A whole lot of words about Respect

Seems that there is a whole lot happening in our lives right now. Lots of things and ways of being – even people – are being removed from our lives. We are collectively in an energy of loss, but even as we have all lost so very much, the one thing that never needs to be lost is having Respect…yes, with a capital “R”

*****

It is with great pleasure that today I am writing, once again, about a subject that, in my opinion, is something that truly and actually NEEDS to be taught. Indeed, that one thing that I am writing about is Respect (with a capital “R”).

When I was a kid, I recall the adults in my life having a favorite phrase that I know they also heard when they were kids, and that phrase is “I COMMAND RESPECT.” Well, let me allow you this much – we all do, but, the thing is, commanding is like demanding, with the latter of the two being less…demeaning…to the person or people who anyone who would do either of these things.

I get it – when it comes to our kids, we have to “command” this Respect out of them when they are very young, and the way that we are supposed to and should be doing that is through showing these tiny little heathens the respect that we are commanding. The reason that I am writing about this particular thing, again, for probably the millionth time is because, in short, when you have to give respect where none has been given in equal measure, it is no longer a thing about having a mutual respect, but more and only about someone expecting any one of us getting what they feel they are due, simply because they happen to hold a power position in the lives of others. The worst offenders of this uneven energy are indeed parents. (Yup… I said it so eat it all up and freakin’ deal with it, guys….I gots me a big ol’ thing to write today….go get yourself a drink and whatever else you’re gonna need)

What are you teaching others about this energy called Respect?

I have written a lot about this, because the truth is that where I come from in terms of people, it is nothing for the “adults” in the lives of children to expect to get from those children the thing that they should get, but do so without returning it. I wonder what it is that compels any human person to think that they are due something that they themselves refuse to give? It might be that these people have respect confused with bullying others into fearing them and gaining respect that way. Way to go, douche-bag – and welcome to the world where in reality, what you send out in terms of energy is what you will get back, no matter what.

If you are not sending out that energy of respect, a respect that is true, that is real, the people who you are commanding it from are going to be on to you, and while you might have the upper hand right now, wait…WAIT til it comes to the  point where they have had enough of your garbage and the tables turn on you. I am not saying that they are going do to you what you have done to them. What I am saying is that, eventually, you will push people out of your life, because you do not know what the hell respect is for real.

And then…you expect the people who you hurt the most to want to stick around and be there for you. I have news for you – it is probably not going to happen. You might have been able to bully them into believing things that you wanted to believe yourself, but the bottom line is that the more that you continue to chip away at what Stephen R. Covey stated in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, as being an “emotional bank account” that, at the end of it all, is in the red where this is concerned regarding respect.

And really, Mr. Covey was right – it is true that if a person will continue to do the things that causes another person or people to be repulsed and repelled by them, there is a guarantee that somewhere along the way to that place where there is no love left, at least the sort that makes people want to be around a person, there was a very dear and severe lack of true respect.

Respect is NOT something that we can buy, and if what anyone will do in the manner of paying with tangible means (i.e. buying nice things for people who you know dislike you just so that they will like you and other quite douche-bag like things) for the “respect” of others, this is not respect – this is what is called buying people. If you have to buy the respect of others, have to barter things and have to impress people with tangible means, and in reality you know that these people, given the fact that you probably were capping on them all the time, have very little respect for you. If you are the kind of person who has to barter things and money and essentially are the person who lives from the ego instead of the soul, you need dearly to check yourself before you further wreck yourself.

You see, people do not like being lied to, do not like being taken for a fool, do not like being belittled, do not like paying for someone else’s old sins from the past over and over again until you, the one who needs to command respect, finally wear them down to the point where when they see you coming, they turn tail and head the other direction away from you, it is not the others who need to deal with things of a personal and internal soul matter. What you seek from others you must have within you and for you. This is not new. This is something that has a lot to do with the energies that combine and bring out who you truly are through outer means that are outside of your control. And in reality, you are what is that thing called a control freak.

You do not need to control people to have their respect – all you need to do is show some true respect for others and that energy will be given back to you. Try it and see for yourself. There is no need for bravado, because that is just another form of disrespect called arrogance. There is no need for name calling, because what you are emitting in terms of energy is your own feelings about yourself in some manner. What is needed is the paring down of your own self to get to the core of who you are and finding out what it is within you that is making you so very dearly repulsive to others. Have you ever noticed that? The next time that you are at a party…doesn’t matter if it is a company party or a family party – take a few moments to observe everyone’s body language and notice their mannerisms. There is nothing that hides an arrogant fool, just exactly like there is nothing that can hide the light that shines through a person and out to the people who they are with.

