Isn’t the term near death strange when in fact we are the “sleeping alive” as in some way?

As you experienced, the release of identification with this body-mind and its tiny hold is powerful. It is akin to taking off a ridiculously tight pair of boots after a long hike, the heart rejoices beyond belief. Your experience of pain upon being shoved back into the body-mind is the same for all who have experienced their infinite Self. That is why we get addicted to substances or practices that can get us close to that state.

The beautiful thing is that now you have the opportunity to live your life in full accordance with the remembrance that all is you. With time, this realm will soften your clarity, it is its nature. But while fresh, set your life up in a way that honors your absolute nature. It is in the small details how we betray our selves and the truth that you describe.

Right you are about the nature of limited love in this realm as opposed to LOVE that is all. At the same time, a hundred gallons of water in the middle of a fresh water lake is insignificant but a glass of the same water in the desert is profound. Be that glass in this desert of forgetfulness.

To intellectually define what you experienced is not important. Remember that we are blind to over ninety percent of electromagnetic phenomena. That means that there is much the five senses are blind to. Learning to quiet one’s self turns up the volume to all that we do not perceive due to our constant inner noise. What you describe is something that I have experienced as well as have had relayed to me an infinite number of times by people I work with. There is much you can read on the topic if you are interested. You will read explanations ranging from “it’s all in your brain” to “there is life after life”. Let your direct experience guide you. Intellectual understanding is merely scratching an intellectual itch. Be in the mystery of it and let the experience heal your heart. Keep at the meditation. Lastly, do not be attached to repeating your experience. Just go. And just let go.

The back and forth you describe IS the work. The meditation is key, to stabilize one’s consciousness so it weathers the bad times easier and does not run amok with its own grandiosity when things are going well. The signs of healing is a softening of our preferences and aversions to what life throws at us. Of course we all crave peace and serenity but life is not like that always. So the work it to internally keep the balance, to feel the emotions as they come up, not to repress them out of fear nor get lost in them. Our struggle is the fire that cooks the stew, fear it not, it is a friend. We can not DO the work, all we can do is remove the resistance to the work being done to and on us. Feeling special is when we are the furthest from truth. We are all unique, not special. Big difference there. Facing the underlying anxiety and abject terror that we all repress daily is a profound practice. Keep on keeping on. It is a process not an event.

Suffering from chronic pain is taxing on body and spirit. Seeking an explanation for suffering is natural for many of us. One has to be conscious that attempting to understand an incident, taking responsibility for it and self blame are not the same thing. It sounds like you are suffering and that in itself is difficult. Be conscious not to add to your burdens. Stepping out into the world from a shamanic healing can be quite shocking to the system. It takes time to step out from the inner landscape to the outer. That in itself can set up an inability to be aware of our surrounding in a busy world. That spaciness can make one more prone to an accident. I do not know the circumstances of your incident but being hit by a speeding bike is quite common so why do you say it is strange? I treat many people annually who have that same accident. Make sure you are not reading more into things than necessary.

This is not about sending good feelings to your body but physically taking care of it. Grounded meditation and breath always help deal with pain but you also need body work. A reputable craniosacral practitioner, osteopath or chiropractor would do wonders followed by something like acupuncture.

What you are experiencing is common to all of us now. There is an intense amount of rupturing going on in all relationships that do not serve us. Facing these changes consciously will make it easier and the separation more graceful. Turning our back on them will blow them up more violently. So as with all things, conscious awareness is the key. Fear is always present with true change, that is to be expected. And to be pushed through.

As for signs of someone being controlling, take that back to your self. Why do you ask that question? What feels off? Why are you looking for the Abdi Answers outside when you already know it on the inside? If something feels off, then examine it. We grow and out grow teachers. That should be the natural progression.Be thankful for what they taught you, take it in and integrate the teachings. When you are done, move on. One does not keep the training wheel on one’s bicycle once one has learned how to ride. Nor does one keep braces on the teeth once they are straightened. One day at a time with internal honesty and conscious vigilance as your companions.

My poorly made point in the statement about teachers was not that we abstain from seeking help from them. Rather that we can get stuck in the seeking and not in the application of the teaching. Intellectual understanding is not enough, we need to apply the teachings to get the benefit. Most of us collect recipes with out cooking or eating and hence are starving.

These are intense times and there is an overwhelming amount of psychic energy being released for all of us. What we do with them is up to each of us individually. It is not important that you tell me or any one else of your experience. What is important that you sit in it, be informed by it and set up a practice where you connect on a daily level with this truth. The ego is tricky business and can take any experience and make it its own. Only being grounded can make sure that you fully embody this energy.

The earthquake and hurricane certainly opened up a psychic floodgate in people’s consciousness even though many are not aware of it, just the external devastation.

Really be gentle with your self. You have done much work over many years. It is easy to forget that. Let your self be human. I have spent so many years denying being a human being, seeking and finding all kinds of magical experiences but alas all the true life and power is in fully inhabiting the human experience. Not getting lost in it and not pushing it away, just being here. It is common for me to hear people say “I can’t wait to be done with life on earth” which of course makes me laugh since aversion is the biggest attachment.

The dilemma with spirituality is that we usually turn to it from pain in life. In it, we are taught to push life away, deny it, try to over come it or change it but the truth is that acceptance is the only thing that marries the divine with matter. Be gentle and look in a mirror and love the lovely face you see reflected back.

