Dreams Come True?

I was driving by the lake, looking at the reflection of the winter trees on the surface of the water. Ice crystals sparkled across the mirror image of the sky overhead.

A darkness descended over me and a grimace came to my face. I felt resigned to sadness and hopelessness.

“What’s wrong?”

I looked around at the beauty of the natural landscape. I remembered how much I usually adore this drive. But where there is normally joy and awe, there was constriction and smallness.

I imagined shining a light onto my Being-ness.

“Show me.”

And then I knew why I was upset. I was very close to achieving a wish I’d prayed for and worked for. I could see how close it was, how it was closer to being a reality than being a dream.

I felt like this was the time to give up. I felt that it would “for sure” never happen, now that I was so close.

It was bizarre to notice myself thinking and feelings things that seemed to contradict everything I’d worked for. Why did I feel this way?

I felt as though it was only someone who was truly loved, known, and adored that could receive this blessing. It would be too good to actually come true for me. It was too perfect to actually become real.

I said this to myself quietly, and with so much assuredness. Now that I was so close, it was time to let go and work on a different dream. Because life (or something) would never let it actually be my reality.

It’s strange the things we say to ourselves, the secret beliefs and fears that guide our feelings, thoughts, and actions and go undetected.

I could now see clearly what I was thinking and how it made me feel. But I couldn’t change it. It was a belief I’d practiced for so long, that a part of me thought it was an accepted Truth.

Try as I might, I could not change it or go around it.

So I prayed. Or better said, I called. I called to my guides, my higher self, I even called out to mySelf. To all of the parts of me that come together to form a whole.

I said, “I don’t know what to do with this. I don’t know how to change it. But I’m willing to change it. I’m willing to change.”

I tried to find the best words. The best combination of sounds to demonstrate what I wanted, how I wanted to feel that was different than this current feeling.

But I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t find a feeling that was the opposite of this one. I could only feel unlovable, unworthy, laughable, and forgettable.

So I said, “Spirit, I don’t know how to change this. Can you see it? Can you see me? Can you show me how? How can I accept love? How can I receive?”

I said I was willing. I asked for loving and joyful clarity and ease. I asked that I be lovingly and joyfully opened to the possibility of magic, hope, and ease.

Later, I sat and wrote about my experience. A few days went by, and I wrote about it again.

I wrote about the ease by which I can descend into shame and how effortlessly I can withdraw into my own shadows, hiding from the love that I know myself to be.

I spent years dissecting these impulses, investigating the origins of my unworthiness.

In the beginning it felt uplifting and clarifying. I am this way because of that.

Aha!

There is empowerment in seeing something objectively, rather than fully identifying with it, and so making it invisible to your awareness.

More recently, I find that the awareness of the potential origins of unworthiness is not empowering or interesting.

I don’t see the Breath of healing there anymore. That Breath has moved somewhere else.

Somewhere that says, “so what?”

Am I supposed to hold on to the unworthiness? To examine my unlovable states of being?

Is there something here? Or are these merely dodgy back alleys of a neighborhood where I used to live.

Can I just make my way to the main street? Should I examine the dumpsters full of trash? Or should I just let go and hop out, make my way to a shower?

Historically, I first identified with the negative emotions and made them ME, and then I became aware of this and instead identified with the identification of the negative emotions. But that wasn’t me either.

And now a new stage has been integrating into my reality for the last couple of years. One that feels like: I am consciousness walking around the earth. Some streets are better than others. Some smell fresh and beautiful, like walking through a forest.

Some smell like dirty, city back alleys. And as I walk, I become part of my environment-temporarily.

As the stench of an alley creeps into my nostrils, my brain processes what I’m smelling. It runs through my system to be analyzed and understood. And in those moments, I am with that space fully, but that space is not me.

I imagine these spaces as invisible clouds or fog. They have their own characteristics, and as you move through them, you temporality bond or become of “like kind” to that fog.

