Letting Go and Pressure

The title of this post is kind of lame as I could not think of anything better to label it. My entire perspective has shifted so drastically since I first started this blog. I actually went back and deleted some of my older posts because they just no longer resonated with me on any level.

So much has been happening in my life since the last time I posted here. I've had a very difficult winter dealing with chronic fatigue and other health issues and it's been very stressful for me in trying to come to terms with all of this, understand the meaning behind it, understand how to address it, and understand how to incorporate it into my life going forward.

Interestingly, the past couple of weeks I have been dealing with passing a kidney stone. I had an 8-10 mm stone that was trapped in my ureter. It was THE......and let me repeat that THE most intense, worst, god awful pain I have EVER experienced in my life. I thought I might be dying. I was alone in my apartment. It was a Sunday night. My parents were on vacation on a cruise. I had to call 911 which I've never done before.

Earlier that day, I was walking around a hardware store and my chronic fatigue came back and started stressing me out again. Later that night, I was in the ER, doped on pain meds and I didn't give a flying fuck whether or not I was going to be able to work the next week nor did I give a flying fuck about my chronic fatigue. It was like the kidney stone attack provided me with a temporary reprieve from obsessing over my other health symptoms (pain meds helped). The next few days, I granted myself permission to lie in bed on pain meds and just watch TV. I took off the whole week from work (I had no choice being in such intense pain and doped up on pain meds) and it's interesting. When you finally give yourself permission to let go, surrender and accept the position you are in, everything else falls away.

Ever get really sick with a flu or bad cold? All you can do is rest and just let go. You don't obsess over being sick, because you know that it will pass. I knew this too with the kidney stone. Perhaps the pain meds helped a bit too, but it was a really cool process for me to just allow myself to simply let go. Letting go is the first step towards acceptance of anything in life.

Now while I am still trying to pass the small remnants of the stone, I am no longer in that "surrender mode" and I am again focused on my health going forward and I feel some stress creeping up again. It's almost like the pressure was off of me for about a week and now pressure creeps back in. Pressure has been the focal point of my life since I was a child and it stems from many many sources.

I have MUCH more to write about in regards to neuroplasticity, epi genetics and consciousness in the near future, so stay tuned......

Transformational Dance

Last night I went to a "Transformational Dance" meetup group in Manhattan. Transformational Dance is essentially a form of 'ecstatic' dance which I'll explain more about.

Considering the first train I was supposed to catch was cancelled due to track work, I had to take a later train a half an hour later, which meant I was going to be late for the event. I was already a bit nervous and unsure of what to expect from this event, yet excited. Therefore, I didn't want to come in late and potentially miss mingling with people and missing out on anything early on during the event.

I arrived about 15 minutes late. When I entered into the event room, everyone was doing a form of stretching/letting loose exercises and making very strange "release" sounds. Understand that I had no idea how to dress for this event. Therefore, I wore jeans stupidly, while everyone was dressed down, including some people wearing pajamas. Therefore, it made it a little difficult to do the stretching exercises with jeans on. Regardless, the exercises involved crawling on the ground, and making any kind of noises we felt like making including growling noises or animal like noises. I was kind of "thrown" into the fire immediately after arriving late, so I was bit uncomfortable crawling around the floor and making cat noises into people's faces at first, but with so much laughing going on with all of us, it made it so much more fun.

Then, we started dancing. This type of dancing does not involve any prior knowledge with choreography or even rhythm. It's a form of ecstatic dance, which means, freely expressing yourself around the dance floor while music is playing in the background. There is no thought involved. It's strictly movement by feeling. It was so incredible and empowering, to be able to move around with other people on the dance floor, each of us doing our own thing, going in crazy directions, with no judgment at all. Incredible does not even describe it. I felt strong emotions surfacing with the combination of expression and music playing in the background. Some other dance exercises involved dancing with partners. I even danced with another man! It was beautiful. A little strange, but such a warm feeling of love from each person to each other.