The statement “asking myself what do I feel” means that you are still thinking about feeling. Since there is much anxiety in us, it is difficult just to sit and see what comes up. Breathing certainly helps as most of us hold our breath as a way of not feeling. This is learned early on in our life. Feeling is not about thinking but actually being present enough to see what is under there. For most of us, it is strange since we spend most our time running around pushing the feelings away.

Just be and see what presents itself. It is like meeting a stranger for the first time. Be interested in your self.

Let’s start with the last first. Orthodontic treatment manipulates the jaw which indirectly can manipulate the pelvis and hips. This can bring up and release tremendous emotional content that needs to be dealt with. So actually it will be more lower chakra issues than upper.

True silence is silent, deep, grounded. It does not doubt or question, it just IS. It takes much doubt, questioning and grappling to touch it initially. It can take work to foster the relationship and deepen it. With commitment it can be a residing place, then no outside force will touch it. Only you can Abdi Answers the question: is it your mind’s trick or your inner voice? These are two distinctly separate and distant songs. Start by examining that and why you would confuse those two. Given the work you have already done, shining your conscious mind on this question should move some energy in your quest. Only you can Abdi Answers this, no one can do it for you.

Living in society in this moment in history of the Western world and having a relationship with Self takes tremendous work. Every thing and every one around us is geared towards disconnection. Even some if not much of the supposed spiritual movement is engaged by people who have not addressed nor integrated their unconscious material. Hence unconsciously they nurture disconnection under the guise of connection. This is post graduate work of spirituality, to work towards what feeds us and at the same time learn to be in relationship with things as they are. Withdrawing from society, while certainly noble at times and for some, is usually an escape from the sand that ground us into pearls. It seems like you have released much, now invite in what serves you.

Rage is a powerful reminder of where we need to pay attention. You say “it usually happens when I have opened myself up to someone (romantically or in friendship)”. That in itself needs to be examined. It it common for us to feel threatened in any intimate situation and use the rage as a mechanism to deter true intimacy. Despite our conscious craving for intimacy, most of us are in actual terror of it. It threatens all the masks that we have set up since childhood as a form of self defense.

The part where you say “when my affections are not returned or I feel that the same emotional awareness is not given to me that I give to people, I usually turn on myself” is connected to this. Remember that we treat others the way we treat our selves so this piece also needs to be examined. With that, it is our own job to take care of our self, not to manipulate giving so that we receive. Of course this is a tall order and most of us have an agenda with our giving in that we secretly want lots in return. This is further complicated by the fact that we are too afraid to be vulnerable enough to receive it even if it did come back. So you can see what a tangled web we all weave and hence the minefield that relationships can become.

The statement “Ultimately, I would like to continue to be open, but I need help in figuring out how to guard myself a little” is one that many of us can make. Of course it could not be further from the truth as the appearance of being open has nothing to do with actually being open. I rarely treat people who just happen to be open. It takes tremendous work to approach being vulnerable. We already are fully guarded, so our job is to slowly dismantle that system with people that are safe. It get tricky here too because it is common to unconsciously pick the most unsafe situation to be open in, get hurt and then consciously reassert that being open is totally unsafe.

These issues are difficult to untangle with out outside help. I am glad you are seeking it.

We can not “voluntarily take on others karma”. Certain masters are purported to have been able to do so. For the rest of us working stiffs it is a case of good old fashioned dancing for our meal. This care taking or taking on of other people’s emotions on is learned/taught behavior from a young age and is not voluntary but totally unconscious. Hence the rage. We tend to do it because it brings us some kind of kudos at the high expense of not forming authentic relationships. As you have experienced, it has a myriad of negative consequences. One of the most detrimental is our ability to numb our own emotions by diving deep into that of others. There are no winners here as the person being taken on loses as much as the person doing the carrying. It is a dishonest relationship at its root. (As a side note, my female shamanic teachers always warned female shamans to energetically protect their womb during healing of others as that organ was susceptible to holding on to the energy being released).

Stepping back from these situations and assessing one’s role is a significant step. Doing a ceremony can be a powerful conscious exercise but it is only a start not an end. I wish it was that easy but there is much work involved here. You could do a fire ceremony where you write down the names of the people and take some time (as in days if not weeks) writing where and how you got so deep. When you are ready burn the paper. These energies tend to get stuck in the second and third chakras so you can also visualize releasing these people from those areas in your body.

Now you have to stay hyper vigilant as your unconscious will keep looking for more subtle relationships were these patterns can be repeated. That is the nature of this detox. Spend some time at regular intervals and watch where you might be repeating these patterns. That would be the real ongoing ceremony.

All you have been through has been a preparation for this moment: “the place where there is no way back, only agony in the movement forward”. Recovery and spiritual awakenings are steps towards hearing our Self and its needs. As brutal and joyous as they may be, they are the foundation but not the building. You are fortunate to have the sobriety background. One can have a spiritual awakening with out the sobriety and that in itself can be an arduous maze.

Of course you “didn’t count on this”, none of us do. The “I” the does not see this coming  is the part that wants to keep the status quo. Our egos will always attempt to go back, even mask the regression to look like forward movement. Egos do not move forward, they get dragged there, kicking and screaming every inch of the way. Do not drop your guard even for a moment at this juncture of your journey back to your Self. There is much talk in the twelve step program about surrender. Here is your chance to take surrender to the next level. Transformational moments like this (that seem to be happening in rapidity all around us) bring with them every thing we need. One has to slow down and FEEL. That is not easy in the best of circumstances but here you are. Good for you for arriving here. Despite the brutality of it, there rarely is another way back in/forward/inward.

