Emotional Repression, Addiction & Narcissism ~ How Superficial Cultures Foster Mental Illness & What You Can Do About it

Over the time of my recovery, my studies, my family life, and my social life I have come to see addiction and mental illness as a by-product of emotionally repressive environments which create and foster narcissistic behaviour – the denial of the true self – which creates disease. If someone grows up where their feelings are not valued, where they are told “not to feel bad”, or where they are abused and controlled when expressing emotions, what happens is the child begins to create beliefs, attitudes, and personalities which see the world as an inhospitable environment for emotions.

That child will then begin repressing their emotions, and controlling and repressing the emotions of those around them, because they now justify their emotional repression and have enormous difficulty seeing it in others. This repression will carry on until the child is in a safer environment, maybe as an adult or after developing a serious illness or life crisis. This in-authentic and unemotional behaviour goes on continually in contemporary social environments in North America. At work, school, and socially, people will even reprimand others, and talk about how it’s “not cool” or “intelligent” to be “swayed” by your emotions.

The “ultimate” professional has a level head, is never moved emotionally, like a fleshy robot they keep their mouths shut unless they are doing their jobs. Personal and professional “lives” are kept separate. Just this last week I was hung up on by a “friend” for expressing anger and my honest, authentic feelings about our discussion. Many, many people feel embarrassed when they see express emotions, and have a really hard time bearing witness to the emotions of others because deep down they are trying really hard to justify their psychological coping mechanisms to themselves. They may still be in real-life situations where being emotional is perceived as a threat, and are not in a physical or mental space where they can feel safe expressing their authentic thoughts and feelings. Often, they are recreational drug users, addicts, and people who seek therapy and medication to help them cope with their lives.

This emotional stuffing or backlog does create disease eventually if it goes on long enough. It has biochemical consequences, which manifest in the body the issues that need to be addressed. I have seen this when I do medical/health psychic readings on people. I can see that there is an emotional repression at the cause of the illness, and often have this real-life moment confirmed by my client. At this point, we must then work together so that whatever thoughts or feelings causing the disease through repression can be released in a safe, authentic and focused way so the body no longer feels the need to create the disease to receive attention. The physical body does a really good job at manifesting the feelings of the subconscious mind, so that it can bring issues into the conscious realm through the physical. It’s very fascinating and easy to undo, although it may require multiple sessions of deep uncomfortable emotional purging. If you are interested in receiving support in this work by phone, skype, or in-person there is more information on some other pages. This page contains the instructions and a description for an updated  Ho’oponopono process created by Kahuna’s and Dr. Sharon Forrest to work on deep emotional release with anyone dead or alive. This page contains a description of the Angel Therapy® psychic healing process where through the format of a psychic reading I can, with your permission cut emotional, psychic, and energetic cords to any situation with anyone dead or alive. I cannot violate anyone’s free will even in a psychic reading, so if you want to do the Angel Therapy work, it is important to be fully ready for a deep release to get the most out of the session.

The emotions themselves are not the disease, but the repression of them does create disease. When the authentic feelings start getting pushed down and repressed so the “correct attitude” or “safe behaviour” can flourish the authentic self suffers, narcissism develops, and the subconscious mind will then contact the body biochemically to begin manifesting physical diseases to get your attention.  The two emotions people seem to have the most difficulty witnessing or expressing are anger and sadness. Many children who cry are seen as weak, and told so by their parents, teachers, friends and bosses. Anger is often mis-perceived as a threat of physical violence so people shush anger in themselves and others, creating inhospitable environments for authenticity, emotional expression, and real situation resolution. So, to recap you have here the beginnings of narcissism, the denial of the true self… which when continued creates addiction, because people don’t feel good and therefore have to work really hard at trying to feel good, and never really feel good because they never address the roots of the issues, and go on ignoring themselves often to the effect of serious, negative, self-harming consequences.

Food addiction, drug addiction, cleanliness addiction, love addiction, sex addiction, texting/cellphone addiction… All these forms of addictions are coping mechanisms for larger psycho-social hurts that are not being addressed both in our intimate lives and the larger cultural lives we live in our communities. This emotional repression and narcissistic culture breeds addiction, abuse, and other ongoing dangerous and unconscious behaviours. While it may seem that addictions are unintentional, they are actually a sophisticated and intentional coping mechanism created by the mind, to protect the spirit of the inner child and the authentic self until it feels it is living in a safe environment. In some ways you could describe it as an evolutionary strategy so that children can survive these types of environments until they can navigate their lives into a safer place and then deal with their emotions. That strategy was certainly true for me, and I continue to un-stuff myself and others to this day. If you continue to live in a highly-stressful and unsafe environment, you may require vitamins to help you deal with your situation, because stress causes a variety of negative consequences in the body and can lead to brain damage, delusional states, illness and even death. There is extensive research on this in the scientific community, and will include more information on this process in my forthcoming book. Vitamin C helps your body remove chemical toxins which are produced during stressful situations.

