The Matter of Mattering

Do you realize that YOU are more non-physical than physical? I can’t even hazard a guess as to what the actual proportions might be, but I get the feeling that if my non-physical being were represented as the ocean then my physical self would be a drop of water in comparison. Do you realize that you are made of the same “stuff” as the divine? Do you hear me when I say you are a significant piece of what is often termed the “collective consciousness” or the “universe”? You are SO much more than what you sometimes may believe. You matter. You matter as much as anyone or anything you can think of. This has nothing to do with your cultural background, your position in society, where you live, or what you do. It has nothing to do with your family values or your religious views. You are Source Energy. You Matter a great deal and it is time to allow yourself to act accordingly.

I just needed the reminder. Hope it rings true for you!

“When I Get Thin (Change Jobs, Move, Find a Relationship, Leave This Relationship, Have Money) Blues”.

This excerpt from Women Food and God (by Geneen Roth) is about food – HOWEVER it’s really about ANYTHING that is standing between you and whatever you want for yourself. I can say it no better – so I’m using Geneen’s words.

She is speaking about a woman dissatisfied with her job and turning to over-eating as a way to compensate for what’s missing in her life.

It’s called “When I Get Thin (Change Jobs, Move, Find a Relationship, Leave This Relationship, Have Money) Blues”. It’s called the “If Only” refrain. It’s called postponing your life and your ability to be happy to a future date when then, oh then, you will finally get what you want and life will be good. In my books Feeding the Hungry Heart and When Food Is Love, I’ve written about the stories of people who lost weight and were still miserable. Who got what they thought they wanted most and found that joy still eluded them. Because – and yes, I know this is a cliché but it’s a cliché because it’s actually true – miserable and happy are not functions of what you have, what you look like or what you achieve. I’m not exactly proud to say that I’ve been miserable anywhere, with anything, with anyone. I’ve been miserable standing in a field of a thousand sunflowers in southern France in mid-June. I’ve been miserable weighing eighty pounds and wearing a size 0. And I’ve been happy wearing a size 18. Happy sitting with my dying father. Happy being a switchboard operator.

It’s not about the weight. It’s not about the goal. It’s not about Being Thin or Being Someone Special or Getting There. Those are fantasies in your mind – and they are all in the future, a future that never comes. Because when your goals are reached, they will be reached in the “right now”.  And in the “right now,” you will still be you, doing the same things you do now. You will still stand up. Walk around. Get root canals. Open the refrigerator door. Sleep. Feel happy. Feel devastated. Feel lonely. Feel loved. Get old. Die.

But it’s not about the weight because if you keep using food as a drug, if you keep distracting yourself by creating a weight problem, then you need to attend to your weight in order to stand up, walk around, open doors, sleep, feel happy, feel devastated, feel loved, get old, die – with any degree of attention, wholeheartedness, presence. If you keep slapping another problem on top of the freshness of life itself, all you see is what you’ve slapped on to it. You cannot ignore a problem just because it’s one you’ve manufactured. Well said, Geneen!

This feels like a futile act

I’m finding it difficult to “stay in the present moment”. I’ve got too many to-do lists and I’m feeling like I can’t get anything done ’cause I’m waiting for something to come into place first. So I’m going around in circles; waiting.

I know that if I were to pull back right now and deliberately choose to go into my “big picture” right mind I’d find some peace, but my relentless left mind is making lists. Uncompleted lists. Lists with empty little boxes to the left of the column. Scathingly unchecked little boxes. Arggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!

I’m trying to get lost in a book, or in watching the birds at the feeder – but really I’m just waiting for the phone to ring. Ring dammit!!! Tell me I can move forward. Tell me I can stop waiting!

Breathe!

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Deeply.

Slowly.

Close your eyes. That’s it. It’s all okay.

The urgency I’m feeling is self-imposed. There are all kinds of other things I can do. I know enough – to know I’m the one in the way here. That’s not self-blame – just reality. I stand in my own way railing against what IS. Now that’s an act in futility.

