Incarnation Objectives

A friend of mine who had been trained as a Shaman told me he had a special talent. This was to take someone back to have a little talk with the "Advisors" who had been around when the person incarnated. The useful part was these Advisors knew what your particular intent was for being alive. Of course I was interested in learning what "purpose to life" I had intended to play out. Although he cautioned me that once I got the attention of these busy and rather serious ethereal "advisors," I had better be getting with the program if I was off-course - I still wanted to know. Who would want to waste an opportunity like this if it was useful?

The experience was not particularly notable; at the start it seemed to be a garden-variety hypnosis session that was fun to tell about mostly because of the sense of humor of my particular advisors. But the session had an unexpected result. The two of them were a little like an edited conversation between Homer Simpson and Groucho Marx.

The message for me was, "if you want to help people, don't let them obligate you." This message was delivered as these Advisor characters pulled off me a strange webbed, sticky stuff. The session was an interesting experience in synesthesia, because I could hear it coming off as well as feel this stuff sticking to me as it was pulled off the backs of my legs and in places where I'd had injuries. That had never happened before in a hypnosis session.

It was obvious that helping others was my purpose, and I'd been already doing just that much of my life. It was how I was doing it that evidently needed to be reconsidered. Most of the rest of the session gave me hints about specific ways I could take more effective care of myself. Some of these choices of how to best provide for my own needs were in question for me.

What surprised me was the immediate effect afterwards. In fact, it was rather shocking. Soon after, I got a call from one of the beneficiaries of my help. There was a significant surprise in the experience of the call for me. It's as if my dopamine receptors had been scrubbed clean again. Somehow, my friendly Shaman had taken me back to a brightness level of emotional and perceptual sensitivity of decades ago! Somehow, I'd accidentally-on-purpose shut myself off from my own emotional reactions to the people I'd been helping without realizing what that would mean for me. Part of the reason I had questions about how to provide for myself better was because I'd lost this sense.

Of course, recovering my "brightness" knob of emotions had mixed results. It made me realize the cost I'd been paying for hanging out with people that most would shun. This was something that I'd actively ignored because of my convictions that these people needed help from someone - and I had nominated myself to be that "someone".

The experience my Shaman friend gave me has me re-evaluating what I actually do for people and how it realistically affects them. Since I seem to have this bent, perhaps I should be more professional in how I express it rather than personal?

Naaah.

Givers and Givees

 

I know most people think that Christmas is about giving, but what about those who are on the receiving end? Christmas is the one time of the year where it's appropriate to be a graceful and thankful and even overwhelmed recipient. What would giving be without a receiver? Without a Givee, there wouldn't be a chance to be the Giver.

There are so many types of giving.

There's the sort of giving that happens when someone takes you under the wing and includes you in how they take care of themselves, which is a brand of sharing or mentoring. There's the kind  of giving where someone imagines what you might be missing and fills in something the givee never knew they could use or might want to have. There's the sort of gift that works like a tool that begs to be taken for the ride it deserves. There's the gift that has the potential to transform the life of the givee. Or the kind of gift that is an experience rather than a thing that the givee doesn't know about or would imagine was too expensive to provide for themselves.

My favorite is the sort of gift that is no trouble for the giver to be giving, but it has a fantastic benefit for the person who is receiving it. There can even be an advantage for the giver in a win-win situation.

Then there's the sort of gift that "costs" the giver quite a bit, but that person believes the gift is could be so valuable to the givee that the giver really wants to benefit them...and will accept no refusal.

Whatever the sort of gift you have received recently, it's great to think about what it costs the giver so you can be a graceful and grateful givee - and "pay it forward" to someone else if you feel so inclined.

I Could Do Anything, If Only...

If only I...
 

• ...was funnier, could make people laugh.
• ...could balance my desire to take care of others with the ability to walk my talk - for myself.
• ...If only I knew how to inspire others.
• ...if only I would exercise. I hate exercise. I need a goal, somewhere to go, something to do that makes me get out and move. Instead, I think of how much it's going to cost me in money that I don't have to get in the car and go swimming.
• ...If only I hadn't started from being so twisted up physically. Sometimes I am so discouraged that I'll never totally undo the limiting patterns I learned since before I learned to walk.
• ...if only I could afford to fix my teeth, maybe people would listen to what I have to offer. I hate that I have to accept social norms and can't control the petty things other people think about me.
• ...if only my own standards did not expand just ahead of my abilities, so that I'm always chasing behind what I feel I should already know how to do.
• If only I could be a better example that people would recognize as the beauty, grace and effortlessness of where I'm pointed. If only people could see how far I've come, how much I've learned. Instead, people want instant results.
• ...If only I didn't have to educate people before they could even recognize that they desperately need what I have to offer. Why do I always pick these skills that marry the physical with the mental, beyond what anyone else could imagine is possible? If only I wasn't attempting to educate on subject that are "before my time."
• ...if only I could quit training for livelihoods that require me to keep appointments. It's always been such a struggle for me to be on time.
• ..if only I .would get over having "just enough money" to survive. I seem to be so quixotic, always putting the surrender of my beliefs ahead of my own comfort. If I don't have a deadline or someone to show off my work to, I'll drop the threads that could bring me into a position to offer so much more to so many more people.
• ...if only those twenty projects wouldn't be clamoring for my attention, like gremlins. ME! ME! Work on ME!
• ...if only it wasn't so tempting to fritter away my time. At least I don't watch TV anymore, but there is still not enough time.
• ..if only I could stop creating interdependence by choosing others to take care of who are "bad risks" who need my help so desperately. They're energy drains, but I've learned to dance out of the way of their negativity, but this leaves me a dancing fool. So I have these non-functional adults who love me that I have to hold up if I want friends. Other people who are functional don't want these useless people around who are my friends, so they isolate me.
• ...if only establishing boundaries did not have a "cost". I don't like being a respected authority, and yet I crave to offer the benefit of my own observations and resourceful ideas. I'd rather have rapport with people, but my emotional maturity scares people away.
• ...if only I could just be OK as a hermit. I have so much to do to "polish my stone" that I could pretty much stop relating to people and just work. But I crave belonging.
• ...If only I knew how to communicate what has been so valuable to me. Even though it takes people into a backlash beyond fear itself, I know it is one way through because it has been so for me.
• ...if only I could live long enough to be respected. 
• ...If only I could accept that in my culture, a woman can only have either respect or rapport. 
• ...If only I could find a way to marry rapport and respect, because at heart I know am a teacher who is brilliant at rapport and at simplifying what others have stumbled over for decades.
• ...if only I was better at managing groups and could accept that I will never be "normal." 
• ...If only I could believe that I don't need to be an authority that part of me loathes, because I feel as if I'll be squished like a bug if I show my own brilliance. I can merely have something to communicate.
• ...If only I could find a way to present what I know is valuable so that others could recognize its value.
• ...if only I knew more musicians. Live music inspires me.
• ...if only I wasn't so long-winded. No wonder I'm not a raging success with all these "if onlys."

So there.