Here are some references I suggest for more information on this topic. “Losing Your Pounds of Pain”, which is about emotional stuffing through over-eating because of enormously negative emotions and abusive environments by Doreen Virtue. It is extensively compassionate and written in easy language for the lay person who is struggling with these issues. Doreen shares her insight working as a lead therapist at a woman’s psychiatric hospital in the United States. It is very inspiring and authentic. A good and inspiring read if you are dealing with any kind of eating disorder issues. This book is so good, I find myself often purchasing and giving away copies.

I also really enjoy all of Debbie Ford’s work on the shadow. Some of her excellent books include The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, The Secret of The Shadow and Why Good People Do Bad Things. 

Dr. Drew

Another great reference for those who prefer the audio/video is virtually every single work of Dr. Drew, especially all his Rehab shows which were made for tv. I believe you can watch re-runs of all his shows online at VH1 or Much More Music in Canada. Dr. Drew consistently supports people in creating safe and authentic boundaries, authentic emotional and truthful expression so they can create safe and healthy lives even if they have been dealing with drug, sex or behavioural addictions, childhood abuse of any kind including violence and/or sexual abuse. He continuously frames addiction as a disease that is not about the thing itself (ie. the drug, the sex, or the behaviour) but is about the larger more painful emotional and safety issues in that persons life that that they are attempting to cope with. He characterizes addiction by the negative consequences to health, loved ones, financial status or vocation. When addicts do not address these negative consequences and change their behaviour to protect their life, they put their lives and the lives of others in danger. These are very serious life-threatening situations that arise, but that can be handled so an addict can recover and create a life they really love.

Dr. Gabor Mate

All the works of Gabor Mate, who is a Vancouver local MD working with people in the downtown east-side, primarily working with drug addicts. He has an extensive listing of books and videos online which are intensely fascinating and insightful considering the enormous amount of research and focus he has put into this area of health. He discusses abuse psycho-social factors, epigenetics, how childhood abuse affects the brain development, how addictions arise biochemically, and how we as front-line workers can compassionately view those who are stuck in this cycle of addiction, poverty, abuse, hospitalization, medication, crime and imprisonment.

All the local Mental Health Team strategies in Vancouver have some way of dealing with addiction as a mental health challenge (especially Strathcona Mental Health Team). They use the outreach and psychiatric methods of helping people get onto medication, find medical help and housing, it’s also very interesting if you have any connections there.  There are also new types of addiction recovery centers such as Takiwasi in South America who use a 2-year service-oriented recovery program in connection with medical care, counselling and ayahuasca usage.

And, of course your classic studies in psychology such as Alexander Lowen’s work on Narcissism.

“Are you a narcissist? Do you interact with someone who is? Contrary to popular belief, narcissists do not love themselves or anyone else. They cannot accept their true selves, constructing instead fixed masks that hide emotional numbness. Influenced by forces in culture and predisposed by factors in the human personality, narcissists tend to be: More concerned with how they appear than what they feel; Seductive and manipulative, striving for power and control; Egotists, focused on their own interests but lacking the true values of the self — self-expression, self-possession, dignity, and integrity; Without a solid sense of self, which leads them to experience life as empty and meaningless. In this groundbreaking study, Dr. Alexander Lowen uses his extensive clinical experience to demonstrate how narcissists can recover their suppressed feelings and regain their lost humanity. By the use of Bioenergetic Analysis, the psychotherapy created by Dr. Lowen, a new possibility of a fulfilling and authentic life is presented for people with narcissistic characteristics and for those who interact with them. “

Freud (who is not referenced that much in contemporary circles due to social ridicule, and the greater popularity of integral and transpersonal psychology), however his work Beyond the Pleasure Principle still offers insight to this day on what motivates human behaviour based on his perceptions of the pursuit of pleasure and fear and avoidance of death. Anything about co-dependency is good, especially Co-Dependent No More, or Adult Children of Alcoholics which are both considered classics.

I also currently favour contextualizing all trauma within Joseph Cambell’s legacy on the Hero’s Journey which examines the tradition of the heroic journey of struggle, loss and redemption through mythology from around the world and throughout history. Everyone, it seems to me is on their own hero’s journey.

