mandyjw

I had a best friend who frequently got completely lost in her own excitement and impulses and she was the complete opposite of my mother. My mother hated her even, I felt. Although, when they saw each other, my mom treated her like gold, like every one else. As I started developing a close relationship with my mom as an older teenager and young adult, I asked her why she would never let herself get excited about anything. She thought about this for a while. She told me that when she was a little kid, she went to a birthday party and they gave out party favors and she was given a little duck toy. She was SO excited that she ran around with it wildly yelling "Ducky, ducky!" and she ran straight into a metal pole and hit her head really hard. After that she learned her lesson. Excitement = dangerous stupidity. When I was very young I had a blankey, it was my comfort object. I carried it around until it was worn ragged. It was a blanket with ducks all over it.

My mother was wise enough to tell me exactly what was going on when I grew up. With the favoritism, with my Dad's workaholism, with the way he played out in our own family the patterns in which he himself was raised. She knew of the problems in our family, but believed she was powerless to change them. She did not believe she had the right to stand up to her husband or even, simply, express what she wanted. Women must be always in submission to a man's power. But always still in their hearts, knowing that men are ignorant fools, and accepting that they are at the mercy of it. It wasn't enough that she told me. A part of me "saw" and "knew" but it was still susceptible, just the same. I didn't even respect her or appreciate her until my relationship with my dad went so sour, until I had a boyfriend, and then I was forced to change the stories I was telling myself about them.

Ever single spring since before I became a teenager, my entire life was spent helping my parents caretake the cemeteries. Sophomore year in high school I started to really want some expansion in my life and nothing I did seemed to work out. The spring of that year, one day after school we were supposed to get a few hours in of raking leaves before it got dark and I was tired and unhappy and couldn't seem to make the rake move. I didn't want to be there. Later that night, I was in the bathroom and I heard my dad talking to my mom. "How did WE raise such a lazy kid?" he asked her. "I don't know." she said. This CRUSHED me. Ever since that night, I worked as hard as a possibly could. Work was such a huge ideal in my family. Work, honesty, kindness. The own health and happiness of our family always came second to whatever anyone else needed. My Dad was constantly trying to please people with how hard he worked. His company got sold out and he had logged so much illegal overtime, that he literally lost thousands of dollars overnight. All to please his boss and prove to himself how hard he worked. Eventually he got sick mysteriously, around the time I had already started working obsessively on my business. He went out on disability and started looking into spiritual materials. His ego must dissolve along with his identification with work. It was too late for me at the time. I had internalized the message of work = good.

Ever since I was really young every summer I did some local harvesting work which is now done almost all my machine or migrant workers from mexico. I absolutely loved it, even though it was back breaking and made me sore, I loved being outside all day and I loved the fact that luck and motivation were the factors that determined what you got paid. There was one big problem with this. I am small in stature for a woman and the strong, especially boys or men always got paid much more for less effort. This was just an accepted fact. There was another problem with this, my mother taught me how to work and she taught me that if you weren't thorough enough you were actually stealing from the farmer. Internalize this as a obsessive compulsive truth teller and you're at another disadvantage. My parents strongly gave the message that others must always come first. Especially if they are strangers and you owe them nothing. When I got older I started my business and I needed to get serious about money to start it so I worked for an old man who had extensive fields. I remember listening to country music at the time, at a time when all my friends were going off to college, I was staying right here, so I might as well assimilate to the culture. Depending on the part of the field you could make a lot of money with little work, or a little money with a lot of work. I got the most amazing strip I've ever seen. It only got better as I went. Eventually I topped a little hill and there was a man at the end of my strip who had already harvested the entire thing. "Opps! I had the wrong strip." was all he said. I was PISSED. But I knew I had absolutely no power whatsoever. I said nothing. Inexplicably, because he wouldn't have a way of knowing what had happened, so I thought, the field owner, who I rarely saw, carried my buckets and directed me to another amazing strip. His name was Justin. That was the last time I every did that kind of work because my business took off and I got paid a lot more for using the talents I did actually possess. A part of me misses it though.

