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ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: Hostage Situation – Inside Yourself?
What part of you is holding another part hostage?
If that question is hard to answer, then try this one: What is Fear keeping you from doing in your life?
We have so many fears, many of them unconscious, and they can cripple our progress through life. Sometimes it is a fear of public speaking (have you heard that this is often greater than the fear of death?) or it might be a fear of spiders. Some have a fear of flying that keeps them from enjoying vacations to distant lands.
But most of the fears that I see with clients represent a conflict between a part that wants to step forward and a part that is afraid to do that.
It can be around any issue: a relationship, a job, money, family, taking a risk, making a decision. There is a feeling of wanting to move and yet, at the same time, a sense of paralysis.
Have you ever felt this way? Perhaps you are feeling this today around something that is going on in your life.
What have you thought about doing that you are not doing YET? What has been hanging around waiting for the perfect time for you to commit to it? Where do you want to go in your life that you have been afraid to move toward?
There is always some fear lurking in the issue when we feel torn about a decision or making a move in a certain direction. Sometimes the fear is that we don’t know what to do next. It might be a fear that we’ll make the wrong decision or choice and there will be consequences.
The part inside of you that is holding you hostage to a fear may not be revealing the exact nature of that fear to you. Often a client will come to me with one issue and the REAL issue is something behind the one they can see.
I spent a VIP Day with a client once who wanted to plan out her business and marketing as we discussed in her preparatory session. She came with calendars and plans in hand. What happened during our hours together, though, showed why she had been unable to get those plans organized.
There were family issues to be resolved before her unconscious mind would allow her to leap forward in her business. We spent most of the time working through the blocks and fears that had been lurking behind her indecisiveness.
After the work of clearing those blocks and fears, we sailed through the business part of the planning!
That is the power of CLEARING THE FEAR! When a part of you is being held hostage by a fearful part, you must learn what the fear is and how to satisfy the part that holds the fear BEFORE you can take the next step in whatever area of your life where you feel stuck.
How are you holding yourself back in your life? Have you identified the fear?
Move the fear out of the way so that you can move freely toward the life you desire!
ROSEMARY’S INSPIRATION: What Are You Holding Back in Yourself?
Rosemary’s “Two-Minute” Video for this Week: What Are You Holding Back in Yourself?
FRIDAY’S POEM FROM “RHYTHMS AND CYCLES” – Love, Forgiveness, Gratitude
I wrote today’s poem in early 2013 as a way to live that year, life. There is a cycling about this poem of circles, hinges and turnings. And with faith there is a spiraling that powers the evolution of consciousness. There may be other acts that we, as humans, need to live by, but for me these are three of the most important ones:
Love, Forgiveness, Gratitude
Three acts to live by:
Love, where it all begins
And ends.
The circle of everything
Turns with the tides
As the Moon loves down.
Forgiveness, in the middle,
The hinge.
It all turns on this act,
Swinging ‘round and ‘round
As a gateless gate for passage.
Gratitude, the end,
No end.
Turning about the center
Where it All rests
As we give thanks and praise.
Love, Forgiveness, Gratitude:
Grace.
©2014 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: Create Your Baby!
What is waiting for you to create NOW? Not next year. Not someday. But now.
It is easy to dream up great ideas and to plan to make them become reality, but until you take action to create them in the physical plane, they will remain ideas. What is on your drawing board that is waiting for some action?
I am not a fan of regrets or of looking backwards, but when I hear someone say that they wish they had done something differently in the past, I want to suggest that they take action in THIS PRESENT MOMENT instead of looking to what might have been.
You are always at choice in your life. You are always ready to create your next ‘baby.’ No matter what the circumstances of this moment might look like to you, you can always choose to move in the direction of that creative idea, that dream.
What is one step that you can take to give a signal to the Universe that you are ready to make that dream become a reality? It doesn’t have to be huge. You don’t have to have all your ducks in a row. You don’t have to have worked out all the steps required to finish it.
You only need to know what the one next step needs to be.
And then you need to take that step!
Creating something requires a choice to move and an action to follow up that choice. Are you focusing on what you don’t have available? Are you focusing on the overwhelming nature of the full project instead of the requirements of the one step in front of you?
