Put Your Mask On First

I’m sure you’ve all heard the longstanding example that’s been articulated when trying to convey the importance of taking care of yourself first before you can take care of others. This analogy refers to the in-flight safety checklist performed by flight attendants prior to the take-off of a commercial airline. Included in the explanations of how to fasten your seatbelt and how in the event of landing in water the seat cushion can be used as a flotation device, is the explanation of how to use the emergency oxygen mask. It basically goes like this…“In the event of a sudden change in cabin pressure while the flight is in progress, an emergency oxygen mask will be deployed from the ceiling of all passenger seats. If you are traveling with special needs passengers or small children, please be sure to put your mask on first before assisting with the needs of others…” I’m paraphrasing here, but you get the gist of the instruction. You have to take care of your needs first (so as not to pass out due to lack of oxygen) before helping anyone else with their needs. This in-flight safety example has multiple meanings and has served many a motivational speaker in illustrating the proper progression of directed focus one should use in order to be most effective for themselves and others.

I use this well-worn analogy here because in my own personal life, I have come to realize that this poignant example has an even greater level of spiritual importance than even the obvious parallels would suggest. It speaks directly to a spiritual sequence of events that must take place before any measurable success can be attained in our personal quest for spiritual enlightenment and the manifestational creation of love and abundance in our lives. You see, it’s all about building a strong foundation; the cornerstone of which is self-love. Before any of that other (woo-woo) spiritual stuff can even begin to work, you must first start with a clean spiritual pallet of unconditional self-love. You must first learn to love yourself unconditionally before you can be a conscious co-worker and channel for Source.

As I said, this serves as the foundation…the cornerstone for everything else that you do spiritually in order to have the greatest impact. Think of it this way. You may be going through the proper motions of exercising the laws of attraction and abundance in your life, but if this manifestation is being performed in an internally toxic vessel of fear, worry, and a compromised self-esteem, what do you think will be the outcome; what do you think will out-picture? If these attempts at enlightenment and abundance are being performed in a womb of self-loathing or thinking yourself unworthy, then you are merely sabotaging any attempts at success you may be trying to attain. Another way of looking at this is when you are living from this lower vibrational state of consciousness, you are spiritually misaligned, and subsequently offline. Remember this simple truth, YOU ARE GOD; God is love, therefore you are love. There is no separation because you are Source itself. The feeling of separation is merely an illusion. Begin to express within yourself that you love yourself unconditionally, regardless of whatever you may have screwed up yesterday or an hour ago. Your love of self is not and should not at any time be based on any external reason or excuse (or internal for that matter).

It’s all about choice. You have a 50/50 choice to decide how you want to feel about yourself. You see, what is implicit in this argument but rarely articulated verbally is that by not exercising unconditional love, by default you are practicing a form of unconditional self-loathing. Can you imagine saying an affirmation like that out loud? “I hate myself unconditionally.” Well, you may not be saying this outwardly but this is certainly the energy that we all too often give ourselves while trying to go about our day-to-day existence. THIS MUST CEASE.

So now, let’s assert a new affirmation. Repeat after me, “I am God, …and God is me. I love myself unconditionally.” See, it even rhymes! Repeat this over and over again until you actually start to feel the love building up inside of you like a warm nurturing flame. It is Source love reconnecting and filling in the spaces. When you do this, you are aligning your consciousness with your higher self and with Source. This is the foundation, the strong and essential foundation (like building a sturdy home) that forms the basis for everything else we try to manifest in our lives using the spiritual principles. It’s all about the proper sequence. You have to fuel the inner tank with pristine love first before driving the wonderful spiritual vehicle that is you.

When you live from this center point, there is no fear in the equation. When you live from this consciousness, you become the glowing conduit of love that Source needs and requires in order to light up the world around you. So put your mask on first; love yourself unconditionally first. Feel the power of a conscious recognition that you are of Source. Then go about doing what Source does, creating universes. Happy manifesting everyone!