And finally, the great classic book Spiritual Emergency, in which Stanislav Grof, and Christina Grof contextualize contemporary disorders of personal transformation in tribal, shamanic, and historical terms. It is enormously warm, inspiring and completely antithetical in some ways to the psychiatric view of mental illness.

I wish you enormous courage wherever you are in your life’s heroic journey. I am here to support you if you want help.

Zoraah

The Birth of the Ego, By Glen Russell

FROM GLEN RUSSELL’S 51 PART SELF-HELP COURSE ABOUT THE EGO: THIS IS LESSON TWO AND THREE. Thank you to “How To Raise Your Vibration” on Facebook for sharing this with us…

 

2. BELIEVING IN THE ILLUSION OF SEPARATION

“To help all souls “come back into oneness” firstly with their Spiritual Teacher and then with their Higher Self, God the Creator created The Christ Consciousness [the Oneness Consciousness] and The Buddha Consciousness [the Enlightened Mind]. Each new soul “born into separation” is taught to use these two minds – these two states of consciousness.

Yet because God the Creator wanted all souls to have complete Free Will – and choose the possibility of “going further into separation” instead of “coming back into oneness” – the opposing values of the minds of Christ and Buddha were created. The Anti-christ consciousness was created to give souls the free will to make choices not in alignment with God’s Being of Unconditional Love and Oneness and experience “anti-love” and “separation” – at least for a limited time. The Anti-buddha consciousness is the twin consciousness of Anti-christ and enables souls to experience of “expectation, fear and delusion”.

More than 99% of souls on Earth have chosen this option to “experiment with” and use the minds of Anti-christ and Anti-buddha and “go further into the illusion of separation” and in so doing separate themselves from their Spiritual Teacher and Higher Self. When you choose this option, as opposed to “coming into oneness” with God, you create a “SPACE” in your mind between you and God and between you and all other parts of God. 

As you can see in the image below, You [the inner circle] is still part of and exists within the totality of God [the outer circle]. In reality, you are not separated from God – you only “think” you are. Because your thoughts create your reality, when you “think” you are separated from God, you create the “experience” you are separated from God. Even if you consciously believe you and God are the “One Being”, however subconsciously you believe you are separate – you will still create the experience of separation.

When you create this “SPACE” in your mind that you are separate from God, your continued thoughts that you are superior and inferior to other souls and God, allows the Ego – over time – to be born within your soul. Only by removing all conscious and subconscious thoughts that you are a “separate being” will you be able to close this space in your mind and “come back into oneness” with God and all other parts of God.

Channeled message from Ascended Master Christ Jesus

The illusion that you are separated from God is what gives rise to the further illusion that you need to be saved, that you are outside of God’s kingdom and that you need to fulfill certain requirements – defined by some thought system in this world – in order to gain entry into God’s kingdom. And this entire mentality is what gives rise to the concept that you could fail to be saved, that you could become permanently lost, that you might be condemned by an angry god to spend an eternity in some kind of hell. And, of course, the entire concept of hell has been used very cleverly and persistently by the false teachers of anti-christ to generate fear in people – the fear of not being saved, the fear of eternal damnation and everlasting punishment.

In other words, the very simple psychological mechanism at play here is that anger springs from fear. The fear of not being saved is what gives rise to anger against God because people feel that they have no way to take control over their own salvation but must rely on a god who is seen as external to themselves. And precisely because there is a space between the external god and the self – or god would not be seen as external – there is room for an entire cornucopia of illusions that feed people’s fears and thus their anger against this external god who is seen as unknowable, distant, uncaring, unjust, arbitrary and a whole host of other qualities. These are truly the qualities of the human ego that people project onto their graven images of God – worshipping them before the Living God who resides where…? Well, in the kingdom of God within you, of course.

In short, what i am saying here is that when you began to believe in the illusion of separation, a space was created between you – meaning your sense of self, your conscious self – and God. And in that space grew a host of illusions that make you feel trapped and at the mercy of a remote god who might or might not grant you salvation. It is precisely this sense of being stuck, of having no control over your own destiny that has given rise to your anger against God.

Channeled Message: Copyright Kim Michaels – Master Keys to Personal Christhood

3. THE BIRTH OF THE EGO HAPPENED GRADUALLY

It takes on average 9 months for a human mother and father to conceive a child, carry the child in the mother’s womb, feed it through the umbilical cord and then give birth to the new baby. This is a gradual process.

Your EGO was also conceived, given energy to, and born over a gradual period of time – by YOU.

