’t seem so weird and far fetched any more.  One of the affirmations I have been using is “I am willing to know the truth about myself”.  I have always been scared to know because I was sure it was horrible and ugly.  But as I told my sister this morning, I am beginning to see myself as a nice person.  I am working on loving myself, not in conceit or superiority, but loving, accepting, approving and trusting myself – I want to know who I truly am.

Now I realize I have been on a journey and my life experiences and the people in them were and are there because they can teach me about parts of myself and learn to know myself from the inside.  One thing about getting older is that a lot of the stuff that seemed so important really isn’t.  I am less concerned about what people think and more interested in what is true for me and trusting the Universe takes care of me.

Lies. Damn lies and whoppers

March 26, 2010

In the last few years I have been turning my attention inward instead of  just concentrating on the physical.  For the first 35 years of RA, I spent my time looking at how to get rid of the pain and inflammation, then looked at causes other than virus or biological.  It hasn’t been an easy process because I have to take responsibility for much of it.  To quote Dr. Phil:  “You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge”.  It is so much easier to see myself as a victim sideswiped by RA for no reason – time to look deeper and see what has been going on.  One thing I have learned that was a surprise, my body is my healer, not my enemy.  All this time I felt she has betrayed me and made my life so much more difficult.    At last I am beginning to understand she has been shouting at me  to make me listen – too bad I have been deaf all this time.

For so long I felt my body was not really a part of me, more like a shell covering me and strangling me.   I often thought of myself as being trapped in a rusty suit of armor, that it wasn’t the real me.  If you looked inside you would see the real me trying desperately to get out.

I noticed a different train of thought one night when I couldn’t go back to sleep around 3, I had had a migraine and taken one of my bombers that leaves me wide awake until about 6.  I am not sure why I began to think about what is going on and what my body was trying to tell me, then  it hit me, she was trying to tell me Ego is trying to take charge and do her big pity party.  The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if that was the message – by golly, a while later I noticed the headache had gone.  When it happened again, I thought in terms of  my body as my alarm when Ego is trying to take over and I needed to be reminded I am not Ego.  Once again, it meant my headache left.

Hmmm, maybe I am on to something.  This morning I was  back in that boat – I have been having fewer and fewer headaches lately – but now a different train of thought.  If my body has been warning me with headaches,  has she been trying to tell me all these years that Ego is in charge and telling lies, damn lies and real whoppers about me and I have been believing them?  Has she been trying to get my attention with joint problems and pain?  Have I been so unaware of Ego that I just thought that was me living my life?

I have been unsure of myself most of my life – I started wearing glasses in the 3rd when no one else was; I have been Reubenesque all my life – the middle sister between 2 slender ones.  Did I only tune into the negative because Ego ruled and never heard the positives?  I was teased at school about my weight and glasses, last one to be picked for a team, feeling odd man out most of the time and not really a part of a group.  Boy, did Ego lap that up!

I will let it simmer on the back burner for a bit and see what begins to emerge.  I see there is a lot more to my early history as an influence on how I see myself – Carol Tuttle’s book “Remembering Wholeness” has really helped me see what is going on.  There is definitely more going on inside me and now that I have set an intention to know the truth about myself – sometimes a scary thought – it may be easier for me to be more objective than I have been in the past.  Maybe deep down my true self is an amazing woman – dare I hope so?


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