Don't Give Up The Ship

Don't Give Up The Ship ©2016 Joan M. Newcomb, CPC

When weather permits, I take daily walks for inspiration and to regain my connection as Consciousness. There's a house on my route that has a flag hanging off it that says, "Don't Give Up The Ship."

I think about it's message. Don't give up. Don't jump ship. Don't give up the ship.

The ship, to me, is the body you have manifested in which to experience physical reality. We hit times that seem insurmountable, so incredibly painful that we can't go on.

Yet if we do hang on, these times will pass. Life will get better.

Even if we can't imagine how, or can't know when.

As Consciousness, life is something to enjoy. We create being here for the fun of it, for the joy of it. To savor the sun on our face, the taste of chocolate, we love this world.

As Consciousness we are always aware of the bigger picture. We know this lifetime passes in the blink of an eye. We know we are always connected.

Those time that we hit a 'point of no return' in the physical, what is really happening is a dream is dying, an expectation of what it is supposed to be like, an aspect of our personality, our identity that we are attached to. Those things are dying, those limitations are breaking open and something bigger is coming in.

When I was sixteen, I was hospitalized for depression. I was there for three months and they released me with a bottle of antidepressants. I took the bus to my old high school and got a 'dear Joan' letter. I went to the McDonald's next door and downed them all.

I was in so much pain I couldn't think of anything else to do.

I was in a coma for three days. While I don't remember having an out of body experience, I woke up exhilarated. (My mother thought it was from taking all those antidepressants).

So many things have unfolded in the years since then. So much love and many life experiences that wouldn't have happened if I'd jumped ship.

Don't give up the ship to depression or despair. The part of you that can't see beyond the present circumstances is not the one who should be captaining the vessel. Let yourself as Consciousness do the steering.

It is as simple as shifting awareness to above the cloud cover.

However, it may take help to get there. These are tough times and you don't need to get through it by yourself. Don't be alone with your thinking. Be out among people who care and understand. Binge watch comedies.

For myself, on my daily walks I step through doors to parallel universes. I shift my reality to one where things are unfolding in my favor. To where everyone lives happily ever after.

When we navigate as Consciousness, we realize this is a benevolent Universe.

If we all try this, we can create massive change in our lives. Play with this and watch your collective reality transform!

When Good Things Happen To Guilty People

When Good Things Happen To Guilty People ©2015 Joan M. Newcomb

There's a book called 'When Bad Things Happen To Good People', which profoundly answers the 'why me' question when terrible things happen.

But I think we're all resolved to bad things happening. The economy's had recent downswings, people have lost their jobs and had to reinvent themselves, divorce statistics are high, and even if your life doesn't have any dramatic events happening in it, there's enough on the news and social media to keep you comfortably miserable.

What we aren't prepared to deal with is when good things happen. When you watch TV and people win the lottery or get a wonderful surprise, they burst into tears. It's painful when good things happen. 

I've seen people become successful in their businesses, hit the six (or seven) figure mark, and they are extremely uncomfortable. It's almost like survivor's guilt. Why me, when other people are struggling?

Why not you?

You can hear other's thoughts. Who are you to have success? Who are you to be happy? Who are you to be in love? Who are you to be rich?

We're no longer matching the crowd. We're stepping up and beyond the energy of deprivation and lack. 

However, these are the thoughts that hold you back, that keep you from breaking through.

If I become financially successful, no one will like me. I can't attract a life partner if I'm independent. I can't be happy if a friend or family member is suffering.

Here's another way of looking at it: you can provide the example for other's to experience fortune in their own lives. You're showing that it is possible.

When good things happen, it can be hard to enjoy it, because we're stepping out of our discomfort level.

We're expanding our ability to have joy and love and other good stuff.  That's a stretch, for most of us.

You are allowing your Self to be full sized. To be fully Present. To manifest more of your True Self.

As Essence we are infinite, joyous, and free. We are capable creators. We come into physical bodies and roll around in the mud.  It's equally creative to manifest terrible things happening, as having wonderful things happening. A shift of perspective is all it takes.