The “SPACE” you created in your mind that you are a “separate being” became the womb for your Ego to be conceived. Your continued beliefs and acceptance of yourself as a “separate being” became the father’s seed. Yet two mother’s eggs were required to conceive the child (the Ego) within the “SPACE” of your mind.

These mother’s eggs are the Anti-christ [separation, superiority] consciousness and the Anti-buddha [expectation, fear] consciousness. And you have made a series of choices – over a gradual period of time – accepting a limited separate sense of identity based on these two minds that has conceived, fed and nurtured the carrying of the child (the Ego) within the womb of your mind, until finally it was given birth within your soul as an entity in its own right.

As stated earlier, the minds of Anti-christ and Anti-buddha were created as an option by God the Creator so you could have complete free will to make choices outside of God’s Being of Unconditional Love and Oneness and experience “anti-love” and “separation” and “fear” and “delusion” – at least for a limited time. 

If you wish to be fully centered in Unconditional Love and Oneness again – and co-create “as one” with your Higher Self – then you must allow the EGO within you to die and your seed consciousness to be re-born into pure Christ [Oneness] Consciousness and pure Buddha [Enlightenment] Consciousness – by gradually removing all Ego-based fears and thoughts of anti-love and separation that keeps its separate sense of identity alive.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/How-to-Raise-Your-Vibration/204840666199710

http://www.theego.org/birth-of-the-ego.html

 

 

 

 

 

“Everybody Plays The Fool Sometimes… There’s No Exception To the Rule, You’ll Find”

Today I had an oracle card chosen for me online. It was from the Osho Deck of Tarot. I was on facebook, and of all the status updates flying by, one automatically blew up onto my screen as if by magic. It alone chose to become large, prominent, and catch my attention, no other. It was from Adee Swanson. She has a facebook page called Getting To Genius With Adee Swanson. She wrote:

 ”‎Zoraah You got “The Fool” ~ This is the first card in the deck and it opens the way for everything else. This card shows a man stepping off a cliff in a state of total trust and innocence. You’re being asked to trust your own intuition and your sense of what’s right even if it seems foolish to others. The commentary points out that, in a Zen sense you go on trusting no matter what without trying to create a “wall of knowledge around you.” Let experience come to you without getting attached to what it means or how it looks to others and allow your trust/faith to guide you in taking aligned action.”

The commentary I found on the card reads:

“This card indicates that if you trust your intuition right now, your feeling of the ’rightness’ of things, you cannot go wrong. Your actions may appear ‘foolish’ to others, or even to yourself if you try to analyze them with the rational mind.”

I have even seen people who say “The Fool is The Wisest Amongst Us” REALLY?!!?

I can’t help but recall the scene in the Matrix, where neo jumps off the building for the very first time and falls crashing to the ground. It is an illusion though, and later he is able to fly… trust trust trust is a must must must… this dance with maya the great mother spirit of the material world is so divine… oh material world… how you provide for all your children’s lessons… I have learned to love thee, detach from thee, and trust thee even more…

And though I have been afraid of your ways in the past, and I even now sometimes feel weary and scared. I acknowledge that I am embarking as a fool on a new adventure once again… I will trust, I will trust, I will trust… you always provide for your children.

And now a quote about the fool that I just found by ‘oracle’ from “Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes Crisis“, by Stanislav Grof, MD and Christina Grof. pp 95-96

“A sickness that is understood as a process of purification, as the onset of enhanced psychic sensitivity giving access to the hidden and highest potentials of human existence, is therefore marked by very different characteristics than those ascribed to pathological conditions by modern medicine and psychology – namely, that suffering has only negative consequences. According to the modern view illness disrupts and endangers life, whereas the shaman experiences his sickness as a call to destroy this life within himself so as to hear, see and live it more fully and completely in a higher state of awareness.”

“The symptoms of shamanic sickness are in most cases confused, undefinable, and follow no known pattern. Moreover, physical, psychic, and social reactions are closely interwoven. Particularly noticeable are forms of behavior that reject, and even deride and ridicule, accepted customs and standards. Initiates become holy fools who systematically put the world on its head or indulge in unworthy, shameless, and perverse behavior incompatible with established morality.”

“The fool exposes the limitations of human criteria, confronts us anew with the undefined nature of our cosmic existence, leads us backstage to make us aware of the artificiality of our cultural values, and then shows us a world without limit, because it is neither categorized nor ordered in accordance with artificial opposites. The sick jester removes these opposites, tears down external and internal barriers, and causes us to tumble head over heels from our tailor-made world of lines and demarcations into a more comprehensive and holistic dimension that has no beginning or end.”

