The Best Of The Worst

Is your life going horribly wrong lately? Congratulations! Seriously, I have found that in the end, the "worst things to ever happen to me" end up being the best things that could have happened to me. Sometimes these crisis moments are the only way for your higher self to get your ego to change course.

To go from worst to best I just needed to let go of the expectations I had on how things were "supposed to turn out". Expectations don't always originate from yourself. Society, family, and your peers can be big sources of how it's "supposed to be".

Another reason to be pleased that "everything is going wrong" is that it is a sign you are raising your vibration or have learned a major spiritual lesson. You can't ascend or raise your vibrations while carrying heavy baggage. You need to take the time to unpack, no matter how yucchy the contents of your luggage is. Suddenly the junk you've been carrying around screams for you to deal with it NOW! Just think of the wonderful things to come once we learn to pack light!

I've noticed that since 11/11/11 the number of us going through a breakdown to get to the breakthrough had increased dramatically (breakthroughs can lead to breakdowns too, it's a cycle). Perhaps all the positive energy put into that day by people around the world shook us enough to make us face even the ugliest issues in our lives.

The good news is that the really big issues that many of us are facing at this time are not supposed to be faced alone. Many of us have dealt with previous lessons privately, secretly, hidden from view. The junk we are dealing with now is best cleared with the help of others. For many, one of the lessons to be learned is to ask for help, rely on others, and know you deserve to receive support. Do not be afraid to reach out and ask for help. Do not be afraid to share your truth with those you trust. Let go of the fear and shame that hold you back and weigh you down. Know that we are all in this together. (Know that I need this advice as much as anyone!)

Yours en-lightened,

Practical Empath

Really Starting

It's been a while now that I've been thinking of blogging again, so what stopped me? The starting stopped me. I realized that I have issues with beginning something if I don't think I can do a fabulous job of it. The potential of a thing or action seems more perfect than the reality of fumbling through the doing.

Of course this is flawed thinking; the most perfect idea or wish can't compare to a slightly flawed reality created from them. And lets face facts: there is no perfection in this reality.

So why hesitate on starting anything? The fear of failure, being judged, not measuring up to the ideal in my head. The reality is I am much more forgiving and accepting of others best efforts than I am of myself.

Ironically, while reading my old posts I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed reading them with some distance and time between the me who wrote them and the me I am now. Even though i am clearly still working on the topic of my first post at http://practicalempath.blogspot.com/2010/07/just-beginning.html .

The wonderful Havi Brooks (Destuckifyer, Mindful  Biggifier, Monster Negotiater, Shiva Nata Diva, and Business Partner of Selma the rubber duckie) wrote about mindful entry in her blog at http://www.fluentself.com/blog/personal/preparing-for-the-voyage/ . Entries and beginnings are very close cousins indeed. Her thought: enter as you wish to be in it. I wish to be writing my soul-level truth as much as i know it.

So this is me starting. And giving myself permission to fumble. And to be less than perfect but more real. And realizing that perfect ideas don't do anyone any good unless they give birth to creation in this reality.

Yours truthfully,

Practical Empath

How shall Ye receive if Ye don't ask!

Last blog I wrote about accepting, but there is another side to that coin: asking.
I have no problems with giving. I am working on receiving. Asking, now that's a problem! I am so fiercely independant. I somehow feel like I am imposing rudely on others while at the same time admitting defeat for myself. There is also the issue of feeling like if we have to ask for something, than maybe we don't deserve it. Or maybe we are being selfish, or asking for too much. ("Please sir, can I have some more?" How sad and pathetic!) We can be so tough on ourselves!

Yet when those around me have issues, I quickly tell them to call on me for help. So why am I not following my own advice? EGO!

The non-ego portion of me knows we are all interconnected, so therefore asking for help is merely working with yourself, as there is no "Other". To be fiercely independant is to deny the interconnectedness of the all-that-is. It is to reinforce the illusion that we are separate. Do you insist on doing things with ONLY your right hand, or do you allow the left hand to help too? Seems silly when you scale it down, but refusing to ask for help is just as silly.

Perhaps it would help to ask not just for yourself, but for others too. If you want something in your life, think of who else will benefit, or how you will pass it forward once you get your request. That might take the ego out of it until you get better at it. (ps. I'm writing this to myself as much as anyone else out there.)
Many write that the law of free will prevents the universe from helping if we don't ask. How is the universe supposed to manifest what you want if you mumble when you make your request, make it clear you don't expect to get anything, then apologise for asking?

The question itself bears thinking on too. Ever heard of "careful what you wish for, you just might get it"? Make sure you ask for what you really do want, not for what you think you deserve, or what you can get away with, or worse still, what you think you "should" ask for.

So swallow your pride (and ego), know you are worth it, and ask already!

Yours if you ask,

Practical Empath

Start saying "Yes" to life

Today I said yes to an opportunity that part of me thought was already lost, part of me was too shy or lazy to pursue. I even thought the opportunity to bow out might be a sign I should give up. Then I remembered that this opportunity was a potential answer to my manifesting of late.

I have been reading the book "Did you spot the gorrilla" by Richard Wiseman about how to recognize opportunities. You need to look where you wouldn't have before, say yes to things you might have normally said no to or ignored.

So why does the accepting part seem so mysterious and difficult? How do you accept? By not ignoring what you can receive, by not turning things away, by not saying no.
Not saying yes is the same as saying no. Do you go to a restaurant, order a meal, then order again when the waiter arrives with food? No, you order, trust it will come, then accept the food when it arrives. Do you think the waiter will keep bringing you food if you keep sending him away with each meal he brings to go get another?