A trusted guide can be useful and I would certainly and strongly suggest working with some one as you dismantle all that does not serve you and put back together or introduce what does. The depth of our Self betrayal and hence the betraying of our self is profound. Awareness of it will bring up a torrent of emotions that need a safe place to be released and integrated. Deep body work, breath work and meditation will also be useful. Stay open, internally quiet and do your best not to add to your burdens beyond your duty as a mother right now. You are your fourth child, mother accordingly.

Good for you in your new understanding and relationship with your depression. Diet and supplements can be tremendously helpful. Physical exercise which of course is difficult to do when one is dealing with depression can also be beneficial. Do your best to add the physical part as well if you have not already.

Most of us deal with life with numbing on some level. It can be through isolation or over stimulation but the net result is a lack of a genuine relationship with our self and others. It is the nature of our culture (and its reflection of us) that so much of what it offers can be and is used to numb, be it the overuse of the internet, media and infinite entertainment offerings. So you are not alone there. Neither are you alone in your use of will power (“summon all my strength to “fight” them and stay on top”) to keep the emotions at bay. That never works as the unconscious can not be punked, it will make itself known in unpleasant ways. Your clarity is wonderful as is your desire for examination and understanding.

Your fear of dropping into the bottomless pit is healthy and needs to be heeded. That does not mean that one runs away from the depression, just that one approaches it with a healthy respect for its power. Depression is a complex phenomena and there is no one size fits all approach. Sometimes depression can be mostly chemical and in that instance, feeling the pit will do no good. Sometimes there are repressed emotions involved that need to be visited and given a voice. Often it is a mixture of the two.The help of a good therapist that works with depression can be invaluable here. That person can be your guide in the depth and amount that is safe for you to experience at one time. Given your history of isolation, learning to feel safe being seen as well as being fed by another can have tremendous benefits. Find someone trust worthy to work with if you are not already doing so. Spend a couple of minutes a day just feeling your body and doing slow deep breathing. See how it feels to be in your body instead of your head. Literally start with a couple of minutes and no more and see how that feels. Reach out. You are on your way.

The emotional pain does not start with a nervous panic attack. The panic attack is a result of being inattentive to some aspect of our self. It is usually a couple of exits down from our intended one which we missed due to out attempt to numb the pain. The job of the panic attack is to get our attention, to let us know that we have missed something or are not paying attention. That something is amiss. The incessant thinking is our attempt to mask the anxiety. These thoughts (“unrealistic ideas”) have concrete effects on our nervous systems and take huge emotional tolls. Our bodies can not distinguish between thought and reality. When we get into the full cycle of anxiety and incessant thinking, it is usually too late to do anything about it. We need to practice paying attention to triggers and early warning signs of how and when we neglect our self.

The actual panic attack responds well to exercise, slow abdominal breathing, rest as well as diet modifications (cutting down on sugar, caffeine and processed foods is a good start). There is a myriad of ways that one can approach learning how to sit through the pain. A competent therapist to analyze the patterns and a mindfulness meditation practice can be quite useful.

Sad as it maybe that you are seeing a long term pattern, how wonderful that you are actually seeing it so clearly. That is such an important step in resetting our compass towards a destination of our choosing instead of an automatic and unconscious response.

Follow this awareness by taking the focus off of this man and put it completely on your self. There is a lot of sentences about him, his issues, his inability to be vulnerable. His horrible qualities and then his worthy ones. You can not change any of that. You just have to see the painful consequences of being in such a relationship. It stops there. To put the focus on our self is not a pleasant task as it will bring up anxiety we are attempting to push away. The anxiety is why most of us resist this step but it can not be skipped. You are clear about your addiction to this energy and the fact that it is damaging. We are powerless over our addictions but we can support our selves in different ways that feed our soul instead of feeding the pain. Start feeding your self in ways that you can or are already familiar with. Reaching for this kind of pain for nourishment is like eating junk food when you are starving. Stay conscious through the whole cycle next time you are in it. Feel the anxiety when you pull away and the part of you that craves the connection to mask that feeling. Feel the high when you are in the role play and the crash after wards.

You say “I have so much to offer a really good man”. Start by offering all that to your self first. See your self “as special”. Quench your own thirst fully, tend to your own pain first and foremost. It is through a true relationship with our self that we can follow into a relationship with another. That is a step most of us skip more often than not. Negative pleasure, like any addiction, has a bottom. At some point the pain is worse than the pleasure. It sounds like you are close to that point. Make it final by your power of observation. Solidify your intention. “I want to leave for good” and “I believe he will see me as special and will change” shows a split. If you want to leave work on that and your self. If you feel there is a possibility for it to work out, work with a couple’s therapist to see where it can go. Ultimately, this is about you and your choices. Pull your center back into your self.

This is exactly where you need to be: in the moment, learning to trust that all one can do is to set every thing in order in one’s house and then wait for the universe to act. You have done all you can, what else can you do? If the Abdi Answers is nothing, then the work is to sit with the anxiety that has nothing to do with the circumstance and everything to do with a past that is long gone. One can not heal the past in the present, one can only be aware in the moment so that the past does not unduly affect the present. Even the question ” Is it my ego that desires this apartment I am waiting on or is fear of something good?” can be an attempt at control. While it is good to examine issues in one’s life, over and constant examination can be another attempt at pushing the anxiety away.

