Introduction

Last week’s blog, “How to Quit a Habit,” led me to contemplate questions whose answers create a future worth living. If you’re reading this blog, you’re most likely interested in elevated perspectives, too, and realize humanity needs all the Real help it can get.

Indigenous Prophecies

Many indigenous prophecies speak of how humanity has endured destructive phases in the past. They also seem to agree that we can’t expect to be rescued by aliens, angels, or anyone else.

No. The task for humanity this time is to step up to the plate and take responsibility for rescuing ourselves. It’s time to resolve our presumed traumas and shadows, i.e., evil or “live” spelled backward, take our power as Divine Beings and the Love Consciousness we are, and fulfill our Destiny.

I don’t know about you, but I am pulling out every tool in my toolbox, connecting with other like-minded peeps, and am leaning in this direction. I am also pouring my heart into encouraging you similarly if you resonate.

Questions for Healing Humanity

Tony Robbins elevated my perspective many, many years ago regarding a Biblical quote, “Ask and you will receive.” His thought was you don’t have to ask anyone in particular. No. You can ask the whole Universe, and IT will answer your question. I have been experimenting with this idea for decades since I heard him point at it, and he’s right. It works! All the answers to everything are at our fingertips and we don’t always have to go online for a lot of the important ones.

Here’s how it works. Create a question we want to be answered by our Source and follow it up with a deep intentional breath. On the exhale, we let the question go, get on with our day or fall asleep if it’s that time. Make a habit of asking great questions to the Universe, feeling them fulfilled, and observing what happens. We need to work smart on this stuff.

Use or adjust the following deep questions to your preferred musings. These are meant to get answers that open up our future into one worth having. Think of the possibilities. Imagination is the doorway to more than we can dream.

What would happen if our combined intent to send questions into our Source of Being to create a future worth living proved to help set a clear direction for restoring wholeness and integrity to human existence?

Question # 1

How would it be if humanity sought to pay more attention to balanced solutions to our mounting issues, starting with our personal lives and rippling out en masse?

Question # 2

How can we learn to trust ourselves as it gets increasingly more difficult to trust those who lead us? What happens when two or more make collective decisions with integrity or wholeness? Does the Light of their attention draw others to it?

Question # 3

When you turn a light switch on in a dark room, the darkness disappears when the Light hits it. Similarly, when we shine our Light on a shadow, the shadow goes poof. Isn’t it time for us all to release our trauma, turn on our Lights and illuminate our way through the tangle of issues that face us, one by one or all at once?

Question # 4

Could enough people sending an intention of a barrage of Love Boms to Russia and Ukraine and ALL our leaders worldwide be influential in de-escalating the war in Europe to the level where a solution can and will be found?

Question # 5

What does it take for a self-created out-of-balance society starting with me, to come into balance?

Question # 6

What will it take for each of us to recognize and realize who we really are en masse?

Question # 7

Can humanity exist without so much suffering? Can you and I? Yes. “Pain is necessary, but suffering is optional.” (Buddha) Darkness is necessary. Evil is optional. One teaches and may cause pain. The latter causes suffering. Discovering the distinction between the two is golden.

Conclusion

We are all One, so any answers received by one will benefit the Whole of Humanity; let’s get our questions in order so the answers move us toward a greater restored peace, prosperity, and True freedom.

The above are only a few questions whose answers may help bring a future worth living. I know countless others are waiting to be asked.

In Love and Trust,
Kaye

Introduction 

This week’s blog is about how to quit a habit via a story. It worked for me, and I envision it can work for you, too.

You may know the father of holistic medicine, Edgar Cayce, recommended moderation in all things for people as a general guideline for general health and well-being. He also said moderation was not an easy task for most. If my own life and those I’ve known are examples, I agree with Edgar.

A bicycling, fully employed ninety-six-year-old once told me that being consistent with his diet and health was the most challenging but critical task he had ever had. The hardest thing I ever had to stop was a cigarette addiction. I know. Gross. But don’t judge. I felt ashamed enough of my unhealthy behavior for a hundred people. I was in denial of my slow suicide, and I went out of my way to hide my addiction or thought I did.

