Dear Rufus,

i'm glad you came here

Do you get time to be in nature? It helps me to ease...

Hugs,
A

Welcome Rufus

Indeed the drugs don't work! All they tend to do is hold people in desensitised dream states - great that you've gotten yourself off them.

I get an intuitive sense that a major part of the problem was lack of internal boundaries - taking on too much energy from the external world and then holding it as your own.

If I'm right, that mirror is manifesting for you again right now in your living circumstances. There are two types of selfishness - that of the ego which is based on fear and perceived obligation, which is truly selfish. Then there is the 'selfishness' of the soul which has the higher interests of all life - it is not selfish to focus on ones own energy and evolution. It's by shining our own light that we help illuminate the path for others.

So 'strike a match' and be sure to kindle your own flame first.

Chris

Hi there and thanks for the welcome
Alexej - I am lucky enough to live close to a nature reserve, canal and some woods and always used to be out about 2 hours a day walking our dogs (although I'm now questioning the notion of "owning" another living creaure, but anyway). Because of a negative interaction I had with someone whilst out a few weeks ago (when I was really weak) I have been struggling to get out there, but I'm working on resolving the pain and moving through it.
Chris - ding ding, give the man a cigar - I think you've hit the nail on the head there. I have recently become aware that as a young child I was very sensitive, and that perhaps it wasn't nurtured in the way it could have been (although I believe my parents did the best job they knew how to do). I absorbed all the hurt and sadness from my environment and I guess it's just sat there for 25 years, because I never got rid of it. I never learned / wasn't taught how to shield my soul from taking on everyone else's pain. I did learn that my role within the family unit was just not to add to the stress caused by my siblings, between my parents etc. If I had stood up and said "Hey! I get angry too sometimes!" or "Someone give ME a hug for a change!" I risked being ostracised by stepping outside of the role I was fulfilling. And yes, here we are now, with me trying to step-mother 2 children when I am still letting go of all these issues of my own! Consequently, I'm still here, but am having to take a back seat on the parenting front while I smooth out some of the scrambled-y bits in my own brain! It's so true that if you don't RESOLVE pain, if you are distracted away from going THROUGH it, then it will just revisit you again and again. I'm so glad I found Openhand at 25 and not 50!
Thank-you again for welcoming me, I'm sure I'm going to bombard you all with questions (I mentioned I overthink things, right? ) in the near future!
Many thanks, and have a great day everyone

You certainly seem like a lively soul, Rufus.

If we haven't experienced some degree of depression, despair and confusion here in this cuckoos nest called earth then it seems to me that this would qualify as an a far more alarming condition.

I've been able to resolve my depression with a better diet and supplements. Keeping vigil over a sanitary consciousness helps too but it's not foolproof because karma can be a tricky bugger sometimes.

Welcome aboard amigo!

Blessings, Lisa Anne

Thanks Lisa-Anne Hurrah for overcoming depression! I know it's possible, it's just a long journey - but roads are for journeys, not destinations I think, so we'll see where it takes me I'm going to stop writing before I use up a year's supply of smilies in one post x

I feel sad and alone. I am trying so hard to observe myself and understand what, and more importantly, WHY I'm feeling. It's hard! I feel really sad and lost and confused and I'm trying hard to pro-actively let go and acknowledge that as long as I'm being true to myself, resolution will come. But I know that isn't going to happen overnight, so I'm trying to wait out the storm until that happens, and be thankful for this experience which, although painful, will hopefully lead me to evolve.
I'm still struggling with my domestic situation. I honestly just don't know if the answer is going to be in staying, or leaving, but I feel that if I run away now, I'd be denying myself the chance to work THROUGH my pain, so it would just come back again. But at the same time, is it right that I am potentially hurting my partner and his kids whilst I am on this journey? Should I leave to prevent that from occurring??? I just DON'T KNOW what to do for the best - for me, for him, for them. I don't want to be hurting people!! I just get so angry when I try to talk about what I'm feeling - probably because there is indeed a lot of anger in me, which I'm trying to let go of, but again, it's a marathon, not a sprint I think?! :s I am really trying to be "awesomely ok" with everything I feel, but I'm not totally there yet. This isn't "depression" as I have known it, this is a deep, profound sadness that needs to be expressed, but right now I'm running out of tissues! It's borne (no pun intended) of the desire to ascend and feeling like it's just not happening, maybe because I'm not "good" enough. I hope it's ok that I've expressed this here, I don't know - I'm second guessing myself ALL the time.

