Awakening to the pain we don’t know we’re in occurs as we peel away the inner blindness we accepted at birth. We did this to play the human game of life.  We begin our transition from a much lighter form of reality that includes a clear direction and understanding of the life game and role we’re about to play while in our mother’s womb. Slowly, we adjust to our upcoming human experience.

Then, just like that . . .

We pop out of our moms, completely forgetting we had a “before” and will have an “after” human life, and settle into the often-painful assumption that this three-dimensional world is pretty much it.

Throughout early childhood, we learn about human life from our environment and our primary caregivers until we seem to fully identify with our names, bodies, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, heritage, culture, beliefs, etc.

In Reality, who we are can’t be completely forgotten and is always present even if we aren’t aware of it. We are never asleep, only pretending for the fun of it. When the time is ripe, we’ll become aware.

Osho says . . .

“Man is not born into mastery. (We) are born a slave of unconscious forces. The first step toward mastery is to recognize (our slavery.) To see that you are unconscious is the beginning of consciousness.” 

The quote sounds brutal, and we don’t want to hear it at first, especially when so many of us already struggle so hard to “get it right,” while the rest seem to “know for sure we already know what’s right.”

An example of denial and how suppressed pain serve to wake us up.

I remember how I first caught a glimpse of denial in the role of co-dependent behavior patterns. Early on in life, I married someone with alcohol issues. Al-anon became an oasis in recovery from denial of my inner misunderstandings about who I am, rather than blaming another. It offered and I accepted a new perspective on humility, self-responsibility, and when “help” really helps and when it doesn’t. 

It was astonishing how unhappy I was and for how long I suffered without being the least bit aware of the reality of the cause of it. In retrospect, there is nothing but gratitude due to how much pain I lost from diving into that experience.

And Another . . .

I felt intimidated by my hand and arm surgeon, the best around, who would remove a small growing lipoma in my elbow. I was an astrologer for a dozen years then, and the day I was scheduled to have surgery to remove a lipoma was a no-go astrologically.

I didn’t speak up. Yes. I was afraid to mention astrology due to the pain stored from the prior acceptance of people teasing and ridiculing my perspectives. The consequence of giving this fear my attention was that the doctor severed my radial nerve during the surgery, which paralyzed my lower left arm, fingers, and hand for life. There was a LOT of self-reflection on that one. I learned not to give my power away to others, and to speak up when it’s important. Otherwise, the pain we may not know we’re in grows. We can not afford to listen to those “identities” that aren’t us. 

Pain has become my favorite loss. It always brings freedom when I can see things for what they are or are not and decide to be grateful either way for what become obvious reasons.

And one more . . .

Do you ever wonder why life is so full of roadblocks and issues? I remember watching a YouTube where Eckhart Tolle patiently listened to a counselor in the audience’s lament. No sooner than she helped a client work through a thorny problem, they would come up with another one! Sometimes even similarly manifesting the same thought and emotional patterns she thought they healed. Why, she wanted to know, didn’t they get better and move on? It seemed that no matter how hard she worked to help bring into balance with these clients, they still had problems.

With his hand on his heart, Eckhart laughed until finally, he caught his light breath and said something along the lines of “Well, isn’t that how life is? There’s always one thing after another. First, it’s this, and then it’s something else. And that’s the way life is here.” More laughter.

The Takeaway

Looking back over my life, I can see what Eckhart said is true for most, if not all, of us. Let’s face it. Evolving our consciousness and humanity is an intense experience in duality. And as long as we are still above ground, there will remain a continual adventure of unexpected treasures of light and dark that are not what they appear to be. Only the Love is Real. We must hold on to letting go of all else.

The content in which suffering appears may differ from person to person, but the context is the same. The game of life has us making decisions while having forgotten who we are. When these are out of balance, we experience the consequences, and if we’re lucky and blessed, a bigger picture emerges in our understanding.

Three Additional Tips

Some painful patterns like to stick around. An ongoing and earnest deep practice of the following three qualities is profoundly powerful in helping to gently awaken us from the pain we are in.

1. Gratitude for every experience, life-giving or life-taking.
2. Humility i.e., Flexibility of Perspective
3. Forgiveness or Compassion for our and others’ unconscious acts

Conclusion

To live in these current times where we have the opportunity to wake up en masse “while still embodied as humans” can be likened to the narrative many traditions worldwide use to suggest life was not always so hard or misinformed. There was a garden paradise they say. Further, these traditions agree that one day it will be time to collectively “get back to the Garden,” where life is once again loving, creative, healing, in balance, and where truth is lived collectively in a pure state of Love Consciousness in human form. Imagine that. It seems we have a long way to go because we have to come to terms with Awakening to the pain we don’t know we’re in – and feel the creative freedom that moves mountains inside and out!. Feel free to post your comments, but no pressure!