The giving up of attempts at control (whether it is addiction to astrology, psychics, card readings or thinking about the same issue a million times) brings up intense anxiety. Or more accurately, puts one in touch with the underlying anxiety that is always present. Make friends with this anxiety, in small measures at at time. This will allow you to be a driver instead of a passenger in your life. These stressful situations can be used as powerful practices of surrender. Not the fake kind that we all give lip service to but to actually see where we stand in our connection to our Self.

When someone such as your self has been trained from a young age to care take of all around them, it is difficult to make decisions that are not related to benefiting others. While it is beneficial to ask advice on such matters, it is important to remember that most will give their projections over such issues. If they feel stagnant in their life, they will say you should go. If they have fear in their heart, they will advise you against going.

What do YOU want? What will feed your heart? When death comes knocking on your door next week or in fifty years, how will you want to remember this time and your response to it? I would suggest that you read a book by the name of Anxious To Please: 7 Revolutionary Practices For The Chronically Nice. It will out line some practices that will help you hear your own inner voice better. Regardless of how much you have put your father to rest, the behaviors ( “assigned role I allow myself to play in my family as caretaker”) that come as a result of the abuse take much time to heal. These patterns are insidious and make it difficult for us to know what we need when the sole focus is us and not the benefit of some other person (“I put my life on hold for years and now I wonder at the moment where I don’t have to any more I am feeling scared and ambivalent when I should by hopeful and joyful”). Keep asking your self that honestly: what do you want? This is not a matter of life and death, just a matter of what you want to experience. It would make sense that since you have always been externally focused on other people’s needs, it is difficult to know what you want. And hence the fear and confusion. You are closer than you think. Clear some space around you and sit with your self daily. Keep asking for guidance from your inner most being.

I feel your pain and your helplessness as well as your desperation. I am sure you already know the Abdi Answers: that you can not make any one do anything they are not ready to do. The most you can do in these types of situations is to focus on your self and do your own work. Which in fact is much harder than it sounds when we are so certain that our partner is the issue. Everything you have written is about him, where are your issues in this relationship? Why are you with a man who “is so fearful of living with any woman”? Where is your fear of intimacy and how are you dealing with it? And your control issues?

I know these are not pleasant words to digest but I find them to be true. True relationship is difficult even when both partners are willing and present. To be trying to drag some one along points to deep issues within the person doing the dragging as much as the person being dragged. Keep examining your self and your motivations. That in itself can give your partner some breathing room where he can reflect on his fears instead of using his energy resisting you.

When one is in deep transition like you are, it is going to feel odd to not follow the robotic path one has been following all one’s life. That inner voice is our only guide. Of course it is important in the initial phases of reconnecting with it to keep checking that it is the true inner voice and not the ego machination being an impostor. And one needs to tend to the outer realm at the same time as the inner is getting nourished. Talk to trusted others about your process and do your best to keep your outer life in some semblance of order while you tend to your self. Do remember that most people have forsaken this inner relationship and the fear that you are feeling will be mirrored by many people who will want you to move on as quickly as possible.

As you say, this truly is an investment of the highest order in one’s self. All relationships stem from this place. Keep outer deadlines to a minimum, do not start new projects and spend as much time as you can tending to this fire short of becoming homeless  The fact that you can not foresee where it is heading is a pointer to its authenticity as only the ego can try to control these things not our true voice. The process is what if of utmost importance, not the destination. These alchemical processes have their own time, they are not events. One breath at at time.

What does it mean that you “have been unsuccessful in relationship”? How do you measure that? Are people who are in long term relationships of disconnection successful? Are people who share intimacy for several years and then for what ever reason discontinue failures? Certainly sharing interests can help relationships but the unveiling of our self to another human being does not have a prerequisite except for self reflection, willingness and tremendous courage.

It is a common misconception that being on the spiritual path somehow magically transforms our capacity to be in relationship. Spiritual practice by itself does not necessarily help us in relationship but true and honest relationships can be a spiritual practice. I know in my own experience, even after spiritual understanding I continued to repeat the same patterns in my intimate relationships. It is only through honest self reflection as well as examination and usually with expert help that we can learn to break these patterns.

You say that “the root of this is that guys have not been like me” but you are the one common denominator in the relationships. Once can be a bad choice, twice a fluke but by the third time, there is a pattern. And these patterns that we all struggle with are unconscious and hence difficult to grasp with our conscious minds. There is much good material to read and absorb before or as you enter into your next relationship. Make your next relationship a conscious sadhana. Practice makes perfect.

Words are tricky business when using them to address deep knowing. They are akin to soothing an itch in our face by scratching our reflection in a mirror. You say “many said to me…the problem is that I don’t believe I’m already awake”. Two points: the first is that you have tried to intellectually understand something that is beyond the intellect and have asked these questions before and they have not satisfied your enquiry. The second is that many of us confuse belief with knowing. We can have a belief in something but that is not concrete evidence. Knowing is what is solid. Aim for that solidity in matters that are important to you.

A person in dire financial need can go around and ask people if she is wealthy. After much discussion she might be told that she is in fact a millionaire. She can even believe this to be true. But until she can use find and use her bank card to withdraw the cash, her belief will not help her reality. That is what I mean by knowingness.