Respect is not something that should not be present upon meetings between strangers. The respect begins to be lost when said strangers start to size each other up and begin to take what the other person is saying as somehow being demeaning to them. Sometimes, it is totally demeaning and make no mistake – there are a lot of people who we share the air with who lack the sense in themselves enough to NOT behave in the manner that is boorish, that is needing all the attention from the rest of the planet, and when we come across a bully we are most assuredly encountering the energy that is disrespect.

There are no two ways about this. You either have respect for strangers, so as to exude that energy, thereby bringing it back to you, or you don’t, and you end up bringing the energy back to you as well.

If it is that you are finding yourself at odds with people, it is a good bet that you have likely shown little or no respect for them, and you end up behaving in the manner that is equivalent to a giant two year old, tantrum, foul demeanor, and everything else that it comes with. This is the thing that, for whatever reason there is, still seems so present in our lives, even as there is no reason for it at all. There is no reason for us to play “eye for an eye,” because we no longer live in the times of old. There is no need for us to think that what we have to do is command anything from anyone else. There is no need for anyone’s ego to take over and wreck things any more than they are already. This is the thing about not having respect for people – again, it is the energy and NOT the words coming out of someone’s mouth that others are sensing.

A lack of respect also denotes a real lack of integrity. When we lie to people to save their feelings, we are not respecting that maybe they were learning a soul lesson and that maybe they needed to learn the lesson at hand. When we pretend to have love for another person and that love is based on a the “servant-master” dynamic, that is not respect…it is ownership. When we are more willing to just get our way without regard to how anyone else feels about a thing or two, we are not doing what is the highest best for anyone, but namely for ourselves.

When it is that we find ourselves all alone, both outwardly and inwardly, we need to stop and ask ourselves what it is that we can do to remedy that. There is a giant in difference between being alone and being lonely. If we are lonely we need to ask why we feel that way and realize that perhaps, at some point in our lives, we took everything that was good, if indeed it could be called that, and somehow banished all of it to the wasteland called “someone else’s fault but not mine.” This is not to say that some folks are very lonely because they really want to be with people but are shy. I am talking about those types of people who run their mouths, do horrid things to others, and expect that they will still have the love of these people. It does not work that way. At all.

You see….wherever respect is concerned, there too is also Love concerned. Without a proper love of the self, one cannot love anyone else. It is impossible to know real love if you do not love you, much as it is impossible to respect one’s own self if you do not have respect for yourself. It is not our place to judge anyone else for their actions, but rather and only our place to make sure that both our words and actions have the energy that is of the highest integrity, because that is where the truth of respect for one’s own self is found.

Basically, those who show little respect for others, who care nothing about how others feel, about what affects anyone else, in the manner that is hurtful, really have a problem with self-respect, because really…who we are is reflected in the company that we keep.

…and if no one is around, what is that telling you, let alone the rest of the world?

I Love You All

ROX

Click here to “like” The Mana’o Blog on Facebook

JUST IN! A Message from Spirit

Take heed and heart – the Divine within has been calling us all out…a Message from Spirit for us all…’auhea wale ana ‘oe…pay attention, yeah ?

*****

 

I know it seems as otherwise, but I am telling you all that the things that you are going to read here, while they might not make sense to you right now, they will make sense to you in time to come.

There are a lot of us going through more than we thought we would, and it is with great reason and good cause. There is an incredibly huge amount of loss happening, continuing to happen, and at an alarming rate. There are things that we each have collectively experienced, but from our own point of view, meaning that, from time to time, we will not fully understand who we are in measures of what it is that we perceive as our place in the lives of others, let alone in this lifetime. We cannot distinguish, at this moment, what is in the future, but we can get there on our own, with a little help from our Soul Family, with a lot of help from the ‘Aumakua, and with complete faith that Spirit has our backs and does so in the form of others who have been there, others who are there now, others who are there for us in the most complete manner that we cannot wrap our heads, hearts and hope around. Yet, it remains that every single one of us, even as it does not appear as such at the moment, are geared, primed, and headed for our own measures of intended, and soon, manifested greatness.

We are the ultimate proof of our own power, the absoluteness of the All That Is and the epitome of Perfected Imperfection that really, this is what makes us all the same, even as we are all and each uniquely different from one another. That part doesn’t matter, because our lives are dearly enmeshed, not only on the physical plane, but more importantly, in places and realities where, if we knew how great that level of Self was, we would be astounded in one manner, feeling foolish in another manner, and completely awestruck at just how important we each and all are.

If we knew just exactly our places in the lives of others, and we could accept our own level of imperfection, being always at its level best, we would understand, too, the importance of who we are and how we are and more important than that, what we are, even if what we are is not what we want to be – what we are is what we are, and the only people who can exact a difference in that manner is our very selves. We have become so dependent on our material worth, on our tangibilities rather than what it is that we are sensing on another level, that we want to believe that what we see with our physical selves is far greater to our soul than what is felt on levels that not a lot of us can explain.

