Theirs or Mine?

Posted on August 12, 2003 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

Human beings are constructed physically and energetically to experience and express a range of states that we call emotions. While the range of emotional states that we can experience is similar from person to person our reactions to these states is not. In fact our reactions to various emotions become a large part of the experience of them. Some we enjoy and seek to stimulate, while others we avoid and resist.

Generally it is easier for human beings to own the good feelings than the bad. If we are angry or fearful or sad we generally associate these states with an external cause. Someone or something has caused them. It usually takes practice and conscious thought to see how these emotions arise from programmed reactions to external events or stimuli.

It is useful to remember that we are often acting from many levels of our being. We may be consciously dedicated to behaving in one way while in fact we are perhaps doing something quite different. People generally do not consciously want to be angry or fearful or sad, and yet at unconscious levels we can have programming, pictures, and judgments that produce these states of being.

It may be hard to understand how we can be responsible for states we never consciously desire, and may even have worked hard to release or avoid. Yet, our actual experience and actions are often out of alignment with our conscious intentions. This adds to the tendency to assume that the source of these states is external. If it is not in our consciousness and we aren’t aware of the unconscious levels, or even their possibility, then it logically has to be outside somewhere.

Within our being we all carry emotional energies that have come from other people, as well as old energies that we ourselves have been unable to release. At some point we decided that we didn’t want to experience them and pushed them away, out of our awareness. These may have been traumatic or incidental, but they were put on hold. One of the purposes of being human is the opportunity to release these old energies, to clear our space of things that are not a part of who we are and become free. To assist in this process the universe helps us create situations that wake up these old feelings. Meeting people who recreate an old drama so we can go through it again with more awareness and find our way out of resistance and go free, or perhaps people who mirror what we hold.

When we meet such people our old unconscious emotional energies “wake up”, we begin to vibrate in ways that we have found to be uncomfortable and perhaps fearful. These energies will carry with them all of the judgment, and secondary emotions that originally caused them to be locked away. If we can simply be aware, and let the emotions flow, we release them and find more of our freedom.

However, we are likely to to feel pretty bad in the process, and if we do not suspect that we are becoming aware of something that has long been ours, we may think that the other person has attacked us, or thrown energy at us. This is especially true if the original situation included some form of attack or invalidation.

Of course, it is possible that someone has tossed some energy at you. As with many things in life, the answer to a multiple choice is “all of the above”. People who are themselves experiencing unpleasant emotional states may well be trying to unload some of their energies, often unconsciously, sometimes consciously. But this is still likely to be only a part of the picture, and in the long run usually not the most important.

We are in the situation to begin with as an opportunity to grow by releasing old baggage. The more we can do this the less we need external reminders and the situations and people clear up or go away. On occasion it is useful to know how to own one’s space and avoid or block energy that is tossed our way. If, however, we are always looking outside for the source of any unpleasant emotion that we experience, we may often miss the opportunity to really clean house, to release things that are trying to leave.

So it is important to check inside and with Spirit, to ask if it is our energy that we are releasing, even in part, or if we really are only under attack. One of the secrets to power is claiming what is ours, even when we would rather not have it. If we give responsibility to someone else, then we have no way to act, especially if they are a simple mirror. Only by claiming it may we release it and move on.

(© 8/2003)

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Our Relationship with Divinity

Posted on April 12, 2003 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

We all have a unique relationship with God, Goddess, Spirit, Creator. In fact the number of names for Divinity reflects the variety of ways in which we collectively approach and connect with her. The uniqueness of this relationship stems from the uniqueness of ourselves.

While we often come together with others of like mind for religious or spiritual services or gatherings, even in these groups that have similar concepts of the Divine, the individual experience is personal and often quite varied.

If you are seeking Divinity it can be limiting to have expectations about what your experience will be like. Consider, rather, that you already have a relationship with Divinity, although you may not realize it. We all have experiences of the Divine, but may think of them as something else.

We may expect a Being to come and talk to us, and so overlook our ability to feel spirit when we are out in nature, or write off the inspiration that comes to us in day dreams, thoughts floating through our minds with no apparent source.

If we expect Divinity to come in a given form, or place, or ceremony, we can miss the chance to experience it in the unique way that best suits us.

Remember that we are also a part of the Divine, and that the external search is the same as the internal search for our Self, our own spiritual essence. If we expect a burning bush we may miss the quite whispers of our own heart.

The manifest world is all an expression of the Divine. God talks to us through every person we meet, through ourselves, through nature. But we all have our own unique ways of experiencing the world, ourselves, and spirit, our own vocabularies of word, picture, sound, and feeling.

Allow yourself to find your own variations, your own language for talking to the Divine, your own ways of experiencing your spiritual being. If these are different, do not worry that something is wrong, but rejoice in your ability to find new ways to celebrate the miracle of life.

