Vida Imaginada

 

Na minha juventude estava convencido 

de que a serenidade ajuda a imaginar. 

Agora sei que na vida imaginada 

o pior de mim já está nos alicerces. 

Já me esqueci de tantas versões históricas: 

as mentiras dos clássicos e dos românticos. 

E, ao mesmo tempo, quão aborrecido 

o actual labirinto, quão complexo e sujo, 

e, envolvendo tudo, uma noite estrelada 

que em caso algum serei capaz de compreender. 

Hoje só uma voz me fala 

surgida da dureza que há na própria vida, 

a única na qual vejo ainda alguma verdade: 

a música a cobrir o nada de beleza, 

os meus poemas, a força do amor 

e da palavra juntas. Tu e eu. 

Os que os lerem na sua própria solidão.

Joan Margarit

O Papel da Mãe

 

Não é fácil lidar todos os dias com quem ainda não conhecemos. 

Cada um de nós é um pequeno Universo, com a sua própria energia, padrões, passado e proposta de evolução. A máscara que usamos dos nossos papeis sociais escondem, na maior parte das vezes, a verdade complexa do que nos vai dentro.  

Claro que os mapas astrológicos e numerológicos ajudam e dão pistas claras dos padrões de cada um. Mas o que eles não mostram é o grau de consciência e evolução em que cada pessoa está a viver as suas energias.

Por esta razão, para conhecer a história da pessoa e para perceber se ela está consciente e alinhada ou não com as suas energias, ouço a sua versão e o que a trouxe a uma consulta.

Não há muito tempo alguém me dizia que se sentia presa num trabalho frustrante que nada lhe dizia, ainda por cima sujeita a uma chefe autoritária e agressiva incapaz de a respeitar. 

A bandeira vermelha surge quando afirma que não precisa falar sobre a mãe porque deixou de falar com ela há anos e já fez 5 anos de psicoterapia que a ajudou finalmente a perdoar as mágoas que a mãe lhe deixou porque era extremamente autoritária e agressiva.

Talvez para uma mentalidade conservadora / religiosa / julgadora / vítima, este discurso ainda faça sentido e despolete até sentimentos de pena da ´má sorte´ desta pessoa. 

Mas acredito que para quem está já familiarizado com os conceitos de Responsabilidade Karmica, este discurso esconde imensos sinais de alarme de quem não está ainda consciente da dualidade da vida, das leis universais, da responsabilidade pessoal ou sequer do propósito de evolução espiritual.

Antes de mais, precisamos perceber o papel da mãe que não foi "escolhida" ao acaso. 

Diz a Lei do Karma que apenas colhemos os frutos dos nossos plantios. 

Somos por isso, cada um de nós nas vidas uns dos outros, na maior parte das vezes completamente inconscientes disso, os "entregadores" dessas cargas Karmicas que cada um precisa colher.  

A Lei da Atração ajuda-nos trazendo à nossa realidade as pessoas que fazem parte dessa tarefa. 

A posição da Lua no mapa, dá-nos, para além de muitas outras, duas pistas básicas: 

1. uma, o imaturo passado inconsciente do próprio; 
2. a outra, a mãe da pessoa em questão, e neste caso confirma-se o autoritarismo e a agressividade que ela própria carrega como sombra, projetada inconscientemente na mãe.

Deste ponto de vista, e usando outros aspetos de ambos os mapas, podemos então contar a história Karmica perante os mesmos factos:

Algures em vidas passadas, pelas mais variadas razões, esta pessoa não fez o seu trabalho de responsabilidade pessoal, não amadureceu as suas emoções, não seguiu o seu caminho individual ou sequer cumpriu a sua missão espiritual. Essa imaturidade e traição a si mesma, gerou frustração e raiva que acabou por ser manifestada na forma de agressividade, usando e abusando de quem a rodeava como forma de compensação. Este formato de vida, prisioneiro de crenças limitadoras e uma profunda ignorância espiritual fê-la assumir uma postura autoritária, ou seja, incapaz de amadurecer, crescer e ser autora da sua própria vida, projetou esse autoritarismo, mandando na vida dos outros. 

 

Esta pessoa, ou melhor dizendo, estas energias passadas que ela esconde dentro de si mesma e que vêm em busca de cura na vida presente, estão representadas na própria mãe que aparece na sua vida como "lembrete" do seu próprio passado, como consciência da sua própria sombra. A nossa mãe faz, na maior parte das vezes, esse difícil papel de nos lembrar de onde viemos para que, através dela, possamos curar e transformar o que dela em nós ainda sobrevive. Somos assim a proposta de cura desse velho padrão que embora ainda seja visível na nossa mãe, vem em nós e no nosso mapa, preparado para ser limpo.

Perante esta visão Karmica, o perdão não faz sentido. 

Não há nada para perdoar a não ser a nós próprios pelo que criámos sem qualidade e sem amor e que pelas Leis a nós retorna em busca de aprendizagem, cura e libertação. Aliás, se trocássemos o conceito de perdão por entendimento karmico, deixariam de haver tantos dilemas familiares, culpas e projeções das próprias sombras nos outros.

Perante esta nova visão esta menina não só afirma que depois de anos de psicoterapia, nunca nada lhe fizera tanto sentido, e com os olhos cheios de água diz que há anos que não sentia uma vontade enorme de ir dar um abraço à mãe.

Alertei que a mãe veio para fazer aquele papel e está também sujeita às suas próprias energias. Que embora ela tivesse expandido a sua consciência e percebido finalmente o papel  da mãe na sua vida, a mãe ainda era a mãe de sempre. Mas mudando a sua atitude e energia perante a mãe, daria assim início à possibilidade de cura da relação e da própria mãe também.

