Getting Clear

So I've been experiencing recurrent flooding in my basement.  This is not a fun experience- I did not think I was choosing this over and over, but since essentially I do choose all of it, I wondered, why?

Why is tricky one. If you try too hard to think why, then you can easily get into ego stuff and suffer and struggle and blame and..I think you get it.  So, I did ask why, but then I let it go and observed what was going on.  It did force me to look at old stuff in my basement and clear out some mental stuff.  But, little leaks here and there led me to more wonderings and observations about deeper issues.  I started listening to my inner voice, getting still and journaling.  I started doing work around my family and family history. The deeper I got, the more signals I would get to keep going and looking.  I was swimming in information, but since I've had to tread water before, I "Just [kept] swimming" as Dory would say ("Finding Nemo").  Eventually, I started to feel the bottom with my toes and then with feet firmly planted, I slowly walked into shallower water.

I realized that some family history was informing beliefs of mine about abundance and worthiness.  If I had abundance, I would be losing something else.  So, attempts to reach for abundance had mixed efforts, sabotages, delays.  Once I connected the dots, it became clear that I was ready to let go of those beliefs and reveal more of my real self. Welcoming the abundance.  Willing to receive it.  Willing to do some things that seemed a little intimidating in order to bring more abundance into my life.  I also realized that I would waste time- I was actually not using my time in a way that matched my worth.  In other words, I wasted time with things I let distract me instead of doing things that were really worth my time- the things I loved and thought important.  I started using a tracker system- The Trikaya Tracker (www.TrikayaTribe.com) that kept me accountable to what I say is important in my life.  It only took me one day to realize that I was wasting time and effort in a big way.  

I know that we are spiritual beings living a human world.  We are playing with form.  I started wanting the form to actually match my spirit- I was getting clearer.  I was able to start letting go of beliefs of others and not make them my own.  Now, the world has opened up.  Another relief...

Having No Plan

Throughout my life I have had many people tell me that I need a plan to succeed.  And so, I would immediately write out a plan with much detail and get overwhelmed with the enormity of it and put it aside.  No one that I remember ever told me to not have a plan, until recently.  

I was reading a newsletter from Ray Dodd about how to create more financial wealth.  His teachings are based on the "Power of Belief"-- that what we believe is not only instrumental in what we will have in the future, it is the basis of who we are and what we have now.  He was talking about how people often trying to control things when they are attempting to get what they want.  They get focussed on the "how" of it.  Often people won't even dare to dream about something because they don't know how they would ever have it.

He doesn't say, don't have goals or don't write down ideas of what you want or a simple plan, but he does emphasize that if you start worrying about the "how"s of a plan, you actually limit the possibilities.  The Universe gets you what you want based on what you believe in the most efficient way so if you only believe something can happen in a certain way, you limit the speed and ways you could receive it.

Case in point: My daughter needed an evaluation which costs $500 and I was thinking "Wow, that's a lot of money! This may really make things tight for us this month."  Then I decided I was not going to worry about the money and it would be fine no matter what.  Within a few days, I realized that a check I wrote for a program for the same daughter was given back to me since there was no room for her.  As I tore up the used check, I looked down and realized that it was for, you guessed it, $500.  So the money came from one place and went to another- pretty easy, eh?  

Now, I love this way of thinking.  It used to stress me out that I didn't feel like I controlled how things happened.  But, I never it.  I let myself get stressed by circumstances instead of staying in a peaceful state no matter what and trusting that things would work out- now that is control!  I am learning to trust more that I will get what I want- based on the premise that it will be OK even if it doesn't show up the way I expect. For me, when I remember to trust, it is like opening a present again and again.

Emotional Spring Cleaning

We had two floods in our basement in the past 3 months.  The second one, an "I Love Lucy" kind of pipe burst, happened two days after finishing our basement after the first flood and installing a water purification system.  I was baffled about why this was happening.  Not the physical reason- a valve explosion, but the bigger reason.  

After the initial shock of seeing the water and turning off the valve.  My husband and I immediately started to salvage stuff.  Cleaning out the basement was on my list of stuff to do that day and so, now I could avoid it no longer.  Miraculously, the important stuff was fine. Photos, books, clothes were intact.  The stuff that we no longer needed or had no meaning, was tossed.  

Then it hit me.   I needed to spring clean my basement and also my inner world.  I had all this old stuff in me that I no longer needed, but was holding on to for no other reason than habit.  Now was the opportunity to let it go, toss it out.  The basement is not spotless (just like my inner emotional state), but it is clearer and more manageable.  If another flood hits, there will be less damage and it will be easier to recover from.  I am better capable of handling it.  

The flood also allowed me to be grateful.  I was feeling victimized when it happened.  Then I realized that we are so lucky that we were around when it happened, that my husband was home to help, that we have enough money to pay the plumber, that we had water in the house to drink and bathe, that we had a house, that we were alive.  

Yes, it was a pain in the butt to clean up and we had no water for a few hours, but that's about it.  It was another reminder of how blessed we are.  Oh, and I found some old mother's and father's day cards from when I was six.  That was pretty cool...

Mothers' Day letter to Myself

I wrote a love letter to my mom today.  It flowed out of me easily and it was something that I thought about doing for the past week.   It was a surprise because  although my relationship with my mother has improved tremendously over the years, especially after having children myself, it was far from perfect.  

I have heard a lot of women talk about their mothers as their heroes.  That they worked hard to get their daughters a better life or they were a model of feminism, beat the odds and so on.  I had a hard time thinking about my mother in that way.  She had some sound advice for me over the years but we had  some major differences around most things i.e feminism, politics, religion, etc.  She still tends to fret about things and now is losing her memory which can exacerbate her anxiety.

However, the inspiration to write her a letter for Mothers' Day seemed like a very natural thing to do and now that she is in her mid-80s, I thought it something to do sooner than later.  After I wrote the letter I cried for a minute.  I have realized that when I cry it usually means that what I am experiencing is true in some way- a inner truth.

The letter allowed me to see several truths: the obvious one is that I truly love my mother and I think she did a lot more for me than I thought.   The other is that there is a great deal of positive in our relationship and I wanted her to know that she accomplished much with her mothering.  In short, my mother became one of my heroes.

 Another truth was not obvious until I finished the letter.  This letter was from my inner Being.  It was a letter that reflected what my inner spirit saw in my mother as her real self- not her anxiety or her political views, but her highest self.  It was spirit to spirit.  

Lastly and certainly not least, it was a letter from my inner Being to me.  It was what I needed to hear about myself- that I was a good mother- not perfect, but loving and kind-even in crazy times.  

When my mentor first spoke to me, he made a point of saying that I needed to be kind and gentle with myself in this process- again it brought me to tears knowing that this was something that I needed to do, but rarely allowed it to happen.  I think this letter finally allowed me to experience this compassion.

So, if you are ever feeling like a failure as a mother or even mildly overwhelmed, write your mother (whether she is in this world still or not) a love letter.  You never know what will happen.

Happy Mothers' Day