What to do When Life Squeezes YOU

This article is taken from The Keys to the Kingdom: Techniques to Achieve Self Mastery by Jean Walters    Psychologist, Wayne Dyer used a metaphor to describe what happens when a person is squeezed as in stressful situations – being caught in traffic, a fight with a friend or spouse, not getting the raise, overwhelmed at work. His illustration was that when you squeeze a lemon what comes out of it is lemon juice. The reason for that is simple – what is inside the lemon is lemon juice. By the same token, when you are squeezed by life – experience stress what comes out of you? Anger, hate, compassion, empathy, patience, love? The spiritual teacher, Osho, states the precept a bit differently. He says we can build an appearance of morality, culture, kindness, and following the rules of our tribe or religion, but when faced with challenge, such as being insulted, the façade disappears and what comes forth is the hidden anger or animalistic tendencies. In other words, you can become a volcano concentrated only on violence, revenge, and getting even. Once the threat goes away, the animal nature submerges into its underground cave and the belief is that I am calm and will never be angry, greedy, jealous, hateful again. What you have really done is constructed an illusory self. Your hidden egoic, animalistic self awaits the next confrontation. Who you are when under stress is who you have constructed yourself to be without the façade of good manners and appropriateness. What is to be done, you ask? Creating an illusory self is easy. We were taught to do that as children. Be respectful to elders; have manners; say please and thank you, restrain yourself. To go beyond the ego and shape, educate, and cultivate your real self is a lot of work. It can be arduous, but well worth the effort. To do so you must face your ego, reactionary self, or your wound/ inner pain. That means when you find yourself reacting with negative emotion, stop, wait, breathe and ask yourself what you are feeling and what is the purpose? This stopping gives you a moment to relax into your true self, or compassionate self. The person that requires compassion at that moment is YOU. The pain your animal nature reacts to is illusory. Someone’s insult relates to him and not you. Taking a moment can bring you back to center to realize this truth. You are a being centered in love. The person in front of you is operating out of pain. This has nothing to do with you. There are many people occupying the earth with wounds from the past – situations they have taken personally and have erroneously believed have some bearing on their own sense of self. Developing “victim” mentality is a given in our world as we are continually confronted with stories of people who have lost some battle, got the short end of the stick, live in sorry conditions, have had a rough life. We buy into these stories, become indignant, and place our attention on helplessness rather than empowerment. We can shift our attention to responsibility, self-empowerment and love whenever we wish. This is a basic change that must be made to develop self-honesty and remain centered. Once you have created a calm self with real energy it cannot be shattered. Emotion can be transformed to love by facing the fear that presents itself as anger, jealousy, guilt, shame. We face it and reeducate ourselves. You cannot stop doing something, but you can start doing something else. It is akin to the metaphor used in the Bible when Jesus instructs that if you pull weeds from a plot of ground, but do not plant something else in their place, the weeds will return bigger and stronger than ever. We must plant new ideas, beliefs, and understandings that relate to love instead of fear. It is about training, not suppressing. Our animal nature rules until we rise to the higher energy of love. When confronted with difficulty, the Buddhist monk replies, “Good, this will allow me to practice.” He uses these moments to practice his techniques for centering – staying in his true self of love and compassion. We have the same possibility. Life is constantly offering opportunities to grow. Growth is not about burying your true nature of love while you meet the world with a glossed over personality displaying propriety but not compassion. It is about bringing forth the love you have inside and living from it. Our true nature is love. Love is of the soul. Anger is the animal self or ego. At any time we can choose love. As you train yourself to live from a higher view, it will be easy to let go of being personally affronted with comments, others’ moods, events, or anything. At that point you will grow to become undaunted by the outer world. Accruing experience is joyful. We can easily laugh at ourselves and situations that before seemed unnerving, are now humorous. That means you are at peace!

A Love Story

There was a great story in 2012 Sports Illustrated Kids Sports. The "kids of the year" was brothers Conner and Cayden Long. They were celebrated at a star-studded event in New York City. The event itself was to honor Miami Heat Star LeBron James and there were a lot of other celebrities present as well -- Jay-Z, Beyonce, and Duke coach, Mike Kryzewski. Yet the stars were shining on Conner's and Cayden's accomplishments. Here is the story: Cayden suffers from cerebral Palsy but that is no hindrance for Conner because he includes his brother in all his sports. The two compete in triathlons together with Conner pulling Cayden behind in a raft during the swimming leg, and towing him behind his bike during the cycling portion, and pushing him during the run. These triathlons have been a great way for the brothers to come together and, at the same time, have provided inspiration to everyone that watches or hears about their interaction. Coach K was inspired by Conner and Cayden's story and he said that they have scholarships to Duke waiting for them when they get older. LeBron said that the brothers should get ready for the private plane that is going to take them from their home in Tennessee to Miami to meet "the guys." Even Jay-Z and Beyonce wanted to shake hands with Connor and Cayden. The Long brothers illustrate the power of love. When you love someone, you don't care what state they are in, you just love them. That is the nature of love. I wish that for you! Jean Walters is the author of: Set Yourself Free: Live the Life YOU were meant to Live! Be Outrageous: Do the Impossible - Others have and YOU can too! and under Jean Walters-Lucy she has - Dreams and the Symbology of Life all are available on Amazon.com and through her website: http://www.spiritualtransformation.com

