Making Rooted Decisions

For anybody successfully through thier Astrological time of Saturn returning, you'll already know what this is about. It begins around the age of 27 and continues to flip flop itself ruthlessly through your chakras,  your life; your thoughts, and your core belief systems for about three years. All of the sudden things start happening, or they get stuck, or you start feeling deeply restless, but nonetheless it makes absolute havock.

I'll spare you my grueling three year saga, because really what I am trying to learn, and I think many women and men are too, is how to make decisions from my deepest, truest self. It's the darn hardest thing I've ever had to do. And I don't even think I've done it yet.

When I was in my early youth, decisions didn't even make me blink. I knew exactly what they were within a nanosecond. No mulling, no making lists or asking tarot, no crying at the river or depression for days - the decisions practically made themselves. Why is that? How is it that in our teens we are so divinely present, blissfully selfish, that making choices weather big or small seem effortless. We take risks and speak or mind, ready and invincible against naysayers and so full of willpower that we sound almost arrogant.

But now, in my early thirties, married 11 years and with two children, I'm faced with life changing, gargantuan sized decisions. And it's not just me anymore. My choices effect my whole family. They are not so easy. Thinking of outcomes with all thier great and not so great qualities, makes my head spin, my heart pound, my breath stuck, and I go absolutely haywire. So much so that I can't hear my own wants and needs. That voice, that was ever so loud and clear, just isn't there anymore. She's gone!

So, I wonder, how is it that we can get down to that strong voiced woman again and serve her well. Which physical reactions are the ones to avoid, and which ones do we follow? Which ones say 'I should do this because I'm afraid"

and which one sais "I want this - and I don't care if I'm afraid"

It's an answer that still evades me. I listen daily to my sensations, how I breath during certain thoughts. How my heart beats. What makes me happy to wake up in the morning and how will I find that more often.

And although I still have no rooted choices to make that I know whole heartedly are my true will, perhaps it's not learning how to choose at all that's the lesson, but how to listen again, is.

Comments

[Tamara]

I can relate to this and enjoyed this article very much!

[Katie]

YES! I find myself in just this same dilemna right now! I think Rilke talks about not knowing the answer to our biggest questions, that we should love the questions themselves and perhaps one day we'll live our way into the answer.

[Sherman Buck]