“We have seen that often not only the shaman himself but his whole family are visited by misfortune, as for instance in the case of the kikuyu or  the Korean shamanesses. In Siberia, too, the relatives of a shaman are “sacrificed” as soon as signs of shamanic sickness appear in a member of the clan. The effects of the call to shamanism are wide-ranging, and sacrifices have to be made for that call.”

“The Koreans talk about a “bridge of people” (indari) that comes into being when a member of the family is chosen to be a shaman and another member has to die as a result of this. They refer to this process as “spanning a bridge over a human being” (indari non-nunda). A God has “entered into” the shaman and, in return, demands another human life. However, if the clan is willing to submit the member destined to become a shaman to the requisite ceremony of initiation as soon as the first symptoms of obsession or sickness manifest themselves, indari is not inevitable. But most families are unwilling to have a shaman in their circle, so the indari phenomenon occurs quite frequently.”

Introduction to Meditation at Van Dusen Gardens, June 10, 2012 *~ Po Lam Buddhist Association, Chilliwack, BC ~*

This is a story about a series of magnificent synchronicities that lead me to learn about this local non-profit monastery teaching meditation to prisoners and helping them to rehabilitate after they leave prison.

I have many times been guided to meet an elderly woman on the street in my neighborhood. She professes to be lonely, drinks a lot of alcohol, and desires to move into a nunnery where she may retire peacefully. As I have been strongly guided by Spirit to connect with her “randomly” many times, sometimes to even grab my keys and run out of the house in a specific direction to find her, I have made myself available to be of service to her needs. She tells me she prays to God and the Angels for help, and so, I arrive… a helper.

I attended a meeting last week with a wonderful woman named Padma at YWCA Family Services about my one-on-one coaching through the ministry’s self-employment program. We ended up talking for quite sometime, and she asked me if I meditated. I said yes, ‘I practice and teach my own kind of meditation’. She told me about this nunnery out in Chilliwack, and so I mentioned my new elderly friend.  She seemed to think it was a good fit, so I called the nunnery. I talked extensively with Sister Jesse and now we have planned to  meet at Van Dusen Gardens at her upcoming meditation on June 10, 2012. It is an all-day meditation instruction for beginners with a lunch provided by donation. They offer tax receipts for all donations over $20. It is open to the public, however, they require pre-registration in advance to help prepare for the students.

I very much look forward to this day of meditation, and our trip to visit the nunnery. I intend to learn as much as I can from all the wonderful nuns who practice there, and I will be sharing all that I can with them.

What a wonderful unfolding. Thank you to everyone who participated in this experience. It has been really beautiful to watch the threads of creation come together so unexpectedly!

To learn more about the Po Lam Buddhist Association, please visit their website. Here are some quotes from their website www.polam.ca that describe their intentions and practices:

“The intention of establishing the association sprouted when our honorable teacher, Venerable Sing Yat, was on a teaching tour in North America years ago. He found that Vancouverites were virtuous and friendly, and he also praised that Vancouver is a pristine and serene place, wellsuited for spiritual cultivation and the propagation of Buddhism. With the strong support of fellow Buddhists, the formation of Po Lam Buddhist Association was finally realized in 1994. In part, it has fulfilled our teacher’s lifelong wish that his students would follow patriarchal tenets, adhere to the traditions of a moral and spiritual life, and introduce to the West an alternative way of finding real happiness.”

“Our core practice evolves around meditation and the mindfulness of the Buddha’s teaching. Resident nuns are responsible for domestic chores. In the appreciation of Canadian’s cherish for and preservation of a green environment, we also feel that every additional inch of greens nourishes an equal part of life. Therefore in the earlier days of the establishment, the residents have planted over six hundred trees around the property, cultivated vegetable patches and orchards. The whole process of living a simple life is in itself a total mindful experience: it has to be realized through both stillness and activities. This practice has been spreading to all walks of life through time.”

“Meditation means mind development through concentration and mindfulness, thus understanding the true existence of the mind, the body and all phenomena. There are different types of meditation, e.g. Zen meditation, Vipassana meditation, contemplation and chanting of Buddha’s name etc. The sustained application of self-observation and understanding through meditation will heighten self-awareness and hence purify our mind, cultivating true insight wisdom. This purified and equanimous mind will bring harmony and stability to the society, and hence true peace and happiness to the world.”