I had a dream last night that was annoying, I was dealing with the aftermath of something horrible that had happened to me, with no emotion whatsoever, and it took a little bit and putting together another annoying thing that happened last night to understand what it meant. It dragged up this memory. I've always been afraid of men and afraid of doctors. Therefore, I have always avoided male doctors. When I was pregnant with my first kid, I went to a doctor far from here because I didn't trust the local one after hearing stories about her. When I went into labor I found that there was this random male doctor covering for my doctor's office. On the drive there, my labor sort of stopped a bit. My husband kept hitting every fucking rumble strip he could it seemed. We had to stop at a gas station. He went in to get food and left the car at the gas pump. As we came out of the store a man complained to me about how people were waiting to get to gas pumps. Instead of saying "I'm in labor", I just nodded my head and didn't say anything, as if to say without saying, "yeah, my husband is an idiot, what can you do?" When we got to the hospital, the valet, a young guy started asking me all kinds of questions about my car because he was interested in the model. Instead of saying "I'm in labor" I answered them all. By the time we got in there, I pretty much had stopped my labor because of stress and the male doctor, who obviously didn't want to spend his Saturday morning this way said I would probably be going back home. I hated him. I was in so much pain, and had driven so far that I wasn't happy to be told that what I knew was labor was not. I felt like I was wasting their time. Unimportant. Finally they left me to myself and I moved all around the room and got labor started again. The pain started to make me throw up, and it was later decided that I was in fact in labor. The doctor suggested everything he could to speed it up and I refused everything. When my son was actually born, I ended up having an intervention without my permission, that was not a good idea, and caused a lot of pain and complications after the fact. After this I sort of internalized it, thinking doctors are in charge, it's not my choice but I fantasized quite a lot about kicking him in the balls. When my daughter was born I was much more conscious at the time, everything went well, I got the doctor I wanted, didn't have to have any interventions that weren't my choice, and perfectly except for the fact that I was sick with a virus and needed some drugs to stop throwing up. The main nurse in charge of me was named Karma. I told her I loved her name and she told me her dad was a tough conservative Marine, and had thought it was a pretty name and had no idea what it meant. In my fear of being a victim, in my nonacceptance of being a mistreated or overlooked, (kind of like Eckhart Tolle's cold soup analogy, I just eat the fucking cold soup and don't say anything but internalize my nonacceptance) I made myself a victim. It tell myself this is good, I am good because I am a martyr, not a victim out of my need to be good.

A horse is a horse of course of course.

Whoa. That's what the lyrics are? We're talking away I don't know what I'm to say I'll say it anyway Today's another day to find you Shying away I'll be coming for your love, okay? [Chorus] Take on me (Take on me) Take me on (Take on me) I'll be gone In a day or two [Verse 2] So needless to say I'm odds and ends But I'll be stumbling away Slowly learning that life is okay Say after me It's no better to be safe than sorry [Chorus] Take on me (Take on me) Take me on (Take on me) I'll be gone In a day or two [Instrumental Break] [Verse 3] Oh, things that you say Is it a life or just to play my worries away? You're all the things I've got to remember You're shying away I'll be coming for you anyway [Outro] Take on me (Take on me) Take me on (Take on me) I'll be gone In a day Take on me (Take on me) Take me on (Take on me) I'll be gone In a day

I'd say yes, but it's more complicated than that, the answer depends on your beliefs and experience. Meditation cuts down on thoughts of stress and illness, so you'd attract them into your experience less. However if you mediate because you're afraid of getting sick, you intention to push away sickness may instead become a focus on illness and could attract illness until you get over the need or condition to be healthy over being sick.

We think that what other people say has the power to hurt us but we are the ones who make our decisions and decide how we feel about things. It's completely possible to enjoy a friendship with someone even if they say discouraging things, but only if we accept that we are the ones with the power to believe what we want and feel the way we want. If you find yourself easily affected by this sort of thing then it may be wise to take a step back, until you can gain the strength to take a different approach to take the best and leave the rest. Sometimes the best thing someone can do for you is say something is a bad idea and it only motivates you all the more to prove them wrong. It's all entirely up to you how you take their words. There's never any need to take action to cut people out of your life, if they aren't meant to be there, they'll leave on their own. And in my experience come back at just the perfect time for both of you. No one is ever going to be developed on the same level we are in all the areas of development there are to tackle in life. We are here for each other. It's amazing how fast your own growth can inspire and influence other people, even if they meet it with resistance at first. There's no need to hide your light.

In some of his talks he mentions some pretty profound earlier insights prior to the awakening. Also this is his background as according to Wikipedia. "Born Ulrich Leonard Tölle in Lünen, a small town located north of Dortmund in the Ruhr Valley, Germany in 1948,[3][11][12] Tolle describes his childhood as unhappy—particularly his early childhood in Germany. His parents fought and eventually separated, and he felt alienated from a hostile school environment.[13] He also experienced considerable fear and anxiety growing up in post-war Germany, where he would play in bombed-out buildings. He later stated that pain "was in the energy field of the country".[14] At the age of 13, he moved to Spain to live with his father.[13] His father did not insist that he attend high school, so Tolle elected to study literature, astronomy and various languages at home.[11][13] At the age of 15, he read several books written by the German mystic Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, also known as Bô Yin Râ. Tolle has said he responded "very deeply" to those books.[13] At the age of 19, he moved to England and for three years taught German and Spanish at a London school for language studies.[15] Troubled by "depression, anxiety and fear", he began "searching for answers" in his life.[13] In his early twenties, he decided to pursue his search by studying philosophy, psychology, and literature, and enrolled in the University of London.[13] After graduating,[13] he was offered a scholarship to do postgraduate research at Cambridge University, which he entered in 1977 but dropped out soon after.[5][11]" So that's a pretty unique childhood, with lots of religious and philosophical contemplation. I'd say he was definitely a seeker.

Romance and nonduality/spirituality have been confused from the very start and embedded in little girl's minds. Or their nature is inconveniently and unavoidably one anyway.