A New Normal

Normalcy is relative. It’s dependent upon what one accepts and/or becomes familiar with in his/her daily life. It is often consistent with what one becomes conditioned to allow into his/her state of consciousness over time. Conditioning is in a major way at the heart our collective experience, and is perhaps one of the biggest contributors to our current world situation and existence on this physical plane. We have for so long been inculcated into such an extensively dysfunctional cultural and societal experience that for many of us there is no clear understanding or comparative representation of just how living the life of a true light-filled Spiritual Being (Child of God) should be, or even could be. This conditioning has occurred over eons of time and through multiple generations. As a result, we have come to live in a world of stress and fear where the playing field is far from level and success often depends on the exercise of selfish intent and disposition, perpetuating a Service to Self rather than Service to Others mentality and consciousness. This is considered by many to be normal. But now, in our ever-present and growing awareness of the spiritual ascension process currently underway, things are changing...drastically. We are transitioning to a new normal.

Coming into a clear and conscious understanding of the relativity of normal was made abundantly clear to me many years ago when I served as a drug treatment counselor in an urban DC methadone clinic. I’ve referenced this before in an earlier entry entitled The Hub of Your Wheel. As a clinician, I worked with a large caseload of clients struggling with heroin addiction but also dealing with poly-substance abuse ranging from cocaine to alcoholism, prescription drug abuse, and even sexual addiction. This environment lent itself on a regular, unrelenting basis to a very high degree of human drama, whether it was from extreme emotional volatility in daily group meetings and individual therapy sessions or a particular client having relapsed for the ump-teenth time and found to be in non-compliance with treatment requirements, resulting in dismissal from the program.

Every day there was a crisis of some sort, and after a while it got to the point where I and many of my colleagues began to find ourselves both expecting these episodes and no longer considering them to be any big deal. There was nothing strange or abnormal about the intensely stressful environment that we were working under. I was slowly becoming emotionally divested from the activities I was involved in, merely responding appropriately to a given clinical situation and/or challenge, but finding myself somewhat detached from what was going on (under the circumstances, not necessarily a bad thing). This same description has often been associated with public servants such as policemen, paramedics and/or medical ER professionals, and the military that deal with life and death situations everyday. There is sometimes a tendency to become oblivious to the madness that they encounter daily, and desensitize themselves from their surroundings often as a coping mechanism. Such was the case with me in this drug treatment environment. The challenge was, being a person of inherent empathy and compassion, I did care what happened to my clients and found myself often pained with their plight, unable to help them since in many cases they were as yet unable or unwilling to help themselves. I continued on this journey for a number of years until eventually burnout set in, and I had to make the difficult decision to either stay and succumb to the stress, or leave and pursue a different career path for my own personal survival and emotional wellbeing. I only mention this life episode to illustrate how “normal” for me became anything but normal, and how over time people can begin to see things from a highly skewed perspective, not realizing that what might be considered normal is in fact an altered state.

Such is the state that we as a world society have been living in for millennia. We have been the generational victims of a sorted dark manipulation of our true divine nature, and have over time been conditioned to become the unwilling effect of a fear-based existence, struggling through the control and restrictive beliefs that such fear can bring into our consciousness and lives. We have been held hostage to man’s law, where initially there was a consistency with a common law understanding that drew clear and easily discernable delineations between right and wrong, but over time has been manipulated to unfairly favor the interests of a selfish and elite few, creating illusions of limitation and oppression for others. This is not the way life should be. This is not the way life was intended to be, and it is now up to us to reclaim our true place as divine light beings existing in the energies of love, joy, and happiness. It is now time that we no longer accept the limitations that have been placed on our personal and social consciousness. But before change can be impacted through a mass transition of Divine Light, change must first take place from within, for we are in fact the conduits and channels of this light.

