Archive for June, 2009

         Whenever there is an occurrence that generates such massive focusing of consciousness as the death of Michael Jackson its a moment filled with opportunity.

         But for whom and for what?

         The very day that news of Jackson’s death broke, I was browsing through Barnes and Noble and came upon a book titled “Frequency” by Penny Peirce. The title caught my attention since as long as I can remember I have been known to say “We are all energy operating at different frequencies.” Since I had just “asked” the Universe for an inspirational message, I opened the book randomly and read the page.

         What I read was remarkable.

         If I can paraphrase, the author posits that since our bodies live in the present so must our minds. When we linger too long in thoughts that are either past or future, we fundamentally leave our bodies without consciousness…or as my friend Marlene likes to say, without the computer that runs it. What’s the result? Its stagnation…non-action…no movement. Think about your computer without an operating system. What can it do? Now think about your body without the benefit of your mind’s attention. It’s like that computer… and it’s not about to do anything either.  So what you get when you leave our body to trip the light fantastic is nothing.  Literally, you get stagnation in your life. Why?  Because since the only thing that exists is the Present, the Now… when your thoughts are any place other than Here and Now you are creating NO-THING-NESS in your Present. Your are creating EMPTINESS in your Life.

         I don’t know if “It takes a village to raise a child” but it definitely takes a mind and body working in both harmony and real Time to create a Life.

         How do your know if your mind and body are in sync?  Frequency. 

         Think about those days when everything just seems to be going right. You’re energetic, things fall into place, you can seemingly do no wrong. Now contrast that with days when your devoid of energy and everything you attempt feels like an uphill battle. Know what the difference is?  When things are going right, your operating at what Peirce calls your “home frequency.”  Its that vibrational rate, default rate if you will, at which your mind and body are set to maximize creativity in its various forms.  But when the opposite is true, and it all seems a futile battle, its because you’ve “left the room”, so to speak, by separating your thoughts from the Present and thereby also left your body without the means to function effectively in the material world.   You become the laptop without the operating system.  Nothing’s going to happen.

         So what’s all this got to do with Michael Jackson’s death? Or Bernard Madoff’s conviction and sentencing? Or the aftermath of the Iranian election for that matter?

         Well, while these events may be happening in real time, or close to it, are they actually happening in the real time of your own life?  I think not. If you and millions of other people around the globe have their consciousness endlessly “looping” around these distractions… and others like them… then whose minding the store? 

         The store being your body and, hence, your Life?

         I would suggest that if you’re focused on anything other than what needs to be done in your own life this day that you are guaranteeing a drain on your “home frequency” and leaking energy away from what is possible in your Life.

         Michael Jackson died. Rest in peace. Bernie Madoff is sentenced to 150 years. I guess Rest in Peace is appropriate there, too. The Iranian election is over and there’s civil unrest. I wish them freedom. But a blog had to be written and food shopping had to be done and a client needed my input and I had to exercise and meditate and my daughter will be home soon and dinner has to be made and I have target shooting tonight and piano practice.

         As long as my consciousness is operating at my home frequency I can accomplish all of those things and much, much more. Without it, I’m a bump on a log.

         So next time things seem to be slow or uphill, perhaps you’ve left your body unattended to pursue a distraction or two that has no hope of getting you where it is you really want to go in Life. That’s fine… as long as you’re not wondering or complaining about how come you’re not getting what it is you really want out of Life.

    

         A few weeks ago I po sted a blog entry about a “miracle” healing. What continues to surprise me is that the post has continued to get a steady stream of visitors each day since, without any promotion from me. Now that’s somewhat unusual because what normally happens is that posts get a lot of visitors initially when first published and then that traffic dies off but for occasional, usually diminishing, activity. However, not so the “Miracle Healing” entry. This tells me that it’s word-of-mouth, so to speak, that’s generating the continued traffic.

         So what is it about that post that’s generating all the buzz?  Allow me to digress for a moment.

         Those of you who read my blog know I have written about an attempted suicide at age 24. You also may have seen me on YouTube talk about that experience and how it changed my life and formed the basis for the spiritual and philosophical way I live my life today. Perhaps the most frequent point I try and make when public speaking about the attempt is that “people who try to commit suicide don’t really want to die. They’ve just temporarily misplaced hope.” 

         I think the words “misplaced hope” hold the secret to the popularity of the “Miracle Healing” post.

         We continue to live in extraordinarily stressful times and stress takes it’s toll. Usually, on the body. Dis-ease and illness are rampant. Particularly cancer. The numbers of people who have been, and are each day, diagnosed with some form of cancer are escalating at an alarming rate. Yet cancer is just one example. The human body is simply not designed to withstand the pressures… particularly the mental and emotional pressures…that result from the way we live. Nor are we meant to live at this pace. Plus, there are all the environmental pollutants that have been, and continue to be, spewed and dumped into the Earth and It’s atmosphere.   With so much pressure and so much illness, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that we have the ability to change how we live as well as to heal ourselves in non-traditional ways.

         In other words, it’s easy to misplace hope in the as-yet-unknown.