Stop.

Breathe.

Slowly.

Deeply.

What is it I want? What is it I REALLY want? What is the ESSENCE?

I want to feel peaceful! I want to feel like things are in place; that all is well.

Stop.

Breathe.

Slowly.

Deeply.

What’s missing in this very moment? Really, what’s missing? Anything? What’s present in THIS moment? Peace? A feeling that all is well?

Okay okay, I get it.

Breathe.

Slowly.

Deeply.

Ahhhhhhhhh – that feels a bit better already.

Seeing REAL Potential

I’ve been reminded to move my focus from what currently IS to what I want things TO BE. It’s another exercise in developing my right hemisphere. Our left hemisphere thrives on focusing on the details and seems somewhat bent towards the details that aren’t exactly as we may wish them to be. The left brain can get a bit preoccupied with “what’s wrong” and “what needs fixing”. So, as I find myself whirlling around in the rush of “how do I fix this” I take a breath and move myself deliberately toward what it is I want.

The deliberate focus on how I want the situation to change puts me into the dream/imagination mode that the right hemisphere thrives on. As I focus only on the “what do I want” part of it, instead of the “how do I make it happen” part of it, the right hemisphere does it’s job at shifting my energy so that the solutions present them selves in a very natural, organic and often unpredictable way.

It has been helpful to understand myself well enough to know; when I begin to move towards coming up with a solution I need to move back and ALLOW myself to access the magic, and wisdom so often associated with the right hemisphere. Afterall – it SEES stuff we cannot see with our logical/finite minds. It can access another level of information and connection that we speak of as kismet, syncronicity, good karma, intuition and good luck.

Simple Math: Left is focused on problem. Right is focused on solution. When we stop relying on the left to manage both parts of the equation life unfolds in a much more magical way.

Choosing To Be In Your Right Brain Can Actually Make You Happier!

The collateral effect of deliberately going into your Right Brain Hemisphere on a regular basis; is increased happiness. That’s a brilliant thing – no? When you deliberately exercise your right mind through meditation, being in nature, pursuing artistic endeavors (like drawing or listening to uplifting music) you immediately move yourself towards happiness and contentment.

Because your left brain is more analytical it is naturally more critical (its gift – but also its limitation). When we live in a critical or judging mode we see things (people, situations) as flawed. When we look at situations as flawed; it is impossible to be in an emotionally good place.

The good news is that the long-term affect of deliberately going into the right-brain is the left-brain begins to change its long-standing programming. Patterns of thinking can be altered and new ones established. The quickest way to get to this transformative place is to deliberately venture into the areas the right brain does flawlessly.

I’d Rather Be a Free-Thinker Than Someone Who Just “goes along”.

If I needed another reason for expanding the use of my right brain it is this; by its very nature the right hemisphere is a “free-thinker” compared to my left-brain which falls under the “I’ll go along with whatever is simpler” category. The left-brain linear mind just wants to maintain the status quo, avoid rocking the proverbial boat, it relishes in the idea of going along with the majority. Some may call it efficient but I’m going to call it lazy. It loves to predict what I’ll think and instead of letting me have a moment to decide – it literally is programmed to jump to conclusions.

 Jill Bolte-Taylor in her book, My Stroke of Insight, puts it this way “Along with thinking in language, our left hemisphere thinks in patterned responses to incoming stimulation. It establishes neurological circuits that run relatively automatically to sensory information. These circuits allow us to process large volumes of information without having to spend much time focusing on the individual bits of data. From a neurological standpoint, every time a circuit of neurons is stimulated, it takes less external stimulation for that particular circuit to run. As a result of this type of reverberating circuitry, our left hemisphere creates what I call “loops of thought patterns” that it uses to rapidly interpret large volumes of incoming stimulation with minimal attention and calculation.

