Mindfulness and codependence thread

[Twoapenny]

Write the book!  It definitely needs to be done.  A good way of clearing things out of your mind, in my opinion

I use frankincense and dragon's blood for cleansing.  I'm guessing you can buy the same sort of stuff there that we can here.  I buy the little resin lumps/fragments and charcoal discs to burn them on.  I've got a large shell I burn it in, also bought from a shamanic shop and I do it with all the doors and windows open, usually when my son's out because it can get quite smokey and smelly (I like it but he doesn't).  I play music while I do it (there's loads on YouTube) and I work round the room clockwise from the open door or window so that I end up back where I started and with everything outside (in theory).  The shell gets hot so I keep an old towel underneath it and then I leave it outside to cool down, somewhere away from nosy cats The last place we were in I swear had something in it; one room felt so unpleasant I stopped using it and twice I thought I saw someone and assumed it was my son, but when I called him he was in a different room.  We had another place years ago where I felt like something awful had happened in the bathroom, it just felt horrible in there and I'd often start crying when I was in the shower for no real reason.  I did multiple smokings in there but it still always felt unpleasant.  This place feels nice but I am going to do a cleanse anyway, I'm just waiting for a day when son isn't here

[lighter]

Thanks for the encouragement, ((Tupp)).

The challenge, one of them, will be to just get the story OUT of my head without falling down rabbit holes requiring specificity and perfectly recalled and backed up 3 way dates and exact words......
 like I'm back in the Courtroom.

  I think: )

I'm glad your'e away from the scary bathroom.  Glad the energy in your new world feels OK to good.... and hopefully better/joyful more and more often.

  When I'm finished with whatever I write, the intention is to invite my Amazon family to a very satisfying bonfire of the boxes.....
so
many
boxes of documents and evidence and having it down somewhere, for good, means I can release and let go.

I have bundles of sage I've never burned....... maybe the bonfire will begin with a good smoke cleansing: )

Heck, this project deserves a good smokey cleansing. 

Thanks for the suggestions...... I'll know what to do when it's time: )

Lighter

[lighter]

OK, Hopsy.....
about the Course in Miracles.....
my T said reading the book is entirely unecessary if one reads the preface, particularly this one thing:

What It Says

Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of love/God/connectedness.

In a nutshell..... this book makes a fundamental distinction between the real and the unreal; between knowledge and perception.  Knowledge is truth, under one law, the law of love (or God.)   You choose, I guess.  Truth is unalterable, eternal an unambiguous.  It can be unrecognized, but it cannot be changed, It applies to everything created, and only what's created is real.  It's beynd learning and no end.... it merely is. 

The world of preception, on the other hand, is the world of time, of change, of beginnings and endings.  It is based on interpretation, not facts.  It is the world of birth and death.  founded on the belief of scarcity, loss, separation and death.  It is learned rather than given, selective in its perceptual empahses unstable in it's functioning, and inaccurate in it's interpretations.

From knowledge and perception respectively, two distinct thought systems arise which are opposite in every respect.  In the realm of knowledge no thoughts exist apart from love/God/connectedness (LGC) bc LGC and their creations share one Will.  The world of perception,however, is made by the belief in opposites and separate wills, in perpetual conflict with each other and with LGC.  What perception eses and hears appears to be real bc it permits into awareness only what conforms to the wishes of the perveiver.  This leads to a world of illusions, a world which needs constant defense bc it is not real. 

When you are caught in the world of perception yu're caught in a dream.  You can't escape without help, bc everything your senses show merely witnesses to the reality of the dream.

Recognizing our illusion, without believing in them,   The world we see merely reflects our own internal frame of reference.... the dominant ideas,wishes and emotions in our minds.  "Projection makes perception."  We make the truth as we see it.  We make it true by our interpretations ofwhat it is we are seeing. If we use our perception to justify our mistakes, .... our anger, impuleses to attack, our lack of loe in wahtever form it may take.... we will see a world of evil, destructiom, malice, envy and despair.  Aoo nty9s we must learn to forgive, not nc we're being "good" or "charitable" but bc what we're seeing isn't true.  Our twisted defenses distort the world,, and therefore seeing what is not there.  As we learn to recognize our perceptual errors, we also learn to look past them or to forgive.  At the same time we're forgiving ourselves, looking past our distorted self-concepts to the Self we were born to be. 