(© 4/2003)

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Being Who We Are, Finding our Power

Posted on February 11, 2003 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

We are all powerful beings, intrinsically capable of great creativity in the world. Spiritual power is not something that we can earn, or discover out there in the world. It not about money and fear and control, nor is it about techniques or secret knowledge. True power grows out of owning who we are as spiritual beings, out of manifesting and expressing our spiritual essence. The process of becoming powerful is an outgrowth of remembering who we are and then acting and creating from that essence.

As energetic beings we are like radio antennae that can both broadcast and receive. Like antennae we are tuned. An antenna is tuned by its physical dimensions and the properties of the materials that it is made of. Its tuning means that it has natural resonance frequencies, and it is most efficient when working at those frequencies. Similarly in our being we are tuned to certain frequencies, frequencies that arise out of who we are as spiritual beings. This is where our power lies.

Think of a bell. When it is struck it vibrates and emits a range of sounds. The strongest and clearest, those with the most power, are those that are natural resonances of the bell. The shape and size of the bell, and the material it is made of all affect its resonant sounds. Think of yourself as an physical and energetic entity, which has resonances, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

In broadcasting it is possible to use frequencies that are at the edges of the natural resonances of an antenna, but there will be less power there, because the antenna is less efficient. These are “off-band” vibrations, the farther from the resonance the weaker and less powerful they are. If you dampen the main frequencies, and allow only the off-band ones to radiate, they will have much less power than those at the resonance. Working off-band like this is the way we tend to live our lives.

Trying to create a life that is based on other people’s ideas or values, or from places of fear, anger, or greed, takes us out of who we are spiritually and thus away from our own power. It is a double whammy, in which we are trying to create something that won’t really resonate with us when its done, and we are doing so from a place of weakness. This results in a great deal of effort.

When we can rediscover who we are and work from there, we are able to create much more efficiently because we are broadcasting at full strength. There is no effort, we can just be who we are and let that radiate out. Here we gain also two fold. We are in our power, a place that we can enjoy and flourish in. It is nurturing to us, our natural home, and we are also able to create with ease.

Energetic beings, like antennae receive as well as broadcast. We receive most easily what we are tuned to. So if we are tuned to fear, that is what we receive, if we are tuned to joy, likewise. Being tuned far from our power, we become sensitive to energies that are not nurturing to us, that will often take us further away. This is another aspect to returning to who we are, we become more aware of the people and energies that truly nurture us, we are supported and aided by aspects of the universe that vibrate at similar frequencies. It becomes easier to find and communicate with those that match our visions of who we are and how we wish to live.

So what is your frequency, what song list do you play and listen to? Make sure that it is your song list and not someone else’s, not society’s, your partner’s, or your boss’s. Allow yourself to come back to your own center of power, which is defined inside, by who you are. Begin to work more with your feeling and intuition, which are more sensative to resonance. Thought is a powerful tool, but it tends to become complex and, by itself, is not as reliable a compass. What nurtures you?, not the outer personality that is constructed to deal with society, but the inner you that is of spirit. What is coherent with your dreams?, as opposed to what is not. This knowledge comes from feeling and being, allowing your body and soul to check the relative tuning. Is it a resonance, or does it clash?

Find your internal compass back to yourself and your power. Learn how to tune your worldly self, your bell, your antenna, to your spiritual frequency. Begin to send and receive from a place of resonance, of power. The power of being, rather than that of reaction and control.

Welcome home.

(© 2/2003)

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Proudly Reclaiming our Playfulness

Posted on November 11, 2002 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

As children we all have a playful aspect that we use to learn, grow, and explore the world around us. For really small children most of their time is spent in play. While adults tend to think of this as “just having fun”, it is a space where they learn a great deal about how to be in the world; it is the playfulness of spirit exploring the material.

Sometimes we loose our play space because it is overwhelmed by pain or anger or other trauma, and as we shut down we leave the play space behind. A few retreat into a detached, inner world, that is a sort of arrested play space. For most of us though our play space slowly evolves, becoming closer and closer to the “real world” of the adults we grow into, until we lose it with out even realizing it. Like the turtle slowly boiled alive.

We become busy, serious, responsible, and otherwise lose, give up, or put aside our playfulness, or relegate it to certain times of the day or week or year. We have help with the process, every time we are told we need to “grow up”. We also give it up because we assume we have to. Dualistic thinking judges something to be hot OR cold. If it is one it can’t be the other. People who are playful CAN’T be serious or productive.

Furthermore, certain concepts are clustered together, e.g. being responsible, serious, efficient, productive, orderly etc. Not only is it hard for us to consider that someone can be playful AND serious at the same time, but also that someone could be un-serious AND productive or efficient. We have given up our play space on the alter of those adult virtues deemed necessary for social and worldly success.

We have been told that play and imagination are things that we must outgrow, that they are not serious, or not real, that we shouldn’t expect to have fun or be enthusiastic, that humor and amusement are not appropriate for the work place; that if we want to keep these things we are being childish or possibly selfish. Leaving aside the interesting political aspects of this conditioning, let us remember what play space actually is.