It's okay to have good things happen. It's your birthright to be happy, joyous, and free. It is all right to vibrate differently than the crowd.

Each person who breaks out of the limitations of their family, peers, culture, creates space for others to join them. You help Consciousness evolve by moving forward yourself.

This week, let yourself dance to your own drummer, let yourself be high on life. Appreciate the good things you already have, and you'll let yourself have more!

You Are Loved, Lovable and Worthy of Love

You Are Loved, Lovable and Worthy of Love ©2015 Joan M. Newcomb

I am sitting in a downtown Starbucks. It is not designed to hang out in. It has hard metal seats and tiny row tables. It's across from a city park, where city denizens live.

A woman comes in with a huge stroller and a tiny toddler.  Her daughter has a grey T-shirt with a big strawberry on it. She is a bright spark of light amongst beings who have accumulated many shades of gray.

I see a lot of diversity, but not a lot of happiness.  There's a lot of pain on the streets outside of Starbucks.

Street child in Kolkata with a mango!

Another woman with a stroller comes in.  She has an infant in a front pack, a two year old, wearing an identical gray T-shirt with strawberry and a four year old in a blue cotton dress. The two year old dances around the other toddler, delighted to be T-shirt twins.  The other toddler, clearly an only child, sidles up to her mom and raises her arms to be carried.

The little girls are bright sparks of light.  That is, their light is easily visible.  Yet every single person in Starbucks and on the street were bright, shining, infants and toddlers once. They were all loved, lovable and worthy of love.

Mother Theresa once said that she saw Jesus in every poor person's eyes.

There was a form of torture POWs were put in cages where they couldn't sit down but they couldn't stand up. They had to stay crouched for impossibly long periods of time.  When they were released, it was painful to stand.

This is a great analogy for staying in pain or poverty or other dysfunctional patterns.  After spending many years in darkness, moving to a healthy stance, being visible and in the light, is painful.

More and more light is coming into the world.  More and more darkness is being exposed.  It is coming to the surface to be cleared.

If you are going through dark times, if you are experience extreme discomfort, know that it is the greater part of You emerging.  The bright spark of light that you were, You still are.  Yet is is no longer a spark but a shining star, the brilliance equalling our own Sun.

Breathe and allow your Light to shine. Breathe and allow your heart to open. You are unique. You are special. You are loved, lovable, and worthy of love.

Everyone is.

Doors Slamming Open

Doors Slamming Open ©2015 Joan M. Newcomb

This has been a powerful week.  We've had the last of 7th Pluto/Uranus Squares, which began in 2012,  I've heard that the astrology is similar to 1928-1932 and the late 1960's, but even more powerful.  And today was both a New Moon Solar Eclipse *and* the Equinox.

An eclipse has 3x the power of a regular moon, and brings sudden changes, setting in motion a new phase of growth that can last for 6 months to 2 years.

The Equinox is a turning point into a new season.  Depending on your hemisphere it's either Spring, going from dormancy (really, Nature's architectural planning phase) into action, or it's Autumn which is nature's New Year.

This is the most potent time to set intentions and get clear on your vision for the coming year(s).

Recent years have been, individually and collectively,  a long, hard, roller coaster ride.  Many of us thought it would get easier (or completely end) back on Dec. 21st, 2012.  The buildup to that time was challenging.  People lost things they loved or strongly identified with: careers, relationships, and lifestyles.

Most of us now are in totally different circumstances than we were a few years ago.  We could not have imagined back then that we'd be where we are now.

A lot of us are mourning the losses.

The world has radically changed as well.  Regimes have fallen, religions are transforming.  Yet even as progress is being made, old power games from the past are resurfacing.  Echos of the 1950's, 1930's and even Medieval times are making headlines.

Please know that this is all a result of increased Light into the world.  When you flip the 'on' switch in a room, it shows where you haven't dusted.  When a higher vibration comes into form, it reveals the denser limitations.  It fractures restrictive solidity.

