Staying Present In Traumatic Times

Staying Present In Traumatic Times ©2017 Joan M. Newcomb, CPC

The last couple weeks were somewhat traumatic. First, my 15 year old dog had a seizure and possible stroke, and the next week a family member who has COPD (possibly emphysema) and MCI (mild cognitive problems) went into the hospital with pneumonia. It took be back to a time I've written about a lot, 2011-2013, with our other dog who had cancer and then neurological problems, and my mother who had Alzheimer's and lung cancer.

This recent period felt like a "pop quiz" reminder of what I learned then. Or perhaps continuing education, as there's always new awareness to be gleaned.

2010-2013 was a long, arduous process of ultimately midwifing my mother (my dog, and later my father) back to Spirit. Each of them had their own exiting process, each had different circumstances and choices to be made.

It's a shock when it first happens, and it's easy to feel that things are out of control. When my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's (right as we had finished paying off the dog's cancer surgery), it was a breakdown in my own reality as well.

However, for the most part, I remembered to keep a higher awareness, while external circumstances seemed to crumble. It would have been easy to have collapsed in a heap, but reframing reality helped. This was *not* a crisis but an event.

Joan and Dorothy, Washington DC, Sept. 2012

I reminded myself that I was powerless over events and other people's reactions to them, but not necessarily my own. I had choice over my actions (and response as best I could). I worked hard at being mindful, researching and asking for advice before making important decisions.

I also learned to not resist what is. I thought I could combat the Alzheimer's, get her into a memory program, give her the right nutrition, do my energetic healing, etc. But it was like trying to stop a river with outstretched fingers. When she was diagnosed with cancer, and the initial treatment didn't work, it shifted my focus to quality of life (rather than longevity).

It would have been a waste of energy to resist the little things, becoming my mother's parent, her eventually confusing me with her older sister who died in 1997.

It was important to stay focused on the important things (creating moments of joy for my mother). And to stay in present time, as I was back in my old home town that I left in 1981 and interacting with some people who hadn't talked to me in ten years.

I had to stay the grown up, the one responsible for life and death decisions, and do the next indicated thing that was best for all concerned.

This is all coming back to me as I observe my other dog age, and as this family member is navigating this part of their life path. It's different now, I'm only peripherally in this family member's life, and this current dog isn't doing so bad for 105 in people years.

We all have (at least) two parts to ourselves. The physical personality that reacts to situations and runs off of memories tinged with emotions. And the greater aspect of ourselves, Consciousness, that encompasses the bigger picture.

When you see things from that bigger picture viewpoint, and can let yourself as Consciousness be the one that makes decisions and takes action, it's so much easier to get through painful and traumatic times.

You're not in denial about what's happening, you can still be grieving the loss of what it was like before, but you're able to hold a bigger space, respond with greater inner authority.

We're in traumatic times even if our daily lives are going well. The world seems to be falling apart, when it's really Consciousness reorganizing reality.

Shift your perspective to Consciousness and you will inwardly know that all is very, very well.

Interconnectedness

Interconnectedness ©2014 Joan Newcomb

An aging teacher tired of his student's complaints. One day, he sent him to get some salt. When the student returned, the teacher told him to mix a handful of salt in a glass of water and then drink it.

“How does it taste?” the teacher asked.

“Bitter,” said the student.

The teacher then asked the student to take a handful of salt and toss it in the lake. Then the old teacher said, “Now drink from the lake.”

The teacher asked, “How does it taste?”

“Fresh,” said the student.

“Do you taste the salt?” asked the teacher.

“No,” said the student. The teacher explained gently:

“The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain remains exactly the same. But the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container. When you are in pain, all you need do is enlarge your awareness. Stop being a glass. Become a lake.”

I'd take this a step further and say that the pain of life IS exactly the same, we are tasting the same salt that that others are tasting.  If we contain it within our bodies, it will feel overwhelming.  If we release it back to the Cosmic Sea, we gain compassion and awareness.

We're Consciousness experiencing individuality.  Our bodies are transmitters and receivers.  We have our reactions to events, but we also draw from the pool of lower emotions. When we operate from Consciousness, we can choose what we transmit. 

The Buddhist bodhichitta mediation practice has one breathing in the world's misery and breathing out loving-kindness.

In other words, you can use your body as a transformer of lower vibrations into higher vibrations.

This only works if you're already grounded and cleared, otherwise you're just swimming in pond scum.

You can tell when you're experiencing your own body's emotions, from when you're experiencing the collective discomfort.  Your own feelings have clarity, when you're feeling other's feelings, it's overwhelming.  Toss their salt back into the sea.