Sem esta visão Karmica, esta menina não teria amadurecido e entendido a sua energia e a sua história. Teria ficado presa no estado de vítima da má sorte, no julgamento da mãe como pessoa má. Incapaz de entender o papel da mãe, fecharia-se para a cura da sua própria sombra, ficando presa nas mesmas frequências até que a cura acontecesse. 

Ter atraído aquela chefe era já prova disso. Sem esta visão o laço karmico que prende as duas não seria dissolvido com o amor que ela agora aprendia a ter pela mãe pela primeira vez na vida.  Pela primeira vez também, ao iluminar a sua sombra, revelaram-se também aspectos do seu potencial e da sua Luz verbalizando a sua vontade de profissionalmente, ajudar pessoas. 

Em duas horas, uma diferente e mais espiritual visão do mundo desabou velhas crenças e deu início a um maravilhoso processo de consciência e transformação pessoal. 

A mãe passou de carrasco a Mestre. 

Como dizia Rumi:

"A ferida é o lugar por onde a luz entra."

Vera Luz

Véspera de Permanecer

Anita Vincze

Tudo está pronto: a mala,

as camisas, os mapas, as vãs esperanças.

Estou removendo o pó das minhas pálpebras.

Já pus na lapela

a rosa dos ventos.

Tudo está em ordem: o mar, o ar, o atlas.

Só me falta o quando,

o onde, um diário de bordo,

cartas de navegação, ventos propícios,

coragem e alguém que saiba

me amar como nem eu mesmo sei.

O navio inexistente, o olhar,

os perigos, as mãos do espanto,

o fio umbilical do horizonte

que sublinha esses versos suspensivos…

tudo está preparado: a sério, em vão.

Juan Vicente Piqueras

‘Why Do I Panic and Break Up As Soon As the Honeymoon Phase Is Over?’

This week’s caller can’t stop leaving new relationships as soon as the honeymoon phase over. Reality sets in, he finds himself fantasizing about his exes, and eventually bolts. “I end up in this pool of regret that I’ve just let this amazing person go,” the caller tells Perel. “It’s a continuous cycle that I’m looking to explore, hopefully break, or become better equipped to deal with for my future relationships.” Below, Esther Perel helps him locate this pattern in his parents’ dynamic and discusses how to break it.

Esther: You’re describing a pattern. What do you know about what drives this? 

Caller: I understand the timing of it. It usually happens when you start to pivot out of that honeymoon phase: We haven’t had our first proper fight, we haven’t really had any kind of test of the relationship in any way.  I think that it’s also to do with my ability to shut out the external world, the feelings that pop up to do with desire for other people as well. So in the example, I reference two partners, a current one and an ex partner. The reality of that scenario was that when the ex partner, in my mind, no longer desired me as a person, was when those intrusive thoughts came in.

I think it’s a loss of desire from someone and that triggers me to think, Maybe I should be with them, maybe I should be with somebody else. That’s kind of the tipping point, usually.

Esther: There’s one thing I would suggest we switch. None of this is external. Even if you think that other people — exes, or potential other partners, or imaginative, imaginary figures — are external, what drives this whole thing is internal. “When you want me, there’s a moment at which I suddenly feel like I need to flee. When you stop wanting me and I begin to feel the anxiety of the rejection or of the aloneness, then I become the pursuer.”

Caller: Yeah, it does sound essentially how it happens. As I’ve gotten older (I’m in my late 20s) and have had more experience with relationships, I have become more aware of it. In previous relationships, instead of talking to my partners about it, I just exited because I’ve had this notion that I can’t put them through this; I can’t explain this to them out of some fear of confrontation or maybe even rejection.

Esther: You don’t do this with friends? 

Caller: No, my friendships are strong. They’re long lasting. I have consistent, long relationships with people who I would perceive as healthy and very fulfilling. It’s just my romantic relationships where I am falling short.

Esther: There is a saying that there are only two relationships who really resemble each other — the one we had with our original caregivers or parents and the ones we have with our romantic partners. Most of us manage to elude our patterns when it comes to our friends, because there’s just enough distance that allows us not to have to repeat certain things. An obvious question then becomes where else have you known this, besides in your romantic relationships? Not the similarity, because it’s not about desire, but it is about the in, out, push, pull, pursuer, distancer, and so on. And the kind of fraught experience around your attachment to them. 

Caller: You know, I think when I do hear that question, my automatic response is obviously my parents. It was pretty awful. It was  a loveless relationship. They are amazing people as individuals. They did an amazing job in raising their kids. But as a

Esther: What did you see? 

Caller: A lot of anger, a lot of resentment, a lot of fighting, a lot of crying, a lot of emotion. A lot of volatility. Such small insignificant things would trigger these gargantuan responses. My dad, when he’s late to dinner, it would be World War II. It was never physical, but some of these fights were massive. As a young child that was my first view of what a relationship should be I guess.

Esther: How many kids? 

Caller: Just two. But my brother is significantly older than me. So by the time I was 10, he was already gone. It was kind of like an only-child situation for a significant period of my early childhood.

Esther: Did they sometimes kind of draw you in  — not in the middle of a fight necessarily — but in telling you how they felt? 

Caller: One thing that my family is not brilliant at is telling anyone how they feel. It was always: Maybe go and cry in a bedroom or leave the house. It was never “let’s talk about this.”

Esther: Did you have equal sympathy for both or did you find yourself leaning more toward one than the other. 

Caller: I think as a child my automatic sympathy went toward my mother.

Esther: Tell me more.

