Grief, Fishtanks and Upgrades

Grief, Fishtanks and Upgrades  ©2014 Joan M. Newcomb, CPC

It's been a tough week, two people we knew died on Monday besides Robin Williams.  With the other celebrity deaths, it must have been quite a welcome party in Heaven.

This isn't what I meant to talk about it but I will.  I have been suicidally depressed at times during my life.  When I was sixteen, I took a massive overdose, and ended up in a coma for three days. I wasn't trying to kill myself, but the pain had gotten so bad I didn't know how else to express it.

When I left my first marriage, the holidays were excruciating, and nothing looked better than slipping off a ferry boat into Puget Sound.

Things began turning around when my friend died.  The grief was unbearable and yet I was getting constant input from him.  I got the awareness that that we are always connected as Consciousness, and our lifetimes pass in the blink of an eye.

 The physical realm is like a big swimming pool, and dying is getting out of the pool when swim time is over.  I could have another 50+ years in the pool, so why not enjoy splashing about?

It wasn't so easy, it took several more months to realize that 90% of my thoughts were negative. During most of the day, I would tell an imaginary audience my stories of all the terrible things that were happening to me.  I had to figuratively grab myself by my ears are redirect my thoughts to positive things.  However, after only a couple of weeks I found myself lifted out of a depression that I'd been in for over a decade.

Note: I'm not saying that you can bring yourself out of depression just by changing your thoughts.  Sometimes people need help with their brain chemistry, and should talk to their naturopath or medical health specialist for recommendations.

Shadow Boxing

Shadow Boxing ©2014 Joan Newcomb

Years ago I noticed that I spent an awful lot of the time creating conversations in my head.  Usually I'd be on "Oprah",  because obviously the world needs to know my personal gripes.  Or I'd be telling some imaginary audience my litany of woes.

Some days it's just you and your shadows.

I decided to interrupt these episodes of 'stinking thinking' and change the subject.  After two weeks, I discovered that I'd lifted out of a depression that I'd been in for years.  I had rerouted my thoughts, created new neural pathways and actually changed my brain chemistry!

Later on, when beginning my quest to manifest a life partner, I caught myself complaining about all the previous failed relationships.  I switched this to positive affirmations about my next relationship, and manifested meeting the man who's now my husband in less than a month.  I'd given the Universe a clear request, which brought quicker results.

Our minds are storage containers of pictures, memories and impressions.  We view our reality through these images.  We're not really engaging with the world around us, we're interacting with our own mental image pictures.

That's not to say we aren't receiving other peoples' projections.  We can definitely feel it when people are thinking about us, even if we can't discern the exact words, or even who's emitting them.

But we receive their impressions through our impressions.  If we're feeling good about ourselves, it doesn't matter how much another person (or group) projects that we're their scapegoat or black sheep, it won't affect us.

On the other hand, if we're feeling bad about ourselves, it doesn't matter how many awards or accolades we're given, we won't accept the validation.

Our mindset distorts our experience of our surroundings.  We may be in such Mary Sunshine denial that we don't realize we're involved with an alcoholic.

We may be so traumatised from our past, that we can't believe we're in a healthy work environment.

Sometimes we're years out of those situations, with solid recovery under our belts, and we suddenly feel back in the funhouse again.  Maybe a family reunion triggered a feeling of fallback, or renewed inner work peels away a new layer.

These are opportunities created by your Essence for your own evolution.

We're constantly going through Spiritual Remodels, as we grow and expand.  More than likely you're not back in the basement, but on an upper floor.

We can't work on others projections, but we can dissolve our own shadows.  We can catch our thoughts and reframe them.  We can meditate on receiving light (I like to imagine gold sunlight filling my space and dispelling all darkness).  Imagining a stream of bubbles popping out in front of you is an effortless way to release unconscious mental image pictures.

Take the next 7 days to try any or all of these techniques, and your world will be tranformed!