EGO – PROTECTOR AND USURPER.

EGO – PROTECTOR AND USURPER.

It has your best interests at heart and seeks to protect you from DANGER!
It has been your closest ally from the beginning. At first it was your main supporter but slowly slowly it became deeply embedded.
In its mission to look after you at all costs it steals way too much power and becomes addicted to its influence.
It usurps your attention until it runs the show.

Most people don’t even know its there. But you do. 

By this stage it really doesn’t matter whether you are happy, miserable, successful, a murderer or a politician. It’s not the end result, or the attainment, that matters. It is the addictive mechanism of mind, the ‘pain body’ that matters. As long as that is constantly alive and being fed, nothing else is important. You may think it is, but underneath your stories is the ego protector and usurper going about their business, hidden and obsessed.

‘Waking Up’ is seeing the mechanism and, either suddenly or gradually, reducing its power and influence to that of a kitten, rather than an out of control maniac.
Just seeing it over and over and over again, and giving it no more power than you would a dream, thats how it dissolves.

You don’t kill it. I wouldn’t engage with it on that level of battle, you are sure to lose. Just seeing it and recognizing it as a protector and usurper is enough. Withdrawing your energy from it until it succumbs and becomes a servant rather than tyrant.
And then you do that over and over again.

And then the world tests you. Because the world is you.
And it will test you in your intimate relationship, your family, kids, your work, driving your car, running errands, being creative, getting sick, dying, everywhere you go it will come with you, constantly showing you the mechanism and inviting you to withdraw power from your own mind.

It is a crazy journey, and you fail over and over.
But what you do when you fail is what matters.

Try it, try it today for the rest of the day.

See where you get pulled into your story, into your righteousness, into judgement, into self negating thoughts and beliefs, into this emphatic being right or wrong, into driving rage, into impatience, into depression and anxiety, into argument. It’s there. It’s always there. It’s your job to see it there and be honest, and disengage its power through the simple act of awareness. That’s all waking up is, the simple act of awareness. Simple yet utterly profound.

Let me know how you get on.

Ancestral Wounds, Holistic Healing and Spiritual Inquiry – New Podcast

Ancestral Wounds, Holistic Healing and Spiritual Inquiry.

A new podcast is available.
This one follows on form last weeks.

These two quotes sum up this weeks episode:

“I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were left incomplete and unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors. It often seems as if there were an impersonal karma within a family which is passed on from parents to children. It has always seemed to me that I had to answer questions which fate had posed to my forefathers, and which had not yet been answered, or as if I had to complete, or perhaps continue, things which previous ages had left unfinished.” Carl Jung 

‘My physician explained that ongoing adversity in childhood leads to a chronic state of “fight, flight or freeze.” Researchers at Yale had recently shown that when inflammatory stress hormones flood a child’s body and brain, they alter the genes that oversee our stress reactivity, re-setting the stress response to “high” for life. This increases the risk of inflammation, which manifests later in cancer, heart disease, and autoimmune diseases like mine.’ Donna Jackson Nakazawa

Everything that happens on the level of form is a call to holistic inquiry.
This podcast dives deeper down the rabbit hole of emotions and the body, ancestral wounds and childhood conditioning.
A powerful message for all those looking for transformation, joy, love, health and freedom.
‘Holistic Wisdom is a Lived and Embodied Spirituality that has its feet planted firmly on the ground and has its roots deep in the mud of our humanity, yet its branches reach to the heavens.
And in between its roots and its branches is the healthy flow of energy.
Its simple, natural and very profound.’
Symptoms, wounds, issues from the past, trouble in relationship, depression, addiction, lostness, anxiety, all auto immune diseases, in fact any chronic condition are ALL pointing us to Holistic Inquiry, the Great Looking Inwards.
We fail to understand this and try and deal with them on the surface, because thats all we know and thats all we are offered by the mainstream medical model.
Matters discussed: The existential meaning of Thyroid Dysfunction and other chronic dis-eases. Ancestral burdens and the negative power of traumatic conditioning.
Fear as a factor in illness.
The wake up call of illness.

And available on iTunes:

 

Your Wounds Are Your Gifts

Your wounds are the seeds of your liberation.
They are the grit that grows the pearl. Without them there may be no growth, no desire for transformation. We think our wounds and traumas are the worst thing that could have happened to us. But that is only when we deny them and push them away.
Once embraced, however painful and difficult, and then transmuted, they become our gifts. They have become the seeds of our liberation. It all depends how we relate to them.
That is so important when it comes to illness and wellbeing. It can mean a 360 degree turn around in how we relate to our past. And that means how we relate to our present and future.