Caller: At that point, coming to terms with being gay, I would kind of go toward my mother. She was very nurturing; she was very open and loving. I think it’s just easier to relate to her as a child. As I’ve grown older, and I’ve become more aware of my parents and who they are as people, I sympathize with my father more as a person. He’s a brilliant man, he’s funny, he’s caring, he’s kind, and a lot of these big fights, they were my mother reacting to dad not coming to dinner on time. As a young child, it was definitely the nurturing mother, that feminine energy that I gravitated toward.

Esther: Mm-hmm. If you were to describe the sequence between your parents, how would you describe it? 

Caller: It’s kind of hard for me to describe what their sequence is because they just stayed together.

Esther: Yes, their sequence is that they are trapped. And being trapped is what makes you bolt. You come in that two-month period, it’s just on the edge. It’s before the first fight, it’s before the first argument, and once the first one arrives, all you can imagine is mayhem. And you go from honeymoon to trap. You’re describing your parents in a state of entrapment. And you’re describing how you, somewhere along the line, to yourself — maybe to others but primarily to yourself — made a vow that you would never be trapped. You would never be in that kind of misery. But you don’t really know how not to be in the misery, except fleeing. So it’s meant as an act of self-protection, but it becomes such an expression of avoidance that in the end, you find yourself alone. So one of the tricks for not being alone is to fantasize about the ex or about the next. 

Caller: Yeah, that’s definitely the sequence.

Esther: When you have a fight with friends, I’m just curious, you know to disagree, you know to get into an argument, you know how to repair, you know how to say what you want I imagine, yes? 

Caller: I would say that I communicate well, I resolve conflicts well, I nurture my friendships well.

Esther: Beautiful. So this lives inside of you. You don’t approach friendships with fear and trepidation and foreboding, whereas you approach romantic relationships with that. 

Let me ask you something. Did your relationships to the men change when your relationship with your dad improved? 

Caller: Yes, they did. There was a lot of resentment toward my parents, and I think that was probably a by-product of me not being fully comfortable with myself and not being fully out of the closet. Once that process of self-acceptance started for me and obviously being okay with who I was, I was able to build that relationship back with my dad. And I see him as the brilliant person that I see him as now.

Esther: Did he accept you? 

Caller: Early on, I always knew that being gay was never going to be an issue. I have a gay older brother, and my parents have always been very forward with their support of the gay community, even when I wasn’t a part of it. But I think what made it difficult for me was that there was an expectation that I was going to be the straight kid, just purely because my brother had already came out. They’re like, “Okay, one is gay, but hey, we got one more to go.” That’s how I kind of perceived the situation at the time. And then I spent a lot of time going back and forth, hiding who I was. I think it made it a little harder for me because I was actually dating women up until the point where I did come out.

Esther: Same pattern with the women? 

Caller: No, not necessarily. I had long term relationships, obviously with this voice in my head saying, “Hey, you find men attractive.”

Esther: No, so no risks of getting entrapped there because that’s not where I belong.

Caller: I think I knew at some point that this wasn’t going to be my life story. But yeah, to answer your question, my relationship with my dad did get a lot better and has continued to get better with age.

Esther: And how did it change your relationship with your partners? 

Caller: Obviously, the first few months of me dating a man seriously, I wasn’t out to my parents. I think I used that relationship as kind of a leverage to have that conversation. I don’t think I would have been at a point to just go, “Hey, I’m gay.” I used that relationship to come out to my parents.

Esther: Was your brother helpful? 

Caller: Not really, no. Umm, he’s, he’s lived overseas for a significant period of time and in a similar fashion to my parents, I had a strained relationship with him. After I came out, his response was “I’ve known for a while.” He never offered any kind of support, which I think to his, I guess, defense, he was allowing me to find my own way and to kind of take my time and not feel pressured. But for me, I felt left on my own, to kind of deal with this and work through it.

Esther: Have you ever spoken with your parents about their misery, about what it was like to grow up with their incessant fighting about how you perceive their loneliness? 

Caller: No, I haven’t, and I think the conversation would be easier with my father than my mother. Why is that? I think for my mother, for a long time now, probably since my early childhood, she’s been medicating with alcohol. She’s been through quite a lot, and I don’t think she has the tools or the desire to kind of seek external help. I just worry that that conversation would be too much and it would trigger this alcohol consumption, this self-medication.

Esther: I hear you. I hear also that you see your mom as the more brittle, the more fragile, and the person who sees herself as the victim. He comes late for dinner, and she feels diminished by his lateness, but it never occurs to her to ask herself if there’s something in the way that she reacts that may make him want to stay out later.

Caller: Yeah, definitely.

Esther: He stays out later and pays the price of not knowing his son as much as he would like and as much as his son would like to know him. So the son is home with mom, for whom he has developed very deep feelings that are very mixed. A part of him resents her for her reactivity, and a part of him feels very responsible to make sure that he doesn’t make it worse for her, because he never knows what she can actually handle and what she can’t. And a part of him feels deeply caring for her, because she’s the nurturing, kind, accepting mother. And a part of him feels guilty because sometimes all he wants is to get away from her. But he feels guilty about it because he knows that she may not be able to take care of herself well and that she’s self harming. 

So between the guilt and the resentment and the love and the sense of responsibility, he finds himself entwined in a complex set of contradictory feelings for her. And all of that sits in the background when he falls in love with any other man. 

Caller: Yeah, like, I can’t put it any different. That’s exactly how it is.

Esther: But say it in your voice. 

Caller: In my own words, I would say that I am overwhelmed with these feelings toward specifically my mother. It’s kind of a feeling of helplessness in some ways because I just don’t have the tools to navigate feelings that I have toward her, and I don’t have the tools to kind of help her either.

One of the parting words that my parents always said to me when I moved out of home is that, “We’ll be fine. Go and live your life.” It just feels likeI can’t do that. This sense of being helpless and overwhelmed and confused filters into my romantic relationships because I see myself when I’m in these relationships and they’re good and they’re healthy and I feel like I’m in love. It feels like at any particular or any unspoken point that that might just turn and I will end up being my mother or my father. That’s how I liken those two relationships and how it impacts me.

