mandyjw

Sometimes trying to teach others what you think YOU know really can show you that you don't. If you're open to it.

It's an interesting challenge reconciling two seeming opposites, which I credit to being brought up very down to earth but having some wild, uninhibited, lavish Hollywoodesque dreams. It's like trying to reconcile renunciation and living a simple honest "spiritual" life with desire and LOA. Trying to reconcile them I suppose is a lot like putting two kids in a get-a-long shirt and expecting it to actually work and not be a joke. Link for reference. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/390054017700324399/ I think at the core, it's trying to mold oneself to a standard and fit into it that creates the conflict. I want to seek security in right vs wrong, wanted vs unwanted and I need roll models and celebrities to help me imagine how this is supposed to be. Like most people have both an angel and a devil whispering in their ear, I have Ramana Maharshi and Dita Von Teese whispering in my ear and I am both. Progression is the real interest, the rise to fame, the overcoming, the development. Progression only occurs when one realizes that they want to reinvent themselves, which is only possible when you realize that you are not what you imagine yourself to be and are willing to let go of your view of yourself. The key to success is also the realization of the complete and utter impossibility of what one seeks to achieve by becoming. Rich, beautiful, enlightened, happy, spiritual. They will never be attained, there is no one to attain them, and therefore, the possibilities of them are more possible than you could ever imagine. So let your imagination reign wild.

Once when I was in highschool, I think or younger, I went on a shopping trip with my sister. She wanted to go into a Halloween shop, and we did. I went in there absolutely disgusted by the whole thing. We ended up having this conversation about it later and she tried to explain that it's all for fun, but I did not see the fun or humor in dismembered body parts, whore nurse costumes and general spooky fuckery. I tried to explain to her how just wasteful ,unfeeling and insensitive the entire thing is. I was raised to believe that Halloween is evil, anything dark is evil and that Jesus zombie jokes are most DEFINITELY NOT funny at all. Sometimes the longer it takes to properly tell a joke the funnier it is when you get to the end. Halloween is now the biggest time of year for my business and I look forward to it every year. But, when it's actually Halloween, I always feel that there's definitely something deeper about that time of year that the decorations and fun is masking over. It's funny how our initial aversions always have an element of being very wrong and also very right simultaneously. Or more accurately put, they are neither wrong nor right.

@Gesundheit Contemplating the symbolism of the virgin birth is another way of asking "How can something come from nothing?" Which is a very big question with... no? answer?

@Gesundheit I'm too dumb for theories. Can't grasp them.

It's a symbolic pointer. Symbolism is inseparable from reality, making the dualities between meaning and meaningless and real and unreal dissolve.

Feeling!!! What you want is to tap into the wells of feeling and intellect/wisdom so deep they merge and you see they flow from the same source. There's no conflict between the two.

Once you see that you're a chimp and don't resist it (and I don't mean just falsely convincing yourself that you're not resisting it), don't other more powerful desires for real connection outside of survival arise? I completely understand you're reasoning, I see a lot of people in the spiritual community as chimps in pope hats, and I think that in a way that's all any of us will ever become anyway. But it just makes me a bit sad that you seem so cynical about it, as if no one has any chance to transcend it. To me if the desire for something bigger (God, humanity, whatever you want to call it, or whatever it is for you) is clear enough, real enough and strong enough then transcendence is effortless. It's like a creative project that consumes you so entirely that you don't eat or sleep or think about sex. I think chimpery happens when people aren't really sure of what they really want, so all these other desires have power over them.

No. But I do believe that some people are wise enough to value some things more heavily that other more shallow, surface level things. Maybe that's naive, and of course it isn't true 100% of the time but that's the world I like to pretend we live in. The reason I loved this video SO much is because it suggests that you have the power to transcend those chimp drives to fit in, and choose for yourself. Did someone else post this and say the same thing? Sorry to be repetitive if so.

And you know this by experience? Of course what people say and what they actually think are entirely different things.

Does the level of the teaching matter? No. Words have meaning, until words don't have meaning, until words have meaning. What really matters is that someone resonates and enjoys it, that they love it. Entertainment includes some of the most powerful spiritual teachings within it, however the problem is that it's unconscious. By unconscious I mean, the mind doesn't recognize the value of it so it can't seek it and only applies it in limited ways. However it's innocent, doesn't try to own or conceptualize it and inspiration unowned is a powerful force. Even the things we say ourselves have meanings deeper than we know. I said in a video I recorded yesterday that I never thought that my awakening and the bliss/clarity would end. I didn't think. It's not that I was naive. It's that it was recognized that wasn't an actual possibility. But it happened anyway.