Hi,
do you have things that you can connect with that really bring you joy? What about walking in nature? You speak about wanting to be true to yourself, yet feeling confused etc. I get the sense that as you connect more with these things that bring you lightness or a sense of being in the flow, that you might find greater clarity and a greater sense of what's right for you. and it feels positive that you're experiencing and observing the denseness, emotions etc, as well.

Have you looked at the Openhand approach - openway? http://www.openhandweb.org/contents/openhand_approach.
I find it a powerful approach.

Ben

Hi Ben, yes I've been reading the Openway material. It's because I'm trying to observe my thoughts, emotions etc that I've come to realise that I'm not happy in my life. This sadness is the struggle to open up to the blockages and confront what's happened in my past, it's the ache, all the hurt being vomited out (nice imagery there, sorry!). It's hard to see WHY I feel the way I do, to realise that I resent my partner's children for behaving in ways I was never allowed to behave myself - and to let go and reserve judgement of how HORRIBLE that sounds
Since coming off the drugs I'm "different" with my partner, which he struggles to deal with, but I don't want to be that zombie again! And I have to be true to myself. For so long I'd (for example) cook in ways I wasn't happy cooking just to appease his and his children's desires, which involved a lot of waste. Now it hurts me to just go along with their flow and deny my own....but of course, this is causing some friction.
It's been so long since I felt real joy. I used to be musical, but with the depression it dwindled to not even wanting to think about the fact that I wasn't picking up my instruments. I used to cycle, I used to cook for people, but everything's faded away. Ignorance is bliss - if I hadn't started to "awaken" I'd still be content to bumble through every day, drugged up, believing that there's no possibility for improvement. The challenges are coming thick and fast now that I want to change, to ascend. I'll keep going on this path, because now the seed's been planted in my soul, there is no going back, I think what I expressed in my previous post was perhaps growing pains, and a desire for support and love. But you are right, I need to do my joyful things, and get back into nature. I did walk the dogs for an hour today Thank-you for your response, it's such a comfort to know that there's someone else out there in the ether (who am I kidding?! There's millions out there! )
Take care

it sounds like you're taking some really positive steps, and that perhaps the answers are already becoming a little clearer. I hear a soul yearning to express!

Ben

Hi Rufus,

One of the things about this cycle of time we are in seems to be that some of us are being escorted through our own density, weather we like it or not, due to the nature of the photonic activity? I guess those emotions have to come up ? I'm honestly not sure if what I'm saying is accurate but I have observed this in my life. I'm no longer able to stuff emotions or to fake being happy. Previously, I would rationalize hurtful or inapropriate circumstances and not feel those emotions. Well.....I've sure been feeling those emotions the past few years. I have come to accept it as part of the process. I see others going through it too. But , ultimately, it's always best to find your own truth in your own circumstances. Sometimes our hormones are out of wack. Sometimes there are radical deficiencies which are causing mood shifts. Lots of variables possible.

Ben had some very productive suggestions which I will try to remember myself.