Esther: When you tell me, “This is happening in all my relationships, I recognize the pattern. I basically enter a state of panic. I don’t know what the panic is about, but I have a state of panic and I start to deflect.” The fact that it has to do with desire and fantasies about an ex or about others, that’s just the mechanism with which you’re doing it. Don’t get caught there because the relationships are good. You can’t say, “I have communication issues.” So you find something to fantasize about — others. Basically, “I start fleeing,” and if you think it’s a conversation about desire, you may miss the point. 

So then the first question I have is what are you replaying? What makes you bolt? What’s the panic? And if it’s recurrent, it’s a logical next step to say, tell me about home. 

Caller: I think in the last relationship that I had, it was kind of like this whirlwind and up to a certain point I was thrilled with that. There was a point that I remember quite vividly, a discussion around my partner starting to feel anxious within the relationship and —

Esther: About wanting to know where it’s going? 

Caller: No, so we were committed at that point. We’d traveled overseas, we said we loved each other and that was all very genuine. When I reflect on me, in that relationship at that period of time, that’s how I want to be consistently, I suppose. But the anxiety conversation came up. My partner at the time didn’t really understand what that anxiety was or what was triggering it. For me, I was comfortable with that conversation to try to offer my assistance, to try to kind of get an understanding of what the trigger points were for that anxiety. And he didn’t have the answers and he didn’t really want to talk through that with me. I think after a few failed attempts at trying, I got an understanding of what that anxiety was and what it meant. I think that’s when I started to pull away and that’s when I —

Esther: So when he talked to me about his anxiety, but was not willing or able to explore it with me, what happened to me? Don’t tell me just what you did. Tell me also, if you can, what you experienced. 

Caller: I think I experienced at the time frustration and shortly thereafter, I started to wonder whether this relationship was right, and I started to have that questioning thought process of “should I stay, should I go,” and then eventually the thoughts of this person that I was with before, my ex. I think we were really well suited.

Esther: I get it, but I’m gonna slow you down for a moment. Because you can describe the steps and I would like to see if we can go underneath the surface for a moment so that you get a different awareness of what is driving you. He says, “I’m anxious.” Your first response is, “I’m curious. I’m interested. I care.” And as you try to go back with him in the conversation, and he isn’t able to join you, you get frustrated. That frustration is like an open door to the history with your mom entering inside your internal home. From frustration, what follows? Responsibility? Fear? Annoyance? Impatience? Resentment? Which one? 

Caller: I would say fear.

Esther: Fear of? “Shit, I’m gonna find myself once again?” 

Caller: Yeah, in a position where I’m going to start pulling away from this person. I’m going to be …

Esther: No no before I’m going to start pulling away. Pulling away is a response to something. It’s not the initial behavior. Pulling away happens to me when I’m in front of this man who I thought I loved freely and I suddenly start to once again experience this overwhelming sense of responsibility and helplessness and burden and weightiness. 

Caller: Yeah. I think burden is a good way to describe that. This feeling of my parents and all those complex feelings, it’s an additional burden on top of that. I think when I’m in those early stages, it’s easy. There’s no baggage, there’s no additional stress. And then when anxiety creeps in, or whatever the trigger is, I think I see that as potentially the straw that’s going to break the camel’s back in regards to stress or burden.

Esther: So, remember, the desire to flee is commensurate with the size of the burden and the responsibility that creeps up inside of you. “Oh shit, I’m once again going to have to take care, carry, hold, feel responsible, but then not be able to manage the responsibility, so feel overwhelmed and helpless. Oh, gosh, I gotta go. I gotta get out of here. I gotta get out of here as fast as I can. Because if I stay one extra minute, I’m gonna be swallowed up alive.”

Caller: Yeah. Yep.

Esther: You feel it in your body? 

Caller: I do, yeah.

Esther: Where? 

Caller: It’s kind of like a clenching inside of my stomach when I hear that said out loud.

Esther: You feel it? Can you stand up for a moment so I can see? And just put your hands right there where you had them. Just breathe into this. Because it takes over and there is just nowhere to go but out. And see if you can breathe inside, into, you can sit, you can sit back. If you can breathe into your hands, not just up here, but literally expand your ribcage and just make space. Because your whole experience is an experience of contraction. And you don’t differentiate between your mom, your dad, especially your mom and your lovers. It’s as if the past and the present collapse. 

Caller: It’s hard to hear.

Esther: Because you thought, “I’m gone, I’m out of the house, I left all of this behind”? 

Caller: Yeah, I think.

Esther: What the fuck, this is all inside of me? 

Caller: What the fuck, yeah. I think I felt that by the time I moved out, me having my independent life, having this relationship with them that was, you know, not there every day. I can kind of come and go as I please and regulate my interactions with them. I definitely thought that that was going to help, but I don’t think it has. It’s just a what the F.

Esther: But the good thing about this, what do you, what do you call it? WTF. I spell it out. That’s why, you know, is that, you know, now with a little bit more clarity, What is actually playing out inside of you? When I get close to someone, the closeness triggers a reenactment of the trap that my parents were in, and that I experienced in the overwhelming sense of responsibility I carried for mom. And I need to learn to experience closeness. and bring in different associations.

Caller: You know, my logical mind has always been …

Esther: No, there’s nothing logical about this thing. This is all in your belly, in your gut, not in your head, which is why the story you tell about me coming close, honeymoon, then moving away, fantasizing, that’s the story line. 