The most important choice that you make is the choice of thoughts that you will think.
Really. This is most important. Your thoughts really do create your reality. Many people try to deny this but worrying about something you DON’T want energizes that which you don’t want. You want to program your unconscious mind to focus energy on that which you DO want and you make this happen by choosing your thoughts to support the direction of your creative dream.
When you have a creative idea, when you get an inspiration, that idea exists in another dimension and you have been given access to that idea as the ‘keeper of the creation.’ It then becomes your responsibility to pursue that creation.
Do you feel that you have an overwhelming list of creative ideas and that you can’t possibly accomplish them all? This is a great place to be! You are being invited to capture the ideas and then to use your intuition to prioritize the development of those ideas into projects.
It is important to ask yourself, ‘Is it mine to take action on this idea?’ Sometimes your role is to receive the idea and then to hand it off to someone else or bring it to a team. Sometimes your creative idea meshes with someone else’s for great synergy.
But if you don’t take action in the direction of those creative ideas, how will you find the partner? How will you make everything come together? How will your creative idea ever become reality?
Start your creative process TODAY. Figure out your ONE NEXT STEP.
Nine months (or earlier!) from now, when your creative ‘baby’ is born you’ll be glad you took the action you decided to take today!
ROSEMARY’S INSPIRATION: What Are You Ready to Birth?
Rosemary’s “Two-Minute” Video for this Week: What Are You Ready to Birth?
New Moon in Libra I Ching Divination
For each new moon I cast an I Ching Gua – a six line hexagram of solid and broken lines (Yang and Yin) lines. I use the yarrow stalk method to derive the Gua. And I use The Complete I Ching by Taoist Master Alfred Huang as my main source to interpret the Gua.
The new moon in the sign of Libra occurred last Wednesday, September 24, at 2:14 am EDT. I cast the Gua on that day to get an idea of the energies coming in for the month. The initial Gua is pictured here. It is Huan which means “dispersing.” Huan is composed of two trigrams, Wind over Water (Xun over Kun). Wind can also mean Wood. The picture I get is of a wooden bridge spanning a large river. It is favorable to proceed, to cross the river.
Notice there are two changing lines in this initial Gua. The second line (from the bottom) is a 9 (a weak yang line) and the third line is a 6 (a weak yin line). Master Huang suggests reading the yin line so the 6 changes to a nine yielding a new, accomplished Gua pictured here.
The accomplished Gua is a double trigram, Wind over Wind, Xun, which means Proceeding Humbly. This means proceeding like a gentle breeze, which can go everywhere. It suggests using caution as we move forward.
Proceeding with humility does not mean moving forward from a position of weakness, but from one of balance. There is no need to feel superior, nor is there a need to feel weak.
Overall there is good movement forward after a period of dispersing of some energy. The changing line at the third position signifies a release of self-centeredness, selfish pursuits. When this third line changes to a nine it signifies it is auspicious to proceed from a position of both humility and strength.
Now that we are moving beyond the Autumnal Equinox and into the sign of Libra, a time of balance, it is good to keep this balance in mind. Move into autumn gently, like a fall breeze blowing through the trees.
And remember, there is nothing static about balance!
You Are Not Your Stories – Richard’s Commentary
Here’s the core of Rosemary’s Exploration posted yesterday:
It is so easy to ‘story ourselves’ into our victimhood and we hide behind our stories until it becomes difficult to find the real person behind the mask of story.
I love this little phrase: “story ourselves into victimhood.” And sometimes the stories are not even our own, but our parents’ stories or even multi-generational stories passed along through time.
An example of this is my parents’ stories from the era of the Great Depression. My Dad had to quit school after the 8th grade to go to work to help support the family. My Mom tells of a Christmas when she got an orange in her stocking as her only gift! Those times were tough, no doubt! And, for Mom they created a deep sense of insecurity around money and a sense of fear around not having enough. Yet, growing up on a Wisconsin dairy farm we always had enough.
