12-12-12 Thoughts

What if we focused everyday like we all did on 12-12-12?  I felt so connected to like-minded people around the globe, and close to home.  We were calling or texting, wishing each other a happy 12-12-12.  I got together with friends and meditated and shared food and stories.  We tuned into the global meditation at 8:30 Central, and simply practiced “smiling” all at the same time.

What if this could be just the beginning of a more organized, focused effort to connect around healing, love and light on behalf of the entire planet?  It would simply mean to continue to consciously monitor our thoughts (and beneath that emotions and beliefs), to ask for help, to stay connected to Source throughout the day as best we can, and to take positive action from there.

I’d say many of us are attempting to do that anyway, but why not bring it even more forward as a priority?  After all, isn't that what we’re here to do anyway?  That, and to co-create.  Maybe we'll get to discover a new version of co-creating something really good.

Units of Time

In the movie “About a Boy,” Hugh Grant is an heir to a one-hit-wonder.  As he meanders through his meaningless day, he reports, “I find the key is to think of a day as units of time…taking a bath: one unit, exercising: three units, having my hair carefully disheveled: four units.”

Don’t we all feel this way most days?  With the endless demands of daily life, it's so easy to lose spontaneity, creative drive and passion.  Our days are broken down into units of time.  

I first noticed this years ago when we went to Brazil.  One of the benefits of traveling is, of course, getting out of our routine.  But going to Brazil had an especially dramatic effect on me because they relate to time so differently than us.  Although Brazilians are becoming more and more “North American-ized,” I could still feel that there's a different relationship to time there.

Time seemed more like a guideline than a master.  Saying we’ll meet at 2:00 really means we’ll meet between 2:00 and 4:00.  I don’t know how they manage it, but it seems to work pretty well.  There's a flow in the moment.  Schedule decisions (outside of work mostly, but still within the work ethic as well), are made more by what is happening presently and not by what the clock says we should do or where we should be.

 

I know this all sounds pretty unrealistic and certainly unpractical.  However, it made me view my life differently.  I saw that my life had become units of time, especially with my kids: wake up time, breakfast time, get ready for school time, snack time, dinner time, bath time, bedtime.  Whew.  Done.  It’s as though I valued my day (and myself and others) based on how well I stayed on schedule (stretch the word “schedule” to mean all the to-dos of life).

 

When I stepped outside of my schedule in Brazil, I was able to see how much I was missing: the look on my daughter’s face as I sat across from her at breakfast, the fun of playing with the hamster before bed, the timelessness of pushing them on the swings over and over…

Ok, now this all sounds like mindfulness practice.  But there’s something more that I want to get to here.  Time has become our master.  It’s a great management tool, but we've let it suck the life out of us.  For me, I think it literally did.

 

We can only maintain this for so long.  Eventually it becomes an unsustainable way to live.  It hit me the hardest when I was running an import company several years later.  My body let me know that the fuel of “driven by time” (aka lists, tasks and to do’s) was tapped.  My adrenals (get-up-and-go juice) literally said, “enough.”

So what’s our real get-up-and-go juice?  I believe it is essence – life force – the invisible energy that is keeping my heart beating right now, the infinite intelligence that is behind everything from babies being born to planets not crashing into one another.

My adrenals feel like a receptor for that energy.  However, when my consciousness is stuck in units of time, it’s like I’m living in a “closed-circuit of energy.”  It’s limited and not sustainable, it burns out.  So my body gave me a great blessing through the adrenal crash I went through.  It was telling me, “hook up to source and live from there.” 

The “how” of a request like that is where the fun begins.  

 

So What Happened?

For those who would like to know more about the "healing crisis" I referred to in  my last entry (aka: "The Old Ways Aren't Working Anymore"), I decided to share with you an article that was published in the Alive and Well Journal, Spring 2012.

Detoxing our Bodies and Minds – A Journey of the Soul

By Bernadette Wesley

It was over a year ago that I texted my husband from my practitioner’s office, “Cancel our dinner date for tonight – I won’t be eating anything for a while.”   I know that sounds pretty extreme. But at that point I would have done anything to stop the painful rash that was progressively covering my face, neck and body.

 

Through Applied Kinesiology (muscle testing), I learned that I was reacting to pretty much everything I ate.  I had already eliminated the big ones – wheat, dairy, corn, and soy.  But the rash raged on.  If I ate the same food two days in a row, I would become allergic to that food. My body was on high alert and was basically reacting to food as though it was the enemy.

 

For anyone who has had food sensitivities, or needed to detox, you know the drill: mono-diet.   I ate one type of vegetable per day for one week (as much as I wanted to eat each day , but only one type of vegetable at a time, rotating so as to not repeat the same one every day).  Each week I added in one food group, usually meat or fruit and eventually grains.  I also took high doses of specific probiotics as well as powdered medical food supplements to get the necessary nutrients, reduce inflammation and help the intestinal lining heal.