“Canadians are particularly interested and gifted in meditation. In recent years, some local residents regularly come to meditate either before, after and in-between work. A purified and equanimous mind will bring harmony and stability to the society, and hence true peace to the world. We therefore encourage fellow resident nuns, Buddhists and friends to try insight meditation, regardless of one’s religious background, race or nationality. The sustained application of self-observation will heighten self-awareness and hence purify our mind.”

“Since the establishment of Po Lam Buddhist Association, we have gained the acceptance, support and rapport of our neighbors, community and friends of socioeconomic stripes. We care for each other in our daily lives, accept and respect each other in our religious beliefs, thus overcoming all interpersonal barriers, and realizing the true essence of Canada’s revered multicultural spirit in actions.”

“Let the precepts be your teacher;

Practice the Four Foundations of Mindfulness;

Do the Bodhisattva deeds.

The Venerable Sing Yat”

Sark

Huge thank you to all my new friends on Facebook who are introducing me to many new and inspiring things. One of my favourite new experiences was stumbling onto this photo by Stark. I look forward to reading her work and sharing more thoughts of hers with you. Huge thanks to Karen Runnels who shared this information with me:

“SARK stands for Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy, but she writes inspirational books as SARK. A survivor of childhood sexual abuse, it took her years to finally overcome the issues that held her back. Since finding her voice and courage, she’s blossomed into a successful author, nurturing, encouraging & inspiring others.”

Zoraah, meet SARK!!
http://planetsark.com/

Are You A Budding Psychic Having Difficulties With Boundaries?

If you see yourself as a budding psychic, I want to share some wisdom I learned in my professional training.

Boundaries exist for a reason, they help us develop ourselves through differences and discernment. Becoming embodied in the material world can offer us vast quintessential lessons on the usefulness of boundaries. As a professional psychic and healer I only do work based on my professional training, which includes the notion of consent. The repercussions of prying into the lives of others without consent is rife with the challenges of vibrational entrainment, amongst other not-so-pleasant experiences. It’s also bad manners.

I offer you these thoughts today, because I feel strongly that many of you, my dear friends are opening even more to your psychic and spiritual nature. I encourage you to use your gifts to better your own life. Mind your business, and refine the artful practice of your own life. Keep a journal of your experiences, and meditate as often as possible. Work with the Angels, learn about their presence and make yours a life worth living. A beautiful life of creativity, dancing, sunshine, and heartfelt joy. To accomplish this while remaining 100% authentic could be a very enjoyable life’s work.

Also, please release others from the grips of your judgements. People can feel your judgements, even when they are not close to you. They can also feel you trying to get into their energetic bodies if you try to influence their energies without their permission. So many people are out there trying to micro-manage their children, their employees, their friends… if you haven’t noticed, these are difficult lessons. I encourage you to inquire, and inspire any spirit you would like to interface with.

In closing, I want to offer you this little bit of wisdom paraphrased from my live training with Sonia Choquette, one of my greatest teachers of all time. This woman encouraged me to get back onto this path after my car accident and mental health recovery. She started doing professional paid readings at age 14, and has been working for over 30 years in this field:

“The biggest beef I have with budding psychics, is that they feel they have a right to tell everyone what they think, see and feel. It is a major karmic interruption to interfere in someone else’s life. As a professional psychic, people take what you have to say seriously. Your words have a huge impact. If you use them, use them to affirm good things!”

“Don’t play the role of a psychic in someone else’s life unless they ask you to. Mind your own business. If you really feel called to share an intuition with someone, you can say, I see something I would like to share with you if you are interested.”

There is a major risk of over-projecting the issues in your own life onto the lives of others if you become too occupied with them. Truly, the best way to improve the world is to focus on improving your own life so that you become a bright encouraging light for others.

I encourage anyone who is interested in developing their psychic talents to find a professional teacher such as Sonia, someone with many years of experience to guide and train them. It is not always easy terrain. It helps to have a friend, a mentor, and a guide.

I hope this helps you!!!

<3 God Bliss! <3

*~ namaste ~*

~ How To Know if We Are A Good Fit ~

How to know if we are a good fit: You want to address the core issues of anything going on in your life. You want to address the roots of these manifestations instead of micro-managing the symptoms. You are tired of telling the same stories over and over again, and experiencing the same difficulties over and over again, and are interested in learning about self-love, healing and creating your future. You are willing to listen and learn lessons even when they are difficult. You are willing to be emotional and bear witness to real emotions and see how emotional repression causes manifestation of the same.

Claiming to be willing to listen and learn doesn’t do any of us any good if you don’t want to listen or learn. It is one thing to say “teach me”. It is a whole other thing to stick around for the lesson. Sometimes you have to give up the need to be right to be happy. At least God has a sense of humor.