Much Love, Lisa

Yes Ben, I trust that the answers will become clearer as I continue to follow my path I am expressing my true self for the first time in years, possibly the first time since infancy. It's like turning on a tap that hasn't been used in a long time - all the gunge and gunk has to come juddering out of the pipes first, before the clear water can flow again
Lisa Anne, you said "One of the things about this cycle of time we are in seems to be that some of us are being escorted through our own density, weather we like it or not, due to the nature of the photonic activity?"- it sounds good, but I don't have a clue what it means! Sorry! Could you explain please? I obviously haven't got to that page in The 5 Gateways yet! But again, you're right, it's about finding our own truth (and I just had dinner cooked MY way ) x

Doh, double post, sorry x

Hi rufus (and others),

you say "I trust that the answers will become clearer as I continue to follow my path". and I think there likely will be much more clarity at times, but at the answers may not always be clear when there are different energies involved for example. In my view and experience, sometimes we might have to just make a choice, or take a step anyway, rather than wait for the waters to clear first.

what I'm observing from your sharing is two flows or pulls pulling you in different directions. That comes through quite strongly. So which pull is the authentic one, which serves your highest good and how can you align with that? I get a sense you already know the answers. and as you both suggest it feels so important that we each find our own truth through it all.

Ben

double post? the universe speaks in many ways!

It's probably a synchronicity that only a short while ago another thread looked at what it truly means to let go.

Let us be really clear, letting go does not mean moving past. It does not mean dropping. It doesn't mean suppressing. Nor does it mean distracting by doing something else. It is not 'reframing' as the NLP practitioners might talk about - essentially presenting the same situation in a rosy light.

True acceptance comes only from direct confrontation. So if you're in pain, confront it, go right into the heart of it. Soak the pain in. Feel it in every cell that you can. In so doing, you'll explode the myth that it is. Then you can truly let go.

It may seem almost impossible, but you can deal with any situation in this way - and I mean any.

I remember once having a root canal drilled through a tooth of mine. The dentist got the wrong sized drill bit and drilled straight through the root and into the nerve.

I was able to manage the pain because at the instant it exploded, I was right in the heart of it - feeling it fully. There was no drama. Very quickly the pain subsided, even with the drill bit still in the nerve. The only way the dentist finally found out it had happened was when he'd taken an x-ray of the tooth a few minutes later clearly showing the drill bit centred in the nerve.

When we stop resisting the moment as it really is, then the picture changes. Identity dissolves and presence arises. Then true liberation can flow with authentic expression. We get to feel truly Right Action - that which is in the higher interests of ALL souls.

In this place, it matters not how this person or that will or won't react. Will it cause them pain or not? That is not the concern of a soul behaving authentically. It is not our place to so control the life of another.

It is our purpose to push the boundary on falsehood. To explode identity around the need for a particular outcome or the resistance of another. Then we drop into the void. Then Right Action arises for the good of all - whether they perceive it or not, whether it causes them pain or not.

Chris

Hi Rufus,

Photon just means (light) . Photonic activity just means increased light energy. But it's not really important. It's not really central to Five Gateways material. I would just focus on the remarks of Chris. They make more sense

,Lisa

Yup, definitely two pulls. What I'm trying to figure out is if the pull to leave is the authentic one, of if I'd be leaving because I'm in pain and don't like the situation I'm in, which would mean I'm running away from an opportunity to learn, and running away from the pain, which is pointless, because it will just rear it's head again down the line. But yes, my gut feeling is that I have to travel this path on my own, living the way IIIIII feel truest living it, but I'm struck by the thought that physical location makes no difference, that I will feel what I feel wherever I am. Argh - PHYSICAL location in itself doesn't matter, but it's the ENERGY of a particular place that makes the difference I guess.
Love x

Thanks for clarifying Lisa-Anne
Chris: you said "Let us be really clear, letting go does not mean moving past. It does not mean dropping. It doesn't mean suppressing. Nor does it mean distracting by doing something else. It is not 'reframing' as the NLP practitioners might talk about - essentially presenting the same situation in a rosy light."
I accept that there is a difference between moving past something and going THROUGH something. All I have ever done, through therapy or whatever, is break down the chunks of pain so that I could continue bumbling through life whilst managing them, essentially making the burden carriable, without ever resolving it. I even remember saying to counsellor once, at the end of our standard 6 sessions, that I knew I hadn't dealt with certain issues, but that for the moment I could happily put them in a box out of the way until another time when I felt I COULD examine them. Well those chickens have come home to roost, and that time is now! I have opened myself up to experience all the pain that has been stagnating within myself for so long. And it's not what I'd call a pleasant experience, except for the fact that I believe that once I have fully experienced this pain, examined it and confronted it, I will truly "let go" of it. So I don't want to sidle past it as I always have done, I want to run at it full throttle. Am I making any sense whatsoever or am I writing complete twaddle? And yes, I read the post on letting go, and the one on doubting what you've just written
Thankyou again everyone for your perspectives x

So Rufus, you want to evolve and run at it "full throttle"? I like that
Feels committed - it's a good place to start.