Once it is that we have finally and with great joy accepted who we are right in this moment in time, this is also when the realities which we are not consciously aware of will come to us, effortlessly, and almost as though those impressions have come to us literally on the wings of angels, because really, sometimes that is how it happens – when we cry out to Spirit from within, and when we bother with ourselves on the level that is the same amount of deep caring and love that we say that we have for others, we realize that we are finite in body, but that we are boundless, unlimited and able in every other way. These are the things that we all take for granted. These are the things that we push aside and out of our own awareness all for the love of things we can hold tangibly, all for the things that we can look at and feel with our five senses, not realizing that we are far more than only this tangible reality.

We like to think that we are the only beings in the Universe, but how can that be when there is an infinity in the cosmos that we have not yet seen, known, heard of, can imagine being real? We like to believe that in our arrogance we are the only game in town, but our issues and our challenges prove to us that this is not the truth, because if it were the truth we would not be where we are right now, which is boldly measured and irreverently challenged by a cosmic ruler that is teaching us what we have, for many lifetimes, refused, not to learn, because we are born with the ability to believe, but more, what we have just not accepted as being our own truth, and a truth that we keep denying, even as we have done our very damnedest best to create it. We want others to believe our truths and want them to accept what is met as being their truths, which are also the truths that we are inclined to point out, no matter what it is that we think we are doing, but we are hard pressed to open ourselves to our own truths.

When it is that we need to depend on anything at all, depend on the truths that you have created, that you have shared as your own with others, and make certainly sure that what it is that you are giving away as that truth IS your truth. People tend to see through the bullshit, and people tend to not want to give in to us as much when it is that they can decipher that it is the truth of ourselves that they seek, even and as much as we seek it ourselves. When we feel compelled to look at another’s truth, and we are compelled to judge them from that place, and we feel the need to make it known to them and anyone else that our opinion of them is not that great, we want the world to see only what is not good, rather than our choosing insted to see there what is the good, what is the love, what is the thing that keeps us all going, what keeps us all alive, and that is all and only Love.

We must Love who we are in order to be who we are, and right now we are all who we are meant to be at this point and time in our loveliness, this time in our evolution collectively and on the individual level. We are here for a purpose that is Divine, and like all things that are meant, that are created and molded and given to us each as the gift of the Goddess are also as Divinely and timed and planned, so, too, are the truths which we are compelled to give silently and without our knowing so, about ourselves, and which is the one thing that we sense in others, and is a thing that we all need to tap into and touch upon or else we are left to the whims of the imagination run amok. We allow who we are to delve into places unknown, and in doing so are the catalyst for the unfolding and eventual blossoming of the whole self, as it is meant to be seen, as it is meant to be shared, not only with the world, not only with the Divine, but mostly, with our very selves.

It is within ourselves where this Divine intelligence lives, and within ourselves where it is that we are alive and well and knowing fully that who we are as we are is meant to be. We are meant to be these people who we are now, and in this consciousness we are also meant to draw to us the people who are there and now and who, by the very grace of the Goddess, are there, sharing with us who we are for the purpose of a shared mission. We share our lives with people for this purpose, with this energy and with this big love within that is meant for us to know, for sure, that we are here on purpose, and that Spirit has a thought in Her that is for us to crawl slowly like we have had far too much to drink, and sometimes for us to run like hell away from something that we might need, and sometimes, we are just meant to sit and ponder what is happening in our lives, all the time, and to pay attention to the things which visit us, delight us, enrage us, give a pause to think about why it is that we think that somehow, if we are not so great, why do we have a divine purpose?

Because we do, that’s why, and Spirit doesn’t have to tell us what it is, why it is, when it will fully mature – all we need to do, all we need to ponder, all we need, period, is to know that whatever it is, it is meant, and whatever it is, it is purposeful, and whatever it is, it is meant to hone us to the brilliance that we have always been, to remind us that we are not just people, but people with a mission, and one that is shared, and that all that we go through, all the things that we have and have not, all and everything that we know, is meant, even if it sucks and hurts and seems as though it has taken from us the thing that made us who we are. We make us who we are. Nothing outside of us makes us who we are. Nothing that we can hold, unless we are so blessed by Spirit and told so, tangibly, is anything more than the result of the power and can be seen only as that – as the ultimate proof that indeed we are the most powerful people in our own lives, so why are we worried about so many things that we might believe are the most important things in our lives?

Because as sentient beings we have been allowed to learn our lives long that we are empowered by our selves, through our selves, and within our selves, and the moment that we are in disbelief of this one thing is when we also begin to notice what are the limits that maybe we have imposed upon ourselves so that we would better be able to learn the things that we do not want to learn, in the most compassionate way that the Mother Goddess can provide, even when it means a significance of loss so grand that on our human own, we cannot comprehend, and when it is that we cannot comprehend the why, and we do not want to think anymore about the how, it is at that point that we know, based on all the other things in the past that we should be looking at, worked out for us.