@Evil RaccoonAww.. I love you too. But how you know I'm not actually a dude pretending to be a lady? Hmm.... All online advice needs to be taken with a grain of salt in my opinion.

Maybe women don't actually like assholes but men think that all other men who aren't them that get women are assholes. Trying too hard at anything is the problem. Even if you're good at hiding it it colors your perception so much you miss the real opportunities that are there.

People are sick of politics and pretension. They mistrust what they can't begin to understand. Being a politician requires status, education and money and these things are usually deeply mistrusted by people who don't have those things. Trump is the only option other than that, even though he has money and status he knows how to present himself as the alternative to what has long been hated about politicians. The way he speaks gives people the feeling that they can relate and understand him. People often mistakenly assume that the alternative to what they feel is untrustworthy = trustworthy. It's such an ironic thing that the inequality, especially education inequality in our country makes conditions ripe to elect a President with strong policies that worsen inequality.

I'm dealing with a lot of frustration and disillusionment about the spiritual community as a while. Whole. I meant to type whole. Which I know is an imaginary mental construct. If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame You want it darker We kill the flame Am I naive? "The root naïve is a French adjective meaning “natural, just born.” There are two seemingly waring against each other sides within spirituality. Success verses shunning/transcending it. There's incredible joy, love and transcendence to be found on both sides of the spectrum. There's no tipping point, no point of reference. There's no enlightenment. This is a party of big egos, people with egos so big their real work is to deal with them. Or maybe that's just me. Seems to me that spiritual teachers are the biggest devils at the party. Or maybe that's just me. Luke 12:49-53 I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?

@seeking_brilliance Shhhh... us witches need our familiars. @Ananta So sorry for your loss!

Back on contemplating this topic. A lot of my need for permission is imagining that there's a Big Daddy in the sky and I need to win his love. I spent my childhood trying to please my dad. On top of that there was Jesus, and the heavenly Father in the sky. My love of spiritual teachers is reflected/projected here. If I ever want to do anything big or make a bold stand or have a big goal, the first step is to get Daddy's permission. The Lion King losing his crown, the lion necklace that gave me courage with the broken off leg. At some point you find out that your parents have their own shit. I've had two long standing beliefs in my life. One is that the truth is your power, the other is that you can learn something from everyone. Everyone, no matter how little you think of them has some expertise or point of view that you've never experienced. Everyone is both your teacher and your student. If you stay in the role of student, you never get your permission or discovered your true gifts. If you stay stuck as a teacher you miss all the beautiful lessons that everyone has. Per mission.

@DrewNows Illness isn't anyone's fault. Trees get sick and die sometimes. They don't hold limiting beliefs. Sometimes insects and diseases move in and mass groups of them die. They rot and other trees grow in their place in the light. I try to play the illness avoidance game intellectually the best I can, psychologically, I know that the deepest truth is that all is accepted as an impersonal circle of life. There's a distinction between external action, washing hands, wearing masks, vaccines, etc, and internally worrying about avoiding something.

Fuck. BOOM, right back where I started. Owing. Feeling like I owe hurts. Owing, ouch ow ow owing. All owing. Allowing. Sensing that there's some desires here and they aren't just mine own. Owing and owning, owl wing. Ok Mandy, go home, you're drunk.

How will I know I'm a good person if I stop blaming and shaming myself? Yesterday I took the kids swimming. An out of state car pulled in and just sat there looking out at us, loud music blaring. I instantly felt very vulnerable. Vulnerable turned into "I shouldn't be here, this is my fault." Since eating meat again, I've gotten into shape and have been wearing my two piece swimsuit because the others fit like crap. I feel conspicuous. I remember dressing in tighter than normal clothes once getting read for high school and instantly feeling nauseous. When guys hit on me or comment, I feel guilty. I feel like it's my fault. I should be fat and dress like a slob. I shouldn't stand out. I think the dream about my sister in law points to judging people. My mother in law told me something about her that made me judge her. In fact the dream morphed from my uncle to her, and that uncle is someone I've always judged the most of almost anyone too. Funny that the thing I wore to give me courage and symbolizes what I hold to the highest standard would break in the same symbolic way as the people I want to be like the least. It's all falling apart. There's a line from a Sia song that struck me, "I'm still fighting for peace." I saw a sign last spring that said "Peace One With Another". Of course peace requires pieces and requires them to be in the right places. Connection is duality, it's conditional. Love is duality, it's conditional. Allowing and appreciation and love, all the same. Unconditional, is allowing itself. Allowing All owing