How to Be Alone

Most people fear being alone. They do not understand that there is treasure to be found in aloneness. For it is only through being by yourself that you can find true bliss. The mind is constantly stimulated, busy, agitated as you focus out there where drama after drama unfolds. So we think that being present in the material world with its noise and chaos is the place to be. “I am bored. I need noise, distraction, stimulation. The ego cultivates fear of aloneness. Here are some ego messages. You might be familiar with them. “What is wrong with you – you are alone. You must be unloved. You are a loser.” These are reasons people avoid being by themselves. I don’t want to miss anything.” These are messages from the ego and they convince us that being alone is dangerous. “You might miss something.” Yes, probably a nervous breakdown. The issue is that we have constructed an identity – a false one – that is dependent on the material world. It starts with your name, then your circumstances. You call yourself a male or female, an American, Indian, European or South Sea Islander, or any other locational signature. You also identity all sorts of material conditioning such as tall/short, blonde, grey, or redheaded and various religious ethnicities – Hindu, Jew, Muslim, to name a few. These are external distinctions and designed to fool you in believing that these tiny elements are who you are. This whole identity fiasco will rein true until you examine deeper into your psychic and gift yourself the adventure of aloneness. The first inclination with aloneness is call it loneliness and get busy. Do something. Why? Because you want to run in fear and that is how the ego distracts you from the moment. How you are useful, industrious, a doer? Do something, don’t just be - wash windows, clean something, sort papers, make a phone call. The mind is indoctrinated into busyness, and freaks out when asked to be still. It can even become depressed…. “You are useless, a bum, lazy, good for nothing.” These are fear thoughts and they are conjured from old programs planted in your subconscious mind. They all relate to some identity you have taken on in your past they now rule you. If you get past that phase, the next one will be to offer yourself to nature. The natural world is still and rhythmic and primarily peaceful. Go into nature as Jesus went to the mountain or the desert, where there is emptiness. There you can release the stress of your material life and all that goes with it. Don’t stay for an hour - linger longer. Stay in the natural world until your mind quiets and then stay longer. Remain until your body relaxes and begins to breathe and then stay longer. Be still. You are beginning to experience your inner world. It is in rhythm with nature. In the Western world this stillness is a monumental accomplishment. Not so much in Eastern countries where silence is cultivated. Just grant yourself permission. In time you will get the hang of it and it will nourish you. Perhaps heal you. Stay in the stillness for three days or a week – maybe three months. Remain until you have forgotten all the roles you play and the ways you clothe yourself with identity. Stay until you become nothing – just quiet emptiness. From this point, you can move into deeper quiet. Let the mind drift into feeling – deep feeling. Feel your breath. Notice its texture, temperature and rhythm. Feel your body organs function, and feel your spirit. Let it expand so that you are able to move beyond your physical self and feel the space you occupy and then all space. Your mind will begin to change texture as you do this. It becomes softer, lighter. Stay there. No judgment, no anything, just beingness. You know the saying, “Be still and now that I am God.” Loneliness is not the same as aloneness. Loneliness is always questing after something. It is painful and demoralizing. It is the ego never being or having enough. When you cultivate aloneness, you are at peace. It is like dropping all the makings of the world and listening deeply. There is something that would speak to you. Have you created the inner space for it? Have you opened your heart with wonton desire to receive it? Be still and know that I am God. Be still – be still. Take time to practice aloneness. It will put everything in perspective because when you are alone, nothing else exists. It is like the contentment of being in the womb. Everything is provided and you are safe and nourished. No wonder babies cry when they leave the peace of the womb. They are essentially leaving the Garden of Eden, where there is love and no stress. As you get stronger, the craziness of the material world dissolves and what remains is YOU – vast and still like the forest at dusk or a clear, calm mountain lake. Be still and you will know yourself. That is mastery. Jean Walters is author of: Set Yourself Free: Live the Life YOU were meant to Live! Be Outrageous: Do the Impossible - Others have and you can too! and Dreams and the Symbology of Life (author: Jean Walters-Lucy) all available on Amazon.com ENJOY!