The past cannot be changed, but it can be referred to, and in grand form we look back there and only point to and out those things that broke our hearts and made us hurt, all the way down the to bones of our souls. We cannot ever take away the measure of the pain from the losses we end up going through, but we can gauge the way that we have evolved through how well we make it through them.

We cannot measure what is someone else’s loss according to how we are measuring our own, so without a thought, we choose to judge who we are in relation, not to them, but to their experiences, and we end up judging those who, we do not realize, love, unreasonably, the human potential to harm others. We should not be learning further the power that is in hurt, for it is within this power that we are able to create pain for others, and no one needs that. Instead, we should be otherwise inclined to do only what does the least harm, and what makes the least chaos, and what is, in fact, a form of Love from Spirit that can only come from hardship, that can only come from the lessons that we alone must learn, even as we are in the company of those we love the most.

I suppose that I wrote this particular thing today because of all of the major losses, because of all of the things that we are each and all going through, and it all makes us feel so very all alone, and while I know that this does not take the sting of anything away from any one of us, I do know that when I write in this manner, when it is that the message that is being given comes to me in a hot instance, and when it is that we are all grinding our proverbial teeth, readying ourselves for the thing that comes next, we are empowered. We are empowered because of who and what we are, not what we have, not who we know who we might perceive as being empowered by some outer eminence that only they have contained within themselves.

We are all great, and we are all prone to moments of clarity through the measures of pain and heartache that we all end up going through. Mostly, we want to crawl inside of our inner hiding places, and we want to stay there in that warmth of darkness, of not having to deal with the things that our lives, as storied as they may be, give to us. We want to pretend like the things that shatter us, no matter what those things might be, are never going to allow us to have the completion and the wholeness that we each and all crave. It is in our losses where we gain, at least the most of us, and some of our losses cannot be gauged in human terms – only spiritual ones, because those are the very ones which count the very most.

No, I am not talking about when someone leaves our lives through means not our own or perhaps means not ready for. I am talking about things that take us away from our own ability to be reasonable, to not think in terms of what it is that our imagination is giving us in terms of who we are. Who we are is infinite, and the moment that we wear this on the outside rather than only hiding it from the rest of the world for fear that what it might seem to judge us for, this is when we are in the energy of the infinite, the energy that is wholeness, Divine on every level and where it is that finally, we are living from the middle of our soul rather than the platform of our ego selves.

Nope….this isn’t a writing that was honed throughout the week, but is a message from the Divine that reminds us all that yes, indeed, we hurt, on many levels, and for a whole lot of very, very, very good reasons. The people who hurt the most right now do not need to hurt the most, but it is the only way that they can get through what it is that they are faced with.

…the rest of us?

Yeah…we need to not forget that who we are, all the way to the bones of the soul, is infinite, and that the things which are outside of us are not.

This has been a public service announcement from Spirit…

I Love You All

ROX

Click here to like #TheManaOBlog on Facebook!

Cutting Cords

I could sit until I am blue in the face and say that the things that we are attached to are also attached to us…no matter what those things are. We have the option to free ourselves from the ties that bind us to the unreality in our heads, and it is an unreality which lends to the energies of our actual reality, which normally turns things on the inside of us…well…not so great!

*****

I have a deal to make with you all…let’s all, every one of us, practice cutting the ties that bind us to things, people and the unreality that we all have living and breathing within us. I know I know…hard to stop being who you have been for so long and try on the new you. I get it. I have a hard time, too. Yet, the thing that I am writing about is so not what you think it is. This is not a pep talk – I tend to not give those these days, for the simple fact that humans, by and large, like solutions, all of us, and sometimes, those solutions we cannot think of are directly tied to the things that we are willing to believe, if for no other reason than that those things are what we have always believed.

If there is anything a Pisces knows, it is all about belief, of any kind, but mostly the kind that remind us that we are not the only game in town, that we are not the best thing on two legs, at least not for the whole world, that is, and most of all, we believe in what we believe in, even if it is a fat guy who shimmies down the chimney once a year to leave stuff under a tree that should have been left in the wild to be what it was meant to be and not … literally dead in the water.

Our beliefs – no, not the sort that tell us we will or will not go to hell, will or will not be reincarnated, not those kinds of beliefs – are the things that plague us for the entirety of our lifetimes unless and until someone else comes along and tells us that indeed, there is something that we can do about the things that break our concentration, that make us want for better days, that make us think things that we know we ought not think. When we are talking about truth, we are also talking about the beliefs that we took on in another time in life, or perhaps are things that are still being actively said to us, or perhaps were things that we were witness to that we never really bothered to question. I know well the idea that all it takes for anyone to have a big fat mess in life is for us to think that we will not ever be able to get out of the messes that we have found ourselves in, regardless if whether or not it was someone else who does not know us at all brought the thought, or the reality that makes old beliefs materialize, to our awareness.

