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Transgender Day of Rememberance

This year marks the deadliest on record for transgender people. With last year’s stay at home, the economic and political pressures and the reckoning with injustice it’s no surprise.

As we honor and mourn the lives that have been lost to violence today, let us remember that we are all divine. That no challenge is too great for the divine so no challenge is too great for us. Let us find within us the power to overcome, and spread hope, for hope is all that we can cling on to in the face of such despair and depravity.

Esteem those around you and encourage one another toward enlightenment and to stand up for and stand beside those who are vulnerable.

 

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We Are Broken

I’ve sat here for hours trying to form words around what is happening in our world, in our country and in our cities. I don’t know how to express the pain I feel.

I believe in the divinity of all life. I believe that humanity is all one. The best of us is just as good and culpable as the worst of us.

Within this dark time where we are being manipulated by fear we have to find love. The fault lies with us. We can no longer avoid responsibility for the oppression that we have perpetrated. We can no longer shrug off the guilt of what our ancestors have done. We, as white people, have a duty to acknowledge our complicity in systems of oppression from which we’ve benefitted.

Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.
-Martin Luther King, 1958

In turn, we must realize that we are all part of the collective consciousness reaching for resolution. This resolution HAS to be collaborative. We can no longer allow the systems of power to separate and divide us. Our lived experiences are different, but we are all tasked with; afforded a wonderful opportunity, right now, to create a world that works for ALL of us.

When we devalue human life to the point where we become desensitized to the senseless loss of life. When we value property and goods more than the loss of human life, that cannot be replaced, we are broken. We are broken universally, collectively, as a whole. We are broken.

The only way through this is in LOVE. We must dig deep within to find our own divine nature. It’s our responsibility to reconcile the hurt we’ve caused, knowingly and unknowingly. It’s our responsibility to find the common good, our common humanity so that we are able to heal that which we’ve been part of.  Do your inner work. While doing your inner work, do the outer work with love, compassion and hope that we can build, together, that which we want to see in the world.

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5 Things All Empaths Should Know

Many of us who are highly empathic find ourselves struggling with an abundance of feelings that put us in everything from a mere “funk” to a full on chronic depression. We are rarely aware of our emotional states until we’re sucked into the massive pool of ickiness, obviously a clinical term. At that point we just become slaves to the ebbs and flows of the emotional pool and like all vortices we are pulled down deeper. As the world has been forced into this new reality that a pandemic brings, we find ourselves swimming against the current yet again.

Even as we manoeuvre our way through this difficult and unsure era it’s imperative that we figure out how to make the best of our gifts. Empathy, contrary to some of our experiences, is a gift.

Here are some ways to meet the empathic nature head on, with grace.

1. Ask yourself “Is this mine?

Is what I’m feeling mine? or is it someone else’s ? This question is probably the most important to ask. If it is, good!  If it’s not, good. Now let’s deal with it. If it’s not yours and it’s a friend’s, a neighbor’s or just the collective groaning of uncertainty; then allow yourself to release it.

2. Allow it!

If what you’re feeling are your emotions then feel them. We often want to push those uncomfortable feelings away. This is contrary to our highest good and to our well being. Carl Jung said it best when he said  “What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size.” I resist being overweight all the time…I’m only growing in size.

We must feel what is ours so that it passes through us, like a storm passing though your city. If you fight it the cycle will only last longer and the pain from the “uncomfortability” will only increase. It’s like facing your fears. What usually comes from it is more resilience and strength.

3. Meditate &/or Pray

Sometimes it’s just a matter of sitting with ourselves and getting to know you. Meditation/Prayer/Mindfulness are ways of quieting our minds and getting us in the moment. While in that quiet space ask yourself questions and sit with them for a moment.

What am I feeling right now?
Am I safe right now?
Am I hungry right now?
Do I need to have that assignment sent in right now?

Most of the time the answers will be in your favor, but if you are “hungry right now” and don’t have food acknowledge the reality of the situation and allow yourself to feel into that moment.

4. Troubleshoot

If you’ve released other’s emotions and you’ve allowed yourself to sit in your own emotions, then what can you do about it? In each situation ask yourself “What can be done?”.

“What can be done” as opposed to “What can I do?”, allows for all the options. It permits for solutions that are out of your scope. It helps put us in a place of allowing the greater good, the collective consciousness and dare I say “God” or “Infinite Intelligence” to come in and create answers. Then open your mind and your heart to the answers.

5. What will be will be

What happens, happens. We are not always supposed to know why things happen or do not happen. The truth is that it wasn’t a pandemic that made everything in our lives unsure, they were already unsure. The one thing I CAN tell you is that it’s not personal. When this pandemic hit it shook up something in me that made me ask “What did I do to deserve this?”.

Earlier this year, I was experiencing, for the first time in my life, everything falling into place. I knew where I was going, what was going to happen with my career and it was very exciting and comforting. THEN…dun dun dun…PANDEMIC. I realized that everything I’d been going toward had changed. EVERYTHING had changed, but it wasn’t an old, angry, bearded, white guy saying “she doesn’t get to be happy”. The epiphany came by sitting in meditation and paying attention to my own emotions and breathing into them.

I’m not sitting here telling you it’s easy. It’s often the opposite. Sometimes it’s hard AF. Meet the hardness. One of my pastors decades ago told me “nothing is very, very good or very, very bad for very, very long.” Those words sit with me to this day. Although it may seem very, very, very long, it’s not. In reality it’s just a blip on the universal timeline and we are just part of it.