Now I am not saying ‘Great, you got wounds and traumas!’ But I am saying accept what is, what has happened, and turn the base material into gold. BE ALCHEMICAL ABOUT IT.

In fact, become an alchemist. When you become alchemical about it, you automatically rise above your experiences and, instead of keeping you locked in a prison, they begin to liberate you.

When wounds, traumas and old hurts are trapped and resisted, they create big issues in the whole of our life. From the way we experience our body, to our relationships, and to our activity in the world.

Truth is that old wounds, particularly those ones from childhood, dictate the trajectory of our lives, our relationships and our health. WOW! That is how powerful they are. And left festering inside, unembraced, they seriously exude toxic power.

But equally, when embraced and resolved, when transformed, they can elevate us, heal us, and be the rocket fuel for our purpose and passion in the world. 

The final chapter of my book (The Power of Illness to Change Your Life) is called ‘ARISE WOUNDED HEALER,’ and in it I discuss just how our wounds can not only change our lives but bring us to our purpose for living. The idea of the wounded healer is not new, it is ancient and mythological, and it connects us with the gods. 

Consider this. You have wounds and traumas. They are very painful and seem to ‘get in the way’ of your life. But you receive information from a wisdom teacher that those very wounds are your gifts, your blessings, your very humanity lies in those experiences. They are the things that carve you and forge you into who you are. 

If you knew that to be true what would you change? Would it change your relationship to your past? Would it give you the energy and incentive to transform your relationship with what happened?

Well it is the truth. I know, I have been through this fire of ‘wounds transformed’ and I can testify to its utter truth.

Good luck!

Awakening Is How The World Changes

My most important blog for a while – Christmas Special!

It is easy, given the global intensity and upheaval in all walks of life, to lose heart and let your spirit drop. It seems that the world is going under and we are sliding into increasing chaos, violence, bigotry and war. We have seen this fall into chaos happening in other countries, due to the toppling of governments and regime changes, and because of financial debts in some countries.
There is an ever growing fear and terrorism is feeding on it. And the governments are feeding on it. We are living in such inequality it beggars belief, and we have now entered the era of lies, false media, overt manipulation of opinion and total government deceit.

No one knows who to believe, what to believe or what to do. It is a time of great vulnerability and is a deep challenge to each and everyone of us who wants to live in peace, and those of us who are sensitive and open to all this change.

I meet many people, and since we arrived in California just three months ago I have had the opportunity to really feel what is happening in this part of the world, and it is the same here. There is such an inner sense of the ground being pulled out and shaken it is undermining. Of course in most of our western societies ‘normal life’ continues. The global upheaval has not yet hit most people in their daily lives. When (and if) that day happens things are going to shift rapidly and radically. Probable chaos. But that is just speculation. Meanwhile.

What does that all mean for you who aspires to spiritual, and holistic, well being?
What does it mean to be getting sucked into fear and anxiety?
How do you surf it, and at what point do you descend into a panic? Or do you ever?
Is there a away of using the events of this life to support and deepen your spiritual depth and wisdom?
Is there a way of being in the world fully without getting drawn into the madness of division and separation?
Is there a possibility of being useful to the world, useful to other beings, human and animal, useful to the environment, during this epic shift of energies?

I believe there is. Being the calm at the centre of the storm, the silent ‘eye at the centre,’ could be the most useful and healing thing way you could contribute right now. Sure activism happens when needed, campaigning, taking to the streets is great and right, but when this activity comes from the silence of being, from the calmness at the epicentre, from the rock of peacefulness, it has real power exponentially greater than the superficial power of ego mania that rules planet earth.
Social activism is really powerful and may create lasting change only when it is not driven by a divided self. We are looking for greater change than this. We are looking for evolutionary change. And that change is not only on the outside. That change is primarily on the inside of Man, and that means on the inside of each of us. It is change in consciousness.

There is one primary piece of knowing that drives this argument.

The outer world is a manifestation of our inner world.

There are so many ways to understand that line, but each of them points to the same thing. We have a power of manifestation that is significantly greater than the superficial power we usually believe is the only one.

When we are fully aligned to our true authentic nature as divine consciousness, in other words, when we awaken to our true nature, it creates an extraordinary power.
When that power is magnified thousands of times in other awakened human beings transformation of global consciousness will become an inevitability. And with that shift in collective consciousness comes outer change.We see this by the power of group meditation. When groups of individuals gather to meditate together something happens in the environment that surrounds them. Not just their direct environment, but in the neighbourhood outside that. Crime rates go down, which means that people themselves are relaxing and letting go of stress. It means there is a shift towards peacefulness.