Sin is defined as "lack of love" and since love is all there is, sin in the sight of love is to be corrected...not a mistake to be punished. 

In a nutshell, fear is the opposite of love and love turned on fear is like shining a light on a shadow..... the shadow dissapears when truth/love/connectedness is brought forward and shined onto the fear. 

The relationships of the world are egocentric. 

There's a lot of God speak in this book, but it's to be interpreted in our own way, as I understand it. 

Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of love/God/connectedness.

And that's all I want out of A COUrse IN Miracles, the book.

Lighter


 

[Hopalong]

I'm glad you're liking it, Lighter.
My ex once was a devotee. I tried it once. After he abandoned the Urantia Book...
ACIM is very philosophical and has a lot of abstract truths to chew on.

It's honestly not for me because I don't get comfortable with anything so declarative in spiritual language, either Christian or "channeled", and do trust my own perceptions more than anonymous book purporting to be a sacred text, but I come by my paranoia honestly, LOL. (Religious baggage.) I don't like the pose of mystical and deist sources that somebody who wrote the book claimed access to. I'm allergic to special sauces.

And, never known anybody into studies like that who wasn't sincere, open, and earnestly questing after truth. If you find inspiration in it then it's good for you.

Enjoy.

hugs
Hops

[lighter]

Therapist and I are taking a break, bc I'm angst free. At least for now. 

That's amazing and our chat ended in a very interesting way...... it felt like I popped out of a tunnel, into open space....and choices.

The Pug and I took a 6am walk in the forest.  I hummed, just in case there were bears. It seems like there's more bears than usual and it's not unusual to see 3 cubs to a mama....sometimes 4!   I see pics and video of bear families posted on the neighborhood message board,  but the people who own the forest send out e mails too.

And so..... going to speak to accupuncturist about the grant writing and how our missions might have some crossover.

Lighter

[lighter]

Strange weekend.  Three ambulances showed up with sirens and lights at the Cowboy's home.  I didn't hear any yelling, so assumed there was a health issue sans arguments.  At a point, two vehicles left and the ambulance pulled way up to the house beyond my view.  Cowgirl followed the ambulance out of our street in her car.

The next day Cowgirl called and was talking shop..... I mean.... she was talking about nothing till she paused to take another call.  It was the neighbor on the other side of her giving an update on his lady wife, who was the one in the ambulance with BP issues.  She's home and doing well after a night in hospital. 

 I had an odd interaction with Retired Nurse in her yard... she called me and the Pug over to visit her and the teacup Yorkie she sits for.
 and I DO LOVE muffing up that little snooty dog.   Retired Nurse is treating me like a child who's had a bad dream and needs to be talked into liking her Daddy again, regarding Yelly Guy neighbor...... and that feels as icky as it likely is to read. 

Meantime, Cowgirl said a couple things that explained Retired Nurse's behaviors.....
Cowgirl really really really needs Retired Nurse to view Cowboy as irrationall, barking at the moon mad, and that isn't possible if anything he says has any merit at all, so..... Cowgirl threw me under the bus too.... I mean.... if what I say has any merit, then Cowboy's experience and actions have merit too.  Clarity, at last.

It's a puzzle as to WHY Cowgirl cares what Retired Nurse thinks or is so sensitive about Cowboy's "jealousy" in Cowgirl's direction, which spans beyond Yelly Guy, to be sure.  Not my circus, not my clowns.  I feel a short conversation with Retired Nurse coming up to stop the healing before it begins, which is something Yelly Guy seems to be avoiding like the plague as he almost fell on his face when he stumbled into RN and my discussion in her back yard.  He tripped, recovered and almost ran out of the yard while mumbling incoherently.... and I felt a little bad for him. 