Yesterday something really strange happened that brought up a ton of uncomfortable feelings about money, relationships and spirituality. It goes much deeper than that, a sort of questioning everything and major insecurity, (rather the search for finding security that isn't there) comes up. There's a lot of confusion, and a lot of wanting answers and wanting to know, wanting to be able to trust, but again, I know those things can't be found by the mind. The way it happened was completely accidental but it's one of those accidents that leaves me questioning myself. I've always had this tendency to blame myself for accidents and mistakes immediately and psychologically own them. I've had freakish coincidental things happen in the past that happened because I was super scared of having them happen. I have no control. But I do. The controller is the controlled. I had a childhood where we didn't have much money and my parents worked a lot, but there was this feeling of transcendence in this, rather than much suffering. When I was 9 my parents had a well drilled, but until then they had a well that they had dug themselves. A few summers it would get really low and we had to ration water. We had what Dad called the "oh shit stick" that measured the amount of water in the well. If it was dry we would walk down to the well and measure it frequently. Bellow a certain mark, you said "oh shit." Everything was laughed off and embraced for the most part. Money was limited but not so much that we really suffered for it. My dad to this day has a transcendent love of work, he drives a dump truck from the 1980's and works construction all day sitting in it with no AC. His boss, the owner of the truck is a mechanic, so the truck is pieced together and kept running because he has the skills to do it. He bought a hood ornament for it, it's a silver owl. My dad absolutely loves the truck. He cleans it on his own time, and takes pride in it. It's not even his. Part of me thinks that dad is a loser for not having his own truck. Part of me thinks that he is wise. I suppose that wisdom cannot be attributed to anyone though. Owls have been coming up like crazy lately. In the Brene Brown talk, I noticed that she is wearing an owl necklace. The day before yesterday I visited my mother in law. She asked me to make some owl earrings. My in laws are wealthy. Stupid wealthy. Not stupid as in, really wealthy but stupid as in, see money, spend money stupid. I used to hate them for this but since discovering the law of attraction I've learned to appreciate it and recognize the beauty of the world they are creating. My father in law barely spoke to me, he was working on a new project, a stupidly expensive patio. It bothered me I wondered if he was mad at me. Today he is in the hospital with a kidney stone. Maybe that's why and it had nothing to do with me. I used the word stupid a lot, after talking about wisdom and owls. I suppose stupidity can't be attributed to anyone either. I just stopped to take away a stuffed lion my dog was chewing. It's a lion in a robe with a crown from my Grandmother's house. He completely chewed the crown on the lion's head and now it just looks like a lion standing around in his bathrobe. Kinda funny. I have this silver lion necklace I got when I was a kid. I envisioned God as a lion, and the Chronicles of Narnia fueled that and the fantasy/reality loss of duality quite a bit, I recognize now. If anything big or scary was happening in my life I'd wear the lion necklace. I wore it when I got married, I wore it countless other times. After awakening I thought I needed to get rid of it. I left it at Dr.P's but unlike my favorite antique ring which disappeared immediately, taken by the crows who planted the poison nightshade that set of the chain of events, I tell myself. But the lion charm kept turning up. Then I put it on a leather cord and gave it to my husband. He wore it a while and forgot it. Yesterday I took it off the cord and wore it again. I don't know what this has to do with anything. But after all, relationship and connection is duality, it's the beauty of the rainbow of colors caused by the separation of the light. It's wild and free, completely chaotic, it happens all on it's own. The lion charm broke right before the awakening, one of his legs came off. I told myself i didn't take care of my things well enough and blamed myself for it. Last night I dreamed my sister in law lost a leg. It was a horrible dream and I woke up in the night and felt awful. "Goddamn it Mandy, you ate too much chicken. That's why you have bad dreams. Spiritual people don't eat meat." It only lasted a little while and I felt better again and went back to sleep.

Partially, but my kids eat much better than I did when I was that age, it's just that they get exposed to more stuff than I did. RSV wasn't even a thing when I was a kid. Diet is a huge problem in schools themselves. The school lunches are sub par. The breakfasts they serve now are so bad, it's counterproductive to feed them so much sugar first thing and then expect them to learn. We got school meals delivered for a short time during quarantine and when I fed my kids the cereal and milk school lunches it was much harder to get them to settle down and get my son to focus on his work.