What Do You Identify With? The Ego Knows

Posted on February 29, 2008 by Pat

We hear a lot these days about identity and identity theft. What are we losing when we lose our identity according to the world’s standards? How attached are you to the things you identify with? I was thinking about this and something else today in more depth after reading Andrea Hess’ post called The Leap Into Growth. Something she said really struck home as I have been wondering “What in the world is going on?” since the beginning of this year.

FIRST PART OF AN AWAKENING
The first part of this understanding and awakening in making some sense out of my life right now came from these words of hers:

“Sometimes, if we’re truly bogged down in our comfort zone, life itself will conspire to toss us over the edge of our own perceived limitations. Our circumstances seem to crumble around us, making forward movement no longer a matter of choice, but of survival.

Who or what is pushing you out of your comfort zone right now? Honor these people and situations as your master teachers. They are serving you on your path, perhaps in ways you don’t appreciate right now. It may seem that they are conspiring to make you fall into the abyss of the unknown. But perhaps, as you go over that cliff, you realize that you are not falling – you are flying!”

Mother-in-law hospitalized, horse dying, losing job, bills piling up, plumbing backs up, truck blows up………ughhhh! She described my family’s life situations perfectly. We were in survival mode. You would think something is conspiring against you but the “Ah-ha” moment came when I realized from her post that we’ve been in a major spiritual and physical transition and we have been resisting by continuing in our preconceived limitations. We have been looking at life situations from the old perspective. It’s time we no longer hold onto how things worked in the past and how we handled them then. I am now, as she says, “honoring these situations as my master teachers” and looking and listening for spiritual guidance on the next steps to take. I now realized what was happening.

SECOND PART OF AN AWAKENING
The second part of the beginning of this awakening for me started through the reading of Eckhart Tolle’s book called A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (Oprah’s Book Club. In this book, he talks about ego and explains how it operates. I’m only a couple chapters in but what’s significant to me so far is how the ego uses identification. If we associate the “I” with wanting or having then, when things start going amuck, our self-worth is shattered because we’ve identified “I” with what we don’t have. Tolle says it so much better in several ways:

“The egoic mind is completely conditioned by the past. Its conditioning is twofold: It consists of content and structure.”

“One of the most basic mind structures through which the ego comes into existence is identification. … So when I identify with something, I “make it the same.” The same as what? The same as I. I endow it with a sense of self, and so it becomes part of my “identity.””

““I don’t have enough yet.” by which the ego really means, “I am not enough yet.”

So, if, without realizing it, I identify my self-worth with lack it will constantly be reinforced and what I am really saying is…that I am not enough. The awakening part is to realize what we are identifying with and what it is really saying about who we are. You have to start to become aware of it for it to begin to unravel and change.

It’s powerful when you learn to be the observer in your life situations and not judge. Just open your awareness and things will begin to transform. They have already for me just in what I read and absorbed today and in writing this. My identity wasn’t stolen it was just misplaced by attaching its importance to the wrong things. Who I am doesn’t change by situations. Who I am is intact and when I align myself with that instead of what I may identify with my life is transformed.

***Oprah Winfrey is having a free 10-week teleclass on Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (Oprah’s Book Club), starting this coming Monday, March 3rd. If you’re interested in reading this book and participating in this class, you can still sign up on her site.

From the kitchen table – Pat
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An Example of Unconditional Love

Posted on February 28, 2008 by Pat

“Blondes have more fun?” Or do they? What is the attraction we have to one another and how does that compare to real love – unconditional love? TV commercials and ads in newspapers and magazines, not to mention ads on billboards and busses, all appeal to physical senses to get us to buy something. It suggests if it doesn’t look good, smell good or sound good it has very little value. That’s not to say that beauty isn’t pleasurable. It is and is intended to be but you don’t stop there. With our relationships, we need to go deeper. Physical attraction has its place but it will never take root unless it grows and that growth takes place in the heart and spirit. With all the conditioning everywhere, how do we detect true love, aside from our physical senses, and love from the heart?

When you love someone unconditionally, you love them from spirit to spirit passing through physical appearances. It’s the deepest kind of love. Having a dear friend or loved one and never considering their height, skin color or beauty is loving them from the heart. I have relationships that go deeper than physical appearances and I’m sure you do as well. As the years go by, these relationships only grow stronger while we change and learn from each other.

From a page that I stumbled on in StumbleUpon, written by IcyCucky at Quazen, is a story showing us an example of extraordinary love. This brief story talks about a relationship between Jeremy and Christianne and demonstrates the power of unconditional love when there’s imperfection and challenges. Both teenagers fell in love and Christianne found herself pregnant at the age of 19. That wasn’t the only challenge; Christianne is a dwarf and can’t walk very far and Jeremy suffers from attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD). They could have made different choices – go their different ways or not have the baby – but they didn’t. I like the observation of the writer in this piece when she says:

“I have heard the expression “love is blind”, but I think love is just beautiful What can be more incredible when two humans just love each other for who they are, the way they are, and do not see limitations in other’s as handicap?”

Maybe you don’t agree with their choices and your reasons may or may not be valid but putting aside opinions, beliefs, physical appearances and senses, the beauty is their discovery of unconditional love at such a young age. Can we support them in this? I believe we should. As the years go by and they grow weary at times, will their young unconditional love continue to grow stronger? I believe it can. I hope in the midst of their challenges, there will be people around them to be a voice for them with love and encouragement. We can learn from their example how to give to each other – yin and yang. Where there’s weakness the other brings strength; when there are doubts and fears, the other embraces with emotional courage.

Love is not blind when it’s unconditional. It will pass the test of time. Only when we get a glimpse of the only true way to love will we have a chance to know. Love comes in so many ways and as Jeremy and Christianne show us, it’s the beauty beyond our physical senses.