Research has shown that the amygdala, a small almond shaped part of the brain located near the hippocampus, is responsible for conscious thought as well as emotion. One of the core emotional responses triggered in the amygdala is fear, which was initially hot-wired to protect us in hostile environments with a fight-or-flight response to danger. The problem is that our environment has been created to perpetuate a consistent fear response without reprieve, stimulated by the uncertainties of life, economic triggers, dog-eat-dog competitiveness, and an illusory belief that there is limitation in this world; that there is not enough and that every man/woman must fend for themselves. This is a false premise based on a false perception, but one that has been manipulated and perpetuated for so long that we have been conditioned into believing it is real. Tied to this fear based illusion is the feeling of victimization, unworthiness, and an acceptance of a limited station in the pecking order of society; again, all an illusion. We have on a mass scale become conditioned like Pavlov’s dog, responding to cause and effect stimuli that have perpetuated the myth. It is now time to get off of this broken cycle and begin a new way of living, breathing, thinking, feeling and being. The time for a new normal is now.

We are approaching a new day; a new horizon of possibilities and beauty where love, compassion, honesty, integrity, creative expression and the pursuits of individual passion rule, and fear no longer has a foothold on our interactions with one another. More and more people are beginning to awaken to their true identity as Soul and realizing that within the current status quo, the emperor(s) have no clothes. More and more people are rejecting the fear and realizing that they are all Divine Beings with the potential of living in abundance; understanding that through the law of attraction there is enough! More and more people are realizing that there needs to be wholesale changes made in the gross inequities of man’s law so as to become more in alignment with God’s law, a law based on love, balance, fairness and equity for all. These are the changes that are being undertaken across the world today, for we are the change that we seek. It is time to rise.

Mass ascension is now upon us. It is now time for you to be a part of this spiritual renaissance of upliftment. It is time for you to once and for all become the change that you have always wanted to be. We are no longer the pawns of a skewed reality presented to us as normal, but are moving into a higher place, a greater perspective, a higher self. Now is the time to practice abundance and accept it into your life. Now is the time to become the Light Being and Lightworker that you truly are, and awaken to your true self.

Remember, your universe is consistent with your state of consciousness. It’s time for a new normal. What you think and what you believe is what will manifest, so outflow the correct energy, an energy based on love and not fear. Accept abundance in your life. Reject the fear and anything associated with it. Let the bad stuff go, forgive others and let go of worry. Be kind to your fellow man/woman. Unworthiness is an illusion. You are loved, so learn to love yourself unconditionally. Meditate, pray, or whatever you feel comfortable with, but do so daily in order to tap into the higher energies and become accustomed to these refined rates of vibration. They resonate through you and cleanse the body, heart, mind, and Soul. It is the mechanism of change, the power of love. Have fun with life; it’s not all work and drudgery. Don’t forget to play. Accept a perfect day this day and every other. Get the ego out of the way; it’s a bad and selfish leader and is not who you truly are.

We are now in a global collective consciousness where we are starting to become spiritually aware of the connection that has always existed, and the connectedness with one another and the universe. Know that our world is filled with people of light who want to share in the love, mutual respect and comradery with one-another. Draw to you people of like consciousness who are ready to do their part to change the world. As you’re doing your part, others are doing theirs in similar fashion. What we are talking about here is a critical mass consciousness based on the light of Divine love. It changes things in major ways. Be a part of this change. It is now. Own your personal power and do not allow anyone or anything to take it away; it is yours! It’s time to change the world. Let’s do it together. Visualize the new normal, NOW!

Namaste.

Radiating Unconditional Love

This is a discussion about love; love in its purest form, love that seeks nothing in return. I’m talking about unconditional love (e.g. love without condition). There are many forms of love, or at least feelings often misconstrued as love, but are nothing more than marginal subsets of the true divine energy. The love between a man and woman (or variations thereof) can be a deep, abiding and sincere love, but often it becomes tainted with petty conditions that form the determinant for whether or not that love will be given and/or shared in return. This type of love states “I love you if…” or “I’ll love you when…” or even, “I love you because…” It is often the pursuit of love for personal gain, and in many respects the pursuit of power. In relationships, there is an old saying that goes, “…The person with the least emotional investment has the most power.” Far too often this becomes the dynamic for many a relationship, and the outcome more than not traps an individual into a continual cycle of intimate domination. Love becomes a battlefield for many because it is a test of wills that loses sight of the initial reason for finding each other in the first place; to form a personal expression of Divine love (love of God).

