It’s a certain quiet and peace I feel myself drawn to. It’s a connection to self and nature that leaves me highly observant and honored to have experiences like this in connection with my life.
It wasn't always this way. My past life and its road map to recovery came from a place of abuse and pain. I was a bruiser and an enforcer and my body has the scars and the bullet holes to prove it.
Near death many times, I wanted to rid myself of the limitations of the emotions that kept me in my place and stopped me from growing and becoming something more than what I was. In a sense, these limitations (anger, sadness, and ego) were killing me. I wanted out of who I was and I wanted wisdom.
Here in the deep woods, I turned to nature for a mirror, and one of the mirrors we share with nature is the breath. My first observations in nature were that our breathing was conscious and theirs, the animal kingdom, is not. But was that really true?
We take our breath for granted. It’s an involuntary reaction, so to speak, performed unconsciously... of one breathe right after another….. Unless suddenly, we can't breathe, then WE LOOSE OUR CONNECTION.
This statement of connection has broad implications for me. In my self healing work, anger, pain, and sadness are really all about loosing my connection. It’s then that the spiritual investigator in me asks, "How were the two similar?"
The observation I have of animals and birds breathing, is that they are always connected. On closer examination, they are always in the presence, and always in the NOW by the very virtue of just their breathing.
Taking that back to my work of self healing and self discovery, it’s important to note that the NOW is the only moment there is. To understand that, we must fully accept that the past is behind us. It happened and we can't change it. But here is the good news. We can change how we react to it.
The ‘Do As ONE’ Breathing Room (doasone.com) is online, free and one of the most powerful non evasive healing tools there is. The only rule in your entry is just to breathe. How simple is that? What the breathing room gives you is a practice of experiencing yourself totally in the moment, in the now, without the entrapment of your thoughts. That may sound simple, but it takes practice. Focusing on breath for 15 easy minutes of every day is not so easy when you start. Experiencing living in the now is a learned skill, because you have to focus.
The Breathing Room is available free 24-7. Its concept is so simple and so key to the ancient healing traditions. You can log on in a hospital room, in bed, at home or like me, out here on my porch. It’s like a friend you can always call. The Breathing Room is there. The effect is amazing. In time and with practice, conscious breathing will turn your world around. It will be your go to method the next time you are in a major upset, or anytime you just need a break from the stress.
A compliment work book to assist you in your healing process is Michael Brown’s book The Presence Process. This is a practice book you will find yourself reading again and again. Michael’s work with breathing is very much the cornerstone to your new found freedom of discovering authentic self. Breathing in the Presence Process is the key and the way. Only Michael has made a very useful and insightful road map and mirror for you to practice and experience your self worth and recovery of sovereignty. Sovereignty is living in the alignment. It’s the connection we have always wanted. Week by week in his book, he has a new modality to practice and complete. The Presence Process is something groups or friends can do together. The rewards are great. This is a keeper. When you have a past and a childhood as I did, you buy into stories you tell to yourself about who you are. These may be fantasies or truths, but it doesn't matter. For within them is a way in which you stayed connected. They are what I call the cards you were dealt. They become your truths. Since childhood, you have become so familiar with them that blame and shame and even unspeakable violence becomes old hat, as its how you survived. We therefore became victims and we became abusers. Our inner child was given and dealt so many of these cards to buy into that we never had choice. In time, these stories became our truths. Some healers call them Hurt Cracks. We own them. We wear them. We put fear into them and we think they made our bones. But the fact is, we weren't born with them. They are not ours. All we know is what we feel and what we feel is that we LOST OUR CONNECTION. There's that phrase again.
In my case, I needed to experience feelings different than the cards I was dealt. I wanted to recover my connection, my sovereign connection.
Upsets are natural in life. They challenge us all the time. It’s how we unconsciously react to them that give us our feelings. I wanted different.
RUE HASS (http://www.intuitivementoring.com/) is on the cutting edge of new forms of intuitive therapy using EFT (Emotional Freedom Therapy) and the creative archetypes of the unconscious imagination. Her theory is the Power of the Metaphor and to integrate it through your intuition to create the breakthroughs of depression and the destruction of old patterns including such far ranging health issues like fibromyalgia. Emotional Freedom Therapy (EFT) works on touching or tapping the charkas points of the head arms and upper body to liberate blocked energy. It’s a known therapy that works.
Rue’s method is to allow your free child to intuitively work on the hard boulders with metaphors, or verbal descriptions of feelings (key) while multi tasking with EFT tapping ,therefore releasing, blocked energy and blocked paths at the same time. The combination of this simultaneous therapy is amazing if not genius. There is no quick fix. You do the work because through your own sensitivity, you allow something greater to come in and replace those Hurt Cracks--something that makes and recovers that connection of sovereign self, adulthood and even a connection to God (as we know him ). It's fantastic to work with this.
The third in the trilogy of this self healing work is relationships. This is key because those who know us best always mirror back to us what our results are--even if they don't give us what we are wanting from them. They are perfect mirrors for us to be tested with of our progress. After all, who wants to preach to the choir? Mastering your energy http://www.happinessanyway.com/ by Karen Hood Caddy is the perfect life coach for the directions you want to go in and manifest in your life. She is involved with a therapy called Focusing which is Awareness In Presence. This unique mirror welcomes the energy of the videos, good, bad and ugly in you. Have addictions? She welcomes them. Wear boots in bed? She welcomes that too, because just behind them is the connection we are wanting. She doesn't let go. She uses them as tools and messengers for our breakthroughs. This takes deep understanding and commitment by you to go there. Karen is gutsy and powerful a true wise woman to go to on this level.
Lastly and speaking of archetypes, get your astrological chart done. R.Ann Rousseau (r.ann@explorebeyondtheusual.com) is unique at this and no stranger to any, and in some cases, a practitioner of what I have described above. Astrology is energy and her specialty. What she gives you is part of your individual sovereign collective. Knowledge of it and by use of your higher self, it is a powerful vehicle to embody astrology. It's not used to predict the future, but to be sensitive and intuitive to all your opportunities that are around you and available if only you were aware of them. Robin did my chart last year and made it pretty clear to me that it was a unique time for major self breakthroughs. My only advice is to watch out what you wish for, as all this takes is will power and self growth is never comfortable. Robin can help you with that and with the clarity of the different energies that will work for you. She has a love and compassion for what she does and it shows. Her connection with you is made special by her presence when you work with her. Definitely let her do your chart and if you’re like me, you'll be back.
The above is a personal journey. When I lived in the desert, there was no path. I had to go by intuition and instinct. In this type of work, there is so much information out there. It's difficult to know which path or network to choose. I am sharing this because in my own small way, I am giving back what was given to me. Cast a pebble. Create a wave. I can't thank the people above who have helped me and have been there for me. I was dying and drowning in the weight of my own self. I wanted help, yet I knew I had to do the work. This has been one of the hardest and most rewarding years I have ever had. I have done things and accomplished things I thought I could never do. I learned from my limitations, and I learned from my pain. I bless them now and let them go as they no longer are me.
I have something better, more sovereign, and it’s me and it’s mine.
With warmest regards,
Michael
Other blog posts by Michael: Magus of Stone, Buried Alive
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