When God Gave Me Something I Gave Me Something Too

When I say God gave me something, I also mean I gave me something, because God is in me, and I am in God and we are one. Long live the omnipotent, omniscient fractal hologram of loving creation!!! *~♥~* Your spirit is your source and your connection to God & All that is. Healthy boundaries and all… ♥

MedEffect™ Canada – How to Report Adverse Drug Reactions

An Adverse Reaction Is:

- An undesirable side effect from ingesting or using prescription and/or non-prescription health products (including vaccines, serum, and blood-derived products; cells, tissues, and organs; disinfectants; and radioactive pharmaceuticals).

Reactions can occur under normal use of the products that are not observed during testing. Reactions vary between individuals.

Look for reactions within minutes of exposure, or those that have developed over time such as skin rashes, heart attacks, liver damage, or otherwise. All health products have risks and benefits.

If you or someone you care for experiences a serious and unexpected side effect, seek medical advice right away and ask your doctor or pharmacist about reporting the reaction to Health Canada.

MedEffect Canada
www.healthcanada.gc.ca/medeffect
1-866-234-2345

 

Why Enlightened Beings May Not Be Able To Help You Find Real Happiness

“I had a great conversation with my friend Dana recently, and she asked me what I thought about people taking Ayahuasca in different types of situations. Well, I think it matters who is holding space in the ceremony, and the master of the ayahuasca ceremony is the Shaman.

I think it is good to work with a Shaman who has some exposure and knowledge of first world culture, because there is a vast disparity between Amazonian Indigenous cultures and the first world. The shaman I work with used to be a math professor, and despite all his authentic indigenous training with other shamans and indigenous people, he continues to be seen (and will likely always be seen) as “gringo”.

This perspective is of enormous value to people coming from the first world, because the shaman has already crossed the bridge from first world consciousness to indigenous consciousness. He is aware of some of the difficulties, experiences and prejudices occurring in colonial cultures. He has also faced the cultural gap between them and found a way between.

When I mentioned this to Dana, she recalled a story about a student of Buddhism asking the Dalai Lama about self-hatred. This concept was so far outside of the Dalai Lama’s experience of life and ability to conceptualize, his translator spent a very long time, maybe five minutes discussing it before he would respond.

“the Dalai Lama repeatedly attempted to explore the contours of self-hatred with us. “Is that some kind of nervous disorder?” “Are people like that very violent?” “But you have Buddha nature. How could you think of yourself that way?” At the end he said, “I thought I had a very good acquaintance with the mind, but now I feel quite ignorant. I find this very, very strange.”

Finally, the translator said, ‘the Dalai Lama does not understand this concept’ (paraphrased). So, in effect, the Lama could not assist this student because the cultural gap was too wide. This is a very important concept to consider when we think about bringing Eastern cultures and “Enlightened” beings to the Western or First World.

I spoke to Sister Jesse at the Buddhist Monastary in Chilliwack. She said that she enjoyed bringing non-sectarian meditation to the west, because meditation is often left out of westernized religious or spiritual practices. They focus on bringing meditation to the people, sometimes in prisons, and sometimes in non-profit workshops in the Van Dusen Gardens (June 10, 2012) because they have the belief/knowledge that everyone has the capacity to heal themselves with their inner Buddha nature. Also, by teaching meditation in  a non-religious way, they are able to share the teachings of the East without any religious conflict.

 So, I must ask this question, how do we cross the cultural gap between real suffering and real happiness. The more I share my life’s passion with others doing healing, the more I am exposed to the depth of human suffering, inner strength, and the beauty of the Spirit. It is clear to me that we experience suffering and can learn from wise teachers, and enlightened beings, but only so much that we feel safe, connected, and that it is realistically attainable… Perhaps those with the greatest gift of facilitating this journey have some ability to conceptualize human suffering, and enlightenment and have been able to cross that cultural divide. Otherwise, the student and seeker look at this idea of Happiness with bewilderment, as one might expect if one saw a Unicorn, or maybe an Angel for the first time.

At any rate, our conversation affirmed the value of my work as a recovered psychiatric patient. I have experienced suffering and a psychiatric illness and know what it takes to cross that bridge towards recovery. While you may think it takes a heroic effort, I hope I can be of assistance to anyone wanting to cross that Gap. I know for certain that working with people who can conceptualize and comprehend my experiences and desires for healing has been enormously valuable. I don’t know if I would want to put my life in someone’s hands if they could not even comprehend where I was at. I hope you are surrounded by “your people”, people who understand your nature, and can support you on your journey.