Because our left brain is filled with these ingrained programs of pattern recognition it is superb at predicting what we will think, how we will act, or what we will feel in the future – based upon our past experience…”

 I don’t know about you – but I do not want to be that predictable. I want to be unique. I want to be in control of the decisions I make and opinions I have. The only way to do that is to encourage the use of my right mind. What are you doing to break the pattern of predictable responses? Are you just going along with whatever your left mind decides to do?

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

Getting Into My Right Mind

Eighty-five percent of the population is right-handed and it is predicted that nearly 100% of them are left-brained (linear/logical) dominant. Sixty percent of the remaining population is also left-brained dominant. If you trust my math, that leaves approximately 6% of the general population who is right-brain dominant. The rest of us have to work at developing are abilities to access its perspective and resources.

Jill Bolte Taylor in her book My Stroke of Insight says that the Right Hemisphere of our brains operates only in the present moment while the Left Hemisphere operates only in the past or the future. So in my quest to develop my ability to stay in the present moment I know which side I need to develop.

How is it that I get into my RIGHT (non linear/logical) mind? I know the typical advice is to meditate, be in nature and practice deep breathing; but I want something different. I need to find something that speaks to me in a way that I naturally process.

In hopes of getting a list of alternative suggestions; I googled “how to engage your brain’s right hemisphere” and got a cool article called “Nine Ways You’re Already Using Your “Right Brain” and Probably Don’t Even Realize It” (from YouCanDraw.com). [The following is an exerpt.]

“Backing your car, catching a baseball, shooting a basket, lining up that picture on the wall, decorating your home, singing in the shower (or just plain singing for that matter), daydreaming, tossing a candy wrapper in the waste basket, matching clothes…that’s nine ways and that just for starters.

What do all of these have in common? It’s this; they involve spatial reckoning. They make you ask questions like these; How far a way is it? How high? How fast is this moving towards me, away from me, is this note higher or lower that that one? Does this pink blouse go with those lime-green pants? And you do these simple things all the time in some form, don’t you?”

The right hemisphere is capable of making better and quicker decisions because it operates on an instinctual and intuitive basis. It naturally sees the BIG PICTURE and makes decisions based on your broader perspective. In the interest of having an easier (and more fulfilling) life I want to find ways to open up this channel (at will). Rather encouraging that I’m already using it in countless ways but how do I develop it more?

By no coincidence, my sister gave me a (rather timely) book at Christmas and it’s taken me until now to realize just how perfect that timing was. It’s by Danny Gregory and its called The Creative License. I would highly recommend it for opening yourself up to the creative and intuitive (right brain) process. [the following is an exerpt.]

“The ability and need to be creative are hard-wired into all of us. I speak to so many people who tell me they make things (drawings, soufflés, jewelry, movies, pop songs) because they just have to. They can’t help it. It’s a basic urge, an irrepressible impulse. Yet an awful lot of people are able to suppress it. They trudge back and forth in a rut, never reinventing a single day. They jump to conclusions about themselves and their abilities and their obligations that they think will help them avoid conflict. They make certain choices that they think will prevent others from being disappointed, shocked or angry…

When we continue to deny who we truly are and suppress our ability to create, we become crippled and shut down. Our minds grow narrower as we shut out anything unexpected that doesn’t fit with how we’ve told ourselves the world truly is. We grow remote from others, categorizing and stereotyping the people we meet, threatened and afraid, unable to see them clearly and fully…

Ironically our society tends to portray artists as dreamers. But those who suppress their creativity are actually the ones living in a dream. An artist is someone who sees and feels reality very intensely. Creativity doesn’t mean just making things up out of thin air. It means seeing and feeling the world so vividly that you can put together connections and patterns that help to explain reality. It means you see the beauty in the world rather than trying to hide from it.”

Anyone can learn to unlock this door. Even if you wouldn’t consider yourself “creative” you can tap into it and it can be quite liberating. So, I’m in. I’m on page 37 of the Gregory’s first chapter Kick Starting your Creativity and Learning to See, and I’m already finding it easier to slip into my Right Mind whenever I wish!

