A New Approach to New Age

[This is Part 2 of a series. Read my last post here.]

Thoughts create your reality. We’ve heard it before. We tried to master the techniques of controlling our thoughts, pointing them in the direction of Wanted. Felt the highs and lows of advances and set backs.

Something began to feel so strange about this constant obsession with getting things or experiences that I wanted. It felt stale or like it was missing something. One day I had a vision where I saw different layers of experience.

There was the layer of physical-material things, people, and experiences connected to the material world. And there seemed to be a layer hovering right over that layer where a different part of us was focused. I like to call it the Participation Space.

In that layer, we are more connected to each other and are planning and arranging experiences to be had in the material realm. Like a conclave for our spirit consciousness.

I saw the ability for us to have a life experience that included more awareness of our Participation in that layer that hovers right above the material. There was more fulfillment, more satisfaction. Things were no longer just Things, but they were experienced more fully and robustly.

It felt like the next evolution of consciousness. The next frontier isn’t about controlling and directing Thought to achieve material things. This activity would become mundane and too easy, no longer a satisfying challenge to our larger selves.

How do we connect more with the Participation Space and become less preoccupied with manifesting our desires?

All that we see and experience around us is a reflection of our larger whole. Energy goes through some kind of filtration system and reflects back to us our reality.

It seems to follow that this “filtration system” would mix things up for us to keep life interesting. Beyond the Law of Attraction, is there another Law which diversifies the output?

I imagine that harmonizing with that Law, or mechanism, is related to rising above the need for specific outcomes. Going beyond Attachment or Preoccupation with the Manifested. Honoring physicality, but going beyond physicality. So that we experience this reality from a different perspective, a fuller perspective.

Life is no longer about attaining, as much as it is about Participating. Feeling a greater connection to the consciousness behind physicality. Redefining satisfaction so its determined by the level of Participation, rather than outcomes.

Perhaps the Buddhist idea of non-attachment and enlightenment is somehow intertwined with this concept. Some interpret non-attachment more literally as abstaining from Having physical things. Finding more connection beyond the physical than WITHIN the physical.

As I see it, it’s not about releasing Things because Things cause attachment and thus, hinder enlightenment. It’s really not about Things at all…and so, in this projection of reality, there is no need for abstinence at all from the physical world and its things.

It’s about rising above and beyond attachment, rather than non-attachment. Seeing two worlds, side by side, intrinsically intertwined. In one perspective, the physical world expresses and is observed. In the other, intertwined perspective, a relationship between consciousness gathers and communicates, playing energetically with the world of Things.

From this perspective, we, as self-aware humans, have the ability to sustain full awareness is both worlds simultaneously. We participate from an expanded consciousness with other consciousness to play with energy, to see from that perspective more regularly. As well as continuing to create into the Physical from a more-specifically oriented focus.

Every creation becomes more than what it’s produced. It becomes about the energetic interplay that happened (and continues to happen) in the assembly of those specific details and experiences that came together.

Can we have an eye looking into this ‘behind the scenes’ of energetic interplay of consciousness, while simultaneously participating in the physical realm of Things? I believe we can, and that is where humanity is headed. Not into better mastery at making things “Real”, but into experiencing reality from an expanded perspective. Having the ability to perceive beyond our five senses, but not forsaking those senses – just expanding.

Confessions of an Energy Worker: An Interview with MysticMag

I had the pleasure of chatting with Sarah at MysticMag and answering some questions about being intuitive, what being ‘psychic’ means to me, and how I use my gifts to connect with others.

It always a bit challenging to talk about the metaphysical realm and what I do, but I love the experience of trying to put something large and abstract into words. Luckily for me, Sarah was able to translate my words perfectly into written form.

Here is an excerpt of the interview, read the full version at MysticMag.com

When did you start practising intuitive readings and why?

I started tarot reading in 2007 and then I started my current format of intuitive readings a little over a year ago. I’ve always been tuned in to something a little bit deeper and have always been curious about intuitive readings so it came quite naturally to me.

When did you first start to believe or feel that you were ‘different’ from others, in that you could tap into people’s energy sources and make a difference?

When I was about four or five years old, I started seeing a milky white cloud around people, and I could understand what people were feeling without them having to explain. If I touched them on a certain part of their body they would calm down. I thought this to be totally ‘normal’ until much later in life.

I knew that I was feeling more about people and seeing deeper than others did or could and it was as if I had access to a ‘backstage’. I was going behind a curtain of perception. 

Today, because I have spent so much time in peoples’ energy fields, this vision of a cloud has become more refined and sophisticated. I have a better understanding of what I see.

…continue reading here

New Age Thought: Is It Really That New?

I soak up metaphysical philosophies like a sponge. I love twisting and turning my perspectives to see things in a new ways. Challenging old beliefs, for me, is the only way to evolve.

