Horizons Magazine
Andrea de Michaelis, Publisher
Photo taken 2005
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APRIL 2005
Re-framing a challenging childhood; spiritual "practice" means you practice what you know
until it's an automatic response; Jesus said "I have sheep of many folds; them also I bring
and they also hear my voice."
Hello and welcome to the April 2005 issue of Horizons Magazine.
Happy birthday this month to ME! Since I was born on the 100th day of the year, my dad used to say that I was 1 out of 100. That always made me feel special, and as kids we are always looking for ways to feel special, aren't we? I grew up in a home where my ideas were always supported and I was always encouraged in whatever I wanted to do. Ok, so maybe that is a classic Andrea-reframe of the life I actually experienced... hehe
Yes, I had a dad who drank during most of my adolescent and teen years and he could be very protective, occasionally paranoid and often psychologically abusive, but he was a good provider and never to my knowledge missed work because of his drinking. In his behalf, I'll say that he had a back injury most of his life and some days after work, the Canadian Club mixed with the painkillers in a stormy way and we kids bore the brunt of his altered mind when we acted up. Discipline was always pretty much out of proportion, as our adolescent crimes were mostly ones of parental disrespect and back talk. Can you relate? I was spanked until I was in my teens but I will say that while Dad often over-reacted, he never gave me a whippin' that I didn't provoke - by choosing to do the things that I knew would bring a response and consequence that I didn't want. Oh, but we're prideful when we're kids, aren't we?
My mom, however, was the saving grace. She'll tell me that Daddy wasn't in his right mind when he acted that way and said those things, and that no, I wouldn't be "sent to a mental institution if I didn't stop acting crazy." To Daddy, "acting crazy" was not doing your chores, backtalking, sneaking out. Mom explained that some people, when they are not thinking clearly, will say on purpose the very things they know will hurt the one they are talking to, and they do this as a kind of punishment for things they don't really know how to deal with. This made me perceive my father in another light, and it made it easier to grow up in that environment. It made it easier to see past his illusion.
It made me realize that no matter what my father would say, no matter what his perception of me was - in his altered state - that it had very little to do with who I really was and what I was all about.
My mother was fantastic at being supportive, listening to the tales of my teenage angst, and dispensing useful advice. Much of her advice was that no matter what was troubling me, it would soon pass and I would later see that something good came of it. She taught me that if I am in the midst of trouble - whether it was real trouble (my boyfriend broke up with me!) or whether I just imagined it to be trouble (he hasn't called, is he breaking up with me?) - if I would ask myself what good could possibly come out of this - I would start finding some answers. She'd say things like, the only reason something would ever be taken from me was so that I could get something better later. This got me through many a sleepless teenage night. And because of her support, I grew up having feeling good about myself and who I was and what I was capable of. Mom's greatest gift to me was probably that she helped me see past everyone else's illusion, although she wouldn't have used those words. Or at least she taught me to look past the illusion for the good in times of trouble.
I took dance and gymnastics as I was growing up, and often the competition would grow fierce. I found myself at times not doing my best because I didn't want to show up a favored friend who was in the same class. When my mom saw this happen a few times - she was always onto my tricks - she asked me about it and I explained to her that the winning wasn't always the important thing for me, and if it was important for my friend, then let her have it.
Mom would explain that if it was obvious to her that I was letting someone else win, it might be obvious to others, and it was likely embarrassing to my friend to have won that way. She explained that my winning did not take anything away from anyone else, because they had the same opportunity as I did to study and practice before the big event.
And one good thing about me being on restriction and confined to the yard for most of my teen years was that I got plenty of time to practice my gymnastics!
In this issue, Abraham-Hicks talks about this very topic. "It is not possible that you could be deprived of something that you want because someone else achieves it. There is prize enough for everyone. The Universe expands in direct proportion to the desires that you conjure."
Wayne Dyer says it another way in The Power Of Intention "Your intention to feel successful and experience prosperity and abundance depends on what view you have of yourself."
Don Miguel Ruiz says it still another way, "You can change your life by refusing to believe in lies." And this includes the lies you tell yourself via your internal dialogue, via that tape that plays in your head over and over and over and over.
Louise Hay addresses this by saying "The more miserable our thoughts, the more depressed we get and the more what we want stays away from us."
Ah! I love this one! Patricia Crane says "If you're not getting the results you want in life, it's time to shift your focus!"
Deepak Chopra says we can even change the aging process by changing our perception and setting a different intention.
I know it's true that when I set an intention, I always achieve it when I stay focused on my goal. Of course, sometimes I set a goal and in the process of making my way to it, I decide on a different goal and start heading toward that one instead. That's why the journey is more important than the destination. Because do we actually ever "arrive"?
How many times have you decided upon a goal and then did everything you could to get there and, once there, you realized that wasn't what you wanted after all? On the other hand, how many times have you headed in one direction and got sidetracked to an even better place? I've had that happen more times than I can count, so that allows me to have faith in the unseen, to have faith in the process.
It's easy for me to keep the mindset of "everything will work out fine" if that's all I've ever experienced. It's easy for me to feel that progress is taking place even when I don't see evidence of it, if I've been through the process enough times to understand how it works.
That's one purpose of spiritual "practice" - to practice what you have learned so that it becomes second nature to you. If you're not in an ongoing situation that requires you to make the tough decisions about how to act and react when challenging incidents come up, then you're not getting any practice at the doing of it, and it's less likely to be an automatic response when you need it.
I've heard people talking about how they "tried the path of staying positive" and how it didn't work and they report that the fact of "suppressing and denying their negative feelings" threw them back into more negativity than ever. Some say they've heard in church that it's dangerous to try to be positive all the time, that it's not natural.
These are people who don't understand the process and they are being taught by someone who doesn't know it either. If you don't understand the process, you are likely not doing it correctly and thus you can't judge the value of it.
Being positive doesn't mean suppressing anything or denying anything. Being positive means looking for the benefit in each situation, and there is benefit in every situation. Being positive doesn't mean that when someone you can't stand bumps into you with angry words that you have to pretend it doesn't matter and put on a happy face. That's what these people are being taught, and that has never worked.
Being positive means you acknowledge that you somehow attracted this person and this situation to you and you know that there's a lesson in there somewhere. The thought of that alone makes me smile. Knowing that somehow I attracted this to me makes me consider my part in the event. I know that this person is just reflecting something back at me, something that deserves my further attention. It's not always that I'm doing the same thing as the other, sometimes it just shows me something that I am judgmental about. I can either blame the person and be angry at them, showing that I take no responsibility, or I can chuckle at the Cosmic two by four I just got upside the head, knowing I attracted it.
Being positive doesn't mean you deny how you feel. Being positive demands that you consider the true source of your unhappiness, and express it in constructive ways. Let your emotion carry you deep into the heart of the matter. Find out why someone or something makes you angry, what you believe it takes away from you. And since no one can take anything away from you, well, we've come full circle here.
I have clients who go to every denomination of church you can imagine, many of them evangelical and fundamental. You know the type - their church gives more podium time to "satan" than to God (what is that all about anyway???) They 've been taught that there's just one way - their way - or the highway. They've been taught that all the rest of us are headed for eternal damnation unless they save us from it, and they always quote the Bible out of context rather than have a discussion. To those who were taught that, I say, take comfort in your superstition, but don't preach to someone who is not asking for your help.
In John 10:16, Jesus said "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I bring and they also hear my voice." To sheep of all folds I say, despite our diversity of beliefs, have a little faith that God is working it all out for us. Enjoy our offering this month. Hari Om.