Here is the article Dana was telling me about  on the time the Dalai Lama was asked about self-hatred:

Quoted From: http://www.feminist.com/ourinnerlives/inspiration_realhappiness8.html

“I went to Dharamsala, India in 1990 for a Mind and Life conference with the Dalai Lama. It was a small gathering of psychologists, scientists and meditators, exploring the topic of healing emotions. “What do you think about self-hatred?” I asked when it was my turn to bring up an issue for discussion. I was eager to get directly to the suffering I’d seen so often in my students, a suffering I was familiar with myself. The room went quiet as all of us awaited the answer of the Dalai Lama. Looking startled, he turned to his translator and asked pointedly in Tibetan again and again for an explanation. Finally, looking back at me, the Dalai Lama tilted his head, his eyes narrowed in confusion. “Self-hatred?” he repeated in English, as though trying out the words. “What is that?”

I think that encapsulates much of what we encounter as the teachings come from East to West. I don’t want to deify Asian culture, but the rock bottom belief that if we went to the core of our being, if we really knew who we were it would be pretty bad news, doesn’t seem to be there, certainly not in the way it exists in the West. During the remainder of the session, the Dalai Lama repeatedly attempted to explore the contours of self-hatred with us. “Is that some kind of nervous disorder?” “Are people like that very violent?” “But you have Buddha nature. How could you think of yourself that way?” At the end he said, “I thought I had a very good acquaintance with the mind, but now I feel quite ignorant. I find this very, very strange.”

For me, one of the most fascinating aspects of this session took place during our tea break. Several of the Westerners who were old students of the Dalai Lama’s tried to convey some of how the teachings of the Buddha could sound if one was listening with the perspective of self doubt and chronic self condemnation instead of confidence in our Buddha nature, however obscured it might be. They related things like, “When I first heard, ‘Give up self-cherishing, this is what I heard…’” “All this emphasis on effort, when I secretly think I might not be capable of achievement, makes me feel…”

It was amazing. The fact that self-hatred was not a part of his worldview summed up the essence of what I first aspired to through the practice of meditation. And I’ve certainly witnessed in many years of teaching the burden that not really believing we deserve to be happy, not really feeling that we can actually achieve happiness, brings.

In the Theravada tradition when we do lovingkindness meditation, the instruction is to begin by offering lovingkindness to ourselves. The explanation is that this is easiest, that we can “search the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of our love and affection than ourselves and that we won’t find that person anywhere. We ourselves deserve our own love and affection more than anyone.” But for many, that’s not the easiest, by any stretch. It might in fact be the hardest. And so we need a creative approach to accommodate that.

We’re taught (and I teach) that lovingkindness for ourselves is a foundation for lovingkindness for others, so that our motivation in giving is generosity and not martyrdom, our efforts at morality are not guilty and repressive but claiming a slice of the great human compassionate potential as our own. We’re taught (and I teach) that our own happiness, when it goes beyond merely seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, is not born of the circumstance we find ourselves in. Instead, when it is real and stable happiness, it is the basis for our ability to be generous, kind, and compassionate. Not only do we deserve it, we need that kind of happiness.

Implied in all of this is a deep sense of our own worth. What I’ve seen over these years of bringing an Asian teaching to the West, is that this sense needs to be a lot more than implied: it needs to be stated, examined, and nourished; our fears, assumptions and hesitations need to be challenged; and our capacity for freedom and happiness needs to be continuously brought forth and celebrated.”

SHARON SALZBERG has been a student of meditation since 1971, and leading meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. She teaches both intensive awareness practice (vipassana or insight meditation) and the profound cultivation of lovingkindness and compassion (the Brahma Viharas).

Sharon’s latest book is Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program, published by Workman Publishing. She is also the author of The Kindness Handbook and The Force of Kindness, both published by Sounds True; Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience, published by Riverhead Books; Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness and A Heart as Wide as the World, both published by Shambhala Publications; and co-author with Joseph Goldstein of Insight Meditation, a Step-by-Step Course on How to Meditate (audio), from Sounds True. She has edited Voices of Insight, an anthology of writings by vipassana teachers in the West, also published by Shambhala.

Sharon Salzberg is cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts. She has played a crucial role in bringing Asian meditation practices to the West. The ancient Buddhist practices of vipassana (mindfulness) and metta (lovingkindness) are the foundations of her work. “Each of us has a genuine capacity for love, forgiveness, wisdom and compassion. Meditation awakens these qualities so that we can discover for ourselves the unique happiness that is our birthright.” For more information about Sharon, please visit: www.SharonSalzberg.com.