DD20 is buckled down and planning her course chioces in  preparation for the University she's interested in. It's exciting to see her move with purpose and agency in her life.  More relief.

DD22 has been discussing her college plans with DD20,.... more relief.

Right now DD20 is hanging out with her "buddy".... read that as her first bf who still has a crush on her.  I think I said they reconnected on campus.  They share interests in art, song writing, gaming and years of middle and highschool history, so it's easy and mostly light...... I know DD20 enjoys the time they spend together.  They go into town and on hikes and to parks......more relief, still.

DD20 babysat for my Moss friend's 4yo grandchild Saturday night and the low light was cutting salami up for the child's snack.   DD20 has food aversions and that's one of the biggies. DD gets the the done and it's been fun watching her learn how much work and time it takes to be present and attentive with small children.   She had NO IDEA and I think I posted about the 2 or so hour long bedtime ritual on DD's first babysitting job when she expected to arrive AFTER the child's bedtime.

I'm trying to recover my password so I can sign in on my new phone, which is proving more difficult than I'd like.

Lighter





 

[Meh]

What are your thoughts on entities and ghosts..... energy left behind?

I've had 2 experiences, both in the house I went to HS in....both in my bedroom, dropping down from the same corner in the room.  Turned out, my sister was having her own experiences through the years and whatever that was, perhaps, mistook me for her on those 2 occassions.

My Step Father had an encounter with a UFO while picking peas in the country.  Completely silent, very brightly lit..... he was a teen and the man wasn't one for telling fibs.

Other family members have experiencs with entities or ghosts going back generations in one side of the family. 

My T says it's all about fear and pieces of people left behind, particularly around addiction and addicts.  She said it's like a shadow.  Shine the light of connection and love on it.... it dissapears.  It's all fear based... once fear is gone, the shadows go.

What do you guys think?

No, I don't believe in ghosts, spirits, entities. I don't like to believe in anything except the most mundane obvious stuff that can be observed and explained in boring dull ways. Something about embellishments, fantasies, things like religions, not into it personally at this point in my life. Seeing war stuff showcases how horrifying humans are, so I don't like to add more spooky stuff into the mix of life.

There was a group online that I watched for awhile out of boredom. They talked about mostly bigfoot and aliens and cryptids. There is a whole community built up around it and I think that is the point of it really. There was a woman who claimed to be some clairvoyant and she seemed real scammy to me. Like the things she was saying were unverifiable. It's fascinating to see grown adults deeply dedicated to bigfoot lore though. If a person claims to have seen bigfoot then I guess that makes them special. If a person claims to be clairvoyant then I guess that makes them special. I think it's mostly a combination if scam and a need for attention that fuels some of that stuff.

That being said there was a condo I lived in and I was having a lot of very vivid dreams there. I was having sleep paralysis at the time and I had never heard of it so I thought there was some kind of haunting and I got used to it I guess. It was unpleasant though. I was probably somewhat anorexic at the time also as I passed out a couple times and went straight to dreaming which all somehow was very normal in a disfunctional family. My downstairs neighbor was an old woman and she had told me that her son was either lost or dead in the Vietnam war. She was unresolved in her grief that kind of awful thing where a person can never get over it. There were some weird happenings in that building in general. At the time I was young and took all of it collectively to mean there was some kind of haunting.

One thing in particular that I remember from when I lived there is at night I went into the kitchen and I think I was making a coffee. I believed at the time that I felt something like someone squeezing my hand briefly and then letting go. It's never happened since and I really haven't thought about it too much. I don't recall what I was doing before it happened. It seemed out of the blue though it's entirely possible there was some pre-conditioning to my mind like maybe I was reading something about supernatural something who knows. It was a long time ago. 

I was a fantastical thinker. I liked fiction literature at the time. I liked vampire stories and such. At the time I really did figure it was probably a ghost.

At this point in my life I've settled into believing humans are not so important as to have an afterlife. Humans are just another species on the planet that dies and turns into worm food without some type of overarching meaning. Studying extinctions of species over long spans of time puts things into perspective for me.