The idea that Thoughts turn to Things, dates as far back as (at least) the times of Jesus and his teachings. We’ve seen the same idea reinvented and re-worded to better relate to current times.

From the Seth Books, to The Secret, to Abraham Hicks many have been changing their approach to life and their thoughts in the pursuit of achieving dreams and desires.

I remember my mind expanding as I imagined into the possibility of having more creative control in my life. I liked the idea of feeling less powerless in life and more deliberate. For years I’ve been weaving new teachings into daily life and evaluating the outcome [in terms of overall life happiness as well as dreams attained].

For awhile I took a break from “working” the philosophy of Manifesting my desires. I wanted to not care for a bit. And slowly, a new idea started creeping in. Something that felt better. Different. Exciting.

I was thinking about the Law of Attraction and how I’d been applying the teachings of deliberate manifestation. I felt as though in practice it was all starting to feel uncomfortably familiar.

That there was this Law, or the idea of The Universe at large, responding to you. An invisible Power. If you could get your thoughts just right, your energy just right, Good Things would be bestowed upon you. But if your thoughts were off, your energy pointing in the wrong direction, Bad Things would come-or the absence of the Good you asked for.

And when things didn’t work out the way you thought they would, it was your fault. “What am I doing wrong? How can I be better?“

So you try harder, apply yourself more than ever before. Still, the results are not consistent.

I felt at times oppressed by an invisible power that dictated whether I got what I wanted and whether I didn’t. And it was based upon whether my thoughts and actions were…in a sense…good enough. And when they weren’t, I was to blame. It was as though I had an instruction manual to life, but some important pages were missing.

I loved the idea of these teachings from a technical stand point. But they began to echo the age-old battle between Good and Evil. Drawing familiar parallels with religious texts that speak of sin and redemption, pleasing God or feeling His wrath.

Why is there so often a gap between knowledge and practice? Are the teachings incomplete? Or is it that humans tend to fall back into the idea of worthiness, reward and punishment, no matter what new path is available to be followed.

Will we ever be free of feeling like Sinners…hoping for the Grace of an all powerful Entity?

Is there another approach to mastering life? I believe there is.

This is Part 1 of a series.

Divine Expression

Wallace D. Wattles writes of a boy sitting at a piano, frustrated that he can’t compel his hands to make the music he feels inside. He uses this story to illustrate that feeling we all have to create. That compulsion to Do and to Become.

Wattles writes, “God, the One Substance, is trying to live and do and enjoy things through humanity. He is saying “I want hands to build wonderful structures, to play divine harmonies, to paint glorious pictures; I want feet to run my errands, eyes to see my beauties, tongues to tell mighty truths and to sing marvelous songs,” and so on.”

I feel like this is one of those very core challenges of our human life. We feel that undeniable urge to do something or become something and we’re not sure how to get there. One of the most frustrating things I can think of is trying to express something I feel so strongly and yet don’t possess the skills to accurately bring forward.

It’s another way of describing potential. The potentiality of what we may become and what we might do. In the space of infinite potential, we are masters of all things. But how do we live out that potential? How do we birth the ideas flowing through our mind and desires coursing through our spirit?

I’ve often stood at that threshold between the deep urge to bring something forward and the actual manifestation of that feeling. It can be disheartening, infuriating. Like sitting in front of a blank canvas with a flood of creative energy inside you, but there’s a gap between you and the paints and brushes. Some strange crevice separating the potential from its fruition.

A few months ago I was contemplating that desire to create-to create something new. It was hard. It felt hard to speak the words in the write way, or to draw the picture as it should be. Like no expression of that feeling within would justify it fully.

And I thought, well that must be the point. No One creation can be good enough or complete enough to express the divinity that flows within us. So maybe it’s not about completeness. Maybe it’s the furthest thing away from perfection. Maybe the point is in the practice of trying. The attempt to give expression to the divine within.

Maybe that divine breath of life isn’t wanting to express a complete picture or outcome, maybe it just wants to express. Maybe it’s not about that boy becoming the greatest piano player in the world, maybe it’s about the steps he takes. How that urge within shapes him and his reality.

Isn’t it true that all the decisions we make and thoughts we ponder are related to some desire inside of us? That our Wanting absolutely shapes our lives and our personalities.

And so perhaps feeling complete and satisfied doesn’t come from fully becoming what’s in our mind but in the movement in the direction of its fulfillment.

Maybe God just wants to you go this way or that way, not to get somewhere, but to experience the Movement. The feelings, thoughts, and experiences that arise when you choose to move forward in a direction or Towards something. Maybe that’s what life is.

As I look back on my life, it seems to be made up of experiences compelled by my desire to get somewhere or have something. Really it’s a slideshow of events that wouldn’t have been playing if I wasn’t chasing something.

