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Thoughts on lots of things, especially education, psychology, culture, religion, and personal growth.

Sunday, November 19, 2017

signs and synchronicities and spirituality

You know how there are people who can't wear watches because they always make electronics short out? And people who, when they are upset, start having everything around them suddenly break down? Or those who win drawings/contests all the time? It's like, some people have spiritual gifts or energies that just "attract" certain situations, for whatever reason, and it's usually happening at a completely subconscious level. It's just part of their energy signature, I guess.

I am realizing that some people "manifest" spiritual signs and synchronicities around them all the time, and this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with their spiritual growth, health, or maturity... it's just... part of their energy signature, for whatever reason.

This is blowing my mind a bit. 
 
I imagine it can be confusing for those with the gift/signature/whatever as well.

I try to walk by the spirit, and I've noticed that when I focus more on that part of my life, I tend to get more signs and synchronicities show up around me.  They sort of function as encouragements, in a way, to keep doing what I'm doing. So it seems logical that people who have lots of these signs around them all the time would be more "spiritual," and/or mature, too. 
(Though, I am just realizing as I type this, I'm not sure why those two things --spirituality and maturity-- necessarily have to be conflated!) 
But I am realizing, based on some recent experiences, that if someone has this energy signature, they would have things like this happen all the time, even if they WERE NOT on the right path of maturity and growth. The signs could actually be a distraction, in that case, because you think you're getting validation for your choices, when you're actually just getting your normal radio static.

If I'm honest, sometimes my signs and synchronicites have led me astray. For example, I had a vivid dream once where a doctor's name, hair color, and ethnicity were revealed to me, and the doctor was helping heal me. I had never heard of her before. I googled her and found her...someone waaayyy on the other side of town, and set up a visit... and turns out, she didn't help me or listen to me at all. As another example, I had "signs" that I was "supposed" to marry my abusive ex, even though my physical intuition kicked against it, and the logical "red flags" were there (though, to be fair, I hadn't had any training in detecting patterns of abuse, so I didn't know they were red flags...) 
 
Sometimes the spiritual signs work, but sometimes they don't. Turns out we live in a whirling soup of reality currents that can be maddeningly difficult to make sense of.
 
As another angle to this revelation, it's also interesting to note that you can can have powerful spiritual soul ties with people, but that does not necessarily mean that you have to keep that person in your life, or that that person is a healthy choice for you. 
 
I was talking to a friend today, telling her that I was having this budding realization, and the story that brought this to the fore of my attention.  Amazingly, my friend had just gotten out of a similar situation, about 2 years ago!  Her partner was codependent, domineering, controlling, and dysfunctional, but she also had all kind of spiritual signs and synchronicities occur around her all the time.  This was confusing, because it seemed like she ought to be the "right" person, the soul mate, based on all these spiritual things that happened. But she wasn't.  At one level, she used the signs as modes of gaining power over others, and at another level, she used the signs to actually distract herself from facing herself and growing in psychological maturity.  The signs might convince her that she wasn't walking in her ego, even though she actually was. My friend had to learn to let go of the awe and spectacle of the spiritual signs, and make a decision based on what she knew logically to be TRUE.  She shared her struggles, and I related.  
 
What are the chances? I imagine there aren't a lot of people who have this kind of experience.  It was amazing to get that validation today.  (Which, I suppose, is a sort of spiritual sign, in itself.)

I guess the moral of the ramble here, is that it's important to use your other "epistemological modes of understanding" all in conjunction, and not just rely on one. If a decision makes logical sense, and if your "gut" says yes, and if you get spiritual signs and synchronicities, it's probably a good choice.  (And even then, it might NOT actually be...)  But if any of those pieces are missing, it's not guaranteed you're making a good choice.
 
And another lesson I'm learning is that it's important to assert my will onto my situation, once I've made my decision about what is right and healthy, even if it violates what seem to be spiritual signposts. Those signposts might not actually be correct.  Just because something grows in your garden doesn't mean it's supposed to be there.  Make a choice, and then be single-minded in that choice.  In my case, I will probably have to keep cutting and clearing any spiritual pulls and ties that try to come back into my spirit from this person, until they stop occurring.

Thursday, November 9, 2017

new understanding

I have had another loss, and this one should not have hurt, because... we weren't even officially "together" this time.  And I saw it coming and knew it was bound to happen. And yet, there was this tiny ray of hope in my heart that maybe it wouldn't happen, maybe things would get better,  maybe it would be different this time, against all odds.

Against all odds.  Ha.  As if I've ever been lucky!

Anyway, it did hurt. And the biggest part of the pain has been not even knowing why it hurt. It shouldn't have.  The story just doesn't make sense. Why do I feel the way I do, for someone so undeserving, for someone who behaved so badly towards me, for someone who is so clearly not a good match? A week ago around the full moon, one of the horoscope writers I enjoy, Jessica Lanyadoo, wrote:
"Instead of tracking all the ins and outs of your stories, you can actually just let it all go. Stomach the discomfort of the unknown. There’s nothing to figure out; you just need to give it your best."  
It was timely advice. I was holding on too tightly to the need to find the story. Make it make sense. Understand.  And I couldn't.  So I rested and coasted for awhile. Letting myself hurt without knowing why I was hurt. 
I even got a very interesting event to underline the message.  I woke up the next morning with a huge, weeping wound on my foot, and I have NO idea how it got there.