What no one ever tells us, because really, not a lot of people understand the importance of our own symbolism, is that EVERYTHING in our awareness is meant to show us, not only what we are made of, not only what we are worthy of, not only the things that we know are good and there for us and meant only for us, but more, our awareness also shows us the things that are no longer needed in our lives.  There are things in each of our lives which, until we have learned what we need to from it all, we will not be rid of. This tells us that all of our situations, be they good or other than good, are temporary. This tells us that what we have at our disposal is not only the issues, but also the way that we choose to see, or to no longer see them. There is also there the energy that is feeling like we are somehow so tied to someone or something that the fear inside of us takes hold, we panic, and then, suddenly the things that we were able to face and to deal with become these …monsters…the very ones which have followed us around for a long time, perhaps even from the time that we were children, where said fears of abandonment, of insecurity, of things that make us so very afraid of life, that we begin to think thoughts that we would rather not, that we know are so not the truth of us.

When it is that these things become dearly entrenched into our ways and means of being, and when it is that these thoughts become the very things which tell us that we are not going to be able to do something, or that we are not going to be able to be something, or that, in any manner at all, we are not – this is when it is time to ‘auhea wale ana ‘oe and pay attention. We need to pay attention to the things in our awareness and how those things consume us until something else comes along to add to the things or perhaps one thing that seems to be more looming and dooming than is much else.

When it comes to that point, and we want to break free from those things, very simply, perhaps too much so….it is just time to begin to cut cords.

Why the proverbial cutting of cords is very important

A few years ago I was introduced to one of the strangest things that I had ever heard of and that I eventually integrated into the teaching that I do with others, and that thing is called “Cord Cutting.” It was introduced to me by more than one teacher, and employed by another person who, at that time, while she might not have been in her right mind, what she did give to me was one of the most powerful tools that any one metaphysical teacher could have in their reach and at their disposal. That one thing is called cord cutting. I will not lie and say that it is easy, because when I was first taught this technique, I had a hard time thinking that what was happening, because of the energies of my wanting to let go of things and ways of being was directly related to why it was such an important thing for me to learn. While I won’t tell anyone that I was anywhere at all near where it was that I needed to be in learning this, it was not long before I was cutting cords all the time, and at that time, I couldn’t see past what it was that my Soul was showing me because my ego was still hanging on to the things that hurt me so badly. I had a very hard time with letting go of anger, of hurt feelings, of anything that was beneficial for me and the thing that, at this point, I know I was to Become.

And more than that, in speaking in terms of energy, when we are loaning who and what we are to our fears, we are taking away our life force and handing it over to things and ways of being which no longer serve us. What we think protects us actually and only inhibits us. What keeps us safe from assumed harm actually also keeps us inhibited in our growth. What we think has helped us will always help us is doing anything but helping us, and what we end up with is a gigantic jumblefuck of confusion. This is not a mistake – it is how energy works. When we confuse our own truths and focus on things that are not there or that we are not truly aware of, and we have not yet figured out what our own symbolism is all about is also when we will react and not respond. Life requires that we respond, but human nature is about the reactive nature that is the biological need for survival on all levels. Not one of us wants to “put ourselves out there” exposed for the elemental climes of turmoil, but turmoil is part of life, and while it sucks horribly, it is also something that teaches us that we are proverbial rock stars made of the stars, that what is in front of us is nothing compared to the beauty which awaits us if we are willing to look at what we are faced with right this moment in another manner.

If we can see things for what they are right this moment, and can think, too, with possibilities being masked as our having no choice, and can see what are our opportunities for stretching and becoming what and who we are meant to become, we can also see where it is that we are corded, in some cases, by our own choosing, to the things which have no more use for us. For some folks this is hard to do, because most folks, when we find a use for things, we keep them. I do it. I know other people who also do it, and all of us know if whether or not, at the moment we think that thought, if we will be using that particular thing any time at all in the future. It is in the “maybe” we will be able to use those things, real or intangible, when we have caused ourselves the imbalance that we do not realize we are striving for. Yes – we strive for imbalance because inherently, as humans, we need to fix things. Sometimes, we cannot fix things, and sometimes, we have to understand the reason why what at one time what worked for us no longer works for us.

And this next thing…the unbelievable part…is the reason why things don’t work for us  – it is because globally, we are all going through this…hard bullshit… in some manner. With some it is people, others, situations and life-sustaining parts of our lives (jobs, houses, etc), some of us are releasing (and having  a hard time with it) old patterns and ways of being, and for some….NAMELY those whose lives are to be lived as light workers….it is all of this. I know the “all of this” part, because I lived through “all of this,” and in some ways more than others, I still am in the middle of this, and if I can do it, this means that there are not a whole lot of people on this planet who can’t.