It's easy to get caught up in collective events, people coming together to protest, people reacting to a natural (or man-made) disaster.   We're naturally compassionate, we respond to other's sadness.  But we can't help others if we're drowning ourselves.

There's another practice where you quietly turn within and emanate Love.  You don't have to transmute other's feelings for this one.  In fact, in filling your energy field with this higher vibration, you de-energize any lower frequencies of your own that you're holding on to.  

This helps bring light into the world, and gives others the opportunity to match a higher vibration.  It helps Consciousness evolve.

We don't need to eliminate all uncomfortable feeling responses, that just numbs us and misses the point of being in a body.  When you expand your awareness, feelings wash through you.  Discomfort still exists, and you're holding a bigger space.

We're all capable, Infinite Beings.  We are at choice.  Be the Ocean.

Plexiglas Walls

Plexiglas Walls ©2014 Joan M Newcomb

Have you ever found yourself blocked from moving forward?  There's no obvious reason for it.  It's like bumping up against a Plexiglas wall.

Perhaps it's something you've tried to attain again and again, and you just can't get past the invisible barrier.  There's no external barrier that you can see.

Even though you may make up stories about the first, second, or third time your face hits this wall, inwardly you wonder what is wrong with you.

Our reality is made up of pictures, impressions we've received (and created) from the moment we pop out of the womb.  Actually, the moment we pop *into* the womb - we absorb these impressions in utero as well.

We're veritable picture galleries of impressions.  And as long as we're within our families or culture, we're amongst others who have the same pictures.  They're agreed-upon images, so they seem real.

When we step outside our matching pictures, we experience discomfort.  Moving to another country, going away to college, getting married, all expose us to different collective pictures.  We can either expand our Universe by moving beyond our limited gallery, or we can get solidified and stuck.

It's why people get upset with others who are different.  We don't want our world to include those who don't have our same pictures.  Make those people go away!

Life is growth.  When we stop growing, we die.  Body/personalities think it's the other way around - we feel threatened when we have to expand.  We think there's nothing beyond our limitations.  But it's a whole new world out there, baby!

Back to Plexiglas's Walls.  They are pictures we haven't recognized as pictures, yet.  They are family or cultural programming, initially given to protect, perhaps, but now control your reality.

How do you get past something that's invisible?  How do you break through something that feels so solid?

Charging headlong into it doesn't work.  Sitting down and moping doesn't either.  Years of psychotherapy can completely elude them. People can't rescue you from your own pictures.

You have to bypass the conscious mind, since that's the curator of your gallery.  Energy work can be helpful as long as you don't get entangled in effort.

Something to playfully try - imagine blowing bubbles.  Each bubble represents a picture in your wall.  You don't have to know what it is, just imagine the bubbles streaming out or floating up and popping.  Do that on a daily basis, or whenever it occurs to you, and you will see change.

You can sit quietly with your eyes closed and visualize yourself walking up to the Plexiglas wall, reaching out and touching it, and have it become gelatinous or made up of bubbles, and gently move through to the other side.

Be gentle with yourself while doing this work, you are transforming your Universe!

Try this for a week and see what happens!

The Pow in Power

The Pow in Power ©2014 Joan M. Newcomb

Years ago, when I was in my 20's, I got into a conversation with an old man (who must have been in his 40's).  I was taking a women's meditation class, and I said to him, 'women have twice as much energy as men'!

He responded with a story about how he'd been able to push someone across the room with the force of energy from his hands.

And there you have it.

What I'd learned in my class was that female bodies generate twice as much energy as men.  They're biologically programmed to create entire other bodies.

He'd heard it as twice a powerful, and told a story of how he was able to exert external power.

Two different perspectives on how to use energy.

Women can create bodies from within their bodies, for another being.  There's a natural merging that occurs for a few years, while the being figures out how to operate the new body.  But at some point that being gets to move forward without help.

Energy held within your own space (regardless of the gender of your body) is more energetically powerful than energy focused outside your space, into someone else's space.

It's easy to think that someone with external influence is more powerful.  Someone who is very loud, will seem to have control over the environment.  People who 'throw energy' can appear powerful when you're on the receiving end of their whack.

Inner power is often not recognized by those involved with external power games.  It appears as a soft power.

Inner power is strength and stability.  It is having your own authority and seniority around those playing games.

It is holding your own power while giving space to others going through difficult times, in "weakened" positions.

Sometimes the most powerful action is not using your power at all.

Things to think about as we move forward into this New Year and time.