From the ol’ kitchen table – Pat

Living Our Amazing Lives – Fully

Posted on February 27, 2008 by Pat

I read two posts today that made me realize how incredible my life is (see Challenge: Stop Existing and Start Living an Amazing Life by Self Made Chick) and how I can be truly happy in this wonderfully amazing life (see Personal Hack’s post Desire Without Attachment to Outcome). When you stop to think that we only get one chance to live the life we dreamed, why would we want to settle for anything less? It seems like I’ve spent almost a lifetime working on myself – change this attitude, work out this belief – and I settled for whatever came my way. These two wonderful posts shed some needed light on how precious my life is and to go for it with joy.

I have come a long way, as I’m sure most of you have in personal growth. I’m proud of what I’ve learned and overcome but what I realized is that instead of fully working on how much more I should improve, I need to live fully appreciating who I have become. How can I do that and be fully alive?

1. Let go….truly let go. Take care of what you can and let the rest go turning it over to our Source. We wonder why we don’t see what we want happening and it’s because we don’t truly let go and trust. When we want something, let go of the outcome. Also, let go of people’s opinions and what they think you should or should not be doing. No one can understand what you feel from the inside, only you. Honor that.

2. Don’t live in fear. Recognize it and change it by visioning being happy in the present moment. Identify if you’re looking for happiness in your life situations or your aliveness. As Andrew in Personal Hack says,

“As I mentioned your life situation are your current circumstances and situations in life. Your aliveness on the other hand is separate from your life situation. Your aliveness is your present moment, it’s here and now regardless of your past or your future.”

Realizing the difference in these two allows you to see if you’re putting all your energy for happiness in the wrong place. “Embrace the fact that fear and rejection are part of the process,” as said by Christine in Challenge: Stop Existing and Start Living an Amazing Life. When you take risks in life to realize your dream it’s only normal that you would encounter fear and some rejection. Don’t stop there. The world is waiting for a cure for cancer or world peace and it’s waiting for you and me to step up, take part and play our roles.

3. Look at failure differently, not as a measurement of your worth but what you still need to do to realize your success. Very few hit the mark the first time out. It’s a process where we continually keep molding and redefining our ambitions and life’s dreams – our amazing life. Build on the little successes as they come and be open to change and direction to make it better.

4. Set yourself up to succeed. The Universe believes in succeeding and you see it in nature. It turns whatever is available or whatever situation that happens into good by rebuilding, changing and improving. When there is a forest fire nature rebuilds and some flowers that had never been able to survive before in the thick of a forest can now germinate and grow. Meadows flourish and animals have more forage. Set your vision on success and it will follow.

These are some things I realized in reading these posts in how to take charge of my life. It’s my life, the only one I have been blessed with….and I want to live it amazingly. How about you? Let’s all do it together.

From the kitchen table – Pat
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Keeping the Faith

Posted on February 26, 2008 by Pat

                        Faith

When you walk to the edge of all the light you have
and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown,
you must believe that one of two things will happen:

      There will be something solid for you to stand upon,
      or, you will be taught how to fly

© 1997 Patrick Overton

“Used by Permission from the Author”

This is my favorite poem and especially at this time of my life when life issues are making demands and there are a lot of unknowns it’s particularly comforting.

In the darkest hour, I hope you would look to your Source as I have and trust as this poem tells us. It’s not what you see, it’s what you believe in your heart and how you align with it. It’s keeping the faith.

From the kitchen table – Pat
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More to Be Said About Gratitude

Posted on February 23, 2008 by Pat

Volumes have been written about gratitude and what I write here might get lost with all of what has already been written. Having said that, I’ll write because it’s something I’m feeling at this time and believe it to be important. So, to end out the week let’s add more to the volumes and talk about Gratitude.

(Photo by Robert Aichinger aka Raichinger at www.sxc.hu.home)

Lately, I’ve been writing on things that have hit closer to home than I dare to admit (see previous posts 6 Ways to Overcome Adversity and 5 Ways to Find Peace) and I’ve felt the writing was speaking to my soul to teach and inform me as I put the words to paper. Again, the same is true on this post as I write about gratitude. I feel it is such a key component to our spiritual growth and how we develop.

We can practice all the proper steps of meditating, keeping our thoughts in check, affirming our intentions and more but if we aren’t in the right frame of mind while we’re practicing all of these things, it’s neutralized. Being in a state of humility and thankfulness whatever our situation should be our first approach to seeking guidance and answers not to mention the peace we feel.

As I look over my life I am thankful for:

the times someone came into my life just when I needed them

for the time when money appeared to put my mother to rest

an angel who scooped my daughter up before she hit the floor (see post Entertaining Angels Unawares)

a grandmother that I adored and showed me love and pointed me to spirituality

a family of my own – husband, children and grandchildren – all in good health and learning, growing and being who their supposed to be on the paths they have chosen

to live in the beauty and see the wildlife that is all around me in our home in the Rocky Mountains

to have a Creator that loves me and wants the best for me

my health and strength and ability to work and play

and much, much more….

Most of these I’ve written posts about – too many to reference them all here. But it’s not how the answers arrive or what we end up getting that is the point here. It’s knowing and feeling the love of a greater power and Source than what you see and that everything is going to be okay. The sweetness of that knowing means more than what is going on and that’s when you say, “thank you”, from the heart.

What are you truly thankful for at this juncture in your life? Are you in need of a miracle right now? The place to start is to humbly be thankful for this gift of life that you have and all that you’ve been blessed with. Keep this in mind as you go into prayer with your requests, feel it and say……thank you.

From the kitchen table – Pat
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