I had a cat when I was a kid named Chiquitita or Chiky for short. (a Spanish term of endearment for a woman meaning "little one") My Dad accidentally ran over her. She was deaf and fell asleep right under the tire of a trailer he had hooked up to his truck. I remember how awful he felt and that he took me to the beach that afternoon. Today I met a man driving a truck driving a bit aggressively and it brought up a reaction in me of fear, shirking and feeling unimportant and insignificant. I already mentioned that I loved Abba when I was a kid. There's another funny synchronicity with this. As a kid I had this crazy love for fun and confidence. A few years of school turned me into a scared little mouse. The mother of one of my classmates early on was a very confident woman. She hadn't seen me in years and came to the school to do a story on a project we were doing, sending cookies to troops overseas. I remember that day I was helping in the kitchen and I touched my hair and a teacher screamed at me to wash my hands and not to touch my hair. At that moment she (the reporter) took a picture of me touching my hair and looking up terrified and that same stupid picture made it into the local paper. She asked my mother what had happened to me, noting that my personality had changed so dramatically. So the walls came tumbling down And your love's a blown out candle All is gone and it seems too hard to handle Chiquitita, tell me the truth There is no way you can deny it I see that you're oh so sad, so quiet Chiquitita, you and I know How the heartaches come and they go and the scars they're leaving You'll be dancing once again and the pain will end You will have no time for grieving Chiquitita, you and I cry But the sun is still in the sky and shining above you Let me hear you sing once more like you did before Sing a new song, Chiquitita Try once more like you did before Sing a new song, Chiquitita Try once more like you did before Sing a new song, Chiquitita

@Chumbimba Seriously, check out Abraham Hicks if she resonates with you. It took me years of Eckhart to even get to the point where I was open-minded enough for her stuff, but it sounds like you're already there. When I was a kid we spent part of a summer digging up gravel and screening it into buckets to fix our septic system because my parents refused to hire someone... so yeah... lots of beliefs around money to unwire.

Yes, it was a hugely important read for me. Sorry you didn't ask me this but it made me realize I gotta be honest, I did have a lot of doubts and thoughts like this at the time. I ended up later understanding that it was a shadow I had around money and limitation mindset. I still have that shadow come up but I kinda "see" it now. Studying the law of attraction and kinda feeling into the truth of it was a huge breakthrough for me in this area.

Not sure why I was curious to look this up. "'No Man is an Island' No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." This reminds me of one of my big insights from Abraham Hicks regarding the pouty little girl at the parade at Disney who said that the parade wasn't just for her, it was for all these other people. It's FOR YOU, it's all FOR YOU! I remembered today that when I was really little my sister did cheerleading for a year or two and I was SO excited to get old enough so I could. I'd borrow her pom poms and prance and flail around all the time. I went to some of the games and stood up on my chair and did the dance moves. When I finally got that old all the making fun of cheerleaders had gotten to me and I made fun of it too. My sister quit cheerleading at school quite quickly, but years later when she was still living at home started bellydancing. I did some of the moves with her but mostly made fun of her. She had a job working with wildlife for a while and she got a vanity plate that said WILDLFE. It was definitely a double meaning. It's pretty funny to remember that after dragging up a bunch of animal symbolism. I remember that toward the end of high school I had this moment when I realized that I regretted not cheerleading and just playing it safe all the time. The cheerleading was the one thing that really stuck out to me though.

I think he has an amazing gift as a teacher for bridging levels of consciousness. He says just enough but not too much.

A long time ago I was at an event with my father in law. I said that if I had gone to college I would have gone into psychology. "Psychology" he said. "Only the people who are crazy and need psychology go into psychology." It took me so long to forgive him for that. It's really quite hilarious now. Oh, for all the jokes that went straight over my head.

Under lying. Under lie ing?

Love itself is how you know you're observing the observer. When you feel love, congrats you've got it!

@MrDmitriiV Everything is very connected. It seems like a reaction that follows a trigger is simply a response to that. A deep negative reaction is always a negative reaction to yourself, this is a well practiced thought/ reaction pattern. Instead of focusing specifically on this subject, pay attention to all the ways you judge yourself, going into thoughts that feel awful rather than dropping the thoughts and tuning into self love. Judgement/triggered is one movement, the trigger just means that the judgement occurs really fast. It's all the same effect of the illusion of separation. Love is the only thing that can heal or join it into one. We cannot judge ourselves for judging others if we want to stop judging. See the hilarity here? We also have to be able to "see" how we judge without judgement. How? Self Love. No self, no other.

mmhmm

@Zigzag Idiot I LOVE Borat. I never really understood how sexual repression is much different with men and often around the area of homosexuality. I was tempted to blame my father for some of the things he raised me to believe because he didn't understand how from the female perspective they'd cause damage, and then I asked him about his childhood and was absolutely shocked and ended up appreciating how far he had come. The judge others/ judge self, not understanding that they are the same, vicious cycle has all kinds of manifestations that hide the under lying misunderstanding.

@Preetom You're BACK!