We then had to find a partner and ask the partner if they had any injuries. I found a female partner for this. Then, we proceeded to help 'loosen' each other physically by gently moving random parts of each other's bodies (completely non sexual). So, basically, arms, legs, neck and slowly glide the person on the back, along the floor. Very relaxing, if you don't think too much. I found this to be a bit awkward, when I was the one who was being 'loosened'. First of all, I have a hard time letting go in the first place, especially feeling pressured to let go with another person standing right next to me! I wasn't sure whether to make eye contact with her either. She was a nice woman and neither of us knew very well what we were 'supposed' to be doing to be honest. So, I found the eye contact part made me very tense as my muscles tightened up instead of loosening, and I kept looking away as dancing with a female partner completely platonically for some reason felt very weird for me to make strict eye contact for extended periods of time and I realize this is likely a result of my own conditioning and a belief that eye contact implies 'sexuality'. She had very powerful blue eyes as well. Something I took notice of with myself within my body, and will continue to be aware of in the future. I noticed that when I am sexually interested in a girl, I can make extended eye contact for long periods of time un-interrupted and I will often be the one to initiate it! However, when it's platonic, I at times, feel a little awkward making extended eye contact with people. There is a 'gazing' event through a similar meetup organization that I plan on taking part in, in mid October.

Anyway, the event was incredible. We did a number of other dance sessions which were a lot of fun and the night ended with us receiving and giving reiki to each other. I only received and did not give because I did not have a partner at that point and the organizer was the one who performed reiki on me, but it was very relaxing.

I made a couple of friendly connections. The re-lating aspect even with the few men that were there, was nothing I had ever experienced. It went from "tense" to "freeing" by the end of the night to be able to interact with other men in a loving connected platonic way.....without judgment most of all.

I definitely plan on going to another transformational dance event in the future. It's a wonderful stepping stone as part of a spiritual practice of truly feeling your self authentically and bringing that out to connect with other people.

Spirituality is all about authenticity. All of the other stuff is irrelevant. A true spiritual practice is one where we go within ourselves and allow who we truly are to Be. A good portion of my life was lived in ego, in manipulating others and in fear. Much of my interactions were based on the notion of 'hiding who I was' so that they wouldn't 'discover me'. I would always sit in the back of the classroom out of fear of being seen by others. I wanted so badly to fit in, that I put on an act for so long to hide who I truly was out of fear of rejection.

These types of events get you to most importantly FACE those fears inside of yourself and make them conscious so that you can love them and embrace them. Truly facing your fears means to LOVE every aspect of yourself and embrace those aspects non judgmentally.

I feel I have anxiety still in my life relating to certain issues largely with sleep, but I feel I'm finally on a true spiritual path as nothing else matters to me now other than Being who I truly AM authentically.

Longing for Fire

All I Am held down inside

All I Am was hidden

The echoing fear of what I'd find

if all would be forgiven

Thoughts arising of what they'd think

If this child's shell would break

An explosive Love so on the brink

A Love to soothe all aches

My skin so crawling with desire

My outsides wearing thin

The appearance just a mere attire

of a Light that burns within

So pale and cold, I wandered through

So destitute of Love

When oh when would I break on through

to the truth I am Above?

I wandered through this plastic wasteland

a comfort zone of pride

A plethora of changing masks

to hide all that I was inside 

This burning Love I long to show

to all I within my stride

Oh how oh how could they ever know?

if I'm hidden by my pride

I search and search to only fail

I'm bounded by my mind

This fire burns to no avail

oh Heaven where do I find?

Suddenly, the light appears

all appears so Bright

this Love I Am shines oh so clear

all held within this Light

The walls of fear come falling down

The walls that held me back

All the chains that kept me bound

That all expressed such Lack

This Burning flows so mightily

I Am here for all to see

All that's left is authenticity 

I finally found the key

All of me, I share with you

This fire expressed within

to be all I AM all the way through

Love is where it all Begins.

A poem I wrote about my awakening process which is still on-going. 

With Love

My Meditation

I've had some stress on and off over the past few months over noise in my apartment. My downstairs neighbor's TV is heard at random times in my living room. I live on the top floor of a six story apartment building. The walls are shit here, which means I can hear my down stairs neighbor when he coughs and he can hear me when I fart. While it does not keep me up at night (his TV that is), I find it irritating that I have to listen to his TV in my living room. When I'm sitting in my living room trying to meditate, or relax, it's very distracting to have to listen to the rumblings and mumbling of his TV. Part of the problem I find is the acoustics of the apartment are terrible. So, I don't know what can actually be done other than putting my AC for now and blocking it out.