Mark Twain Said It Best.

Like most smokers, including master writer Mark Twain, “It is easy to quit smoking. Why I’ve done it a thousand times.”

My father smoked like a chimney was one, but he was never successful. He smoked– unfiltered Lucky Strikes back in the day. As a child, I was attracted to the name. When you think about it, who doesn’t want to have endless lucky strikes at a whim? Those sly tobacco companies knew how to name a brand.

His choices didn’t stop me from seeking ways to help myself quit. For years, ceasing the habit didn’t “take” with me either. Hypnosis or chewing Nicorette gum didn’t work for me. Neither did the tape that programmed me to stop smoking for life nor the training that tried to instill fear of smoking with all sorts of scary threats if I didn’t quit.

Finally, it wasn’t the dozens of well-meaning but judgmental lectures from healthcare practitioners and friends that helped either. Countless times, I tried quitting by myself and with buddies, and once even in a group.

Examining the Mindset and Other Hurdles

I didn’t give up. One-by-one, I sorted through the hurdles. One was that all of my family members and many of my inner circle of friends smoked cigarettes. It was an impromptu social event to do it together.

Another was the suppressed and repressed anger that started appearing when I quit. I was always so calm and peaceful when I smoked.

Never wearing clothing more than once, brushing my teeth each time I had a cigarette, driving with the car window down, refusing to smoke in my house, but only outside, and thinking I was keeping the odor, my shame, and habit/addiction a secret. I seriously needed a wake-up call to the out-of-balance situation.

Later, after quitting, I occasionally mentioned to a friend or co-worker that I had been a smoker and had stopped. And invariably, they would always say, “I knew you were a smoker.” We don’t hide anything even when we think we do.  

Life mightily assists us on our wisdom path when we are open to it. I feel like a different person than the one in my old story because I am. I could not dare to share these things once upon a time. It feels like freedom to do so, to tell the truth as best as I can, shadows and all.

It is also doubly worth sharing my obsessiveness, addiction, and process of disentangling from life-taking influences and patterns I’ve worked through with you, dear reader. Human life can be tricky at times for any of us, and I would love this sharing to assist your process of letting go of old patterns and behaviors, even in the smallest of ways. 

The Wake-Up Call I Picked Up

What finally tripped the switch was one thing. My father had an aneurysm and ended up in the hospital. They put him on oxygen; afterward was caught smoking five times! He could have blown himself and his room up, maybe hurt others, but he could not stop smoking. Finally, they kicked him out of the hospital for it. And that was a big deal for our family.

That was what did it for me. I could not imagine being at the end of life with all it entails and having to quit a lifelong habit such as smoking cigarettes. I decided right then and there that I would “quit until I quit, and quit I would. There had to be a way, and I would find it.

You can’t solve a problem on the same level which created it.

                                                                                       Albert Einstein

Another approach was necessary. For decades, I’ve been a fan with some success at asking Love Consciousness a question and letting the answer find its way back to me. It’s a unique variation of “ask, and you will receive.” I was starting at square one, so I asked. “What do I need first?”

A few nights later, I was sitting in my backyard (smoking a cigarette and enjoying the fireflies) and heard the answer in my head. “Mind is the Builder.” To begin with, “Ask yourself how you can want to quit smoking cigarettes more than you want to continue smoking.” Once the answer to this first question shows up, you will find your way to success.

I needed to build my desire to quit more than continue smoking. What a sound answer it turned out to be. This helped me learn “Everything is an inside job.” Once we get clear and focused inside, the outside takes care of itself.

A Quit Date

Ninety days in the future became my target date to become a nonsmoker. My most successful attempts to quit smoking for the most extended lengths were planned rather than “cold turkey,” which was always short-lived. We each have what works for us best. 

Preparations

In the meantime, I pondered, “How can I want to become a nonsmoker rather than continue smoking — without health issues?” Soon, I began to feel ready and to look forward to being a nonsmoker. I asked other questions, too.

