healing energy and presence

How do I choose to commit to a new vocational direction in life with all my ignorance and unassuredness in making a good and right decision? It sure is a risk, to change, to switch careers, to listen to a deeper sense of my being in choosing the work that I would appreciate doing each day. I suppose it is not as big of a risk as I took when I was younger and knew even less about myself and the world when I decided on my current work field. Seems true enough. Now I feel a bit more confident. Nice.

I want to become a “healer.” I think I have a lot to offer others, if they want my assistance in their movement in change. This is a reciprocal function as well. By helping others, I will be helping myself too. I need the support as much as you do, and this is nearly always true for us humans. I think that embarking on a vocational path of helping others heal, I too will continue to heal.

This is a large step of opening for me: from wounded to healer. But it is in deeply knowing the woundedness that I am rising with self knowledge into loving compassion. Awareness is the key for healing into being harmoniously present. A process of unconditioning and re-learning trust of our natural being is in staying true to the Way things are. How can deep irrevocable healing take place in any other way? We certainly cannot dupe ourselves into healing! That’s simply swapping out one illusion with another, and then, another after that. That’s conditioned existence, not living with and accepting emptiness.

Today, the day of the new moon, an irrevocable synergistic opportunity of possibility in harmonizing myself with the Way, I want to commit to my new path in being “healing energy and presence.” This is my consciously aware recognition that I have been headed in this direction for a long time and that I am very deeply interested in helping others who may ask me to assist them in healing changes.

I am currently particularly attracted to Rolfing, Feldenkrais, and Zentherapy. I am nearing the final (tenth) session with my friend who is a Rolfer. This is influencing me, as I learn the structural aspects of the body. I have received a small amount of Feldenkrais instruction which helps me to understand the function of the body. Zen practice also inflences me greatly in re-directing myself in the Way. I practice Qi Gong and Butoh too – healing movement modalities. I am also influenced by Traditional Chinese Medicine in receipt of acupuncture, herbs and Taoist wisdom. In these ways, I have been moving into a general field of movement, awareness, mind/body practices, and healing. I do not know what else to say at this time other than list these wonderful influences and continue to be grateful for their presence in my life.

compassionate self-discipline

I’m doing something that is serious and seriously necessary for me to do. My suffering in life brings me to this kind of action. Egocentric mind/body conditioning is going to have to make way for awareness, compassion, love, and healing. I am currently in Day 10 of committing to 30 days of Zen meditation, Qi Gong, chanting Faith in Mind sutra, reviewing the Four Noble Truths, contemplation with “Making a Change for Good” book by Cheri Huber, journaling, working on a process oriented art piece, no radio, no TV, no typical music, no news, no eating out or cafes, no typical habitual coping escapes, doing work, cooking, limiting caffeine/sugar/meat, cleaning, caring for myself and the cats, taking herbs and supplements, and maintaining as much attention and awareness as possible.

The first day was full of not knowing what to do. By the third day, that was mostly gone. The whole first week was good and I was quite happy practicing. But, then, I struggled with practicing and fell into depressing myself and feeling really bad, even while working through the feelings and journaling. I realized within one day that I had to recommit and make certain I am choosing this path of awakening. Daily, now, I need to remember that the difficulty I am committing to and experiencing in practicing is compassionate self-discipline, not isolation or hardship for no reason. This is a good step into taking my practice ever more seriously and realistically.

Each day, not in a manipulated or forced way, I must continue to choose to end suffering and follow through with the conscious awareness of compassionate self-discipline. 30 days is not long in comparison to all the days I’ve suffered from delusion, ignorance, and wanting life to be other that it is. I must return to my life everyday, simply and with conscious awareness so that I discontinue ego/self identification with thoughts, emotions, sensations, illusions, and cravings. This is a life changing experience I am putting myself through, because I need to for myself and others. I truly don’t want to dwell in selfish delusion because it causes too much harm. Escaping life is not beneficial, even if it tastes or feels good for a moment. Then, it’s gone too. Impermanence and change are becoming beneficial components of life. Nonseparation and moderation are becoming satisfactory aspects of experience. With diligence and expanded capacity to live with reality as it is, rather than the way I want it to be, I am healing. This is daily practice, beyond 30 days, beyond the New Year’s resolutions, beyond a wish for things to be better. This is now, the quality of life, and not just mine. With practice, over time, joy may develop naturally as I realize aspects of reality my mind can’t imagine yet. Small mind is becoming my functional friend in active living practice. Thank you, mind. Thank you, body. Compassionately, lets continue forth. Gently, relax, there’s no other moment than now.

don’t have energy to do what i’d likely like

Here and now, my head aches, sinuses are pressurizing my skull, my lymphatic system feels swollen, and my annual allergies make me feel horribly near sick this time of the year.

A lot of things are happening in my life, but I can only attend and pay good attention to a small amount of it. Quickly, guilt, annoyance, anger, exhaustion, apathy, and anxiousness become my experience of life, not just physical pains.