What about the saying "Tis better to give than to receive"? First, the saying dosn't say it's BAD to receive, just that it's better to give. And second, it only only works if the other person accepts. Imagine buying a present for a loved one, then having them refuse to even open it! That is what you do to your manifestations when you don't say yes.

Much like hearing your intuition better each time you listen to it, the act of saying yes is a signal to the universe that you are in receiving mode. Even if the thing you say yes to isn't life-changing, it will show that you will be ready to say yes when the life-changing thing does show up. Besides, it's good practice!

Say yes to almost everything. If it seems like a good idea, say yes. If it seems like a bad idea, think about why you really want to say no. If no harm will come, then say yes anyway! We are far more likely to regret that which we don't do, than that which we do. The thing you don't accept may be the answer to your prayers.

If you continue to do that which you are currently doing, you will get more of that which you are currently getting! I don't know about you, but I don't spend time trying to manifest what I already have!

Stretch your limits of what you will accept. Do the things which push your boundaries in a good way. You never know what lies on the other side of that yes.

Yours Acceptingly,
Practical Empath

Bully for me!

I have been dealing lately with a boss who has turned into an bullying control-freak who watches my every move. As an empath, I am having great difficulty in not A) feeling their anger/paranoia, B) responding with my own anger/paranoia, or C) having my psyche crushed completely.

If I am one with all, that means I am one with my boss. This raises the question: why would I bully myself? Is this an external manifestation of some lack of self esteem? Do I need to love myself/my boss more to get my boss/myself to love me back?

Or perhaps it is the laboratory for me to practice what I preach. It is easy to say you are interconnected. It is easy to think about unconditional love as a concept. But to put those into practice with someone who is causing you emotional and psychological pain is a very different beast.

So do I resort to hating the actions, not the person? That seems like semantics to me. Loving someone who is damaging you feels too much like asking for more of the same. And shielding works well, but only for so long.

Lately I have sumbled on the "You are really insignificant in the greater scheme of my life, and by the way, I see right through your attempts to make up for your own inadequacies" method. My boss can only be the destroyer of my world if I give them that power.

A bully uses power to make them feel like more by making you feel like less. The worse they feel about themselves, the more they bully you. They do this to try to make up for what they feel they don't have. It is my boss who has low self esteem, NOT me. Suddenly their pettiness seems kinda pathetic.

So I need to consider: if my boss is one with all, my boss is also one with me. Bullies treat others like they subconsciously feel they should be treated. This is really all about my boss feeling "less-than", and it is a whole lot easier to feel compassion towards that.

By not accepting the role of the victim I will have done all I can to improve things, and protected myself in the process. I will grow from it, even if my boss doesn't. After all, I can't change anyone else, but I can change myself.

Besides, bullies really hate it when you don't cower in fear. ;)

Yours (but not my bosses!)

Practical Empath

Can you spare some quantum change?

Change is coming. There is a new energy in the air. 2012 is fast approaching. Change in general can be scary, big change even more so. How will we measure this change? Quantum physics states that how you look for things affects your measurement of them. If you look for light as a wave, you will find it as a wave. If you look for light as a particle, you will find it as a particle.

Schroedinger's cat is a famous physics thought experiment (well, as famous
as these things get anyway). The Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger describes the thought
experiment as "a scenario with a cat in a sealed box, wherein the cat's
life or death was dependent on the state of a subatomic particle....the cat
remains both alive and dead (to the universe outside the box) until the box
is opened." (Please read the full article for more details.) Or put another
way from http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/113/the-story-of-schroedingers-cat-an-epic-poem

Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
But quantum mechanics must answer, "Tough shit.
We may not know much, but one thing's fo' sho':
There's things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons--you'll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed

What if the change that is coming is the box, and we are the cat? What if
ascention is just the creation of a parallel universe like the 2 cats in
schroedinger's box, only the split is permanent and BOTH realities exist
when the lid is lifted? Do we want to be a part of the lower energy
universe or the higher? Do we want to be the (spiritually) dead cat or the
alive one? If the way we perceive the change affects the way we experience
it, perhaps we can still alter the outcome by our observation despite being inside the box.

Some have interpreted the change coming to be the end of the world as we know it,or a battle to be fought between good and evil. War is the old model, it is not new or the end of what we know, it IS what we know. Maybe the change in the air is peace? Not just the earthly temporary peace that is fought for at rallies but a deep peace that is undeniable and does not need to be hard won. THAT would be new. THAT would be change.

PS:

Yours and not yours at the same time,

Practical Empath

Just the beginning...

I have been having issues trying to come up with an appropriate first post for this blog. I wrote one about my "vision statement", then I thought about copying the introduction from my website. When I looked to an article about "how to start" (located at www.hellomynameisscott.com/how-start-0 ) one sentence jumped out and smacked me in the face:

Perfectionism is nothing but procrastination in disguise.

Wow.


I had been trying to find the perfect beginning, something to sum up all that would follow, a grand statement. I was really putting off speaking my truth. My truth is that I am a perfectionist. My perfectionism made me act like a chicken.

The photo at the beginning of this post is of a cloud which to me looked like a chicken. But like the cloud, the "chicken" in me is just an illusion. It can be transformed, it can be a thing of beauty. I can use it to remind myself to lighten up.

"One of the signs of an approaching nervous
breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important" - Bertrand
Russell

Yours flaws and all,
Practical Empath