We are collectively more Conscious, that is, as Consciousness we are able to embody more.  Our bodies can handle our higher frequency.  There is greater clarity, even as it seems there is more chaos.


At any moment we are at choice about how we want to experience this new way of being.  We can step back, or to one side, and feel the grief, loss, anger, discomfort.  We can step forward or to the other side and feel joy, expansion, wonder and Love.

We've only lost our illusions.  I say this having lost both parents, my dog, and my home in one year.  And it was, by no means, the most painful time of my life.

I can't go back and regain those things I lost.  But I can go forward and create a new life.

Think of this time as doors of possibilities slamming open.

Shift to thinking of yourself as Consciousness with a body/personality.  As Consciousness you are at choice.  As Consciousness, you are Source. This is the energy that you can effortlessly create your reality. Step forward, or to the side that feels lightest.

Try this for the next 7 days and see what happens!

WTF is Happening?

WTF is Happening? ©2014 Joan M. Newcomb

It's been a tough week.  There's been deaths, losses, destruction, a lot of people experiencing pain and depression.  Pretty much anyone with a physical body has been impacted.

Although my personal storyline is good at the moment, my own experience of death and loss is pretty recent, so it's easy to pick up and match the resonances of friends and loved ones going through similar things now.

When I feel what others are feeling, from the same awareness level that they're feeling it, it's pretty unbearable.  This happened to them, they're in shock, their world has ended, they don't know how they're going to make it through the day.  It's immobilizing.

When I shift my perspective to Consciousness, I can be useful.  From Consciousness, I get a global perspective of what is going on.  I can see us collectively moving to another level of awareness.  I know the people who have passed aren't really gone, they're existing at a vibration we can feel, although we can no longer see them.

As Consciousness, the changes are exciting.  As body, they feel pretty f*%k'd up.  Things are coming to the surface to clear, things are cracking open.  We're feeling loss inside ourselves when we're really just letting go of stuck or rigid thinking or unconscious beliefs.

It's an opportunity for expansion, to embrace the new, to step up into a lighter, brighter awareness, but anything at a lower vibration, feels very uncomfortable.

Just as computers need upgrades, periodically we need to upgrade.  Sometimes it's our thinking, sometimes it's our behavior, sometimes our techniques, sometimes it's our energy system.  Athletes, dancers and regular exercisers have to upgrade their workouts to keep up with their levels of fitness.

People in recovery discover this, as they progress out of their earlier physical addictions and have to tackle personality issues and compulsive behavior.  It's no shame to take on new twelve step programs even if you're an 'old timer' in your original one, it's like going to different levels of graduate school.

As we grow and evolve as Consciousness, we need to move forward, too.  Sometimes it's being open to new ways of doing things, expanding our belief system to encompass.  Your guides and/or angels may have been helpful for you at the beginning, but you may need new ones who match your new vibration.

Sometimes this shows up as new beings matching your new energy level, sometimes it's the old ones communicating in a new way. I used to have regular times I'd sit with my journal and record what my devas would tell me.  An upgrade a few years ago brought in a completely different team, who no longer required 'staff meetings'.  How will you guys communicate with me? I asked. "Twitter", they said.  So now I get random thoughts and inspirations 'tweeted' to me.

We have to upgrade our beliefs and our energy techniques as well.  It may be a matter of learning new techniques, or hearing things in a new way.  It may be taking your current techniques and 'modernizing them' from dialup to WiFi.

This biggest change I see is where we access our information and place our focus.  If we try to use other people's knowledge, it doesn't work for us anymore.  We need to connect to Source using our own internal cellular modem.  Also, if you're focused on the personality level, in the 'story' or the  drama, you're swimming at the bottom of the fishtank (sorry to mix metaphors)!

Want to feel better?  Ask for an upgrade, then feel the shift (it may be subtle or profound).  Ask to experience what's going on as Consciousness, and notice how it expands your perspective.

Try this for the next 7 days and see what happens!

Coming Into Center

Coming Into Center ©2014 Joan M. Newcomb

I've had a few 'Spiritual Awakenings' in my life, and am teetering on another one.  I'll share with you what happened before, and what's happening now.

