Teamwork and Ego – A Fable
A frog asked two geese to take him south with them. At first, they resisted, because they didn't see how it could be done. The frog finally suggested that the two geese hold a stick between their beaks, and he would hold onto it with his mouth.
So off the unlikely threesome went, flying southward over the countryside. It was really quite a site. People looked up and expressed great admiration at this demonstration of creative teamwork.
Someone said, "It's wonderful! Who was so clever to discover such a fine way to travel?"
Whereupon, the frog opened his mouth and said, "It was I," as it plummeted to the earth.
My Take-Aways
Connections & Oneness
I had several take a ways from the August 19, 2012’s Sunday Message. The four '"take aways" were: familiarity, capability, belonging and alibis.
I have preferred the familiar to the unfamiliar because I did not want to expend the time and energy to learn new behaviors. “I” was comfortable with familiar patterns and behaviors.
I did not share my true thoughts and feelings because I wanted to be accepted at all times and in all places. Pleasing others was more important than following my own bliss.
I created alibis and excuses because I had found comfort in my self created insecurities. These insecurities put distant between others, Life and me. This approach no longer serves me.
Finally, I created alibis to be less than I could be and actually AM. I told myself, “My” alibis are valid! They were the boxes I put myself in.
Because I am capable, from this day forward, I will move towards connection and oneness by moving away from the familiar, my self-created insecurities and alibis. I will manifest God’s will for me by obtaining the dreams I had set for myself as a young man.
~ Keith Gorley
And Sometimes We Take A Boat
Before you get all out of sorts about my blogpost from last week, let me continue the story. As you may know, I recently completed the credentialing to be a Professional Licensed Practitioner. My intention for getting the Practitioner's License, besides the fact that it is really cool to begin to figure out how to work 'This Stuff', was so that I may enroll in the Holmes Institute as a Ministerial Student. I don't know what that means, exactly. I don't see myself in a pulpit, I see myself at the Holmes Institute taking classes. I've known that, somewhat reluctantly at times, since the fifth week of Foundations.
In these past several weeks, I have become aware that I have a lot of history vigorously explaining to me why I can't do something as brazen as register as a ministerial student at the Holmes Institute. Last time I checked, I'm female and in my personal history, females aren't supposed to be ministers. There's also the potential conflict of being raised as a fundamentalist Christian. So I wasn't really all that surprised when I pulled a deep calf muscle and found walking, moving forward in any way, at any speed, to be difficult, painful and downright challenging.
I proceeded to look online at rehabilitation for deep calf muscle sprains and realized that most sports medicine didn't offer much hope about healing this type of injury. A long and slow (prognosis: months and months) rehab process was the best they offered. OK. I started praying about it, asked other Practitioners to pray about it, knowing my calf was healing, healthy and whole, even though my experience was most definitely to the contrary. I remembered a quote of Holmes, "Since our spiritual understanding is not sufficient to enable us to mentally set bones, we call in a surgeon; since we cannot walk on water, we take a boat. We can go only as far as our spiritual knowledge takes us." (The Science of Mind, 219.2)
Ah, yes. A boat. Adding to the mental work of prayer, clearing out history, doubt and limiting thought, I also called in many physical resources, sports massage, myo-fascial release, stretching, rest, ice, accupuncture. Within a few days I was able to walk without pain and within 8 days, I was ready to gently get back to the gym. This is a considerably different story than the long and slow purely physical process, which might have also ultimately insisted that I must wear orthotics the rest of my life.
The take away from this lesson for me was that in addition to continuing the mental work, I did use the assistance of many healers in my rehabilitation (sometimes we do take a boat), and will continue to work with some of them to ensure my physical body does what I need it to do (which will allow different layers of story to be released and heal), but there was never a time when I gave over my wellbeing to another, looking for them to 'fix me'. I ain't broke, I just got confused. And I have a telling story for my Entrance Panel into the Holmes Institute later this month.
Oh, and by the way, it's seldom just one thing or just one layer, there's almost always more depth to the story than anyone can see at first glimpse....
--Janis
“Either This Stuff Works, or It Doesn’t” — Rev Donald
I had an acquaintance contact me through Facebook the other week because she believed I could help her find a healer who could heal her of a physical illness that she was experiencing. I asked her how involved she wished to be in her own healing. When she asked what I meant by that, I explained to her how affirmative prayer works and how it worked more effectively if she was willing to participate in her own wholeness, wellness and health. Eventually the conversation circled back, with her expressing that she didn't want to have to do anything, that she wanted a faith healer to do it for her and to her. Exasperated (yes, I know its hard to believe I got exasperated, but I did), I reminded her how Jesus worked with the people who came to him for healing.
"Consider how Jesus healed the people in the Bible. It was their faith in him that did the work, the blind man, the lame, the leper, the woman with incessant bleeding, all of them. He routinely said some variation of 'your faith has healed you' and he sometimes gave them a task, to have them participate in their own wholeness. Even with Lazarus, his sisters' faith was what raised him from the dead. You get to decide where to put your faith. If it's in a faith healer, and that works for you, fabulous" (You can tell I was exasperated).
After I asked her if she was willing to work with an affirmation declaring her wholeness, she reaffirmed her desire to have someone else do the work for her. She asked if I would do it for her. I replied that I would not, that I would say an affirmative prayer for and about her health, wholeness and wellbeing, and, as she had originally requested, pointed her in the direction of several different healers who worked with different modalities. I figured that was the end of the conversation.
On p. 128 of the Science of Mind, Holmes reminds us that, "we may change the trend of causation which has been set in motion at any time we decide to do so. Everything comes from Intelligence. There is nothing but Unity; there is nothing but freedom; there is nothing but completeness; there is nothing but Totality. Begin at the beginning and reason this out, time after time, until all doubt disappears. It is necessary that each one do this for himself. Such is the power of right thinking that it cancels and erases everything unlike itself. It answers every question, solves all problems, is the solution to all difficulty...."