“What didn’t help when I quit before.” “What helped when I quit before?” “What hurdles will there be?” “How shall I handle the anger and other negative emotions that I stuffed along the way with the addiction?” What can I do to make this effort successful? I trusted the answers would show up, and they did.

Visualizing in advance was recommended. I envisioned people asking me if I wanted a smoke in stressful situations. I would answer in each, “No, thank you. I’m a nonsmoker.” I decided to use Nicotine patches, reducing them in potency over three months, to help with the physical withdrawal, a rubber band to snap against my wrist to pattern-interrupt cravings (ouch!), and long walks on the beach when the anger would boil up.

Realizing that certainly, after about a million cravings – the end of craving is the end of craving – just like the end of suffering is no more suffering. I visualized getting through the temporary onslaught of difficulty I saw coming and fulfilling my quest. If I had any resistance, I would remind myself to “just quit until you love being a nonsmoker. Then decide if you want to start again.”

Becoming a Nonsmoker

The day came. It was in the summer sometime in 1996 when, after thirty years of being addicted to cigarettes, I finally had my last one. The first three days and into three weeks were rough, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I took long walks on the beach. I dreamed my father offered me a cigarette, and I accepted. I was so happy to wake up and realize it was a dream and I had not put the stuff in my body.

Around six months out, I realized I genuinely loved being a nonsmoker, and all cravings for nicotine and cigarettes finally dissolved. Where once my whole life revolved around replenishing nicotine in my body, it is no longer of any consequence whatsoever. I am free of it.

I am also not bothered by other people smoking; I have no judgment about it or people who smoke. Many people have a much easier time quitting than I did, but I was able, with the help of questioning the One-Who-Knows-the-Answers-to-All-Questions, listening to the answers, and applying them.

Conclusion

In this little blog named, How to Quit a Habit, you have now read a strategy that worked to change one habit, in this case, smoking cigarettes, to becoming a nonsmoker. It inspires you to find your best path to successfully transforming dreary old life-taking habits into renewal and freedom from them.

Here’s a question for you. Is there something you would like to drop, change or add to your life? If so, maybe consider asking some questions to get your mindset moving in the right direction and other questions whose answers support your success. So simple, yet very powerful.

Thank you for your comments.

Love and Gratitude,
Kaye

Introduction

To start 2023, I offer you a blog about three milestones on the path to personal awakening we reach that came to mind recently. Ideas for blogs are always plentiful. It’s the execution of them in a way that makes sense, is semantically precise, and also hopefully serves your best that’s the tricky part. I invite you to add your comments.

We’ll approach each milestone one at a time to explore the hallmarks of that part of the journey, i.e., what there is to glean and what is better left behind as we proceed.

Our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual fortitude at any given moment may determine our pace, or maybe the speed is already pre-determined. We can’t know for sure. What we do know is that seemingly losing ground and then gathering our best strength to keep moving forward helps crystalize our advancement to the new milestone we’ve reached.

With each milestone, true inner freedom increases.

The First Milestone  — Sleepwalking in Our Conditioning

At the first milestone, we appear to be at the mercy of the world around us. Our parents and immediate environment teach us about our world. We are deeply “conditioned” with these “teachings” and often traumatized in ways we know and don’t know. These traumas express via life-taking feelings, beliefs, thoughts, behaviors, and actions, all rooted in the sense of separation from our Source of Being.

While traversing the first milestone, we often feel like life is happening to us, it is the way it is, and we are powerless to do anything about it. In our confused plight, we turn around and blame others for all our problems. In this unevolved victim state of perspective, we suffer greatly and project our pain onto others. We are sleepwalking and deeply misinformed about life and ourselves at Milestone One.

Each milestone holds a treasure

“. . .just like the lotus, we too have the ability to rise from the mud, bloom out of the darkness and radiate into the world.” — Unknown

As time marches on, we may be blessed to perceive or to have it pointed out to us that we are engaged in repeated patterns of suffering. We may become sick and tired of old and painful habits, tendencies, and practices that seem to stick to us no matter what we do. We slowly, or occasionally in a flash, eventually realize how we remain the one common denominator in all our suffering. And blaming ourselves is no better than blaming others.