But that doesn’t tell the actual driver underneath, which is another story. So when you want to flee, you’ll ask yourself, “What just happened to me? What did I just feel? How did the past just intrude on the present? And what can I do in this moment to anchor me in the present in my life?” Because maybe this guy was anxious, but that doesn’t mean he was becoming another version of your mom, and you, another version of her son. Or he was becoming whoever he was and you were becoming Mom or Dad. See, there are very few characters in this story. We need new characters. 

Caller: It’s a small story. Yeah.

Esther: No, it’s a deep story. It’s a painful story, but it can open up and bring in new characters, new parts. 

Caller: I think I’m ready for some new characters.

Esther: The beauty of making this a story about sex and about desire is that it puts you in an adult story line. Adults talk about desire and sex and fantasies for others and all of that. And so it covers up the fact that it is the story of the little boy because it plays itself out in a pseudo version of an adult. Sex is a good cover up for that. 

Caller: I agree. I think even when I described that relationship, I was like, the sex was amazing, the adult connection was amazing, but I still fled, I still had that process.

Esther: Is he around? 

Caller: The relationship is strained. There was a lot of hurt. He said he was blindsided by this sudden departure and said that he preferred that if we didn’t talk. And that does hurt.

Esther: Unless you can one day go and tell him what you’ve learned about yourself that he became the subject of and had nothing to do with him. 

Caller: I still have very strong feelings toward him, but for us to re-spark that …

Esther: No, we’re not talking about re-sparking. We’re talking about accountability. We’re talking about just clarifying and apologizing. To say he was recruited for a play that he didn’t audition for 

Caller: Neither did I, by the sound of it.

Esther: Your drama, you are able to begin to connect the dots. And that’s the beginning. That’s really so that you actually know what happens to me? What happens to me at the end is that I flee. But the first thing is a host of very old feelings get triggered inside of me and they bring me back to a place of overwhelming, helpless anger, guilt, fear. It’s a big maelstrom of contradictory feelings. It’s a mess and it’s intense and it’s painful. I first need to go and clear that up a little bit so that I can free myself to be in my own relationship and not feel like I’m branded. 

Caller: I imagine it’s a story that’s well told by not just myself …

Esther: You’re not alone. But we have strange ways to protect ourselves sometimes. We create other storyboards to not see the real story.

Esther Perel

SENTIDOS

De vez em quando,

uma emoção em falso,

a ferida abre-se:

e eles entram solenes,

os meus mortos

Migram dos sítios quentes

onde os tenho de cor,

e as folhas do arbusto na varanda

em frente à minha cama

trazem as suas vozes

E quanto mais a luz é sobre a ferida,

mais eles aí estão

Cobre-as, às folhas,

o cortinado da janela larga,

e o que avisto daqui

é só um gume a verde,

de nem fotografia

porque em dança

Não me assustam

nem gritam, os meus mortos,

só me lembram que a chuva

que agora se insinua devagar

lhes foi tempo e morada,

e eles a mim

Que alguns deles olharam

nesta mesma varanda

as mesmas folhas,

mais jovens e mais verdes,

ou que outros deles viram outras folhas,

mais jovens, mas sem cor

Neste tempo de agora que os não tem,

aos meus mortos,

cresceram pouco as folhas,

e a emoção em que os tropeço, e a mim,

não os fazem nascer

(Tomara o lume

que as mantém em vida

fosse o gume na ferida

de os não ter)

Ana Luísa Amaral

Awakening the Courageous Heart

 

Photo by Elliott Erwitt/Magnum

The First Three 

Energy Centers: 

Our Animal Nature

Human Beings come into life with some automatic programs built into our biology that allow us to function in similar ways. As males of the human species, with thousands of years living as mammals, we’ve had to adapt to our external environment with certain drives and behaviors. We’ve also been conditioned and programmed by society to behave “accordingly” – to a certain set of social standards that are deemed acceptable.

What that means is, our culture has taught men to act primarily from their first three energy centers – focusing on the powerful drives to reproduce; to create a family; to provide stability and security; to accomplish; to compete for success.

We, as human beings, are part animal and part divine. Starting from the lower part of the body, the first three energy centers are related to our animal self.

When energy moves into each of these centers, they become activated. 

When the first center is activated, the energy in that “mini-brain” creates a mind that signals its glands and hormones with a very specific directive – or intention – to create another life; to reproduce; to propagate the species.

The second energy center has a lot to do with our biological metabolism. When we feel safe and secure, we use this center’s resources primarily for consuming, digesting, assimilating, excreting, and breaking food down into energy. Our second center is related to the metabolic long-term building projects that keep the body in balance and in health.

When conditions feel unsafe or unpredictable, we have to act – or react. 

That’s where our third energy center comes in. This center is a resource for enormous amounts of energy – to empower; to overcome; or to use our will do some “thing” to restore safety and comfort in our environment.

For those who’ve been programmed in this kind of culture, “success” usually means achievement (sometimes dominance) in these three centers – and only these three centers. 

1. A healthy, thriving family; 
2. a safe, secure homestead; 
3. a strong financial foundation; 
4. sacrificing and working hard so there are enough resources – and everyone’s needs are provided for.

When these goals are achieved, and these needs are met, you could say these centers are in balance.

 

A Moment of Reckoning

Many of us are unaware, in such moments of balance – the moment of triumph and success, according to these standards – of a decision we face. A choice we have to make.

• Do we allow that energy to continue to ascend into our heart – the fourth energy center? 
• Or do we unconsciously go back and pass on the success that’s been recorded in our genes; in the sperm; once again seeking out the opposite sex for greater chances of survival?
• Do we automatically start the cycle all over again, remaining in our animal nature – and never accessing our higher, divine self?

Here's the thing: 

very few take the path to move that energy up into their hearts. 