There are many techniques into this self-inquiry. Pick one and keep at it. The vicharya practice of asking “who am I?” is brilliant. Keep asking this question. The first reply might be your name. Ask again. The reply might be a woman. Ask again. A daughter. Again. A seeker. Keep going deeper and deeper and see what treasure this well will bring to you. Find out who is asking these questions.

Healing family dynamics is tricky business since regardless of our clarity, we are always intertwined in ways beyond our ability to see. The first thing I want to point out is that in your 96 lines of description of your family dynamics, only 4 in the beginning and 5 in the end are truly about your experience, your pain, your suffering.

You have insight into your siblings and parents. You have worked arduously at staying conscious. Where is your role in the family drama? How do you get hooked in? What was your assigned role and how much of that have you shed? Family dynamics can be viewed as a roof being held up by many walls and functions. Some of us are given and take on weight bearing wall roles that crush us with responsibility. Some of us take on the chimney wall role where all the soot goes through us. Some the garbage disposal unit wall and others the grand entrance archway where we are always expected to awe others. All of these roles sap vitality and doom us to dancing to some other person’s tune instead of finding our own song.

In such dynamics, all we can do is to move our wall. That in itself will force the whole structure to shift, even though many times others will steadfastly hold on to their own roles. Besides that helplessness is our true medicine. One can never underestimate another person’s attachment to their assigned role and the ensuing suffering. We have to be willing to let others experience the life of their choosing. As you know with your own work, even with willingness and hard work, it can decades to change our patterns.

When people reach out to us and give us permission, then we can share our piece. Even then we have to let it go if we find resistance. Your parents asked you and you responded. A suggestion in these matters is to address every thing from your experience as opposed to taking any one’s inventory. “This is how I felt, my experience is etc”. This is both more honest as well as less confrontational. I reflect back a piece of your own letter to your parents that is brilliant and good advice for your own process:

“So i guess the healing begins with us. Where can we forgive, where can we forgive ourselves? And then just be there for others if they too have a change of heart. Be there for help & support but ultimately others make their own choices.”

It sounds like you are doing all the right things in terms of taking care of your self. There is a lot of “try” in your words (“try to move on, try to go out, try to date”) and much movement and activity. It is wonderful to learn to be with and enjoy one’s self. But also important not to confuse solo activity with self intimacy.

How much being are you doing? Just letting your self be? Just laying down and being exhausted? Sitting with the grief? Disappointment? Not getting lost in them but just recognizing them and giving them room to heal? No need to worry about others and their narcissism, no matter how true what you say is. Just keep getting your own house in order. Tend to you own heart and allow it to open and heal with out your will power constantly stepping in and shutting it out.

Start feeding your self with all the love that is in and around you and keep letting go of the needy love. You have had relationship, now you are out of it and at some point you will be in one again. The one common denominator is your own Self that has never abandoned you. Make good friends with this stranger you call your self.

You are correct in what you say. We can mentally understand and even forgive the past but certain issues can still can play out in our lives. Most of our healing, including the understanding of karmic issues, are mental exercises. This is not to put such things down, they are all important and can be helpful. But there is a need for deeper examination, healing and integration of these issues. The areas that have not been healed do play out in the patterns of our relationships, especially intimate ones. For example, if one was raised in a narcissistic environment where one was expected to emotionally care take the parents, as an adult one would consistently find one’s self in the same situation with friends and lovers.

It takes hard work to break these patterns but they can be broken. Being true to one’s self is difficult business: we first have to shed all the learned falseness and then have the courage to honor the true being we find beneath the masks.

This is not about toughening your heart. We all have to work to soften our hearts, not toughen them. Relationships are the most difficult place in our lives where all our unconscious material gets played out. Never pleasant but certainly an opportunity to learn about our selves. Change in this realm moves at a glacial speed, there are no fast results. Wonderful that you are working with a therapist, an ally in these matters is priceless.

You say that people chip away at your heart. True as this may be, this is only half the story. When an event happens once or twice, there is a possibility that we have been the unfortunate victim of an accident. But when they occur with frequency, something else is at play. That something else is our unresolved unconscious wounding that keeps picking situations that replay certain wounds in order for our conscious minds to heal them. Our conscious mind is rarely privy to this information and hence the constant repetition. Just the fact that you are aware of their occurrence is a big step. Let me be clear that we are only responsible for our fifty percent in these transactions. The other person is also a player with their fifty percent. But we keep choosing these same patterns.

So step back and look at what commonalities all these relationships have. How early into them were you aware that something was off, that you were about to get hurt? What made you not listen? What were you getting out of being hurt? Do any of these patterns remind you of patterns that we mirrored to you in your childhood? Working with these questions will shed some light on your predicament.

It is important to realize that you do have power here to change this pattern and not to feel like you are being victimized. It is a beautiful thing to have an open heart, but it also means more self care in terms of who you let in and who you keep out.