Your empathic nature is one of your strongest assets. It keeps you grounded in compassion and can, if given the opportunity, cultivate the strongest of connections to the divine nature within us all. In turn, it can allow you to create powerful connections with others. Yes, even when we’re six feet apart.

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We Are All Connected

It was the end of the first decade of the new millennium. I was going through a bit of personal turmoil and found myself looking for a job. I was living in Los Angeles at the time and was using mass transit to get around.  Nicely dressed in a skirt suit, I made my way to one of the smaller local busses to get where I needed to go.  It was not my usual bus and I always liked to take them when possible as they tended to be a little nicer.

We are connected  through this amazingly divine string that flows through every single person on this planet. 

I sat down and began to look at my phone as we do.  At the next stop a woman got on. She had was decently dressed from my quick glance.  She sat across from me. All of a sudden a very strong smell penetrated my nostrils.  It was overpowering sickly sweet and offensive. I tried to cover my nose without being too rude. As I looked around I found that the source was that woman who sat across from me.  Her clothing was not that tattered.  Her face was covered in what I only assumed was fecal matter.  She was begging for someone to notice her.  She moaned softly looking at the others on the bus.

As we do in large cities, I would glance at her and then turn my face so as to not make prolonged eye contact, but it seemed that all she needed was a little eye contact. A recognition that she was still human. So, I tried to give her that.  It made me very uncomfortable.  She would mutter unintelligibly and her eye contact with me was quick and in intervals.  At that moment she began to bawl. She was saying things about her daddy and Alabama. It was all I could do not to break down myself.  

Even now as I recount this story I find myself getting a little emotional.  I was so overwhelmed with sadness and this profound awareness that the same God that was inside of me was also inside of her. If that were the case what could I do to help elevate her from such incredible pain and suffering? I could feel it deep within.  I knew how much she hurt at that moment.  I too have hurt like that. 

We try so hard to tell ourselves that we’re not like them.  That the homeless and mentally ill are nothing like us, but nothing could be further from the truth.  They ARE us.  We ARE them. We are connected  through this amazingly divine string that flows through every single person on this planet.  We are connected to the most inspirational beings as well as those who are so broken and wounded from their life experiences.  

We are going to be seeing so much (homelessness) more of this…we are charged with re-finding our humanity and connection to all that is.

I was reminded of this experience today while shopping. A woman who was in the store saw me and wanted to talk. I wanted to keep my 6ft. as we are amidst a pandemic, but she was not at all concerned about that. Although I was quite uncomfortable with her proximity I allowed the engagement. She said she was visiting a friend who worked there and proceeded to tell me that she’d just become homeless. Although this situation was so vastly different from the experience I had in LA, it stirred something in me. We are going to be seeing so much more of this as we proceed through this “thing” and as we do, we are charged with re-finding our humanity and connection to all that is. Re-finding is the term I use, because the vast majority of us have lost that. We forget that we are humans. That we are all connected.

We push though our days working to pay our bills and get more money. We barely notice people other than our friends and family. With social-distancing measure and the looming threat of a highly contagious infectious disease we now have expanded our personal space and even have fear of people coming within six feet of us. I do. I hate it. We are doing what we need to do to keep ourselves, our families and others well and safe. It is the right thing to do.

What is the cost? The potential cost is our connection with our divine nature and the divine within those who move through the world in “meat suits”, as do we.

It’s of vital importance, even within the age of social distancing, that we cultivate our connection with the divine within us and within others. Connect with your “tribe” in ways that feed your soul and in turn feed the souls around you. Look at people, even though you’re 6 feet apart and are wearing a mask, really look at people…like in the eyes. Smile and send them love.

Just BE human and divine.

 

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Finding Love While Socially Distancing

We have all been thrust into quarantine. It’s not easy. As we sit with ourselves and the ones we love we are forced to face the good, the bad and the ugly of us. How are you dealing with it?

I’ve been fortunate enough to have my “quaran-team”. A group of people that I’ve been in pretty close and regular contact with and who are the foundation of my core social sphere. Many people don’t have that.

What we become during this time is so important. We can either self-isolate in a dysfunctional way or we can grow by connecting with spirit and with those we love no matter if it’s in person, from a distance or virtually.

Our call as humanity is to find out who we are. Do we breathe into the fear of all that is happening  or do we breathe into love? I choose to breath into love.

Love is the highest emotion. Our goal as a community is for Love to be our default. It is only with practice that we are able to make love our default.

How do we do that?

When faced with anxiety and fear of all that surrounds us we acknowledge it allow it and then readjust to the feeling of love.  It’s not always easy, but as we begin to recalibrate toward love it becomes easier.

Paying attention to our reactions is important. We have years of conditioning and most of that conditioning is out of response to fear and all the things that “could” happen.  Our relationships and patterns are impacted by this conditioning. When we reach for the higher goal of “LAOD” (Love As Our Default) we are faced with these conditionings.  Once we know where we react in fear we may begin to adjust and recalibrate.

Through prayer and meditation we are able to begin tapping into that higher state of consciousness. Our prayer may be to an embodiment of the divine or just to the greater formless divine within and without.  Meditation in whatever form also helps facilitate connection to the divine. Prayer & Meditation allows us to bypass the physical reality to tap into the divine/spiritual reality.

As we grow toward love we can find peace in all of the uncertainty. There is nothing more constant than uncertainty and change. Embracing this knowledge and forming relationship to the now and to love facilitates a comfort with being in that space of “unknowing”.