See you next week! Please share if you think these words might serve someone you know. Thank you.

Love and Awakening,
Kaye

Life sometimes demands that we step out of our comfort zones and “face the devil.” Sometimes, it’s literal, and it came my way one beautiful summer’s day with a knock on the screen door. I looked up from my book to see one of my neighbors standing on the other side of the screen.

I closed the book, stood, and walked over to the door. The neighbor held a used Kleenex in her right hand and pulled on it with her left. Her eyes were puffy from crying, and she seemed profoundly upset and anxious. Maria (not her real name) introduced herself and said she heard I was an astrologer and wondered if I could help her with a problem.

Of course, I said I would do my best, invited her in, and once settled in with a cup of tea, and without further delay, she dove into her story. “For two months, I have heard voices telling me to kill my children. I’m terrified.” Her husband was taking her to a therapist, who naturally thought she had a mental/emotional imbalance and gave her medicine.

However, Maria insisted that she knew it to be a spiritual problem because she could see and hear “demons” in their house. She felt the demons were the ones putting the thoughts in her head. Maria said this was out of her doctor’s wheelhouse, but her husband and doctor wouldn’t listen, much less believe her. She didn’t know where else to turn.

I asked questions and listened closely to her answers. Thankfully, her children were away from home and staying elsewhere but were due to return. Thus, the reason for her current terror.

There was nothing else to do. I agreed immediately to assist Maria, even though I had never done an exorcism in my life before. I also felt I had to act right away. Seriously. We were talking about demons telling a mom to murder her kids! What!? The only thing that was clear to me then was that Love Consciousness and the like are more powerful than all else, including any demons hanging around with nothing better to do than stir up and suck off a family’s fear energy.

We walked over to her apartment, and I tried to keep it light along the way to help this mom relax — and prevent me from overthinking the task at hand. Once in her apartment, she showed me around. On the physical level, the house was spotlessly clean. I then “energetically cleaned” the space and ourselves with purifying sage. No one else was home. I reopened her front door because I heard that it’s a good thing to leave a door open in exorcisms for the life-taking spirits to be able to escape, and I wasn’t taking any chances!

Together, we sat on her sofa. I asked her to tell me where the demons were, and she said, “in the dining room.” I looked across the living room from the sofa where we sat into the dining room and called on them to show themselves to me. Surprisingly, the little monsters peaked around the archway that separated the two rooms, and I could see them, too, and said so. Maria was wholly relieved that someone else could see them, especially when I described their appearance accurately. We could both hear them whispering amongst themselves, too.

We lit a candle, held hands, and I started to pray out loud. I don’t remember what I said precisely because the whole thing was being spoken not from me but through me from what felt like a powerful Presence of what can only describe as Love. Maria pointed to the door, and the demons quickly vanished through it. She then shut the door. All in all, it was one amazing experience!!

Maria and I hugged and cried tears of relief, and for two years more, we continued living in the apartment complex without ever seeing or hearing another demon again. It was the last of Maria hearing voices, too. Her husband was happy. Her kids thrived, and the event became nothing more than a piece of a tapestry of all our lives.

I later embarked on a shamanic path that lasted to the present and learned to understand more about the intricacies of navigating this world of duality, inhabited by two basic kinds of spirits for us to interact with while in our human bodies. One type of being is of the Life-giving variety, and the other is life-taking spirit. They both appear in countless ways and fashions, helping us wake up to who we Really are. It is my experience that both dissolve into Love Consciousness upon our physical deaths.

So, here in the Life Game, sometimes we are asked or forced to face our shadows, fears, or little devils in our lives. We are Divine or Conscious Beings who are more powerful than we can imagine, and playing the game and our roles this way, full out, without fear, wakes us up to greater freedom than we can imagine. We can’t let the little devils (or the seeming big ones) get us down. We do have to work at it, but we are so much greater than we know and are up to the task.

What do you think? Post your comment or a shadow experience to share with the rest of us?

Love and Freedom in the Game of Life,
Kaye

.

Introduction

The latest blood test results were not good. My daughter, Kelly, was a year old when given only two years to live if she did not have a liver transplant. The warm Indian summer day in Coastal Virginia when my family’s life changed forever has remained in my mind as part of that devastating news. The mind is strange.