No question here. Just a brilliant comment sent to me by a friend regarding astrological forecasts and such:

I had a brutal lesson years ago about information – about ‘fitting in’ and shaping myself to an oncoming, developing situation. Instead of allowing all my life’s personal work that had passed before to be my past, I took it to be my immunity from getting shifted from change. I felt afraid of more pain; I wouldn’t take any more. I had no support group, or system where I was. I was completely alone and the raw emptiness that lay ahead, I quashed by verbalizing to myself, criss-crossing words that built a false bottom. When reading/hearing about the oncoming change etc., I hid my initial apprehension behind a wall consisting of conviction from my dear ego who, desperate for safety, shouted, “This pain? Not for us. We’re safe. It’s OK. We’ve done that. Uh huh,… yep, shit’s coming down. But we’re safe. We’ve done work on change from since I can remember. This is a time for me to shoot out the other side and flower at last.” But it was my ego that was talking; my words. My immense fear. No my friend, not fear, it was unbridled terror to not go deeper. In fact, I had needed all before to bring me here. Who said life was fair? I had expected my childhood and adolescence to be enough pain. I couldn’t imagine that all that had passed before was only my ticket to this moment in time and I was just the same as everyone else. I promptly had a meltdown but hid in my third chakra; a place I knew well.

So this time, I’m standing apart from myself a little, as naked and open as I can, with an empty mind a mind as possible. I ask: ‘Show me. Take me as far as my battered psyche can take because I’m combusting and I don’t know anything anymore. I’ve made mistakes that have become habits that trap and limit me. They lead me far from communion, happiness and peace. I dump my mind. I am as untethered as possible and ask to get moved and grooved by this shift. I ask for the faith and trust I have lost. Without it, I can’t go on anymore. Do it.’

Intelligence, the wonderful tool that can help us navigate our material world can in fact be a hindrance in spiritual pursuit. There is a common mis understanding that enlightenment is something to be achieved. In fact it is who you truly are and have forgotten. The intellect can not even imagine this truth. It can and does have many concepts around enlightenment, all of which have nothing to do with the real thing. Usually one comes to deep spiritual seeking through pain or boredom with what is. The intellect, while useful, is a boat that is of assistance in the waters of the material realm. It can even be useful as we aim towards the shores of our true nature. Once on the the firm ground of who we are, such tools are neither here nor there.

Hence the Zen teaching of “don’t know mind” or “beginner’s mind” where we are taught to have a relaxed mind. This is to guard against the many preconceived ideas that our mind/intelligence always carries. Concepts that we are blind to, regardless of our intelligence.

A meditation teacher is invaluable in teaching us how to still the mind. Like training any muscle, practice is of utmost importance. Attention or distraction meditation techniques come in many forms from sitting to standing and to movement. Pick one and stick with it.

The most scientific way is to use EEG biofeedback equipment that gives direct feedback to whether one is meditating or thinking. These brainwave equipment are wonderful tools in educating our bodymind to the difference between the FEELING of thinking and meditating/non thinking.

It is beautiful that you have sought and found your true nature. Now it is time to bring joy and serenity into your earthly experience. Emotional issues have to be dealt with and no one is spared from them. Keep plugging away at them. I know for me after all the hard work I still was missing the joy. All is here for the asking. This coming June is a powerful time for letting go of all behaviors that do not serve us any more. This can include people, places and patterns. Enter into it consciously.

A visualization that might be helpful is to finish your daily meditation with seeing two doors in your mind’s eye. Open the left door and allow all that does not serve you to leave you. Open the right door and ask for all that does serve you to flow in. Sit in this energy for a couple minutes every day. It is common for those of us who have come to spirituality out of pain (and who has not?) to forget about joy. Ask for it daily, every moment that you remember.

The pendulum effect from nice to killer is because the truth is in the middle. And that truth takes time to connect to so we go from what we know (care taking) to protection (anger/rude). That happens for every one until we learn to identify people, places and things that trigger us. Also internal emotional and physical states are a big player in how we react. H.A.L.T. is a good one from the twelve step program: Hunger, Anger, Loneliness and Tired. These states make our threshold to correct behavior low.

The two modes that you describe, being nice and a “bitch” are both attempts at manipulation instead of self care. Sometimes one is nice because internally one feels that or one is aggressive because an outside force is uncomfortably pushing against a boundary. But as we become more and more centered, our emotions and actions are not a reaction to the outside but a reaction to the inside. That takes A LOT of time and practice and it is never a done deal. If that is our weakness, we will have to eternally stay vigilant but with time it does become more and more easy.

The initial step of raging towards those that we have allowed to treat us wrongly is normal. It might not be productive to friendships/pocketbook/self image but they are part and parcel of finding our center. That is not a conduct that we strive for nor want to keep around but sometimes things need to blow up so they can be put back together in a healthy manner. What you describe about going back to unhealthy behavior of being nice is also a part of the healing. That yo yo is how we right our selves into a place where we are at the center. To learn to be one self is an arduous process. It means dismantling all that we hide under. That can include relationships, jobs, roles etc. Never pleasant. But that is a small price to pay for being fully alive under our own mantle.

One step at a time is a good mantra here.

I appreciate your honesty with your self. Truly that is the most important step in our journey back to our self. What you are discovering and discussing is true for all of us. We all have immense resistance to life in general due to unresolved unconscious material.

In terms of specific practices to deepen your intimacy, all it takes is vulnerability. And that is no easy feat. Start practicing deep honesty when your partner asks you how you are. Instead of an automatic Abdi Answers, take a deep breath, check in and then Abdi Answers. Ask him to do the same. Take turns physically feeding each other a couple of bites during meals. This alone can bring up tons of stuff around our resistance to feeling helpless. Ask each other for mundane things like a glass of water or a back rub. Take these ideas and build on them. Practice often and with all the honesty you can muster.