My mother’s sense of “lack” has been passed along in my unconscious mind and I continue to work with this story. I have always had enough – enough to eat, comfortable shelter, great jobs, a fabulous family – everything a guy could ever want. But there is a little voice in the back of my mind that still says things like: “we can’t afford that”, or “maybe someday when…”
As I look back I have been blessed, taken care of, never experiencing the “poverty” my mother spoke of and carried forward in her stories. But a small piece of her story is alive in me. I am not that story and I work on moving it out of my life, catching myself in the feeling of lack, remembering I am not lacking in anything and sensing a deep trust that I will always be taken care of.
Rosemary adds: The only reason to tell a story is to show how you’ve grown beyond it so that you can help someone else experience the same growth. I can safely tell my “money story” because I have grown beyond it. And I continue to grow beyond it!
We are in California now visiting our newest grandson, Tristan. A few days before leaving I checked our financial accounts and mentioned to Rosemary we would have to be mindful of the budget on the trip. Within two days she booked a client for a year-long program, paid in full! Trust is always preferable to any sense of lack! The reminders just keep coming.
It’s OK to remember the stories, just don’t get stuck in them. Remember the lessons and move on.
And enjoy the New Moon, Wednesday, 2:14 am EDT.
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: You Are Not Your Stories
How many times have you heard yourself repeating a story about something that happened to you, or that you learned about yourself as a child, or that some parent or teacher convinced you was true and, yet, inside, there was a niggling doubt that that story is still true about you today?
Or maybe you keep telling that story without even realizing that it belongs to the past and no longer holds any truth for the you who is showing up in your life today?
It is so easy to ‘story ourselves’ into our victimhood and we hide behind our stories until it becomes difficult to find the real person behind the mask of story.
Years ago (okay, decades ago) I sold cosmetics at home parties part time (yes, your guess is right about which one!) and I had a woman attend her neighbor’s party to try out the new cosmetics. She came in wearing orangey makeup over deep pockmarks and sat at the table with the others to follow the program, removing her makeup and trying on what I was offering. After hearing her friends around the table exclaim over her new look and how great she looked, she requested some additional cleanser, got out her bag and reapplied her orangey stuff before she walked out the door to cross the street to her home.
The hostess was embarrassed and apologetic but I assured her that it was okay with me. Each of us needs to feel comfortable about the way we show up in the world. This woman needed that mask before she could even walk across the street to go home. She ignored her friends compliments and went behind the familiar mask, even though the new cosmetics were more flattering.
How easy it is to wear what’s familiar, even if it’s not the best for us? We sometimes find comfort in the familiar when it is painful just because we don’t want to move into new energy.
What is your security blanket? What mask do you wear that keeps you hiding from your beautiful real self because it is familiar and comfortable, even if your real self is more beautiful?
Uncovering the real self behind the mask is the work of personal growth. The transformations can be amazing! And it means letting go of the old masks, the old stories that we hide behind before we can shine the light of our real self out into the world.
I have a problem with some of the support groups out there that have you staying the victim of your story by repeating it over and over again. Your story is A story. It does not define WHO YOU REALLY ARE. The only reason to tell a story is to show how you’ve grown beyond it so that you can help someone else experience the same growth.
Listen to yourself and your chatter. Notice that your stories might be repeatedly keeping you the victim instead of being stories of empowerment. Notice that you might be hiding your inner light behind a mask that you can shed now.
You are not your stories. Let the light of the real you shine into the world without a mask!
ROSEMARY’S INSPIRATION: Be Your Real Self!
Rosemary’s “Two-Minute” Video for this Week: Be Your Real Self!
MONDAY’S POEM: Old Grandmother
The Moon is old; can you feel it? Go inside and get in touch with her, with your own feelings. Experience her. I wrote today’s poem just a day or two ago as we are approaching the new Moon (Wednesday, September 24 at 2:14 AM EDT); approaching the new Moon means experiencing the old Moon. Also we are just moving into equinox which means we are moving into the Sun sign of Libra – balance in light and dark, balance in Libra. Find your balance.
Old Grandmother
Grandmother Moon
is whispering, sinking
fast into Sun’s arms!
Let go.
Release negativity.
Forgive.
Allow others
their space and lessons.
Let their lessons reflect
back to your own.
Find patience.
Breathe into the space
of expanding light.
Add gratitude.
Fill the releasing heart
with thanksgiving.
Embrace beauty.
It is all beautiful;
Sun and Moon together!
©2014 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Men and The Goddess 