No…really…keep reading…

How to know when it is time to cut cords, and more, how to cut those cords

We know when it is time to cut cords when the things that we know we have learned keep on coming back in the form of the person or the people who we were trying hard to deal well with and couldn’t. When it is that you have found your own self at peace with things that have happened, you know that it is also that the cord can be cut. This goes for anything, anyone, at any time. Again- I know this because I was taught this and taught well to use it, and this is why I also know that this totally works. The reason we stay corded to people, ways of being and situations is because we emit that energy toward it all, and that energy is bounced back to us. In this reality – hell, in any reality – everything is energy. Our thoughts are energy. When we think about bad stuff, we are presented with more bad stuff, and the lesson there is to stop thinking about only bad stuff and the possibility of only bad happening (because ultimately it will happen). You are human. You are not going to NOT think about bad stuff – we all do it…even silly, happy, rabid cheerleader me…yes…I think about bad stuff…things like people leaving my life (abandonment), and my not being good enough at what I do (but in my own tribe, I am the only one who does what I do and am quite good at it…thanks guys…I love you!). Yet, the way that things which have hurt me for so long have always been presented to me, and the way that I have been molded by my life and everything in it has caused me to look for the beauty in the excrement, for the needle in the haystack, for the monster in the closet that we have highlighted with our flashlight and that when daylight came and we opened up the closet door, we saw there that it was not a monster, but a tiny little spider.

It was the tiny little spiders in our lives, the ones that say horrible things about us and have for the entirety of our lives, and the ones that broke our hearts a million and one times for seemingly no reason other than that those people could do it and get away with it, even if only for a limited time. It was every time that someone else made you doubt yourself, your worth, who you are, that you are cherished and loved, if by anyone at all, your very self. It was everything in life that made you suffer, that made you feel like you were being treated as though somehow, you were the kid at your own birthday party who had to wait for their own birthday cake until after all the other kids got theirs, and what you were left with was a whole lot of birthday cake soup, mixed with the tears of the non-acceptance of us by others…this is what needs to go away.

These feelings have to be gone from us, because if we hang on to them, we cannot grow. If we choose to allow these fears to be what is the equivalent of the perceived monster rather than the teeny tiny little spider (and y’all KNOW how I feel about spiders…ewwwww) that it truly is, there is no doubt in my mind that you will never see what is on the other side of the ugliness, the lesson and the hurting that happens in life. Sometimes that hurting is something that seems monstrous, but in reality, the Mother Goddess NEVER gives us more than we can deal with, ever. She’s a good Mom. That’s how we good moms roll.

Very simply, the way to cut the cords of all these things which seem like they are  waiting to eat us and that live in our thoughts is to simply go within and visualize yourself actually and physically cutting those cords. You have complete control where your thoughts are concerned, complete control over the things that you believe and do not believe, complete control over everything that you see, know, want, do not want, and all of us keeps on giving our power to these things rather than getting on in there and simply, again and again, for as long and as many times as is needed, by our own means and through what is our own choosing of cutting instrument (I use a green or purple light sabre…quit laughing). The point is that, at any time at all in our lives, we are going to be met with things that just plain suck, that make us think there is simply no way out of through typical means.

It is ours to realize and believe that sometimes, our stuff will not be made to leave our lives through typical means…

…sometimes, we need to use a light sabre…

I Love You All !

ROX

Click here to be taken to my new website

MALAMA = CARE FOR

Every one of us on this planet has a group of people who we think of as family, and not all of those people are related by blood to us. It is for those people in my life who are this family for whom this is written…

***

I must give props to the people in my life, who, for a long time now, and they all know who they are, have been the family which I did not come from, but are the very family which I embrace and refuse to let go of. We all have these people in our lives, and to each of those who share my life with me, I want you all to know that I absolutely would be terribly miserable without you.

Without you, I have no shoulders to lean on, no ears to bounce my crazy ideas into and off of, and without you, really, while I have relatives, and I love them a whole lot, too, my world is colored by the love I give and receive to the people who I call “My Tribe.” I have been gifted with this very special set of people, the one made up of the misfits like myself, and the one filled with the creative souls who, at one time, seemed to also be looking for a place to belong, and many of you, as have I, found a place within me, much as I have within you, that is Home to You, Home to Me…Home to Us.

Without the presence of you all in my life, I would not know what it is, really, and this is nothing against my blood relations, I would never know the truth that is Family. I love my cousins, and they, too, are part of this Family which has been assembled through the grace that is the Mother Goddess, knowing what is best for her kids, and knowing, too, that even though sometimes, we feel orphaned by our blood, it is in the life giving nature that is the depth of watery emotion which spawns from the love between friends who end up being our family and sometimes, that family is closer to us than is our blood. I know this. I live this. This is my tribe, my family, the ones who might not look like me, but the ones who know me so very well.