I hung up the phone and wandered out into the backyard, where Kelly’s Dad pushed her on a wooden swing hung above from a massive tree branch. She giggled and laughed with her whole being and couldn’t have cared less about her blood tests.

Kelly at one was here to live “now,” and at this moment, she was in a state of bliss to swing high while chortling with more than enough glee to dispel our sad thoughts and feelings.

“See the world through the eyes of your inner child. The eyes that sparkle in awe and amazement as they see love, magic, and mystery in the most ordinary things.”   –  Henna Sohail

Child-like perspective. Inner peace. If only it were that simple. We all know what it’s like to feel out of control, buffeted about by the winds of fate and circumstance. But there is a way to find calm in the storm, and when we practice being child-like in more of our moments, life is better, even amid challenging times.

More than anything else, loving ourselves with supportive compassion is like loving a child unconditionally. We all thrive under these conditions, because love is contagious.

There are profound benefits to embracing a child-like way in our approach to life.

The first and most important thing to know is that childlike innocence fully immersed in the present moment IS our essential state of being where we are connected with our Divine Self. There is no thought, just being in the current of existence. Practice. Practice. Practice.

Seeing the world as a child helps us feel safe and stay upbeat despite difficult circumstances. An open and curious child-like attitude attunes us to our feelings and intuition and inspires us to greater creativity. We connect with others in a more trusting and authentic way.

Another benefit of tapping into a greater trust is relaxing and enjoying life more. When we are devoted to loving our actual innocence, stuck patterns are exposed and released.

Child-consciousness-focused people tap into a profound freedom that lies within the trusting, open heart of our True Self

Being child-like means different things to different people.

A general description might look like you are being present, playful, and creative. It also means not taking things or ourselves too seriously but being more flexible to new experiences and seeing old ones with a fresh eye. Progress is rarely all at once, but we can practice being all here whenever possible.

How do we remember to practice child consciousness qualities?

One way to connect is to think about what makes us happy. If we’re not sure what feeds our soul this way, and some of us aren’t, drop into nature to find out: ride a horse, go swimming, take a hike, take a yoga class or go on a plant medicine retreat, take a simple walk, or sit in the grass, looking for four-leaf clovers. The possibilities to re-establish a connection with our inner child and true Self are endless. It always is wherever we are, but easier to tune into nature and serenity.

Additionally, we could dive once and/or again into Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way  to discover a deeper version of our inner child/artist within. We might fall in love with a new creative destiny, from writing or photography to drawing to writing and singing to designing a sailboat, or a trillion other things.

Do you remember what you loved to do when you were young? Maybe it was going outside and playing tag or riding bikes. Perhaps it was baking cookies or building a fort in the living room on a rainy day.

Extra tip: If childhood was not so happy, it’s never too late to bring it into balance. It is worth the effort. Search “trauma release for multiple healing options. It’s a big topic right now.

What is there to leave behind? 

We all need to let go of any perfectionism or tension that holds us back. We didn’t care if we “got it” at three years old. That “life-taking” stuff stopping us in our tracks came later. We need to “suspend” debilitating beliefs as often as possible. Play full out, instead of small.

See how many beliefs you are better off without hauled throughout your ongoing life. When the viewpoints within our minds stress us out, triggering old traumas and preventing us from being authentic creative, and child-like, it leaves our love and light suppressed. Life taking influences manifest all the way around in us and project out onto those we love.

Start living a more child-like life today.

We can be more spontaneous, take more risks, and start where we are. I knew a man who loved climbed the most dangerous mountains on Earth, while I felt great trying a new healthy restaurant! Having fun, however we define it brings other blessings, too!

We can start by doing something new or different, by spending time with more authentic people who reflect our own hearts and support our best efforts, yet give us gentle, loving mirrors when they see something out of balance. We serve our beloveds as well as those less fortunate in the same manner.

Final Thoughts to Keep in Mind

And I feel I don’t even need to write this, but just in case, here it is. While being child-like can bring many benefits, most of us know to be responsible and accountable for our actions, or we’ll feel pretty childish and not so innocent or free after all.

As children grow older and the world appears harsher, it is easy to lose touch with inner essence or become disconnected from creativity and playful side. When we embrace the fun and pure part of ourselves, which always is right here, right now, we are lifted up and return to Love.

Weave a child-like perspective into your life to lighten up and feel the freedom!​

Mucho love from me to you,
Kaye