(content warning... gross wound picture...)
This was after a few days of healing. It was worse when it first appeared. I joked that I was starting to get stigmata. Ha ha.

It was like, both the heart and the body have to endure pain without a known source.  The only thing I can do is wait for it to heal.  And I felt a deep intuition tell me, "when the foot heals, your heart will feel better as well." 
OK.
That's the plan? Just wait?  and meanwhile... self care as best as possible. OK.

However, grace came through, thankfully.  Last night, while taking a shower that served double purposes of cleansing my physical body (through shampoo and soap) and my energetic body (through Florida water, crushed eggshells, and astral light beams), I suddenly had a revelation.  The "story" I was seeking hit me.  At least part of it.

There are always many ways to tell a story, but I suddenly "got" an angle to the story that is helping me make sense of it.  It's only part of the story's entirety, of course, but it's my corner on the truth.

A little over three years ago I moved away from Kansas, hoping for a new start to almost everything. I wanted to make new friends, get better health, develop a new spiritual community, meet a new life partner, start a new job, find a therapist, find a doctor, find an amazing school for the kids, live sustainably, find new ways to make music, and begin the life of impact and purpose and bad-ass evil-fighting I've always desired to live. I hoped to do it all in Phoenix, or at least get a good start.
In the first week of arriving in Phoenix, I met him.  And the hopeful process of starting a brand new life, that conformed to my ideals and purpose, began.  He helped. He supported as I sought friends, the school, the job, the doctors... with varying degrees of success...  He wasn't nearly as supportive as I needed him to be, but it was so much better than nothing.  I took what I could get, even though something felt uneasy about him, and I definitely made some huge mistakes.  But I was making progress toward my dreams.  It was hard, so hard, but I was getting somewhere.  And then.
He couldn't.
He wouldn't.
He didn't.
And then he became dangerous.
And I had to cut him off, to protect myself and my children.

They say that many personality disorders happen because someone's psyche stops developing when a traumatic event happens in childhood.  I think something similar happened to me.  The breakup was traumatic (for both of us), and I see now that there was some sort of blockage that happened in me at that point. My progress toward my dreams stopped at that point too.  Oh, not completely.  I guess I did manage to buy a house.  But it wasn't the house I really wanted.  And anyway, a house is just a thing.  The deeper, meaningful items I wanted to do have just gone nowhere.  Because I no longer had his help, I had to radically alter my schedule and the activities we could participate in, and that sent us on a trajectory I hadn't wanted to go on, and the chain reaction was one of deep frustration and disappointment.

My list of things I want today is the same as the list I had when I moved here 3 years ago.  I have tried and tried and tried to make progress on them, and... yes, there has been some progress, I can't lie... but the progress has been lackluster at best.

The intermediary time from his departure to now has been all about blockages, delays, things not being "just right" but having to settle for 20th best, false starts, dead ends.  It even manifested in my plants.  My pomegranate bush has remained the same size since I bought it almost a year ago, though I planted it properly, and have been feeding and watering it faithfully. The grape vine has remained the same size...same story...  I bought two moringa saplings to put in the backyard, last January... Moringa is supposed to be a dramatically fast-growing plant around here, thriving in the desert conditions. People report 20-foot growth in a single year.  But these two Moringas just. didn't. grow.  They stayed the same height--about 6 inches-- from January through August, when I accidentally let the goats get them.  Even the cat we got for my son's birthday last year has not grown much. She still looks like a kitten, even though she's over a year old.
Kitty's first birthday. That's a tea saucer, not a full sized plate. She should be bigger by now.

Things are blocked! Not growing normally!  Not developing!

The first several months of being rid of him were a relief, since he scared me so much during the break up.  But after awhile, I started feeling haunted by him.  I think that haunted sensation was due to unconsciously realizing my stuckness, and trying to go back to the point of stuckness, in an effort to unstick it.  I think my psyche fixated on him, because he was the focal point of the blockage

Why did the breakup hurt? Because I have been unconsciously trying to heal what was broken and stunted, which has affected literally my entire life since it happened, and I'm seeing HIM as the access point, or object, of that healing. 

And of course, I realize that's too much pressure to put on a person.  Each of us is responsible for our own healing.  I wasn't doing it on purpose, but it was unconsciously creating an unhealthy co-dependent vibe.  (He had his own contributions to that vibe as well, though, of course. But I'm talking about my story, which is the only one I have the right to tell.)

I am not sure if there is more to the story of our connection... Is there a past-life thing? Is it real love, that just can't express properly due to dysfunction?  Is there another chapter in the future?  (Probably not, realistically.)  I have no idea. 
But this part of the story makes sense to me, for now.  I'm grateful for the insight.  It is healing to sit with it, and grieve with purpose, instead of confusion.  My foot is scabbing, finally, and I'm sure in another week or two, it'll be completely better, as will my heart.