To do that requires transforming the power of our passion, our security, and our success – into love. Into joy. Into kindness and caring. Into compassion and gratitude. 

And that requires vulnerability.

To do all of that, in this culture, means overcoming the messaging from our outside environment – and going against thousands of years of built-in programming.

That’s why I say the greatest courage is to open your heart. 

Because doing so offers another way to look at how to live their lives – to evolve their experience of what it means to be a human being.

It takes tremendous courage to take a chance on ourselves in this way. 

To harness all the energy we cycle around those first three energy centers, again and again – and move it up. To turn it inward, activate our hearts, and give ourselves permission to feel. 

To live from a new level of consciousness.

There’s nothing wrong with our first three energy centers, by the way. 

But when we live only in those centers, we tap the body’s vital resources by living only in survival. As a result, there’s very little energy left for our hearts to open.

But if we transform that energy, tune in, and awaken our hearts, a whole new life becomes possible.

Dr Joe Dispenza

The Energy Centers

Each energy center has its own unique energy (or frequency) that carries a corresponding level of consciousness; its own mind or intent that expresses specific information; its own associated glands, hormones, chemistry, and plexus of neurons.

Since different hormones change our chemistry, they cause us to feel different emotions. 

And, when it comes to doubt, we’re primarily working with the emotions of survival – the emotions associated with the first three energy centers – and transmuting them by opening our heart to feel the emotions of creation. 

Let’s explore that a little more.

The First Three Energy Centers: The Human Self

It’s important to remember, when we talk about alchemizing the power within each of these centers, there’s nothing wrong with them. In fact, we need every energy center; they’re all essential to our human experience.

And those centers are important. But when we’re experiencing doubt or lose our belief, it means they’re out of balance. We’re seeing challenging circumstances in our life, or the condition we’re facing, from the emotions of survival – and are therefore operating from a lower, or more limited, level of consciousness.

When that happens, instead of supporting us in their primary functions – to procreate (the first center); to nourish and provide; to feel safe and secure (the second center); to strengthen, to do, and to willfully empower (the third center) – these centers feed and fuel the feelings we most associate with doubt.

1. When the first center is out of balance, we might have addictions, obsessions, and compulsions centered on our sexuality. 
2. When the second center is reactive, we might be flooded with insecurity, worry, fear, shame, and guilt – or feelings of lack, need, victimization, or unworthiness. 
3. When the third center is imbalanced, the feelings that come up would be anger, frustration, hatred, judgment, entitlement, envy, jealously, control, impatience, unhealthy competition, or self-aggrandizement.

These survival emotions are so hard-wired into our nature, they’re automatic. They’re so familiar; so innately programmed; we can become addicted to them. When that happens, we move into the shadow side of survival – and our heart closes down. That’s because when we’re in survival, it’s not a time to open our hearts or create. It’s not a time to trust or be vulnerable.

So, when we talk about transmuting the energy in those first three centers to work through doubt, we’re not judging the centers themselves as “lesser than” – or “bad.” 

We’re simply talking about bringing them back into balance.

We’re working on ascending their tremendous power and energy to our heart – the center of creativity – and then working with that transformed energy to explore new possibilities in the unknown. And that’s what happens when each center is aligned – that energy can naturally move more easily into the heart.

As I’ve said before, we can think of those first three centers as the human self. 

The divine self begins in the heart. 

And so, if we’re able to move that energy into a more expansive level of consciousness (remember, recognizing our level of consciousness is the first step in working with doubt), we can move into a state of being where new doors open up to us. We stop trying to force and control; we stop resisting; we stop working within the realm of known, limited, predictable outcomes.

It's a way to get “unstuck” – to evolve from a state of survival, where that energy is trapped in those first three centers, to a place of creation.

Balancing these centers for our greatest good was my inspiration for creating the Blessing of the Energy Centers meditations. 

Let's talk about how we can apply that practice to access and work with the unique, essential information contained in each one – to create resonant order within.

I want to talk about what’s possible when all of our energy centers work together to create resonant coherence within our brains and bodies.

Blessing the Energy Centers Into Balance

I first conceived of blessing the energy centers when I was working on bringing my own body into balance and homeostasis. I knew that every energy center is under the control of the autonomic nervous system; that each carries its own energetic signature, its own frequency, its own message, and its own intent. Each center contains its own unique energy and possesses an individual level of mind.

Essentially, each center is like a mini-brain. 

And to bring them all into balance – and, therefore, bring myself into balance – I knew I would need to find a way to get into my “operating system” to access them. So, the Blessing of the Energy Centers meditations are designed to work with these mini-brains from that place of understanding.

I’ve crafted all the meditations in the series to create coherence in each center, enabling it to receive and transmit more orderly information. This information can then instruct each center – and directly influence more hormonal balance by sending a coherent message to all the cells, tissues, and organs of the body.

In the Blessing of the Energy Centers meditations, we slow our brain waves down from beta ... to alpha ... and even to theta. One by one, we narrow our focus and put our attention and energy on each center. Then, we open our awareness to the space around each one. We bring the intention to balance the center’s energy by organizing the information it receives and transmits to affect our biology. We bring our attention to the energy contained within each center and its unique frequency – which carries information. This attention activates that energy and information in ways that can inform matter.

In other words, the clear information carried on the coherent frequency of each center can be transformed into information – in the form chemistry.

Since the autonomic nervous system’s job is to create balance and homeostasis, as we bless the centers one by one with our attention, they will then work together to bring more order, harmony, health, and balance to our entire being.

I’ve been thinking of it lately like the instruments in an ensemble – each one a part of the whole; building on the other. You could think of the first energy center, maybe, as the low pounding of the timpani drums, sounding the first notes of a composition and setting the tempo and the tone ... vibrating at a frequency of large, slow, long waves of sound.