I wanted to make this post be one that tells you all that no matter what, I thank you, all, for showing the Aloha to me, when I raged, when I cried, when it was that it seemed that I might need, once again, to be peeled from the ceiling. I want you all to know that without your presence in my life, that I have no life outside of my children. Without you all being there for me, watching me trip and fall, watching me do all of the things that I do, and never once shaking your heads or thinking that maybe, I might not be all there, I thank you. I thank you for allowing me to still be your “weird little friend,” and I thank you for never forgetting that above all else, we are there for one another, that we Malama what we, together, have built to become a great big, connected-by-the-soul, Tribal Soul Family. I cannot thank you enough.

Really…I Love You All…and you know it is the truth of me.

Malama means “care for.”

To the rest of my readers, know now the very difference of what family is, and what family is not. I will not lie to anyone and tell a soul that I am without love for my blood relations, and in that set of people who I thanked in the above paragraph are indeed people who I am related to. When you think about everyone in your lives, and you wonder why it is that some people are closer than are your blood relatives to you, and you wonder why it is that sometimes, you would rather not be with your blood and prefer to be in the water that is your group of friends, this is what is called “Malama” in action, because you would not feel like you do about those people or that group of friends unless you all were not exacting the Malama…or rather…the “ho’omalama” (to care for) energy within that group.

My Tribe…they know that I love them, each and every one of them, and some of them are not here in this state, and some of them have gone on to the other side of the Veil of Consciousness…yet, that doesn’t matter, because even those people still visit me…it is all Love, the tribes that we create, with people who are like us, even though their blood and your blood do not contain the same DNA, even though you do not technically share a grandmother, even though you are not blood related at all. That doesn’t matter. For some of us there is no other family, because the ones that we come from simply are not our kind of people, and that doesn’t matter either, because in our actual blood families there is a link that keeps us bound together, no matter what. Yet, the bond that is alive and well within your own Soul Tribe is never-ending and completes us each. Mine completes me. Without them, I will not say that I am nothing, but my life would be void of the color that is Ohana, that is Aloha, that is my Family…the very one filled with eccentrics like myself.

This same thing can be found in your Soul Tribe…and within the confines of your Soul Tribe there are things there that are common between you, that sometimes, there is no commonality between blood relations, and this is the reason that Spirit provides us with people who we Love, who we Love to be around, and who treat us with honor, respect, care, and of course, their own Aloha Soul.

You will know your Tribe, because you are one of them, and this will be the most obvious thing that tells you that you belong somewhere, with others like you, and with others who have the same thoughts about everything that you do. You will know who they are simply because they smile at you and laugh at your ridiculous jokes, try to prank you and tell other people the silly things you do when you have had too much tequila. These are the people who you know the best, who know you the best, who never ask you anything other than that if you are okay. These are the ones for whom you would die and who you know would also do the same for you, are the very ones, who, regardless of who you bring into the inner circle, who you bring to the Tribe, will be there, no matter what.

These are the people who care about you the most, are the people who know more secrets about you than maybe your own mother or siblings might, and are the people who you share more memories with than you might your own brother or sister. These are the people who were sent to you, literally on the wings of Angels, and the ones with whom you can share you heartaches, as well as your joys, and are the people who make it possible that even on your worst days, there is always something to look forward, no matter how far in the future, because these are the people who cannot see anything in their own lives without you somehow as part of it. Yes, you…wonderful you who didn’t realize that even though you might feel all alone in this lifetime, there are your people…there is your Soul Tribe.

You were born, not only with a certain and specific purpose, but your mission in life is tied to and with these people who are your Tribe. They are there to help you with this, like you are there and for them to help them with this, and while it is that you are all heading toward this same, singular destiny and mission, you are, they are, we all are granted the Love and the Joy that is the Familial vibe that is between you and them, and them and you, and it is a beautiful thing indeed.

Be grateful everyday for these people. Be grateful for the memories that you make, and be grateful for the Love that is common among you. Be grateful for the similarities, and be more grateful for the things which make you the you who you are in that group called your Soul Tribe. Without you, they are not them, and without them, you are not you. Without these people you don’t know how important you are, and they don’t know how important they are.

Without one another, while we might each and all have a blood family that we love, there is nothing quite as beautiful as the Family made of the quilt of your friends and is the Soul Tribe we each call our own. I wake up daily very grateful for my Soul Tribe. Within the mix there are artists and musicians, are scholars and writers, are humans who have chosen, again, by the very grace of the Goddess, to call me one of their own.