You are dealing with an issue every has to contend with. The fact that you are so cognizant of it is a huge benefit. The first step in solving a problem is to become fully aware of it. Step away from the notion of good or bad. It rains on us whether we perceive our selves to be worthy or unworthy. Most of us are trained with that thinking as a form of cultural control. Second, it is not about overcoming this force as much as understanding, healing and assimilating it as opposed to crushing it. Think more T’ai Chi or AiKido less Karate. One can not “get rid it”, one heals it. It is all you, not some outside force. It is usually formed as a defense mechanism against an external wounding. Your will power is useless here as you seem to have found out. Third, “it” does not enjoy your misery”, you enjoy it’s misery. More accurately, your unconscious does. Look up the concept of negative pleasure, it will give you some insight into the working of this phenomena.

Roll your sleeves up and dig deep. A good therapist is invaluable here.

To hear you describe your experience with ayahuasca painful warms my heart to no end.
I have a hard time trusting people having a unity experience the first time off. In my experience
they have managed to bypass their garbage even with the presence of such a powerful teacher.
After the pain and when the unity experience is achieved, one has graduated from the University of
Ayahusasca.

I do feel that any one that is a seeker and has a strong enough ego/container can have many
questions quelled by visiting the hallucinogenic phenomena. At the same time, I always caution
against confusing the visiting of our true nature with actual residence there. Although the medicine
her self is not addictive, the experience certainly can be, given the level of pain we all endure in our
state of forgetfulness and separation. I have and continue to witness this disturbing abuse of it.

Any food, drug or medicine that shifts consciousness does so by using the energy of the body.
That includes coffee, pot, cocaine, mushrooms, ayahuascha or cigarettes. Unless one is dealing
with a serious illness, doing ayahauscha ceremony two or three times in one’s life is not detrimental.
One has to remember though that it is the bodymind’s energy that is used by the medicine to give access to
the vision. That energy is finite and has to be respected, even though it can be nurtured through diet and meditation. One can prepare for the journey by resting before and after the ceremony as well as cleaning the diet a month before (as it should be done any ways) and eating a nourishing diet the month after.

On your last note (“I found her so loving”), I find this particular medicine to be a mirror of what lies inside. Alas, loving is relative term. Sometimes the most loving act is a kiss on the cheek and sometimes a boot up the ass. What ever it takes to wakes us up. Best of luck in your graduate studies at U.O.A.

Astrology and numerology can be useful tools on our path. The main problem is that we turn to these practices when we are confused and hence leave our intelligence at the door. Few people use them when they are centered in their lives. That fact alone can strongly color any experience. In the holographic model, a piece contains information from the whole. That is how these technologies work.

These techniques can be useful when looking at ourselves from an archetypal angle. It can give us a sense of strengths and weaknesses or trends. But we still have to do our inner work. Most of us want fast Abdi Answerss or magic bullets and that is where things become tricky. For example, a reading can be like a weather report: it can tell us if it is sunny or cloudy out. Even if the reading is 100% accurate, which it rarely is, it is up to us how to respond. We all have had times where we were miserable on a sunny day or had amazing insights on a rainy one. So the weather report is just one factor among many.

I knew a world renowned astrologer with many years of experience who had helped many people. He had a client who had just finished a reading with him die of an accident immediately after the reading. No where in the reading had he picked up that this would happen. That episode shook him to the core in his practice. Such is life in all her mystery.

Do you believe in the concept of a special soulmate (despite the fact that people are anyhow all connected) or is this corny romance addict stuff ?What kind of a quality is love for you or in other words: how do you define love? What makes one a good lover (despite fancy techniques between the sheets)? And: If there is one advice you would give the world concerning love, one message: what would it be?

The Question

You Abdi Answers your question by asking it. You start by saying “believe in the concept”. Beliefs are useless, either we know or we don’t know. We know that there is gravity, even if we don’t believe it. It is direct experience. Concepts, like belief systems, are mental constructs. They are attempts to understand and organize our world. While certainly useful in navigating the world of phenomena, they should not be confused with the real thing. A concept of a house is not the same as a mortar and brick house.

In my experience, the idea of “special soul mate” is an attempt to define and control life. Each person in our life is our soul mate. Some of us will be in a romantic relationship with one soul our whole living life. Some of us out grow some one dear to us at some point or they out grow us. Some of us we will live with the same romantic partner our whole life. Many of us grow with one soul up to a certain point and then choose another to grow with. Or more probably, repeat the same patterns. The concept that any experience is the same for every one is not sane. Besides death, what can any of us be certain of? Soul mates is an appealing concept in a romantically obsessed culture and reinforced in our music and films. But a divorce rate of over fifty percent tells a different story.

There is love and Love. Little love is personal love where our ego is at play and the qualities of that love is ever changing. It can be grand one second, clingy the next, fearful the following. It is conditional and will only love when certain conditions are met. Big Love is our true nature. It Loves everything because it is every thing. It has no preference or aversions and is at ease with all as it is. It is unconditional. Many problems arise when we confuse little love for big Love. And we all do confuse them regularly. The ego can act like it can do big Love but by its nature of separation and hence underlying fear can not. Honesty is good policy here and that takes constant introspection and vigilance.

What makes a good lover? Working hard at giving up the illusion of control is a good place to start. Truly listening and not manipulating is another. Remembering that care taking is as much of a manipulation as out right control is yet another. By fully caring for our self instead of consciously or unconsciously demanding it from our partner is a sound practice. A good lover is conscious enough not to collude with their own or their partner’s need to fall into an unequal partnership as a way of hiding and protecting them selves. True relationship is for for the brave; to be utterly naked with another human being is frightening stuff. And delicious. All these also apply to loving “in between the sheets” as you say.