At this point, the pain drives us to find a way to get humble, i.e., flexible in perspective and seek a new perspective to stop the suffering. Here we begin to wake up, but to what, we’re not exactly sure. We do know that we want to forge a new path in life rather than succumb to being controlled by the past or others in ways that are no longer useful at best and life-sucking at worst.

The Second Milestone – Self Discovery

When we reach the second milestone, our newfound flexibility in perspective initiates a new blueprint for further greater self-reflection. Corresponding shifts in our thoughts, feelings, and actions soon begin to occur. The thoughts and feelings of manifesting greater freedom engender a sense of personal power, power to act in alignment with our authentic Selves.

We are the ones, at long last, who get to decide who we will be, what we will do, and how we will live. We arrive at the second milepost ready to become who we are, not what others want us to be.

We dive into self-help and spiritual growth. We affirm “new and improved” personal, communal, and global beliefs that promise to transcend suffering and deliver the new life we are creating. Vision boards adorn our walls as we imagine the creation of the life we desire fulfilled.

We travel. We start companies. We live in ashrams. We dream of futures. We exercise. We raise families. We become Astrologers. Health Care Providers. Accountants. Visual Artists. We skydive. Become master musicians. Teach kids. Politically polarize, Argue over whose values are best, and billions of other things. We feel alive.

At this point in our path, we are determined to recondition ourselves in the image of our desires and, in doing so, embrace a brand new paradigm. And it works — to an extent. We are making our own choices and living up to our potential as human beings. Life seems better than it did before. And yet, there is more in store for us, too.

Here we go again.

It’s not forever before we discover that not every desire that comes to our hearts and minds gets fulfilled. Plus, we see “blind spots” that continue to cause us suffering, albeit less than before. Still, the worst pain is the pain we don’t know we have, and humanity is overflowing with suppressed trauma. We discover we traded victimization, blame, and judging others for empowerment. In our deepening humility and compassion for ourselves and others, it dawns on us that there is another milepost ahead.

Our wisdom deepens. We realize that maybe we don’t have free will as we thought, but we still show up to the play, relax and accept our roles, gifts, etc., as they unfold. We remember to laugh. See what happens. Let go of what goes. The third milestone can be seen from here.

The Third Milestone – Heaven on Earth

As we narrow our gap on the third milestone, our perspective elevates to seeing life through the Heart of Love. Comparisons and judgments no longer exist. We live purely in the present moment, and everything around us is seen with fresh childlike/Christlike eyes.

The tapestry of life is seen with crystal clarity when past the third milestone. Finally, we see with crystal clear vision that we do not have a broken universe, nor are we or others broken as once believed. We feel safe, whole, loved, and trusting as this third milestone of our awakening path of perspective dawns and lights up Reality. Our entire vision fills up with the living dream of Heaven-on-Earth.

At the third milestone, we see our True Identity. We are creative, cooperative, flexible, focused, loving, and balanced. We are all part of the One True Absolute Self. Evil still exists in our world dream but is merely a shadow of its former self, no pun intended. 

Conclusion 

Today, we explored three milestones on the path to personal awakening. The first seemed to portend a victim consciousness, full of suffering and unconsciousness and seemingly conditioned by external forces.

The second milestone on the path was reached when we made a stand and claimed our ability to create our reality with intention. We learned everything about the subject and applied what we learned with due diligence. Our experience broadened, but we saw that our direction was still lacking in the ultimate fulfillment we sought.

We began to let go of everything we once thought we knew and, finally, saw the light of surrender. The third milestone immerses us in the beauty of Love Consciousness, where we are content to let things unfold as they will, without stress, judgment, or attempts of control, i.e., life as it was meant to be.

Write your comments below. We would love to hear them. Thanks.

With love and service to the Divine in us All,
Kaye