 

I remember carrying in a baggie of organic broccoli to my brother’s house for Christmas dinner.  Rivers of treats lay before me on the decorated tables, and I felt deprived and alienated from the collective eating ritual.  After only a week, though, my sugar and carb cravings diminished and I started feeling the benefits.  The mono-diet is a great way to detox and reset the body.  For me, however, it wasn’t the whole picture.

For many of us with food sensitivities there are underlying root causes that can be very difficult to uncover.   Through Applied Kinesiology and blood tests, I discovered that I had heavy metal toxicity.  Toxins accumulate in the body from childhood environments as well as current environments, and like a rain barrel that’s full, one more drop of water causes it to spill over.  The toxicity level in my body had accumulated to the point where I was reacting to everything.

 

We began exploring every possible source of the toxicity, and eventually figured out that I was reacting to the house we were renting!  The concern in my two daughters’ eyes turned to disbelief as we walked through the house testing everything.  The message was getting really clear: I had to get out of that house.  I immediately reached out to my community of friends and colleagues to find a place to stay.  Within 24 hours I found myself packing up my suitcase, my laptop and some groceries, waving goodbye to my family as if I was leaving for college.  It was such a strange feeling, but we all knew I had to go.  We pulled together and got through the six surreal weeks of living apart while we looked for a new home.

We discovered through this process that old linoleum flooring can contain asbestos.  We learned that in old houses, even if paint lead tests show negative, there can still be off-gassing.  Carpets and drop ceilings can contain toxic chemicals.  And last but not least, old basements contain mold.  Any one of these alone might not be an issue, but after six years of this combination, my body’s toxic levels “spilled over.”  In England, this condition has a clinical name.  It’s called “Sick House Syndrome.”

 

After months of physical detoxing, my body is still releasing and healing.  Detoxing can occur in layers, and emotional, psycho-spiritual detoxing is very much part of the process.   Like a neon sign with a hidden message, this rash has led me to discover some core toxic beliefs that have been the bedrock of my family line for generations.  I have unconsciously built my life on them as well.

 

When we look beneath the surface of the elusive “allergic” diagnosis, many practitioners agree that when the body is in this constant alarm response, there is often a hidden belief that we are not safe.  To really heal, we must engage in deep self-inquiry and ask ourselves, “In what ways do I not feel safe in my life or in this world?”  Most often these beliefs are held in our subconscious and we need an “other” to help us lovingly see and move through our blind spots.  With support and powerful energy medicine tools like Kinesiology, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), Homeopathy, and Qi Gong, I am clearing these deeper levels of toxicity.

 

In the bigger picture, why does it seem that so many more of us are reacting to foods and environments?  Yes, there are more toxins in our environment than ever before, but my experience has led me to understand that there is more to the story.  I believe that our bodies are changing.  Some would even say evolving.

 

In this time of breakdown, we are also at the dawning of expanded human consciousness.  This expansion requires a vessel that can handle more “wattage” (light or energy).  As challenging as it can be at times, detoxing on all levels allows us to grow and strengthen so that we can live into our soul’s potential and destiny.  I feel like I’m a phoenix rising from the flames, transforming so completely that I may be wonderfully unrecognizable on the other side of this amazing journey.

 

As I sit in my new toxin-free home, I wish I could tell you that the rash is completely gone.  My skin is still healing, but more importantly, I feel clear and strong deep in my core.  I have been given the gift of feeling truly beautiful from the inside out. 

It’s hard to believe that my last entry was almost a year and a half ago. And yet, it in some strange way, it’s perfect. Needless to say, I took a bit of a break from the blog. But I didn’t take a break from the left-right brain experiment. The experiment has continued on and has taken me to some unexpected places.

I’ve hesitated to jump back into the blog because, well, it’s daunting!  Where to begin? How to express all that has happened? In the spirit of the experiment, I will dive in from my non-linear, right brain while attempting to fill in the linear gaps as they are needed.

What is most apparent to me at this leg of the journey is this business of adrenaline. Some of you have taken my class “Adrenaline Alternatives” so you have dabbled into this vast arena with me. I had no idea how pandemic  this adrenaline addiction really was. I am just beginning to understand it after almost a decade of exploration and personal experience with the subject (aka: adrenal fatigue recovery).

In my last entry, which in some ways seems like only yesterday, I promised to explore this idea that “I am not a doing machine.” Little did I know that this question – this challenge – would take me down a road which involved some pretty serious rewiring in my “hard-drive.”

For me, this rewiring took the form of what some people call a healing crisis. I don’t really like that phrase, but I am grappling for a better one. How about, “the old way doesn’t work anymore so hang in there until the new program is in place. It may be a little (or a lot) uncomfortable, but it’s worth it.” I agree, it’s a bit long.

I feel I’m on the other side of this, at least enough to begin to share it. My hope is that it will be of some help to others who can relate to being ruled by the to-do list, to deriving self-worth through accomplishment, and the many exotic masquerades of the “doing machine” program.