Each experience before came after a period of focus, and often after overcoming (or being in the process of overcoming) some great hardship.

The Spiritual Awakening was unexpected, and how it felt was unexpected, too.

The length of time I was in the awakening varied, but usually (it seems) getting into a relationship knocked me out of it.

How I got into each Awakening period was different, but each time I was doing some sort of inner focusing, inner meditation or energy work.  But the techniques differed.

So, what's happening now.  I'm refocusing energetically after a period of hardship.  What I'm doing is subliming simple on one level, although complex on others.

I'm simply walking my dog.

However, I'm walking my dog slowly and mindfully.  My dog, being a 10 year old, overweight corgi, is just fine with going slow.  She likes to sniff and pee on everything.

While she's inspecting every frond on every fern, I'm standing, centering, focusing inward.  My eyes are open, so I'm aware of my surroundings, but it's all an inward feeling.

First revelation came earlier this week, when I brought my full awareness into the Now.  The Now is pain-free.

This is so different than the decades of grounding and running energy, focusing into my body.  During traumatic times I couldn't sit still.  It was too painful.

Even though I "knew" the past was heavy and grief-ridden, and the future was fear-filled (from my body's perspective; body only knows the past, the future isn't real to it).  Even though I "knew" what Present Time was.

Bringing attention fully into Now, drops the memories, the stories, and the seeking.  There is no pain when you're fully aligned in the Present.

Okay.  So the second revelation happened the other day, I was playing with chakras and quantum energy.  My original training, running energy, auras, chakras, etc. became like Newtonian Physics after I learned about Matrix energy.  Matrix energy was Quantum Physics.

"Quantum Energy" is so outside the box, so outside the hologram, there's no center of the earth, there's no chakras.  It's an unnerving place to be, when one's been so in-bodied focused for such a long time. But it's the place where miracles occur.

Over the years I've integrated and adapted my techniques, chakras have become useful again as reference points.

So as I was walking the dog, I was playing with 'one-pointing', something I noticed I came up with a while back (doesn't mean that others aren't talking about it as well, we're all in the same Field).

As I 'one-pointed' each chakra, when I came to my throat, there was this sudden Awareness - very much like the Spiritual Awakening experiences I've had in the past.  I didn't fully tip over into it, but it's there and accessible.

One pointing my throat chakra, connected me inwardly *and* outwardly to All That Is.  That's about all I'll say about that at this moment.

Because, the next thing that's been happening, is this sense of pulling inward.  I've been consciously attempting to 'come back to center' in a way that worked in the past.

What's happening now, however, is coming back to center doesn't stop.  It's a continuous pulling inward that feels endless.  Each chakra point (and this isn't chakras as I knew them, or how I was originally trained - those were vortex tunnels that ran from front to back, energy flowed through, etc.) is like a doorway into the Infinite. There's an inner point in each one of them that is never ending.

So I'm playing with that.

The important thing here is that I'm not consciously TRYING to manipulate what's going on.  I'm not trying to control the outcome.  I'm just responding to the moment to what Is.

How is this useful to You?  Well, You will come to your own Awakening from your own series of experiences.  How to have your own... try this -

Drop your outward focus.  Pull your attention away from the drama and story in your life.  Bring your attention back from the past, all that's happened, and back from the future, all you wish that would happen.

I focus from the center of my head, that's back behind my eyes, between my ears (and up a little bit, actually).

I notice the center focus points down through my body, from the top of my head, center of my head, throat, heart, stomach/solar plexus, below my belly button, and in the base of my pelvis.  Sometimes the soles of my feet.

Imagine pulling your energy back from wherever it is in time (past or future), space (anywhere on Earth and beyond), and multidimensional reality (that can be dreamtime, or other universes, even).

Notice what that feels like or looks like - you may notice a change in your visual perception, too.

From there, it's up to You.

I'm in process with this, so more will be revealed, I'll share with you more as things happen!

Happy Awakening!

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.