I see this as our energetic landscape. It includes our own thoughts, beliefs, and memories. As well as sometimes the thoughts, beliefs, and memories of those around us. The physical places we go, as well as the mental places that we go.

And how we respond is showing us how we are analyzing or processing this data. If we cringe at a horrible smell, we understand that it is a momentary discomfort. Something unpleasant to move away from. We even interrupt our receptors to stop processing the data by plugging our nose.

The smell is not objectively Bad. But after our analysis, based on our thoughts, feelings, and memories, we’ve deduced that we don’t like it.

It’s the same way whether the discomfort is outside of us (a stinky sock) or inside of us, as a stinky thought.

I thought again about how the feeling of visualizing something desirable, imagining its birth into our reality, feels so different than the actual birth.

Just before the full manifestation, there may be hesitance. A feeling of unworthiness, fear, nervousness.

I pondered how I was so “caught up” on my un-lovability. “The universe could never grant me such a gift, it’s too perfect.”

Was I broken? Was I so horrible a person that I couldn’t even accept the reality of my dreams coming true?

A new idea came to mind. What if all these thoughts are just clouds. Maybe, just like in a human birth, there is pressure and intensity in the birthing of an idea.

Maybe my receptors are analyzing the energy data of a manifestation coming through, and they’re detecting the pressure and discomfort. Maybe the analysis says, “pain”.

And I relate that “pain” to my past thoughts, feelings, and memories.

Perhaps, I feel unlovable and unworthy and small – not because those things are true…but because, that’s how my system translates data that relates to “pain”.

It’s a funny thing, to believe what your thoughts tell you. And it’s a funnier thing to say, “are these thoughts true, or am I trying to explain something to myself?”

Am I small and unworthy, or am I consciousness that is traveling through a fog that is being interpreted as discomfort. And maybe in this moment, I’m relating that discomfort to “small and unworthy”.

Are we how we feel, or is how we feel describing the energetic climate based on our thoughts, feelings, and memories?

Today I’m choosing something new. I will not fear the birthing of my dream. I will breathe, I will see my pain, and I’ll nod in understanding.

I’ll say, I see you. It’s going to be okay. We’re walking through this together. I’ll know that the universe / life will not retract my manifestation because of my weakness, or my faithlessness at the final hour. I’ll know that life doesn’t see this as weakness, or faithlessness.

Life knows how birthing works. Life understands the nervousness in the final hour. Life smiles and holds my hand as something beautiful is born. It comes despite my apprehension and despite my doubt.

With Love,

Heba ❤

Paint Pots

Sometimes I get scared.

The past week or so I’ve been hearing a little “something”.

A tiny voice, a quiet suggestion.

I flicked it away from me like an elephant flicking away a mosquito with its tail.

But it would return again, and then again.

As I drove home today, I remembered that Thing. As though all of its quiet whispers had somehow made it louder, more noticeable.

I listened again, I remembered what it was saying earlier this week when I fanned it away.

“You’re doing it.”

I had been softly telling myself that I was doing what I’d asked of myself. I’d put into practice those principles I tried so hard to understand.

Our inner world is so important. It’s that which overflows from that space, that comes to meet us later.

I’ve learned so many tools and practices for self development and healing.

When I meditate, or when I’m in communion with divine spirit through prayer or intention, I feel like one of those spiritual paintings. A lotus flower emerging from the dark, bathed in bright light.

When I’m out in the world, or grumbling to myself after a long day of work, I feel nothing like that painting.

Most of the time I feel like a whole rainbow of paint colors that tipped over and spilled all over the floor.

I stare into the sky and wonder if my guides can even see me in this mess of color.

“Yoo-hoo? Y’all still there? Little messy down here, I know.”

But even in the mess, I try my best to practice. I focus on my breath, I notice what I’m feeling, I observe my thoughts when I’m angry or sad or happy.

I look through the eyes of awareness as much as I can. I ask for help when I’m overwhelmed.