         Enter my post about the miracle healing.  I think people read it and are moved by the miraculous, non-traditional healing that took place. Sure. It’s a great story and a true one.

         More importantly, however, I think they find in it that elusive thing called “hope” that the seemingly irreversible can, in fact, be reversed. So whether it’s an illness they or someone they know is struggling with, or a relationship gone awry, or a business venture turned liability, or a troubled child….whatever it is… they are reminded, encouraged to renew their faith, that hope is never lost, only misplaced.

         I could not have been part of that healing had I not had faith and hope that I could somehow make a difference. And the patient could not have improved had he not also had, on some level, faith and hope in his own survival. I believe that. And while you may not, what matters is that both he and I did and the result speaks for itself.

         I think we live in a world where people are hungry for hope. It’s the effort to feed that hunger that is driving the ongoing traffic to the “Miracle Healing” post.  I am encouraged by all the interest. I hope those readers who are called there find what it is they have gone in search of.

         Hope.

    

>        I don’t watch a lot of TV or listen to much radio. But there’s always news that filters through one way or another and the Internet is certainly one of those ways. So in the past few days, I’ve been unable to avoid some rather nasty comments and observations flying back and forth between what appears to be the political Right and Left.

Here are a just a few in list format, for expediency sake and, to make the point:
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size=”3″ face=”Courier New”>      – Letterman trashing Governor Sarah Palin’s 14-year-old-daughter by joking that she was “knocked up by Alex Rodrigues during the 7th inning stretch.”

         – size=”3″ face=”Courier New”>Letterman referring to Sarah Palin’s fashion sense as the “slutty, flight-attendant look.”

     – Bill Maher saying Former First Lady Nancy Reagan had lunch at the White House with Michelle Obama and, not quite sure who the Michelle Obama was, asked the First Lady “not to just move the furniture around but to do some dusting.” size=”3″ face=”Courier New”>

size=”3″ face=”Courier New”>      – Rush Limbaugh playing “Dancing Queen” from Mama Mia with a voice-over imitation of Congressman  Barney Frank singing, instead, the words “Banking Queen.” size=”3″ face=”Courier New”>

         First, let me dismiss the politics. I’m a life-long Democrat until about two weeks ago when I moved and had to re-register to vote. I registered as an Independent. I’m pretty much done with both Parties’ greed and corruption. As a Democrat, and now an Independent, I never particularly liked Barney Frank.

         But the Limbaugh parody was disgusting as are all the others.

         There’s a great line from the movie The American President where Michael Douglas, portraying the President running for re-election, gives a press conference and addresses his Republican opponent who has been avoiding debate on policy issues and instead attacking the widowed President and his love interest on moral grounds. Douglas says, “If you want to come at me with a character debate just tell me where and when and I’ll be there. But we’ve got serious problems that require serious solutions and your fifteen minutes of fame are up. My name is Andrew Wade and I am the President.”

         I’d like to paraphrase, if I may.

         To Letterman, Maher, Limbaugh and all the others: “We are living through a precarious time of extraordinary change. Divisions based upon differences have plagued us for thousands of years and led to unimaginable suffering. These are serious times that require respectful approaches. Harmony in diversity is the goal. If you can’t grasp that reality and stop being part of the problem, I can assure you that your fifteen minutes of fame are about to be up. My name is Carole Goldstein and I am a Citizen Lightworker.

         With so much tough news, economic and otherwise, it may seem as little “Pollyanna-ish” to be writing about patience. And yet, during times of transition, such as we are now experiencing, there may be few topics more relevant or more important than patience. 

         I am amazed at how many people seem to be in a state of limbo in some aspect or another of their lives. Everywhere I look I see people in transition…from career to housing to relationships to health. And by limbo I mean that how things have been for them most of their lives are, suddenly, no longer the same and yet no alternative has show up to replace that which is no longer working, or no longer here, or no longer viable. Just among my immediate friends, I know four graduate educated, formerly successful career women who have lost their jobs or left their careers voluntarily and no career alternative…not even a job let alone a career…seems to be opening up for them. I know three people with serious health challenges.

    Just yesterday I was talking with one of them and I said, “You can’t imagine the size of the capital letter ‘P’ that’s on the word ‘Patience’ we’re all being asked to exhibit.”  For some reason, my comment struck her as funny and she laughed. When she stopped laughing, she said in all seriousness, “I get it. Thanks.”

    I had just blurted it out but as soon as I said it I “got it” too.

    No matter from what perspective you look at things, the lesson is the same. If you’re a student of evolution, it’s one of those periods when both the Earth and humankind are going through geological, meteorological and biological changes that have dotted the history of our development as a planet and a people for all of recorded time. If your technological, its a time of unprecedented growth and speed. If you’re religious, for many its the transition from one prophesied time to another…for good or for bad…depending on your religious orientation. If your spiritual, its the necessary expansion of the capacity of human consciousness from a lower to a higher frequency on the path to Oneness.