It is a place where the rules are fluid, where imagination is queen, where it is all about having fun and being enthusiastic. It is a space that is close to spirit and very much about being present, even if the present is medieval Europe, or Hogwarts, or some distant galaxy. Play space is a place of learning, of exploration, of trying things just to see what happens. It is a place as full of creativity as imagination. Imagination, rather than being unreal, is the primary tool by which we create.

In contrast to the idea that play space is unproductive or inefficient, it is actually a place where we are most creative, effortlessly learning and exploring our world, coming up with new ideas and solutions. It is a place of enthusiasm and power, in which we are close to spirit and can step beyond all the dualities, combining things that we have been taught are contradictory. When you are effortlessly and enthusiasticly creating something, you are very productive.

So look back at all the times you were told to give it up and reclaim your play space. Allow yourself to have fun, be enthusiastic, use your imagination, just for now pretend that your world can be whatever you want it to be. You may well find that your dreams are not so far away as you thought. Find any area of your life that you can play in, or can reclaim as a play space. If necessary, create one from scratch. Remember what you enjoyed as a youth, or imagine what you’d like to do now.

The important thing is to feel what that space is like. It is a mental/emotional/spiritual state of being, and once you can experience it in one area give yourself permission to carry that state of being, that attitude over into other areas of your life. Be playful about the process, imagine what each new area would be like if you could play in it, or how it needs to be so you can feel that way there. It may not require as much on the ground, external, change as you had thought. Often when we shift internally, much of the external changes appearance, or shifts with us.

It is about having it all. Being able to function in the world and take care of ourselves and loved ones, can also be joyful, and full of enthusiasm, imagination, and creativity. It can be effortless and effective, intuitive and intellectual, playful and full of attention and presence. Balanced playfulness is actually the most effective and productive space we can be in. It’s really about bringing your spirit into your body; heaven on earth.

(© 11/2002)

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Growing Pains

Posted on August 14, 2002 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

Stepping onto the spiritual path, in any of its many forms, involves an explicit or implicit statement that we are ready to embark on a process, which will bring us closer to Spirit. Commonly this is viewed in terms of a figurative or even literal journey, in which we start here and travel there, in which we learn and grow, becoming more and more until we have reached our goal. In this context it may be a surprise, or source of confusion to find oneself in the midst of very “unspiritual” emotions, going through different forms of loss, or other challenging situations. If we have committed to walking into

The answer is one of perspective. The spiritual path rather than a process of acquisition, or becoming more, it is one of letting go, or becoming less. Rather than a journey, either metaphorical or literal, from here to there, it is a matter of being here rather than being there, of pulling our scattered energies into the here and now. It is not so much about seeking to find spirit, viewed as something “out there”, as to remember who we are. Since we are originally and essential spirit ourselves. Neither is it something that has to be earned, how can we earn who we actually are? It is about being that rather than all the doings and becomings to be something else.

The process is about letting go of what we have learned in this world so that we can remember what we know from the other world. Rather than leaving an “unspiritual” house and journeying to find a “spiritual” house it is about staying home and cleaning out the house we are in so that our spirit can come home.

External journeys are useful to the extent that experiencing nature, or other places and people may help us to experience ourselves, often by helping to clear other people out of our space, or by reminding us of things we have forgotten. In the end we must be able to be at home where ever we are, or we are still “lost” to ourselves.

We as spiritual beings are often so much larger and greater than we are consciously aware of in this body/mind, our house. Look into the eyes of an infant and you can see the huge spirit that is slowly coming onto that small, growing, body. We do not have to go and “find ourselves”, we simply have to clean the house, perhaps make it a little larger, so more of who we are can come in.

By clearing away the layers that we have acquired: the fears, angers, invalidations, our collected triumphs and prized failures, we begin to “become as little children” and find ourselves. Everything that we want, or are in resistance to must be set free in order to return to who we are as spiritual beings. Both holding on to something prized and pushing away things unwanted are forms of attachment, keeping things in our space. In either case something else has our attention. Clearing this away allows us to give our attention back to ourselves as spirit, and to Spirit in general.

From this point of view it becomes clearer why the spiritual path has its “bumps”, its periods of darkness. We have, though we may not have consciously realized it, told the universe that we are willing to clear house. Thence forward every project we undertake, every relationship we form, all of our life, becomes an arena for this process. Each step provides a challenge to let go of another program, old emotion, chunk of unconsciousness, or invalidation. Every step is opportunity to reclaim more of who we are as immortal spiritual beings, by letting go of who we are as finite incarnations.

So from the spiritual perspective, we may expect the bumps and bits of darkness and take them as a sign of our “progress” rather than being discouraged and disheartened. The less we resist or resent them the easier they will pass. One chunk or layer at a time.

The more we clear our space and bring ourselves home, the less the processing will affect “us”, the more we can “suffer gladly”. For in truth it is not “suffering” if we are not in attachment or resistance. So we proceed and do the things we are guided to do, but knowing that there are growing pains on the path, as we give away our stuff and take out the garbage. Those things that are truely in affinity with us will return after we have let them go, and having cleared out those that are not in affinity with us we have more room for ourselves, for spirit, for all the things that sustain us and give us joy.

(© 8/2002)

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