I say, “I’m willing to change.”

“I’m willing to see from a higher perspective.”

“I’m willing to let go.”

I say these things in the midst of the chaos of my mind, or the chaos of my environment.

Shining a light through a mess of colors.

I am the mess. The mess speaking through itself. “I’m still here.”

I am the eyes and the breath of awareness. Seeing through the slog of the every day.

In the faith tradition I grew up in, you’re taught to clean yourself up before prayer. Washing your hands, face, and feet.

Even if no water is available, to make the motions of washing. Performing the intention of preparation to enter a sacred space.

This is a beautiful notion. However, I often approach divine spirit as the mess that I am.

I don’t feel clean or prepared or presentable. My body is soaked in the chaos of my day and my mind is a bowl of scrambled eggs.

I approach the Most Holy as a filthy, fragmented weirdo. And I say, “hey”.

“It’s me again, the mess.”

It’s not for me to be that painting of a lotus flower, all day, every day.

I want to be alive. To roll around in the dirt of life and wash off again later.

The point of all prayer and meditation is to let go of the vibrations of the material world, to intentionally start fresh again.

To remember that underneath and between [and at the core of] that mess – is the eternal, pristine breath of life.

I realized that all I’m meant to do is to call out in the middle of the chaos. To breathe, to bring awareness to the moment, to pause before I react so that I invoke Choice.

These little, seemingly insignificant moments are exactly it. The work, the spiritual work being done in-motion. In the commotion of life.

Sometimes I feel scared. Nervous to extend myself. Scared to open up and then run back behind my heart’s gates and lock the door.

And I think, it’s okay to be scared. Just take your light with you. Take awareness with you wherever you go.

You already know how life works. You already know how you work.

Just walk slow, be brave, and take your light with you.

❤ ,

Heba

Calling in Presence.

This is quite a personal post.

It feels more private, more close to my heart.

I always dreamed of doing something fulfilling in my life. I was obsessed with finding my “purpose” for many years.

I’ve retired that search now, maybe I found my purpose, or maybe I redefined what purpose means to me.

I had an expectation that doing what I was really meant to do, would leave me in a permanent state of bliss and with endless energy.

I’ve grown to realize this isn’t true. There is no permanent state of bliss, only states of grace.

The other day I finished a day full of all of my favorite expressions. I read tarot, I painted, I edited videos of me speaking about things that I love.

At the end of the day, I felt empty. As though I’d dumped out everything good inside of me, and there was nothing left.

I was confused. Here I was, doing everything I dreamed of doing…and I was drained at the end of it.

Had I miscalculated? Had I done something wrong?

I sat in my emptiness, and then I uncomfortably nestled into my bed for a night of restless sleep.

The next day I still felt that emptiness. I was more prone to irritability. My internal cup of happiness and patience felt bone dry.

I was used to complaining about “regular” work, but I never thought I would feel negative emotions doing the work I love.

It felt like the beginning of a depressive episode. I was having trouble concentrating, trouble staying present. I was frantically searching for something that would make me feel good.

Coffee? Sweets? Chips? Anything. Help.

But there was no opportunity to binge eat. No opportunity to hide. I had to cope without my unhealthy coping mechanisms.

I had to sit in the discomfort of emptiness, sadness, confusion, anger and loss.

On my drive home I realized something. It had been there all along, like I’d been whispering something to myself that I couldn’t hear.

I realized that I had to be my own guardian all the time. I was always responsible for being sensitive to my needs, and responding to my needs.

There will never come a time when I don’t have needs. And those needs change consistently.

I have to not judge myself or my current needs, only to respond with attention and love.

There will never come a time, especially when I’m doing my “soul” work, that I don’t have to tend to my well-being.

I can’t judge how worthy I am based on whether my needs are high or low. Whether I’m high maintenance or low maintenance has nothing to do with whether or not I’m a worthy person who deserves good things.