The second center could be the horns coming in, adding to the harmonic structure and echoing the rhythm of the drums. Those notes vibrate at somewhat shorter waves – and they build on what’s sounding from the first center. The third center might be the wind instruments, adding some movement; vibrating at a higher frequency; signaling notes in the melody that will come in when we get to the fourth center – the heart. Here come the soaring violins; that transcendent moment when everything comes together.

So, as each “instrument” comes in – with its own resonance; its own vibrations; its own energy – they combine to create a beautiful song.

Carrying this metaphor further, you can see that for this practice to work – for the centers to be in balance – they have to be in tune. They have to be in rhythm. In other words, there must be harmony and resonance among them.

And that’s what we’re creating in the Blessing of the Energy Centers meditations.

A Symphony of Resonant Order

I also like this metaphor because it connects to what I said: there’s nothing wrong with, or bad about, any of the energy centers. We need every one of them. But imagine what would happen if just one instrument in the song were out of tune or rhythm with the drums, or the horns, or the wind instruments. Imagine the song without the melody. Imagine it without the evocative sound of the violins as it reaches a crescendo. It just wouldn’t be the same.

Just as a song is composed of all those elements – all the instruments; all the notes; all the rhythms – the “song” of our very being is composed of all the information contained within all of our energy centers. While each is distinct, with its own gifts and information, they build on each other to create coherence and wholeness within us.

In other words, the energy of the first center is actually contained in the second center. 

The energy of the third center contains the energy of the first and second centers. 

The energy of the fourth center is holding the information and the resonant frequencies of the third, the second, and the first. 

And so it goes with the fifth, sixth, seventh ... all the way up to eight.

They all unfold, in a sense, like echoes from source – because we unfold from source. Each center unfolds to a slower frequency, in mathematical harmonics of the previous one, all the way down to density. As above; so below. As within; so without.

In this way, you can’t have the first center without the eighth – because the frequency of each is contained in the one that precedes it. And so, when we bless all of them, we bring all of them back to balance – because the energy within each one will influence the one above it. We bring them back to oneness. We bring them back to order. We connect to the energy and information inherent within each one. We align with their divine unfolding design.

When we bless our energy centers with these intentions in mind, and each center opens and offers its gifts to us, our entire being begins to vibrate with the song of coherence. As we learn to work with this energy, that simple song evolves ... into a symphony of resonant order.

From here, unlimited possibilities open up to us. We can go far beyond the challenges of working with doubt, getting unstuck, or solving a problem. We can evolve from surviving ... to creating ... to thriving.

Dr. Joe Dispenza

Talk to Myself to Change Life

 "It’s a useful way to check in with yourself and 

organize thoughts and feelings.

It helps with Critical thinking,  Increased focus, Stress reduction, Motivation, and 

a Personal check-in."

Grace Tworek

Be able to meet and connect with their true selves in a simple yet effective way. 

To capture their emotions, perspectives, and knowledge in the most user-friendly way so that they can reflect on their life with a clear and broader lens.

By Journaling, we can document and archive memorable moments to remember how they felt in that moment:

Life Logging: After a long and chaotic day, we all need a place where we can share our secrets, ideas, thoughts, and plans without any filter or pretense. People love to talk to themselves and it is important to know why. Documenting ideas is just one aspect of the need for people to talk to themselves. Additionally, sharing what’s going on in our minds has a lot of psychological and feel-good effects.

Secrets: The one thing that we all have in common is that we all have secrets, big and small. However, secrets can be a big burden and can add a lot of baggage to us. Therefore, we need a place to tell what’s going on in our minds because we can not always share our secrets with someone else.

Ideas, thoughts, and feelings: Moreover, there are lots of ideas, thoughts, and feelings going on in our minds almost all the time. Journaling enables people to meet and connect with their true selves. It is a happy place where users have no pressure to decorate things. It can simply jot down, take a memo, or make notes without showing off, decorating things, or judging themselves.

Record precise moments: Even during the chaos of a long day, there are certain moments we want to remember and cherish. Before welcoming another long day in our lives, it feels good to count our blessings and be grateful for the happy moments that we have been blessed with. By journaling, people can make these memorable moments count by recording them and precisely storing how they felt in that moment.

Pouring feelings and letting them go: Journaling works on a simple concept that the best way to find oneself in the rush of a million emotions and thoughts is to let out whatever is going on in their mind. By writing anything as if they are talking to themselves, people can use Journaling to let it all out and feel better.

Personal Archive: It is no surprise that so many people are simply using Journaling to document and archive anything and everything that crosses their minds. This simple and effective mechanism helps them to record and save their own story, which only they can read anytime later.

Reflecting on life: As thinking individuals, introspection and self-reflection are critical to our well-being. They simply can't be ignored in today’s day and age. Practicing self-reflection efficiently can bring a lot of peace and harmony to our lives and that is yet another reason why is so important Journaling. It allows people to capture their emotions, perspectives, and knowledge in the most user-friendly way so that they can reflect on their life with a clear and broader lens.

Grace Tworek

One Of The Most Important Conversations We Will Ever Have With Ourselves

Whether or not you’ve noticed, you, like me and every other human being, move through each day leading on a constant inner conversation. 

• We talk to ourselves about what’s happening and what it means. 
• We judge ourselves in how we to react to others. 
• We notice that today’s events link to yesterday’s struggles and tomorrow’s possibilities.  

Some of these thoughts are favorable but many are highly self-critical. 

We give meaning to emotional suffering, dreams, yearnings and discomfort. 

We imagine what others are thinking, especially about us.

Our inner conversation is more than the sum total of our thoughts. 

It defines the relationship we have with ourselves. 

It also demonstrates how our relationships connect us to everyone else.