Other forms of love such as love between a parent and child often have a much deeper grounding in divine connectedness. How could it not? When a child is born into the world and the parent sees him/her for the first time, the magnitude of this personification of divine love becomes immediately apparent. The bond is quickly formed and the journey begins. But even in these instances, the tests of wills inevitably grow, and the strains of childhood vs. parenthood come to bear. Nonetheless, the love is there, hopefully overriding any dramas, choices and decisions either party may make. In these instances, the foundational feeling is “I love you no matter what.”

I site these examples to illustrate how many of us misunderstand the true nature of unconditional love and how we can unknowingly place serious obstacles in its way. In all cases the key component of unconditional love is love without any expectation of reward. As Soul, a divine spark of God, your very existence is one based on unconditional love. You exist because God simply loves you. Love is a force; love is an energy. Love is the ultimate power. You are love. The sub-atomic makeup of your being is created from Divine love. One might ask, if this is the case, then why do we have so many problems in this world? The reason is simple (and complex); we have forgotten who and what we are and have been conditioned into believing that we are separate from Source (Divine unconditional love) and that there is not enough. Also in some cases is the belief that you are not worthy. This is all an illusion.

I have often found that nature provides the answers to so many of the spiritual conundrums we struggle with, and if we would only take the time to look for and practice the spiritual awareness necessary, we would know that God is with us all the time. One day when I was looking out my kitchen window, I was blessed to witness what I consider to be an incredibly Divine example of unconditional love. In the backyard of our house was a hanging bird feeder left behind by the former homeowners. It looked like a cool thing to have and my wife and I decided to get some birdseed. About a day or so went by after filling it when I noticed a little finch land on the feeder. He looked around for a bit and after seeing that it was safe to indulge, he proceeded to enjoy the birdseed provided to him. After a couple of minutes of personal gluttony, he flew away. Five minutes went by and then I saw two birds land on the feeder. Another couple of minutes went by and then there were 5 birds. Before I knew it there were over 20 or 30 little finches all fluttering about waiting for their turn to feed from the feeder. I thought I was in a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. I was simply astonished at the spectacle before me, understanding that this amazing moment was started after just one bird told another about the discovered bounty. That bird could have easily kept it to him/herself but immediately shared it with others, resulting in an exponential explosion of birds taking part in this nutritious windfall. What moved me so much about witnessing this was the fact that it was simply the natural order of things. It was God’s Divine plan in the perpetuation of the species to have as a natural inclination to always consider the good of the whole, not just the one. This is God’s plan for all species, including the human species.

I believe in my heart of hearts that it is our base nature to love one another and care for one another without condition, but over time we have been conditioned to think otherwise. Perpetuated by a dog-eat-dog social existence presented as the norm, we have forgotten our true base nature, and have fed into an illusionary fear of limitation; there is not enough and you must fend for yourself. The truth is that there is enough; there is abundance! We have simply been programmed to think otherwise. It is our true nature to express unconditional love. This is a part of our makeup. This is who we are as Soul, because when we are conscious of the fact that we are Soul, we also know that we are ONE. It is time to awaken to the oneness that is all of us, and share the bounty that is available to each and everyone, without fear that things will run out. Understanding who and what we are and realizing the illusion we live in is the first step. After that, it is up to all of us to live our lives creatively within the conscious reality of this new Spiritual paradigm, and outwardly express a conscious awareness of our divine nature and make up. We can do this. I know we can. We only need claim it and bring it into our lives as truth. Your fellow Souls await. Greet them with open arms and unconditional love. It doesn’t cost a thing. What you will gain from it though will be one hundred-fold.