So, I decided to go outside. It's a beautiful evening. Gorgeous sunset outside and there is quite a lovely breeze and some humidity. Very summery feel to the evening. I sense tension in my abdomen at the thought of having to go back upstairs to my apartment and listen to my neighbor's TV.

I sit on the park bench and face traffic intentionally to put myself in a more vulnerable position. I close my eyes. Everything hits me. Fear. My eyes are shaking as I sit and feel cars go by watching me and possibly questioning why there is a guy sitting on a bench with his eyes closed. I feel people around me possibly making fun. My eyes still stay shut and feel this in my body and simply allow those thoughts to be. The thoughts come a plenty, the feelings of worry, self conscious, and fear arise, the mind wanting to open the eyes to 'appear normal' comes through as a thought and a feeling of tension. My eyes remain shut and I continue to watch and feel and simply allow all that is to arise. This only takes 5-10 minutes. What an incredible experience, when I don't give in to those feelings! I felt much more freer and comfortable after this meditation and will do this again tomorrow.

The hard part of meditation for me is not giving in to the mind's demands to want to 'stop'. There are a gazillion reasons to listen to a thought....any thought...those reasons....are made out of thought....but only one reason to continue to meditate and that reason has no thought behind it.

What is Vulnerability?

I've been thinking recently. What exactly is vulnerability? My perspective since I started this blog is starting shift a lot from my earlier posts.

I notice within myself that at times, I want to make people like me and in turn, I will at times resort to a tactic of fear, in that I will not open up honestly to that person and instead think about what that person wants to hear. Much more so in the past than the present, but it still happens at times. There could be a plethora of reasons that I want someone to like me. Perhaps, I am trying to attain something from that person, whether it be security, a temporary feeling of 'being wanted' or a distraction to something else going on in my life that I don't want to face and in turn, desperate to gain the love from another. One of the reasons energetically that I became physically sick in the first place.

Yet, vulnerability allows me to be scared. It allows my fears to fully surface and be there for everyone to see. No insurance, no security, just me, flaws and all for the world to see. But, it's honesty that's so important in our re-lating to one another. Fear is ok too of course. But, fear truly does restrict and contract consciousness if projected outward. I find with myself, when I am authentic to another person, it means that I am willing to risk having that person run away from me after learning more about me, my past and all, just to Be as I am to that person. Where are my intentions? With love, they are to fully express me, as I already am. With fear, they are to make that person like me. What's the choice going to be? Honesty is the highest form of love. My chakras open the more expressive I am through honesty.

I've been a control freak for too much of my life. I went to an 'out of body experience' seminar tonight in Manhattan and the man leading it told me that the problem holding me back from self induced astral projection is that I am trying too much to control. (Shocker). It's funny because I found that astral projection has been a form of learning for me to understand my fears more so. It's taught me already the true meaning of 'letting go'. You can't go out of your body unless you let go. You can't sleep at night, unless you let go. You can't align with your nature, unless you let go. How do you let go? Surrender.

With Love

An Enlightening NDE

One of the most profound, enlightening things I have ever read. A good friend shared this with me today. I would imagine that this is what true Enlightenment is. This gave me incredible chills.

Read and enjoy:

Profound NDE

Silent Lucidity

Have been listening to this song for decades. Never realized the spiritual undertones of this song until now. The lyrics move me to tears every time I hear it now because I can relate to it. It's about spiritual awakening and lucid dreaming. I've been lucid dreaming and going out of body now and going out of body is all about letting go and allowing your fear to be there.

The earth realm being a 'place where you learn to face your fears'. Re-incarnation in 'retrace the years'. "Relax child, you were there, but only didn't realize"-means we all come from the same 'place' of Love, but we all forget when we incarnate here. The singer is taking the position of a spirit guide, guiding someone. I'm learning to face my fears and it's so painful for me, but I realize it's a gift to come here and heal and learn about myself.

 Queensryche-Silent Lucidity.

"There's a place I like to hide
A doorway that I run through in the night
Relax child, you were there
But, only didn't realize, and you were scared
It's a place where you will learn
to face your fears, retrace the years
And ride the whims of the mind
Commanding in another world
Suddenly, you hear and see
This magic new dimension"

Love to all