I wouldn’t have it any other way….you all know who you are….thank you, all of you, for just being my Soul Tribe…I Promise to Malama you as much as you Malama me…Aloha Kakou!!

You know it… I Love You…All of You !!! Mahalo Nui Loa

ROX

Deal With it

Try as we might, there are lots of people who want change, but there are not a lot who want to go through the transition of it…and no matter what, we have to deal with this part.

 

I used to not like change. I liked my nice, pretending-to-be set in stone existence, where everything was mine and mine without asking. Those days are gone, and I will not lie – it has been hell. Bills pile up. Sometimes food is scarce. Tempers sometimes flare. Things go awry, even if only in my own world. Yet, there is always, in my head, that instance that is the fact that things cannot stay this way. Things cannot stay as they are because things are always changing. So yes, it has been some time since things were not this …seemingly immovable…but we all know that whether we want to believe it or not, even these things that we have in our midst right now, while they are not very much fun, they will eventually change.

The thing is, though, that not one of us likes the pain caused by change. We want to believe that we don’t need to change a thing about ourselves, and we want to think that it is everyone else in the world who needs to change, but not us. 

Oh really? 

I beg to differ. I used to think this way, that it was not me, that the world cheated me, that the things contained in my memory are somehow there and meant to only be there as a reminder of how much other people are right in that I am a huge screw up, that somehow, no one loves me because I am not perfect, that really, I am not worthy of the things that I know are mine and in manifest. What those others do not realize is that, in their haste to judge others, they are prolonging the pain that they are feeling from the things that they have lost and rather than go through it and experience their own transformation, instead they arrogantly believe that the world will conform to them, that existence will somehow become gloriously the thing that they have controlled and have bent in their own favor and that they get to do this all without experiencing the pain that they have to feel and that maybe they might have exacted on others without realizing that they did in the past. 

I don’t want to get into that whole Karmic thing, because that is not what this is about in total. What this is about in total is also that there are things that we each have to learn about ourselves that might not be the things that we want to look at and the things that we have shunned about us for so long that we cannot comprehend why it is that these things are happening. What is happening is that we are being given the quick way to learning these lessons that we have to learn, and it is not very comfortable at all, to say the very little least. We don’t like looking at what is hurting us, because we don’t want to hurt from it anymore. We don’t like the things that make us angry, because we know that what it is that is also there, on some level, is our truth in the matter. We don’t want to ache, but we want to make sure that other people ache for having caused us to ache, and we don’t want to be angry with others, even though that is what we are, and it is because they are not living up to who they know they are, and in all of this turmoil, myself included, we are not realizing that we are actually getting things done.

That is what the turmoil is for, guys – so that we have a distraction from obsessing over the thing that we want in our lives. If we do not have the turmoil, we place outcome energy on the things that we want, and we wait, grow impatient and act as though it is the rest of the world that is at fault. The rest of the world might have been the cause, but the rest of the world is not who is supposed to take up the Kuleana for the energy that is hurting and impatience and all of those other wonderfully human being things that we all and each feel when we are quite overwhelmed with things and energies that we are not liking at all.

So, the only thing that I can say to the each of you right now is that it is time to practice what it is that you have learned, some of you on your own, and others with the help of teachers and coaches and spiritual advisors, and to learn how to manifest that energy of healing for the things that others might have brought to us, but that we alone have got to deal with . Others don’t show up and do like they do for no reason. Spirit knows what She is doing, all the time, and in theareas of our lives that we seem to have come to the end of the road, it is simply time to just let go of what we want and allow Spirit to dictate, because in that energy of letting go we find the sweetness that is the freedom of not having to deal with how we get to where it is that we are trying to get, and we only need to really focus on what we feel like right now and how that feeling and those energies might be causing us to not have what we so dearly need and desire. We cannot expect to have what we need or desire if we are only thinking about how we can’t have it right this minute. It took us all a little while to get where we are right now in our lives and on our Paths, and it is going to take some time to unlearn what we have learned and that doesn’t and never did suit us or fit into who we are each becoming.

On the Path to our truest selves there are a lot of pit-stops, a lot of potholes and a lot of detours, but always, the destination is the same – that part, no matter what, unless we are meant for something else, remains the same, but the way that we get there is subject to change at any moment. 

We need to learn to weather the storms as much as we revel in the beauty of the gorgeousness that is the wide blue sky.

We are almost there, all of us, where we need to be, which is also where we want to be…the only thing that I can say is that we each and all need to let go of outcome, trust the process and realize that what we will end up with is not only what we need, but more, better than we thought it was going to be, and not only that, is the thing that will be the truest sense of who we are and not who we used to be…

I Love You All

ROX 

 

“Medicine Dance,” coming soon to lulu.com and the “…just Rox…” website

Photo on cover was captured by Hawai’i’s Camera Artist, 

Randy Jay Braun