Putting out “soul” work means being even more loving to yourself than before. Because you’re giving even more of yourself. Better said, giving of yourself from a fuller state of being.

That means more rest, more tending, more loving, more attention.

It made me realize and remember how foreign it’s been to me, taking care of myself. It always feels like something had gone terribly wrong, and then I remember, “oh, I’m just supposed to respond to my needs. Everything is okay.”

For a long time I tried to quiet or ignore the alarm that goes off when I need something. I’ve had to train myself bit by bit, to listen, to understand, to respond.

I thought of myself, sitting despondent on my bed that night. I just needed to tend to myself. I needed to be with myself.

But I was confused. I didn’t sit with myself, I was upset with myself for feeling down.

I thought, “I don’t know what to do with you. Just go to sleep and we’ll deal with it tomorrow I guess.”

I sit here now, still having felt that emptiness. And I remembered, “tend to yourself”.

I said to myself, “what do you need?”

And the only thing I needed was presence.

For me to turn my attention away from my to-do lists and look at myself. To fully occupy this beautiful body. To feel at home with myself.

I don’t always realize when I’ve pushed myself away. When I’ve abandoned myself, on the inside.

But the symptoms of that abandonment are obvious. An emptiness. Despondency. Confusion. Sadness.

I found it easy to say to myself, “I’m calling in presence. Presence of mind. Presence of heart. Presence of body.”

I’m calling myself home to myself. Be with me, stay with me. Listen.

Isn’t it such a blessing to have words? And to let the words carry the intention exactly where it needs to go, without intellectually trying to figure it out?

“I’ll come home to you. I’ll listen. I’m right here. What do you need? Nothing is more important in this moment than me and my needs.”

There never comes a time when we don’t have to be the Guardians of our Self.

We are the listeners, the observers, we lend attention where it needs to go.

We’re responsible for the parts of ourselves that get forgotten. We’re responsible for the parts that run off in a fit of anger, spitting words soaked in hatred.

And the responsibility never ceases. Sometimes it’s more demanding, sometimes less.

I nestled into this knowledge. And I felt love. I felt power.

It’s easy I thought, the answer is just “take care of yourself.”

I can do that. I just have to remember.

With Love,

Heba

Love and Fire

It’s the season of building fires. In fireplaces, wood stoves, and fire-pits.

Every year I have to remember again, how to feed the fire and not stifle its first breaths.

Arranging the paper and kindling in such a way that air can come through. Carefully fanning and blowing on the small flames, allowing them to take hold and spread.

It’s easy to stifle a fire in the beginning stages. To pile on too much wood too quickly, to interrupt the flow of air, to neglect it too long without fanning the flames.

And poof, the flames are gone.

Today I remembered that many of life’s experiences follow the same rhythm. And that sometimes I’m so quick to want a robust, crackling fire that I forget those important, early stages.

Or maybe I’m afraid that if the flames go out, they’ll never come back again, so I have to rush to take control.

Have you ever been so excited for something that you stifle it prematurely? Or want it so much that you forge ahead with too much force and too much hard-control?

I say “hard-control” because long ago when I first started learning Tarot, I studied Joan Bunning’s website. She refers to the Chariot card as hard control, and the Strength card as soft control.

For some reason, that always stuck with me. The difference between controlling things with force and will, or through gentleness and influence.

There are things budding in my life that I don’t want to stifle. And today I took a step back and remembered how to establish a healthy fire.

I thought of life itself breathing into these beautiful manifestations, letting them become bigger. I thought of how I didn’t want to interrupt that process, I only wanted to help.

Sometimes helping means taking a step back and letting Flow ride freely around and through that which I want to grow.

I acknowledge my desire to control through force and will, and how that only works sometimes with some-things. And can be quite destructive with other things.

I don’t want these things to be hard won. I don’t want to think back and say, ‘I hammered that into place’.

I want to say, it started and it grew and I participated in a way that felt satisfying and joyful. And I’m thankful.