    Whichever one rings true, they all have one thing in common: Change

    Change may appear to occur in an instant but in reality its a process. When you are in the middle of a process over which you have no control, your options are to fear the lack of control and the temporary unknown or, as the colloquial expression goes, roll with the punches. Rolling with the punches requires a certain amount of patience. Or should I say acceptance of what Is.

    There simply are times when nothing you do makes any noticeable difference. It isn’t necessarily because you’re doing anything wrong or doing it inadequately…its a matter of Divine Timing.  Divine Timing requires certain “pieces” to be in place, so to speak, before certain other pieces can be moved into position. To do the latter before the former would be to impede the “natural” flow of things..or in more human and philosophical terms…interfere with the Highest Good For All Concerned.

    After all, we all want the Highest Good For All Concerned. Or do we?

    Maybe that’s what this patience thing is about after all. Maybe we’re being asked to wait…to endure…until all of us catches up in our understanding that we’re all connected and if some of us prosper to the point of material obscenity while others of us suffer from the obscenity of the most heinous deprivation…then we’re ultimately holding ourselves back because there’s only One of Us.

    Sometimes, no matter how well I plan things, my timing is off. Ever have that happen to you? I suspect the answer is yes. Who hasn’t? Well, I have that answer to that query.

    God.

    God’s timing is never off. Its perfect. Its Divine. It’s Divine Timing.

    So, if things aren’t working out as you planned, or hoped or continue to strive for, just remember to be patient. Somewhere out of sight is a clock calibrated to the Highest Good For All Concerned.

    And the alarm is set.
         

    

The most difficult blogs to write are the most personal ones for they expose you “belly-up.” This is one of them. It’s particularly tricky to write this one because, in addition to the opening for personal exposure and the criticism that can follow, I recently came to an awareness about my own propensity to judge others and in order to write this entry I have to walk a fine line between observation and judgment.  But here goes. 

I have previously written about my divorce and the fact that we have a 16-year-old daughter so there’s no need to elaborate here other than to remind you of both.

Just this week, our daughter had a doctor’s appointment for a minor issue and my ex-husband agreed to pick her up from school and take her, since he had been unable to during his normal Parenting Time with her last week. When I was able to check my calendar, I realized that I couldn’t pick her up after the appointment as my day was full with commitments through late evening. So, I asked him if he would also bring her to my home after the appointment.

He refused without giving a reason.

When I inquired “why” he replied, “Because I have a full day and don’t feel like driving anymore then I need to

.”  When I suggested that I generally do all of the driving for her and that she had heard his reply and was hurt by it, he said he would be “happy to explain it to her” two days later when he took her to the appointment.  I further suggested that he might want to call her now, rather than later, as she was obviously disappointed and hurt…feeling unimportant and like an inconvenience to him. His response to that was “If she needs to she can call me.”

I want to repeat what he said: “If she needs to she can call me.”

I was married to this person for almost 17 years and I take responsibility for allowing him, over that period of time, to chip away at my self-esteem by exchanging my personal power for the need to be loved by, and compatible with, him.  And, in hindsight, I had pretty much figured out how that had occurred.  Even our daughter had said to me, post-separation, “You were always too easy on him. No matter how he treated you, all he ever had to do was say ‘I’m sorry’ and you’d forgive him.”  That’s tough to hear from a then 15-year-old who you know is forming her model of a woman after you… and her model for relationships after her parent’s marriage.

But I’ll tell you what was even tougher to hear than that.

When he said that sentence, ” If she needs to she can call me,” I heard him tip-toeing down the path of a pattern of manipulation that is the slippery slope to emotional abuse. He had said something hurtful and insensitive and now he was trying to see if he could get her to come to him for the apology he owed her.

He was planting the seeds of emotional control. 

Had she complied, those seeds could then take root.  Each time such an opportunity would then arise in the future to solidify the pattern… he would take it, knowing she was a participant.  And each time she acquiesced and went toward that which was the source of her pain, he would have gained a little more control over her and she would have relinquished a little more of her self-esteem and personal power.

The good news is I got in the way. In a good way.

I used it as an opportunity to talk with her about dignity, self-esteem, male-female relationships, and the different types of abuse…emotional, psychological and physical. We spoke about healthy relationships and the importance of knowing where your boundaries are.

Finally, we spoke about being able to say to yourself, if not to anyone else, “No thank you. The price is too great” and so to be able to  “pass” on what’s being offered with confidence in knowing that your dignity is not for sale and betrayal of Self is never an option.

One caveat… because I need to be careful as I walk that observational/judgmental line I mentioned earlier.

I don’t think my ex-husband is a malevolent person. I don’t think he consciously sets out to seek that level of control.  He obviously has his own needs and insecurities that cause him to take that approach rather than expose himself belly-up. But that’s no longer my concern.

Our daughter is.

Abusive relationships don’t start out in the deep end. They develop slowly over time and, like everything else, it takes two. The one sure way to avoid them is to be self-confident, self-aware, and unwilling to trade anything for what appears to be love.  Love doesn’t possess, control or hurt. And it’s NEVER the result of a bargain between two people…no matter what’s being exchanged.

Hopefully, our daughter knows this and has learned it from her parents.

There is an old saying, “You teach what you have to learn.”