How we talk to ourselves decides how we feel about others and ourselves. 

We see life through our own lens through which we perceive as reality. But that ‘reality’ might be a place that’s radically different from the real world.

Our inner conversations decide the quality of each moment in our life. 

Beyond the quality of each moment, what else is there? 

What else matters?

 

The Answers Are Never Outside

Many of us neglect our inner dialogue despite how valuable it could be to us. 

We look for answers to our problems outside ourselves. We think that better external circumstances will bring us happiness. How could we not? After all, this message is plastered all over the web, slotted into every movie and is the driver of most advertisements.

Mesmerized by modern-day consumerism, we live in a trance that seems to miss the obvious cracks. 

Do you know someone who has everything but appreciates nothing? 

For every imaginable hardship, we find examples of people who have blossomed from it.

One person loses their job and falls into a state of despair; another person loses their job and takes the opportunity to start up their own business.

Steve Jobs co-founded Apple at 21. He was worth millions by age 23. He enlisted an experienced Fortune 500 CEO John Sculley then 3 years later, Sculley fired him. 

Jobs said:

"I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me" 

He started his second company, NeXT, which was ultimately acquired by Apple, and Jobs became CEO again.

The difference is a consequence of how each person translates the meaning of losing their job. 

It’s not intrinsic within the people or the situation. 

How they responded to these life events comes down to the conversation they have with themselves.

 

When We Tell Ourselves Unhelpful Things 

“When I find the perfect one, then I will be happy.”

One of the unhelpful ideas we carry around is the idea that we need to find someone to love us.

Of course this is harmful because imagine if we believed this about other things i.e. we need another person to feed us, we actually become a dependent personality and even a disabled personality.

A relationship is not meant to make us happy, it’s our job to make us happy. 

To expect another person to curb their commitments in order to make us happy is insanity. 

Yet we do it and we’ve accepted that it’s totally fine to give the remote control of our life to another person.

If we look to relationships to fill a void, we put a kind of pressure on someone else and allow them to have a dominion over how we feel.

• We long for someone to discover us and admire us but why must that be another person?  
• Why can’t we explore our potential and get a handle on our qualities and talents?

If we are looking for a relationship before we can be happy, then we are placing happiness into someone else’s hands.  By looking within ourselves, we can find the goldmines of potential to fulfill our lives and ourselves.

We don’t need to make our lives perfect to mine the gold within us. Trying to make our life perfect is putting our happiness into some future event then trying our best to reach it.

No amount of relationship romance, career success or money will bring us joy until we learn to stop talking ourselves out of living with joy.

One Of The Most Important Inner Conversations We’ll Ever Have Is Challenging That Critical Voice

The best way to heal the unhelpful conversations is to learn to have meaningful conversations with ourselves.

All of us have a small part of us inside. This part of us needs our support and compassion. 

It’s a vulnerable part of us that is looking for love and if we don’t give that love to ourselves, this small part of us looks outside ourselves to get those needs met.

By taking care of this part of us we have the opportunity to heal old wounds. In taking care of this part of us, we learn to live in the world with self-love.

Growing self-love is the way to reclaim our real selves. 

It allows us to live more authentically and relate to others in a more healthy way. It frees us from needing others or outer success to feel fulfilled. It allows us to be in the present moment.  Living in the present moment touches our natural joy.

In order to support that small part of us, we need to challenge the critical voice we have inside us. We need to quieten it down and, with logic, face the messages it’s bombarding us with.

These messages are often a hangover from earlier days and are no longer valid.

They contain incorrect information and need to be updated. The only reason they have such a hold on us is because it has become a perpetual habit to listen to them.

All we have to do to get rid of them is to replace them with a new message. To break a life- long habit, we simply need to be firm with ourselves about this.

How To Tackle Those Critical Messages

Listen carefully to the ‘polluted’ message – you will know what it is because when you hear it you will feel ashamed. 

Catch it and study it. 

Think back to when you first heard it. Who said it to you? Think hard and you will find the answer. You will realize that you are obeying it even though it comes from someone for whom you may have no respect or love. If they were obeying you after many years, wouldn’t you think it was a little strange?

You are responsible for taking the correct course of action to remedy these old messages. 

No one is making you do what you don’t want to do. 

Next, write down the message on a piece of paper. Then put a line through it and write the antidote next to it. Stick it on the wall where you will see it all the time. If this is not possible because others live with you, then draw a picture or write it in code.

As you read it, the new message will filter into your consciousness and you will find yourself adapting to it. All you are doing is changing a thinking habit – albeit a very ingrained one. In a few days the new message will be taking over from the old one.

 

Some Examples Of Messages And Their Antidotes:

Message: I am stupid

Antidote: I am not stupid, I have easily passed many life tests.

Message: I am frightened I will go broke

Antidote: Take that fear and, just for this next five minutes, let it go

 

Message: I will never get my music deal

Antidote: You may or may not get a music deal, but whether or not you get it, you can still be happy

 

Just reading these through as you notice them stuck on the wall will remind you that you have an old habit that needs to be replaced by a new one, and what new thinking needs to be put into place to make a change. It really is that simple. It’s recommended you stick with replacing one old message at a time.

Remember you must have a new message to replace the old one – you don’t want to leave a vacuum. As you practice this, you will notice that when the Post-it note on the wall bores you it will mean you have registered the new message.

Now it’s time to move on to the next old message. You will find each note stays on the wall for a shorter time. It might start off as two weeks and you will move it to two days. Your assimilation will accelerate in the light of new experience. Don’t make it any more complicated; that’s as simple as it needs to be.

By reconnecting with that part of us that is aching for our love, we can establish an ongoing conversation that can - literally - alter the course of our life.

Alexandra Massey