So now when I’m thinking of these things I want to grow, I say, “Life, show me how you want me to participate. Because I like this and I want it to grow.”

Or I feed it gently in my mind with simple thoughts of gratitude or by remembering something about it that makes me smile, and then letting go.

I’m still practicing BK Shivani’s affirmations, morning and night, and sometimes when I eat lunch.

You’re supposed to write them down, but I just recite them to myself now.

The first one is, “I am a powerful being.”

And I thought, powerful doesn’t mean overbearing. Powerful means knowing how to be gentle even if you have the strength to be forceful.

“Strong enough to be gentle.”

I heard that somewhere.

I am strong enough to be gentle.

I wonder if I trust life enough to grow a seedling into a beautiful, giant tree. Or if I trust myself enough not to destroy the seedling before it has a chance to grow deep roots.

I want to tend to these new beginnings with kindness and loving and gentle attention. Giving them room to breath, and letting life show me how it makes buds bloom into flowers.

I’ll try my best, and I’ll let you know how it goes.

🙂

With Love,

Heba

Old Hauntings

I had a nightmare last night. It was a familiar scene with some modifications – I’d been here before.

More important than the content of the dream, was the very end.

An evil had risen, materialized out of nowhere. I knew it had come from my own fear and discomfort.

And now that fear had made something scary, and it turned around to face me.

I quickly lifted my hand to fight (I had an image flash through of Buffy slaying a vampire with a stake), but I knew it was pointless.

That kind of strength was useless against dream monsters. The monster itself was made of Nothing. It was my own fear.

All at once, I remembered something and I shot awake, stilling shaking from my dream.

I don’t have to destroy my monsters through force or strength. You cannot destroy fear, in the same way you cannot fight a cloud in the sky.

I remembered that in some of my dreams and visions in the last couple of years, there were helpers that came in and protected me from something.

Now awake, I said something I hadn’t said in awhile, but it came easy to my tongue:

“Lightest of light, Highest of High.”

I said:

“Fill this room with light, protect my mind from my own thoughts, protect me from my own fear.”

I started to slip back to sleep, and the scene was still in my mind. I was standing in a haunted room facing a ghoul dressed as someone I know.

I knew now not to fight, and not to feel powerless. A beautiful light swept in and dissipated the whole scene. It seemed to swallow it whole, to envelope it, like a Great White Shark biting into the sea to eat its dinner.

I woke up again, exhausted from my dreams. I said another invocation:

“Lightest of light, highest of high. Lovingly fill this room with light, protect me, protect my mind. Protect my thoughts.”

I reached for my phone and the time read 4:44 a.m.

I opened YouTube and the first video that came up was a beautiful singer, singing a Durga mantra.

Durga is a Hindu diety, symbolizing the great mother. She is strong and protective and slays demons.

I listened to the mantra and relaxed, slowly trying to understand the symbolism in my dream.

I came away with two things. One, to take responsibility for what fear creates in my life.

And two (most importantly), ask for help with the things that are too scary.

Light is always ready and waiting, and although you are very strong, not all battles are fought and won via strength.

I thought of the areas that I struggle in my life. Somewhere in my subconscious, am I quietly fighting demons in those areas? Is that why they are so hard?

Some demons I can face head on, and some take the breath right out of my lungs. They scramble my thoughts and I’m rendered temporarily lost.

I’ve learned not to fight those ones head on. For those ones, I ask for help. Because I want to breathe easy and I want to think clearly and with coherence.

Today, I’ll remember to be easier on myself when I hit those rough patches. I’ll remind myself not to fight, but to let the light in. To let help in. The metaphysical kind and the flesh and bone kind. Whatever works.

I’ll imagine that light streaming in, dissapating clouds of monsters and haunted images. Leaving behind clear waters and a clear sky.

And I hope I can relay that message to my subconscious 😉 .

Be safe, be well. You are loved. You came here wrapped in light, and that light never wavers.

❤ ,

Heba