I have just moved out of a huge tranformational process that has been going on for some time. One of the key reasons why it becomes difficult to do has to do with thinking itself. We live in a left brained oriented society almost exclusively. We ignore the other half of our knowing process to the point that because we have focused so much on thinking, that we have forgotten to turn to the right to notice what arises within this area/process/feeling zone. As young people, it was easy to do this because we relied heavily on it to survive living in dysfunctional systems were we did not have an awful lot of choices, it behooved us to find highly creative ways to survive. However, when we left the nest, we began to hunger for freedom in the form of culturally accepted forms of trying out things we liked. But our early programming from home, school, religion, and community was so ingrained in us, that eventually we stop seeking balance and fall under the peer pressure conforming process of which the ,many are clueless about. For some background in this, I highly recommend reading Carolyn Myss's book, Anatomy of Spirit, where she discusses the energy centers in the body and what they are about internally and externally. Most live in the first two chakras, which is about getting our basic needs met. What is important here is understanding when we live from the first two chakra centers, we are focused on community/others, wherein we get our energy needs via external sources i.e. others. As we open up the other chakras, we literally power up, empower ourselves, so we know longer are inundated by the "energy" approval of others. fitting in is an energetic function. I would suggest reading The Celestine Prophecy and seeing the movie of the same name to get an intellectual context of this as well as a visual context. So, when we are pressured to "grow up" in effect we are being pressured to again conform, and we wind up having our early year patterns engaging and we re-enact what our parents did to varying degrees, with little deviation. There are differences, but the core beliefs are enacted. We don't know that we don't know. We are really seeking the very approval we never got from our parents in general, and we wind up marrying individuals like one or the other parent or both. A book that discusses this in one particular chapter is by Sondra Ray and her book is called Loving Relationships. I highly recommend reading this, for it is the basis for how we get stuck. Of course there are no accident, for our higher self is still guiding us to some extent and attracting to us those situations and people who will help us identify our projection. By projection, I am meaning drawing to us similar people that are like our parents. It is challenging to see this, becuase as I said, we don't know that we don't know. I recall my own realizations of this at various times and being horrified to varying degrees. But in the end i was able to free myself from unconsiously learned beliefs. OOF! Where I am today, of which is importance here to your concerns, is getting back on track to listening completely to our right side, which is where contact with our higher self, and other spirits is possible. The idea of meditation needs to be further addressed here more so than is done, for what we need to understand is that soul is our other half literally. It is not separate from us and never was. We just got conditioned to avoid listening, seeing, hearing, feeling from that area. It is still there always whispering in a sense, because they are like thoughts. To make this more obvious, one should find info on what claircognizant is and means. I found out recently that I have this ability, and I would strongly suggest that perhaps many have this or other forms of clairivoyant abilities of connecting to our other half. In my case, it dawned on me that as I paid more attention to the mind, paying attention to the varying thoughts going on, that I was able to discern garbage from true connections. It is my belief based on my experience that there are dark spirits that are always trying to keep us distracted away from the light. As I began discerning more, I noticed there was a quality to responses I would get to questions. Anything based in a fear response or judgment was/is dark stuff. Higher self and spirits of the light have no need to frighten, disempower or judge. This simple realization on my own part really opened the door to realizing I was able to have conversations with higher self and other helping spirits. In no case were they judgmental when I got cold feet. In time, I began to trust more in what I was hearing and understanding that I was following the wrong inner cues that were leading me to pain and suffering by making bad choices. I also recommend watching the movie The Secret, which you can find by doing a Google search. It can be watched online or one can buy a copy, which I finally did after seeing the first time. The importance of hearing our higher self is having to understand that we were meant to live joyful lives, abundant lives, and when we aren't it is because we have been making choices that take us away from that, unconscious choices, choices that are approved of by external sources. In the end, even if we are married and have all sorts of responsibilities, we must always be true to self. This act is considered culturally selfish, and is in place to prevent people from listening to inner guidance that has our highest good at heart. Guilt, shame, and fear are used to short-circuit us to stay imprisoned to others approval. Even those we submit too ultimately lose because they are gaining happiness by getting others to be what they want them to be. In the end it backfires on them, because they aren't listening to their inner self either, which would have no interest in getting others to act a particular way. If each person trusted their own inner guidance, no one would be forcing anyone to adhere to living a life of misery. This is challenging work to do, because we have to become empowered, and get out of old patterns where we are acting from a view point of a small child. The feelings that arise as we begin to become empowered are actually the feelings we felt as children that got denied and suppressed in order to survive. When someone gets into some intense feelings, the best thing I have found that works, is to find some time to go back on memory to find a time when that feeling was predominant and usually the present circumstances that brought up those feelings is usually a mirror to the past event. Even if you can't find the exact memory, having the realization that the feeling was experienced back then is enough to shift the stuck energy and free it up to empower you. Also realizing that you were a lot smaller at the time brings into awareness how vulnerable we were as small children in a world of giants; literally. As we begin to listen internally more and more, we begin to understand what we are doing to sabotage authentic being and it does require action. The good news is that our higher self and other helping spirits are there to guide us to following our passions, which are the joyful things we long to do. This is our life's work. I am doing Jack Canfield's e-coaching course at the moment, along with reading his new book, The Success Principles, and it focuses on the success of authentic being. From a body, mind, soul, spirit perspective, success is not the typical mainstream business corporate profit mindset. that is not to say that money is irrelevant, because it is, but following our heart and listening to our internal cues must always come first to be guided to our highest good. Our inner connection to higher self is God, Goddess, Shakti, Shiva or any other name you want to give it. This inner guidance is not concerned about what others are doing, saying, etc. It is not interested in the rules of the external world. And, it does know where all the openings are in the walls of conformity. Our own inner knowingness arises about what we came to do and be in this world. And I would end this by using Jesus saying, "until we become like children, we will not enter the kingdom" I am not Christian or any other religion, but I do believe that we must get back to that state we came into the world in order to be authentic. If one watches the young ones enough, they will see what they are supposed to be. If it is not obvious to you, then focus on the adults, the older they get the more miserable, unhappy, judgmental, etc they get in general. We were born conscious and were gradually forced into varying degrees of unconsciousness. Even if you have family, if you do not act to become authentic for yourself, you will in effect be teaching your own children to re-create the very life you have. And no amount of telling them otherwise will alter the conditioning of their mimicking you, because as parents, we are the role models of how things are supposed to be done. They don't listen, they observe, it is part of fitting in and getting their needs met. And no amount of forcing them is going to get them to acknowledge this, because you cannot force the higher self to open itself to the lower self. People have this idea that spirit can be controlled. Nope, only the body and the lower self can be. I also highly recommend various types of body work and breath work to free up suppressed and blocked energies which are also connected to our consciousness, which is energetic in nature. Hopefully this will be a start. If you want more information, books, etc. email me off line. Blessings in sprouting your wings to fly to higher levels of awareness.

[Carol Loguisto]

Having been through some very turbulent years, I offer you the advise of one who has lived for six decades. Meditate!!! It helped save my sanity when I was in an abusive marriage and I believe it gave me the strength and courage to end it. And that was thirty years ago.
I am still here but the turbulence comes and goes.
In 2004, my adult daughter passed over to the other side. It was a profound, terrible, spiritual, mystical, possibly the worst experience any human being can go through. But, I am still here and going on. Why? Because my passing over is not yet here and there are still things to do. Meditation, as I said before, helps me keep my sanity. And, exercise helps me be kind to others. So, I offer you what works for me--meditation and exercise!
And, remember to be grateful for what you do have no matter how small.
May God bless you and may she continue to bless you and yours.