And that effect is just with meditation. Imagine if this is compounded by a living experience of awakening, not a theory or a belief, but actually living awakening. It could be extraordinary.

AWAKENING IS THE ONY THING THAT WILL CHANGE THE WORLD.

And the first person to start is you! Your world is your only concern and responsibility. In fact your world IS the only world you can ever know. When you die the world dies with you. We imagine and think we are all living in the same world, but upon deep inspection is that true?

It would appear that we live in different worlds that interweave and overlap with each others. They are all part of the same tapestry but they have different threads and weaves. One tapestry many threads.
That truth need not put us off taking action when necessary, but it frames that action and grounds it in a deeper truth.
Taking responsibility for your world and awakening to the truth beyond beliefs and conditioning fundamentally changes perception and relationship with the apparent outside world.
In fact it changes the world altogether.
And that creates you a new as a Powerhouse of Change.

The current intensity of the outer world is the grit, the driver, for your awakening. It’s not just something thats come along as a distraction or inconvenience to your spiritual practice.

It IS your spiritual practice!
The world is all but screaming at each of us,’Who Are You!,’ What Do You Believe?”What Is Your Truth?’ and it demands that we look inside ourselves and remember wisdom, love, truth, respect, compassion and right action. In that sense the world is inviting us back to the Garden of Innocence we left as Adam and Eve. Think of that story as truth or metaphor, it still works.

We were innocent and natural. We fell to ego desires and identification with the body, became attached to all things of the flesh, forgot we were all connected as One, and began believing ourselves to be more important than each other.

We became lost in the wilderness and forgot our truth and the truth of each other. We have been lost and wandering. And now there is an invitation to come home, wiser and less naive, grounded in experience and wisdom. It is time for our epic return home as the living embodiment of truth and human experience. We are wise enough to return now.

That, my friend, is your only task. It is a mythic spiritual journey home. That is the invitation the world offers you.

DO NOT LOSE HOPE OR GIVE UP NOW.

Thanks for reading!

New Podcast – A Holistic Response to World Problems

I am DELIGHTED to be back doing my podcasts. I nearly stopped them but have become recharged and hyper enthusiastic about continuing them and making them better and more passionate than ever!

I believe that we need to support and inspire each other. I am committed to putting as much goodness into the world as I can, whatever the return. I do this because I love it and I have to. Thats my calling and I will continue.

So, enough said. here is the new podcast. It will be on iTunes very soon, so if you want to listen to it there be patient, and here is the link.

Meanwhile here it is on Soundcloud. PLEASE COMMENT on the Soundcloud site, it will help spread the message. Thanks so much! And please Share!

CONTENTS INCLUDE:

Your transformation is essential to the emergence of a new paradigm of human existence.

You are part of a collective body, and that body is sick. Your task as a cell in this collective body is to become as holistically well as possible.

That means attending to your physical wellbeing, your emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing.

As you become more whole and more grounded, so the world you interactive with and touch changes, through your vibrational effect.

Literally we change the world one cell, one person, at a time.

First find out who you are, then impact the world from that embodied wisdom.

This podcast touches the roots of what it means to transform oneself from fragmented to whole.

It is another passionate call to everyone to awaken from the dream and do whatever it takes to become balanced and powerful, loving and compassionate, yet full of authentic action when needed.

Innocence and Trust in Your Life.

I am not going to write a long blog post today. I am going to save up the depth of this subject for a podcast I am hoping to do towards the end of the week. I haven’t recorded a podcast for several months due to travelling and illness (and some reluctance) and have been waiting to see if there is a subject I can get my teeth into, something that might really inspire me.

And I may have landed on it. So I’m going to share a little teaser with you to see if it interested you. It is a big subject, but I will dive in anyway.

It goes like this. In recent months and years, I have seen in my own life how what I call my ‘fall from the innocence of childhood,’ has shaped and affected the whole of my adult life. When I say shaped and affected it I mean on every level, from my personal relationships to my work, to my very basic relationship with the world itself, authority, power, women, and to my health and lifestyle.
When I drill down into my life I can see how this ‘fall,’ changed everything about my life and I have been trying to heal it ever since.