My heart goes out to you for your deep suffering. Chronic illness for as long as you have been dealing with wears down every aspect of our
bodymindspirit. The lack of compassion of others as time progresses is also painful. It is crucial that you are getting emotional support as you are facing these realizations so you are not climbing this mountain on your own.

Faith is an easy thing to have when things are going well from the ego’s perspective. A little harder but still doable when an issue is not going well for a while but might have a chance to do so down the road. But in the face of such prolonged suffering, very few can still keep faith. So instead of working on having faith, work on acceptance. You write “at this point I want to be able to function normally. I see that that may never happen now, and I don’t think I ever allowed myself to just accept that”. See what happens if you give that a chance.

Acceptance is not defeat nor is it giving up. It is a change of perspective from one mode of action, doing, to another, being. That is hard work and is rarely approached unless we are pummeled into helplessness. Be it emotional or physical, very few of us enter this relationship unless we have suffered deeply enough. You have suffered from all the horrible things this illness has brought you. Examine if there is any thing else you can learn from it.

To leave a marriage of thirty years is a big decision. It must have taken much for you to reach this point. Keep the focus on the issues that has brought you to this place. Be aware of over examining external events like your broken foot to make your decision for you.

Sometimes our unconscious speaks to us through an injury. Sometimes we are so preoccupied with our thoughts that we injure our selves due to not paying attention. Instead of focusing on what your broken foot is telling you, see what your broken heart is telling you. Not knowing is knowing. Sit with it, as uncomfortable as it is until you know in your bones what action needs to be take here.

There is no right or wrong here. While you are still in this place, keep looking at all the ways you have contributed to a life that is not feeding you. That will be a helpful use of your time until your inner voice becomes clear.

Troublemaker, huh? Fantastic!

What I have will be just another opinion to you; no matter how informed or uninformed it is . Important topics like this needs to come from our own knowing. An intellectual Abdi Answers will not quench your thirst. At least I certainly hope not. Dig and keep digging. Do your best to step beyond your mind and see for your self.

There are millions that have perished at the hands of those preaching one of the three big religions over the centuries. That certainly is not good advertising for the product. The absurdity of the mayhem wished upon those of us that do not subscribe to the specific concepts is even more disconcerting. Never mind the bodily harm aspect of it. It is ironic to observe the same vehemence and belligerence coming out of the atheists in their arguments.

We human beings take great comfort in our concepts. The problem with concepts is just that: they are mental constructs. I have seen deeply religious people get totally thrown off their faith when something truly hideous occurs in their life. I have also observed atheists reach for religion when old age or illness befalls them. That is part of our human experience. We crave absolutes but alas in this temporal world that is a hard currency to obtain.

Live and let live is a good policy for this small planet of ours. It is common in my discussion with either camp to notice a lack of love. I am a “Love-ist”. I do my best to engage in intellectual discourse until I feel Love leaving me. Then I find my self getting lost in separation. I have yet to find an atheist that became religious or a religious person atheist with an argument. It seems both camps are preaching to the converted.

I find Dawkins’ concept of memes much more fascinating than the topic of atheism. I read somewhere Dawkins quote Bertrand Russell and call himself a passionate skeptic. That is the most honest thing one can say. In the absence of direct experience, agnostics seem to be the most sane here. An open mind is a healthy stance. I am also a big fan of the four negations around these big topics: not this, not that, neither either, neither both.

When the militants from either camp send me hate mail, I will be be sure to direct them your way so you can delve into the topic more deeply.

We are all intuitive to varying degrees. If it is something that one finds interesting, it certainly is possible to strengthen that muscle further through a myriad of practices. It will not how ever alleviate the fear that we all experience at different times. I can not honestly day that a single one of my teachers or friends who are powerful intuitives have any more peace because of their ability. Peace comes through surrender not power. If it came through power, there would not be all this striving that is predominant in our culture, be it spiritual or material.

Now to your question: if it was so that we manifested every thing that we thought by the mere fact, very few of us would be around. More so, we tend to manifest more our unconscious material than the conscious; and most of us are living a solid section of our lives through that unconscious realm. This is my observation from being a clinician for two and half decades and thousands of people. This is one reason this whole new agey manifestation movement does not bear fruit in real life. There are no magic bullets as much as we desire it to be so. Not so good when we believe by thinking something we can make it happen, excellent news considering how much negative thoughts we all have.

When not due to past trauma, negative thoughts are usually a form of control. Instead of living in the unknown, our mind finds it easier to think of a worst case scenario so it can feel like it is in control. It is prepared for the worst and hence ready.

It is not just that we have to be aware of negative thoughts, we have to be aware of ALL thoughts. Our bodies can not distinguish between thought and reality. Even if we disagree on the ability to manifest thoughts externally, our biology still responds as if thoughts are real. It is an evolutionary lag, where the nervous system reacts as if thoughts are happening in real time. Then there is a cascade of chemical reactions that follow that can be detrimental to our well being. But it is important to note that this can also happen with “positive” thoughts. Whether we are fantasizing about a perceived “good” or “bad” event, our body is reacting by activating and agitating our nervous system. Thoughts are not free in that sense, we pay for them dearly.