How do you navigate the differing perceptions?

I am convinced that we are living in an illusion of our own making. I think that like the story in Flatland (the last post) there is a different dimenion that some see but most do not. My journey is in discovering how one navigates the one perception (that the general population holds) that much of our experience is fixed and predictable with this other KNOWING that nothing is fixed and everything is predictable only from the standpoint that we are (each of us individually) creating our own experience.

How does one live the “day to day” of life on this planet and integrate it with the knowlege that there is far more at play. How do you not get caught up in the REALITY of paying bills, navigating difficult relationships and/or, dealing with health issues. How do you spend more time in the POSSIBILITY and less time in the REALITY?

I know this feels like pop-philosophy to many people out there but Quantum Mechanics/Theory/Physics  point out that 1) what we percieve as REALITY is completely and totally subjective and 2) our thoughts change outcomes.

The PRESENT MOMENT is a place where I can live in both worlds. The work is in keeping my focus there. So today I’m going to practice that art. I will open myself to the dream of what’s to come and BALANCE it with my desire to see that is in front of me as COMPLETE and WHOLE. There is nothing missing right now – in this moment.

Opening up to a New Way of Seeing the World

In the durable Victorian fantasy, Flatland, the characters are assorted geometric shapes living in an exclusively two-dimensional world. As the story opens, the narrator, a middle-aged Square, has a disturbing dream in which he visits a one-dimensional realm, Lineland, whose inhabitants can move only from point to point. With mounting frustration he attempts to explain himself—that he is a Line of Lines, from a domain where you can move not only from point to point but also from side to side. The angry Linelanders are about to attack him when he awakens.

Later that same day he attempts to help his grandson, a Little Hexagon, with his studies. The grandson suggests the possibility of a Third Dimension—a realm with up and down as well as side to side. The Square proclaims this notion foolish and unimaginable.

That very night the Square has an extraordinary, life-changing encounter: a visit from an inhabitant of Spaceland, the realm of Three Dimensions.

At first the Square is merely puzzled by his visitor, a peculiar circle who seems to change in size, even disappear. The visitor explains that he is a Sphere. He only seemed to change size and disappear because he was moving toward the Square in Space and descending at the same time.

Realizing that argument alone will not convince the Square of the Third Dimension; the exasperated Sphere creates for him an experience of depth. The Square is badly shaken:

There was a dizzy, sickening sensation of sight that was not like seeing; I saw a Line that was no Line; Space that was not Space. I was myself and not myself. When I could find voice, I shrieked aloud in agony, “Either this is madness or it is Hell.” “It is neither,” calmly replied the voice of the Sphere. “It is Knowledge; it is Three Dimensions. Open your eyes once again and try to look steadily.”

Having had an insight into another dimension, the Square becomes an evangelist, attempting to convince his fellow Flatlanders that Space is more than just a wild notion of mathematicians. Because of his insistence he is finally imprisoned, for the public good. Every year thereafter the high priest of Flatland, the Chief Circle, checks with him to see if he has regained his sense, but the stubborn Square continues to insist that there is a third dimension. He cannot forget it, he cannot explain it.

Taken from Chapter 3 of The Aquarian Conspiracy – Personal and Social Transformation in Our Time by Marilyn Ferguson.

Is it possible that there are new ways of seeing our world that might open us up to new ways of doing /seeing things? Is the Status Quo enough or do you want more? They use to think the world was flat – maybe it still is?

The novice Blogger takes flight

Welcome to my very first blog. Thanks to all of my friends that kept prodding me to do this!

There’s a quote I love by Guillaume Apollinaire  ”Come to the edge, he said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came. He pushed them and they flew.”

Not that I really had that much fear and trepidation - the quote is really about what RubyShuze is all about – exploring – going to the edge of who you are and what you thought you knew and being willing to explore new and exciting possibilities. Are you up for it?

For those of you who have stumbled upon this blog and aren’t familar with our website – check out www.RubyShuze.com

Welcome!