Something about looking at those geologic time scales gets me into reality (for me). I mean at least in terms of after-life. The way I figure is every species would have ghosts. Snails would have ghosts. Every single rabbit that was ever eaten by a coyote would have a ghost. Starfish would have ghosts. I don't think humans are not-animals. So if humans have spirits so do cuttlefish.

The idea of ghosts I think persists because people have a profound emotional difficulty with letting go of the deceased I guess. People don't like to think about oblivion and non-existence. 

https://geokansas.ku.edu/mass-extinctions

Anyhow.

If I was feeling a sense of unease in a place then I think I would chalk it up to some kind of physical insecurity. In the real sense not in a hypothetical sense. I think being fearful is a legitimate thing.

Spend some time brain storming on how to attempt to feel safer. But maybe I am projecting.

A "haunting" is a general uneasy feeling.

If it's bothering you now in a space that you have control over then make the space more cozy and try to distract yourself with other thoughts?
 

[Hopalong]

I really enjoyed your thinking here, Mouse -- share a lot of it.
Particularly the perception about the real horrors humans do vs adding invented ones, and the feeling of specialness some derive from sighting things nobody else has. I guess any storyteller wants attention and I think that's a positive human trait. The oral tradition goes way way back.

Personally, I'm only interested in Casper, and if any other ghosts apply to live with me, they'll be kindly redirected to those more eager for that kind of roommate.

I have had interesting moments of precognition (pretty common). I wonder if that's a physically real happening that's beyond present human/scientific understanding, and more evident in some brains. Maybe like a burp from some brain layer or process we're so far unable to study, and maybe there also are other natural energies/intelligences that interact with our own? When I contemplate nature's immense complexity that doesn't seem weird. Given my brain is somewhat different in the first place, not too alarming. I'd rather have a new poem than an old ghost come out of it any time. Poems do sometimes feel as though they come from "elsewhere" and for me, that's a welcome mystery I'd rather accept than solve.

I also think sometimes about how extrasensory fearful things could maybe be flipped around and become inner perceptions of serendipity or blessing, to use a more trad term. Assimilate and/or avoid the horrors we can't prevent, and train the mind to count the blessings, more or less. Somewhere in between the two is empowerment to do what we can and release the rest.

hugs
Hops

[lighter]

I think people should rely on their own experiences and those of people they trust when it comes to things like this.

I found a spiritual life AFTER I experienced things I wasn't expecting, out of the blue and nothing to do with people telling me what I SHOULD believe, feel or do regarding religious beliefs. 

My experiences with things I can't explain are the basis for my belief in their possibility.

You're not right or wrong in your beliefs, Meh.  Believing according to your experience makes perfect sense to me.

Lighter

[lighter]

Writing is overwhelming, but if I chop it into parts.... important scenes, it's easier.  Not sue to what end, but it's nice to have some enthusiasm for it. 

Lighter

[Hopalong]

It's fantastic!

Have you considered taking a memoir writing class nearby? I've had friends who did and absolutely loved it, found it empowering, moving, healing, exciting and satisfying.

You go, girl.

hugs
Hops

[lighter]

I think that would be great, Hops.  A memoir writing class..... thank you for that suggestion!
Lighter

[lighter]

Question, Hops:

What do you think about online vs in person classes?  You seem to get SO MUCH out of in person classes, but I'm not seeing anything in my area.... yet. 

[Hopalong]

I think one can benefit bigly from either...
if there's nothing in-person in your area, go for online!

So happy you look forward to this project, Lighter.

hugs,
Hops

[lighter]

Looking for classes is full of ideas and vibes, all on it's own, Hops.

I'm looking for a hands on filing system to organize ideas..... so far it's down to manilla folders and scratchings inside them, which is how my very best attorney ordered things for trial. 

If you have any ideas for organizing these sorts of things, I'm all ears.

Do you keep everything online, or do you want to touch and open files or a hands on system?

Lighter