NOW, here is where this mysterious phrase ‘fall from the innocence of childhood,’ gets interesting. And don’t worry, I will explain what it means soon.
But in recent months of coaching clients, and talking with many people, I have been able to see that it is not just me that has experienced the impact of this ‘fall,’ but many many others. In fact my experience has led me to surmise that most regular people have experienced a ‘fall,’ to some degree or other. It is the majority experience, and endemic in society. In other words, it is everywhere.

Where there is chronic illness, there is usually a ‘fall from innocence,’ and some childhood trauma.
Where there is chronic relationship trouble, there is always some kind of ‘fall from innocence.’
Where there is addiction there is, almost always, a ‘fall from innocence.’
Where there are self worth issues, there is always some loss of innocence.

So let me explain what I mean by this ‘fall from innocence.’

We are all born innocent. We have to be, we arrive from the unknown, cannot talk or express ourselves, in fact we are just a blob of innocent potential. There are, of course, certain intrinsic (and potential) things that lie within us. There are familial traits and certain genetic tendencies, there are (if you believe this) karmic influences from previous lives, and there are the astrological influences that may affect us through our lives. But most of us, mostly, are pretty darn innocent when we arrive.

What does this innocence mean?
It means we trust the outside world implicitly, because we do not see a difference between ourselves and the outside, it is all one thing. We love without condition, because unconditional love is the main attribute of innocence. Our little bodies flow with goodness, we are light and fluid and free. There are no traumas held captive in the body temple. Our lives are, literally, innocence incarnate. It may be hard to imagine.

What does the loss of innocence mean, and how does it happen?
The loss of innocence, or the fall, as I call it, is a different, and unique, experience, for each of us. And yet it is also the same for us all. In fact, it is that very experience that defines the rest of our lives. This loss will usually happen by way of the family, and usually by one or both of the parents. It doesn’t always, and can sometimes come from elsewhere, but it has the same impact. It is what leads us to begin what we call ‘our story.’ It is our own unique blueprint. It is how we come to experience the world.
From innocence and openness we learn sometimes harsh lessons and we close down and tighten up. We can become fearful and mistrusting. We can become traumatised and angry.
Some people never get over it. Some may experience this ‘fall’ very harshly at the hands of an abuser. The depth of trauma and wound felt can be buried so deep, and leave such wounding, it may never be healed, or even touched. 

It is to this I want to talk. It is so important to heal this innocence. Even if it hurts so much it makes us feel like death itself has arrived, it is worth a mine full of jewels to heal and grow into wisdom and power. To stay in bitterness, anger, trauma and the ‘fall’ mentality, means being stuck in the place and time of the wounding and trauma. You remain trapped.

Loss of innocence is natural, and ok.

It is the root of WISDOM and self knowledge. It is only our unawareness, and our feeling that the loss is the worst thing that happened to us, that keeps us enslaved by it. We remain trapped by it because we don’t understand it is our spiritual job to transform it to wisdom and self knowledge, thereby becoming masters of our lives and helping others do the same thing.

The Mythological Aspect.
This ‘fall’ from innocence is both a real event in our lives AND a mythological event that defines what it is to be human. It is as though each of us, as we descend from heaven, or from eternal consciousness, must fall into our humanity, we are like fallen angels. And the wounds we carry are actually our gifts. They define us as our unique selves, they become our blueprint. This ‘fall from innocence’ sets up our human journey from innocence lost, to being lost in the wilderness and playing out our wounds, to beginning to ‘see the light’ and then our search for truth, and to our maturity and healing, before we return to heaven, or consciousness. 
We are, in fact, mythic adventurers.

EMBRACE YOUR FALL.
I think you can begin to see by now what I’m getting at. I am really saying that, even though it may hurt and be very difficult, it is our task to embrace our wounds, our ‘fall,’ and heal ourselves by letting it go. 
I am saying our ‘fall from innocence,’ is a doorway to maturity and wisdom. It involves such deep transformation that it can change you fundamentally on every level.
It can impact your health, your nervous system, your immune system and your brain health.
It has the potential to radically improve your relationships, all of them.
It can change how you see the rest of your life.
And it can change what you do with your life.

If you keep denying your fall, or simply cannot bring yourself to accept it, or heal it in someway, I’m sorry to say that it will rule your life for the rest of your days. It may impact your health, it may already have done. It will interfere with relationships, and it may already have done. It will prevent true happiness, ease, maturity, love and wisdom from flowing.

That is the power of this ‘fall from innocence.’

I hope it has given you some food for thought. If you have anything to comment, or you completely disagree with me, or you want to add something, or you have a question, please don’t hesitate to add a comment.