Truth, Toxic Patterns, and Train Wrecks

Truth, Toxic Patterns, and Train Wrecks ©2014 Joan M. Newcomb

Some say we can never go home again.  But we can always revisit old, familiar situations.  The challenge is to dip down into the pattern, and come back up again without getting entangled!

It helps to remember that they're just energy.  It's when we believe that they're real we get stuck in them. 

Here's what I'm remembering, from my most recent 'dip down':

A couple of decades ago I was involved with a cocaine addict.  I started going to Al-Anon, and a year later the addict quit using and went into recovery.  Then I discovered addiction showing up in my work place, and then my church at the time.  Sometimes I'd realize I was in a toxic situation by my reaction to it, the alcoholic or addict not becoming evident until later.

I learned that it wasn't the person who was addicted, but the energy patterns that I was responding to.  

One thing I learned was that often the addict seems fine, but people around them are bouncing off the walls and foaming at the mouth.  It's because the people around them are experiencing the painful situation unmedicated.

People who grow up in alcoholic households can become extremely controlling, because they're trying to make their environment safe (having grown up in out-of-control homes).  Or people who grow up in addictive households will act like alcoholics without actually being chemically dependent.  

It's different when you've come from an abusive background.  You can have a parent who is alcoholic and yet know that they love you.  Your parent (or partner) can be an addict, but they don't verbally or physically abuse you.  It still messes with your head, because their focus is going towards their drug of choice.  You're not receiving their full attention, or you feel crazy from their lies.

Abusers are a different story.  They make you feel like it's your fault they're abusing you  Alcoholics at least can hit bottom and recover and make amends.  Abusers hardly ever recover, they feel entitled to treat their partners and children the way they do.  

When an abuser leaves, they set up a pre-emptive strike, they make themselves the victim.

It's especially crazy-making when they go on to reinvent themselves as the most wonderful and loving person in the world - and that new world believes them.  The abuse continues by treating the previous family members with contempt, as second class citizens, the new partner unwittingly enables the abuser by believing their version of history.

It's different than when an alcoholic recovers and goes on to live a life of sobriety.  They can become the most wonderful and loving person in the world, but they acknowledge their past, have made amends.  (And, admittedly, there are alcoholics that haven't made amends, so their new life isn't emotionally or mentally clean and sober).

How the hell do you recover from all of that?

It takes a lot of light.

Distance helps.  Detachment helps. Recovery helps.  Therapy helps.  Spiritual practice helps.  Speaking your truth, standing in your own light.

I've been out of active alcoholic patterns for a lot of years.  I've been away from abusers (and narcissists, while we're at it), for years as well.  I've been focusing on my own path, on the leading edge of Consciousness, evolving, shining light.

Of course, as you grow, move forward, you uncover new layers of things.  When you're remodeling your spiritual house, you'll find stuff within the walls, even the structure, that require updating.

You create opportunities to clear, you step yourself into experiences to illuminate what needs to change.

I remember when I took a strong step away from the pattern of alcoholism, and this was after a decade of Al-Anon, I had an amazing Spiritual Awakening.  I felt in Love with God, in Love with my life, and in Love with myself (in that order).  Even though I still had the same challenges with being a single parent and keeping a roof over our heads, I was in this highly conscious state, able to come back to center.

This feeling recurred a few years later, when I identified a new issue, stepping away from a new addictive pattern. This time I was in Love with mySelf, in Love with my life, and in Love with God (in that order).  

So.  Something new is happening, I haven't fully identified it.  I could say that I'm moving to 4D, but in reality we are all already there.  

I think we've all shifted to a new level of Consciousness, we're all running a higher vibration, and what doesn't match that vibration in our bodies or our lives is disintegrating. 

An opportunity to live more in integrity with our values?

As we're at this higher vibration, we may dip down into older patterns, but it's not useful to wrestle with them.  Shine light on them.  Speak your Truth and step back.  Be in your own authority and seniority.  

Wave bye-bye to the chunks of patterns as they fall away.  Stand in your own Light (it feels better there, anyway).