So we're on the same page about dealing with the pain - not to move past but through it. great!

Now there's another important part of the jigsaw to add - something that Ben alluded to above, and probably one that your therapist missed, that is unless he/she was encouraging you to find the lost aspects of your soul in all this? I doubt it, otherwise you'd have processed much of the pain by now.

Consider it this way: the soul is like a river of gold, but fragments have broken away from the stream, gathered debris around them from the banks, then fallen to the bed of the river and over time, got buried in the sediment. These equate to "lost fragments of soul". They are what cause the pain, or else the suppression and denial. We can sort of feel something is missing and the pain of loss or separation from those lost aspects of us, but every time we try to uncover them, the pain gets intense, we get confused and try to fix the pain without fully understanding what is causing it.

So what we have to do is get right into the sediment and stir it up. Go into the pain and work with it. Let it swirl around us until we're not defined by it any more - in other words we are not owned by it. It may shape the circumstances we are in, but we're choosing not to be attached to it, not to let it dictate our state of being.

In order to do this, we might need some balancing tools - like endorphins. Endorphins level the playing field when the pain gets too great. They stop pain-neuropeptides docking with receptors in our cellular system, such that we don't get overwhelmed by the pain. Endorphins can be generated in many ways: meditation, exercise, walking in nature, creativity, beautiful imagination, loving sexual intercourse. So endorphins will help balance the pain, but it's also important not to get attached to an endorphin based blissed-out-state. Some people tend to live this way all the time! You see it frequently on facebook (for exampe): people pumping one another with positivity all the time - it's just another bubble ready to burst.

So now we're getting into the sediment, but we're balancing intense pain with activation of endorphins (doing that which brings you joy). Now there's another key part. Sometimes people become so awesomely okay with the pain, they just go around and around in the sediment without ever really shifting it. They'll stir it up, look at it, break it down into lumps (as you put it) but never really let go of it. There's a vital reason to understand why this happens: because the fragment of soul that created it in the first place has not yet been recovered and integrated. So it keeps gathering the sediment to it. That's why so many people get stuck in the therapy loop for so long.

So the next step must be to recover and integrate the lost fragments of soul caught in the sediment. This works by holding an open space within the experience - touching the void of nothingness and watching the interplay from that place. We literally drop into the void and become that. It is what you truly are. You are that which precedes all experience.

If you're not sure about what I'm referring to, then try this meditation: every time a thought, feeling, emotion or indeed any experience happens, quickly find yourself tracing the experience backwards internally until you locate the source of it. Keep working backwards until you keep accessing nothing. You access nothing, something arises out of it (a thought), but you don't go with the thought, instead you work backwards along it. Does that make sense? Give it a whirl. After a while, you should find yourself right in the void, preceding all experience.

So now you're in the void, totally still, yet with all kinds of (painful) experience flowing out of you and around you. Now you need to look for and recover the lost nuggets of gold.

These are aspects of beingness. They are true self expressions and we need to give them wings - right in the moment they are invited. Only in this way can we actually change our patterns of behaviour into something truly authentic - a spontaneous expression of the soul.

So for example, let's say your child is getting angry and projectional, blaming you for something that's happened to them. Because you might be running a distortion of misplaced responsibility, you're drawn into the drama. Instead of empathising, you're now sympathising and taking in their energy. You're essentially giving energy to their blame because essentially you blame yourself. There's perhaps a feeling of unworthiness emanating from your own childhood.