Fun, peace, happiness, balance are not words or concepts I resonate with nowadays. Life is a chore, with health maintenance and personal hell to navigate. I don’t want to carry along sickness in body/mind; that’s exactly why I’m writing and trying to sort through all the mess. Immediately I know I’m treading in the wrong direction when I think this way. Stop clinging! The process of health is … um, uuuuuhhh, a delusion. With infinite variables, how can I assume to arrive at health? I attempt healing actions, herbs, and relationships, though typically find myself mostly floundering along with pain in body/mind. Health doesn’t continue, but pain presses on. Awareness doesn’t last, though delusion overwhelms. I don’t know, I really don’t know.

I’m getting so tired of life experience like this. I feel like the world does not support me and that I am alone due to delusion and pain. Receiving assistance even feels contrived and imprecise. How do others’ know what will help me heal? I appreciate what others do for me, but I feel like I am losing my natural sense of interconnectedness. Life occurences seem ever more abstract and meaningless, especially as delusion and pain persist, and health and awareness subside.

The Zen way of working with this is to pay attention, annew, now. Don’t manifest views or opinions and compassionately return to what needs doing with attention.

How do I relieve my own suffering?

The 4 Noble Truths

1. The Nature of Dukkha: Suffering exists in life. Truth of Suffering. (Life means suffering.)
2. The Origin of Dukkha (Samudaya): Suffering is caused by craving. Truth of the Cause of Suffering. (The origin of suffering is attachment.)
3. The Cessation of Dukkha (Nirodha): To eliminate suffering, eliminate craving. Truth of the Cessation of Suffering. (The cessation of suffering is attainable.)
4. The Way Leading to the Cessation of Dukkha (Magga): To eliminate craving follow the Eightfold Path. Truth of the Path to the Cessation of Suffering. (The path to the cessation of suffering.)

References:
http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/fourtruths.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths

Nonetheless, my life feels like it is just getting flushed down the toilet. Existing in self-delusion, the delusions of others, and the delusion of all the cultures of the world, I feel useless with all the unintentional karma binding me to the strange simplicity of mundane living experience. I am not special, I am merely unique with an particular mix of common human attributes. I don’t feel appreciated, nor do I want to. I am not interested in self-aggrandizement or self-inflation due to tacking on additional views—whether positive or negative. Am I neutral yet? No. Am I meaningless yet? Sort of. Am I detached from connection points with reality? Yes, in many ways. What is there to salvage here and how do I do such? Is this the process of meaningful healing—recycling & repurposing myself? Isn’t that just more egotistical separation from authentic being? I don’t know, I really don’t know.

You Are What You Eat

You know? This truly has more meaning to me as life goes on. I remember when I first heard it, I thought, “Oh yeah, like if you eat meat, you’re carnivorous; and if you eat veggies, you’re a vegetarian…” But this means so much more now.

I’ve been battling a nasty head cold and I’m doing it without any bought medications (with the exception of beverage vitamin C). This is quite a new trial for me. So, I looked into my copy of Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford and sought out some tips for dealing with the cold. So, we proactively got me some sleep and increased my vitamin C and had simple soups with basic greens. Rouge made an excellent simple soup with leek, shallots, celery, a little lemon, salmon, milk, and of course broth. It was perfect, light and green; which was an emphasis from the book. Fruits were encouraged; so in between my wakings I’d have rooibos or green teas and maybe a piece of fruit or orange juice and eventually a small bowl of soup.

I even tried a sweating technique to help erradicate the toxins from my body. I do believe it helped. I drank some hot chamomile tea, had some more in a hot bath and sweat and then tried to sweat some more in bed. That part didn’t go as well… it’s kinda cool here, but I certainly stayed warm!

So, it’s developing for me; “you are what you eat.” It’s becoming much more than just the simple phrase it once was. We really are what we eat. I’m so glad that Rouge and I are taking our extra efforts to have ecologically friendly foods whenever we can from eggs and milk to flour or museli. I do believe, more than ever before, that it really will and does have an impact in our bodies to have things ecological and organic. Thanks also to green for planting those seeds so long ago!

breathing through…

On Monday evening, after the Heaviness post of Sunday, I got acupunture treatment at a local clinic. They were able to diagnose me with blood deficiency and low spleen/pancreas qi with gall bladder sensitivity.

On Monday morning, I wrote in my journal and came up with a new personal way of mental attunement and attitudinal change. Think of a switch with positive and negative poles. If I come to awareness and realize my heavy, lethargic, stressful, rigid state of being, then, I can switch to the positive pole (at least mentally).

Interestingly, causally, after I “switched” to the positive pole, I thought to go to the clinic to further my healing process of the body. Learning that my main problem is seemingly blood deficiency, many new connections are consciously revealed to me!

• A mediocre vegetarian diet is causing my blood deficiency through the lack of B12 and other blood building nutrients like iron, vitamin C, and folic acid.
• Blood deficiency is likely causing my lethargy and significantly contributing to my mental and psychological difficulties.
• Stress and worry further complicates and inhibits the healing process, though is also a profound sign that problems exist in the body.

So, now, Wednesday, I am still lethargic and tired, though my mood has improved through a faithful kind of shift of being. I must continue breathing through this situation and maintain the switch toward PMA. I have things to learn and try to improve my health and wellbeing, which is a comforting and positive situation.