Two days later, she messages me back, saying she had contacted some of those healers but none had responded and that she was feeling better. She asked if I was doing distance-healing work on her. "No", I replied, "not in the way you mean". And I asked her, again, if she was willing to allow wholeness and health to be her new reality. The next day I received another message of a similar sort, which included a statement about her willingness to accept health and healing in her own language.
It's going to be fun to watch her embody her own wellness, wholeness and health.
-- Janis
A New Awakening
Recently, I flew to Washington State to celebrate my 27 yr old granddaughter’s wedding, to be held at my daughter’s house. As I arrived at the airport, I decided to notice my behavior and witness my thoughts from that moment until I returned home again.
While “people-watching” as I waited at my gate, I felt a compelling urge to put people in “acceptable” and “not acceptable” behavior boxes. I redirected my thoughts and, instead, noticed how “interesting” some people can be. It was much more entertaining and fun.
On the plane, my thoughts turned to the visit. Since I’d been used to living alone, I became very tense as I contemplated what it would be like to have our family, the groom’s family plus their friends (12 of us) staying under one roof for the next 5 days even though it was a large home. Continuing on this track, I hoped my daughter wouldn’t get too uptight and snap at me and my son-in-law would not start with his “mother-in-law put downs” – which had always played out in previous visits. Then my “witness” kicked in and noticed how I was inventing all sorts of misery in my mind, when none of it was ACTUALLY happening. I took a few deep breaths and decided to be OK with whatever happened. After all, it wasn’t MY wedding and it wasn’t happening at MY house. I focused on how wonderful it was going be to see my granddaughter marry such a nice guy, to see family again and to meet new people. Then I found myself getting happily excited for it all to start.
I knew it was highly probable my daughter would be stressed out with all the extra people in the house, etc., but I decided I’d just let her be herself and if she vented on me, I would ignore the behavior, offer to help any way I could and give her little pep talks about how well she was handling everything. (This scenario actually played out in its entirety and I kept my cool without creating more stress with a negative response.)
Also, during my visit, I decided to look for all the “good” qualities of my son-in-law and to notice his role as “father of the bride” instead of “my disrespectful son-in-law”. Well, surprise surprise, he was wonderful! He had become state-certified to officiate at the wedding and I observed that my granddaughter had become very bonded with him over all the wedding preparation and ceremony. He’d been her step-dad since she was 6 yrs old, the only dad she’d ever known. In fact, she made the statement that she may have had a father, but he was never her dad. She said she was grateful for the man she called “Dad”, who was the one who REALLY mattered anyway. I was so happy for her and could see how much it meant to him to hear that and to be able to play such an important role in her wedding. We (all the WONDERFUL people at the house who were brought together by this wedding) talked about what “family” really meant and we all blinked back tears as we discussed that. Then the groom’s mom spontaneously asked if she could lead us in prayer. We held hands as she thanked God for showing us what it really means to be “family” for one another. Then we passed the Kleenex box.
When I first arrived, though, my son-in-law greeted me with a hug and took me out on the back deck and pointed to a new 10x20 foot shed he recently built (for his lawn tractor and tools) in the back yard. (Ok, here we go) He said it was my new “Mother-in-law Suite”. Choosing to play along, I laughed and told him I liked it, but that I thought it was his new “ManCave”. He replied that he needed a building permit to build his “ManCave” because it would be much larger, but he appreciated the thought. Since there was nothing in it yet, and the house was full to overflowing with all of us, it was christened as the “Honeymoon Suite” the night of the wedding. For the first time in 20 years, my son-in-law didn’t tell me off or insult me at any time during my visit even when we were alone. One of my granddaughters even asked me, privately, if he had been mean to me yet, because it had always been a dreaded part (for all of us) and downside of every visit. Well, we’re not bff’s or anything -never will be- but I know since I changed MY expectations and response, my circumstances changed. Just hoping he would change would never have worked. As I left, I was shocked when he gave me a big hug and actually said he looked forward to my “next of many visits to come”. I realized it had ALWAYS been up to ME to change my experiences.
Next issue, at the airport, we were all on the plane and ready to depart, when the pilot announced, “Sorry folks. I have some bad news; the plane cannot fly because of an onboard computer problem. You need to get off the plane, go to Baggage Claim, retrieve your bags and proceed to the Ticket Counter to make other flight arrangements.” Stunned, we unfastened our seatbelts, collected our carry-on luggage and filed off the plane. People all around me were expressing their annoyance. I knew I would not make my 2 other connections, so my trip home was totally not going to happen as planned. But for some reason, I decided to be OK with that. I turned to one of my fellow passengers and said, “I’m sure glad we were on the ground when the pilot said he had some bad news!” This cut the tension as we deplaned and several people near me laughed and said they certainly agreed. Honestly, I hadn’t been looking forward to my flight schedule anyway, which meant arriving home late that night.
I rescheduled my flight for the next day and called my daughter to pick me up. We went to dinner, enjoyed a light-hearted mother and daughter time together. We spoke about how relieved we were that the wedding had gone so well and how thrilled we were that those two special people had found each other and had gotten married. Also, how much we enjoyed and truly LOVED the groom’s family and friends.
The next day with only 2 flights to get home, I arrived inTucson mid-day. Everything worked out even better than originally planned. Also the airline comp’d me $250 off on my next flight.
I realized that having decided to be a witness was key to creating a more joyful experience. Throughout my trip, whenever I caught myself in negative thought patterns, I stopped and began to think of what I DESIRED to happen and I really had a wonderful time.
I guess you CAN teach “an old dog new tricks”!
By Serina French