So you catch yourself in this disempowering loop (the swirling sediment), you feel the contracting pain of it, but soften into it so it doesn't define you. Then you drop into the void preceding the experience, you fall into the eye of the storm. Now you watch for an authentic aspect of beingness that wants to arise. For example, you suddenly realise that they are only disempowering themselves, and that you've been fueling that. So in stepping out of the dynamic, you feel total peace and serenity - this would be the ray 2 aspect of the soul (see Seven Rays of Divine Impulse). And now out of the serenity humour arises. You crack a joke, in a friendly way, that helps them see how they were disempowering themselves (this might be the ray 4 coming through). Now a piece of synchronistic magic happens which confirms to them and you that Right Action is happening (this would be the ray 7). A positive feedback loop happens between you lifting both souls higher together.

So now you've started to recover the nuggets from the river bed - the lost aspects of soul (found in the seven rays). Once you've recovered that particular nugget, not only does the sediment no longer gather around it, but something else amazing happens: you no longer recreate the destructive and disempowering programs with the people around you. Those in your vicinity evolve themselves and you stop drawing to yourself new people to activate that broken aspect. It's the Law of Attraction working and it's truly miraculous!

It's what evolution really means. As Ben mentioned, the process openway is designed to facilitate this. In fact in the example given above, this is openway in action.

Chris

PS: in referring to the Law of Attraction, I'm in no way supporting distorting the law by purposefully trying to create a more rosy reality of the lower desires as some work advocates (The Secret for example).

Wow. That's ace. I am going to have to re-read that Chris, to really understand it, but it's certainly stirred something in me! Openway just feels so RIGHT, after so many years of ....wrongness I guess. I think that in Western therapeutic techniques, the idea is to prune away the pain, like loose feathers, which is the opposite of working with it, embracing it etc - you just end up with a bald bird! I won't waffle now, I'll write more when I've had a good think about what you've written. A most profound THANK-YOU x

That was quite a response, Chris.

lot's to think about. I find it takes me a little while to fully process the impact of some of your insights. So many jewels of wisdom.

Many thanks, Lisa

Hi hi. No, I can safely say that no cousellor has ever tried to re-integrate broken parts of my soul. How do you know, in so much as, what does it feel like, when a broken part has been re-integrated? For example, I am spending time with various forms of my pain at the moment, and am becoming (it's a process!) ok with it. One day last week I cried in bed and didn't want comforting, didn't want distracting away from it, I needed to experience it, FEEL it, which I was happy (read "content") to do. I ended falling into a deep sleep. I don't know what that means. I don't know if the pain has gone some way to being resolved and so I slept, or if the sleep distracted me! I'm not sure if I entirely understand the concept of "dropping into the void". I entirely agree with what you say about getting stuck in the therapy loop though! Recently (before being off the anti-depressants) I told a Dr I felt tired, achy, but like there was something really "wrong". His response was "of course you do! You have depression! What do you expect?!" - this epitomises for me the notion of "you feel depressed, expect to always feel this way, there is no possibility of improvement" which before I believed. I believed that I would forever live in the cycles of depression, just that some days would be better than others. But I don't believe that any more. In examining the depressive feelings, I AM seeing a way off the roundabout!
I read the article about the 7 rays, and am still digesting that.
Thanks Chris, this journey is ace *thumbs up* x

Hi everyone So at the moment I am "not efforting" and am being more ok with myself. I feel less pressured to recover / progress and am just being more aware of myself, and meditating on what I see. It's good I have a question: can anyone direct me to some authentic reading on past lives please? I say authentic, because there is so much material out there, but I don't know where it's from, or who or what it's motivated by, and so I don't know how safe it is. I'm not entirely sure why I use the word "safe" but I can't think of a better alternative.
Is there any Openhand material on it, or is it something that's better discussed / experienced face to face, rather than just being read about? I would like to understand myself better, and have some nagging sensations which may or may not be related to past life experiences - I just don't know enough about it to make sense of them.
I am continuing to enjoy the site, and my journey.
Many thanks
R x