And I will notify you on this blog when the podcast is ready…Im looking forward to expanding this topic, I do believe it is so very important.

Thanks for reading!

STRESS and its effect on the body systems – My Personal Revelation!

I am going to share something with you today. And its going to be about stress. And its dramatic effect on the body when it is allowed to run rampant and un-dealt with.

I would like to say this is difficult for me to admit to, but quite honestly if it serves you or anyone else I feel that my experience will not have been in vain. So please, share this post if you know someone who may benefit from it.

Some of you may know I am now in America with my beautiful wife, author and teacher Amoda Maa Jeevan. We have been here for over two weeks, in California. It has been a long and, at times, very difficult journey to get here. We are here on a long visa as it is our intention to live here long term. We left here in December 2015, and from then till now we have been nomadic, homeless, moving around, AND Amoda has been applying for the visa AND writing her new book. Both of those things have been seriously hard core tasks, but to achieve them successfully over our days, weeks and months of nomadic, erratic living, was a massive undertaking. She is an amazing human being!

Here is the confession. I have carried the experience, the ups and downs, the challenges, stresses, fears and difficulties not so well. My body tells the story of my life. Since the days of my Ulcerative Colitis, auto immune issue, I have had a very sensitive relationship with my physical body. It reveals everything to me, and mirrors all my emotional and mental turbulence and anxiety. I cannot hide it from my body. Some people can, they just don’t feel it in their body. I DO! You might as well, some folks do and thats a gift and a burden.

Have I shared with you about my ongoing rash this year? Oh it has been dreadful, and very very full on. Whole body rash, skin flaking, swollen arms, welts, inflammation, the whole works. It has been thought of, at various times, as urticaria, psoriasis, fungus, bacterial infection, mercury poisoning, tropical infection, and so on. Yet it has been elusive.

Since we got here I have seen a doctor, who has taken blood and I get results next week.

HERE IS THE REASON FOR THIS BLOG.

I got a referral to a Dermatologist, who I saw yesterday. I stripped down and showed him my skin, he prodded and peered, asked a load of questions and then I expected him to agree with the doctor that it was ring worm and fungal infection.

“NO.’ He said, “It’s not any of that.”

“It looks like it has multiple causes that have arisen as this rash, certainly your immune system is a big factor as it is still (and forever will be) damaged with the auto immune you have carried. But the other factor is STRESS.“

STRESS!!! Not just Stress!

And it really struck me in that moment how powerful STRESS, ANXIETY AND FEAR are on the physical body systems.

Immune system and nervous system, they are the two main systems that are affected by mind and emotions. And they impact every area of health. If you are one of those people who feel it all in their bodies, you have a gift and a burden. The gift is all your mental and emotional burdens, stresses and traumas are revealed to you dramatically and viscerally, and thats your invitation to deal with them consciously. The burden is that it hurts and you can get away with nothing. It gets tiring having a sensitive body. 

It gets REAL TIRING! My answer is surrender and acceptance and a refusal to medicate unless I absolutely bottom line have to, and settle for nothing, never accept a diagnosis unless it feels 100% spot on, and ALWAYS LOOK FOR THE MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL COMPONENT. 

Taken two days ago – I am getting better, the rash is clearing!

You see, we all want these problems to be caused by something outside ourselves. That makes it easier to deal with. I have dealt with so much over the years, I mean I cannot begin to tell you what I have dealt with, emotionally, mentally, spiritually and physically, WOW! And I guess I thought I had reached some kind of level where I was beyond it.
But this last year I admit I have felt the fears in my body, I have felt the anxiety about the future in my body.
I have felt the sudden pit of fear in my body.
I have felt the fateful feeling of foreboding in my body.
I have felt deep feelings of ancient abandonment in my body, and I have felt childhood traumas and existential troubles in my body.

Never, never, never underestimate the power of the mind over the body. Body will ultimately surrender to mind, thats the bottom line. Mind is, to a certain extent, more powerful than the body, until the body dies.

And I have learned that this is my life’s lesson. I am here to learn how to relax fully regardless of outer circumstance, regardless of what is happening. I am here to learn to be ok with life AS IT IS. That is a life path.

So we each need to find our life’s lesson. It’s all about our spiritual/existential/soul/karma and how it manifests. What are we here to learn?

What are you here to learn? If you have an issue with the physical form, if any of what I’ve said resonates with you, look inside, investigate and inquire.

It helps to know, it brings some relief to one’s personal suffering and gives a greater context for any illness.

Thank you for reading!