Do we have a life if we aren’t chasing something? Is life made up of: The Story of You…Trying. The Unfolding of an Attempt. The Story of How I Got Somewhere and Decided I Wanted to Be Somewhere Else [Part IV].

But we can’t help but feel the irresistible urge to Express, to Want. And it doesn’t matter if the expression is a mess or a graceful dance, only that its allowed a Way. And when you give it a Way, you are satisfying yourself and All That Is. Simply so.

The Clarity of Love

I do a lot of energetic traveling, you could say. If I have a problem or a query I’m working on, I feel into it and around it. I feel out where it derives from and what relates to it. I swim all around until I start to feel clarity. Like when you’re trying to figure something out and the solution begins to drift into your mind. “Light-bulb moments”. Except the light-bulb moments feel like a cool breeze washing over you on a hot day. Or that feeling when you’ve just cleaned or organized a room and you gaze at the space with a feeling of peace and accomplishment.

I read something once that said, “you’re strong enough to be gentle”. I’d like to adapt that to, “I’m strong enough to be loving”. I wouldn’t have thought that being loving takes strength. But love does feel hard sometimes doesn’t it? Why is that? What’s that tense feeling that comes up sometimes in relation to love?

In my understanding, that tension is being dependent another person’s words and actions and how they relate to you. If we subscribe to the idea that being loving (through words or actions) makes one vulnerable, and we cannot guarantee another’s reaction to it, then tension or unease seems like a pretty natural outcome.

But what if we were Strong enough to be loving? Brave enough to be kind? What does that really mean?

It means that I will be who I am, without needing you to be a certain way. I’ll know who I am and act in that way, without basing it on external validation. “But what if…” is the beginning of every nervous feeling. The tipping point between confidence and flailing.

What would it be like to stand full and complete in yourself, to feel the impulse of love and peace and to speak from that place? Would the outcome matter if the expression was full of You, acting from your highest?

Could you express this way? Could you speak and act from your highest and let go of the expectations of what might follow?

I’ve found that love is the answer to everything I ask. Cheesy, I know. But it’s true.

All answers and solutions are found in the feeling-space of love. And when you can’t find that feeling-space in relation to something you’re working on…then that’s what you need to work on. Let go of what you think you need to solve and begin the journey to see the subject through the eyes of love.

You’ll find that you are no longer dependent on anybody or anything to work a certain way. You won’t need anyone to be a certain way. Suddenly, you’ll release your attachments and expectations and the path to follow will be clear and obvious.

The only things that cause confusion are rooted in fear. When you let go and step away from fear (as you make your way towards love), the confusion naturally dissipates. You cannot be in love and in confusion at the same time.

I’ve found that we look at others critically, fearfully, and defensively when we think one of these two things about them:

1. They have the power to affect my life. 2. I need something from them to feel good.

Both of these can be assuaged by reclaiming ourselves and our own power. Can another affect how I’m feeling, by affecting what I’m thinking about? NO. Others bring you opportunities to choose your response to their behavior or words. No one has control or power over what you think in your own mind and how those thoughts cause you to feel.

Be kind not to elicit a ‘response to kindness’ from another, but because it feels good to be kind. Because it feels good to act from a place that feels like the ‘real you’. And no matter how someone responds, you still know who you are. You are kindness.

So who are you today? Are you anger or are you kindness? Have you let the external world determine You, or are you staying steady in your own knowing?

I have begun on a journey of dating adventures. I call them adventures because to me, it feels like a journey to foreign, unknown lands. What are the customs here? What do I wear? How should I speak?

I’ve felt myself shrinking into a Small Me, wobbling around in uncertainty. Where I’m used to seeing easy, clear flowing energy…there are piles of rubbish and chaos. Dark monuments to distant memories and shadowy distractions.

Where was I? Not where is this place, but where is Me? Where is Me? She wasn’t here, not the Heba I’ve come to know anyway. I was far away from my light.

So I used all my tools to gather myself and make the journey back to Me. Once I reached familiar ground, I turned around to shut a big, heavy, iron door to that foreign, uneasy place. But mid-swing, I stopped. How will I ever learn to traverse those lands?

Am I strong enough to be Myself and walk through that haze? I contemplated this.

Earlier, I debated sending a message to someone I liked. I felt the haziness starting to descend. I was slipping into confusion (fear) and away from love. Suddenly a big wave came over me. This feeling of ME. Who I am. How I like to be in this world. And I felt, oh I know her. I know what she would say and what she would do in this situation.

She would choose love. Because no matter what happened, she would still be with herself, and herself was Love. It was my first moment of clarity. The first beam of light shining through that hazy, unknown land.

“Ok, I can do this. I think I’m strong enough to be loving. I want to be strong enough to be loving. Strong enough to be myself.”

And the words of the message I wanted to send were clear. I knew exactly what I wanted to say, and it felt good. It felt like me.